let her reprobate of a dog run loose to do as he pleased?
He fixed her with a hard look. “Keep your dog out of my yard, okay?”
She set the dachshund on the ground and brushed fur off her body-hugging top. “It takes two to tango, you know. I bet Mr. Smith didn’t go where he wasn’t wanted.”
He opened his mouth to respond, then realized he was one riposte away from a schoolyard squabble. He released his grip on the fence and dropped to the ground.
“Keep an eye on your dog,” he said as he walked away.
The only response was silence, but he could practically hear her grinding her teeth. Good. She’d made him grind his teeth more than once in the past twenty-four hours. Turnabout was fair play.
Strudel once again shadowed his every move as he patched the last gap in the fence, taking every opportunity to lick his hand or rub up against his leg.
“Don’t go sucking up. You barely know the guy. A little bit of restraint wouldn’t have gone astray.”
Strudel eyed him uncomprehendingly and he reached out to scratch her behind her ear. How could he resist that face?
Once he’d finished with the fence, he dragged the ladder out of the shed and inspected the gutters. Sure enough, they were full of leaves and silt and he worked his way around the house, scooping dead leaves and who-knew-what-else out from the gutters. It was a disgusting, messy, smelly job, and by the time he’d reached the front of the house he was well and truly over it. He glanced at Mackenzie’s house as he cleared out the corner nearest her property, wondering if she’d heard the storm warning.
For a few seconds he toyed with the idea of passing on the information, then he remembered the superior way she’d looked down her nose at him while blaming Strudel for her dog’s bad behavior. He was all out of favors where she was concerned.
Once he’d finished the gutters, he checked the downpipes, then cleared the drain that ran across the top of the driveway. Both his and Mackenzie’s properties were on a slight slope, the street being higher than the house. If there was water runoff coming his way, he wanted to be sure it had somewhere to go, other than into his house.
He was putting the ladder away when the heavens opened, rain sheeting from the sky so intensely it stung when it hit his arms and face. Strudel at his heels, he bolted for the house. It wasn’t until he was washing off the dirt beneath a hot shower that he registered that he hadn’t thought about Edie or Nick once all day.
A new record.
Maybe walking away from everything and driving a thousand kilometers south hadn’t been such a crazy idea after all.
* * *
MACKENZIE HAD PLANNED to take Mr. Smith for a walk along the beach that afternoon, but the weather had different ideas. Instead, she spent some time online checking out the various chat groups and fan sites for Time and Again. She liked to dip her toe in occasionally to take the temperature and see how viewers were responding to the show. The uneasy feeling that had sat in her gut since her conversation with Gordon yesterday intensified as she read excited posts from die-hard fans. According to them, the past few months had been some of the best in the show’s history. Dramatic, exciting, romantic, funny...
It was hyperbole, written by fervent, biased fans. But it still made her feel edgy. She recorded the show religiously every night but hadn’t caught up with her viewing for a few days. Since she was on a roll with the self-torturing thing, she watched three episodes in a row. Every time something caught her attention—a change in the lighting, some alterations to a set, the thrust of a storyline—she stopped and reviewed the footage. Two hours later, she’d bitten her thumbnail down to the quick and the edgy feeling had become full-fledged anxiety.
Gordon was right. Philip was doing a good job. Possibly even a great job. She’d been aware of it before, of course—God, she’d even been foolish enough to be relieved that the show was in such good hands—but she hadn’t consciously registered how good his work was.
She stared at the darkened TV screen, rain slashing at the windows, Mr. Smith snoring at her feet. If Philip held out for a longer contract, the production company would be crazy not to give it to him. She’d