It Started With A House: Lizzie. Book 1 (The Westport Mysteries) (4 page)

“Sure, come in,”
I said stepping aside. “I’m just surprised to see you. You don’t normally pop
over without ringing first.”

“Elizabeth, I
don’t pop anywhere and if you are going to have an attitude, I’ll leave,” he
said, the frown deepening.

He actually
looked quite tired with his tie loosened at the collar of his white shirt and,
if I’m being totally picky, his shirt isn’t tucked into his black trousers
properly. Scott and I first met at work where he is a senior accountant. I had
just started at Bradley and Sons, and noticed Scott straight away. As I was
just a lowly bookkeeper it took him a while to notice me, but eventually he
asked me out after the staff Christmas party.

We’ve been
together for about two and a half years now and I was hoping for a more
permanent commitment on our anniversary, but Scott said he wasn’t ready for
that. This had ticked me off just a little bit but I guess if he’s not ready,
then it’s best not to push him.

Apart from the
dark circles under his eyes today, he did look kind of cute. He’s about 5 foot
10 with dark brown hair and really lovely grey eyes. He’s not in Riley’s
league, but then again, not very many men were.

“Sorry. I’m
very happy to see you.” I gave him a quick kiss on the cheek. That was a feat
in itself. His head was moving from side to side so fast as he took in the mess
that is my home, I thought it might fall off. He didn’t look happy with what he
saw. Not surprising though. Scott liked everything to be neat and tidy and
believes everything should be in its place. Including me. I know it’s wrong,
but I always feel like I’m just not quite good enough for him and that if he
stops to think about it for too long, I know he’ll dump me and find someone who
deserves him. So I always try really, really hard to be my very best whenever
he’s around. Looking down at what I was wearing, I knew that today it was
mission failed.

“I know it’s a
mess at the moment but it’s going to look amazing when it’s finished,” I said
hurriedly. If I explained myself to Scott really quickly I might be able to
avoid the look of disappointment in his eyes. Damn, I wasn’t quick enough. “How
about I show you around? The house has a really great feel to it when you give
it some time.” I started easing him up the stairs and away from the disaster
that was my kitchen. As he reached the top, he stopped when he saw Riley.

“Who’s this?”
he asked turning his back on Riley and looking at me, his manhood clearly
feeling threatened. Fair enough. Riley did exude an awful lot of testosterone.

“This is Riley.
He’s helping me with all the work that has to be done.” I turned to Riley. “Riley,
this is my boyfriend Scott.”

Riley extended
his hand, which Scott looked at, then turned his back and walked out of the
room. With a quick apologetic look to Riley, I raced after him.

“Scott, that
was really rude. Riley’s a great help!”

“I bet he is.” If
I didn’t know better I would think that was jealousy, but Scott didn’t believe
in jealousy. He thought it was a wasted emotion.

“What’s that
supposed to mean?” I asked.

“Never mind,”
he said with a sigh, looking at me with a critical look. “You have remembered
tomorrow night is the meeting I have with Donald Shepherd, haven’t you?”

“Of course I
have,” I smiled reassuringly. Shit! I’d forgotten.

Scott had this
really big meeting with a client he was hoping to win, and I had promised I
would go with him. My job was to make Scott look like the perfect man. Not sure
if I was the right person for the job, but I was happy to give it a go. That
meant, instead of spending the day helping Riley rip my house apart, I would be
spending it waxing, bleaching and plucking my little heart out.

“Make sure you
wear the red dress I gave you. And remember to be on your best behavior.”

Sometimes I
felt like I was in a relationship with my mother.

Chapter
Four

I
was woken the following morning by the retched doorbell screeching out its
damned tune. Dragging myself out of bed, I walked through my—once again—open
bedroom door and staggered, bleary-eyed, down the stairs.

Bloody hell,
did Riley not know I was on holidays? Had he never heard of a bloody sleep in? Okay,
so I’m not a morning person. Sue me. Opening the door and seeing Riley, I
quickly hid behind it.

“Good morning,
Lizzie,” he said smiling brightly. God, a girl could get used to seeing that smile
first thing in the morning.

“Morning,” I grouched
as he walked past me into the hallway. He looked particularly fine this
morning, I noted. Just the usual jeans and t-shirt, but the temperature in here
had definitely just risen.

“Are you going
to close the door?” he asked, turning to look at me.

“Not until
you’re in the kitchen.” He looked a bit puzzled but walked past me into the
kitchen anyway. Racing back upstairs, I locked myself in the bathroom. Thankfully
I don’t own a full-length mirror but what greeted me in the small mirror above
the sink was nothing short of scary. I had big black circles under my eyes from
yesterday’s makeup, the hair on one side of my head was standing up in a big
knotted mess and the other side was plastered to my face with what looked like
dried drool.

Great! When Scott
and I have sleep overs, I usually sneak out of bed nice and early to get in the
shower before he wakes up. He has never seen me like this, which is probably
one of the reasons we’ve been together so long.

