And there she was, she thought with a sigh, picking things apart. Pinching folds of the cloth and trying to make it form into a shape she liked or could work with.
It was a quality that made her a good negotiator, she admitted, and one that probably had a lot to do with her crappy-until recentlylove life.
So why not just go with it? Just let it flow instead of trying to direct the stream? Not the easiest thing for her to do, but she could work on it.
He'd come to dinner on Thursday. Maybe they'd take that evening sail sometime soon. They'd see each other, enjoy each other and, please, God, have more really good sex. And just see.
Just see.
When she pulled up in front of the house, she doubted she could feel much better. She'd peek in on Carly, who had better be fast asleep, then maybe she'd take a pitcher of tea upstairs and see if she could have a little girl time with her mother and Ava.
Humming, she locked the car, started across the sidewalk.
And nearly jumped out of her shoes. She barely managed to muffle her own squeal-and squeal was the only word for it. Cop or not, she was still a damn girl. Any girl might squeal when she saw a two-foot snake draped across her front steps.
Probably rubber, she told herself as she thumped a hand on her heart to get it going again. Probably one of the neighborhood boys playing a nasty boy prank on the houseful of females.
That smart-aleck Johnnie Porter around the corner on Abercornthis was right up his alley. They were going to have words, she and Johnnie were. Some very stern words the first thing in…
Not rubber, she realized as she edged closer. Not some play snake from the toy shop. It was real, nearly as thick as her wrist, and though she wasn't in a position to take its pulse or call the coroner, it appeared to be very dead.
Maybe it was just sleeping.
Standing a foot back now, she dragged a hand through her hair, kept her eyes on the snake in case it moved. Dead or alive, she couldn't just leave it there. Dead it was, well, unsightly and just plain awful. Alive, it might wake up and slither off, anywhere. Even inside the house. The very idea of that had her dashing back to her car. Her head swiveled back and forth between the snake and the trunk she popped.
She actively wished she was wearing her weapon, though she wasn't entirely sure, should it make a slither for it, she was keen-eyed or steadyhanded enough to hit it.
"Going to the firing range," she muttered as she grabbed her umbrella out of the trunk. "Going to the range, get some practice in. I've neglected that. Oh God, oh hell. I so seriously don't want to do this." And what choice was there? Run to a neighbor, yank out her cell phone and call Carter. Come get the dead or sleeping snake off the front steps, would you? Thanks so much. God. God.
She kept swallowing as she inched forward, then with eyes squeezed half shut, poked at the snake with the tip of her umbrella.
The squeal almost got the better of her this time. She jumped back, heart cartwheeling. It lay still, the ugly black thing. After two more pokes, she officially pronounced it dead.
"All right, all right now. Just do it. Don't think about it. J u's't… Oh, oh, oh!"
She slipped the end of the umbrella under the body, fighting to keep her arms steady enough to balance the limp droop of it. She dropped it twice, cursing each time and dancing back as if she'd stepped on hot coals. Fireplace tongs would be better, she realized, but if she went into the house to get them, she might just stay there.
She managed to get it around to the side gate and through to the courtyard. By now she was queazy, and little bubbles of hysterical laughter kept rising in her throat. She dumped it all, snake and the nearly brand-new umbrella, into the trash. Slammed down the lid.
There was probably an ordinance against putting a dead reptile, uncovered, unsecured, in a trash can. But just screw that, she decided.
She'd done all she was doing.
She'd call the waste management company. She'd bribe the trashman. She'd offer him sexual favors.
She backed away from the trash can. Her legs carried her as far as the steps of the back veranda, where she just let herself drop. Damn cat. She was going to find out whose damn cat was running loose, killing things and leaving their corpses on her property.
Though where some cat had flushed out a snake that size in the city of Savannah, she couldn't say. No, it was some idiot kid, that's what it was. Johnnie Porter or his ilk.
No longer in the mood for iced tea or girl talk, she rose, intending to go up and straight to bed.
She heard the whistling when she reached the door, and this time the chill arrowed straight to her belly.
He about busted a gut! He couldn't think of the last time anything had struck him so funny, until actual tears were streaming from his eyes. He'd had to wipe them more than once to keep his vision clear through the long night-vision lens of the camera.
Goddamn, the way she'd jumped! Had to damn near piss herself.
His ribs ached from keeping the laughter down to a snickering, bodyshaking snort instead of a belly-busting guffaw.
He'd expected her to take a wild leap over it, but hell, had to say she was made of sterner stuff. It only made it funnier and more interesting.
It had been a piece of good luck to come across that black snake, and to realize after giving its head a good solid smash with a shovel that he could use it. But, he could admit now, he hadn't known it would tickle him so to watch her deal with it.
He bet she didn't sleep half the night, and when she did, she'd dream of snakes.
Him? He was going home to print out the pictures, have himself another laugh. Then he was going to sleep like a baby.
She didn't sleep well. And there were enough scenarios and possibilities running around in her head that she gave it up shortly after dawn and called Carter.
When Josie answered, Phoebe launched into apologies, got a grunt in return. Then Carter's sleepy voice came on the line.
"I'm sorry. I'm so sorry. I should've waited until a decent hour to call."
"Too late."
"Well, I'm sorry, but I need you to come over here and look at something for me."
"What is it? A mermaid? A three-headed fish? The new Jaguar you bought me out of sisterly love and devotion? Because otherwise? Zzzzzzz."
"Don't you make snoring noises at me, Carter. I need you to get your ass out of that bed, put on some clothes and come over here. Right now. I don't want to wake up anyone else in the house, so you come around by the courtyard, you hear?"
"Yeah, yeah, yeah. Bossy and bitchy. There better be coffee."
He'd come. He'd grumble about it but he'd come. So she dressed quickly then tiptoed down to make coffee. She had two mugs in hand when she slipped outside to wait for him.
There'd been two thunderstorms in the night-she'd heard them both. The stones in the courtyard were still wet from the rain that had pounded down in those quick and violent intervals. There was a haze in the air, the pretty kind that would burn off within an hour or two and leave everything sparkling.
She sipped her coffee and watched drops of water drip, drip from the burgundy leaves of the little weeping peach Ava had planted the year before.
She heard Carter's feet on the path to the gate, and was opening the heavy cast iron before he reached it.
His hair was sleep-tossed, his eyes still heavy. He wore sweats and a Savannah U T-shirt with a pair of ancient running shoes. A knight in the shiniest of armor couldn't have looked better to her.
He scowled, grabbed the coffee. "Where's the damn body?" he demanded. "In the trash can."
He choked on his first swallow of coffee. "What?"
"That one there." She pointed, keeping her distance.
"You kill somebody, Phoebs? Want me to help you bury him out here in Ava's garden?"
She just pointed again. With a shrug, he yanked off the lid. The coffee sloshed over the rim of his mug as he jolted, and that gave her some satisfaction. But then he just reached right in, even as she gargled out a sound of disgust, and pulled the dead snake out.
"Cool."
"Oh please, do you have to-" She yelped, pinwheeled back as he turned, grinning, to wag the snake at her. "Stop that! Damn it, Carter."