Matt’s mother threw herself into his apartment search with a gusto that was surprising. Did Mom want him out of the house that badly? Or was she just looking for something new to occupy her time?
He didn’t know. But either way she scored a great place on Rice Street within walking distance of the office.
The apartment building had been built in the early 1900s and had once housed a dry goods store on the ground floor. A decade ago, JL Properties, Uncle Jamie’s real estate business, had renovated the building, turning it into four apartments, two on the first floor and two on the second story, each of which had New Orleans–style wrought-iron balconies.
He and Mom toured the apartment on Monday morning, and Matt signed the lease that same afternoon. He was grateful for all her help until she said the words “interior decorator” right after the leasing agent handed him his keys.
“We’ll have to get someone in to measure the rooms,” she said as they left the leasing office. “I should call Pam. She has a wonderful decorator who did Andrew’s apartment for him.”
“I don’t want a decorator.”
“Of course you do, sweetie. You’re a grown-up person now, and you need a grown-up apartment.”
What he needed was to be left alone to figure things out for himself. Also, while he had a nice trust fund, he didn’t want to spend any of it on interior decoration. That struck him as a big waste of money.
All he needed was a comfortable bed, a couch and chairs, and a dining table. And a big-screen television—the biggest he could find.
And a cat. He needed a cat to make it all perfect.
He decided not to argue with his mother. After all, she’d done a great job finding him a place he loved. Instead, he figured he could always talk to Dad and ask him to ask Mom to back off. Hadn’t Dad always told him to invest the money he’d inherited from Granny Artzen? Furniture and fancy curtains wouldn’t give him any return on his money.
But on Tuesday after work, Mom had a tizzy when she discovered him carrying one of his boxes of Batman comics out to the pickup truck he’d borrowed from Uncle Jamie.
“What are you doing?” she asked.
“I’m moving stuff to the new place.”
“You can’t do that. We need to have it decorated first.”
“Mom, look, I don’t want to spend a lot of money—”
“No, no, I don’t expect you to pay for it. Let me do this for you.”
Damn, she had him over a barrel, but he needed to exert his independence. “I really appreciate what you want to do for me, but I don’t want to spend a ton of money decorating an apartment I might not be living in for long. And besides, I need a place of my own. I don’t want to wait to move. I already adopted a cat from Melissa and Jeff, and I bought a mattress and a bed frame. They were delivered earlier this afternoon. So…”
Her face fell, leaving him feeling like a complete jerk. He hated it when Mom’s eyes got all misty like that. He blew out a breath. “Okay, maybe you can help a little. But no professional decorator, okay?”
Her smile reappeared. “Don’t you worry,” she said. “I know exactly the look you want.”
Oh boy, that didn’t sound good. Who wanted their mother to decorate their apartment? No one. But instead of arguing, he ground his teeth together and continued hauling boxes of books and crap out to his uncle’s truck. He didn’t relax his jaw until he drove down his parents’ driveway and headed off to the new apartment.
It took exactly two trips hauling stuff up the narrow staircase in the June heat while simultaneously dodging a collection of bikes and kid toys scattered around the building’s front door, to make him wonder if he should have looked at a few more places. The balcony was killer, but so was the staircase and the obstacle course.
On his third trip, the owner of the toys, a scrawny freckled-face kid of about eight whose front teeth were a little too big for his mouth, materialized at his side. “You moving into Mrs. Murphy’s apartment?” he asked.
“Is Mrs. Murphy’s apartment the one on the right at the top of the stairs?”
The boy nodded. “Yup, that’s the one. She died there, you know. The police had to carry her out in a bag.” The kid had the temerity to grin. “That was pretty cool.”
Holy crap. Mom hadn’t told him about that. Did she know?
Despite his surprise, Matt took a seat on one of the steps and maintained his composure for the little kid. “That is kinda cool,” he said, putting on his best fake-’em-out smile. He knew this kid. He was exactly like Matt’s older brother, a gross-out artist who loved to poke at people. Matt had learned early in life never to show any weakness.
