Beware of Doug Read online

  Elaine Fox

  Beware of Doug

  For David Voorhies,

  who encouraged me

  to let my writing go to the dogs.

  Thank you for being

  the best champion a girl could have.

  Contents

  One

  “Someone’s moving in.”

  Two

  Brady sat on the front porch with a beer, listening…

  Three

  They had dined at Bistro Bethem and walked down the…

  Four

  “What I am afraid of,” Brady said, “is catching your…

  Five

  In the end he’d left her a note. Slipped it…

  Six

  Lily called Megan right away and was assured that Doug…

  Seven

  “So now you know,” Brady finished, exhaling. He rubbed his…

  Eight

  “Megan was telling me about your pilot,” Penelope said, one…

  Nine

  Lily walked up to her front porch in a daze,…

  Ten

  Brady crossed the darkness of his backyard, unaware of the…

  Eleven

  Dammit, where was his other shoe?

  Twelve

  Lily didn’t know what else to do. She saw Megan…

  Thirteen

  “Megan has asked us all to come outside for a…

  Fourteen

  The kiss was delicious. She fell into it like a…

  Fifteen

  The trap was laid, the hiding place established, now all…

  Sixteen

  Lily sat with Doug next to her on the wooden…

  Seventeen

  Lily sat in her living room, drinking an iced tea…

  Eighteen

  It took Nathan a moment, but he finally seemed to come…

  Epilogue

  Doug didn’t think of him as the New Guy anymore.

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  Other Books by Elaine Fox

  Copyright

  About the Publisher

  One

  “Someone’s moving in.”

  Nathan made the statement as if he and Lily were parked in a dark alley, wearing night-vision goggles and staking out someone’s house, instead of standing by the fence in their respective front yards on a sunny spring afternoon. They were watching several large moving men unload a leather couch from a truck into the right side of Lily’s Victorian “twin house,” the nineteenth century’s version of a duplex.

  From inside her half, Lily’s French bulldog, Doug, could be heard barking as if the four horsemen of the apocalypse were galloping up the driveway. Through the closed window he sounded like a cartoon character underwater. Bwoop-bwoop. Bwoop-bwoop.

  “My father’s really happy with this tenant,” Lily said, watching two of the movers bend an enormous mattress through the front door. It looked even bigger than a king size. Who in the world needed such a big bed? “That’s why he wanted me to be here when the guy moved in, in case he had any questions. The guy’s being bankrolled by a billionaire, as my father put it, so he won’t be a deadbeat like Hugh was.”

  “It’s a guy?” Nathan asked sharply.

  Lily nodded. “Don’t worry,” she added. “I’m sure my father read this one the riot act about loud parties and beer cans in the backyard. You and your mother can rest easy. Besides, this guy works. He’s not in college like Hugh was.”

  “What does he do?”

  “He’s a pilot. He’ll be flying Sutter Foley’s private jet. Apparently it’s a full-time job.” Despite herself, she was impressed with this. A pilot. It seemed so…adventurous.

  Nathan nodded. “Nice, working for a billionaire. So I guess your friend Megan knows him. I mean since she lives with Foley and all. Did she say what he was like? Is he, like, old or anything?”

  “I’m not sure she does know him.” Lily leaned slightly sideways as the movers manipulated the long leather couch first one way, then the other, in an attempt to get it through the door. “She isn’t very involved in Sutter’s business stuff.” She gazed down the street again, expecting that any minute a car would pull into the driveway. “Where is he, anyway? I don’t have all day. You’d think the new guy would be here, directing the movers, so they know where to put stuff. Doesn’t seem very responsible.”

  “Maybe he’s on a flight,” Nathan said. “Maybe he’s gone a lot. Could be he’ll never be around.”

  Lily glanced at him. “That would be great.”

