Moonlight on Nightingale Way

Текст добавлен: 6 октября 2016, 20:13

Текст книги "Moonlight on Nightingale Way"

Автор книги: Samantha Young

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Samantha Young is a New York Times, USA Today and Wall Street Journal bestselling author from Stirlingshire, Scotland. She’s been nominated for the Goodreads Choice Award for Best Author and Best Romance for her international bestselling novel On Dublin Street.

Visit Samantha Young online:

www.authorsamanthayoung.com

www.twitter.com/SYoungSFAuthor

BY SA M A N T H A YO U N G

ON DU B L I N ST R E E T SE R I E S

On Dublin Street

Down London Road

Before Jamaica Lane

Fall from India Place

Echoes of Scotland Street

Moonlight on Nightingale Way

Hero

Castle Hill (ebook novella)

Published by Piatkus

978-0-3494-0879-8

All characters and events in this publication, other than those clearly in the public domain, are fictitious and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

The moral right of the author has been asserted.

The publisher is not responsible for websites (or their content) that are not owned by the publisher.

P I AT K U S

Little, Brown Book Group

Carmelite House

50 Victoria Embankment

London, EC4Y 0DZ

www.littlebrown.co.uk

www.hachette.co.uk

Moonlight on Nightingale Way

CHAP TER 1

I stared at the bright pink thong draped across the hand railing on the landing I shared with the new neighbor I had yet to meet. My first semi-introduction to him was last night when my work was ground to a halt by the high-pitched squealing coming from next door.

My neighbor ’s girlfriend was loud during sex.

Very, very loud.

Although frustrating, there was nothing I could do but wait for it to end. It took so long (I had to give them points for stamina), it was time for me to go to sleep and I’d gotten hardly any editing done.

Now the squealer ’s thong was drip-drying on my handrail.

Aghast at the thought of my clean and well-maintained stairwell suddenly turning into the set for Shameless, I could do nothing but stare at the offending item in horror.

The sound of my neighbor ’s door opening jerked my attention from the thong to his door.

Stepping out of the doorway, phone to his ear, was an exceptionally tall man. My eyes roamed over the broad shoulders and muscular biceps and stopped on the black tattoo that took up a good part of his right forearm. It looked Celtic in design and appeared to be a sword with a semicircle arching over it and connecting on either side of the hilt.

“Talk to Dad,” the man murmured, drawing my gaze from his tattoo to his face. “Whatever you decide, I’m on board.”

His dark hair was close-shaven, and he was sporting heavy scruff that only made his rugged features that much more so. His large build and the scruff were too much in my opinion. I preferred my men leaner, clean-cut, and far less intimidating.

Suddenly I found myself trapped in his gaze as he looked up and spotted me.

I froze, flustered by the heat that suffused my cheeks under his perusal. He had the most extraordinary eyes I’d ever seen. They were clear and light. Beautiful, unusual violet eyes rimmed with black lashes. Those eyes softened his looks somewhat.

I found myself released from his gaze as he dragged it down my body and back up again. From there I received a polite nod that made me bristle. Perhaps my reaction had something to do with how dismissive he was. Altogether irritated and not at all good at handling it, I glanced back at the thong and bit my lip. I couldn’t have underwear drying on my landing.

I just couldn’t.

I looked back at him as he continued his conversation. “Excuse me,” I said quietly, annoyed, wanting to interrupt but still somehow too well mannered to do it forcefully.

Still, my quiet words brought his gaze back to me, and he frowned. “Shannon, I’ll call you back…

Aye… ’Bye, sweetheart.” He lowered his phone from his ear and slipped it into his pocket. “Can I help you?”

I stuck out my hand and formally introduced myself. “I’m Miss Grace Farquhar.” I pointed to my door with my other hand. “Your neighbor.”

Lips pressed together in a hard line, he slipped his large hand into mine and engulfed it. A shiver rippled across my shoulders, and I immediately regretted offering my hand to him. “Nice to meet you, Miss Grace Farquhar.”

