course. Too many people made snap judgements and I was tired of landing on the wrong side of that line.
For as much spark as she had, standing on that porch and threatening me like she meant it, she also proved herself to be completely typical. So I was dressed in black from head to toe and sneaking through a stranger’s yard—
“EARTH TO JOE.” Lucas used his Marine voice, inflicting permanent damage on my eardrum.
“You can’t see me right now, but I’m flipping you the bird.” I held the phone away from my face, gleefully grinning at my friend’s photo as I lifted my favorite finger.
The second time I came to Maxine Monroe’s house, I pulled into the driveway like a normal person. The Tushy Tickler watered flowers next door, catching my eyes and making an oddly sensual gesture with the hose.
Or maybe that was my imagination.
Please tell me it was my imagination.
I lifted a cautious hand and skedaddled up the stairs, hopping over the squeaky one. Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice? I guess you’d have to call me Penny Dreadful, then, seeing how she’d stepped on that stair twice in five minutes.
Last night, I’d laughed over the way she shrieked at the step more times than any decent human should. I’d even told Lucas about it over drinks. “She just stared and said ‘every time’ like she knew she was an idiot for stepping on it. Did I tell you her hair was the color of an old penny?”
He hadn’t been quite as amused as I’d been. I guess you had to be there.
I rapped my fist against the door. It rattled in a series of aftershocks that had me stepping back in case the whole structure collapsed. Maybe I’d been a tad too confident in my abilities, after all. The deadbolt ka-thunked out of place and the door ground open.
I’d drawn a picture of Maxine Monroe in my head. Helpless old lady. Voluminous floral mumu skating over her feet. A tuft of white curls. Kind eyes. Paper-thin skin and house slippers hissing along the floor.
The woman standing in front of me was not that.
At all.
She wore carpenter jeans rolled up at the ankle to show off trendy boots. Shoulder length gray hair sported a streak of purple sticking out behind her ear. Tortoise shell glasses perched on her nose, accenting warm brown eyes that skimmed over my face and body.
“That’s the one, Maxine!” Tushy Tickler called from her yard. “I was right, wasn’t I? He’s too tasty for a life of crime!”
In any other situation, I’d tell that woman exactly where she could go, but she had me by the balls. For one, she fell squarely into my soft spot zone, even if she was a horndog. And for two, I was already reeling from misjudging my future employer so completely. I held out my hand. “Tasty Joe Channing, at your service.”
“Maxine Monroe.” Her grip was firm and her smile genuine. “I’m sorry about Delores. She should come with a warning label. Come in and we can get down to business.” Maxine closed the door behind me, ramming it with her shoulder as she wrestled with the deadbolt. “If I don’t lock it up, the damn thing just swings open whenever it feels like.” She gave one last heave, then stepped back with a decisive nod.
For as non-helpless as its occupant appeared, the house was in surprisingly bad shape. My brain kept adding one plus one and coming up with fourteen. How could someone with full use of her faculties and the fashion sense of a twenty-something let her house fall down around her?
“Cookie?” Maxine held out a plate of baked goods burned into submission. The chocolate chips…? Raisins…? The brown bits looked like they’d crack a tooth.
I shoved my hands in my back pockets. “I had a big breakfast.”
“Wise choice. I thought they’d help me fit into the ‘sweet old lady’ category and play on your sympathies.” She put the plate down on a coffee table. One of the cookies slipped off the plate and clonked to the floor. It didn’t bounce. It didn’t roll. It didn’t so much as lose a crumb.
Maxine glanced from the cookie to me, quirking her head. “It’s not working, is it?”
“Not for a second.”
I already liked the woman. A lot.
“I’m assuming you were here yesterday to see what you’re getting yourself into, but just in case everything they say about strangers from the internet is true, you should