The Belle and the Beard by Kate Canterbary (carter reed TXT) 📗

I offered Linden the most practiced smile in my arsenal. This smile never failed me. It'd charmed crusty old politicians and bulldog-belligerent donors. It'd greased the wheels with incessant reporters, errant mistresses, and more than a few strict security details. It was going to work on this guy too. It always did. "I didn't know she had a guard dog for a neighbor."

"Excuse me but it looked like you were breaking and entering."

"It's not breaking and entering when it's your house. It's just opening a stuck door with the help of some tools."

His only response was a hard stare which I would've interpreted a million different ways if I had the energy. I really didn't.

I hit him with the smile again. It had to work this time. It was all I had left. "Thanks for checking in. It was real nice visiting with you."

I scooted back up the steps to the front door. The blasted thing stood as one last mile in the most unpleasant marathon of a week in my whole life, and much like me, it was both falling apart and standing stubbornly firm.

As I collected the crowbar from the porch floor, I heard, "Wait just one second."

"Sorry. Can't. Won't." I attacked the door again, going for the splintered wood between the lock and the jamb where there seemed to be a bit of wiggle. Just as I started to feel some give, the bar flew out of my hands. I whirled around to find Linden glowering at me. "May I ask what you think you're doing?"

"That's not the right way to do it," he said.

"Certainly not," I replied. "Not when there's an excessively helpful neighbor man here to do it for me." He gestured for me to step aside. I didn't. "You've mistaken me for someone who requires assistance. You've also mistaken me for someone who can put up with even a minute of nonsense after the week I've had. Here's what you need to understand. I don't care whether I do this wrong so long as I do it."

"The side door is boarded up."

That easy, jocular tone cut through the last of my patience. Maybe it wasn't patience or people skills or any of the other things that usually held me together like a corset of strings. Maybe it was the recognition that I couldn't get where I needed to go by mowing this man down and I'd have to go around him instead.

"I noticed that." Since I wasn't about to beg him to return my crowbar, I tried the key again. It slid into the lock easily enough and turned without too much trouble but the deadbolt caught and the door wouldn't budge. "Let's save that issue for another day, shall we? As I'm sure you would agree, we've covered a good deal of ground today."

He bobbed his head while he turned the bar over in his hands. I didn't want to care about his hands but I couldn't help but notice they were huge. With paws like that, he could rip my door clear off its hinges.

Honestly, I could live with that approach. I needed to be alone with my toast, and I didn't care how I got there at this point.

"I mention the side door because it needs to be replaced before it's operational. If you continue with this"—he tossed the bar up in the air, catching it as it flipped end over end—"you'll bust the lock and damage the frame. That will leave you with two doors you can't use and several thousand dollars in repairs." He tossed the bar again, catching it by the opposite end this time. "But you don't care if you do it the wrong way, right?"

On any other day, I would've dismantled that little analysis of his. I would've countered a circle around him and done it with so much southern-girl sweetness, he wouldn't realize he'd been bested until long after he'd left me blissfully alone. Any other day. I was all out of sweet and fight, and the only card up my sleeve was the belief that I had this under control. I always had it under control. Even in chaos and calamity, I always knew what I was doing. I couldn't lose that right now and I could not fall apart in front of this guy.

I'd shed enough tears over men who didn't deserve them from me.

"Old doors stick when it's muggy like this." He waved like he could gather up the late summer humidity and hand it to me. "I have the same problem. Sometimes it just needs one helluva shove."

"Mmhmm. Yes." I tapped my finger against my chin. "Pushing did come to mind. I tried that before you rushed over here with your alarm for women using tools."

"I have no problem with women using tools. I do have a problem with anyone using them incorrectly, Jasper-Anne."

"Jasper will do, thank you," I replied. "And it is possible your definition of correct is too limited in its scope."

"That might be, but Midge would haunt my ass if I minded my own business while someone broke into her house."

"Your knee-jerk assumption about me being a burglar lacks both imagination and reasoning. Kindly stop suggesting it."

"If the crowbar fits." He shrugged. "Let me take a look at that key."

"Are you still under the assumption I'm some sort of criminal? Because it's getting old."

"And so is your attempt at breaking into this house. Let me see." He beckoned for the key. Since I was making no progress, I handed it over. "Sometimes they need to be polished off. Warmed up, you know? Like dollar bills in a vending machine. You have to smooth them out a few times, breathe on the corners. Or video games from those old-school consoles where you had to blow on the prongs."

He buffed the key on the hem of his