His head hurt. His mouth tasted like the bottom of a birdcage, his eyes felt like two burned-out light sockets, and his ears! They rang like the bells of Notre Dame!
No. Not his ears. The doorbell. Someone with a death wish was leaning on it. Reiner peeled one eye open a crack and found himself squinting into full sunlight. Pain shot to the back of his eyeball, and he snapped the lid shut.
Reptilian-like, his eyes opened to mere slits as he raised his head. He was outside, on the chaise, in his boxers. Dropping his head back onto the cushion, he groaned. Ridges imprinted the side of his face, and he had no feeling whatsoever in his left arm. He must have lain on it all night.
The doorbell rang again. He flinched and covered his ears.
His blood-shot eyes passed over, stopped, returned to the scrap of candy-apple-red lace on the bottom of his pool. Thong undies.
Even in his muddle-headedness, he recognized trouble. Slowly, painfully, bits and pieces of the night before returned. Katie Sara... Gina. Oh, boy! He raked his fingers through his hair, head throbbing as the doorbell pealed again...and again...and again.
“All right! Keep your pants on, would you?” He winced. Bad choice of words. Very bad choice. “I’m comin’!”
He opened the slider into the great room and headed toward the offending noise, vowing to rip the head off whoever was there. Catching sight of himself in a mirror the designer had hung in the foyer, he backtracked and swiped some sort of throw-thing from the back of the sofa, wrapping it around himself and tucking in the end. It looked like a damn kilt.
Well, whoever’d come snooping around could just take him as he was. Served them right for waking him up.
Jeez, his head hurt. How many beers had he had last night?
Worse, had he and Gina done the deed? Argh. This was not like him. Despite the reputation he’d garnered, he was actually very careful. Darnedest thing, though. For the life of him, he couldn’t remember much more than the fact that he’d felt half-sick by the time he got home.
He jerked open the door, almost tearing it off its hinges. “What do you want?”
Auntie Belham’s mouth dropped open, and her diamond-and-platinum-adorned finger stilled over the doorbell. Ivan the Terrible, the white Maltese prancing around her feet, started yapping.
“And they think I’m a freak.” This came from the creature beside her, dressed entirely in black, ears and nose pierced, her short, spiked hair flaming red with a swath of vivid violet down one side. From her hand swung a cage containing a hideous, hairy, white-and-black creature.
“Oh, shit.”
“Watch your mouth.” Auntie Belham, five-foot-three and slightly overweight, was herself a sight straight off Blackwell’s worst-dressed list in a flowery skirt and a blue and white striped pullover. She’d pinned a huge blue crystal starfish-looking thing to the top. Red high heels and belt completed her fashion statement.
A nightmare.
She bulldozed her way past him.
Panicked, he stepped in front of her. “I thought you were coming this afternoon.”
She ignored him. “Come along, Felicity. Uncle Reiner will bring your things in later.”
“Wait.” Reiner held out his hands, his mind racing. “I haven’t had time to shop yet.” He shot them a lopsided grin. “The cupboard’s bare. How about I treat you two beautiful ladies to breakfast? Why don’t you go on ahead to the Egg Basket, give me a few minutes to, ah, get dressed, and I’ll meet you there.”
Auntie Belham tipped her head, then narrowed her eyes. She leaned toward him, but quickly backed up, holding her breath. “Out with the boys last night? I assume Tim and Rocco took part in this. Did the three of you leave any alcohol in the bars, or is Paradox now a dry town?”
He opened his mouth.
She shook her head. “Felicity, I think I left my keys in the car. Would you go check, please?”
“Sure. I’ll leave Shiner here.” With a glare toward her uncle, she set down the cage. “And he’s a hamster, not a rat.”
“Same difference,” Reiner muttered.
“Is not,” she answered as she started down the walk. A few steps away, his niece pivoted and threw Reiner a devilish grin. “Boy, are you in for it.”
He scowled at her.
“The keys are a ploy to get rid of me while she nails you to the wall. Believe you me, she’s good at it. I ought to know.”
Hands on her hips, the girl’s great-aunt turned toward her, and Felicity scooted down the walk as though shot from a cannon.
The minute she was out of earshot, Auntie Belham rounded on him. “Do you have a woman in this house, Reiner Hewett Broderick?”
“No!” Jeez, did he? He honestly wasn’t sure. Sweat trickled between his shoulder blades and down his bare back. He had a pair of red panties in his pool. Had Gina gone home without them, or was she somewhere in the house?
His eyes must have given him away.
“You do!”
“I...”
She stood in the middle of the great room and called out, “Ollie, ollie oxen free. Come out, come out, wherever you are. Playtime’s over, Sleeping Beauty.”
