Read Her Man Upstairs for Free Online Page B

Egbert on her, but it didn’t work out.”
    In the middle of a jaw-cracking yawn, Marty had to laugh. She edged her best friend toward the front door. “No kidding. I wonder why?”
    â€œHey, when you’re wired for one-ten, you don’t go fooling around with two-twenty. I learned that from husband number two, the electrical engineer.”
    â€œI thought number two was the con man.”
    â€œAren’t they all?” Sasha called cheerfully over her shoulder.
    Marty watched her friend sashay down the flagstone walk hitting about every third flagstone, not even bothering to look where she was going. That was Sasha—stiletto heels, red leggings and faux fur at a quarter of eight on a cold, gray Monday morning, leaving in her wake a trail of Nettie Rosenstein’s Odalisque. She might look purely ornamental, but when she was on a job, she worked harder than any woman Marty knew—including Faylene, Muddy Landing’s unchallenged queen of housecleaning.
    As soon as the red Lexus convertible disappeared around the corner, Marty grabbed a coat and a pair of gloves. Cole had said he’d be here between eight-thirty and nine, which barely gave her enough time for Mutt’s half-hour gallop.
    â€œYou’ll make it, easy,” she assured herself as she waited for her cold engine to turn over. “Think positive,” that was her motto. It had to be, because any negative thinking might send her into a serious decline.
    There were several doughnuts left in the box. Still breathless from the dog walk—or in Mutt’s case, dog gallop—Marty left them on the table as she hurriedly washed the mugs and turned them down in the dish drainer. A moment later she heard the truck pull into the driveway behind her minivan, which meant she’d run out of time. Her hair was a wild, windblown tangle, her nose and cheeks red from the cold, and there was no time to dash upstairs for a quick fix.
    Probably just as well. No point in giving him the wrong impression. Inhaling deeply of the air that now smelledonly faintly of varnish and burnt spice, she braced herself for bad news. It was called hedging her bets. Deliberately not getting her hopes up. If so-and-so happens, she always reasoned, I can always do such-and-such, and if that doesn’t work out, I’ll just fall back on my contingency plan.
    What contingency plan? This was her contingency plan.
    She opened the front door before he could knock. “Good morning, have you had breakfast?”
    He raised his eyebrows. They were almost, but not quite black. Thick, but not unkempt. “Did I misunderstand? I thought—”
    Oh, shoot. She’d told him to come by for breakfast. “The bacon’s ready to pop in the frying pan, the eggs ready to scramble and there’s doughnuts to start with. Toss your coat on the bench or hang it on the rack and come on into the kitchen.”
    Oh, my mercy, he looked even better than she remembered! She was no expert, but after two husbands and several near misses, she’d learned a few things about men. For instance, she knew the really handsome ones were about as deep as your average oil slick, having spent a lifetime getting by on their looks. Cole Stevens wasn’t that handsome. Whatever it was that made him stand out from all the men she’d ever met, it was far more potent than a pleasant arrangement of features.
    â€œDo you have a phone where I can reach you if I need to?” she asked.
    He gave her his cell phone number and she hastily scratched it down on the bottom of a grocery list. Then he followed her into the kitchen.
    â€œWarming up out there,” he said. It wasn’t.
    â€œSpring’s on the way,” she replied. It wasn’t. “Where are you staying, in case something comes up and I need to reach you?”
    â€œAt this place down by the river. Bob Ed’s. I thought I mentioned it yesterday—I’m living aboard my