“Sure, that would stop her,” Piper said, not a little sarcastically. “She’ll just switch gears. Hire a mariachi band to play ‘Happy Birthday.’ Or give you a male stripper for a gift when you’re on the dance floor. She’ll up the ante, just for spite.”
There was some truth in what she was saying. Mindy wasn’t known for giving up easily.
“Piper, I just don’t think I can pull it off. The whole thing feels wrong.”
“Lola, slow down. Take a few deep breaths and relax. You’re already picturing being at the wedding. You’re panicking prematurely.” She knew me so well. “Here’s a thought: why not just meet Ryan, have a few drinks, talk to him, and then decide. He’s very nice. If you want, you can tell him I got the whole thing screwed up, that you were just joking. It wouldn’t kill you to go out with him once. He’s totally hot.”
“How hot?”
“Mindy would die if she saw him with you. He’s head-turning gorgeous—I’m not kidding. If I weren’t already married, I’d go out with him in a minute.”
Despite the alarm going off in my head, I was curious.
“How old would you say he is?”
“Early thirties, max. Never married, engaged once. He was the one who broke it off. It just didn’t feel right.”
“He told you that?”
“Sure, it’s amazing what people will tell you if you just ask.”
Wow, another fifteen minutes in Mike’s waiting room and she probably would have found out this guy’s social security number and the PIN to his ATM account. I mulled over everything Piper had said until her voice in my ear interrupted my thoughts. “Lola, are you still there?”
“Yes, I’m thinking.” I moved the phone to the other side to give my neck a break. “OK, you know, you’re right. It wouldn’t kill me to meet him for coffee or drinks. I’ll do it.” When was the last time I’d had a date with a totally hot guy? As far back as never and even before that. “Give him my home number. No wait, give him my cell, that’s better.”
There was a long silence, but I knew we were still connected because I could hear Brandon babbling on the other end. “Piper? Did you hear what I just said?”
“I heard you,” she said. “It’s just that I already—”
I didn’t catch the rest of the sentence because at that moment Mrs. Kinkaid burst through the door calling my name. “Lola, Lola, look who I found.” She’d flung the door open so forcefully it ricocheted against the wall and bounced against her elbow. I looked up to see her pull a man into the room by his shirtsleeve. I caught the amused look on his face right before it registered that he was tall with dark, wavy hair and brown eyes you could drown in. And dressed smart casual. Not just anyone can pull that off.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Piper was still talking, though her words weren’t registering. I said, “I have to go. I’ll call you back later.” I set the phone in its cradle and stood up. The dark-haired stranger broke free of Mrs. Kinkaid’s grasp and crossed the room to my side of the desk. I stood up to greet him.
He held out a hand. “Hi, I’m Ryan Moriarty. Your friend Piper suggested I stop by.”
He gripped my palm firmly and then did this really smooth thing. Without hesitating, he reached over with his free hand and clasped my forearm. The intimacy of the gesture made me breathless. He held it for one spine-tingling second before letting go.
Mrs. Kinkaid, who stood behind him, broke the silence. “I was trying to get my Kit Kat bar out of the machine, like I’ve done a million times. I put my money in, and the spiral thingy twisted around, but the candy bar didn’t drop down—just hung there like it was caught on something.” Both Ryan and I gave her our full attention. “I banged on the glass, but it just wouldn’t budge. I was just about to go get the custodian when this gentleman here came along.” She paused to take a breath and looked up at him admiringly. “He just took his fist and hit the side of the machine once, like Fonzie with the jukebox.” Here she illustrated, swinging her arm with closed fingers. “And the Kit Kat bar practically jumped down.”
“That was so nice of you,” I said.
“It was nothing.” He waved dismissively. “I like to be available for any and all vending machine emergencies.” His grin made me feel like we shared an inside joke.
“I’ll keep that in mind.”
Mrs. Kinkaid moved closer, so that the top of her head aligned with his shoulder. “Then he says he’s looking for Lola Watson, and I said, ‘Lola’s my boss. Come right this way.’”
