Free No Place Like Home by Leigh Michaels Page B

never consider that house, and you’ll get nowhere if you insist. The situation calls for some psychology... Kaye, if you’re not going to let me come in, would you at least stop leaning on the door? You’re cutting off the circulation to my toes.”

    “ Then take your foot out of the way,” she said. “If you think I’m going to invite you in for a glass of wine and a cozy chat, you’re wrong.”

    “ I couldn’t stay to drink it, anyway,” he said. “I have a date tonight.”

    “ Well, so do I.” Then she spoiled her unconcerned pose by asking, “Are you taking a lady out to dinner?”

    He grinned suddenly, and it was like sunrise breaking over the lake. “I might. Who knows where we’ll end up? But I’m taking her to church first.”

    “ What a novel idea,” Kaye said dryly. “I’ll bet you have a great success rate with that approach.”

    “ It’s not bad.”

    He looked very contented, and Kaye decided that there was no point in continuing that conversation; discussing his standard lines was obviously not going to disturb him. “Psychology,” she mused. “I’m not sure what you have in mind, but I know that I can’t afford to keep taking every afternoon off work while I look. House-hunting is getting to be an expensive hobby. What do you suggest?”

    “ I’m not quite sure. Why don’t we both sleep on it, and talk about it tomorrow? We can set up our strategy over Sunday brunch. My place, ten o’clock. I’ll make waffles.”

    “ But—”

    “ The alternative,” he reminded, “is Andy Winchester.” He slid a card into her hand and removed his foot from the door so abruptly that her weight had pushed the panel shut before she even realized that he had moved.

    She glanced at the address he’d scribbled on the back of his business card, and sighed. With Andy Winchester as an alternative, what real choice did she have?

    “ Psychology,” she muttered as she turned back into her apartment. “Why do I feel as if I’ve just been on the receiving end of a whole load of it?”

    *****

    When she reached his apartment the next morning at two minutes to ten, there was no sign of life, and his car was nowhere to be seen. She checked his card; the number agreed with that on the porch post of the big, square, white-frame house. It wasn’t the kind of place where she had expected him to live; though it was on the fringes of a neighborhood of historic homes, this house had nothing particularly significant about it. It was simply one of the thousands of plain-styled square houses that had lined the middle-class streets of Henderson at the turn of the century, and which had now been divided into apartments. And there was no reason on earth, she told herself, why Brendan McKenna shouldn’t live there. Certainly the fact that she was disappointed wouldn’t weigh heavily with him.

    And she shouldn’t be particularly surprised, either, she reflected. The rents in this district were low, and the man did have a brand-new car to pay for now.

    She climbed the steps. She felt a little uneasy, as if she was being watched, and she almost laughed in relief when she saw a huge orange tomcat sitting silently in the shadow of the porch railing. “Were you what was making me feel creepy?” she asked. The cat watched thoughtfully as she rang the bell, and then he stood up, stretched, and came across to stand beside the door.

    Nothing seemed to be stirring inside. Kaye snuggled her chin into the furry collar of her white coat and thought about what she should do now. She wondered for a moment if Brendan’s date the night before might have been more successful than he had anticipated. If so, the man might not even have come home yet.

    The door swung silently wide, and the cat slid sinuously past Brendan’s feet and inside.

    It was the first time she had seen him wearing casual clothes instead of a jacket and tie, and his intricately patterned dark blue wool sweater made his eyes look like