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“Ears?” Alex followed the women inside.
Mia shut the door before answering. “Mrs. Harper, she lives next door. I swear, if there’s even the slightest hint of a rumor, that woman can hear it from half a mile away. Which is why I don’t like to give her reason to get her bat ears perked up.”
“Aw, you gotta throw her a bone once in a while, Mi,” Del said. “Margaret lives to chase a good story down.”
“Hey, Mom? I got the bathroom finished. You should have seen thehugespi—” Brooklyn froze one step out of a nearby hallway, her cheeks pinkening.
“Please tell me you got it,” Mia said. Brooklyn nodded, still wary. “Good deal. Now, Brooklyn, this is Alex. Alex, this is my daughter, Brooklyn. Del, you already know. And spidey, well, it sounds like he’s probably sleeping with the fishes now.”
Alex may not have had any kids of his own, but he had a handful of cousins up near Chicago with kids ranging from twenty-eight to six months. Usually, he saw the whole gang only at weddings or baptisms or summer cookouts. It wasn’t often, but if there was one thing he’d picked up from being around his large, extended family, it was that teens today did not like to be put on the spot. Or to get pulled into long conversations with strangers.
“Heya, Brooklyn,” he said with a tip of his chin.
Her cheeks darkened further but the wariness dimmed. “Hey.”
Del excused herself, claiming to need to get up early for work the next day. Maybe she really did, but the wink she gave Alex as she left implied her bigger reason was handing over the reins for Operation: Imaginary Bambi. As he watched the door close behind her, Alex knew this was it, his time to shine. To be charming, suave, and—
“Is that another spider?!” he cried, scrambling to climb the first step of the staircase just past the front door.
Mia smirked as she took off one shoe and splattered the leggy invader. “You do realize spiders can climb stairs, right?”
He stepped back onto the ground level, leaning away from the staircase. “Oh, a-are there more upstairs?”
She and Brooklyn exchanged a grin. “Tough to say. We tend to see them more down here because they hide in the firewood pile. Lucky for you, there’s no fireplace on the second floor.”
Alex’s gaze shifted to the unlit fireplace. If they started a fire now, would it burn all the other spiders away or draw them closer to the warmth? Maybe the best option was to just burn the entire house to the ground, to make sure they got them all.
“Of course, if you’re worried more might appear, I can always drive you into Warsaw and find you a nice, bug-free hotel room.”
“No. No, I’m good,” he said, more to himself than anyone. “It’s all good.”
Damn, of all the things this house had to have, it was spiders.
“All right. But if you should change your mind, just let me know.” She winked. “How about I give you the grand tour? If we’re lucky, the rest will be spider-free.”
Alex smoothed his sweaty palms over each thigh.Stupid spiders.Yet another minor detail Del managed to leave out of her story. Was this already Karma starting to bite him in the rear?
Well, too bad, Karma, because I’m not giving up on winning her over yet.
He offered Mia the best, non-panicked smile he could muster. “Let’s do this.”
Chapter Four
Mia led Alexon an abbreviated tour of the house, which basically meant showing him everything except her and Brooklyn’s bedrooms. She felt it wise to avoid that end of the first floor. Still working to get over her past hurts or not, the man smelled delicious, spicy with a hint of cloves. He also looked delicious. It was a dangerous combination to resist, but resist she must. What would the town say if one of their elementary school teachers had a fling with some random out-of-towner?
Then again, it wasn’t like Alex was a complete stranger; she just had a seventeen-year gap in her knowledge about him. If he was going to be staying with them, it would probably be a good idea to get to know the new him a little better. Plus, questions would make for polite conversation. That sounded much more forgiving than what she really wanted to ask him:
What the hell had gotten into him the day their friendship imploded?
“So, do you still live in Indy?” she asked, pausing the tour in her kitchen to give him a moment to look around.
“I do,” Alex said. “Well, that’s my mailing address, anyway. I’ve spent a lot of time on the road the past five years. During the warmer months, I think I sleep in hotel rooms more than my own bed.”
“That sounds miserable.”
He shrugged. “It’s part of the job.”
“For your writing?”
