A Wing and a Prayer

Chapter 1-2

I reflected it was a good thing that we’d turned out to be close friends, or the gate could have been problematic. Once upon a time, when our respective houses were built, they’d been owned by a wealthy man and his adult son, and so I supposed the parties involved had wanted to have an easy way to get back and forth between the adjoining properties. When Tom and I were shopping for houses, the real estate agent had been almost apologetic about the gate, saying that we could probably replace that part of the fence if we wanted to, although she hoped we wouldn’t, since doing so would alter something original to the house. Naomi had already been living there and seemed nice enough, and so we’d left the gate alone. At the time, I’d had no idea she’d become my best and closest friend — and someone I turned to for support and guidance when the truth about Tom’s philandering came out.

Sometimes I wondered whether I really would have given up and headed home to Redding, the town in northern California where I’d grown up, if she hadn’t been around.

But I’d weathered that storm, and life had settled down into a comfortable groove. My father — the honorable representative from California’s 1st District, Congressman Henry Cunningham — had growled that I should have taken Tom for every last dime he had. I didn’t want revenge, though. I just wanted to get on with my life. Now, I had to admit that it was wonderful to live in such an amazing house and not have to worry about its upkeep, since Tom paid for that as well. Donations to Little Angels Chi Rescue paid for the dogs’ food and vet bills, and gave me a little left over to live on, and that, in addition to a small amount of spousal support, was all I needed. I’d never been one to worry about being “fancy,” something Tom had initially said he loved about me but which began to annoy him as time wore on, since it practically required a crowbar to get me out of my jeans and into anything suitable for a cocktail party or the other sorts of upscale events he’d wanted me to attend as the wife of his law firm’s newest partner.

No, I was better off without him, for a variety of reasons. And the sad thing was, I still didn’t know for sure whether he had ever really loved me or had just thought I’d be useful to his legal career because I was a congressman’s daughter.

After assuring myself that Rufus was fine, and appeared to be occupying himself by sniffing around the entire perimeter of the backyard, I went back into the kitchen and popped the trays of dog biscuits into the oven, since it was finally up to temperature. Next, I needed to wipe down the counters and check the calendar on my laptop for the next day’s schedule. I had a meeting with a possible foster for Rufus at ten out in Rancho Cucamonga. The opposite direction that most traffic would be heading, thank God, and so I figured I’d be safe if I left a little after nine. Then I had a lunch meeting in Pasadena with some possible donors, but that was it for the day. I thought I should have the rest of the afternoon free —assuming, of course, that I didn’t get any frantic calls that required me to drive out to someone’s house or a shelter to rescue a dog that was in danger of being euthanized.

Well, all the chasing around was part of the reason why I drove a Prius. I needed something with good mileage. And since I was rescuing chihuahuas — the little dogs that had claimed my heart back in grade school and held on ever since — and not, say, German shepherds, it didn’t matter that my car was small.

I looked out the kitchen window again, expecting to see Rufus wandering around the lawn, or maybe back to sniffing the lilies of the Nile or the patch of Icelandic poppies off to one side. But as my gaze passed over the yard, I realized I didn’t see his furry little black and white body anywhere.

Panic rose in me, but I pushed it back. After all, he was a very small dog, even smaller than Frida. I didn’t know for sure what was mixed with the chihuahua in him, although I assumed it must be another very small breed, maybe a rat terrier. Anyway, any of the border plants could have hidden him, or even the stately sycamore tree in the far corner of the yard.

Still, I figured I’d better find out for sure. It was just about time to bring him in and take him and Frida for a walk anyway. I pushed my glasses up on my nose — the damn things were always sliding down — and hurried out the back door.

“Rufus!” I called.

No response, but that didn’t bother me too much, since I’d already discovered that Rufus only answered to his name about half the time…if you were lucky. I went and checked behind the tree, and along the hedges, calling his name the whole time, but there was no sign of the dog.

Damn it.

I came to the gate in the side yard — not the one that joined Naomi’s and my properties — and that was when my blood really did run cold. Oh, sure, the gate was closed and latched securely. However, although I’d taken the extra precaution of fastening wire screen to the bottom of the gate so my little chi wards couldn’t get out, I saw that it had been bent back at one corner. Not very much, but definitely enough so a wriggly little five-pound body could have squeezed past it.

Double damn it.

Allowing myself a single curse under my breath — anything else would have been wasted energy — I opened the gate and let myself out, my gaze immediately scanning the street for any signs of the wandering dog. Nothing — but no cars, either, thank God. My street was a fairly quiet one, even though it was well known and we got tourists wandering up there on a regular basis to take photos of all the picturesque houses. Otherwise, there wasn’t much point in being there unless you were going to someone’s home, since Carroll Avenue wasn’t a throughway, just a couple of blocks situated between two north-south streets.

Then I heard it — Rufus’s bark. I hadn’t been around him for very long, but I already knew that was his excited, happy bark, the one you might hear when you got out his leash to take him on a walk. Or maybe when you played ball with him; that was what Myra had told me, since he’d been with her for a couple of days before she called to have me pick him up, although the dog and I hadn’t yet had the time for any real play time.

I stared in the direction of the sound and realized it was coming from the new neighbor’s yard. And yes, there was Rufus, dancing around the legs of Mr. Eminently Bangable himself, who stared down at the dog as if he’d never seen one before in his life.

Oh, boy.

Sheer instinct made me reach up to smooth my hair as best I could, even as I tried to tell myself that it didn’t matter what the hell I looked like. I’d put on some tinted lip balm after lunch, but I had no idea whether any still remained on my mouth. Not that it mattered. What mattered was getting Rufus away from the new neighbor before he completely wore out his welcome.

