High Noon Page 0,97

realize he had ambitions and could start to act on them.

She'd always had ambitions, many of them very specific. And had made good on most. She doubted she could stay interested in a man for very long, regardless of how good he was against the door, if he didn't have goals and purposes.

But really, how much did she know about Duncan's goals and purposes? Bars, a shop in the planning stages. Considering the depth of the well, those were fairly small drops. What else did he do? What else did he want? Where else was he going?

And there she was, she thought with a sigh, picking things apart. Pinching folds of the cloth and trying to make it form into a shape she liked or could work with.

It was a quality that made her a good negotiator, she admitted, and one that probably had a lot to do with her crappy-until recentlylove life.

So why not just go with it? Just let it flow instead of trying to direct the stream? Not the easiest thing for her to do, but she could work on it.

He'd come to dinner on Thursday. Maybe they'd take that evening sail sometime soon. They'd see each other, enjoy each other and, please, God, have more really good sex. And just see.

Just see.

When she pulled up in front of the house, she doubted she could feel much better. She'd peek in on Carly, who had better be fast asleep, then maybe she'd take a pitcher of tea upstairs and see if she could have a little girl time with her mother and Ava.

Humming, she locked the car, started across the sidewalk.

And nearly jumped out of her shoes. She barely managed to muffle her own squeal-and squeal was the only word for it. Cop or not, she was still a damn girl. Any girl might squeal when she saw a two-foot snake draped across her front steps.

Probably rubber, she told herself as she thumped a hand on her heart to get it going again. Probably one of the neighborhood boys playing a nasty boy prank on the houseful of females.

That smart-aleck Johnnie Porter around the corner on Abercornthis was right up his alley. They were going to have words, she and Johnnie were. Some very stern words the first thing in...

Not rubber, she realized as she edged closer. Not some play snake from the toy shop. It was real, nearly as thick as her wrist, and though she wasn't in a position to take its pulse or call the coroner, it appeared to be very dead.

Maybe it was just sleeping.

Standing a foot back now, she dragged a hand through her hair, kept her eyes on the snake in case it moved. Dead or alive, she couldn't just leave it there. Dead it was, well, unsightly and just plain awful. Alive, it might wake up and slither off, anywhere. Even inside the house. The very idea of that had her dashing back to her car. Her head swiveled back and forth between the snake and the trunk she popped.

She actively wished she was wearing her weapon, though she wasn't entirely sure, should it make a slither for it, she was keen-eyed or steadyhanded enough to hit it.

"Going to the firing range," she muttered as she grabbed her umbrella out of the trunk. "Going to the range, get some practice in. I've neglected that. Oh God, oh hell. I so seriously don't want to do this." And what choice was there? Run to a neighbor, yank out her cell phone and call Carter. Come get the dead or sleeping snake off the front steps, would you? Thanks so much. God. God.

She kept swallowing as she inched forward, then with eyes squeezed half shut, poked at the snake with the tip of her umbrella.

The squeal almost got the better of her this time. She jumped back, heart cartwheeling. It lay still, the ugly black thing. After two more pokes, she officially pronounced it dead.

"All right, all right now. Just do it. Don't think about it. J u's't... Oh, oh, oh!"

She slipped the end of the umbrella under the body, fighting to keep her arms steady enough to balance the limp droop of it. She dropped it twice, cursing each time and dancing back as if she'd stepped on hot coals. Fireplace tongs would be better, she realized, but if she went into the house to get them, she might just stay there.

She managed to get it around to the side gate