Page 1 of Knight's Fall

Chapter One

Courtlyn McNeal loved her sweet neighbor, Alice Dobbs. With her salt and pepper pageboy and matching lounging outfits, she carried herself with a devil-may-care personality that never failed to make Courtlyn smile. Keeping that in mind, she tried not to take the older woman’s distasteful grimace too personally. She, herself, was having a hard time ignoring what was literally under her nose.

“Well, dear, I know you have things to do, so I won’t keep you. Thank you for taking care of Bogie.” Alice was the epitome of Southern grace and manners, which were forgotten as she slammed her front door right in Courtlyn’s face.

But not before Courtlyn saw the smug look of satisfaction on Bogie’s face as he settled in his owner’s arms, newly walked and bathed until his coat shined and smelled like oranges.

Catching a whiff of the odor emanating from her clothes, Courtlyn mimicked her neighbor’s grimace. She couldn’t blame Mrs. Dobbs for pushing her to leave when she smelled this bad.

“Damn dog,” she muttered under her breath as she took off at a dead run. Her home was only a short distance away, and she hoped the sweat she’d work up from the exercise would disguise the odor. She picked up her pace only to realize running made the smell stronger.

“D-damn d-d-dog.” The words left her throat on a wheeze as she ran even faster, feeling the call of her shower urging her on.

Her morning had started out so well. She rarely had a Saturday morning off from work, so she made the most of it. She slept in with no annoying alarm waking her from the pleasant dream featuring her very sexy neighbor. Preparing a decadent breakfast of French toast, she took her time before showing up at Mrs. Dobbs’ to take Bogie for a walk.

Alice Dobbs wore her seventies with grace, despite the arthritis that prevented her from doing all the things she loved — working in her flower garden, knitting, and going for long walks with her beloved Corgi, Bogart, or Bogie for short, named for the legendary film actor, Humphrey Bogart.

Courtlyn volunteered to walk the small dog once or twice a day as her work schedule allowed. The Corgi was a bundle of fur and energy that needed more of an outlet than a quick run around the yard, and Courtlyn was glad to have the excuse to get some exercise that didn’t involve slaving over a grill at the diner, where she worked.

In good spirits when she set off on her walk with Bogie, she decided to treat the pup to a trip to the local dog park. Only Bogie broke away from her, ran past the park and disappeared in a wooded area. She’d caught up to him in time to witness his standoff with a very upset skunk. The spray seemed to coat everything — her clothes, her hair, her skin, and every inch of the little dog.

She couldn’t leave Mrs. Dobbs with the task of ridding the Corgi of his foul odor, so she’d hurried back to her house with Bogie in tow, gagging a few times at the pungent smell that followed them.

She wrangled Bogie long enough to bathe him, using baking soda and lemon juice to cut back on the funk, and added a dollop of her orange-scented shampoo for good measure. She’d hoped to give him time to dry while she showered, but Mrs. Dobbs called asking after her precious Corgi.

Mrs. Dobbs had friends coming over for lunch and a game of bridge, and she wanted to see Bogie settled before they arrived. So still smelling worse than a garbage dump, Courtlyn led the dog back to his owner only to experience Mrs. Dobb’s one rare but understandable moment of rudeness.

Damn dog,she thought as she ran up the three steps to the landing at her front door. She reached her pointer and middle fingers into the small pocket at the waistband of her leggings. They closed around the metal key to her rental house, but her fingers were slick with sweat. She fumbled with the key only to have it slip from her fingers, twisting in the air until it fell at the right angle to slide through the landing’s wooden slats to the ground.

She stared at the small gap between the planks for several seconds as if expecting the key to reappear on its own. Then her lips curved into a derisive smile and her eyes shifted in an exaggerated roll.

“Of course,” she muttered to herself, appreciating the sarcasm dripping from her tone even if no one else was around to hear it.

Pulling her cell from the side pocket of her leggings, her finger hovered over the screen displaying one of her contacts. Her teeth yanked on her bottom lip as she asked herself if calling her landlord was a good idea.

Why couldn’t she be like most homeowners who kept a back-up key in a secret place outside in case they locked themselves out of their house?

Oh, right! Because my crazy landlord is a paranoid freak,she thought with a wry shake of her head.

Her rental lease held a clause that the tenant could not make a copy of the house key without permission from the landlord, who never granted it. When Courtlyn questioned him about the odd rule, he’d told her it was necessary to keep track of how many keys to his properties were out in the world. He didn’t want to shell out the money to change the locks every time a tenant moved out because they couldn’t account for all of the copies they had made.

Courtlyn was going to secretly have a back-up key made, although she had not had an opportunity. Her landlord had a master key to all of the properties; however the man stayed in such a foul mood, she hesitated calling him.

There was a crawl space leading under the house. She could swallow her fear of the spiders and rodents that might be living under there long enough to retrieve her key, but she doubted her curvy frame would fit through the space.

The window!

She recalled the memory with a flash of triumph. When she was bathing Bogie, she’d opened the window in the bathroom, hoping the skunk stench would float away on a warm breeze. In her haste to return the mischievous Corgi to Mrs. Dobbs, she’d forgotten to close the window. It wasn’t a big window, but it was larger than the crawl space and, right now, held more appeal than calling her curmudgeon of a landlord.

As she rushed off the landing and around the side of her house, she realized that she no longer gagged at the smell clinging to her. She didn’t take it as a good sign that she was becoming accustomed to the stink. There was probably something in the skunk spray that killed her sense of smell, one olfactory nerve at a time.

The window was at the back of her house, but just as Courtlyn rounded the corner to her backyard, she jerked to a stop. Her heart picked up speed, and her breath panted worse than when she ran.

Oh, Holy Mother of all that is good and pure in this world.

The random expression streaked across her mind, the only thought she was capable of having as her eyes fixed on the house directly behind hers. Or more accurately, the owner of the house. The sexy owner who was working on his back deck, shirtless with loose-fitting jeans hanging low on his hips. Sweat glistened on his skin, and his long hair was secured in a messy man-bun on top of his head. The muscles in his arm and back rippled as he swung a hammer. Then he replaced the tool in his hand with a bottle of water, tossing back his head as he downed half of the liquid. A few drops spilled from his mouth and clung to his beard. Courtlyn’s gaze riveted on his throat, bobbing up and down as he swallowed.

Her feet backed up, slowly so as not to draw attention. Once her body was far enough to be hidden around the side of her house, she pressed her back flush against the siding, flattening her body as much as she could to keep out of sight of the gorgeous man.

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