  Even as she said the words, a motorcycle roared up the street, rattling the windows on nearby houses, then slowed to a crawl and pulled into the driveway. It didn’t stop there, however. With a twitch of the driver’s wrist the cycle gave a gratuitous growl and pulled right up alongside the moving truck, partially on the lawn, over the front walk to a patch of grass next to the flower bed lining the right side of the porch.

  It was out of the way of the movers, she gave him that. But it stood in the front of the house like the prized possession of a redneck in a trailer park.

  The motorcycle’s rider wore a brown bomber jacket, faded and frayed jeans, a sweatshirt that seemed to fit snugly across a wide chest and drape loosely over a trim middle. He pulled off his helmet to reveal straight brown hair with a side part and dark sunglasses over a lean face.

  He straightened his legs, swung one easily over the saddle, and settled the helmet on the seat of the black-and-chrome beast.

  “A bomber jacket on a pilot,” Nathan said sourly. “What a cliché.”

  Lily laughed, but could not take her eyes from the pilot. “At least the sunglasses aren’t mirrored.”

  He looked like trouble, she thought. Had her father actually met this guy in person? There was no way he’d be less difficult than Hugh had been, she could tell just by looking at him. Hugh at least had been nineteen and intimidatable. This guy was an adult who worked for a billionaire, and it was obvious simply from the way he moved that he had confidence enough for several normal men. Besides, he was a pilot. Didn’t everyone know about pilots? They were all cocksure and obnoxious. She knew. She’d seen Top Gun.

  In addition to everything else, he was good-looking. That was immediately obvious. In her experience, that meant a parade of bimbos through the house, not to mention parties and drunken revelry on a regular basis. Then there was that motorcycle. He might as well have been landing the jet in the backyard for all the noise that the bike made.

  “Oh Daddy.” She sighed, shaking her head. Why didn’t he let her rent the place out? She’d offered, more than once. He always told her not to worry about it, that he’d take care of it, that she should just concentrate on grading papers or whatever the hell it was she did at that college.

  The new tenant chatted with one of the movers a minute, gestured toward the house with broad, casual sweeps, laughed, then turned and headed for Lily and Nathan.

  “One of you Lillian Tyler?” he asked, nearing them with a loose-legged stride. He removed his sunglasses in a smooth, practiced move.

  His smile was pleasant, she had to admit. And he had hazel eyes that crinkled appealingly. A man who went into every situation knowing he’d be liked.

  “That would be me.” She raised her hand. “Most people call me Lily.”

  He reached out to shake. “Brady Cole. Nice to meet you.”

  She took his hand, and their palms met, his was warm and dry, hers cool in his grip. The guy exuded confidence even through his skin, she thought.

  “And this is Nathan Williams.” She gestured toward Nathan. “He lives next door with his mother, Edie.”

  She watched as Brady Cole shifted his gaze to Nathan, smiled easily, and moved his hand from hers to Nathan’s. “Go
od to meet you, Nathan.”

  Nathan nodded once and shook the offered hand. Lily noted the flush in his cheeks and knew he hated meeting new people. It wasn’t that he was shy, exactly. He just wasn’t good with change.

  “Glad I got to meet you so soon. Your dad said you’d be keeping an eye on me, so I just want to say I’ll be on my best behavior.” Brady Cole grinned at her, his eyes direct.

  So her father had read him the riot act, she thought. That was good. But this guy was going to have to do more than talk about good behavior. He reminded her of one of her good-looking students who thought he could charm her into a better grade than the work merited.

  “Then we’ll get along just fine.” She let a pert smile tilt her lips.

  His grin grew devilish. “He also said I should keep an eye on you. Apparently he doesn’t think you’re safe down here all by yourself. I get the impression he’s a little protective.”

  “Is that so?” She wondered once again why her father felt the need to impress on everyone how incompetent she was to be on her own. “All he said about you was that you probably wouldn’t be a deadbeat.” She let her eyes graze him and smiled. “But the jury’s still out on that.”

