Janet Evanovich - Foul Play

“Kitty, kitty, kitty,” he said. Motley continued to howl. Jake saw a light flash on in the hall and a dark figure shuffle out of the shadows.

Amy scratched her head with both hands, yawned, and stretched. “Motley, you’re going to wake up the whole neighborhood. How can anybody sleep with this racket going… Ehhhhhh !” she screamed. There was someone on her porch! He was awful. Huge and crazy looking and… It was Jake.

She slumped against the wall and put her hand over her heart. “It’s the big one,” she said. “Heart attack city.” She opened the sliding door and pulled Jake inside. “What the devil are you doing out there? You scared me half to death.”

“I… um, I came for breakfast. I tried to make an egg, but it stuck to the pan.”

Amy cocked an eye at him. “Breakfast? Are you kidding me?”

“Okay, so I was worried. And lonely.” He stuffed his hands into his pockets and grinned his most endearing grin. “And hungry.”

Hungry she could believe. He was looking at her as if she were the last jelly doughnut in the world. “Jake, the sun will be coming up in half an hour. How are you going to get out of here?”

“Simple. Once you leave, they’ll leave. Then I leave.”

“And you want to waste time having breakfast?”

Jake removed his tie and followed her into the bedroom. What a strumpet, he thought happily. She wore a pale-pink-satin shirt-type nightgown that was rolled at the elbow and slit up the side with matching panties under the shirt. The sort with wide flared legs, like shorts. The sort you could reach your hand into with no trouble at all. The sort you’d strain your eyeballs trying to get a peek into.

He quickly stripped and slid between sheets that were still warm from her body and subtly fragrant with perfume and shampoo. Amy straddled him, resting her silky bottom on his thighs. She slowly unbuttoned her shirt, letting it hang loose while she leaned forward to kiss him. He reached for her and she retreated, laughing.

“Tease,” he said huskily.

“You ain’t seen nothing, yet.”

They lay together for a long time afterward in silent affection. Amy was the first to speak. “I’m going to be late for work,” she said softly.

“Maybe your boss will give you the day off.”

She sat up and stretched luxuriously. “I don’t think so. He’s a terrible slavedriver. Work, work, work.”

Jake slapped at her bare bottom, but missed, as she headed for the shower. “Do I get to share a shower with you?”

“Definitely not. I know about your showers. You can use the upstairs bathroom.” She washed quickly, towel-dried her hair, and shook her head to fluff her curls. She decided on black cotton slacks and a bright yellow knit shirt, dusted a hint of blush on her cheekbones, and swiped at her eyelashes with the mascara wand.

“Perfect,” she said to her reflection in the bedroom mirror. “The guys in the van couldn’t possibly miss this shirt.”

She had coffee brewed and an omelet browned to perfection when Jake entered the kitchen. They sat opposite each other at the little table.

Jake cleared his throat and tapped his fork on his coffee mug to the tune of “Yankee Doodle.” He’d reached a decision while he was in the shower. He was going to ask her to marry him. He couldn’t manage another sleepless night. Besides, they’d known each other for five days. That seemed like a respectable amount of time. It wasn’t as if they were rushing into anything.

“Amy,” he began.

Amy looked at him over the rim of her teacup.

“Amy…” He wondered if a breakfast table was romantic enough. He wanted to do this right. After all, proposing to a woman wasn’t an everyday occurrence. Someday they would be telling their children about this. He could just hear it. Amy would lower her voice conspiratorially and say to their daughter, “… it was so romantic. Your father swept me off my feet at the breakfast table.”

Jake added salt to his coffee and stirred it with his fork.

Amy’s eyes widened as she watched this. Premature dementia, she thought. Probably brought on by too much sex. Maybe his tie was too tight, cutting off the oxygen to his brain.

He leaned forward and took her hand.

“Amy…” Lord, what if she turned him down? It was possible. She was a goddess, and he was just an out-of-shape veterinarian who lost chickens. He didn’t even have a decent car. Probably he was going bald and no one had told him. Baldness was one of those things everyone knew but the baldee, because it crept up on you from behind, starting with a small shiny patch of skin on the top of your head. And he thought he detected the beginnings of a paunch this morning. He shook his head sadly. She’d never marry him. Never in a million years. “Amy…”

“Yes?” Amy shouted.

Jake stared at her for a moment, then let out a whoosh of breath. “I was afraid you’d say no.”

Amy blinked at him. “I don’t think I heard the question.”

“Didn’t I ask you to marry me?”

“Was that what you were trying to do?” Amy said, trying to suppress the laughter.

“Did I do it all right? Was it romantic enough?”

Amy nodded. “It was wonderful. I was just distracted for a moment because your tie is hanging in your coffee.”

Jake looked down, a horrified expression registering in his eyes.

Amy gently lifted the tie and blotted the tip with a paper towel. How could she not love a man who proposed with his tie floating in his coffee? It was… real.

The twenty-minute men had followed Amy, just as Jake had predicted. She could see them through the window in the clinic waiting room. They were sitting in their van, drinking soda, doing crossword puzzles. Creepy, Amy thought. She was living in a goldfish bowl. She had weasely little men following her around, waiting for her to say the wrong thing, waiting for her to make the wrong move. A shiver ran down her spine. Definitely creepy.

She watched Jake come chugging into the lot and breathed a sigh of relief. Jake, the trusty dispeller of gloom and doom. The knight of the breakfast table. Slayer of dragons and rude newsmen.

Her hero coasted to a stop beside the van.

His maroon jeep-thing shuddered violently, backfired, and settled down to a brooding, sullen silence.

Mrs. Boyd jumped from her seat in the waiting area. “What was that? Was that a gunshot?”

Amy sent her a crooked smile. “That was Dr. Elliott. His car backfired.”

“Oh yes,” Mrs. Boyd said. “I’d forgotten about his car.”

Jake came whistling into the office with Spot in tow, a new tie dangling from the collar of his button-down shirt and the morning paper under his arm.

“Good morning,” he said to Mrs. Boyd and her cat, Sarah. “Good morning, Amy,” he said, plopping the paper on her desk and planting a big smackeroo kiss on her surprised lips.

“We’re engaged,” he explained to Mrs. Boyd. “We’re getting married soon. Maybe this afternoon, if we get a cancellation.”

Mrs. Boyd smiled her approval.

“Do we have any cancellations?” Jake asked Amy.

Amy wasn’t able to share his enthusiasm. An uneasy feeling was prickling at the nape of her neck, and there was a leaden depression settling in the pit of her stomach.

“We’ve had four cancellations,” she whispered, turning her back to Mrs. Boyd. “All from people who were bringing their animals in for surgery that would require boarding.”

Jake raised his eyebrows in question.

“One woman asked if we’d seen the morning paper. She sounded sort of… huffy.”

Jake unfolded the paper on Amy’s desk and began turning pages. “Omigod.”