Killer WASPs (26 page)

This was pure bliss, I thought, taking off my shoes to feel the lush grass (which
actually needed cutting again), cool and cushiony under my toes. I fed Waffles, got
a glass of water, and sat on the back steps with my eyes closed, listening to the
birds, who were singing even more loudly than Jimmy’s record, and the wind whooshing
through the tall maples up and down Dark Hollow Road. I heard Waffles’s tail thumping,
but he wags whenever the black cat who belongs to the neighbors on the other side
of Jimmy and Hugh walks by the fence. Then I realized that mingling with the good
scents of the early evening—­flowers, grass, cigar smoke, warm dog—­there was the
scent of soap. Masculine, unfancy soap. I looked up into the black-­lashed brown eyes
and beard-­stubbled face of Mike Woodford.

Mike had just showered with his signature Irish Spring. He was wearing faded jeans
and a white button-­down shirt with the sleeves rolled up.

As Mike looked down at me, petting Waffles, I remembered John Hall’s fantastic soap
smell, which I’d been bowled over by just last night. What kind of person is unable
to focus on one great-­smelling man for more than twenty-­four hours? And John has
sincere blue eyes, great arms, makes great salads, and, I’m ninety-­nine-­percent
sure, is getting divorced from his beautiful wife.

Plus I’d sworn off Mike a few days before. Watching him stroll into the pub on his
own during Gerda’s bender had just cemented the fact that Mike’s definitely the kind
of guy who likes to go out to a bar solo, on the spur of the moment, and not have
to answer to some whiny girl about what time he’ll be home. He could never commit
to anyone other than a cow. I instinctively knew—­from years of dating men who seem
perfectly normal at first, and then one day show up in a hand-­knit poncho they bartered
for in Oaxaca—­that Mike was poncho material. I’d bet everything I own that Mike already
had a route mapped out for camping along the Andes this summer.

“I thought you might want to come over for some . . . lemonade,” Mike said, reaching
out his hand to help me up.

“Okay,” I said, surprising myself. I found myself unable to look away from his stubble
and brown eyes. “I guess I could go for some . . . lemonade.”

T
EN MINUTES LATER
,
I blinked in the subtle light from two brass sconces in the entryway of the Mike’s
Sanderson cottage. Waffles and I followed him inside, in a mild state of shock. There
was a beautiful old hall table to my right—­was that
Biedermeier
?—­and just past it was the door to a small library-­style living room. There were
two large chocolate-­brown sofas, a comfy upholstered chair, and a low table piled
with books. Things were arranged in English country-­house style, with botanical prints
on the walls, big comfortable furniture, and an air of age and good style. This place
was totally charming!

No Mexican blankets or camping gear were visible. Also, the house smelled really good.
There was the scent of lemon oil used to polish the furniture and that faint, smoky
smell that lingers into the summer after you’ve burned logs in your fireplace all
winter. I couldn’t even smell the farm through the open window. Not a whiff of cow
shit anywhere.

“Have a seat,” said Mike, gesturing to one of the giant puffy sofas.

“Thanks!” I said, squooshing into the cushions. I’ve never been one for huge furniture,
but for some reason, it really worked in this small room, making it seem incredibly
cozy in a man cave–ish way. Had he hired a decorator? Whatever the case, it was such
a relaxing space that if I wasn’t being kept awake by the sexual tension in the room—­at
least I thought there was sexual tension—­I’d have immediately taken a nap. Mike pushed
the two window sashes higher to let in the early-­evening breeze, while I surreptitiously
checked out his forearms. (Okay, a hint of cow blew in along with the fresh air, but
mostly it was all lemon oil and Irish Spring in here.)

“Did you decorate this place yourself?” I asked him.

“Honey lent me most of the furniture and a lot of prints and paintings,” he told me.
“She has so many antiques handed down over the years, she was happy to move some stuff
out here to the cottage. I’ll get the drinks,” he added, and disappeared.

I watched him leave and wondered: Is it possible to have a relationship that’s based
entirely on someone’s muscular arms? I think it is. I mean, Holly’s marriage to Howard
only came about because of her fabulous legs in a tennis skirt.

Waffles launched himself off his back legs and landed beside me on the giant couch.
I tried to shove him over, but he lay there like a sunbathing manatee. This wasn’t
too romantic.