“Hmm, quite,” I murmured, tugging my hand back and trying not to appear as flustered as I felt.

“And you are?”

“Mr. Logan James MacLeod.”

He was making fun of me. I ignored it. “Well, Mr. MacLeod.” I tried for a pleasant tone, but I could feel the thong glaring at me from the hand railing and fueling my annoyance. “I would greatly appreciate it if your girlfriend would desist from air-drying her unmentionables in the public stairwell.” I pointed a finger at the thong, not attempting to hide my distaste.

Logan stared at the thong. “Shit,” he murmured.

“Logan!” a female voice shouted from inside his flat. “Do you fancy going out for breakfast?”

The voice was suddenly accompanied by a body.

A young woman stepped out onto the landing wearing nothing but a man’s shirt. It was buttoned just below the ribbon on her bra, revealing a rather impressive cleavage. Everything about the woman was curvy and feminine, and her short but trim legs were tan, her long hair was dyed a shiny platinum blond, and she had what appeared to be mile-long fake eyelashes expertly affixed to her eyes.

She was my opposite in every possible way, and I suddenly realized why Logan MacLeod had dismissed me upon sight.

“What’s going on?” She blinked her wide baby-blue eyes up at Logan.

Logan sighed. “Did you put your thong out here to dry?”

She nodded. “The air ’s drier out here than in the bathroom. I thought it would dry quicker.”

I watched the two of them, fascinated by my neighbor ’s growing annoyance and his girlfriend’s obliviousness in the face of it.

“Are you nuts?”

She wrinkled her nose. “No. What’s wrong with you?”

“We just met last night, and you’re air-drying your knickers on my landing.”

“And?”

Logan looked at me as if asking for help. I could only stare at him in bemusement. He turned back to what I now gathered was a persistent one-night stand. “It’s rude and it pissed off my neighbor.” He jerked a thumb over his shoulder toward me. “Not to mention it’s a little too soon for doing your laundry here. As is breakfast. Now, if you don’t mind, I’ve got stuff to do.”

Affronted by his less-than-diplomatic brush-off, his one-night stand grabbed her thong and dashed back into the flat, yelling out a stream of expletives. By the time she’d changed into a formfitting pink dress and high heels and was tottering angrily out of his flat on unstable feet, Logan was visibly angry.

He looked almost menacing.

I shivered at the air of danger around him.

“Fuck you, you bastard!” She stomped down the stairs and then threw another look over her shoulder, this time at me. “And you, you snobby cow!”

My lips parted in shock as she stumbled out of sight. “Well, wasn’t she delightful,” I said, stunned.

“She was a Class-A cling-on.”

“Perhaps you should be more selective when choosing a sexual partner for the evening,” I suggested helpfully.

Apparently it wasn’t helpful. Logan MacLeod turned his intimidating glare on me. “Are you judging me, plum?”

Cheeks blazing, I whispered, “Plum?”

“Plummy.” He raked his eyes over me, and his lips twisted into a grimace before he explained.

“Posh.”

“I’m not posh.” I stopped myself from stamping my foot in indignation that he would even mention it. I was raised in Kensington in London, and it was true I was very well-spoken, but that had nothing to do with the fact that for whatever reason, he was being very antagonistic.

“You’re the poshest person I’ve ever met, plum.”

“I am not.”

“I think I’d know,” he said.

“Do you have a distaste for the English, Mr. MacLeod?”

He narrowed his eyes. “I don’t have a distaste for anybody because I don’t judge people.” There he went again insinuating I judged people. We’d only just met!

“Neither do I.”

“Oh? So you weren’t judging me based on the knickers drip-drying on the banister, then? Or that those knickers belonged to a one-night stand of mine? Are you judging me for having casual sex, Miss Farquhar? Or merely on my choice of casual-sex partner?” He took in my blouse with the floppy bow tied at the neck and my high-waist, wide-leg trousers. “Was she not classy enough for your liking?”

“I’m com-completely confused,” I stuttered. And mortified! I hated confrontation.

