The First Kiss

by Grace Burrowes

Cars and houses were female to James Knightley. Would he also consider pianos female?

  “Not at the moment. The Faithful Falcon needs a battery, among other things, but some fine day, I want to see my daughter behind that wheel. The car belonged to Alexander’s grandmother, and he wanted Twyla to have it.”

  James left off perusing the old car and scowled at Vera’s other vehicle, a late-model bright red Tundra, listing slightly.

  “That’s why nobody wants to come change your tire.”

  “What’s why?”

  “These pickups have the spare up under the bed,” he said, opening the truck’s driver’s side door.

  His movements and his voice were brisk, all male-in-anticipation-of-using-tools-and-getting-his-hands-dirty. “The mechanism for holding the spare in its brace always gets rusted, and to get the tire down, you have to thread this puppy here”—he rummaged under her backseat—“through a little doodad over the tag, and into a slot about”—he emerged holding the jack and a long metal rod—“the size of a pea, and then get it to work, despite the corrosion. I love me a sturdy truck, but the design of the spare brace assembly leaves something to be desired. Why are you looking at me like that?”

  Like Vera had heard no sweeter music that day than a man recounting the pleasures of intimate association with a truck? James cradled the jack assembly the way some violinists held their concert instruments.

  “You reminded me of my oldest brother,” she said. “I forget not all men are like Donal.”

  Some men dropped their afternoon plans, took time to get a court order certified, minded their manners, and rinsed out their dishes. Some men changed tires without being asked. Vera would never be in love again—Olga had an entire lecture about the pitfalls of romantic attraction—but Vera could appreciate a nice guy when one came to her door.

  “I couldn’t stop you from changing that tire if I tried, could I?”

  “No. You could not. Trucks and I go way back, and I don’t like this Donal character very much.” James’s gold cuff links had gone into a pocket, and he was already turning back his sleeves. “Don’t you have a school bus to catch?”

  He said it with a smile, with one of those charming, endearing smiles. Could he know that for Vera to even drive down the lane alone would take a bit of courage?

  Fortunately, nobody embarked on a solo career at age seventeen without saving up some stores of courage.

  “You’re right. I have a bus to catch,” Vera said. “You’re sure this is OK?”

  “Shoo,” he replied, positioning the jack under the axle with his foot. “I may not be done by the time you get back, but I will put the hurt to the rest of those cookies before I go, if your daughter doesn’t beat me to it.”

  Vera left him in her garage, cheerfully popping loose lug nuts. If she’d had to do that, she’d probably have been jumping up and down on the tire iron while calling on St. Jude, and still the blasted bolts would not have budged.

  * * *

  “My brother, my very own brother, an officer of the court admitted to practice law in the great State of Maryland, has lied to me,” James informed the Tundra as he rotated the rod that lowered the spare from its brace. “He led me to believe that Mrs. Waltham was a lonely old fussbudget whose Mr. Waltham was more annoying than dangerous.”

  That last part might be true—annoying and cowardly.

  The spare was properly inflated—praise be—and James rolled it around to lean against the driver’s side door.

  “You’ve been slashed, my dear,” James said, eyeing the front tire. “I was hoping for a leaky valve or winter pothole wreaking predictable havoc. This is not good.”

  Contrary to television drama, driving a knife into a truck tire—a new truck tire especially—took significant strength. Vera Waltham’s attribution of vandalism to her ex wasn’t as outlandish as James wanted it to be.

  He raised the truck, wrestled the damaged tire off, and fitted the spare onto the axle.

  “A real spare,” James observed, spinning the five lug nuts onto the bolts. “Not one of those sissy temporary tires, which any rutted country lane will reduce to ribbons before you can say, ‘Which way to the feed store?’”

  Vera was isolated here, a single lady with a little girl, her house set back from the winding country road by a good half mile. Woods stood between the house and the road, assuring the property had privacy.

