Rules of Lying (Jane Dough Series) (2 page)

“The article was pretty good,” he said, his chocolate-brown eyes brightened by his smile. “You’re an author?”

“Ga-ah …” I was in the throes of brain freeze, thanks to the flare of panic that took temporary possession of my mind. I forced myself to breath in and out until my neurons started firing again. Five seconds later I jerked myself back to reality. I
had been
an author—a USA TODAY best-selling author—until I got my heart stomped on and decided men were scum. Since then I hadn’t been able to write a romance my agent could sell. It’s one thing to tell the world you are an author when you’re actively selling books. It’s quite another when you aren’t. I’d been keeping my past a secret until I got my next book contract. Or so I’d thought.

“You look surprised,” he said. “Don’t tell me you didn’t know
Palmeroy Times
did a story on you? Jane Dough, all American girl, returns from fame and fortune in the big city to discover there’s no place like home.”

Right. No place like home, and I was so broke I might lose it.

No one had interviewed
me
for an article, because if they had, there wouldn’t have been one. Since returning to Florida with no book contract in hand, I’d learned how to stop an article dead in its tracks. It had to do with acting like an idiot, contradicting myself and everyone else, insinuating there were libel suits underway and, in general, behaving like a horse’s ass. Nobody wanted to spend time with an ass, especially for local community news.

Uh-oh. Now that I thought about it, I
had
gotten some voicemail messages from the newspaper, but I’d erased them as soon as I heard the words, “This is
Palmeroy Times.
” I’d assumed they were selling subscriptions and since I didn’t read the paper and didn’t have any money, pushing that delete button had been a no-brainer.

Evidently the reporter had gotten confirmation from someone else because the story had been printed. There was only one person in the world who enjoyed talking about me to reporters. My mother. My heart sank. God only knew what she might have said. Well, God and the rest of the county.

I shot a quick glance at Hank in time to see his sunny expression dim. A shadow of something I hadn’t seen in a while flitted across his face. It might have been compassion; I wasn’t sure.

He shrugged, a little less comfortable with himself. “I’m sorry I ruined your day. If it helps, I finished the article thinkin’ you were somethin’ special. I suspect most people did.”

I didn’t know what to say since I hadn’t read the article. On the other hand, I hadn’t been brought up to be rude, and not only was he nice looking, he was just plain nice. So I forgot about me for a minute, as difficult as that was with my present situation, and concentrated on him. No sense in his day being ruined too.

I offered a smile. “Thanks. It always helps to know someone’s on my side.” And it did. When you come from a family where you’re always the odd one out, having someone on your side makes all the difference.

“Well,” he said as he set his cowboy hat back on his head, “I really am your neighbor. At the end of the street on the other side. If you need help with anything, just holler.”

He took off down the sidewalk at an easy stroll. I was still watching him when a white Honda CR-V careened around the corner and headed straight for him.

T
he CR-V was being driven by my friend Sue. Sue and I had met on the beach the summer before tenth grade, one week after my family had moved here. We quickly became friends after learning we shared the exact same interests: dating surfers with long hair, partying on psychedelic mushrooms, and rebelling against whatever our parents wanted us to do. We’d outgrown the first two, but we were still rebellious when it came to the status quo.

When I moved back from Los Angeles, Sue was the first person to show up at my door, having just divorced her husband of six years after finding him in bed with a bimbo who would have been jailbait if she hadn’t been married. We spent our reunion denigrating the two louts who had lied to us, creating another bond. Sue was quickly making up for lost time in the man department. I was living vicariously through her.

A collision between the CR-V and the six-foot tall Texan seemed inevitable but at the last minute, the car lurched back onto the street. In spite of almost being run over, Hank tipped his hat and smiled at Sue. When she cornered into my driveway, her mouth was still hanging open.

“Who’s the hunk?” Her long, thick, honey-blond hair was caught up in a ponytail that swished back and forth as she walked. She was wearing cut-off white jean shorts that would have made me look fat, a black T-shirt that would have made me look dead, and flip-flops that would have made me look short. It all looked good on Sue, though, because she was five feet eight inches tall, weighed one hundred twenty pounds, and had the body of an athlete. That was quite a feat considering she’d never done an athletic thing in her life. Unless you counted sex.

“New neighbor,” I said.

“Are you shittin’ me? Man, I may have to move into this neighborhood.”

Like that would ever happen. I could see Sue living here back in the day, thirty years earlier when the houses were first built with their wooded lots, expansive floor plans, and enough individuality of design to entice the vice presidents of the area’s burgeoning technology firms. Gated, with wide streets and sidewalks, large oaks and maples, and architecture that ranged from traditional to Spanish to country, the neighborhood had probably radiated a comfortable elegance, quite different from the cookie-cutter Florida-style homes that were popping up en masse during those years.

