Anyway, knowing J.D., he was probably already planning on skipping town. Halfway renovated loft condo or not.
Hours later, Sarah bruised her knuckles for the third time, whacking them against J.D.’s armored tank of a front door. He can’t be gone already, she told herself.
Could he?
Even as a kid, he’d barely waited to turn legal before throwing everything he owned in the back of a rattling gray Chevy Citation and hitting the road for freedom and adventure, aka anything that got him away from his parents. She was pretty sure the only reason he’d stuck around for as long as he did was that he didn’t want to disappoint her mother, who asked about his homework every day when she checked on her own children. If J.D. could have offered himself up for adoption, he’d have done it in a heartbeat. But still, the moment he was legal, he’d made a break for it.
Oh, don’t be ridiculous, Sarah, she scolded herself. Not even shoot-from-the-hip J.D. would throw a pregnant cat out on the street in the middle of winter. Plus, it would be pretty hard to sell that condo in its present “a bomb just exploded” condition. There could be a million reasons why he’s not home, you loon. Just because the man doesn’t have a nine-to-five job doesn’t mean he never leaves the house. Even artists need to hit the store for toilet paper and toothpaste every now and then.
Or he could be out with his ex. Correction, not so ex.
Or worse, maybe he’s locked in with her and they’re not answering the door.
She had stopped pounding on the door while berating herself, and in the silence she heard the faint inquiring mews of a cat.
All of a sudden she felt incredibly stupid.
What was she doing here?
The man obviously did not need her help any longer. Although he’d been desperate for help with the cat, it wasn’t as if he’d picked up the phone the next day to call her. He hadn’t even bothered to thank her for messengering over some supplies the next morning. She’d sent kibble and vitamins and a brush, for crying out loud. Showing up on his doorstep was more likely to seem flirtatious than professional.
She bumped her elbow against the neck of the wine bottle sticking out of the medical bag that hung at her hip, a fine pinot noir she’d picked up at a neighborhood wine shop earlier in the day. She pressed her lips together and remembered that she’d slicked a coat of plum gloss on them before stepping out of the car. Had unearthed a dusty comb from the depths of her bag and run it through her straight hair, too.
Likely to seem flirtatious?
Good grief.
She had to get out of here before he came home and found her camped out on his doorstep. And then say a prayer in gratitude that this wasn’t the kind of neighborhood where the neighbors minded each other’s business.
“You lookin’ for J.D.?” a woman’s voice called out.
Lovely.
“Uh, no.” But she clearly was. God, she hoped she hadn’t been spotted pounding on his door like her pants were on fire. The two women standing on the sidewalk sported four-inch stilettos and skirts that weren’t much longer. Both sported extravagantly dyed fake-fur jackets and matching Easter-egg colored blunt-cut wigs.
Well, neighbors came in all different shapes and sizes, she guessed. And some didn’t live on your street, so much as, well…work there.
The women were still watching her, eyebrows arched and hips cocked to one side.
“Yes, well, I was just, you know, checking to see if he was home. I happened to be in the neighborhood.”
God, she felt like an idiot.
The taller of the two women smiled at her. “I know whatcha mean, honey. Almost all the guys who come see me just happen to be in the neighborhood, too.” Her companion snorted a little. Sarah was pretty sure she was laughing. “Did he stand you up?” the first woman asked, jerking her chin at J.D.’s door. “And after you brought the wine, too.”
The sensation of being smashed on a slide and examined under a microscope grew stronger. Heat raced over her face as she concentrated on not stuttering.
“No, we’re not…you know,” she waved her hands in front of her chest. The women looked at her as if they knew very well indeed. This was getting worse. “I’m just a friend.” Skeptical looks. Her voice squeaked higher. “His veterinarian. He’s got a cat?”
She hated it when her voice rose up at the end of perfectly simple sentences, making her sound like a teenybopper looking for approval. It was a habit she’d almost completely eliminated. Except when she got nervous.
Getting busted by a couple of hookers in a transparent attempt to put the moves on a guy, who had made it clear by the simple fact of not calling that he was uninterested in repeating the mind-blowing kiss they’d shared, made her nervous.
Go figure.
“Yeah, I saw that cat,” the shorter woman was nodding. “Took him half the morning to corner that damn thing in the alley. Man must be awful lonely to chase a mangy cat that hard. Maybe you should stick around with that wine.”
Strange. J.D. clearly didn’t want an animal. Why would he have rescued a stray at all? It was difficult to come up with an explanation that made sense, particularly given that she was still in the middle of the most peculiar conversation of her life.
“But you should put some lipstick on, honey. You’re too pale,” the first woman advised.
Excellent. Now she was getting makeup tips. And she was already wearing lip gloss, damn it.
Her feet were stiff with cold, her nose was starting to run and she’d had her fill of humiliation for the day. It was time to go console herself with a decent meal and some company that didn’t charge by the half hour. Maybe read a nice, sedate, nineteenth-century novel.
“Either of you ladies like pinot?” Time to hit the road.
* * *
Her attempt at cheerful self-deprecation lasted all of fifteen minutes. Until she got a ticket.
More precisely, three.
With her forehead resting on the steering wheel of her car, Sarah gave serious consideration as to whether her day could possibly get any worse.
Then she remembered that Officer Dubinski, rhymes with Buttinski, had offered to take her down to the station, in cuffs of course, if she thought that would improve her mood, and decided it could indeed be worse.
But it was just that she had car insurance. The insurance card itself maybe wasn’t the first thing you came across in the explosion of crap that fell out of her glove compartment the moment you opened it, but it was in there somewhere. And she hadn’t thought there was a time limit on finding it.
And she had stopped at the white line. But that last tap on her brakes must have happened just as the tires hit a patch of ice, because the car had slid forward a foot or two before coming to a complete stop.
And she knew that her passenger side rearview mirror was cracked. Some idiot parking his car must have clipped the mirror the night before, but the dealership said they had to order the part since her Jeep was so old, and it wouldn’t be in until Monday. She couldn’t work without her car.
It just seemed so unfair that she hadn’t done anything wrong and was in all this trouble anyway. When she tried to explain that to the officer, he’d flashed a palm in her face to stop her monologue. “Yeah, yeah, yeah. You can tell your side of it in court, lady.”
Now he was sitting in his cruiser, parked behind her, and she was too nervous