The kid’s eyes grew round. “You don’t care that someone died in the apartment?”
“No. Why should I?”
“Mom says Mrs. Murphy’s ghost is still up there.” The kid was clearly making this up. He hoped.
“Cool.” Matthew broadened his smile and held out his hand. “My name’s Matt, and you are?”
“Ethan Riley. I live over there.” He pointed over his shoulder to the larger ground-floor apartment. “I have a little sister, Jessica.”
Matt had already figured this out, since a Dora the Explorer tricycle was blocking the hallway and Ethan didn’t look like the Dora the Explorer type.
“Well, Ethan, it’s been nice talking to you. But I got stuff to haul up to the second floor.”
He went back to work, making two more trips from the truck to the apartment while Ethan chattered at him. Eventually the boy’s mother called him in and apologized profusely for the toys in the hall. She introduced herself as Alyssa, and she had the look of a harried working mother who was keeping it together only through sheer force of will. She yelled at Ethan for his toys and then helped him move the bikes out of the entryway.
After that, the hauling went a little faster, but still, by the time he’d carried up his last load, his T-shirt was soaked with sweat. He dropped the box in the middle of his living room just as the thump of footsteps on the stairs reached him through his open door. Damn. Ethan had come back.
“Ethan, didn’t your mother tell you it was time to go home?” he said as he stepped into the hall.
The footsteps on the stairs stopped. “You,” a distinctly female voice said.
Matt’s mouth nearly dropped open at the sound of that voice. Courtney Wallace stood three steps from the top of the staircase with a couple of grocery sacks in her arms and her hair piled on top of her head in a messy knot. Sweat-dampened tendrils fell around her ears, and her breasts swelled above the neckline of her skimpy striped T-shirt. She was delicious, and he was suddenly very, very hungry.
Matt gave her a slow smile. “Me,” he responded.
She finished walking up the stairs and peeked through his open door. “Are you moving into Mrs. Murphy’s apartment?”
“If you mean this apartment”—he pointed at the open door—“then the answer is yes.”
“This is a joke, right?”
He shook his head. “Nope.”
“Did you choose this apartment because you knew I lived here?”
He leaned against the doorframe and crossed his arms over his chest. “I didn’t know you lived here. But now that I do, I can’t say I’m disappointed.” He would never, ever tell her that his mother had picked this apartment for him.
“But you walked me home once, remember? Back in September?”
“Vaguely,” he lied. Matt remembered the night last fall when he’d walked her home from the Jaybird. It was the same night that Courtney and some of her girlfriends had tried to trash Brandon’s Camaro. Courtney had been more than a little tipsy, but maybe not tipsy enough. Not that he would have taken advantage of her in that state. Even drunk, Courtney had rebuffed his advances. He’d been more than a little disappointed.
She pressed her lips together, obviously annoyed. “Welcome to the building,” she said in a tone that was anything but welcoming. She turned her back on him and jammed her keys into the lock.
When she opened the door, a tiny fur-covered ball of energy scampered through the threshold and raced across the landing and directly into Matt’s apartment.
“Hey! Come back here.” Courtney dropped her groceries and followed the kitten. “Aramis, what’s the deal?” she said as she chased the cat into a corner of the living room, where it arched its back and hissed while simultaneously raising its hackles and fluffing its tail.
Matt strolled up to Courtney and gently placed his hands on her shoulders. She stiffened, but whether out of surprise or sexual awareness he couldn’t tell. Her bones felt small under his hands, and she smelled delicious. He longed to place one kiss on the nape of her neck, but he resisted. Instead he gently moved her aside and let go.
“I can handle this,” he said, hunkering down. “Hey, kitty, kitty,” he said in a high voice guaranteed to attract the cat.
