Leigh poured skim milk over her Cheerios and looked up as her mother, Jo, came through the door, sweating from her daily jog.
“Good morning, love.” She kissed Leigh on the forehead and set about preparing her morning tea. “Are you feeling well? You look a little pale.”
She always thought Leigh looked a little pale or feverish or her dad’s favorite term, peaked, whatever that meant. For once, she’d like to get through the day without her mother fussing over her. “I’m fine. Mum, why didn’t you tell me you know Deputy Maddox?”
“That’s an odd question for so early in the morning.” She carried the teapot to the sink and started filling it. “How do you know him?”
“I can’t say.”
“Ah, so he’s a patient, is he?” Jo grinned over her shoulder.
“Client. We don’t call them patients. He says he fosters kittens. He doesn’t seem like the type to enjoy handling kittens or anything fluffy. He seems more of the Doberman or pit bull sort.”
“Men can love kittens, too. In fact…” Jo put the teapot on the stove and turned on the burner. She came to the table and leaned in with a conspiratorial smile. “I’d say big, strong men who love fluffy things are the best sort. It means they have a gentle side. Like your father.”
As if on cue, her dad, Roscoe, walked in the kitchen, yawning. He was about an inch shorter than Jo, with pasty skin, a balding head of graying hair and a potbelly. He wore his usual short-sleeved buttoned shirt that was about one size too small, baggy jeans, and cowboy boots. Jo, on the other hand, looked like Naomi Campbell with her deep brown skin and a mass of black dreadlocks gathered into a high ponytail with a wide pink headband that matched her T-shirt and shorts. They couldn’t have been any further apart on the opposites-attract scale. However, they both had what one would call a rural accent—Roscoe’s Southern Kentucky drawl and Jo’s relaxed Langfordshire twang, which sounded a bit like a farmer and pirate combined.
“Morning,” Roscoe muttered, headed straight for the fridge.
Jo shook her head. “Your tie is crooked. Let me fix it.”
He frowned as she straightened it, then gave her a quick kiss. “Big day today down at the car lot.” He opened the fridge and leaned in, rummaging for something.
“Oh? What’s the news?” Jo asked.
The teakettle billowed steam along with a low whistle. Jo retrieved two cups from the cupboard and dropped a tea bag of Earl Grey into each one. She waited by the stove, watching the teapot. She knew by ear the exact temperature the water needed to be to prepare the best cup of tea this side of the pond.
“We’re expanding! Finally bought that lot that old lady Lowenstein wouldn’t sell.” Roscoe’s enthusiastic answer was a little muffled from having his head stuck so far into the fridge. He pulled out a pound of bacon, smiling at his prize.
“Isn’t she dead?” Jo asked.
“Yeah. That’s how we bought it. Private auction to pay off all her tax debts.”
“Well at least it will be put to good use now.” The teakettle’s whistle grew higher in pitch, until Jo took it from the stove and poured the steaming water into the teacups. She placed a cup in front of Leigh, then sat across from her with her own cup. “You really shouldn’t have bacon again today, Roscoe. You’re supposed to be watching your sodium.”
Roscoe waved her off, put some paper towels on a ceramic platter, and laid out a few strips of bacon. “I’m watching it, all right. Want some, Leelee?”
Leigh sipped her tea and smiled. “No thanks. I have to go to work soon.”
“How’s it going down there with the other head doctors?”
“Fine. I’ll be ready to take my exam soon. Then maybe I can finally get my own place.”
He and Jo shared a worried glance as he put the bacon in the microwave and tapped a few buttons. He pressed start and went for the coffee pot. “Don’t be in any rush on our account.”
“I’m twenty-four. It’s time I left the nest. I’ve been mooching off you guys long enough.”
“It’s not mooching when you’re family,” Jo said, sipping her tea while she flipped through a copy of Birds & Blooms.
“I beg to differ. I have clients who still live with their parents at forty. They have virtually zero ambition to have a home and career of their own. It’s like they’ve been institutionalized.”
“Living with your parents isn’t like prison. Those poor chaps just need to get off Facebook and go out and meet people.”
“Not just chaps. Women, too, like me, and they have no good reason other than being afraid of independence.”
“You have a good reason,” Roscoe said as he filled his coffee cup half full of cream and added a heaping teaspoon of sugar before topping it off with a little coffee.
“Never mind that. Do you know Jesse Maddox?”
“Sure. He bought a pickup from me last year. Also caught that addict that broke in the dealership and tried to steal the safe. I gave him a good deal for that.”
“Why all this new interest in Jesse?” Jo asked, one eyebrow lifted in a curious arch.
“Never mind. I was just wondering.” Interrogating her parents about Jesse Maddox would get her nowhere, not that Leigh knew exactly where she expected the conversation to go. Except that she’d expected them to mention Jesse’s bad reputation. Instead, they made him sound like a saint. She wiped her mouth, stood, and carried her bowl to the sink. She dumped her Cheerios into the garbage disposal and flipped the switch, watching her half-eaten breakfast whirr into the dark underworld of forgotten leftovers. Then she grabbed her purse from the hook by the door.
Jo turned in her chair, glancing at Leigh’s half-eaten Cheerios. “You didn’t finish your breakfast.”
