The One in My Heart

THE LAST THING I EXPECTED
on that miserable August evening was a one-night stand. I expected even less that my accidental lover would swoop back into my life, metaphoric guns blazing. Though what really did me in was our subsequent fake relationship, which turned everything upside down even before the nude scandal erupted.

But it all began, for me at least, on the back lanes of Cos Cob, Connecticut.

A shower fell steadily. My hair was plastered to my skull, dripping water down my neck. My stomach had given up sending polite signals of hunger and was moodily folding in on itself. It must be nearly midnight. Had I eaten anything today? Had I eaten anything at all since I found Zelda four days ago in the grips of a major manic upswing?

A gust blew. I shivered, the chill of my drenched clothes sinking deep beneath my skin. But I kept walking. The lane wound between houses on heavily wooded lots, some hidden behind impenetrable tall hedges, others set apart by low stone walls. Was I tired enough yet? How much farther did I need to go, before I could sink into a dreamless sleep?

The bright headlights of an oncoming car startled me. I hurried to the edge of the narrow lane, my tired toes digging into waterlogged and slippery flip-flops.

As it passed, the low-slung, sporty model slowed to a crawl. Probably someone who lived in the area, coming back from a Friday-night party and wondering why a woman was out by herself in this weather, at this time of the night.

Come on. Keep moving
. I didn’t want any neighborly concern.

The car stopped, aerodynamic curves gleaming faintly, windows completely dark. It reversed a good fifteen, twenty feet. Now it faced me again, its headlights flooding the rain-slicked asphalt between us.

Alarm jolted me. What if I
wasn’t
about to deal with neighborly concern? What if…I yanked out my phone, swiped to unlock the screen, and tapped 911.

The driver-side door opened and out came a large umbrella, followed by a man. Instinctively I stepped back—directly into the bulk of a low stone wall. My pulse hammered.

The man straightened, closed the car door, and didn’t move for a few seconds, as if he too had second thoughts about the situation. Or was he merely figuring out the best way to overpower me?

He started toward me. I groped blindly for a weapon, my fingers closing around a loose rock from the top of the wall.

Stop. Stop right now.

He stopped six feet away. His face was in shadows, but against the flood of light from the car he seemed the size of a linebacker. “Evangeline, right?” he asked, his voice low yet clear against the percussion of rain on his umbrella.

I blinked, caught between hope and even greater suspicion. “Yes?”

“I’m Bennett. I took care of Collette Woolworth’s dog for you this week.”

“Oh,” I said, my death grip around the rock unclenching a little.

I was in the neighborhood for the summer because Collette, Zelda’s good friend, was overseas on a work assignment, and needed someone to keep an eye on Biscuit, her rat terrier. When Zelda’s mania swung into high gear and I didn’t want to leave her alone, I’d called a list of emergency contacts Collette had left me. Everyone was out of town except Bennett, who had sounded harried, but had agreed to look after Biscuit.

“Thanks for helping me out,” I added.

“You are welcome,” he answered.

I said nothing else. Had I met him in broad daylight, my gratitude might have been more effusive—in fact, I meant to get him a nice thank-you present. But it was the middle of the night, we were on a deserted lane, and a man who was nice to a dog could still commit a crime of opportunity.

After a moment he turned to look at his car, as if longing for its safety. As if he, rather than me, were the exposed and vulnerable one here.

As he did so, the headlights illuminated enough of his features for recognition to kick me in the chest. His name had meant nothing when I called, but I’d come across him a few times when I was out walking Biscuit. He was usually on a bicycle, though I’d also seen him running, fast and with a beautiful gait.

Once he stopped his bike, pushed his aviators up, and asked me the time. His demeanor was courteous, but not interested. In fact, he seemed wary, as if he suspected that the clock on my phone might be fifteen minutes off.

Yet I’d vibrated afterward, unable to stop thinking of his deep-set green eyes.

But just because I found a man attractive didn’t mean I should trust him.

He looked back at me, his face once again in shadows. “People keep telling me this neighborhood is really safe. But it’s late. Is there someone I can call for you?”

The last thing I wanted was to alert anyone that I was wandering about the middle of the night, drowning in rain. “Thanks, but I’m okay.”

“What if I gave you the key to my car? You can drive yourself home.”

My eyes widened. I glanced at the sleek vehicle, a Tesla Roadster. “You’re willing to let a stranger drive your car? Aren’t you breaking some sacred man commandment?”

“I’ll risk it.”

