The Perfect Neighbor (3 page)

Now she knew the mysterious Mr. Mysterious was insanely attractive, built like a god and as rude as a cranky two-year-old who needed a swat on the butt and a nap. Well, that was fine, just fine. She could stay out of his way.

She didn’t slam her door—figuring he’d hear it and smirk with that go-to-hell mouth of his. But when she was safely inside, she turned to the door and indulged in a juvenile exhibition of making faces, sticking out her tongue and wagging her fingers from her ears.

It made her feel marginally better.

But the bottom line was the man had her cookies, her favorite dessert plate and her very rare animosity. And she still didn’t know his name.

* * *

Preston didn’t regret his actions. Not for a minute. He calculated his studied rudeness would keep his terminally pert neighbor with the turned-up nose and sexy pink toenails out of his hair during his stay across the hall. The last thing he needed was the local welcoming committee rolling up at his door, especially when it was led by a bubbly motormouth brunette with eyes like a fairy.

Damn it, in New York, people were supposed to ignore their neighbors. He was pretty sure it was a city ordinance, and if not, it should be.

Just his luck, he thought, that she was single—he had no doubt that if she’d had a husband she’d have poured out all his virtues and delights. That she worked at home and would therefore be easy to trip over whenever he headed out was just another black mark.

And that she made, hands down, the best chocolate-chip cookies in the known universe was close to unforgivable.

He’d managed to ignore them while he worked. Preston McQuinn could ignore a nuclear holocaust if the words were pumping. But when he surfaced, he started to think about them lying in his kitchen on their chirpy yellow plate.

He thought about them while he showered, while he dressed, while he eased out the kinks brought on by hours sitting in one spot with posture his third-grade teacher, Sister Mary Joseph, had termed deplorable.

So when he went down for what he considered a well-earned beer, he eyed the plate on the counter. He’d popped the top, took a thoughtful drink. So what if he had a couple? he mused. Tossing them in the trash wasn’t necessary—he’d given perky Cybil the heave-ho.

She was going to want her party plate back, he imagined. He might as well sample the wares before he dumped the plate outside her door.

So he ate one. Grunted in approval. Ate a second and blew out a breath of pure appreciation.

And when he’d consumed nearly two dozen, he cursed.

Like a damn drug, he thought, feeling slightly ill and definitely sluggish. He stared at the near-empty plate with a combination of self-disgust and greed. With what scraps of willpower he had left, he dumped the remaining cookies in a plastic bowl, then crossed the room to get his sax.

He was going to walk around the block a few times before he headed to the club.

When he opened the door he heard her stomping up the stairs. Wincing, he drew back, leaving his door open only a crack. He could hear that mile-a-minute voice of hers going, which had him lifting a brow when he saw she was alone.

“Never again,” she muttered. “I don’t care if she sticks bamboo shoots under my nails, holds a hot poker to my eye. I will never, ever, go through that torture again in this lifetime. That’s it. Over, done.”

She’d changed her clothes, Preston noted, and was wearing snug black pants with a tailored black blazer, offsetting them with a shirt the color of ripe strawberries and long dangles at her ears.

She kept talking to herself as she opened a purse the size of a postage stamp. “Life’s too short to be bored witless for two precious hours of it. She will not do this to me again. I know how to say no. I just have to practice, that’s all. Where the bloody hell are my keys?”

The sound of the door opening behind her made her jump, spin around. Preston noted that the dangles in her ears didn’t match and wondered if it was a fashion statement or carelessness. Since she apparently couldn’t find her keys in a bag smaller than the palm of his hand, he opted for the latter.

She looked flushed, flustered and fresh. And smelled even better than her cookies. And because he noticed, she only irritated him more.

“Hold on,” he said simply, then turned back into his apartment to get her plate.

Cybil had no intention of holding on, and finally found her key where it had decided to hide in the narrow inner pocket of the bag—where she’d put it so she’d know just where it was when she needed it.

But he beat her. He strode out of his apartment, letting the door slam at his back. He carried his saxophone case in one hand and her plate in the other.

“Here.” He wasn’t going to ask her what had put that sulky look on her sea-fairy face. He had no doubt that she’d tell him, for the next half hour.