I stared at her, amazed to hear her say I was the boss. If only Drew weren’t out for the day. He could have used the news himself.
“Lola and I have a mutual friend,” Ryan said to Mrs. Kinkaid. “And she thought Lola could help me with a problem I’m having.” His smile revealed beautiful, perfect teeth. Nature doesn’t give out those kind of teeth; only a highly skilled cosmetic dentist can. He turned his attention toward me. “I don’t know what time you get off work, and I know this is last minute, but if you could join me for dinner, I’d be so grateful. I know it’s a lot to ask.”
It was the oddest experience—Ryan Moriarty was a stranger to me, and yet, as if in a dream, I felt as if we had an understanding. I glanced at my watch. “Our office hours are until six. Maybe I could meet you somewhere in an hour or so?”
“Oh, pish posh,” Mrs. Kinkaid said. “Why don’t you just go? I can handle things here and lock up when I leave.”
I hesitated, looking around the office. I always thought of it as my domain, my own little corner of the universe. But looking at it now, it really wasn’t much. Three desks, a mini-fridge, a few filing cabinets, and a large, leafy plant in the far corner. The only windows were at ceiling level, revealing the shuffling feet of newspaper employees venturing outside for a smoke. Above us, one of the florescent bulbs stuttered.
“What do you say?” He held out a hand as if inviting me onto a dance floor.
“OK.” I nodded. “Just let me shut down my computer and get my things together. It’ll take a few minutes.”
When he left to pull the car around, I busied myself locking desk drawers, turning off my computer, and checking my teeth in my compact mirror for remnants from lunch.
Mrs. Kinkaid chattered as I prepared to go. “My dear, that is one handsome man. When he came over to the machine and I looked up and saw him, I about died. It was like having James Bond come to my rescue. How do you know him again?”
“He’s a friend of a friend.” Funny how easily that came out. I snapped the compact shut and dropped it back into my purse.
“If I were you, I’d work on making him your friend. Or better yet, boyfriend. He’s yummy. Can you imagine standing at the altar with him next to you?”
That was a leap. “I think you’re getting ahead of yourself,” I said. “We’re just going out to dinner.”
“That’s how these things start,” she said, a bit too smugly for my taste. I was glad when I was able to slip my purse strap over my shoulder and head out the door. The basement was starting to feel a bit confining.
Ryan’s car, as promised, was right outside the front door. I stood inside the glassed-in entryway and had a sudden thought: What if he was a rapist or a murderer? The fact that he had money and good looks didn’t guarantee he wasn’t a psychopath.
If anything happened to me, Mrs. Kinkaid would be a witness to the fact that I’d left with him. But would she remember his name? I doubted it, caught as she was on his good looks. Piper, on the other hand, knew his name. If indeed he’d given her his real name.
I looked at the car idling at the curb. Such a nice little car, all midnight blue and sporty-like. Didn’t killers drive four-doors with tinted windows? This car didn’t even have a trunk big enough to hold a body.
Finally I went to his window and told him I would take my own car and meet him at the agreed upon restaurant. After he pulled away, I called my house and left a message on my answering machine listing his license plate number along with a
description of the vehicle. A little something the police could use if I turned up dead. A girl couldn’t be too careful.
Half an hour later, we were looking at menus in a place called Sardino’s. Our table was covered with a red-checked tablecloth; our waiter, Antonio, lit the candle in the Chianti bottle.
“I’m glad you like Italian,” Ryan said. “This is one of my favorite places.”
I looked around the dimly lit restaurant, the strains of recorded violin music playing in the background, a few tables occupied by couples leaning forward to speak to each other in whispers. The only thing missing was a round table with Lady and the Tramp slurping one shared strand of spaghetti. “I love Italian food,” I said. “I pass this place all the time, but I’ve never eaten here.”
“I don’t come very often,” he said. “Each meal here means an extra two hours at the gym. But sometimes you’ve just got to live a little, you know?”
