Lightning Strikes. Colleen Collins

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СКАЧАТЬ secret indulgences.

      That’s what it’d done for Blaine, anyway.

      She started to knock, but opted to pound on the door this time. “Get off that bed,” she whispered in a throaty growl.

      “May I help you?” asked a scratchy, feminine voice.

      Blaine spun around to see a diminutive little old lady wearing a strawberry pink running outfit and white high-heeled sandals. Her brown eyes sparkled with curiosity while she puffed on a cigarette.

      “Uh, my bed—I mean, my sister’s bed—was delivered here by mistake and I need to pick it up.”

      The lady blew out a stream of blue smoke. “You mean those big, burly fellows went to all that trouble, only to deliver it to the wrong place?”

      Blaine nodded, fighting the urge to sneeze. Right now, she’d opt for Jerome’s cologne over cigarette smoke. Good thing she had her allergy pills with her. She’d pop another one as soon as she got near water.

      “Are you going to pick up that big bed all by your little self?”

      Blaine fought the urge to roll her eyes. She’d heard this all her life. At five-four, she’d been told she was too small to be on the girls’ basketball team, but that was before she’d shown off her killer dunk. And in high school, neighbors were impressed when Blaine took on the household repairs to help out her newly widowed dad. And not just the wimpy repairs, like a leaking faucet or a squeaky door. One summer Blaine put a new roof on the house!

      “I’m stronger than I look,” she answered, for what seemed the zillionth time in her life. “Plus, I’m going to take the bed apart—” she lifted her toolbox “—and then I’ll cart it down piece by piece to my truck.” She motioned to the street, where her dad’s bowling buddy’s truck was parked at the curb. “Do you, uh, know where the person who lives here is?” If Blaine could get inside fast, she had a chance to get the bed to her sister’s before it got too dark.

      “Donovan’s in…” The lady sucked on the cigarette as she thought. “…San Antonio, I think. Or was it San José?”

      Blaine paused. “He’s in Texas or California?”

      The lady nodded.

      “How’d he accept a delivered bed, then end up in another state so fast?”

      The lady waved her cigarette in the air. “Oh, no, no, no. He’s been out of town for almost a week now. I’m the one who let the men in to deliver the bed.”

      “You live here, too?” Then why were they standing outside, having this discussion?

      “Oh, no, no, no. I’m Donovan’s neighbor, Milly. He travels so much, he left me a key in case there’s an emergency at his place, or like today, he gets a surprise delivery.”

      Surprise to him and me, both. “Then you can let me in so I can redeliver the bed?” Blaine fished in her pocket, pulling out both a tissue as well as the receipt. She tried to show the correct paper product to the woman. “Because, as you can see, I legally own this bed.”

      The lady eyed the paper and nodded. “Just one moment. I’ll get the key.”

      Five minutes later, Blaine stood inside this Donovan person’s apartment. Before heading back to her place, Milly had said to be careful of his plant.

      Shifting her toolbox from one hand to another, Blaine looked around the living room. It was almost 7:00 p.m., so there was plenty of light out. But this place was dark.

      “What kind of plant?” she muttered to herself, squinting to decipher objects in the shadows. “Potato?” She set the toolbox on the floor, crossed to the windows, and opened the drapes. Sunlight flooded in, lifting the gloom.

      With a pleased sigh, Blaine turned around and paused.

      “What is he? A monk?”

      She’d never seen such a sparsely decorated place. It was almost as though no one lived here. In the far corner of the living room was a seen-better-days, plaid recliner with a standing pole lamp next to it. Against the right wall was a bookshelf, filled with hardback and paperback novels, and one shelf of CDs. On top of the bookshelf was a CD player, bracketed with two square speakers.

      And no plant.

      She glanced to her right. Set back, more a nook than a separate room, was the kitchen. Except for a few objects on the counter, it was white and bare.

      “That’s it?” she said to herself, her gaze traveling back over the apartment. “No TV?” She couldn’t imagine a guy not watching sports or cop shows. Maybe he kept it in his bedroom…the room that housed her gorgeous bed.

      Time to get to work. Blaine picked up her toolbox and headed for the hallway, which had two doors. One to the bathroom, one to the bedroom.

      And in the latter, she saw her bed. Her beautiful, fantasy-drenched bed.

      It sat in the center of the room, sparkling from the sunlight that fell in yellow slants through blinds on the window on the back wall. The streams of light fired spots of gold and copper on the brass. Blaine just had to stop and take in an appreciative breath at the sheer majesty of it.

      She sneezed. Pulling another tissue from her pocket, she swiped at her nose and glanced again at the window. Sure enough, it was cracked open.

      Enough to let in a flood of pollen.

      Time to pop another allergy pill.

      She typically took only one a day, but today she’d taunted the pollen gods by spending the better part of this afternoon outside—walking to Jerome’s, walking to the travel agency to cash in her ticket, hanging outside Henry’s, her dad’s buddy’s, to borrow the pickup. Which had no air-conditioning, so she’d driven over here with the window rolled down.

      But before taking more medicine, she wanted to quickly scope out the bed, see how it was assembled.

      She headed toward the magical, sexy object.

      Crackle.

      She looked down. She’d stepped on some big leaf.

      In her mind, she heard Milly’s raspy voice. “Be careful of his plant.”

      Blaine gingerly lifted her foot and eyed the humongous leaf. Had to be the size of a dinner plate. Her gaze traveled to where it was attached to a vine that curled along the floorboard to the far corner of the room. There, it led up to a clay pot, that housed some Jack-and-the-Beanstalk number with more leafy vines that coiled up the wall and along the top of the window.

      That’s no plant. That’s a roommate.

      Blaine leaned over, and ever so gently, pushed the vine closer to the floorboard so there’d be no more accidental steppages. She momentarily pondered how the delivery guys hadn’t destroyed part of the plant, which only made Blaine feel all the guiltier for stepping on it.

      Well, just because I could play sports didn’t mean I was coordinated in everyday life. How many times had she knocked over a vase or tracked mud and dirt into the house?

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