  James liked his privacy too, liked it a lot, but sometimes privacy didn’t equate to safety.

  “Trent also neglected to tell me his former client is a very attractive woman,” James groused to the truck. “She has good taste in vehicles, I might add.”

  Vera Waltham stood about five foot six, and she packed a lot of curves into a frame substantially shorter than James’s own six feet and three inches. She had sable hair worn in a tidy bun at her nape, and big, dark eyes that revealed a deep brown upon close inspection.

  “Nobody wears their hair in a bun anymore,” James said as he lowered the truck off the jack. “I like it—gives a lady a classic look, though a tidy bun wants undoing.”

  James, unlike his brothers, was one to closely inspect the women in whose kitchens he found himself.

  But then, Mac was a monk, and Trent was such a damned saint he was constitutionally incapable of noticing a client was pretty. James noticed, and occasionally did more than that.

  At least until lately.

  By the time James had re-stowed the equipment, voices came from the kitchen adjoining the garage.

  A second pair of big brown eyes studied James as he crossed the kitchen to wash his hands at the double sink. These eyes were set in a heart-shaped little face and regarded him with frank curiosity.

  “Is that the man who lent you his car?” the child asked.

  “Twy, say hello to Mr. Knightley,” Vera instructed. “And, yes, he was kind enough to lend me his car.”

  “Hullo, Mr. Knightley. You look like the other Mr. Knightley. He was Mom’s lawyer. You ate some of my cookies.”

  “I’ll eat every last one of your cookies, they’re so good,” James said, sliding onto the stool beside the child’s, same as he would have with either of his nieces. “I’m James. How was school?”

  “School is boring,” she said, much as Grace or Merle might have. “You really look like my mom’s lawyer.”

  “Trent’s my older brother, and I think he’s kind of handsome.” One should always be honest with the ladies. James reached for a cookie. “What do you think?”

  The girl smiled, clearly understanding that James had set himself up to be complimented. “I think my mom said he’s a damned fine lawyer.”

  “Language, Twy,” Vera murmured.

  Was that a blush? Vera was making quite the production out of choosing a mug from the colorful assortment in the cupboard.

  “Well, you did say it, Mom.”

  “What kind of name is Twy?” James propped his chin on his fist, because of all things, Vera Waltham was shy. “I don’t think I’ve ever met a Twy before.”

  “Short for Twyla. I’m the only Twyla in the whole school.”

  “And you like that.” James liked this kid too. “Always had lots of Jameses and Jims and Jimmys in my classes.”

  “Was it horrible?”

  “Bad enough.” Other parts of his upbringing had been horrible. “What’s your favorite subject?”

  The child prattled on happily about her favorite, her least favorite, and some juvenile reprobate named Joey Hinlicky, who’d learned from his older brother how to snap the bras of the fifth-grade girls daring enough to sport such apparel.

  Over at the stove, Vera stifled a snort of laughter, suggesting despite her bun and tidy kitchen, she might be the sort of woman who could be teased, or even tickled.

  Or not. The house was spotless, a showplace, and the garage floor had been
clean enough to eat off of. Other than the kitchen, which was inviting, the rest of the dwelling had a posed quality, like a movie set, not a home. The big black grand piano in the front room actually gleamed.

  Did anybody ever play it? Such a fine instrument ought not to be simply for show.

  “I can pick you up a battery for your Falcon,” James heard himself say around a mouthful of excellent cookie. “It wouldn’t be any trouble.”

  “That’s very kind of you,” Vera replied.

  She stirred something at the stove in such a manner that surely, her thank-you was about to turn into a no-thank-you.

  “I’ve imposed on you enough, though,” she said. “Twy, what’s in the homework notebook?”

  “Vocabulary, fractions, and social studies.”

  “Busy night,” James said. “You need any help?”

  The child’s brow’s rose, while Vera’s stirring slowed. “No thanks, but thank you for offering. School isn’t hard for me, except for the boys.”

