Three Alarm Tenant. Christa Maurice

      Katherine Pelham hefted the hammer and pounded the For Rent sign into the frozen ground.

      “Happy Val-En-Tine’s Day,” she emphasized each syllable with a thwack. A truck slowed on the street, but she resisted the urge to look. She’d probably smash her thumb. Already this morning, she’d stubbed her toe, spilled hot coffee, and ripped a hole in her skirt getting it out of the dryer. Going back to bed sounded ideal.

      She stepped back to admire her handiwork. The sign wasn’t crooked and the post hadn’t snapped. The perverse Ohio weather that transformed her yard to concrete had warmed the air until she only needed a sweatshirt. With the apartment done, she needed a reliable tenant. Then she could handle the mortgage, the credit cards and her leftover college loans. She started toward the front door and stopped. It wasn’t her door anymore. Her apartment opened from the side.

      The servants’ entrance.

      Oh, she could have taken the first floor, but it still would be half the house. And the half closer to the basement spiders. She walked around the side and up her new steps. As she reached for the door, a car pulled into the drive.

      A truck actually. A green pick-up. A tall, broad-shouldered man climbed out. He looked as if he’d stepped out of an action adventure movie.

      “Hi. You have a place for rent?”

      His warm tenor voice worked its way through her ears and made straight for other parts of her body. She nodded.

      “Do you take pets?”

      “What kind of pets?” she asked.

      “A dog.”

      A dog. She’d never had a dog and envied people who did. When other girls wanted ponies, she’d wanted a puppy. How wonderful would it be to have a dog romping in the back yard? How wonderful would it be to have this gorgeous man romping in the backyard with the dog? “What kind?”

      “A big mutt.” He held his hand two feet above the ground. Katherine wondered if that meant head height or shoulder height. Either one wasn’t bad. Plenty to play with.

      “Sure.”

      “How much is it?”

      “Six hundred.” Everybody said it was too low, but it sounded high to her. It covered the mortgage payment, freeing up her paycheck for other non-essentials like food.

      “Plus utilities?”

      She shook her head. “I cover utilities, but I control the thermostat.”

      He nodded. “What’s the deposit?”

      “One month’s rent.”

      “And the pet deposit?”

      Katherine bit her lip. Should she charge extra for pets? How much damage could it do? She supposed that depended on the animal, but the landlord book hadn’t mentioned that, and she didn’t want to take advantage. “Even for the dog.”

      He blinked. “Wow. Can I see the place?”

      “Now?” Katherine’s mind reeled. She’d just hammered the sign in the yard. She hadn’t even put a notice in the paper yet. Everyone warned her it might take a month or, God forbid two, before anyone answered her ad. The book said she might show it dozens of times before an acceptable tenant came along. She’d braced herself to show the apartment until summer. This could be another annoyance in an already bad day, or a sign her luck was turning.

      “If you’ve got time,” he added.

      “Of course.” She walked back down the steps and tried to get a better look at him. Did he look crazy? No, he looked nice. Tall, well-proportioned, dark blond hair. His expression seemed to settle into bright-eyed amusement, as if life entertained him. He filled out his blue fleece jacket nicely. She caught her breath as she stepped past him to the door, wanting to run her hands over his fleece to see how soft and warm it was. What had gotten hold of her? His height? She didn’t know many adult men anymore. Most of the males in her life were high school boys, or high school janitors who acted like juveniles.

      “My name is Jack. Jack Conley,” he announced, holding out his hand.

      She caught his gaze sweeping up her body. He was checking her out. For a split second it annoyed her, but pleasure swamped that reaction. She waited until his eyes met hers before shaking his hand. His eyes were extraordinary. Golden brown and smiling even when his face was serious. He had a good grip, firm, not crushing. His touch spread a liquid shiver up her arm.

      “Katherine Pelham. Pleased to meet you,” she said, struggling to keep the tremor out of her voice.

      “Pleased to meet you, too.” He raised one eyebrow.

      She unlocked the front door. The foyer still looked strange with the stairs blocked off. It seemed cramped even though she'd painted the walls a pale tan to make it appear larger.

      “The back door lets into the yard. This is the foyer, and there’s the living room.” She gestured through the archway as he pushed the door closed. She jumped away at the soft click. Her nerves hummed, but the sensation wasn’t unpleasant, which confused her more.

      “What?” he asked. His hand rested on the doorknob.

      “Nothing.” She stared at his hand. His fingers were long, graceful and ringless. She forced herself to meet his eyes.

      He searched her face—his lips tightening to the closest thing she’d seen to a frown on him. “So. This is the foyer?”

      Katherine forced herself to take a deep breath. She was acting like a fool. She couldn’t deny a certain sense of tension around him, but it didn’t feel like the tension of a scary situation. More like a warm ache she remembered feeling once or twice, a long time ago.

      “It could be anything you want. It was the foyer before we divided the house. Through here is the kitchen.” She started down the hall, pointing to another door. “This leads to the basement. This is the bathroom.” She pushed open the bathroom door. “The shower’s behind the door. It’s very small.”

      He crowded behind her to peer into the narrow bathroom, which she’d painted mint green to brighten the windowless space.

      Katherine found herself leaning toward him rather than away. He smelled good. His firm jaw came to the top of her head.

      And he was looking down at her with those amused eyes.

      She frowned, but didn’t move. “It’s very small,” she repeated.

      “It’s fine.”

      She fled to the kitchen and waited for him, swearing she would gain control over this interview right now.

      “This is the kitchen. The bathroom used to be part of the kitchen, so it was much larger. There’s plenty of room in the nook for a table, but the floor gets cold in the wintertime. I don’t think there's any insulation under there.”

      She’d loved the big kitchen when they bought the house. She considered it the heart