Actually, though, Waffles looked really good in this old-­English, clubby setting.
It was very basset-­friendly, perfect for a portly brown and white dog with floppy
ears. The room was a little masculine for my taste, but if I wasn’t possessed of the
knowledge that Mike had a predilection for exotic camping trips, I could see myself
living here. And if ­people asked where I lived, I could answer airily: “Sanderson.”

And they’d say, “You do? What’s it like with the ballroom and the greenhouse and the
fourteen bedrooms and the dining room that’s hosted several presidents at the Regency
dining table that seats twenty-­four?”

That’s when I’d have to admit that I lived in a cottage down by the cow barn, but
that’s still pretty good. And so was this cottage, which spoke of stability and comfort.
Questions were whizzing around in my head, and chief among them was the worry: Was
I wrong about Mike? Was he really a guy who couldn’t be counted on for more than sexy
groping in a barn?

Maybe it was just Honey’s heirlooms and antiques that were making that statement,
but was it possible there was a more permanent side to Mike? Since I’d never really
spent much time talking to him, it was possible I was selling him short.

We’d met under such strange circumstances, and given all the crimes around Bryn Mawr
lately and my precarious financial situation—­not to mention meeting John Hall—­I’d
really never spent more than an hour at a time with him, had a meal with him, gone
for a walk with him that didn’t end up with a crime scene.

“Lemonade, as promised,” Mike said, returning with two glasses and some hastily folded
up paper towels as coasters.

Well, Mike definitely wasn’t gay. Only a straight guy would have no napkins. “Want
some vodka in that?” He held up a bottle with some Russian lettering and a red label
on it.

“Sure!” I said. Phew—­for a minute there, I’d been afraid Mike was actually going
to serve plain old lemonade. He glugged some vodka into our glasses, sat down next
to me in the overstuffed chair, and kissed me. This went on for a few amazing minutes,
with me telling myself that this was the last time I’d be doing this, so I might as
well get as much of those muscular arms as I could. Come to think of it, his thigh
muscles, pressed up against my legs, were pretty fantastic, too . . . the low lighting
in this room was really very romantic . . . I liked his sunburned nose and dark brown
eyes . . .

In a pleasant fog of vodka and pheromones, I was considering ripping off Mike’s white
shirt when I suddenly noticed Waffles had gotten up and was standing a few feet away
in front of a door that led from Mike’s living room out into his small backyard. He
was wagging and giving me his I-­gotta-­go look.

“He’s got to go out,” I told Mike.

“I’ll take him,” said Mike.

“Thanks!” I said gratefully, smoothing down my hair.

“C’mon, Waffles,” he said, leading the dog outside into the dark under the trees.
“Be right back,” he said.

While they contemplated some azalea bushes, I got up to look at the bookshelves the
flanked the fireplace, which held a mix of old classics, books on cows and horses,
and a few coffee-­table tomes about Ireland and England. WASP classics, courtesy of
Honey. Then I spied it, between the
Field Guide to Cattle
and a collected works of P.G. Wodehouse.

Mike owned
The Lonely Planet Guide to Thailand
!

Regret coursed through my veins, mingling with the vodka to make for a depressing
cocktail of despair. What was I doing here, anyway? Muscular arms or not, I was done
with Mike, I thought, furious with myself. As he and Waffles came back through the
back door, I glared at Mike and grabbed the dog’s leash, but neither one of them noticed
my irked mood.

“More vodka?” asked Mike, in a friendly manner.

“No, thanks,” I said frostily. “I’m—­”

“Did someone say vodka?” boomed a voice through the open window next to the front
door. “You home, Mikey?”

Honey Potts!
I’d know her Charlton-­Heston-­meets-­Kathleen-­Turner intonation anywhere.

Mike uttered something under his breath and went to the front door, Waffles got up
and ran happily out to the front hallway, and I frantically plumped up the rumpled
couch cushions.

“Hi, Honey,” I heard Mike say to his boss.

“Is that
Waffles
?” said a shocked, more feminine voice. I knew the voice: It went with tanned legs,
long blond hair, blue eyes, and overpriced YSL caftans. It was a voice that had been
expensively educated and had traveled the world, thanks to tons of chicken nuggets
being eaten all around our great country. A voice that was music to the ears of sales­people
at Saks, Neiman’s, and Chanel boutiques around the globe . . .

“Do you know Holly Jones?” growled Honey to Mike in the foyer. “She’s a new friend
of mine. Holly, meet Mike Woodford.” I could hear Waffles’s tail thumping against
the wood floor.