  “Boys take a while, but they’ll grow on you eventually.”

  “They blow the best arm farts.”

  “That’s enough out of you, Twy,” Vera said, but she was again trying not to laugh. “If you’ve demolished your cookies, you can start on that homework, and do the fractions first.”

  “Yes, Mother.” She swiped one last cookie and flounced out of the kitchen with the long-suffering air of a child who knows where the limits are.

  “What a neat kid,” James said, helping himself to the last sip of Twyla’s milk. “Is school truly easy for her?”

  “She’s small for her grade, but, yes, it’s easy, except for the math.”

  Homemade turtle cookies and milk had to be one of the best combinations ever.

  “I never had any trouble with math,” James mused. “I’m a CPA, though I keep that under my hat.”

  “A CPA and a lawyer?” Vera laid out two place mats on the butcher-block island where James had pulled up his bar stool.

  Flowers, pumpkins, and roosters in green, red, and orange.

  “I don’t advertise the CPA part, as it hardly impresses the ladies, but it’s handy when the accountants start throwing around the tax code like it was handed down on Mt. Sinai. My clients are businesses or people setting up businesses.”

  “A third brother is in practice with you, if I recall correctly?”

  She’d set out napkins in the same autumn barnyard motif—Laura Ashley need not apply—and an orange pepper grinder, all on a weeknight for a kitchen meal with her only child.

  “MacKenzie is the criminal defense expert,” James said. “Trent’s wife, Hannah, will soon handle all the alternative dispute resolution services for us, so her expertise will cut across disciplines.”

  Vera next set a matching red salt shaker beside the pepper grinder. “My first husband was a lawyer, though he never sat for the bar exam.”

  “The guy you chose well?”

  She arranged silverware next, each utensil carefully lined up with the others. She’d loved the Husband Who Got Away, maybe still loved him, which had probably irked old Donal the Tire Slasher.

  It might irk any guy lining up to provide post-divorce rebound services too.

  “Women divorcing second spouses often go back and revisit their first love,” James said. “It isn’t anything to worry about.” Nor was that something passed along in law school.

  Vera snatched a third napkin from the center of the island.

  “Alexander was killed by a drunk driver five years ago. I’m damned lucky he’d made a will, leaving everything to me, or we’d still be wrangling with probate.”

  She turned the napkin into cloth origami, so it resembled a half-open rosebud. Vera Waltham had beautiful hands—also a broken heart.

  “When you said you married Donal on the rebound, I concluded you were bouncing back from a divorce. I’m sorry.”

  “And I didn’t correct you.” She shook out the rose and started folding again. “Don’t ever bury a spouse, Mr. Knightley. Divorce them all day long, provided you don’t have children with them, but don’t say that final good-bye.”

  A moment later, a napkin-peacock sat in the middle of the island. Vera crossed to the cupboards, took down two crystal water glasses, and kept her back to James for a moment longer.

  James liked women; they were interesting, dear, sweet, and lovely. Also fun to take to bed, but they could be complicated as well, which he did not enjoy. Nor did he enjoy being called Mr. Knightley by a pretty woman whose bun had slipped a tad off center.

  “What makes you think your ex slashed your tire?” James asked.

  “He left me a phone message. Not the first, and probably not the last.”

  When Vera faced James, her expression was mildly pissed, an improvement over mooning after Saint Alexander.

  “You recognized his voice?”

  “It’s disguised, whispery, but, yes, it sounds like him. Would you like to stay for dinner?”

  James was in the habit of accepting invitations from the ladies; he was not in the habit of accepting invitations to dinner. Vera’s house was too tidy, she was still entangled in a nasty divorce, was a client of his brother’s, and was pining for a man who’d been gone for years.

  Nope, nope, nope.

  “Dinner would be nice,” he said, “provided you let me find you that battery.”

  Chapter 2

  Vera regarded James curiously over the cloth peacock. “Negotiation is probably second nature to you, isn’t it?”

