There were far worse places to raise a child, she’d decided. Channing Square was a neighborhood in every sense of the word. It was like a small town where the residents all knew one another, worked together, and looked out for their neighbors’ safety and well-being. If the crime rate hadn’t come down quite as far as she would have preferred, that problem ought to be remedied somewhat in the future by the Cop on the Block program.
When the moving van turned onto Kassing, Melanie smiled and made a little thumbs-up sign. All right! Now if it just stopped at the rattrap of a house next door to hers, the house everyone feared was destined to be the last to ever be renovated, her day would be complete. No, her next several years would be complete without the constant worry of living next door to an abandoned Victorian nightmare.
The van’s brake lights flared once more just before the driver signaled he was pulling over to park in front of the big red brick place at 1224 Kassing Avenue. Melanie waved cheerfully as she passed by to turn into her driveway at 1222.
Life was good. It was very, very good. Come Monday, it would be just about perfect.
The tradition in Channing Square was to welcome new residents as soon as possible with a small gift, usually something edible and preferably homemade. Being the soul of organization that she was, Melanie kept a stash of her buttermilk blueberry muffins in the freezer for just such an occasion, so she picked out half a dozen, tied quick blue ribbons on each one, and arranged them in a wicker basket with a blue-and-white checked napkin.
“Eat your heart out, Martha Stewart,” she thought as she trotted down her front steps, then followed two men and a king-size mattress up the steps and through the front door of 1224.
What a mess! With some of the windows still boarded, it was dark inside but still light enough to see that the place was a shambles. In what had once been a grand front parlor to her right, she couldn’t tell the pattern on the ancient wallpaper for all the dirt and water stains. A great hole gaped in the wall where a marble fireplace had once been. There was mold growing across the ceiling and trash—a Dumpster’s worth—all over the floor.
Her new neighbors certainly had their work cut out for them. Up until that moment her excitement had pretty much been confined to the sale of the property alone. But now Melanie actually started thinking about the neighbors themselves. She wondered if they had children. Her perfect world might become even more so if one or two potential baby-sitters moved in right next door, or even better, future playmates. A smile crossed her lips as she imagined a little girl calling, “Mom, I’m going next door to play with Alexis” or a little boy yelling across the yard, “Hey, Alex. Wanna ride bikes?”
She glanced around in the hope of seeing the people who would undoubtedly come to play such a huge role in her life. She’d feed their children peanut butter and jelly sandwiches with carrot sticks. Maybe she’d sit with them in little chairs at the kindergarten Christmas program. Maybe her daughter would marry the boy next door. All of a sudden, instead of welcoming new neighbors, she felt as if she were about to greet her future.
“Excuse me, lady,” somebody said behind her. Melanie stepped aside to let two men and a big-screen TV pass by.
“Is the owner around?” she asked.
“I think he’s in the kitchen,” one of the men said.
Assuming the kitchen was at the back of the house, Melanie picked her way carefully down the dark, garbage-strewn hallway. Her nose identified dust and mold along with countless other odors she didn’t even want to name. What a rattrap. If something small and furry skittered across one of her feet, she was going to toss her welcoming basket of goodies in the general direction of the kitchen and make a beeline for the front door.
If she’d had any sense she would have changed into her sneakers rather than wear the new pair of black Ferragamo pumps she’d worn to work that day. The soles kept sticking to the floor as she walked, and she could only hope it was bubble gum that she’d have to be cleaning off later. A little shiver of ickiness ran down her spine.
“Hello?” she called out. “Anybody home?”
When no one answered, Melanie decided she’d leave her welcome basket with a note saying she’d drop by tomorrow. She stepped through a doorway into a kitchen that was quite a bit brighter than the rest of the house and not nearly as trashed. There was a man standing at the sink, drinking from the plastic top of a thermos. His back was to her so all she could see was longish hair, a pair of wide shoulders, and the lovely hug of faded denim over one truly great male butt.
How come whenever she hired moving men they always turned out to be thugs with crew cuts and beer bellies rather than pure hunks like this guy? She was making a mental note to get the name and number of the moving company from the side of the van when the hunk at the sink slowly turned around.
Melanie made a little strangling sound deep in her throat, then gasped, “Oh, my God!”
He cocked his head, setting that killer grin of his on a sexy, almost perilous slant. “Hello, darlin’.”
“What the hell do you think you’re doing here, Sonny?”
“I live here, Mel. I’m the new Cop on the Block.” His gorgeous blue-one-minute, green-the-next gaze strayed to the basket of muffins in her hands. “Are those for me?”
Chapter 2
It was a good thing Sonny Randle had quick reflexes, otherwise he’d have a shiner the size of Oregon thanks to the rocklike frozen muffin his ex-wife had hurled at him just before she’d turned and fled the kitchen.
He ignored the slight tremor in his hand as he re-filled the red plastic cap of his thermos and stood at the sink sipping his lukewarm coffee and watching Mel storm across her driveway and back into her house. A moment later, one by one, he watched the interior shutters on the south side of the house snap closed.
Okay. No surprise there. It was exactly what he’d expected. The muffin had been unanticipated, however. Actually, he was probably lucky that she’d thrown a muffin at him instead of a brick.
Suddenly one of her shutters opened a fraction, just enough for Sonny to discern her silhouette as she peeked out. He couldn’t see her face, but he knew her eyes were giving off hot blue sparks and she was grinding her teeth and clenching her fists, already making a mental list—complete with Roman numerals and subheadings—of what she was going to do to get rid of the menace next door.
He smiled and lifted his hand in a friendly little wave, then watched the shutter snap closed again.
You can run, babe, and you can hide, but it’s not going to do you any damned good. Now that I know what I did wrong, I know how to do this right. And we’re so right, Mel. You and I.
“Hey, Lieutenant,” a voice called from the hallway. “Where do you want this couch?”
“Be right there.”
Sonny drained the last of his coffee and screwed the cap back on the thermos without taking his eyes off the battened-down house next door. Right about now Melanie would be wound in a tight little ball in the corner of her own couch, her long legs tucked beneath her and her soft, shiny hair hooked firmly behind her ears and her lower lip wedged between her teeth while she took pen in hand to compose her battle plan.
The siege had officially begun.
Number One on her list was calling city hall, but that proved to be useless on a Friday at almost six o’clock when everyone had gone home. Melanie swore as she slammed the receiver back into its cradle, then looked at her list again because she was so upset she’d forgotten what Number Two was.
Right. Call Mike Kaczinski, Sonny’s partner, to see just what the hell her ex-husband was up to. She didn’t believe for one millisecond that he had taken out a loan, low-cost or otherwise, to buy the place next door. Cop on the Block, her aunt Fanny’s sweet behind! Lieutenant Sonny Randle not only worked undercover vice, he also ate, slept, and breathed it. What did he want a house for?