Over His Head. Carolyn McSparren

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СКАЧАТЬ today, she was spoiling for a fight. Just let Mr. No-Eyes dare to invade her space and see how far those muscles got him. Heck, she could always sic Lancelot on him.

      Behind her she heard the wheels of the dolly begin to roll down the ramp.

      “Hey! Heads up! I can’t hold her!” shouted the voice behind her.

      As she started to turn, the brawny guy with no eyes grabbed Nancy around the waist and swept her to the side. The chest of drawers trundled to a halt on the road where she had been standing seconds before.

      The man held her against his chest. She could hear his heart beat. Hers sounded like a trip-hammer. He smelled of male sweat and felt as though he was built of concrete. She struggled out of the circle of his arms.

      “You all right?” he asked.

      “Fine, thank you.” She wriggled her shoulders and realized the beating of her heart came not so much from the near miss with the furniture, but from the feel of this male body against her. Damn, when a semiliterate roustabout could raise her pulses, she really had been entirely too long without a man. “Now, move your van.” She pointed to the gravel driveway across the lane that led up to her small cottage. The heck with please. Time to start issuing orders.

      “I’m sorry,” he said. “I didn’t realize that was a driveway.”

      “Well, it is, and I want access to it.”

      “Look, miss—um—we’re almost finished unloading. If you could see your way clear to park your car where it is for an hour or so, the van will be gone.”

      Reasonable. Only she didn’t feel like being reasonable. She was hot, she was tired, before morning she and Dr. Thorne would probably lose the mastiff they’d operated on this afternoon. She had a blinding headache over her right eye, her neck ached, and she was so sick over losing her dear old neighbors to that nasty man from Chicago that she felt like crying.

      On top of all that, she was foster mother to Lancelot for the foreseeable future until the Halliburtons found a place to live that had room for him. And now this truck driver had disturbed her equilibrium in a way she didn’t like. It was the final straw.

      “Please find the man who hired you,” she said as imperiously as she could. Not easy when she had to look up at Mr. No-Eyes.

      He smiled. It was a nice smile, no doubt he practiced it frequently on irritated customers. This time it wouldn’t work. “I’m afraid I’m the culprit. I’m Tim Wainwright. My family and I are moving in. We’re going to be neighbors.” He pulled off his leather work glove and offered her his hand.

      She felt a wash of heat even greater than the July afternoon. Great. Thank God she hadn’t actually called him a semiliterate roustabout. She’d considered it. He’d let her make a fool of herself. Suddenly it didn’t matter. Screw the moving van.

      Without a word she climbed back into her car, reversed it and drove across her lawn to her driveway and pulled up beyond her dusty azaleas.

      She went around to Lancelot’s door, grabbed his leash and helped him down. Alarmed by the irrational fear that that Tim person would follow her and try to apologize or explain, she hurried inside the back door.

      She unhooked Lancelot’s harness, went straight to the refrigerator and poured herself a glass of white Zinfandel. As she raised the glass, her eyes lit on the huge yellow cat who sat on top of the refrigerator. “Sorry we woke you, Otto.”

      The cat leaped down and padded over to welcome Lancelot. Thank God her cats had known him since he was tiny. She felt fairly certain Lancelot thought he was a cat.

      The two old friends trotted after her into her bedroom. A second cat, black and white and even larger, lay curled in the center of her pillow. She kicked off her running shoes and sat on the edge of the bed. The cat on the pillow watched her without moving its head. As she pulled her socks off, he reached out a long arm and swiped at one.

      Obligingly she held it out for him. “Okay, Poddy, here you go.”

      He grabbed the sock, mauled it for a second, then abandoned it and went back to sleep. Yellow Otto crept up on it, pounced and dragged it under the bed. Lancelot tried to follow, but couldn’t fit. “You bring that back, Otto,” Nancy said without much hope.

      She set the glass on the side table and leaned back against her pillows with one arm across her eyes. She heard Lancelot thud onto the rag rug beside her bed. For six whole years this little house had meant peace and comfort, a place of her own, where nobody intruded on her privacy unless and until she wanted them to. The first house she’d ever owned.

      The moving van was a symbol—a big monster that got in her way and disturbed her tranquility the way that monster man got in her face with his big sweaty forearms and his ingratiating grin.

      And no eyes.

      She sat up. His family? He’d said family. How many? Wife, undoubtedly. Children? Aunts, uncles, cousins, grandparents? The house was big enough to hold a small army. Just because the Halliburtons hadn’t used the upstairs didn’t mean it wasn’t there to be used. Williamston was going to be overrun by no-necked monsters, sure as shooting.

      “I have enough drama in my life, guys, without coming home to more.”

      Lancelot looked up at the sound of her voice. Poddy and Otto ignored her.

      Then perhaps sensing her mood, Poddy climbed into her lap, walked around in a circle, collapsed and began to knead her thigh. She scratched his ears. “The Calhouns brought their mastiff in with a flipped gut after lunch. If they’d brought him in this morning, we’d have had a better chance to save him. Dr. Mac and I worked on him for two hours, but we had to remove so much necrotic tissue I doubt he’ll survive the night.”

      Otto decided to get in on the act. He hopped up, rolled over beside her and lay on his back like a baby. She scratched his tummy. “Guess who got to tell the Calhouns? Moi, of course. God forbid we let Dr. Mac get near clients he thinks are negligent. If he slugged somebody, he might break his hands, not to mention getting arrested for assault.”

      She heard Lancelot struggle to his feet. A moment later his nose butted her hand. “No, you cannot get up on the bed,” she said. But she scratched him nonetheless. “I only have two hands, guys. I can’t pet all three of you at once.”

      Lancelot’s black nose disappeared once more as he sank onto the rug.

      “We did do a successful cesarean on an English bulldog,” she said. “I got to give some good news. Four healthy pups.”

      Poddy yawned. He undoubtedly saw no reason to celebrate the advent of more canines into the world.

      She lay back on her pillows. Blessed, blessed silence.

      The bang of metal crashing against metal brought her bolt upright.

      A moment later the doorbell rang.

      As she got up to answer it, the telephone beside her bed shrilled.

      CHAPTER THREE

      “JUST A MINUTE,” Nancy shouted at the door as she reached for the telephone. “Mayfield,” she answered.

      “Nancy,” СКАЧАТЬ