With a moan, Reiner dropped onto a loveseat and covered his head with his hands. “Master bedroom’s to the left.”
“Don’t be cute.”
“Just tryin’ to be helpful.”
He listened as she disappeared in the direction of his bedroom, the room he certainly hadn’t slept in last night. He held his breath. What would she find in there?
When she came out empty-handed, he exhaled loudly. “The only other bedroom is Felicity’s. Off the kitchen to the right.” He nodded his head in that direction, grabbed it quickly and groaned.
“You wouldn’t dare.”
“No, I wouldn’t, and I didn’t.” He could only pray Gina hadn’t.
Belhamina stormed off to look anyway.
When she returned to stand over him, he asked, “Wanna check the basement?”
“No, I do not. I’m too old for this.”
He snorted. “Admit it. You love it! They ought to send you over to the Middle East. If they put you in charge of things, the war’d be over in a day. Two, max. You’d have both sides runnin’ for cover.”
Refusing to be diverted, Auntie Belham tapped her foot. “Where is she?”
Reiner didn’t get up, didn’t even raise his head. Instead, he stared at the open toes of his aunt’s red shoes and the toenails she’d painted the same shade.
“Who?” he asked.
“I don’t suppose it was Katie Sara.”
“Unh!” He knuckled his eyes. “For God’s sake, I’m tired. I’m hung over. My head aches.”
“Who was she?”
Ivan, his Atlanta Braves ball cap askew, jumped up and licked Reiner’s face, exhaling doggie breath at close range, and he fought with his stomach.
“Ahhh.” He swiped at his cheek. “Go away, Ivan. Bad dog.”
“He’s not a bad dog. He is, however, showing considerably bad taste concerning with whom he chooses to consort at the moment.”
“Consort?” His head jerked up. “Jeez,” he grumbled, “You make it sound like—”
“What? Like you might ask him to spend the night next? Jocks!” Ignoring his look of outrage, she repeated, “Who was she?”
“You don’t want to know.”
“I probably don’t. But she’s gone?”
He sighed. “I think so. You checked the bedrooms.”
“You don’t—Reiner, even for you that’s—”
“I agree.” He held up his hands in surrender and met her eyes, knowing she read him like a book. She always had. “Look, last night was... Let’s just say it wasn’t a good night. Katie Sara and I—”
“So, it was her?”
“No.”
She frowned. “But you saw her?”
“Oh, yeah.”
“And?”
“Lots of thunder and lightnin’. It didn’t quite come to fisticuffs, but it was one hell...sorry, one heck of a storm. A few angry words, some nasty insults hurled at each other. She warned me to stay away from her, and if I’m smart, I’ll do exactly that.” A muscle twitched in his jaw.
“You drowned your sorrow in a keg and another woman.”
“It wasn’t like that,” he lied.
“Can I come in yet?” Felicity called from the front door.
“No,” they answered in unison.
Ivan the Terrible ran to her, dancing in circles, and she scooped him up.
“Well, then, can I go around back? Check out the pool?”
“No!” Reiner spurted off the couch. “Absolutely not!”
Head angled, Auntie Belham studied him.
“They’re, ah, still finishing a couple things back there. It might not be safe. The workers should, ah, finish up this afternoon.”
Belhamina started for the pool, her heels clicking on the hard wood floor.
“Auntie Belham, no! Wait!” He grabbed for her arm, but no running back had ever better outmaneuvered a linebacker.
Three steps onto the pool deck, she stopped, staring into the cool blue water at the miniscule piece of lingerie.
“It’s not what you think.”
“You’re a mind reader now?”
Heat suffused his face. One hand on his afghan-covered hip, he ran the other through his hair. “I stopped for a beer after my run-in with Katie Sara, okay? A game of pool. Figured it would cool me off. Rocco and Tim came in while I was there.”
“Don’t tell me Rocco was here. Not with that sweet wife and baby. I’ll skin him alive.”
“Rocco?” Horrified, Reiner denied it quickly. “Absolutely not. They went home. Both of them. To their credit, they tried to talk me out of...” He waved toward the pool. “But—my car!”
Gripping the throw with one hand to keep it from sliding off, he ran, barefoot, around the side of the house. No shiny red Corvette parked in the driveway. He held up a hand to block the sun and peered through the garage windows. Empty.
He swore a blue streak. A pair of red panties in exchange for a brand new red ’Vette.
He’d only been in Paradox one day. Just imagine what he could do in two.
Felicity rounded the corner from the backyard, pool net in hand. “Hey, Uncle Reiner, look what I found in the bottom of your pool.”