The Charmer

Callum McKenzie paid the delivery-man and carried the pizza box into the living room. The beer was ready and waiting in the fridge, and he set the pizza within easy reach on the coffee table. The remote control was to hand and the much anticipated football game was starting in five minutes.

Man heaven.

Cal surveyed his little kingdom and found that life was good. He kicked off his shoes and picked up the remote but didn’t turn on the TV. Instead, he scanned the room again. Something wasn’t right…some detail that wouldn’t let him relax…something he had forgotten?

A movement caught his eye, a shimmer of dark brown and cream over by the wall…

‘No!’ With the reflexes of a man who saw his perfect day off disappear before his eyes, Cal dived across the room. His grasping fingers caught the very tip of Jake’s tail but with a contemptuous flick the snake slithered free and disappeared into the hole where the pipes connected beneath the gas fire. Cal pressed his cheek to the carpet, peering upwards in time to see Jake winding himself in a cosy double knot around the gas pipes. Once settled, he looked at Cal with black, unblinking eyes.

‘Come on, snake,’ Cal coaxed. ‘You don’t want to be in there.’

Jake’s flickering tongue and unflinching gaze seemed to suggest otherwise.

At that moment the boiler fired up, a jet of flame licking the tank at the back of the chimney. Jake drew his head back swiftly, a snake strike in reverse. Though Cal didn’t want his brother’s pet hurt, he whooped in relief.

‘Hah! Too hot for you, buddy? Come on out and we won’t mention this to any one.’

Reproachfully Jake unfurled himself and slunk off. Not, unfortunately into Cal’s waiting arms but through a gap in the stone at the back of the chimneybreast.

Cal rolled onto his back, stared up at the ceiling and cursed. He’d lost the snake. Again. Ted was going to kill him. His parting words rang in Cal’s ears, ‘He’s an escape artist and you’re a piss artist. Don’t let him out. Just make sure his hot rock is on and defrost the odd mouse if he looks hungry.’

Problem was, as far as Cal could tell, Jake never looked hungry. What he looked was bored. And who wouldn’t be bored stuck in a glass tank all day? All Cal had done was let him out to stretch his scales, as it were. And then of course he had forgotten all about him.

Last time, they’d had to lift the floorboards. Every single one of them. A story Ted never failed to include at every family gathering.

OK, use logic. Use that analytical mind that made him so good at his job. What was a snake going to do inside the walls of a big old house? Easy. He was going to go looking for heat. Absolutely the hottest place he could find. And as Ted kept his house like an ice bucket he was going to go…next door.

Cal sat up, elbows on knees, and pondered this. That wasn’t as bad as it sounded. His brother’s new neighbour, seen briefly and from a distance, was pretty hot.

Forgetting all about the football he scrambled to his feet.

Carrie found an elastic band and tied her hair back in one of those styles women only used when there was no chance of being seen by anyone who mattered. She hefted the bucket of soapy water out of the sink. People said that you never really felt at home in a new house until you’d given it a good clean, so that’s what she was doing.

Of course, another interpretation was that she was scrubbing cupboards on a Saturday afternoon because she didn’t have a life.

Hearing the as yet unfamiliar sound of her doorbell, she put the bucket down, sloshing water over the kitchen floor. Moriarty, her cat, gave her a baleful look and stalked out of the door. Quickly, Carrie shut him in the living room. Her only friend in this new town, she didn’t want him vanishing out the front door and getting lost.

The man on her doorstep was, well, he was different. On first glance he was drop dead gorgeous. His T-shirt and black jeans covered a fit, well-toned body. But his curling, collar-length hair and the dark stubble on his jaw displayed a lack of grooming that bordered on lazy. Bizarrely, his feet were bare. Hmm. Cute but potentially crazy was her verdict. Erring on the side of caution she surreptitiously wedged her foot behind the door.

‘Can I help you?’ she asked politely.

‘I hope so,’ the man smiled. It was a great smile, a sexy, hundred watt, toe curling smile designed to make any woman with a pulse drop her guard and welcome him into her life. Carrie pressed her foot more firmly against the door. ‘This is a little embarrassing,’ he continued, ‘but I think I may have lost my snake in your chimney.’

Whatever Carrie had been expecting him to say, it wasn’t that. In fact, it wasn’t a sentence she had ever expected anyone to say to her, period.

Crazy, then. Sadly, the best ones so often were. ‘Thank you for telling me,’ she said, nodding sagely, as though he had just shared with her the wisdom of the universe. Still nodding she made to close the door, even going so far as to move her foot. Big mistake. Moving faster than she would have thought possible, his hand shot out and slammed against the wood.

She yelped in shock and jumped back.

Immediately he let go of the door, both hands held up in a placatory gesture.

‘Sorry.’ He sounded horrified. ‘Reflex. People are always trying to close doors on me.’

Carrie remained frozen to the spot. ‘N-no kidding.’

‘No I mean it. I’m a police officer. Detective actually.’ He moved his hand as though to fish out ID but it brushed limply against his T-shirt.