The kitten sat down and looked away for a moment and then made a show of washing himself behind the ears. After a minute, Aramis turned and walked with as much grace as a kitten could have toward Matt’s outstretched hand. He scooped the furball up and scratched him behind the ears. Aramis rewarded him with a deep-throated purr that was almost too big for such a tiny kitten.
“I have a surprise for you, buddy,” he said as he crossed the room to the bathroom door. Your brother’s here.” He opened the door, squatted down, and let the kitten go. Aramis scampered forward with a couple of loud meows and then pounced on Porthos, who’d been napping.
“You got a cat?” Courtney asked from behind.
Matt stood up, closed the bathroom door, and then leaned back on the doorframe. “Is there something wrong with a guy having a cat?”
Courtney’s big blue eyes widened with a look that was so sexy it almost melted Matt where he stood. “No. I’m just surprised about you having a cat.”
“I told you before, I’ve always had cats. The first thing I did after I signed the lease was visit the bookstore and adopt Porthos. Although I’m going to change his name. I was thinking of calling him Shredder, after the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles villain. Although, if I’m going to have two cats, I’ll have to rethink. Maybe I’ll name them both for members of the League of Justice.”
“Two cats?”
He made a great show of shrugging. “Clearly Aramis likes it better over here.”
The muscles along her jaw tensed. What was it about Courtney Wallace? He enjoyed teasing her, which was a little perverse, because he never teased or lied or played games.
“Okay, fine. But in my opinion, single guys with cats are kind of creepy.” Courtney turned and started for the door.
“You know, Courtney, maybe you should stop reading Cosmo.”
She whirled around to face him. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
He pushed away from the doorframe. “Just that you have this tendency to put men into judgmental boxes, like some wild-eyed feminist. I’m all for feminism, but I draw the line when women try to shame men for stupid stuff. I’ve seen the magazine articles with ten reasons why dating a guy with a cat is a big mistake. But it’s an idiotic meme.”
“Well, for the record, I don’t read Cosmo.”
“Okay, but can we agree that it’s a stupid meme?”
“Sure. When you give me back my cat.” And with that, she turned and marched from his new apartment with her delicious hips swaying.
He ought to give the cat back, but he decided on the spot to keep Aramis and give him a super-manly name like Ra’s al Ghul, the leader of the League of Assassins in the Batman comics.
* * *
It didn’t take Arwen long to determine that Jefferson County had waived the fines once GB Ventures purchased Dogwood Estates. It made sense, since the buildings would be torn down. But something about the situation bugged Arwen.
So she spent three days at the county courthouse looking up deed records and matching them up with fines assessed by the Jefferson County building inspector. A troubling pattern emerged: Over the last eighteen months, the number of fines had increased threefold. And yet revenue from fines was down over the same period because the landowners were selling out instead of paying up. GB Ventures appeared to be the main beneficiary, snapping up the land at bargain-basement prices.
The properties in question were old, falling-down eyesores. Most folks in Jefferson County would probably see no problem with getting rid of them. But to Arwen, the pattern suggested an abuse of government power. And since only one company seemed to be buying up these properties, Arwen smelled a rat.
Was the County Council engaged in some kind of graft that involved GB Ventures? She didn’t know. But it was troubling enough for her to compile her findings and put it all in a memo, which she planned to share with Matt on Thursday morning.
But right now, at the end of a long day, Arwen just wanted to forget the ugliness she’d unearthed by spending the evening at the Jaybird’s Wednesday open mic.
She wasn’t planning to perform tonight, and she was having supper all by herself since all her married friends were pregnant and suffering from morning sickness that lasted all day, and Courtney was at the hospital with Sid. She sat at the bar, nursing a margarita and listening to Kent Henderson play “Tennessee Stud” for the umpteenth time.
“A penny for your thoughts?” Rory said as he dried glasses behind the bar and hung them in the slots above.
“I’m trying not to think at all,” she said.
