Tina Wainscott - Driven To Distraction

At least in theory.

Normally, his theories were sound. What he hadn’t factored in was the woman next door. Yesterday, he took his files and laptop computer onto the back porch after his morning jog to enjoy the gorgeous fall weather. Maybe reward himself with a dip in the small pool in the backyard if he were particularly productive. The yard was small and private, surrounded by thick, tall hedges. He settled in to work, fingers poised above the keyboard.

That’s when her voice had floated through the hedge that separated their yards. He couldn’t see into her yard to verify, but she had to be an older person. Yet her voice had a young, provocative sound to it. He didn’t know why it had caught his attention. He usually immersed himself in a project and didn’t come up for hours. He was utterly embarrassed at the stirrings in his body. Come on, it was a voice, for Pete’s sake!

He had tried to ignore her when she called to her husband. Then she crooned about how handsome he was despite the fact that he apparently drooled a bit. But Barrett got completely off track when she said, “Would you stop licking me, Frankie? I swear you’ve got the biggest tongue I’ve ever seen.”

Mental images like that he did not need. He’d gone inside.

Early that evening he’d taken a break and eaten his TV dinner on the porch. Again, her voice floated through the hedge. “George, did you fart again? Holy stink bombs, honey, no more beef Stroganoff for you! I don’t care how much you beg. And I know how much you love to beg.”

George? Wasn’t she with Frankie earlier? Was he staying next to a senior citizen floozy? For a moment, he actually felt a spark of curiosity, an urge to peek through that hole in the hedge and see who this woman was. But that kind of nosy curiosity was impractical, at least outside his research. It didn’t serve much purpose in the real world.

Not that he could claim to be part of the real world in any sense. He’d been raised by his father, the man from whom he’d inherited his one-hundred-eighty-five IQ. His mother had gotten bored with her scientist husband and his scientist friends and even having a son who was smarter than she was by the time he was twelve. So she’d taken his sister, Kim, and moved to West Palm Beach. Barrett and his father moved onto the university campus and, at fifteen, Barrett entered University of Miami’s program. Because he was years younger than his peers, he felt more comfortable hanging out with his father’s contemporaries. Even now, professors and other research scientists were the people he related to best.

“Aw, do you love me? I love you, too,” she crooned, and Barrett thought he heard an answering groan. “Give me some sugar.” She’d giggled, a sound that sent a trill through his stomach. Then she’d squealed. “That tickles!”

He’d gone inside.

This morning she was with Buddy. He hadn’t said much, but the woman was rambling on as though they were old friends. “You’re one big boy. Oh, you want your butt scratched, do you?”

He’d almost gone inside then. The words, “Oh, you like that, don’t you? Mmm,” stopped him. He tried to put an older woman’s face to the voice, but couldn’t.

“Oh, goodie, sit on me, why don’t you?” She made a grunting sound, as though trying to shove the guy off. “Get off me, already! Geez, you weigh a ton!” After sounds of a struggle, she said, “Stop pawing me, you animal!”

It wasn’t his curiosity that finally propelled him to that hole in the hedge. The lady obviously required some assistance. He could tell himself that, anyway.

The hole, unfortunately, wasn’t as deep as it had looked. He had to bend down, stick his head into the gap and push branches aside before he could see into her yard.

The first thing he saw was pink spandex wrapped snuggly around a behind that wasn’t anywhere near octogenarian. He took her in as he would any fascinating specimen—slowly, analyzing each part. White sneakers with pink balls at the ends of the laces, shapely calves, then the pink spandex—forget about the pink spandex—a white tank top and short, brown hair.

“Get off my foot!” she said as she shoved Buddy aside.

Buddy was a large, tan horse dog that was sitting squarely on the woman-who-wasn’t-a-floozy’s foot. And Buddy had no intention of moving…until he spotted something more interesting.

That something more interesting, unfortunately, was Barrett. Buddy stampeded toward the hedge, a string of drool hanging from his sagging lips.

Barrett was at Buddy’s face level. He pulled back, but the hedge had other ideas. It pinned him in place with branches and one well-placed sharp edge against his neck. Buddy screeched to a halt in front of Barrett, some of the drool flying forward and just missing him. The dog was staring at him, its head tilted in utter fascination.

When the woman turned to see what had distracted the dog, she let out a warbled scream. “Oh, my goodness!”

“Get it away!” he said, still trying to extricate himself and wishing he could spontaneously combust.

Buddy had finally figured out how to investigate the head in the bushes, and he did so with a warm, wet tongue. Not to mention the drool, which caught Barrett on the chin. The more Barrett wriggled to free himself, the more entangled he got.

All in all, a fine way to meet the neighbor.

“Buddy, cut it out!” She tugged on the dog’s leash, but he tugged back so hard, she nearly crashed into the bushes. She caught her balance and focused on the dog. “Sit! Sit, now!”

As she wrestled with the horse dog, all Barrett could see was flashes of neon pink that covered curves he shouldn’t be noticing. And he really shouldn’t be feeling some stirring in his body, since he was here to work on his study and nothing more. His body, he realized, was smarter than his brain was. It knew instinctively the voice belonged to an interesting woman. An interesting young woman, at that. He finally extricated himself from the bushes just as she got Buddy under control. He wiped his face with his sleeve, trying not to think about the kinds of bacteria that thrive in a dog’s mouth.

“Sorry about that,” she said, though he should have been the one apologizing and she should have been much less charitable toward the man who’d been peeking through her hedge. She ducked down to the level of the hole, and he forgot about everything but how cute her face looked framed in shiny green leaves. “You must be the supersmart scientist dude who’s working on some important study on frogs. I’m Stacy Jenkins.”

And even more amazingly, she slid her hand through the hole. It took him a moment to realize she wanted to shake his hand. He’d been too busy noticing the elegant lines of her fingers and the spots of bright pink on her short nails.

He took her hand in his and returned her firm handshake. Her hand was soft and warm, and a sensual feeling slithered through his body. What came out of his mouth was, “Tree snails.”

“Pardon?”

“I’m tree snails.” He blinked. Get a handle on yourself, man. You’ve met attractive women before and had the wherewithal to introduce yourself properly. “I mean, you said frogs, but I’m studying tree snails.” The feel of her hand in his, plus the awkwardness of the whole situation, made him lose his train of thought. This never happened. “I’m Barrett Wheeler. I want to apologize for—”

“Peeking through the bushes at me?” she offered cheerily, extricating her hand and ducking to peer through the hole. “Gene does it all the time.”

“He does?”

“Just to be neighborly, to say hi.”

He couldn’t help notice the hint of cleavage showing above a tank top that hugged small, firm breasts and thought, Fat chance he was just being neighborly. Since he wasn’t exactly in a position to comment, however, he let it drop. “So Frankie and George were also dogs?”