“You’re welcome,” she snapped, snatching it from him. Because her head was throbbing after two hours of listening to Jody’s cousin Frank’s monotone account of the vagaries of the stock market, she decided she’d give Mr. Mysterious a piece of her mind while the mood was on her.

“Look, buddy, you don’t want to be friends, that’s just fine. I don’t need any more friends,” she said, swinging the plate for emphasis. “I have so many now I can’t take another on until one moves out of the country. But there’s no excuse for behaving like a snot, either. All I did was introduce myself and give you some damn cookies.”

His lips wanted to twitch, but he controlled it. “Damn good cookies,” he said before he could stop himself, then immediately regretted it as the temper in her eyes switched to amusement.

“Oh, really?”

“Yeah.” He walked away, leaving her reluctantly intrigued and completely baffled.

So she followed impulse, one of her favorite hobbies. After unlocking her door quickly, she stuck the plate on the table inside, locked up again, then, trying to keep her footsteps muffled, set off to follow him.

It would be a great strip gag for Emily, she thought, and, handled right, could play out for weeks.

Of course she’d have to make Emily wild about the guy, Cybil decided as she tried to tiptoe and race down the steps at the same time. It wouldn’t just be normal, perfectly acceptable curiosity but dreamy-eyed obsession.

Breathless with the excitement of the chase, her mind whirling with possibilities, Cybil rushed out the front door, looked quickly right and left.

He was already halfway down the block. Long stride, she thought, and, grinning, started after him.

Emily, of course, would be sort of skulking, then jumping behind lampposts; or flattening herself against walls in case he turned around and—

Nearly yelping, Cybil jumped behind a lamppost as the object of the chase sent an absent glance over his shoulder. With a hand over her heart, Cybil dared a peek and watched him turn the corner.

Annoyed that she’d worn heels instead of flats to dinner, she sucked in a breath and made the dash to the corner.

He walked for twenty minutes, until her feet were screaming and her initial rush of excitement was draining fast. Did the man just wander the streets with his saxophone every night? she wondered.

Maybe he wasn’t just rude. Maybe he was crazy. He’d been recently released from the asylum—that’s why he didn’t know how to relate to people in the normal way.

His filthy rich and abusive family had caught him, locked him up so that he couldn’t claim his rightful inheritance from his beloved grandmother—who had died under suspicious circumstances and had left him her entire fortune. And all those years of being imprisoned by the corrupt psychiatrist had warped his mind.

Yes, that would be exactly what Emily would cook up in her head—and she’d be certain her tender care, her unqualified love, would cure him. Then all the friends and neighbors would try to talk her out of it—even as she dragged them into her schemes.

And before it was over Mr. Mysterious would—

She pulled up short as he walked into a small, dingy club called Delta’s.

Finally, she thought, and skimmed back her hair. Now all she had to do was slip inside, find a dark corner and see what happened next.

The place smelled of whiskey and smoke. Not really offensive, Cybil thought. More … atmospheric. It was dimly lit, with a pale-blue light illuminating a stingy stage. Round tables hardly bigger than pie plates were crammed together, and though most of them were occupied, the noise level was muted.

She decided people talked in whispers in such places, planning liaisons, affairs, or enjoying those already made.

At a thick wooden bar on the side wall, patrons loitered on stools and huddled over their drinks as if protecting the contents from invaders.

It was, she decided, the kind of club that belonged in a black-and-white movie from the forties. The kind where the heroine wore long, slinky dresses, dark-red lipstick with a sweep of her platinum hair falling sulkily over her left eye as she stood on the stage under a single key light, torching her way through songs about the men who’d done her wrong.

And while she did, the man who wanted her, and had done her wrong, brooded into his whiskey with his world-weary eyes shadowed by the brim of his fedora.

In other words, she thought with a smile, it was perfect.

Hoping to go unnoticed, she scooted along the rear wall and found a table and, sitting, watched him through a haze of smoke and whiskey fumes.

