Jennifer was so annoyed. When she remembered what was on that phone she just had to get back from that homeless bitch, it was worse. She was terrified.
People were so unreasonable. Why had that stupid homeless man made her life even more difficult by picking that homeless bitch/phone-stealer up out of the gutter? What could he have been thinking? And why had he then gone on to intentionally torture Jennifer even further by disappearing? Where on earth was he hiding her phone…and the homeless bitch?
Jennifer stood in the middle of the block, stamping her feet so hard, and for so long, that she finally broke off one of the heels of her expensive dress shoes. She screamed aloud in rage. At first she stuffed the broken-off heel in her pocket, assuming she’d repair her shoe later. But then she tore both shoes off that she couldn’t walk on that way anyway, and, in a fit of frustration, threw them down in the gutter.
Of what importance were any shoes compared to what was on her phone?
Barefoot now, she looked up and down the block. No one in sight. How could a man carrying a woman disappear so quickly? There hadn’t been enough time for him to make it to the end of the block and turn the next corner. So, not so homeless after all, he must have gone into a building. But which one?
She scoured the block.
“Ah, the pain of love lost…”
She spun around. She could have sworn she was alone…had just checked. But not three feet behind her was the most gorgeous man she’d ever seen. Blond. Chiseled cheek bones. Huge, piercing green eyes. But how had he materialized out of nowhere? Out of her fondest imagination?
“And to have lost out to…a homeless old hag?”
She found her voice. “I don’t know what you’re talking about. And I don’t know you, so why are you talking to me anyway?”
The man must have put a hand on her shoulder, but there was something really creepy about the way he moved. Not only was he as silent as a cat, but he’d somehow managed to place a hand on her shoulder entirely out of her range of vision…like some fighter that never telegraphed a punch. “Come, come. We’re both old friends of Alex, who’s as mad as a hatter. You needn’t worry about his betraying you for that homeless old hag, though. She’s just another damaged thing he’s picked up, supposedly to fix. Like that bird with the broken wing last week. If there’s any worrying to be done, it’s on behalf of the homeless old hag.”
Jennifer just looked at him. Wall-to-wall shoulders. Classic V-shape. Magnificently muscled. Bronzed from the sun. And a hand on her shoulder. Could he tell she was breathing heavily?
Yet…there was still something eerie about that hand on her shoulder…about him. But then she remembered about her phone with a thud in her gut. “Do you have Alex’ address?”