Now the gate was gone. Most, if not all, of the wealthy original owners had moved on to richer pastures, selling their homes to middle-income families who managed to maintain but not renovate. The result was well-built but outdated houses that weathered a bit more each year.

Sue’s parents would have moved the instant the first weathering began as they weren’t the type to deal with inconveniences of any kind. Neither was Sue. Her condo came with everything: a laundry service, a grocery shopping service, and a car washing service. If you could pay, you could play. And Sue, who made a good living as a mortgage broker, did play. I couldn’t see her moving into a house that required maintenance by the owner, no matter what neighborhood it was in.

Sue’s gaze was glued to the end of the street, and mine joined it. We watched Hank amble up his driveway. He turned in our direction and held up a hand. We both waved back.

Sue fanned herself. “I guess you met him, huh?”

“He introduced himself.” I picked up the sign and its stake from the driveway and started toward the garage.

“And?”

Sue was so close behind me that I expected her to trip on my heels.

“And what?”

“Who is he? Where’d he move from? What’s he do?”

“Hmmm. I didn’t find out anything about him; we were too busy talking about me.” I relayed our conversation to Sue, including the part about the article in the paper.

“Wow, I’m impressed. I didn’t see the article—just the
Husband Wanted
ad this morning.”

I stopped in mid-stride and Sue smacked into me. I turned my head and gave her a panicked eye.

“What do you mean you saw the
Husband Wanted
ad?”

“You know, in the classifieds. I was surprised; I didn’t think you were serious about that. What’s wrong? You look like someone punched you in the stomach.”

Someone
had
punched me in the stomach. Problem was, I had no idea who had thrown the punch.

“I didn’t run an ad.” Getting the words out of my mouth was an achievement considering I‘d gone into a catatonic state. The little voice in my head was saying
this is what you get for lying.
It seemed so unfair since everyone else in my family lied and nothing bad ever happened to them.

“You didn’t? But then who … ?”

I shook my head in an effort to rattle some sense into it. Who indeed?

“Your mother?”

“She’d never cough up the money for an ad
if
she even knew how to place one, and besides, what would she say once I found out? That she was trying to help me? Huh!”

That got a chuckle from Sue because my mother has never helped any of her daughters with anything. She calls her lack of assistance
tough love
—she latched onto that expression the second she heard it on
Oprah
—but the truth was she just didn’t care. Besides, she always got Katherine to do her dirty work for her, and Katherine would never agree to run such an ad. She’d been begging me to pull up the sign, which I’d only shoved into the ground so my sisters couldn’t accuse me of lying about advertising for a husband. According to my younger sister, Marci, who thought the situation funny as hell, they’d literally been praying that no one would see it.

“But it
is
suspicious,” I admitted, “the ad and the article appearing the same day.” A horrifying thought occurred to me. “Do you think they mentioned the ad in the article? God, I wish I were dead.”

Sue nodded. “Guys are gonna start showing up, so—”

“Showing up! My address was in the paper?”

“Your address and phone number. The ad said to call first, but I’ll bet some of them don’t.”

Now I was mad. Someone had gone too far, and I wanted to know who that
someone
was. There had to be a law about revealing a person’s address.

“You know, Jane, I’ve been thinking …”

Sue was staring off down the street, and I looked in that direction too. Maybe Hank had come back outside, but no, nobody was there. I glanced back at Sue. She wore a dreamy-eyed expression.

“What?” I hated to ask.

“Maybe this was meant to be. Maybe you’ll meet Mr. Right. You know, all your problems will be solved, everything will work out.”

“Earth to Sue,” I said with a touch of sarcasm. Sue still believed in Prince Charming, so the idea that I’d be rescued wasn’t farfetched for her. I was about to present her with the hard facts of life and that I’d rather be dead than be rescued by a man, when Sheila’s garage door opened, and she backed out in her new BMW. Our heads swiveled in that direction.

I forgot about Sue and thought about Sheila. Maybe I shouldn’t knock Sheila’s advice. She seemed to be doing okay for herself. She didn’t work, had a nice car, a beautiful wardrobe, and jewelry to die for. She’d also confided that she’d socked away quite a bit from selling the other two houses awarded to her following her divorces. Evidently she had a pretty good divorce lawyer and he had an equally good detective on his payroll. At some point I expected her to be selling the house across the street too. Sheila’s advice was probably good. The only problem was that I didn’t want to catch a man any more than I wanted to catch a disease.

Sue dragged her gaze from Sheila’s driveway and settled it on me. “Look,” she said, “I stopped by to offer you a loan one more time. Of course, that’s because I thought you must be desperate to run an ad, and it turns out you didn’t run an ad, but even so … Really think about it this time. A few thousand dollars and you won’t have to do anything except oversee a couple of day laborers who probably won’t do anything right. But at least you’ll be in charge and you won’t have to spend all your time sweating in the dirt. And your property will be cleaned up before your homeowners’ association can levy that fine. I’ve got extra money in my bank account; you can pay it back whenever you’re able.”