We ordered, and Ryan requested a bottle of a wine called Primivito. I’d never heard of it, but Antonio approved. “Very good, sir,” he said before whisking away the menus.
There was a lull that made me uncomfortable. I wasn’t ready to broach the subject of Piper’s plan just yet, so I fell back on something my mother once told me regarding talking to men: cars and sports are usually safe subjects. I was at a distinct disadvantage due to profound ignorance of both topics (during a baseball game I once asked when it would be halftime), but I thought I’d wing it. “So,” I said, “I couldn’t help but notice your car. It’s beautiful.”
“Yes, it is nice. I’ve only had it about six months, and I still get a kick out of driving it.”
“What is it, a Mustang?”
“Pardon me?” he asked, looking entertained. I noticed the creases at the corner of his eyes when he smiled.
“Your car—what kind is it?”
“It’s a Jaguar.”
“Oh.” I’d heard of them, of course. I knew they were out of my league, but after that my knowledge base was pretty much depleted. “That dark blue color is really striking.”
“It’s indigo, actually.”
Indigo I knew. It was the I in the color spectrum. I remembered from my school days that Newton divided the spectrum into seven named colors: red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, and violet. Easy to remember because the first letters spelled out the name Roy G. Biv. I was about to blurt out this fact when thankfully Antonio arrived with the bottle of wine, saving me from my own geekiness. If only the waiter would pull up a chair and join us so I’d be saved from making future idiotic comments.
Luckily, Ryan seemed oblivious to my social awkwardness. He leaned over as if to tell me something in confidence and said, “You wouldn’t believe how long it took to get the car from the dealer. They tried to get me to buy one off the lot, but I insisted on custom ordering everything. I figured if I was going to spend that kind of money, I should get what I wanted.” For the next five minutes I let Ryan talk about his car, while I nodded and did my best to look attentive. But after the wine was poured, I decided to just come out and ask the question that was on my mind. “Piper says you live in my neighborhood?”
“Yes. Isn’t it a small world?” He smiled again, displaying those beautiful teeth. “I’m over on King Street.”
“Me too!” I felt my eyes widen in delight.
“Really?” He smiled. “That is a coincidence.”
“What’s your address?”
“Four-twenty-seven King Street.”
My address was 424. I did some calculating. “Why, you must live right across the street from me. Next to Brother Jasper?”
“I don’t know any of the neighbors,” he said apologetically. “I travel more often than not, so I’m not there much.”
A laser pointer went on inside my head. “I know you,” I said, waving a finger in his direction. “I’ve heard the neighbors talk about you. You’re the guy everyone wonders about. The buzz is that you’re CIA or in the witness protection program or something.”
Ryan gave me a startled look. “What?”
“Oh yes, I heard this from several of them. You’re the talk of King Street. They call you the mystery man.”
“Get out.” He tilted his head like he was trying to decide if I was serious. “Really?”
I held up three fingers. “I swear—Girl Scout’s honor.” It had been awhile since I was a Girl Scout, and I wasn’t sure if it was two fingers or three. For all I knew, I was swearing Boy Scout’s honor.
He chuckled. “CIA? The witness protection program?”
I nodded, and he started to laugh unabashedly. A couple at an adjacent table stopped talking to look in our direction. Finally, after a few awkward moments, he picked up his linen napkin to dab his eyes. “They really say all that?” he said. “But I’ve only talked to the neighbors in passing, and I’m almost never home. I don’t know what they’d base this on.”
“Ah, but it’s your absence that makes you mysterious. That and all the UPS packages and the fact that you never put out garbage. Very suspicious.”
“I like to order things,” he said. “Because I hate shopping. And I don’t generate much trash since I’m not home much. I’ll have one Hefty bag at most, so I just set it next to the bags at the curb of the blue house so the garbage men don’t have to make an extra stop.”
“No one sees you out and about much.”
