Perhaps it was no wonder he was the only man she’d seen in probably two years who had all but literally set her blood on fire, and he’d managed to do it with a single glance and a few words.
Still.
She watched that video until the end. She watched as he skillfully slalomed through the crowds and lost those photographers, who kept their cameras on him until he became just another black speck in the airport crowd.
Suddenly she realized her hand was on the screen.
As if she could push those paparazzi parasites away from him.
She pulled it away gently. Feeling faintly foolish.
She decided that she wasn’t going to Google him again.
CHAPTER4
Britt’s eyes flew open when her phone erupted into deafening bar chords.
“Mother fu...” She clapped a hand over her thundering heart.
Why, why, why had she thought it was funny to make AC/DC Gary’s ringtone? She liked “Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap,” but she was a grown woman. She’d nearly just wet herself.
She squinted at her phone. Gary was her boss at Gold Nugget Property Management. The quality of light squeezing in through her blinds in the room told her it was a lot earlier than he normally called, and a lot earlier than she wanted to be awake, given that she’d been Googling John Tennessee McCord instead of sleeping last night.
She fumbled for her phone. “G’morning, Gary.”
“That’s your morning voice, Britt? Jesus, you sound like Bob Dylan after he’s smoked six packs. Hey, I’m calling because some guy wants to see the Michaelson place.”
She was more alert now, thanks to astonishment.
She cleared her throat noisily. “Really?”
Gary was almost like Charlie fromCharlie’s Angels, in that she hardly ever saw him and he did most of his business on the phone, usually from his car or the golf course, or even, she suspected a little worriedly, from his toilet in the morning. He was a retired investor in his sixties who had a roster of houses and cabins that he managed or owned and rented out in the Hellcat Canyon area, most of them pretty modest, some appalling, a few palatial, and Britt showed them to prospective tenants and did follow-up maintenance inspections and the like for him. It wasn’t a hard job, it didn’t pay all that well, and it was pretty flexible.
But the Michaelson place was quite the white elephant of a summer home. The Michaelsons had inherited it a long time ago and tried to sell it several times and failed, so they made do with renting it out when they could. Which was rarely.
“Yeah, I know,” Gary marveled in agreement. “But it’s the only one we’ve got open today, and this guy says he wanted to see it, because he—and I quote—‘can’t spend another minute being stared at by cherubs.’ So go sell it for all you’re worth. But bring your pepper spray, because you never know. That cherub remark is a little worrisome.”
“Aww. I’m touched by your concern.”
“Yeah, yeah, I’m a saint. The only other option is the Greenleaf place, and it’s currently a dump. At least the Michaelson place doesn’t have a hole in the roof. Someone from Ernie’s Garage is dropping our guy off there at eight a.m., so you’ve got twenty minutes to get up there.”
He hung up without saying good-bye.
“Have fun on the golf course, Gary,” she said. Mostly without rancor. A job was a job, and it wasn’t like jobs were thick on the ground here in Hellcat Canyon.
She lay flat for a moment, truly uncertain she could manage to get out of bed. Then she resignedly slid one foot out. Phillip resentfully shifted his fluffy bulk off her thighs. It was a little earlier than they normally rose and he had a powerfully ingrained sense of schedule.
She let momentum carry her forward. She reheated yesterday’s coffee in the microwave and slurped it down, wincing, threw on her second best shorts, which were denim and at least clean, yanked on a red-striped tank top from her vast tank top collection, added a necklace with a little star dangling from it to make it fancy, then rubbed the sleep out of her eyes and did a rapid-fire brush of her teeth. She chucked her pepper spray into her purse.
Her car started, thankfully; there was always a moment of suspense when she turned that key.
She brushed her hair at the first stop sign on the way up to the Michaelson place, which was a bit of a twisty drive, then roped it up in a barrette in her usual patented summertime hairdo. At the second stop sign, she changed Gary’s ringtone to Mozart. At the third, she added some lip gloss, just because.
She saw the man long before she reached the house. He was slim and stark, a compass needle against the white cement of the big circular drive.
Her impulse was to perform a single smooth U-turn and head right back down the mountain, because she knew exactly who that was, and driving up to him suddenly felt akin to driving right into the deep blue sea. Very compelling. Very, very foolish.
Her ramping anticipation made her approach feel almost cinematic. It would have been even more dramatic if her car didn’t make coughing noises and give a great shuddering asthmatic lurch when she cut the engine.