“I’m not hungry.”
She did, of course, notice Jo’s slight expression of alarm, but didn’t bother to explain her lack of appetite had nothing to do with her health and everything to do with her new client.
****
Leigh drove her red Beetle through Beach Pointe Estates, deciding to take the long way around the subdivision since she was early for work, and the weather was splendid. Not a cloud in the pristine blue sky. A comfortably warm day in mid-June, before the Kentucky humidity of summer kicked in, meant she’d probably have her lunch outdoors today on one of the tables near the parking lot. Not exactly an idyllic spot for lunch, but it would do in a pinch.
She loved seeing the fresh landscaping efforts of their neighbors in action. Bright piles of black, red, and natural wood mulch circled trees and plumped up flower beds. New annuals added a rainbow of colors, thanks to all the pansies, petunias, marigolds, and other additions everyone flocked to the nursery to find on the weekends. She had her own tiny raised bed garden and wanted to do a lot more yardwork at home, but her parents insisted on hiring out for the mowing and landscaping. They weren’t really the outdoorsy sort, but she couldn’t get enough of the fresh air and the thick green grass beneath her feet, her hands in the damp soil, tending the plants. She’d spent so much time cooped up as a child, she wanted to experience the outdoors as often as possible.
It wasn’t like she had much else to do around here. When you know half your neighbors’ deepest, darkest secrets, you don’t tend to get invited to the neighborhood picnics.
As she approached Mrs. Jenkins’ home, she noticed a pickup parked by the curb with the tailgate down. A man with a push mower cut a diagonal path through the grass across Mrs. Jenkins’ front lawn. His bare back glistened with a hint of sweat. No farmer’s tan on this guy. He must have been accustomed to working outdoors without his shirt. For that, she couldn’t complain.
He turned and started a stripe in the other direction, and that’s when she realized exactly whose sexy back she’d been ogling.
“Oh my…” She stopped her car two houses away, her cheeks heating up with every step he made through Mrs. Jenkins’ yard with his jeans and work boots, long, strong legs and perfectly round butt. Leigh dragged her eyes away from Jesse Maddox long enough to think about why he would be there and then remembered that Mrs. Jenkins was number two on his list.
Leigh rubbed her temple and bit her lip, willing her mind back into therapist mode. What had Mrs. Jenkins told her about his shenanigans in one of their sessions? That’s right—he’d poured super glue all over the organist’s bench at the Beach Pointe Second Baptist Church, and Mrs. Jenkins had been stuck to it until the end of the service. She had waited until the closing prayer, which Jesse had described being as long-winded as a politician in November. Then she had wiggled out of her skirt, and had tried to tiptoe up the steps into the backstage behind the pulpit so she could cover up with one of the shepherd’s robes from the Christmas play. Instead, she tripped and landed headfirst in the baptismal pool. Of course, the whole congregation saw it. Leigh pictured how everyone’s eyes would have popped open to witness the horror of flailing bird legs with varicose veins and flowered granny panties.
It was a horrible thing to do, but Leigh couldn’t stop a smile from creeping across her lips. Thankfully, it looked as though the former church organist had forgiven Jesse’s antics. Mrs. Jenkins came outside as he shut off the mower. She had a small wad of cash in one hand and a glass of ice water in the other. She handed both to Jesse, but he shook his head, only taking the water. Mrs. Jenkins patted him on the cheek and stood there talking to him while he finished his drink. He handed back the empty glass, and much to Leigh’s surprise, she hugged him.
Jesse pushed the mower to the curb, then picked it up and set it in the back of his truck. The effort did wonderful things to his arm muscles. They bulged in all the right places. She poked the AC buttons— it had gotten really stuffy in the car.
Someone tapped on her window. Startled, Leigh yelped and looked up into a pair of deep blue eyes. With a shaking hand, she pressed her window button and lowered the glass. She breathed in the smell of fresh-cut grass combined with the fresh sweat of a man. She licked her lips and swallowed, doing her best to maintain eye contact.
“Mornin’, Doc,” Jesse said, hands on his knees while he bent toward her window.
“Oh, um, good morning.”
“You checking up on me?”
“Uh, no, I was just… I live nearby. Just heading to work. Trying to figure out my GPS,” she said, waving her cell phone at him, thankful to have come up with a viable excuse.
“Did you forget where your office is?” he asked, wiping his sweaty forehead with the back of his hand, a slight smile tugging at his mouth.
Okay, so that was a sucky excuse.
“Going to a client’s house,” she added. “I do that sometimes.” It wasn’t a total lie—she’d had a few house calls. None in the last year, but he didn’t need to know that.
“So, is our appointment still on for next week? Or would you rather come out to my house?”
“At the office is fine,” she said pertly.
“All right, Doc, I guess I’ll see you then.”
“Can you just call me Leigh?”
“I think Doc suits you, but Leigh’s a real pretty name.”
“Thanks, Jesse.”
He smiled and gave her a quick nod. “I like how you say that.”
“Say what?”
“My name.” He lifted a hand in farewell, then returned to his truck.
Leigh waited until he had pulled away and had driven down the road for a while before she started up her own car. Good heavens, what was she doing? She’d never let any client wiggle under her defenses before, especially one with a track record like Jesse Maddox.