Rory gave her a wicked grin. “I can arrange that, lass.”
What a shame he was working tonight. If he’d been another customer, she might have flirted with him. “I’ve already got my margarita, thanks.”
“I was thinking of something a bit more mellow.”
“You know, Rory, I’m not actually looking for mellow.”
His eyes twinkled with devilry. “Then what are you looking for?”
She let go of a long sigh. “I’m looking for a man who’s sensitive, who listens to my music, who knows how to French kiss, and who doesn’t smell like marijuana.” She stopped as she studied his incredibly handsome face. “And I’m not willing to settle for three out of four.”
His smile deepened. “And just how do you know that I can French kiss?”
He certainly had her there. She stared into his eyes for a long, uncomfortable moment, imagining how his mouth would taste, how his stubble would feel against her cheek, how he’d really smell. No. She wasn’t brave enough, or insane enough, for a man like Rory Ahearn. So she looked down at her drink and fervently hoped he would move down the bar and talk to someone else.
“I’ve got a break coming up in five minutes. When Kent’s done boring us to tears.” He delivered this line and then moved down the bar.
Thank God.
A moment later, Juni Petersen, who’d been talking to the sound engineer, crossed the room and snagged a seat next to Arwen.
“Drinking alone?” she asked.
“Yeah. I guess it’s pathetic, huh? The truth is, Courtney is at the hospital visiting a sick friend, and everyone else is pregnant and throwing up.”
“Well, you know what they say…”
“No. What do they say?” Her voice sounded a little bitchy even to her own ears.
Juni chuckled. “To everything there is a season, and a time to every purpose under heaven.”
Arwen almost spewed her drink. When she caught her breath, she said, “Since when do you quote the Old Testament? Now that I think of it, I’ve never heard you quote the New Testament either.”
Juni shrugged. “Yeah, but I hear a lot of folk music. You’d be amazed how many people cover that song on open mic night.”
“Oh yeah, I guess. And you decided to quote it because…?”
“Because you’re at a crossroads. I can see it in your aura. You know what you want, but you’re afraid to go after it.”
“And you see that in my aura?”
Juni lifted her shoulders, and her hand-knit shawl fell down around her arms. “I’ve known you for a long time. You come in here every week and sing your heart out. Your songs move everyone, Arwen, unlike most of the other performers. I hear you talk about making a tape and sending it to Nashville. I hear you talk about trying to make it as a songwriter. I see you looking at Rory like you want to devour him. And you never do anything about any of it. I don’t need to look at your aura. Although I see plenty of murky brown in it, which is a sign of someone who’s afraid to let go or to truly share herself with others.”
“You know, Juni, you can pontificate all you want, but it’s not so easy to let go of a well-paying job. I mean, writing songs is probably not going to pay the bills.”
“Or maybe it will. You didn’t learn to walk without falling down. In fact, everything valuable in life usually comes with failure. Just saying.” Juni hopped down from the stool and spoke directly to Rory. “It’s time for your break. I’ll take over the bar.”
Rory nodded and shot Arwen a look that made her panties ignite. Then he turned his back on her and headed across the bar toward the ready room. She studied his sexy-as-sin backside as Juni’s words percolated through her brain. Was she woman enough to follow him?
Damn straight she was.
She snatched up her glass and gulped down the rest of her margarita. Then, filled with Dutch courage, she followed Rory and found him out in the alley leaning on the brick wall under the lone streetlamp. Shadows hid his deep-set eyes, but Arwen was more interested in looking at his wide shoulders and narrow hips and the beautiful tattoos winding up his arms.
She walked right up to him, close enough to catch his aroma, one-part leather, one-part smoke.
Good thing she didn’t have to ask for what she wanted. She might have chickened out, but Rory made the first move, closing the gap between them, cupping the back of her head, and drawing her into the most erotic kiss she had ever experienced in her life.
Damn. The bad boy really did know how to French kiss.