Mr. Write (Sweetwater) (5 page)

“Friend of yours?” Sarah inquired, shaking her head over her own silliness. It was just a cat, for heaven’s sake.
Probably wandered over to taunt Useless into some sort of action, not realizing that was a futile proposition.

“That’s what I get for reading suspense,” she muttered, bending over to retrieve her book.
With one last glance at the shadows outside, Sarah forcefully shut them out of her mind, returning to the story.  

By the time t
he villain broke into the heroine’s bedroom, Sarah was so engrossed that she could practically hear
the window sash squealing as it lifted. 

Actually, she
could
hear it.

Glancing around, she
saw that the light was on in the master bathroom next door. The sound of water splashing into a basin traveled through the open window, followed by a Yankee-accented
“Shit”
that was as clear as if Tucker Pettigrew had been standing next to her on the porch.  Angling to the side – she was
so
not tempted to watch this man’s personal grooming routine – Sarah concentrated on her book.   

The splashing stopped, but the shower started.

She shook her head, returning her attention to the page.  When she read, she never had any trouble blocking out the world. 

Until a couple
more minutes passed, and…

Holy shit, the man could
sing.

And…
show tunes? 
Unless she was mistaken, that was
Something’s Coming
from
West
Side
Story
. 

West. Side.
Story.

Unable to stop herself from gaping, Sarah nearly dropped her
paperback as she jerked around.

And okay,
okay. 
Sweet mother of God.  No blinds.  There were indeed no blinds on the window.  And that shower curtain was definitely clear.  The bathroom lit like a Broadway stage.

Something’s coming, indeed.

“Wow, that was inappropriate,” she said to Useless, who… suddenly wasn’t there.  With a tremendous sense of foreboding, Sarah looked toward the bottom screen, where she’d discovered a tear a day or two ago.  A tear that she hadn’t quite gotten around to repairing. 

And yessiree, that
was
her cat, finally off his fat ass and moving.  Of course, given that he was moving – rapidly – in the direction of Tucker Pettigrew’s open window, she decided that
sloth was no longer such a capital vice.

“Useless!” 
She threw her book aside, whispering fiercely so that Pettigrew didn’t overhear.  Of course, with all that – God!  Now it was
Summer Nights
from
Grease –
singing and showering going on, she could probably detonate a small bomb and he’d be none the wiser.

Her cat was a dusky blur of gray-tinged lard as he squeezed through a hole in the hedge.

“Useless!”  Oh, he was so dead.  Sarah pushed through the door, wrapping her thin robe more tightly around her as she crossed the soft grass in her bare feet.  Until she stepped on a pinecone.  Then she bit her lower lip and hopped on one foot. 

“Get back here!”
she hissed at the cat.  Which was ironic, really, considering.  But knowing her fleshy feline as she did, she knew there was no stopping him.  Most cats hated water, but not him.  No, every single day he sat, like some kind of hairy Buddha, fascinated by the drips of water rolling willy-nilly down the curtain as Sarah showered.  He was obsessed – though she thought he would have gotten his fix already this evening.

Apparently not.  Because now he was heading directly toward Mr. Leonard Bernstein and his peepshow curtain.

But wait!  He was obese.  Maybe he couldn’t make it up the… crap, he was on the tree.  Surely, somewhere, one of Newton’s laws had just been violated.

The tree was to the side of the window, but if he climbed out on that one limb…

No, this did not look good. Caught between rushing him and heading back to her porch, where she could disavow all knowledge, Sarah hesitated behind a gardenia bush.  Technically, she was on her own property.  Even if it
was
virtually beneath Pettigrew’s bathroom window.   

“Useless!”
she gave it one more try just as Carlton’s grandson sang about getting friendly, down in the sand. Or perhaps with a fat-ass cat, in the shower.

And right after that, he screamed.

The shower cut off, and Sarah started backing away.  Disavowing all knowledge seemed like a solid plan. 

“Where the hell did you come from?” he practically shouted.

Crap.  Hopefully he wasn’t allergic, or a cat hater.  She had a vision of Useless, launched like a cannonball out the window, from the end of Tucker Pettigrew’s bare foot.

Sarah tripped over a root, going down hard on her ass, and she slapped a hand over her mouth to keep from yelling.  Which did her no good whatsoever when Tucker came to the open window and peered out.

Naked.

Thank God – thank
God
– the ledge cut him off below the hips.

But holy crap, the man was
built.

“You.” 

And unfriendly.  Built, but let’s not forget
rude. 
He stared down at her with such absolute disgust that Sarah forgot her embarrassment and lifted her chin.

“Me.”  He’d shaved.  And with his
shaggy hair slicked back from his face, he actually looked human.

“I assume this… animal belongs to you.”

“The
animal
is a cat.”

Dubious,
Tucker turned around and looked behind him.  “It’s licking the shower curtain.”

“He does that.”  She tried to figure out how to haul her butt off the ground with some degree of dignity.  Nope, it just wasn’t possible.  She’d flash her underwear – which was all she was wearing beneath this robe – any way she tried.

“In other people’s bathrooms?”

“You got me there.  That’s a first.”

He stretched his arm to the side, jerking a towel off the rack.  “So is this going to be a daily thing?” he asked, wrapping the dark blue cotton around his waist.  “You violating my privacy?  Because if I have a heads up, I can at least make it interesting.”  He laughed then, completely without amusement, and glanced at the shower curtain before turning back around.  “Although you
did
get quite an eyeful tonight, didn’t you?”