“Let me make it clearer. A friendly neighbor would have introduced herself when I moved in. A friendly neighbor would have welcomed me to the building before rattling on about a pair of knickers. So what is it? Are you not friendly, or did you hear something about me that got your own judgy little knickers in a twist?”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about.” I shook my head. “I just didn’t want a thong on my landing.” Feeling my blood heat, my cheeks blooming ever brighter, I had no recourse but to turn around and shove my key in my door to get away from the brewing argument. I had no idea why he was so defensive or why he irritated me to melodramatic levels, but he did, and I didn’t know how to deal with it.

“’Bye… Miss Grace Farquhar.”

I slammed the door shut. Leaning against it, I discovered I felt out of breath, like I’d just run all the way up the stairs. I huffed at the ludicrous pounding of my heart.

My stairwell was no longer a safe place.

I was exhausted.

It was sheer fortuitousness, then, that when I lifted my foot to step out of my door, I was actually aware enough of my surroundings to spot the pile of vomit on my doorstep.

I jerked my foot back and wrinkled my nose in disgust.

My gaze shot across the hall to Logan’s door.

That bloody swine.

Not only was he the reason I was exhausted, but he was now the reason I had to step over bodily waste to get out of my flat.

Last night I’d heard the ruffian outside on the landing, trying to shut up his cackling female companion. It had been two weeks since our encounter, and in that time I’d spotted him with three different women. Player. Absolute Player with a capital P.

After hearing him shush his lady friend, I’d waited for the inevitable noisy bedroom gymnastics to begin. To my delight there was silence, and I managed to work through three chapters of the romance novel I was editing.

I thought all was well and fell into bed around three thirty, setting my alarm for eleven thirty. I was shamefully awoken at six o’ clock in the morning to ‘OH GOD, OH GOD, LOGAN, OH GOD.’ Like the man needed to be compared to God. His ego was already biblical.

Logan MacLeod was an arrogant pain in my arse.

Two rounds of OH GOD later, I was wide-awake and could not get back to sleep.

Now I was a walking zombie, and I’d almost zombie walked my way into the vomit he or his companion had deposited on my doorstep.

All morning I’d argued with the arse in my head about him keeping me awake with his sexual antics, but like always, I’d eventually calmed down. I hated disagreements with people. The therapist I’d seen in my early twenties had told me my aversion to confrontation was born from the fact that I was constantly seeking the approval of others. For years I’d sought to win both of my parents over with little success, and that need for them to like me filtered into my relationships with everyone. I hated to be hated and so I avoided making people unhappy in any way.

I’d worked hard to overcome it because it could be damaging, and my job as a freelance book editor certainly helped, because as a good editor I had to be absolutely honest in my constructive criticism. I’d grown a thicker skin when dealing with my clients, but I still had a hard time pissing anyone off in my personal life.

And I really didn’t want the hassle of dealing with a pissed-off neighbor.

But now I was pissed off.

Well and truly.

Imagine vomiting on my doorstep and not bloody well cleaning it up!

I glared at Logan’s door.

It wasn’t as though I actually wanted anything to do with the man. Airing my complaints to him wasn’t going to have an adverse effect on our relationship because we didn’t have a relationship and we never would.

Logan MacLeod was going to clean up the mess he made, and I could give a damn if he thought me the most irritating woman in the world.

Anger simmering in my blood, I hopped over the vomit, locked up, and marched to his door. I pounded on it.

Nothing.

I pounded harder before I could regret my decision to confront him.

Two seconds later I heard movement inside, followed by a muffled curse. The door suddenly swung open, and there he stood in all his glory. I blinked, fighting the heat that bloomed on my cheeks, but failed. Logan MacLeod had opened the door in nothing but boxer briefs, and I had never seen a man like him in real life. There was not an inch of fat on him. Just pure, hard muscle.

Cut. My friend Chloe would say he was cut.

