Page 1 of Harmless Scandals

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This time, Serenity thought, she would start out on the right foot with her neighbors.

She took the last loaf of banana macadamia nut bread out of the oven and set it on the rack to cool just as her phone rang. When she saw Nicola McCann’s face on the screen, she answered it immediately.

“Good morning,” she said.

“Good morning to you too. How’s tricks?”

“Okay. Been working a lot. You?”

“Nothing much. We have some business trips coming up.”

“Oh, you and the very delectable Jensen Wulf are going to be jet setting again? I thought that he had said he didn’t want you going anywhere with him anymore.”

One of their more recent trips had ended with Nicola and her boss in a massive fight. They worked well together, except when they had extra time on their hands. They tended to irritate each other in enclosed spaces.

“Jensen couldn’t figure out how to get from point A to point B without me.”

“I heard that,” a male voice in the background said.

“He knows it. I know it. His mother knows it. So, did the new neighbors show up yet?”

At that moment, the rumble of a truck sounded on the path that led to the adjacent house. Set back away from Kam Highway, the only people who would be using that path would be she and her neighbors.

“Just happening right now. They’ve been busy all day.” She peeked out the window to see the now familiar truck going past her house. Three men were sitting in the cab of the pickup, so that probably meant the woman Serenity had seen earlier was at that house.

“You haven’t met them?”

“No, but they couldn’t be any worse than my last neighbors.”

“That’s true. Who would have thought you bought a house next to a couple destined to act out Who’s Afraid of Virginia Wolf every night?”

“Not me.”

“Did they ever finalize the divorce?”

“I have no idea. Remember, I did not engage with them. Right now, I’m trying to forget they ever lived there, please. They were horrible.”

A nasty divorce that had dragged out for two years. Neither husband nor wife would give up the house so they had lived there, together, making their lives and everyone who encountered them miserable.

“Okay. I must go now because Jensen lost his mind and scheduled breakfast with his mother; who, of course, wants me there. But, woman, please at least text me at some point if you won’t call.”

“You got it. I’ve been so busy with the book proposal, I’ve been losing track of time.”

“That’s good, but remember, I will call the HPD to check on you if I don’t hear from you at least once a week.”

With the power of Wulf Industries behind the threat, Serenity was pretty sure Nicola could make it happen.

“You got it.”

After she clicked her phone off, she glanced at the loaves of mac bread. She'd been baking all day. It wasn't something she did all the time, but it was one of those simple joys she had discovered just a few years earlier. Baking was comfort.

It had been an odd idea for her to bake things for a neighbor. Serenity was proud of the fact that she was a tad anti-social. Avoiding people when she had spent her childhood trying to garner their attention, had been hard at first. Now it was almost second nature. Still, she wanted to be armed with information. If they were batshit crazy like her last neighbors, it was better to know now so she could avoid them.

After quickly wrapping a loaf from the earlier batch in plastic wrap, she donned her sunglasses and stepped out onto her lanai. She loved her little farmhouse, but it was nothing compared to her neighbor's house. They were both Kelly green, built around mid-century, and that was where the similarities ended. Serenity had never been inside the neighboring house. Most of the time, she avoided it if at all possible. The one time she made the mistake and walked within ten feet, the last owner explained she was divorcing her husband because he would fuck anything that moved.

Serenity still didn't know the woman's name.

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