Three Alarm Tenant. Christa Maurice
be out a girlfriend and a place to live. Your track record isn’t great. Remember Cynthia?”
Jack shuddered. Cynthia had been fun and a little wild. He hadn’t realized her ‘little wild’ would turn into ‘little crazy’ on such short notice until too late.
“You still have scars from the ashtray she threw at you.”
“So I stopped dating smokers.” Jack fingered the crescent shaped scar on his chin.
Kevin grumbled, leaning into the fridge to fish out two cans. “And Evelyn who kept ‘visiting’ you at the station.”
“She was obsessed. I broke up with her because she was suffocating.”
“And Maureen.”
“Hey,” Jack shook his finger at Kevin. “Maureen dumped me.” Then he paused, realizing that might not be a selling point. Being dumped by Maureen had been awful. He’d thought she was the one, and she’d thought he was the one of the week. She had been the first and last time he’d thought he found true love. At least until yesterday. Evelyn hadn’t been the one even though she thought she had been. Cynthia just liked to fight and throw things. He couldn’t imagine Katherine screaming or pitching glassware at his head.
Jack popped open the can Kevin gave him without looking at it. He smiled thinking about her laughing over dinner. Her eyes twinkling at him across the table. That big black sweater she’d worn made her look very dramatic. The sexy curves revealed by her sweater had been intriguing, too. And she had a nervous habit of licking her lips that was cute and sexy at the same time. Once she relaxed she was fun. Quick witted, throwing back snappy comment for snappy comment. Except for that one about detention. Then she’d coughed and become very interested in her sandwich. And even that seemed cute and wonderful.
“Wipe that silly grin off your face,” Kevin ordered. He walked into the living room, leaving Jack in the kitchen.
Jack followed Kevin and dropped onto the couch next to Archer. Archer lifted his head long enough to look at Jack and yawn before flopping onto his side to go back to sleep.
“Listen. I’m your friend, and I don’t want to steer you wrong, but I think it’s a really bad idea to date the landlady, no matter how sexy her voice is.” Kevin settled into the easy chair. “It might be fun, but it’s going to end, and when it does you’re going to be back where you started. Looking for an apartment that’ll take Archer because you won’t buy a house.”
Jack wondered what her voice sounded like over the phone, but in person, the sound of it made his temperature rise. “So you think she has a sexy voice?”
“Did you hear a word I said?”
“I heard you.” Jack frowned. He respected Kevin’s opinion. Kevin was his superior at work, and he wasn’t dim. Generally, once he’d thought something through, he had good advice. And he was right. There was more at stake here than a couple of dates. If she was an Evelyn, he couldn’t make her stop hanging around him if they were living in the same house. If she was a Cynthia, she could really give him scars. And if she was a Maureen? Could he stand seeing her every day, knowing the relationship wouldn’t progress beyond fun? He’d had to stop going to the places he’d gone with Maureen because the memories were too painful. “I guess you’re right.”
“Of course I am. And that doesn’t mean you can’t be friends with her.”
“Yeah,” Jack muttered.
“Stop mooning like that.”
“If I didn’t need the apartment so much, I’d just try for her. She’s so much fun.” Jack combed his fingers through Archer’s fur, dragging it against its natural grain so it stuck up. “But that apartment is great. Good size, big yard, basement, she even said there’s a washer and dryer in the basement I could use. She also told me I could park in the garage. And it’s so cheap. I’m worried somebody else is going to snatch it out from under me.”
“You said she was going to call the department tomorrow.”
“She has some book on being a landlord, and it says to check all references, so she is. She probably would have given me the keys last night if it wasn’t for that.” Jack put his feet up on the coffee table.
“Hey, I did my best. I didn’t tell her what a dingbat you are, or that you’d forget your head if it wasn’t screwed on. I hope I don’t go to hell for the lies I told her.”
Jack glowered at his friend. “Why do I hang around with you again? I forget.”
“To fix my plumbing.” Kevin grinned and took a swig out of his beer can.
* * * *
Katherine hung up the phone and stepped out of the privacy booth in the gloomy, airless teacher’s lounge. Her search to find a reason not to rent to Jack had been fruitless. He was the nicest guy on Earth, polite, handy, and heroic. Worst of all, heroic. Pam was sitting at the table slurping her soup and waiting for Katherine to deliver the verdict. Katherine crossed the room and sat down in front of her own lunch. “He's an exemplary employee. He was even decorated for something. Although the first person I talked to said ‘Oh him’, before she connected me to the right office.”
“What was he decorated for?”
“They didn’t say. I guess the record only said he was decorated two years ago.”
“So he gets the apartment.”
Katherine shrugged and studied her sandwich as if it might start talking back. “I guess so. Nobody else has stopped to look at it or called, and I really need the money.”
“Yesterday you said you had a great time with him. You said he was funny and sweet. Saturday you called all his references, and they love him. You just called his employer, and he’s been decorated. Why don’t you want to rent to him? What is the problem? If you don’t eat that now, you’re going to be down here in your free period digging change out of the couch for a candy bar.” Pam nudged Katherine's lunch closer.
Katherine picked up her sandwich and bit into it. What did she have against Jack? He was funny and sweet, handy around the house, decorated. He was even prompt.
He was also a firefighter-slash-hero, and the first man in years to make her heart do handsprings.
The school janitor dropped into the seat next to her and flashed his former football star grin at her.
“You wanted me,” he said in a low tone she assumed was meant to be seductive.
Katherine felt her shoulders tighten. “Your temporary fix on the garage roof is coming undone. I need you to come by the house and fix it.”
Randy seemed to think she would eventually bend to his boundless charm. The fact that she hadn’t in the entire time he’d been hanging around her house doing the remodeling didn’t sway him at all, even though she'd insisted on paying him market value for the work.
“Is that all?”
She raised one eyebrow. “Yes, that's all.”
Randy leaned back in his chair, shaking his blond hair off his face. “I was thinking about that apartment. It’s a pretty nice place. I might be interested in it.”
“You have an apartment.”
“Yeah, but your apartment is bigger and nicer, and has such quality workmanship in the remodeling. We could commute together.” He winked at her as if his double entendre was clever.
“She already has a tenant, Randy,” Pam announced, packing her Tupperware in her lunch bag.
Randy sat up. “No way. How’d you do that?”
“Someone stopped to look at the place right after I put the sign in the yard Saturday. He seems reliable, so I think I’m going to give the place to him,” Katherine said.
“Him? Oh. Well, great.” Randy’s