  More of a survival skill, when both older brothers were attorneys. “Why would you say that?”

  “You’re a corporate lawyer. You wheel and deal for a living.”

  “I don’t think of it as wheeling and dealing,” he said, putting the cookies back on top of the fridge. “I think of it as collaborative problem solving. I want to hear Donal’s message, and you should consider reporting it to the authorities.”

  “I’ll report it to the sheriff’s office, but they’ll just make one more note in my extensive file and wish I’d leave the county.”

  No. They’d wish her ex would leave the county—as did James. “Let’s listen to the message before Twyla comes down to spy on us.”

  Vera moved the cookie tin—more splashy, autumnal flowers—so it was dead center on top of the fridge. “Do you have younger sisters?”

  “I have nieces. Not quite the same species, but in the same genus.”

  Vera hit a few buttons on an old-fashioned answering machine on the counter, then stood staring at the little piece of equipment like it had eight legs and stank.

  James prepared to listen to some sour grapes ranting from a spurned husband, though, Vera couldn’t have been married to the guy for long if she’d been in this house for more than a year, and dear Alexander had gone to his reward only five years ago.

  “Don’t think I’ll forgive you, Vera,” said a raspy voice. “Don’t think you’re safe. Don’t think you’ll ever be safe.”

  Not very original, but the hair on the back of James’s neck stood up. “Play it again.”

  She did, twice, while James tried to absorb not only the words, but also the emotions. That voice and that threat, whispering across this cheery, colorful kitchen, were obscene.

  “He leaves you frequent messages like that?” James asked.

  “No. He lets me believe he’ll go away and abide by the protective order, and just when I think I’m about to put him and his miserable tricks behind me, he starts up again. I honestly never thought Donal would stoop to this level. He hates messiness and whining, and in its way, this is a lot of messy whining.”

  James hoped that was all it was. “Can you trace the calls?”

  “He knows my schedule, apparently, because he never calls when I’m home.”

  James was beginning to soun
d like Mac with a witness in a criminal trial. “Do you get hang-up calls?”

  Vera moved away from the answering machine and its malevolent little red number one on the message counter. “He’s cunning, Donal is. It’s part of what made him a good agent.”

  “Agent for whom?”

  “For me. How do you like your hamburgers?”

  “Medium,” James said, stifling an urge to unplug that answering machine and toss it in the trash.

  Vera set about making hamburgers, mashing a whole egg, some spices, salt and pepper, and a few bread crumbs into extra-lean ground beef, then using her hands to form the patties.

  For a woman tormented by her ex, she was calm, but when she managed to meet James’s gaze, anger and exasperation lurked behind her basic cordiality. Her movements were quick, a touch brittle, and when Twyla had been with them, Vera had watched the girl a tad too closely.

  Trenton Knightley, Esquire, needed to follow up with his client.

  “I’ll make you two,” Vera said. “Unless you’re a three-burger man?”

  “Two will be plenty. What can I do to help?” Help—with dinner, only with dinner, because the trouble Vera faced was best handled by cops and court orders.

  “Can you make mashed potatoes?” Vera asked.

  “I’m a bachelor. If I didn’t learn to cook, I’d soon lose my boyish figure.” James foraged in the fridge for butter, sour cream, and ranch dressing. The potatoes, still in their skins, were boiling away on the stove.

  He and Vera worked in companionable silence, she tending the meat while he drained the potatoes and used an old-fashioned masher on them until they were relatively smooth.

  “What are you doing to those potatoes?” Vera asked.

  “Old family recipe,” James replied. “I guarantee Twyla will love them. Are we going to heat some green beans?” Every farm boy knew that the bliss of burgers and mashed potatoes had to be balanced by the penance of some green vegetables.

  “Green beans sound good,” Vera said. “And I have a tossed salad in the fridge. Beans would be in the freezer.”

  He found a pack, put them in a pot with some water, tossed in a bouillon cube, and started opening cupboards.