12 Days of Mistletoe

4. Elliot

FOUR

elliot

The pretty smile in front of me changes into a scowl. “A4,” she mumbles.

Okay, Q wasn’t wrong. Had I passed this girl on the street, I’d be doing a double take. But I’m not here to make a new friend. I’m here for business, for Gran.

“Can I come in?”

She sets one hand on her curved hip and tilts her head, her long, strawberry-blonde hair falling to the side like a waterfall. She studies me like I might be a scientific project she’s trying to figure out. “Are you sane? In what universe would I let you into my home?” Bonnie Miller’s arms cross over her red wool sweater.

My eyes narrow. “Because you have a dog in there? Or?—”

“Because you are the lunatic stalking me and trying to get me kicked out of my apartment!”

“I just want to have a conversation.” I hold up my hands. If I had a white flag, I’d wave it. Not to give in, but to get inside her place. I know what I know. She won’t take advantage of my gran any longer.

“ Right . My mother taught me better than that. You stay on your side of that threshold, bud.” Her eyes drop to the imaginary line separating the hallway and her apartment. “I’ll stay on my side, and then I won’t need to use my pepper spray.”

Pepper spray? Okay, this girl is growing less beautiful by the minute. She may have soft blue eyes and ridiculously long lashes, but one minute in the same space as her and all of that disappears. She’s just a lying dog hoarder with pepper spray up her sleeve.

Beautiful faces are deceiving. Like a siren’s song.

Jess had a beautiful face too.

That was a lesson I learned the hard way. I won’t make the same mistake with Miss Miller.

“Fine,” I say, giving my tone that nonchalance tenor I use whenever my sisters accuse me of being Gran’s favorite. “Dig your own grave.”

“Excuse me?”

“You’re proving me right. You don’t want me inside because there’s a dog in there.” I shrug as if this is all the proof I need to take further action.

“I’m proving you’re a stalker and all women should be warned of your existence.” Her jaw tightens. “What do you have against dogs anyway?”

I set my hand on the door jamb and lean a little closer. It’s the wrong thing to do. Bonnie Miller is not only beautiful, but she smells like raspberry jam—my favorite. I blink and breathe and ignore the way sweetness wafts off of her—clearly, it’s lying to me too. “I don’t have anything against dogs. I had one growing up. But this building doesn’t allow dogs. And I don’t think it’s right of you to ignore that.”

“If I did have a dog or a cat or, heck, even an elephant in here, how would you know my situation? Maybe Mrs. Elliot and I have worked out some kind of an arrangement.” She lifts one brow as if she’s got me.

While I’m not about to mention that Mrs. Elliot is my gran—my namesake—I’m also not going to sit here and pretend Bonnie Miller is telling me the truth. “Ha! You admit you have a dog in there?—”

“The only thing I’m admitting is that you are a rule-following bozo who knows nothing!”

I’m not a bozo. I know Gran has made no arrangements with her—or she would have told me about them. Besides, didn’t she just concede to guilt?

“You—” I begin, only to have the woman interrupt me.

“I am a dog walker .”

For the first time since I knocked on that siren’s door, I falter. “A dog walker?”

“Yes. A dog walker .” Her jaw clenches.

“Well, those dogs aren’t allowed in here either.”

“I know that, Sherlock. I’m just saying, maybe you saw one of them or something. I don’t know. But I’d love for you to stop harassing me.”

I never saw her with a dog. I’ve never seen her before this very minute. I heard the animal from my downstairs apartment. She lives directly above me.

Still, my head spins and I question everything.

Maybe I did imagine it all. Or maybe she brought one of her clients up here once and is afraid to say so. No dog has come running out to greet me. Wouldn’t a dog have come running with a knock on the door? My childhood pup, Max, would never have been able to contain his excitement with a visitor at the door. Or maybe she paid an obscene amount of money to train her dog to stay hidden just to be able to deceive her landlord and live here in a dog-free zone.

I swallow. Cherry Plum is a nice place, but it’s not overly fancy or priced extreme. That’s one thing Gramps insisted on: a nice, affordable place for folks like them. Although, by the time he passed away, his small investment to help others have a nice place to live had made him quite a bit of money. Still, he never lost sight of his cause.

I miss him. Especially during the holidays. My mother can be overwhelming, and my grandparents always made her over-excited love a little more bearable.

I stand straight and peer around her and into the apartment. “I’m not trying to harass anyone.”

Her brows lift, but she doesn’t say a word. She doesn’t have to; her silence says she feels harassed.

What if… all this time, I’ve been wrong. What if…

“Goodbye, Mr. Eaton,” Bonnie Miller says, just as a reddish something comes into view behind her.

I can’t make out what the something is, though, and now she’s closed the door. It could be that she’s entertaining a short, red-headed friend, or she could have a big fat rat problem.

Or it could be a dog .