  Brady laughed. The sound traveled up her core to tingle at the base of her skull. She’d insulted him, and he laughed. She didn’t trust people who did that. It wasn’t sincere.

  “She’s tough,” Brady said to Nathan, who startled and froze like a deer in the road. “I might have known, having met her father. Is she always like this?”

  “No,” Nathan said firmly, glaring at him.

  “That’s good.” Brady ignored Nathan’s curtness as if he hadn’t noticed and turned candid eyes back to her. “I don’t think I could keep up if it went on all the time. What is that noise?”

  Lily glanced toward the house, saw Doug’s white-and-black body bobbing up and down on the back of the couch like a piston, his enormous ears pointed straight up like a couple of satellite dishes.

  “That’s my dog,” she said, and bit her bottom lip. She’d tried everything to shut him up when he got like this, but if there were men in the vicinity, he went nuts. Doug hated men.

  “Your dad didn’t mention a dog.” Brady frowned, his tone cautious.

  Lily’s eyes narrowed. He could just turn those movers around if Doug was going to be a problem. Brady Cole would be gone long before Doug would be. “Maybe because the dog has nothing to do with you.”

  Brady shifted his gaze to her, his smile milder now. “Does he bark like that all the time?”

  Lily took a deep breath, and said decidedly, “No.”

  No matter that Doug barked whenever he spotted a man, which would, in Brady’s case, be all the time. The fact was she intended to fix the problem. Maybe she’d finally have to try that citronella collar the animal behaviorist had been advocating for so long, she thought, even though she hated inflicting any kind of discomfort on Doug.

  “So, Brady,” she continued brightly, “I wanted to be here to welcome you to the neighborhood and let you know that if there’s anything you need, don’t hesitate to call or knock on my door. I’m a lot easier to get hold of than my father, and I can help if something goes wrong.”

  He smiled at her with warm eyes. “Great. How…neighborly.”

  “I also know all the good restaurants, places to shop, library, city hall, whatever you need. And I’m happy to help.” She nodded once, with a smile, punctuating the conclusion of her duty for the day. Now she could get back to grading papers with a clear conscience. She’d done what her father had asked.

  He tilted his head. “You know, I lived eight years in a condo in DC and never even met the people who lived next door to me there.”

  “Things work a little differently down here—” she began, but was interrupted by one of the movers.

  “Hey, Mr. Cole!” The mover took a few steps in their direction, holding what looked like a wrought-iron sculpture in one meaty fist. “Where you want this?”

  Brady turned to the mover, then back to them. “Hang on a sec. I’ll be right back.” With a flash of a smile, he sauntered across the front lawn.

  “I don’t think he’s going to like Doug,” Nathan offered.

  “He hasn’t even met him yet,” Lily protested, watching the pilot move across the grass. He took the front steps in two long strides behind movers who muscled a black-lacquered chest of drawers inside.

  “You think that’ll help?” Nathan asked.

  Lily turned a glare on him, then, chagrined, looked back at the house and scowled. “No. Of course not.”

  It would only make things worse. Doug had a way of making his feelings known to whomever he took a dislike. And it usually wasn’t pretty.

  A second later Brady reemerged from the front door, leapt down the stoop in a single bound, and headed back toward them.

  At the same time, a blue BMW convertible crept up Prince Edward Street and paused in front of the house.

  Brady’s stride slowed as he reached Lily and Nathan, and he glanced over his shoulder to see what they were looking at.

  “Oh no.” The words were muttered under his breath, but the dread in them resonated clearly.

  Lily looked at him. His eyes were trained on the car, his mouth turned downward. He shoved his hands in his pockets and hunched his shoulders as if his mother were about to scold him for stealing the cookies.

  “Someone you know?” Lily asked.

  The question was answered a moment later, not by Brady Cole but by a long-legged blonde who rose out of the driver’s seat like a monolith. She stood dramatically by the car, giving Brady a hard look, then slammed the door and marched resolutely across the lawn toward them.

