Free The Agent Next Door by Adrienne Bell

be told, I didn’t think either of you did.
I was starting to think that I was going to have to figure out a
way to lock you both in the same room.”
    Erin shook her head. “No. My house had just
exploded.”
    “Way to make the best out of a bad
situation.”
    “Marianne, nothing happened.”
    “Nothing?”
    “Nothing.”
    Marianne sagged back against the couch
cushions. “That’s disappointing.”
    “I guess I was too busy worrying about losing
my every earthly possession to pull out my best moves.”
    “It’s understandable.” Marianne shrugged her
shoulders. “It’s just a damned waste of potential is all.”
    “Sorry. The most action this couch saw last
night was me falling asleep on his shoulder.”
    Marianne’s brows lifted. She sat up straight
again. “You fell asleep on him.”
    “Keep your voice down.”
    “So you slept with him?”
    “I slept next to him. There’s a
difference,” Erin whispered. John had to be coming back any moment
now, and there was no way she was getting caught in this
conversation when he did.
    “Is there?”
    Erin’s eyes went so wide she feared they
might fall out of her head. “Yes, there is.”
    “I suppose you’re right.” Marianne waved a
hand between them. “Still, it’s a start.”
    “There’s no start. Marianne, I lost
everything last night.”
    “Oh, my darling girl, of course you did,”
Marianne said, her tone and expression changing dramatically when
John walked back into the room with her coffee. She didn’t even
look his way as he bent over to place the mug on the table in front
of her. “About that. What exactly happened?”
    Erin looked at John as he stood. Their eyes
held for a long heartbeat.
    “Gas leak,” Erin said. “Just like they said
on the news.”
    Erin turned back to Marianne to find her
friend eyeing her suspiciously. “You sure about that?”
    “Yeah. Of course I am. The Fire Chief said it
was a freak accident.”
    “Sure sounds it.”
    Erin shifted in her seat as Marianne’s gaze
flicked between her and John.
    John, for his part, didn’t show any pangs of
conscience over the lie. He kept his mouth shut and his gaze steady
as he took up his old position in the archway.
    “One minute everything was fine and
then…boom. If I hadn’t been talking to John on the lawn when it
happened I would have been blown to pieces along with it,” Erin
said, hoping that the allure of a thrilling story would be more
compelling than the details behind it.
    This one time, she was right. Marianne turned
toward her. “Oh, you poor thing.”
    “We were both thrown a good six feet,” Erin
said. “It’s amazing that neither one of us was hurt.”
    “It is amazing,” Marianne said. “It
really makes you feel lucky to be alive.”
    “Sure does.”
    “Makes you think that you shouldn’t let the
rest of life pass you by,” Marianne went on. Erin felt her heart
drop in her chest. “That you should grab what you really want with
both hands and take what pleasure you can out of this world. Don’t
you agree, Muscles?”
    Erin let out a long breath between tight
lips. Would she ever learn?
    “Yes, ma’am,” John said flatly.
    “Good,” Marianne said, clapping her hands in
front of her. “Now that we’ve got that straightened out, I figure
that you and I have a lot of shopping to do.”
    Erin’s brows pulled together. “Shopping?”
    “Yes. If you’ve lost everything, then I
figure we’ve got one heck of a shopping day in front of us.”
    “But, I—” Erin looked at John. He stared
back. The message in his eyes was clear—she wasn’t going anywhere
without him. “There’s so much that I have to do this morning.”
    “Like what?”
    “Call the insurance company.”
    “What do you plan to call them with? Based on
the fact that every time I called you this morning the call went
straight to voicemail, I’m guessing that your phone wasn’t in your
pocket last night.”
    “No. It was in the house.”
    “And I’m also