Cal realised he was trying to present some invisible ID from an imaginary jacket. Looking down at himself he noticed his bare feet for the first time. And it was raining. Hell.

He tried again, using his professional smile this time, not his pulling smile. ‘I really am sorry. I live next door…’ Her eyebrows went up and he had to assume she had met Ted. ‘OK, I’m staying next door. And –’

‘ –Your snake’s in my chimney. I heard you. Is that some kind of euphemism?’

‘What? God no.’ Cal felt himself colour at the implication. ‘I’m snake-sitting and I’ve lost the damn snake.’

She was still wary but maybe not so much as before. Hopefully he didn’t look as barmy as he sounded. ‘Snake-sitting? Is that a real thing? Or did you just make it up?’

She was petite, sort of prissy but sexy too with that curly blonde hair piled on top of her head. The yellow rubber gloves were a nice touch.

‘My brother lives next door. He has a snake, and I’m looking after it,’ said Cal with as much dignity as he could muster.

‘A real snake?’

Why was that so hard to believe? ‘Yes, a real snake. He escaped –’ Cal had no trouble bending the truth a little ‘ –and I’m afraid he disappeared into your chimney. Your house presumably is warmer than ours.’

She chewed her lip while she thought about what he had said. Thankfully she seemed to make up her mind about him. ‘It is nice and warm. I’ve got the fire on for Moriarty –’ Her eyes widened in horror and she spun around, racing into the house.

Taking that as an invitation Cal nipped inside, closing the door, enjoying the view of her derri`ere in her tight jeans. She burst into the living room and Cal saw the biggest, fattest cat in the world sprawled in front of a blazing gas fire. The woman scooped up the brute and it swished its tail angrily.

‘Morry, sweetie, are you OK?’ she fussed. The cat wriggled from her arms and spat at Cal as it shot out of the room. The woman looked at Cal reproachfully. ‘It could have eaten him!’

In Cal’s opinion it would have taken an anaconda to eat that cat. ‘Nah,’ he said pragmatically. ‘He eats his prey whole. He couldn’t swallow a cat.’

Her eyes narrowed. ‘How big is this snake?’

‘He’s a python,’ he said reluctantly.

‘A what? What kind of person keeps a python in their house?’

‘My brother. I know, completely irresponsible.’ But then he felt he had to defend Ted. ‘It’s not a very big python.’ Which was true. Royal Pythons weren’t big as pythons went but oddly, people weren’t always reassured by that information.

‘How big?’

How big? Had she any idea how hard it was to measure a snake? Distracted by the interesting things her hands-on-hips reproach was doing to her chest, he spread his arms. ‘About so big.’ She continued with the sceptical look so he widened his arms. And again. In the end he dropped his hands and admitted, ‘OK he’s fairly big. But not big enough to eat a cat.’

Another narrow eyed look. ‘Are you sure you’re a police officer?’

Carrie was fighting a grin. His vagueness about the size of this alleged snake had just confirmed her suspicions: there was no snake. This was a bizarre and admittedly unique flirting technique used by her neighbour’s crazy but cute bother.

She had met her neighbour. The suggestion that the respectable surgeon would keep a snake as a pet was ludicrous, but she decided to play along.

‘So where is he then, this snake?’

He glanced at the gas fire. ‘I saw him disappear into the chimney.’

‘What if we look and there is no snake?’

That idea seemed to make him uneasy. ‘Then we’ll have to search the whole house. I suppose he might follow the chimney. What’s directly above us?’

‘My bedroom.’

He brightened. ‘Best to be thorough.’

She pursed her lips. ‘I’m not taking you up to my bedroom.’

‘Of course not.’ He sighed. ‘I just hope your poor cat isn’t up there –’

‘You said he wouldn’t eat a cat!’

‘He might be frightened. If he’s not used to snakes.’

Was he just making this up as he went along? How many cats were used to snakes? ‘We’ll just stick to downstairs,’ she said firmly.

‘If that’s what you want.’

Impasse. ‘Right. Well. Would you like some coffee while you look for your snake?’

He smiled that sexy, full-on smile again and her tummy flipped. ‘I’d love some.’

Carrie went through to the kitchen. The soapy water was cold by now but she didn’t care –cleaning was nowhere near as attractive as her visitor.

When she returned with the coffee, he was lying flat out on the floor, peering up into the workings of the fire. She was tempted to sit on the sofa and admire the view but decided to play along.

‘Found anything?’

‘Have a look for yourself.’

She put the coffee on the table and lay beside him on the carpet. Too late she remembered her low-cut top so gave him an eyeful. Rolling her eyes at her own stupidity she shuffled forward.

‘What am I looking for –’

Peering into the back of the fire, she froze, unable to believe her eyes. Then slowly turned to her companion.

‘Bloody hell. There’s a snake in my chimney. What do we do?’

Cal took her hand and helped her up. He led her to the sofa, placed her coffee cup in her hand and sat down companionably beside her.

‘We wait,’ he said happily. ‘And if need be, we turn up the heat.’