Logan rubbed a hand over his short hair, drawing my attention from his six-pack to his sleep-roughened face. “It’s Sunday fucking morning,” he said, squinting at me. “If you’re going to speak, speak.”

The heat in my cheeks flared hotter. Despite my blushing, I mustered on. “I am well aware it is Sunday morning,” I said in my quiet voice, wishing for once that I’d inherited my mother ’s authoritative one. “After working into the wee hours, I was rudely awoken at dawn by your inconsiderately loud antics. I then stepped out of my door and missed the pile of vomit on it by inches.

I can only assume it was deposited there by either yourself or the cackling female you brought home last night.” I was shaking badly, and I didn’t know if it was from anxiety or anger.

No one had upset me like this in a very long time.

“Fuck.” He dragged his hand down his face and then peered past me. “It was…” He frowned. “My friend.”

I rolled my eyes, realizing he couldn’t remember his one-night stand’s name.

“I meant to come out and clean it up first thing. Sorry. I’ll do it now.”

His apology deflated me somewhat. I stared dumbly at him.

He blinked sleepily, looking much too attractive for someone who was just awake. “Is there anything else?”

“No. I appreciate you cleaning it.” I turned away and had put only one foot on the stairs when he stopped me.

“You don’t have to be so antagonistic, you know. You should consider removing that stick from your tiny arse.”

And just like that I was enraged all over again. I stopped and looked at him over my shoulder.

“Excuse me?” I wasn’t quite sure I’d even heard right.

“You talk down to me. And there’s that pinchy-mouthed look you give me instead of a smile every time you pass me in the hall.”

Pinchy-mouthed? I sniffed at the insult and turned to leave again, not deigning to give him a response.

“And that,” he called out to me as I descended the stairs. “That haughty little sniff is extremely fucking annoying.”

I halted, shocked.

Because it suddenly occurred to me that I wasn’t my usual pile of anxiety over the fact that this person found me wanting. No. Instead triumph coursed through me that he was just as aggravated by me as I was by him.

I looked up to find him standing out on the landing scowling down at me.

Despite my red cheeks, I managed an irritatingly haughty swish of my hair over my shoulder and snapped out, “Good.”

CHAP TER 2

T here was no possible way I could manage to hide my distaste and I didn’t even want to. This was in response to Chloe’s, “He sounds hot.”

She was referring to Logan MacLeod. I’d just spent the last ten minutes complaining about his antics and what he’d said to me that morning to my friends Chloe, Aidan, and Aidan’s fiancée, Juno.

How Chloe managed to pick “hot” out of all I’d just said, I had no clue.

“Oh, please.” Chloe huffed at my expression. “You secretly think he’s hot.”

“I think he’s appalling,” I said, appalled.

“Well, I’m proud of you for sticking up for yourself,” Aidan said, and Juno curled deeper into his side on their sofa.

I’d met Aidan eleven years ago, during our first semester at the University of Edinburgh. He, more than anyone, knew what a big deal it was for me to speak up for myself, and he knew exactly why. Chloe was my roommate in first year, and the three of us had grown close during our four years at Edinburgh. A bit of a chatterbox, flirtatious, and energetic, Chloe was our opposite, but together we worked. In fact, if it hadn’t been for Chloe, Aidan would never have met Juno.

Juno was a postgrad student from Canada. She was here working on some engineering… thing…

that I still didn’t understand and had met Chloe on a night out. During one of her moments of utter perceptiveness, Chloe recognized something in Juno that she thought would appeal to Aidan. She introduced the fresh-faced, shy, exceptionally intelligent Canadian to Aidan, and it was pretty much love at first sight. They’d been together for five years and were planning to marry when Juno finished her postgrad. For now they were settled happily into the somewhat swanky Stockbridge flat, courtesy of Aidan’s income as a professional rugby player.

I was the single one among us, as Chloe was also engaged. Her fiancé, Ed, worked in energy efficiency. He’d spent the last six months in Sweden working on developing some brilliant new technology that would help reduce energy costs in everyday housing.