Trying to look unconcerned, I marched across the street and up the walkway in front of the neighbor’s house. About all I could do was hope that Naomi really was occupied with her studio, and not looking out her own front window. Otherwise, she’d probably think I’d cooked up this meeting on purpose, despite my protestations that I didn’t care when — or if — I bumped into our new neighbor.

“Hey,” I said, once I was close enough to the man to catch his attention. He turned at once, eyes fixing on me.

Oh, yes, definitely cute, in a boyishly handsome way. There was nothing boyish about his expression, which looked disapproving in the extreme, or in the way his hazel eyes narrowed as they took in my untucked chambray shirt — sporting a few stains from my dog biscuit–making activities earlier that afternoon — and jeans with the holes in the knees. No, he looked like the headmaster of some uptight boarding school who was about to give one of his unruly students a well-deserved reprimand.

Ten points from Gryffindor! I thought, and forced myself to hold back the unwelcome giggle that rose in the back of my throat.

“Is this your animal?” he asked, transferring his glare to Rufus, who was dancing around his legs as if he’d just met the owner he hadn’t seen for the past two years. Seriously, I’d seen dogs less excited when their soldier masters came back from Iraq.

“Sorry,” I said, doing my best to look apologetic. With skills honed during years of herding chihuahuas, I bent down and scooped up the wriggly little mutt. He squirmed in my arms but didn’t try to get down, probably because it was a long drop to the brick walkway on which we stood, and if nothing else, Rufus had keen skills of self-preservation. “He somehow managed to squeeze out under my fence.”

“Then you should probably get a better fence.”

The dripping disdain in his voice would have been worthy of Professor Snape himself, although the man who stood before me now bore absolutely no resemblance to that particular black-haired, long-nosed fictional character. Irritation flared, but I did my best to push it aside. Whatever else happened, this guy was my new neighbor, and we would potentially have to deal with each other for years. The last thing I wanted was to get off on completely the wrong foot.

“I’m really sorry,” I said, tightening my grip on the dog, who wouldn’t stop wriggling. “There’s actually wire attached to the bottom of the gate to keep this sort of thing from happening, but Rufus here managed to push right past it.” I paused, then added, “I’m Jillian Torres, by the way. I live across the street.”

And I stuck out my free hand.

For a long moment, my new neighbor stared at my hand as if it was some particularly nasty specimen he’d just spied through the lens of a microscope. Then he let out a breath that sounded a little too much like a sigh, and took my hand and gave it a single pump before releasing it again.

“I’m Benjamin Blake,” he said. “I just moved in to this neighborhood.”

From the tone of his voice, he seemed to be regretting that particular decision.

“Nice to meet you, Benjamin,” I said. No way in the world was I going to make any attempt at familiarity by calling him “Ben.” If that was his preferred nickname, he could let me know. However, I got the distinct impression that he would like to have as little contact with me as possible.

So much for the “banging” Naomi had envisioned. Honestly, I couldn’t even picture the disapproving individual in front of me engaging in such a messy activity.

Since he didn’t seem inclined to respond in any sort of friendly way to my pleasantry, I figured I’d better cut our conversation short before I said or did something to embarrass myself.

“Well, I need to get this little guy back inside,” I went on, after an awkward pause. “But if you ever need anything, both my next-door neighbor Naomi and I work from home, so we’re usually around in case of an emergency.”

Benjamin Blake’s cool hazel eyes narrowed slightly. I had a feeling he couldn’t imagine the sort of contingency that would require him to reach out to either of us for help. To my relief, though, he only gave a very small shrug and said, “Thank you.”

His tone was dismissive enough, however, even if he hadn’t said something overtly rude. I hefted Rufus in my hand, said, “Have a good one,” and made myself walk back across the street. As much as I would have liked to glance over my shoulder to see if Benjamin’s expression had altered at all, I knew that wasn’t a very good idea.

No, I went through the side gate and shut it behind me — the front door was locked, and so I had to go in the way I’d come, through the back door off the kitchen — and then deposited Rufus on the tile floor there. He shook himself and then hurried over to the water bowl and begin slurping away at it. Apparently, his exertions had worked up quite a thirst.

“Troublemaker,” I muttered. Although I loved pretty much all dogs and had fostered a few that were even bigger handfuls than Rufus, I found myself hoping that the interview with his prospective foster parent the next day would go well. The last thing I wanted was to have to keep chasing him out of Benjamin Blake’s yard. I had a feeling he’d be less than thrilled by repeated interruptions.

But at least now the awkward introductions were over, and from then on, we could be indifferent neighbors if we chose. The couple who lived to the left of me were like that — Janine and Alton Widawsky. I maybe saw them twice a year, if even that much. Well, unless they were complaining about the dogs. I tried my best not to have more than three or four under my roof at any given time, and it wasn’t as though I set them loose in my yard to bark their heads off and annoy the neighbors. But one time I had a whole litter of five barely weaned puppies dumped in my lap, and the resulting commotion had been a bit much, even by my standards. Still, I didn’t think it had merited a call to animal control.

Let’s just say my relationship with the Widawskys was a bit frosty after that.

Since Mr. Blake was across the street, I doubted noise would be an issue. No, it was more that I could tell he didn’t have much use for anyone, let alone his crazy dog lady neighbor.

And that was fine by me. In a way, I was glad that he was so prickly. If he’d been at all friendly, I would have had a more difficult time coming up with reasons to avoid him.

Because I was doing just fine in my life…and the last thing I wanted was the kind of complications a handsome neighbor might cause.