Yes, she most certainly had.  “Look, I live right there.”  She gestured to the porch less than ten yards behind her.  “
And you have no blinds.  It wasn’t like I was
trying
to –”

“That’s an outhouse,” he said, squinting hard into the shadows.

“It’s not an
outhouse,”
she said, incensed.  “It’s –”

“Okay, outbuilding.  Whatever.”

“I assure you, there is a very large difference between an out
building
and an out
house
.  I’ll be happy to point you to an encyclopedia so that you can compare the pictures.”

“
Excuse me?”

“
Well, you seemed to have trouble with the concept of a bookstore.  I’m assuming reading is not your forte.”

“You think I can’t read.”  She couldn’t see his expression, backlit as he was in the window, but there was a trace of something – disbelief?  Amusement? – in his voice that she couldn’t quite pin down. 

“I’m sure you
can
read.”   

“As long as the book has pictures?”

A
piece of pine straw poked her in the butt.  This was ridiculous; Sarah pushed herself to her knees.  “Look, it’s just that based on your churlish reaction earlier –”

“Wait.”  This time he laughed out loud.  “You spy on me all morning.  You send your” he glanced behind him “
cat
over here to do God knows what and then watch me singing in the
shower
and you’re implying that
I’m
the one who’s rude?”

Sarah had to admit that he had a point.  Except for the fact that she couldn’t
send
Useless to his litter box, even if she tried.  “If you’d stop talking over me and let me –”

“Oh, now I’m talking
over
you.”

“– apologize.  I’m tr
ying to be neighborly here, damn it!”

“Neighborly, huh?”  He leaned on the sill, suddenly casual, and though she
still couldn’t see his eyes she could hear the leer in his voice.  “In that case I’ll be down in a minute.  You just stay there, right like that, on your knees.”

The force of Sarah’s indrawn breath nearly knocked her over.

“You…
jerk.”

“Yeah, that’s what I thought.”  The window came down, only to open again a few sec
onds later.  “Here’s your familiar.” 

Useless was unceremoniously dumped onto the nearby branch.

Her
familiar,
Sarah thought hotly, as she coaxed her defective animal out of the tree.   

So.  Tucker Pettigrew might be an asshole
. But apparently he wasn’t dumb.

CHAPTER FOUR

“WE
need more cookies.”

Allie
glanced up from the baking sheet she was loading.  “I just gave you the last of the batch Josie made.”

Sarah
’s sharp green gaze landed on the cooling rack.  “So we’ll use those.”

“But…” the flutte
r in Allie’s stomach was akin to panic.  “I just made them.  I haven’t tasted them yet.”  Why had Josie picked today to visit her sister in Savannah?  “We’re not even supposed to be open!”

“Hasn’t stopped the looky-loos from poking their heads in. 
Most of Will’s police force has been in here, although that could have been a swarm of locusts, given the way they ate whatever wasn’t nailed down.”  Sarah picked up a snicker doodle and bit in.  “Damn, that’s really good, Al.  Make sure Josie knows that recipe’s a keeper.”

“You don’t seem
taken aback by all the sudden attention.”

Sarah gave her a pitying look.  “Honey, you’ve been under your rock too long.  Two new men, one of them pretty
enough to be your sister, the other a Pettigrew.  Half the unmarried women in town have stopped by, and I’m expecting the other half before the week’s out.  I even saw Carolann Frye venture next door with some kind of casserole, which I guess means her third divorce is final.  I kept waiting for her to be clubbed and dragged inside by her hair extensions, but since I saw her passing back by with her covered dish about fifteen minutes ago, I guess Pettigrew wasn’t accepting callers.”

“B
ecause he’s down at the hardware store, buying paint.”

“
Well.  That explains the lull.” Sarah turned toward the gorgeous brunette who’d popped up in their doorway.  “Rainey Stratton.  I haven’t seen you since before you had breasts.  My, how things change.”

Sarah
brushed cookie crumbs from her own significant cleavage before meeting Rainey in the kind of hug that came from long-standing and deep affection.  “Look at you.”  She held the younger woman at arm’s length.  “Pretty as a picture.  And making me feel like I should just go ahead and get out the wheelchair now.”

Rainey chuckled.  “Come on.  You’re what? Thirty?”

“Ouch.  Twenty-nine and holding.  I saw your mama at Culpepper’s the other day, and she said you were getting ready to start the fall semester.  I guess all those nights I made you read instead of watching TV eventually paid off.”

“You were the meanest babysitter I ever had.  Hi, Miz Hawbaker.”

“Call me Allie.”  She returned Rainey’s smile as Sarah handed their visitor a cookie.

“Don’t tell me you came by here hoping to get a look at
Tucker Pettigrew,” Sarah said sternly, hooking her thumbs into the pockets of her well-worn jeans.  “He is
definitely
too old for you.”

“Being as I just told you he’s at the hardware store, wouldn’t I be there if I wanted a look at him?  And anyway, I saw him yesterday.  He came by Daddy’s office to
see about renting a dumpster and some extension ladders.”  She leaned against the counter, all long bare legs and youthful indiscretion.  “Had that friend of his with him.”  Rainey wiggled her eyebrows, nibbled the cookie.  “Now him, I wouldn’t mind getting another look at.  Wow, these cookies are good.  Did you make them Miz… Allie.”

“What?  Oh, um, yes.
”  Allie realized her attention had drifted.  She herself hadn’t caught so much as a glimpse of Mason for the past couple days.  Not that she’d been looking...  “Just followed Josie’s recipe, really.”