Page 44 of The Man Next Door
“Let me know if you need anything,” he said to Louise before going out the door.
“Just company, and thank you for giving me yours,” she said, which made him smile.
“That man is crazy for you,” Gilda told her after he and Darling had left.
“Really, we’re only good friends.”
“One of you is. One of you is hoping for more. I think he’d have been perfectly happy if I’d stayed in the kitchen all day and he’d had you to himself.”
“No, Martin’s not like that. Anyway, I don’t think of him that way. He’s so... mild-mannered.”
“So was Clark Kent until he turned into Superman,” said Gilda, which made Louise laugh.
Martin was not the Superman type. She thought again of the sexy Texan she was missing hanging out with on that cruise. What possible silver lining was there to breaking her leg and having to leave the ship? She certainly couldn’t think of any.
Oh, well. It was what it was.
Gilda helped Louise settle on her bed to relax. “Want me to pull the curtains?” she offered.
“No, I like the light coming in,” said Louise. She also rather liked keeping an eye on the new neighbor’s house. It paid to be vigilant. She’d learned that thanks to past inhabitants.
At the moment, everything looked normal. The sun was shining, the grass was mowed. The pool in the backyard was probably sparkling in the sunlight.
Gilda’s words were glued into her mind.You never know about people. Pressure builds and builds and then, what seems like out of the blue, they snap.
What kind of pressure was building in the house of Alec James? What was going on between him and the redhead?
Louise picked up the book Gilda had loaned her from her nightstand, ready to read. The book was fiction. Next door was real life. It would be silly to mix the two. She needed to ignore her neighbors. She opened the book.
Then put it down as she heard a car door shut. She could see that the red PT Cruiser was back, and the young woman was walking up the front walk, carrying several shopping bags from different department stores in the mall over in West Covina. She certainly didn’t appear to be suffering.
And she was still in one piece.So, nothing to see here, folks.Time to read and forget about the neighbors.
You never know about people.
Louise opened her book again. For the moment, all was well next door, but it couldn’t hurt to keep an eye on things.
Chapter11
ZONA ARRIVED HOME FROM WORK TOfind Louise and Gilda settled in the living room with iced tea and popcorn, streaming an old episode ofDeathline. Future besties.
“You home already?” Louise greeted Zona.
“The workday is over,” Zona said.
“That means my workday is over,” said Gilda, rising from her chair.
“Stay and watch the end of the show,” Louise urged.
“I have to walk Darling, so I’d love it if you’d stay a little longer,” Zona said to her.
“It’s almost over anyway. You don’t want to leave now,” Louise added.
“All right. Just a few more minutes,” Gilda agreed. She sat back down and dug into what was left of her popcorn.
“Thank you for sending Gilda our way. She and Mom are sisters from another mister,” Zona told Gracie when she called to chat while she was walking Darling.
“I’m glad it’s working out,” Gracie said. “That takes a load of worry off you.”