He wore black. Jeans with a T-shirt tucked into the waistband. He’d already taken off the leather jacket he’d put on against the evening chill. The woman he was speaking with was gorgeous, black and outfitted in a hot red jumpsuit that hugged every curvaceous inch. She had to be six feet tall, Cybil mused, and when she threw back her beautiful head and laughed, the full, rich sound rocked through the room.

For the first time Cybil saw him smile. No, not just smile, she thought, transfixed by the lightning transformation of that stern and handsome face. That hot punch of grin, the hammer-blow power of it, couldn’t be called anything as tame as a smile.

It was full of fun and affection and sly humor. It made her rest her chin on her fisted hands and grin in response.

She imagined he and the beautiful Amazon were lovers, was certain of it when the woman grabbed his face in her hands and kissed him lavishly. Of course, Cybil thought, a man like that—with all those secrets and heartaches—would have an exotic lover, and they would meet in a dim, smoky bar where the music was dreamy and sad.

Finding it wonderfully romantic, she sighed.

* * *

Onstage, Delta gave Preston’s cheeks an affectionate pinch. “So now you got women following you, sugar lips?”

“She’s a lunatic.”

“You want me to bounce her out?”

“No.” He didn’t glance back but could feel those big green eyes on him. “I’m pretty sure she’s a harmless lunatic.”

Delta’s tawny eyes glittered with amusement. “Then I’ll just check her out. Woman starts stalking my sugar lips, I gotta see what’s she made of, right, André?”

The skinny black man at the piano stopped noodling keys long enough to smile up at her out of a face as battered and worn as the old spinet he played. “That you do, Delta. Don’t hurt her, now—she’s just a little thing. You ready to blow?” he asked Preston.

“You start. I’ll catch up.”

As Delta glided offstage, André’s long, narrow fingers began to make magic. Preston let the mood of it slide into him; then, closing his eyes, let the music come.

It took him away. It cleared his head of the words and the people and the scenes that often crowded his head. When he played like this, there was nothing but the music, and the aching pleasure of making it.

He’d once told Delta it was like sex. It dragged something out of you, put something back. And when it was over, it was always too soon.

In the back, Cybil drifted into it, slid down into those low, bluesy notes, rose up with the sudden wailing sobs. It was different, she thought, watching him play than just hearing it through the walls. Watching him, there was more power, more heartbreak, more of that subtle sexual pull.

It was music to weep by. To make love to. To dream on.

It caught her, focused her on the stage so she didn’t see Delta moving toward her table.

“What’s your pleasure, little sister?”

“Hmm.” Distracted, Cybil glanced up, smiled vaguely. “It’s wonderful. The music. It makes my heart hurt.”

Delta lifted a brow. The girl had a bright and pretty face, she mused. Didn’t look much like a lunatic with that tipped nose and those long-lidded eyes. “You drinking or just taking up space?”

“Oh.” Of course, Cybil realized, a place like this needed to sell drinks. “It’s whiskey music,” she said with another smile. “I’ll have a whiskey.”

Delta’s brow only arched higher. “You don’t look old enough to be ordering whiskey, little sister.”

Cybil didn’t bother to sigh. It was an opinion she heard constantly. She flipped open her purse, pulled out her driver’s license.

Delta took it, studied it. “All right, Cybil Angela Campbell, I’ll get your whiskey.”

“Thanks.” Content, Cybil rested her chin on her fists again and just listened. It surprised her when Delta came back not with one glass of whiskey but two, then folded that glamorous body into the chair next to her.

“So, what are you doing in a place like this, young Cybil? You got a Rainbow Room face.”

Cybil opened her mouth, then realized she could hardly say she’d followed her mysterious neighbor all over Soho. “I don’t live far from here. I suppose I just followed an impulse.” She lifted the whiskey, gestured with it to the stage. “I’m glad I did,” she said, then drank.

Delta’s lips pursed. The girl might look like a varsity cheerleader, but she drank her whiskey like a man. “You go wandering around the streets alone at night, somebody’s going to eat you up, little sister.”

Cybil’s eyes gleamed over the rim of her glass. “Oh, I don’t think so. Big sister.”

Considering, Delta nodded. “Maybe, maybe not. Delta Pardue.” She touched her glass to Cybil’s. “This is my place.”