Chloe was lonely without Ed. And when Chloe was lonely she liked to play matchmaker. For me.

Not that it was such a hardship to put up with her matchmaking. I was single and “looking.”

Plus… it was Chloe. I’d do anything for Chloe, Aidan, and Juno. As they sat around me in Aidan and Juno’s lovely flat, I looked at them and I saw my family. They knew me better than the one I’d severed all communication with seven years ago.

“Thanks,” I said to Aidan. “It actually felt good to stand my ground.”

“If he gives you any more problems, you just tell Aidan,” Juno said, offering his services up.

“He’ll deal with it.”

Aidan didn’t protest, because the truth was, he would deal with it. Despite his reserve, he took shit from no man, and he didn’t allow any of us to either. Plus, he was huge, even bigger than Logan. No one – unless an idiot – would try to mess with him. Excluding one extremely drunken night at uni, I mostly thought of him as an overprotective big brother. He was more family to me than my own brother, Sebastian, who was never protective. In fact, he was the opposite.

I threw thoughts of Sebastian aside and gave my friends a reassuring smile. “It will be fine. I’m just tired and cranky. I have that date tomorrow night, and I really hope I manage to get some sleep so I don’t end up looking like the walking dead.”

“Date?” Aidan said.

“The guy from my gym.”

Chloe snorted. “I still can’t believe you made a date with a guy who pervs on women in a yoga class.”

“He wasn’t perving. He was thinking about joining the class.”

Aidan grinned. “Right.”

I glowered at them. “You all think the worst of everyone.”

“And for someone who was raised by Dracula and one of his brides, you see the best, even when it’s not there,” Chloe said.

“Not always,” I grumbled, thinking about my neighbor.

“So where is the yoga perv taking you?” Juno said.

I ignored her teasing. “His name is Bryan and he’s taking me to dinner.”

Chloe grunted. “You don’t sound that excited about it.”

“Of course I’m looking forward to it. Bryan seems very nice.” And he did. He was also quite good-looking.

“Nice?” Juno gave me a confused smile. “Sweetie, nice? No. Your first thought about this guy should be ‘wow.’” She shrugged. “When I met Aidan, it was very much a ‘wow’ for me.”

Aidan smiled down at her. “Back at you, darlin’.”

“Ugh. Stop.” Chloe waved her hands at them. “No cutesy, lovey-dovey crap right now. I haven’t had sex in five weeks, and Miss Farquhar here hasn’t been laid in three months.”

I colored. “Thank you for sharing that.”

“Just because you haven’t gotten laid in a while doesn’t mean you should settle for this guy,” Juno opined.

“Who says I’m settling?” I threw my hands up in disbelief. “None of you have met him.”

“We don’t need to,” Aidan said. “Your last five dates have all borne a scarily similar resemblance and the personality of a wet blanket. You keep selling yourself short, Grace. Can you blame us for being skeptical about this guy?”

“And when Aidan says ‘scarily similar resemblance,’ he means guys who are punching way above their weight dating you,” Chloe added.

“No, they weren’t. That’s such a shallow thing to say. It’s not all about looks, you know. I’m not exactly Angelina Jolie myself.”

Aidan made an irritated noise and reached for his mug of coffee. He took a drink rather than saying something that might upset me. Chloe, however, cursed and snapped, “I could kill your bloody mother.”

“Yes, well, get in line,” I muttered, taking a sip of my own coffee and avoiding eye contact with her. I did not want to have that particular conversation.

“My brother ’s friend Joe saw your photo on my Facebook page. He said he thinks you’re beautiful.” Juno grinned at me.

I blushed and squirmed uncomfortably. “He did not.”

She laughed. “He did so. I asked Ally to bring him to Scotland next time he visits me.”

“Don’t be silly.” I huffed at the thought.

“Is this Joe hot?” Chloe asked.

“Oh yeah.”

“As much as I appreciate the compliment, I think I’ll still go on my date with Bryan, if that’s okay.

I can compromise on a lot of things, but having an ocean between me and my boyfriend isn’t one of them.”