He lobbed the key my way. I somehow managed to catch it between my wrists, while still holding on to both phone and rock. “But I’ll get your car all wet!”

“It’s an old car. It’ll survive,” he answered from over his shoulder, already walking away.

And kept walking away, with no backward glances for me or the fate of his car. I stared at him, and then down at the car key. He wasn’t kidding—he’d really left me his car.

And I thought I was pretty deranged for stumbling about in the dark, even after it started to rain.

Not knowing what else to do, I got into the Roadster, wincing in apology as my soaked clothes squelched against the leather seat. Thank goodness I hadn’t actually dialed 911, or I’d have to shamefacedly explain that not only hadn’t the man assaulted me, but that I was now in possession of his vehicle.

I slowed as I approached Bennett, who was headed in the same direction as me. It wouldn’t feel quite right to drive past him in his car, but I still hesitated, the adrenaline from my earlier scare not completely dissipated yet. What if he was running a long con? What if he meant to gain my trust and then pounce on me?

Shaking my head at my cynicism—nobody ran this kind of long con on a random stranger—I stopped a bit past him and lowered the window two inches on the passenger side. “Hey, people keep telling me this neighborhood is really safe. But it’s late. Can I drop you off at home?”

He braced a hand on the top of the car and leaned down. “No. Grandma told me I’m too pretty to get into cars with strangers.”

My lips twitched. “Grandma was lying through her teeth. You’re just average.”

“What? But I had plans for becoming a Park Avenue trophy husband.”

I felt a smile spreading across my face, a lovely sensation. “Forget about sleeping your way to the top. You’ll have to get to Park Avenue by exploiting the masses like everyone else—or not at all. Now get in the car before I give it back to you.”

He shook his head, collapsed his umbrella, and got in. “When did it become so hard to be a Good Samaritan? You give up your ride to a woman in need and she calls you ugly.”

“That’ll teach you to give your ride to women in need. I could have fenced the car overnight.”

He pulled on the seat belt. “You’ll make me cry into my tiramisu.”

I slowly eased my foot down on the accelerator—the engine was much more powerful than I’d expected. “Don’t tell me you actually have tiramisu at home.”

I
had
eaten earlier, now that I thought about it, but an apple and two scrambled eggs were not enough for an entire day. A huge serving of something sweet and dense would send me into a food stupor, and a food stupor might be exactly what I needed for a full night’s sleep, which I hadn’t had since the beginning of Zelda’s episode.

“I never lie about food,” said Bennett.

Then what
do
you lie about?
“Lucky you.”

“At least I can stuff my face on the night I find out I’m not pretty. You know, take it like a man.”

I smiled again—there was something rather irresistible about him.

He gave me directions, and we arrived at a center-hall colonial with a circular driveway in front. As the Roadster came to a stop, he picked up a messenger bag from the floor of the car and looked inside.

“So what do you do to pass time while you’re waiting to become a Park Avenue trophy husband?” I heard myself ask.

He mock-glared at me, his cheekbones remarkable in the exterior lights of the house that had come on when we pulled up. “You mean what do I do when I’m waiting to never become a Park Avenue trophy husband?”

“Don’t let some hater step on your dream. But yeah, that.”

He shook his head a little, smiling. “I’m a surgeon.”

I looked him up and down. I’d have pegged him as a lawyer, one of those young, assertive, high-powered breed. Or a restaurateur, the shrewd kind who rehabbed derelict spaces into hole-in-the-wall eateries that had lines going around the block. I could even, in a pinch, imagine him as a Silicon Alley executive with a million frequent-flier miles accumulated from trips to San Jose and Austin.

But I wouldn’t have guessed him to be a doctor, let alone the kind who worked with scalpels. “So, you’re tired of cutting people open?”

“Sick of it—blood and guts every day. But someday my princess will come, and she’ll carry me away from all this drudgery.”

I couldn’t help it—I laughed aloud. He laughed too, though more quietly.

In the wake of our mirth, a small silence fell. He closed the flap of the messenger bag and I was suddenly speaking again. “I’ve seen you around a few times.”

He glanced at me. “Last time I saw you, you wore a shirt that said, ‘To err is human; to really screw things up requires a computer programmer.’”

“Nerd humor.” The shirt had been given to me by my friend Carolyn, who was in corporate IT security.

“Do you know your age in binary?”

I’d minored in computer science, so I did happen to know it. “One hundred thousand.”

“I
have
been known to like an older woman,” he replied, deadpan.

I chortled, feeling…elated, almost.

“That’s thirty-two, right?” he asked.