Grandma sighed with exasperation; Grandpa waved. “Okey-dokey!” he said cheerfully. “We’ll check on you later.”
“Thanks,” Robin murmured and stepped away from the tank as Grandpa checked his side-view mirror before carefully nudging into gear. He turned his attention to navigating the rather wide drive as Grandma hung out the window. “Take an aspirin!” she shouted. “It will help you—”
Who knows what else she might have said—Grandpa suddenly swerved, knocking Grandma back inside the tank.
When Robin was sure they were gone, she headed for the back of the house. Her car was still impounded (another helpful clerk had informed her that for a mere $150, she could get her car on Monday), and she had no keys. But at one point, she’d had the presence of mind to hide a key for an event such as this. Only she’d figured such an event would involve fabulous shoes, a man, and a smashing good evening. Now all she had to do was remember under which brick she had hid the damn thing.
As she was attempting to dislodge a brick, she heard a motorcycle roar into her drive and looked up.
Her heart climbed right into her throat; she was momentarily paralyzed by her astonishment. But once she got over her distraction of the thick, dark brown hair he revealed as he removed his do-rag, and the tight fit of his jeans, and the vague feeling that she knew him, she suddenly gave a small shriek of surprised indignation that this . . . this sexual pervert predator had followed her all the way from the jail to her house!
The man stuffed his do-rag into his back pocket, reached into a leather saddlebag, and turned his head. His eyes locked with hers— “Oh Gawwwd,” he groaned heavenward.
It was the degenerate jailbird all right, and if this just wasn’t the topping on her cake, Robin didn’t know what was. “Un-be—leeev-able!”
“Looks like we find ourselves nose to nose again, Sunshine,” he said as Robin found the lose brick and yanked it clean of its slot, then grabbed the key. “You remember me, right? The guy you harassed this morning?”
“Ha!” she shouted, clutching the key. “You were harassing me!”
“Funny, I remember that you were the one who copped a negative attitude.”
“Look, I don’t know what ridiculous, drug-induced little world you are living in, but I am not interested.” She fumbled with the key and the lock while the degenerate opened a saddlebag and rummaged inside. “Let me spell it out for you,” she continued. “Ain’t gonna happen! So get on your dirtbike and run along before I call the cops!”
His face clouded; he frowned at her like she was the one doing the annoying here. “That is not a dirtbike. You know what?” he demanded as Robin managed to unlock the door, push it open, jump through, and pivot to block his entrance. “You are so full of yourself it’s a wonder you don’t pop! Trust me, I don’t like this anymore than you do—”
“Don’t like—you have nerve! You are following me!”
“Following? Oh Jesus—” he moaned, rolled his eyes, and started walking toward her. “You are delusional! Believe me, darlin’, you are the very last person I would follow!”
Robin was about to respond with equal vigor, but the sack of Krispy Kremes under his arm momentarily distracted her. Krispy Kremes? She blinked, disbelieving. So he thought he’d just casually follow her to her house and do whatever perverts did? With doughnuts? “What the hell? So you, the pervert, were in jail for God knows what, and you saw me there, and you decided to follow me—”
“Have you escaped from your nurse?”
“Me? You’re the jailbird—”
“If there is a jailbird here, it would be you—”
“I was there by mistake! Are you trying to deny that you were not just in a room with every other lowlife in Houston being released from county jail?” she demanded, infuriated.
“Well now, you might be a lowlife, but not everyone in that room was a criminal. I was there to bail out a friend who happened to have had a little too much to drink last night. His name is Zaney—perhaps you met him during your stay in cell block C?”
Robin opened her mouth, then closed it, confused by the sack of doughnuts. “Wait a minute. Then what . . .” Something suddenly clicked, and Robin felt her self-assurance begin to crumble like sand. “Oh no,” she murmured to herself.
“You really need to get over yourself, you know that?” he added.
“Oh my God—oh my God! You can’t be!”
“Believe me, I wish I weren’t. Look, I gotta get to work. Know what work is, or do you spend most of your time in the pokey?” he grumbled as he pushed past her, into the house.
The tears started to build behind Robin’s eyes as she gaped at Jacob Manning’s back, the man she had hired to renovate her house.