I finished my
shower, washed my hair and carefully put on some make up. If Riley had seen
what I looked like as I hid behind the door, then I had some damage control to
do. I needed to make sure his memory of me was something a lot better than
that. The smell of coffee was wafting up the stairs when I opened the bathroom
door, so after a quick dash to my bedroom for clothes, I made my way down
stairs to the kitchen.

“I brewed a
pot. I hope you don’t mind.” Riley was leaning against the sink with a big cup
of coffee in his hand.

“Not at all,” I
replied cheerily. A God-like man with freshly brewed coffee in my own kitchen
is as close to Heaven as I’ll ever get.

“Scott seems
like a real nice guy.” Riley really had the sarcasm thing down pat. He was
going to get along great with Danny and Molly.

“I’m sorry he
was so rude to you. He had absolutely no reason to be.” I finished pouring my
coffee and turned to look at him. “I think he feels threatened by men who know
how to use their hands.” Okay, that sounded different in my head.

Riley smiled wickedly.
“I know how to use my hands alright.”

Feeling the
heat turn up a few notches, I looked at the floor. When I was finally able to
look him in the eye, I could see he was laughing at me.

“I’ll take your
word for that.” Like bloody likely. Given half a chance I don’t think I could
trust myself not to find out how well he could use those hands. I’d been kept
awake half the night thinking about them and what exactly they could do!

“I have to go
into town today. I have appointment at the beauty salon. Scott has an important
dinner we have to go to tonight so I need to get ready,” I explained. “I’ll get
a key cut for you while I’m there, so if you need to get in when I’m not home,
you can.”

“You trust me
with a spare key? I might sneak in during the night and attack you,” he
laughed.

If only.

* * * *

Thoughts
of Riley sneaking in at night had me slightly hot and bothered by time I
reached the city. I am a loyal girlfriend, I promise. I would never, ever do
anything to hurt Scott. But you have to admit Riley was hard not to look at. Driving
passed the salon, I found the nearest parking spot I could and ran the kilometer
or so back to it. I was not looking my most glamorous when I walked in the
door, almost ten minutes late.

The salon was
recommended to me by Scott’s secretary-slash-assistant, Brenda. She comes here
all the time and, even though she is the same age as my mother, she looks a
good ten years younger. The people here must be miracle workers then, which is
exactly what I needed.

I opened the
huge glass door and stepped inside and was…a bit disappointed. It was not what I’d
expected. It felt almost dungeon-like with the dark lighting and deep earth-toned
walls and the sound of a waterfall coming from an area behind the reception
desk. Either they had a flutist serenely playing his flute behind the counter
or there were speakers hidden somewhere in the walls. I know I was supposed to
feel relaxed by it all but it actually kind of freaked me out.

“Can I help
you?” asked the lady behind the counter, her tone suggesting she was anything
but helpful.

“Hi, I’m Lizzie
Fuller. I’m sorry I’m a bit late,” I grimaced.

Watching her
click a few keys on her keyboard, she looked back at me, eyebrows furrowed. On
closer inspection it wasn’t actually her eyebrows that were furrowed, but a
thin black line where her eyebrows should be. I think someone may have got a
bit carried away near the wax pot. Gee, hopefully she wasn’t my therapist for
the day.

“You’re fifteen
minutes late,” she said, looking down her nose at me. Feeling like a reprimanded
child, I tried to make myself as small as possible.

“Sorry.”

“Please take a
seat and a therapist will be with you shortly,” she said, clicking away.

Not a good start
.

When booking
the appointment, I had also decided to have a back massage as my back was still
really sore from moving and my attempt at renovating. I also really needed to
be relaxed for tonight. Just thinking about the meeting had me agitated. I knew
how good I had to be. Not that I’m not good, it’s just sometimes I find
situations where correct etiquette is required can be really daunting and
unnerving. That alone makes me clumsy. I picked up a magazine and flicked
through it while I waited.

After a few
minutes, a door to my left opened behind the reception counter and a younger looking
lady walked out wearing the Pure Opulence Day Spa uniform. She was
exceptionally pretty and looked quite sweet as she stepped forward and called
my name. Oh thank goodness, someone nice.

“Hello Lizzie. I’m
Bliss and I’ll be your therapist today,” she said leading me into a side room which
was much brighter lit than reception. I felt my eyes squint as they adjusted.

“In a minute
I’m going to leave the room and I would like you to please remove your clothes
and put on the robe we have provided for you here,” she said pointing towards a
small cupboard behind the bed. “Please remove your underwear and put on these,”
she held up a pair of gauze underpants, definitely not the nicest things I have
ever seen. “This will ensure no wax will get on your garments and destroy them.”
She smiled. She had a really lovely smile that went a long way to relieve my
apprehension. “Please then make yourself comfortable on the bed and I’ll be
back in to start your treatment.” She left me to get ready.

What followed
was an hour of absolute torture. I know Bliss was a lovely lady who was
obviously very good at her job. It’s just I could not describe getting every
unwanted hair on my eyebrows, lip, nose, underarm, leg and bikini ripped out of
its follicle as pleasurable. Yes, you would think—after millions of years
of evolution—women would no longer
have
hair in unwanted places wouldn’t you?