“I’m not invisible,” he said. “Honestly, I do come and go, but like I said, I travel a lot. If I were home more, I’d probably see the neighbors when I shovel the driveway or mow the lawn, but I hire out for all that. It’s easier.”
I took a sip of my wine and gave Ryan a long look. Belinda, the dog woman, had told me the mystery man was movie-star handsome. She wasn’t kidding.
Antonio delivered our chopped salads, and I proceeded to fill Ryan in on the neighbors. He knew about the college students on the corner and was familiar with Belinda’s dogs. Crazy Myra’s house he knew because of the garden gnomes, and he’d seen Brother Jasper having late-night smokes on his porch. Coincidentally, he’d taken tae kwon do lessons with Ben Cho’s dad, but he wasn’t aware they lived in the same neighborhood.
“I think it’s great you know everyone,” he said, stabbing a piece of feta cheese with his fork. “I’ve always found it difficult getting to know neighbors.”
And I’ve always found if difficult warding them off. “Well, it’s not like I have a choice,” I said. “They loved my aunt—she’s the one I inherited the house from—and that seems to have transferred over to me. I’m like their pet project. They’re always checking up on me.”
“You don’t see that level of caring too much nowadays.” He looked thoughtful. “So often people just come and go and don’t interact with those around them. Having people look out for you, that’s a gift.”
“I guess.”
“And you have such a wonderful friend. Piper just couldn’t say enough nice things about you.”
“Really?” Now the conversation was taking a better turn.
“Oh yes. She said you were smart and funny and a great friend. And that you were a great writer.”
My jaw dropped; I was momentarily speechless.
He continued. “When she said you had a great personality, I thought maybe that was a nice way of saying you weren’t good looking.” He took a sip of wine before continuing. “But you’re really pretty, so I guess she honestly meant you have a great personality.”
“She actually said all those nice things?”
“Absolutely. We had quite the talk.”
He said I was really pretty. I wondered if he meant exceptionally pretty, or just pretty considering he thought I might possibly have been ugly.
Antonio came to pour more wine, and then he took my salad plate away.
It was a shame to move from the topic of me being really pretty to the subject of the wedding, but it had to happen sometime. “I know Piper told you all about my sister’s wedding.”
“Yes
, she did. I’ve already checked my schedule, and I’ll be in town that weekend. I’m willing and able to be your fiancé.” He gave me a two-fingered salute. “At your service, m’lady.”
“See, that’s the thing.” I exhaled slowly. “When I had the original discussion with Piper, I was just venting. My sister Mindy had me so upset that Piper came up with this grand plan for revenge. At the time I went along with it because, frankly, I was in a bad place emotionally, if you want the truth of it.” I shook my head at the thought. “And besides, I half thought Piper was joking. But now…” I drummed my fingers on the table and looked toward the back of the restaurant where the kitchen doors swung open like saloon shutters. Antonio came out carrying a large tray. Not our meal, though. Too many plates.
“Are you saying you don’t want to go through with it?”
“I’m not so sure it’s a good idea after all.” I glanced at Ryan, who looked dismayed. “I’m sorry you went to all this trouble, coming to my office and now dinner and everything.” He frowned slightly. I was shocked he was taking this so hard. “I’ll pay for dinner, if that’s the issue.”
He leaned forward to move the candle to one side, and then he placed his hand over mine. His fingers were warm. “Could you do me an enormous favor?” He spoke through clenched teeth, his eyes darting to one side. “Just go along with whatever I say, OK?”
“What?” I started to turn to see what he was looking at.
“Don’t look.” He squeezed my fingers so hard I felt the bones meet. “Just play along. I’ll explain later.”
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
I looked up to see a tall blond standing over our table. “Hello there, Ryan.” She said his name with a sneer, and her mouth held the shape. What she wore reminded me of a jogger in a Nike commercial: cropped aqua-colored athletic pants and a matching zippered jacket. Her hair was pulled back in a thick ponytail. Despite the fact that she wore no jewelry or makeup, she looked better than I ever had in my entire life.
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