Holly! I was in complete shock. Not only was Holly about to catch me
in flagrante
make out with Mike, I was struggling to absorb the fact that she actually knew Waffles’s
name. I would’ve bet ten bucks that Holly had no idea what the dog was called.

I busied myself getting more glasses from the shelves while the three of them and
Waffles came into the living room. “Kristin, our neighbor across the street, and I
were just having drinks,” explained Mike, while Honey gave me a suspicious look. For
her part, Holly appeared to be semi-­angry with me for never having told her I knew
Mike, but she also looked like she was struggling not to giggle.

If I hadn’t been so mad about the
Lonely Planet Guide
, I would have laughed, too. Holly clearly had taken in the whole situation, and raised
her eyebrows at me while Mike handed around drinks. Holly understands make-­out interruptus,
having been involved in quite a few such sessions herself in her pre-­Howard days.

Holly perched on a small chair by the window, crossed her elegant legs, sipped her
drink, and said, “Guess what, Kristin? One of Mrs. Potts’s cows, Blossom, is giving
birth tonight.” Holly was winking at me and raising her eyebrows in a significant
manner. “So she just called her
veterinarian
.”

Uh-­oh.

“I called John Hall and he’s meeting us at the barn in twenty minutes,” Honey told
Mike, settling herself into one of the sofas and sipping her drink.
Time to go home!
blinked like neon in my mind while Holly’s cell phone began to vibrate.

“Oh boy,” Holly said, eyeing her caller ID. “Sophie Shields.”

She answered and listened for a minute. “Okay, hold on.” Holly paused for a second
and looked at Mike. “Is it okay if our friend Sophie comes over? She has something
important to tell me, and she insists she needs to do it in person.”

“Why not?” Mike said, looking defeated. “Invite anyone you want.”

“Sophie, turn into the driveway at Sanderson. Yes, the place your ex got whacked.
Go straight past the barn to the little stone house. You’ll see my car parked right
out front,” Holly told her, and hung up.

“Actually, knowing Sophie, she might miss it,” Holly added to the three of us, while
checking her manicure.

“Why’s that dingbat coming over?” growled Honey, who, I noted, really did look nice
in her white linen Talbots dress. Was that lipstick I noticed on her sun-­baked lips,
too?

“She has something urgent to tell me. Actually, she’s not that bad,” said Holly. “She’s
trying to reinvent herself.”

A car squealed into the gravel road outside, heels rat-­a-­tatted up the steps, and
Waffles and Mike went to the door. Sophie clacked in and Holly made the necessary
introductions. That done, Sophie greeted us all amiably, and plopped her small Cavalli-­clad
frame into a chair, while Honey stared at her, perplexed.

“Nice piece a property you got here!” Sophie said to Honey Potts. “I can see why my
ex tried to buy it off you. Not that I think you should sell to him, because I don’t!”

She looked at Mike, and recognition dawned in her Bambi eyes.

“Hey, I remember you,” Sophie said to him. “You came with Honey to my symphony party.
Anyway, do you have any champagne?” she asked as Mike poured her a vodka lemonade.
“ ’Cause vodka and I don’t get along, if you know what I mean. And also, I have an
announcement to make. Champagne would help.”

“I’ll check,” said Mike heading to the kitchen. He returned with a bottle of sparkling
wine, popped the cork, and passed us all some wineglasses. We all waited to take a
sip while Sophie got to her feet, put her hands on her narrow hips, and told us dramatically:

“Well, girls, and, um, you, the hot guy with the cute scruff and the champagne, I’m
in love. I’m in love with a man who wants to paint my whole house beige. I’m in love
with Joe!”

My jaw dropped, Holly’s eyes widened in shock, Mike looked confused, and Honey asked,
“Who the hell is Joe?”

“He’s my decorator!” Sophie replied. “Holly and Kristin’s friend. Incredibly handsome
and I’m nuts about him!”

“Is he straight?” asked Mike.

“Yup,” said Sophie proudly. “I checked.”

For the next five minutes, I had an out-­of-­body experience listening to Sophie tell
us all about how she’d finally realized her true feelings for Joe at the Benjamin
Moore paint store the day before. Anyone who cared that much about her house, she
reasoned, and was willing to stand up to her preference for purple and gold, was a
man she could count on. And she knew that he would never treat her with the callousness
that Barclay had. There would be no need to hire PIs to follow Joe around.