It turns out I
wasn’t very good at the massage part either. I had tried to relax and let Bliss
work her magic on my tense muscles but, instead of going all Zen-like, my mind
kept going over all the things I should be doing at home. I started to make a
mental list—finish unpacking, order new office furniture, introduce
myself to my neighbors, ask Riley to fix loose stair tread. The list went on. I
did try to relax. I really did, but I’m just not really one to lie around doing
nothing. My To Do list was way too long.

When my hour
was up, the relaxing music finally petered out and Bliss quietly informed me my
treatment was over.

“Please take your
time sitting up and when you’re ready please drink the water we have provided,”
she said tensely. “We recommend you drink quite a bit of water today to flush
away all the toxins I just released from your muscles.”

Poor girl, she
sounded exhausted. I lifted my head out of the little hole and tried to smile. Well….I
was never doing this again!

* * * *

After
a long and pretty stressful drive home, I thought about how the massage was a
complete waste of time and money. Not that I had found it particularly relaxing,
but after the traffic on the way home, I could feel the knots in my shoulders
were right back where they were this morning. Oh well, never mind. I’ll have to
find another form of relaxation.

Pulling my car
into my drive, I got out and as I locked my doors, I noticed the black sedan
parked across the street. I made a mental note to talk to my neighbor. Maybe
when the previous owner lived here, parking directly opposite wasn’t a problem.
I, however, had a tendency to not notice things when I was reversing and was
afraid I was going to hit it. Walking from my car to the house, I could see
Riley had been busy. The huge builder’s waste bin I’d hired was filling
quickly.

“Hello,” I
called out, feeling quite exhausted.

“Lizzie,
Lizzie, Liz, Liz, Liz! How are you?” I was engulfed in a huge hug by my brother
Danny. Stepping back, he grabbed my shoulders and gave me a small shake. “You
sneaky girl you. You didn’t tell us about your new friend in the attic. I came
over here expecting to see
you
and
who
greets me at the door? Some God-like
Hunk-of-Spunk, that’s who!”

You guessed it,
Danny is gay. He also has a partner, so he shouldn’t be looking at my hunk-of-spunk.
What was I saying? I shouldn’t be looking either!

Oh well…like
brother, like sister.

Danny had light
brown hair, but being a hairdresser meant his hair color changed daily. Today
it was jet black and spiked up into a messy kind of style. He was wearing black
skinny jeans and a skin tight t-shirt. I wonder if he and Molly know how much
they dress alike.

I smiled. “He’s
pretty cute, isn’t he?”

“Cute is not
the word I would use and, I know why you didn’t tell us about him. Talk about
greedy.” Danny almost looked sulky.

“Remember
Andrew? Your lovely partner who looks after you and puts up with all your
crap?” I reminded him.

“Of course I do,
but there’s no harm in looking,” he said matter-of-factly. That’s exactly what
Molly had said.

“God, I hope
there’s not. I’ve been doing plenty of that,” I laughed. “Yesterday, I followed
him up the stairs and
my God
, it was
the best orgasm I’ve had in ages.”

“Probably the
only one you’ve had in ages,” he smirked.

“Hi Lizzie, I
thought I heard you come home,” I heard a deep voice say from behind me. Turning,
I saw Riley trying hard to hide his smile. Could the ground please open up and
swallow me whole…please?

“Oh, um…hi,” I
whispered, quickly turning my back to him. I glared at Danny. The least he
could have done was warn me Riley was there.

“I’ve got all
the old carpet out of the attic but there are a few loose boards, so I need a
make a trip to the hardware store,” he said.

“Oh, okay. I…um…got
you a key cut while I was out.”

I dug his key
out of my bag and handed it to him, keeping my eyes firmly on the floor. As I
placed the key in his palm, his fingers curled around mine, just for a second. In
that second, however, volts of electricity ran up my arm and down to my nether
regions. The power of it actually made me feel a bit dizzy.

Was that a
deliberate move on his part?

Finally
plucking up the courage, I looked up into his eyes but there was no indication
he’d even noticed anything had happened. I really need to keep a check on my
imagination.

After he left,
I rounded on my brother.

“Why the hell
didn’t you tell me he was standing there?” I almost yelled.

Danny burst out
laughing. “You should have seen your face. My God, I didn’t think you could go
so red!”

“Shut up!” I
snapped. I stormed out of the room and up the stairs, Danny following me. “What
are you doing here anyway? It’s the middle of the day. Shouldn’t you be at
work?” Danny and Andrew own their own hairdressing salon and Danny was always
extremely busy.

“You asked me
to come over and do your hair for tonight, remember?”

“Oh. I forgot. Sorry,”
I grumbled.

Danny was an
absolute miracle worker when it came to my hair. In no time at all he had my
curls behaving and had put it in a half-up-do with long curls falling down my
back. If only I could control my life half as well as he could control my hair.