“How about a landing?” Chloe teased.

I wrinkled my nose at her wayward thoughts. “Logan MacLeod is the least likely candidate for boyfriendhood of any man in the entire world.”

She raised an eyebrow at me, and I flushed again when I realized I’d practically shouted it.

“Famous last words.”

“No, not famous last words,” I insisted, feeling that immediate aggravation ignite in my very blood at the thought of my neighbor. “Logan MacLeod is uncouth, probably riddled with sexual diseases, and he’s not at all to my taste. And I am definitely not to his taste. You should see the women he sleeps with. They’re all sexy, tan, blond hair and big boobs. He thinks I have a stick up my arse because the hem of my skirt sits below my crotch and I do up the buttons over my cleavage.”

Chloe’s eyes were round as I ranted on. She turned to Aidan and Juno in seeming wonder. “I have to meet this man.”

“Why?” I snapped.

“Because he’s clearly got something intriguing about him if he can do this to you.” She gestured to me in a vague way.

“Do what?”

“This,” she insisted, repeating the vague gesturing.

I clenched my teeth together. “What is this?”

“I don’t know what it is. I just know it’s something.”

It had been suggested in the past by people who didn’t really know me at all well that as an editor who spent her days editing romantic fiction, I might have unrealistic expectations of men. Anyone who knew me – really knew me – knew that wasn’t true. Although I was actively looking for the man I wanted to spend my life with, I wasn’t looking for a fantasy man. I was looking for someone understanding, protective, and funny. I didn’t expect perfection. I just wanted to like the person I was dating, and I wanted him to be kind.

Bryan was neither funny nor kind.

“So the bitch took the fish, even though she never bought the fish,” Bryan finished, his nostrils flaring.

I blinked, wondering how my mentioning that my hake had been delicious had somehow gotten us onto the topic of his ex-girlfriend. Again. So far Bryan had turned all of our conversations on this abysmal date back to his last two ex-girlfriends.

He seemed to be a very angry little man.

Bored, I somehow found myself kicking the hornet’s nest. “But didn’t you say you won it at a fun fair for her?”

He scowled. “That’s not the point.”

“Surely a gift once given cannot be taken back?”

“Ugh, that’s such a fucking female thing to say.”

I stuck my hand up at the passing waiter. “Check, please.”

Exhausted from the terrible date, all I wanted was to get home and snuggle up to watch the latest episode of my favorite reality singing contest, which I’d recorded from the weekend.

I was hurrying up my stairwell when, to my horror, his door opened.

Logan stepped out, surprising me with his attire. He wore a beautiful black suit and a black shirt.

The top button was open on the shirt and he wore no tie, but still he was very smart – it was the most civilized I’d ever seen him. I had to wonder if he worked at night, and if so, what exactly it was that he did.

I drew to a stop at the top of the stairs, and Logan jolted when he saw me, his gaze raking over me, his lips parting slightly as though he were in shock. Like him, I was wearing black. A black Alexander McQueen dress with a pleated knee-length skirt and a V-neck that showed off a modest amount of cleavage. The dress was a remnant from my previous life, and it was pure class. I loved it.

I’d loved it for almost ten years. For once my honey brown hair hung loose over my shoulders, and my makeup was soft in dusky pink shades, which suited my light complexion.

I flushed when those extraordinary eyes of his connected with mine.

“Back from a date?” he said, sounding surprised by this.

“Yes,” I answered out of politeness.

“I take it the date didn’t go well?”

“Why would you think that?”

“Because you’re home alone.”

Feeling my cheeks redden, as they had a tendency to do around him, I slipped past him, rummaging through my clutch for my keys. “It may come as a shock to you, Mr. MacLeod, but not all of us sleep with someone on the first date.”

“How boring.”

I jerked around at his teasing tone and found his eyes glittering at me. “It’s called respecting a woman.”

“It is called not living life to the fullest.” He started to descend the stairs. “Maybe if you got yourself laid, you’d relax a wee bit.”