I shook my head, knowing I was probably too stubborn for my own good. I didn’t know when I could pay the money back. If only I could sell a book … but so far, no good. With no prospects of extra money on the horizon and only a part-time job that barely covered my living expenses, I just couldn’t, in good conscience, borrow money and take the chance of ruining our friendship. Sue was the best friend I’d ever had, or at least she tied for that honor with Johnny Smith, my best friend from childhood. Though nothing alike in personality, their loyalty was unwavering, no matter what I did or said. Sue had even offered to help me clean up my lot, an offer that left us both breathless from hysterical laughter when five seconds after her offer, the dead shell of a cicada fell from the tree overhead to land on her toe and she ran screaming down the street. Sue is scared to death of critters, and Florida is chock full of them. Sue wouldn’t make it one minute working in my yard.

“Okay,” she said. “If you change your mind or need anything tomorrow, I’m just a phone call away. But you should keep an open mind. Really. I know you don’t think so, but one of these guys could be a solution for you. If you already have your mind set on a negative outcome, you won’t give anyone a chance.”

I arched my brows. “I’m open-minded. I don’t have any expectations.” I really didn’t. At least not when it came to men. After Pete, I’d pretty much decided it was better never to have loved than to have loved and lost, and I couldn’t see how a man who was so desperate for a wife that he would answer an ad involving manual labor could change my mind on that.

“Oh, please, Jane. You may not have any expectations but you’re as far from open-minded as anyone I know.”

“Really? Is that how I come across?” I couldn’t believe that was how I came across. I was a rebel, wasn’t I? Didn’t that mean I was open to anything?

“It’s how you
are.
Don’t get me wrong; I like you the way you are. But I bet you’ll be crossing these guys off the list two seconds after they say hello. You’re quick to judge, and it goes hand in hand with the part of you that never wants to try anything new.”

Okay, now we were down to it. Sue had been after me to go to the town-sponsored street parties with her and every time the subject came up and I declined her invitation, she said I never tried anything new. But going out drinking wasn’t new; it was old. And I was getting too old to do it. I wanted to spend Friday nights writing, and why should I have to defend that? I opened my mouth to reply, but Sue held up her hand.

“I know, I know,” she said. “We’ve been through this before. All I’m saying is just keep an open mind, okay? New doesn’t necessarily mean wrong.”

*****

I was out of food, so I squashed up my hair in a cap, donned some dark shades, and booked it to the store. I hadn’t seen the article Mr. Handsome had mentioned, but I wanted to keep a low profile just in case.

As I shopped for items on my list, I realized Sue’s insistence that I avoided new experiences irked me. Maybe it was because when I thought of someone who never tried anything new, I pictured a stick-in-the-mud, someone who couldn’t have any fun. I guess I was afraid that was me.

But was it really? I thought back to my four years with Pete. I was always trying new things then. Most of them were bad for me, but I hadn’t let that stop me even when I didn’t want to try them. Like cocaine. I was afraid I’d be instantly addicted to it or that I’d be one of those unlucky few who died from some weird heart complication. I tried it because I wanted to prove I was up for anything, but I didn’t like it. I felt out of control and when I’d started to come down from the high, the feeling was even worse. It had been a stupid thing to do, especially knowing I’d done it because of someone’s opinion of me, and I’d been lucky, as I’d been with most of the stupid things I’d done with Pete.

I didn’t think Sue was talking about things like that, though, and maybe she was right. I’d quickly gotten into my own little routine here. My house, my job, the way I dealt with family.

I reached for my usual brand of salad dressing and stopped short of taking it off the shelf. Maybe I should get a different brand, a different flavor. Try one I didn’t think I’d like. It was just salad dressing, and I might be pleasantly surprised. Besides, if I couldn’t take a chance with this, wouldn’t that mean Sue was right?

I scanned the shelf, reading labels. There were way too many of them, but
red wine and vinegar
caught my eye. It was probably the word
wine.
If I didn’t like it on my salad, I could chug it after dinner. Times were tough; it paid to be economical.

At the dairy case I checked all the brands of margarine to see if any had alcohol in them, but I was out of luck there. I picked up a brand that was as cheap as my usual, but which purported to taste more like real butter. Did I even like real butter? I didn’t know, but this margarine was new to me and I was trying it.

I went through my entire list that way. If there was another brand that cost the same or less than my usual, I got it. In the toilet tissue section, I congratulated myself for being so adventurous. I never would have noticed the new product otherwise. Not only was it the cheapest, but it had a special lotion to keep my skin soft.

I threw an extra package of that into my cart. Sue would have to eat her words.