  “You two-faced, arrogant, lying son of a bitch,” were the first words out of her mouth.

  Lily caught her breath. She’d never seen vitriol so thoroughly embodied at such close range. The woman was a seething missile of rage.

  “Tricia!” Brady’s tone was so futilely welcoming that Lily nearly laughed. “How did you find me?”

  “You moved? You just packed up and left without a word? Were you ever going to tell me? Or did you hope you could just disappear and never have to speak to me again?” She planted herself in front of him, hands on her impossibly tiny jeans-clad hips, and gave him a look that expressed loathing on a biblical scale.

  On her feet were high spiked heels. Lily wondered if they were sinking into the soft spring lawn. She could never walk on grass in heels, let alone march with the propulsive force Tricia achieved.

  “Now, Tricia, I told you I was taking a new job,” Brady hedged.

  Both Lily and the blonde issued a disbelieving scoff.

  Brady glanced at Lily. She shrugged and mouthed sorry, with an unapologetic smile.

  “Oh, please,” Tricia sneered, throwing a hand out toward the moving truck. “A new job is one thing. But what about this? You never mentioned moving. You never mentioned a whole new town. What did you think, Brady, that I’d just forget all about you? About what we had? Huh?”

  “What we had, Tricia, was—”

  “Don’t give me any more of your bullshit, you sadistic, misogynistic sack of shit,” she growled.

  Lily raised her brows. This woman could curse like it was a foreign language. It was impressive, if a little weird.

  “I didn’t want to fall in love with you, you know. But did I listen to my instincts? No! And do you know why? Because you turned on the charm. You couldn’t even help it. You’re such a goddamn talker, Brady. I fell in love with you—you made me fall in love with you—then you used me, goddamn it. Used me for sex, and now you’ve just up and moved? Is this how you break up with a woman?”

  “Tricia, please,” Brady said, his voice smooth as honey. “We did not break up. We couldn’t break up because we—”

  “Just stop! Do you think I’m some kind of idiot? Some kind of weak, gullible, desperate idiot? I’ll tell you who’s the idiot, Brady. You are, you cheap, dollar-st
ore playboy.” Tricia was so incensed that her long straight hair fell into her eyes. She swept it back with a manicured hand. It rippled like a yard of silk.

  Lily could swear there was a sheen of sweat on her upper lip. This was no act the woman was putting on, she meant every word.

  “You talk a good game, but you are not the guy you pretend to be,” Tricia continued. “Is this the new one?” Glacial blue eyes shifted disdainfully to Lily. “You left me and came to this godforsaken outback for her? Well let me tell you, honey”—she jabbed a finger in the air toward Lily—“don’t you trust this man as far as you can throw him. Don’t get into his bed. All he wants is sex. Sex, sex, and more sex.”

  “Hey, I’m not getting in his bed.” Lily raised her hands up and away from the offending party.

  “Tricia,” Brady said, his voice calm and patient, like he was talking to a six-year-old, “you know as well as I do that you and I did not have a—”

  Tricia’s hand flashed like mercury. The crack of her palm on Brady’s cheek seemed to bounce off the houses around them. Lily and Nathan both jumped.

  Brady moved not a muscle.

  “Tricia,” he said finally, in a voice that held a surprising note of kindness, “would you like me to call Silverman? Your parents gave me the number, you know. I’ll call him right now if you want.”

  “Don’t patronize me, you bastard,” Tricia said, tears clogging her voice. “I just came here to tell you I’m through with you. I can do better. You’ve seen the last of this body,” she said, with a sweep of her hand down her perfect torso. “And I defy you to find a better one. You didn’t deserve me to begin with, and now you’ll have to do without.”

  With that she spun on one slim heel—Lily was gratified to see that she did have to yank it out of the soil—and headed back to the car. The three of them watched as she revved the engine to life, slammed it in gear, and peeled off up the street, leaving a dark patch of rubber residue on the pavement in front of the house.