I sniffed, denying even to myself that his perception of me stung. “I am perfectly relaxed.”

“Oh, you sound it,” he called up, his infuriating chuckle trailing up to me as his head disappeared from sight.

“Argggh.” I smacked my clutch against my door before throwing it open and slamming it shut behind me. The clutch went sailing down the hall of my flat in my anger. “Damn the man!”

Next time I was bloody well going to get in the last word.

CHAP TER 3

“B ugger, bugger, bugger,” I muttered as I attempted to retrieve my keys from my purse while trying to juggle three shopping bags filled with food.

A large hand suddenly tugged on the handles of one of the bags and I jerked my head up in fright.

My gaze clashed with Logan MacLeod’s. “Wha—”

The bag was in his hand and the second and third followed quickly into his other.

I stared up at his serious expression, bemused. “I didn’t even hear you come up behind me.” He certainly moved quietly for a big man.

Instead of speaking, he gestured to the front door of our building.

Flustered, my hands shook a little as I tugged my keys out and selected the right one. I let us inside. “I can carry them now. Thank you.”

His blank face and refusal to give me back the shopping bags forced me to keep walking. I stopped at flat one on the ground floor and knocked. Logan halted in confusion. Before I could explain, the door to the flat opened and I was faced with my favorite neighbor, Mr. Jenner, and his cheery disposition.

“Ah, Gracie, there you are.” He grinned at me, his smile faltering a little when he glanced beyond me. “Oh, you have company?”

“Mr. Jenner, this is Mr. MacLeod. He just moved into the building. He very kindly offered to carry your shopping.”

I heard Logan’s grunt behind me and didn’t know whether it pertained to my diplomatic retelling of the situation or the fact that the shopping bags weren’t for me.

“Oh, how kind.” Mr. Jenner smiled at Logan. “Come in. Come in.”

I looked at Logan and he stared at me, his eyebrow raised in question.

“I do Mr. Jenner ’s shopping for him every week. I can carry them inside if you like.” I held out my hand for the bags.

“I’ve got them.” He brushed past me, and I followed him into Mr. Jenner ’s flat.

The elderly gentleman lost his wife a few years ago, only a few short months after I moved into the building. His son had arranged for a cleaner to visit once a week, but she wanted more money to do the shopping, so I had offered to do it for free because the Jenners were kind and welcoming to me from the moment I moved in.

I watched Logan as he glanced around the small, well-kept flat, wondering if he was really listening to Mr. Jenner ’s chitchat as he followed our neighbor into his kitchen.

I realized I had been so busy watching Logan I hadn’t heard Mr. Jenner ’s chitchat and was thus confused when Logan offered, “I’ll take a look at it.”

“Look at what?” I said, immediately diving into the bags Logan had placed on the counter. I started putting the perishables away in the refrigerator.

“Mr. Jenner ’s washing machine is playing up. I’ll have a look at it.”

“Are you qualified to do that?” I said, still curious about exactly what it was he did for a living.

“Yes. I have a Ph.D. in washing-machine technology.”

I rolled my eyes at his sarcasm.

“That’s very kind,” Mr. Jenner said, clearly oblivious to the undercurrents of tension between me and Logan.

“I’ll do it now, if that’s okay?” Logan shrugged out of his jacket at Jenner ’s grateful nod.

I didn’t particularly want to stick around to see Logan do a good deed. It might put a dent in my annoyance, and I wanted nothing to penetrate my dislike for my new neighbor. One good deed did not outweigh the growing tally of complaints I had against him. “Well, I’m off, then.”

Mr. Jenner smiled. “Thanks again, Gracie. You’re an angel.”

I returned his smile but found mine wobbling a little under Logan’s fierce regard. Ignoring his quizzical, burning stare, I waved good-bye without looking at either of them and dashed from the flat.

All those moments would be lost in time… like tears in rain.

I stared at the sentence for the fifteenth time, trying to think what it was that niggled at me about it, why it was so familiar, but I couldn’t concentrate.

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