Flamingo Place (Mills & Boon Kimani) (3 page)

Reminding herself this wasn’t Ashton, Ohio, where the sidewalk rolled up at midnight, Jen retraced her steps and headed back to rescue Chere.

W
hat seemed
hours later, Jen entered the deserted lobby of Flamingo Place. A sleepy-eyed guard barely looked up as she hopped on the elevator. She got off at five and made her way down the hallway, almost running into a woman who looked to be no more than a teenager. She was exiting 5B. The child-woman clutched a collection of CDs. Her eyes brimmed over with tears.

Jen was tempted to offer a comforting shoulder but thought better of it. It wasn’t her business. She continued on her way. But Tre’s raucous music taunted
her, following her to her apartment door. Was she the only person who objected to the assault on her ears? Her neighbors didn’t seem to mind or didn’t care to do anything about it. Maybe once she closed her door the commotion would cease.

But the tunes followed her into her apartment and continued even after she was ready for bed. Bleary-eyed, and knowing that she had to get up at six, she decided enough was enough.

Jen stomped to the phone. It was a waste of time calling Trestin whatever-his-name-was, even if she did know his last name. Time to go over his head. She punched in the numbers.

“Security?”

“Yes, ma’am”.

“I’m calling from the fifth floor. 5B is keeping everyone up with his music.”

“I’ll see what I can do.”

I’d appreciate that.” Jen disconnected the call.

Punching her pillow as if it were Trestin’s handsome ebony face, she flopped back on the bed and tried closing her eyes. Maybe visualizing a day at the spa would help. But the image filling her vision was one of a dark-skinned broad-shouldered male well over six feet, with sculptured features and seductive bedroom eyes.

Ba
dam, ba dam, ba dam.
The music continued for another half hour and showed no signs of stopping. Calling security had been a waste of time.

Tomorrow she would go to the leasing office and lodge a formal complaint against Trestin Noisemaker. He’d pushed every hot button. Now it was war.

“Dammit!” Tre muttered, pounding the steering wheel of his silver Porsche. He spat out another graphic expletive and threw the vehicle into Park, the motor still running. Hopping out of the car, the roaring in his ears signaled his blood pressure was dangerously high. He circled.

The navy-blue Mazda Miata had no business in his reserved parking spot. He paid a premium amount every month for a location close to the building. Tre counted to ten. Years ago he would have put a dent in the Miata’s hood and maybe a dent in the driver. All those anger management classes had helped mellow him out. He now knew how to redirect his pent-up outrage.

After getting back into the Porsche, Tre angled the vehicle in such a manner it blocked in the Miata, then sat back to wait. Reaching into the glove compartment, he removed a demo CD and slipped it into the player. The music, amateurish as he expected it
to be, would help pass the time until the driver showed up.

Tre sipped from the bottle of water in the center console. The singer’s sultry voice reminded him of Sade. She was the best thing he’d heard in a long time. Curiosity prompted him to pick up the disk’s cover and stare into a heart-shaped face with smoky eyes. She would be promotable and worth playing on the station tonight.

Five minutes grew into ten. Tre’s blood pressure shot even higher. His entire body felt as if it was on fire. The air conditioner was functional and on full blast. What was taking the irresponsible tenant so long to get back to their car? He or she must know that this wasn’t their parking space.

Spotting one of the khaki-clad security guards, he flagged him down.

“Tre,” the guard gushed, openly awestruck he’d been singled out. “Great show last night.”

“Thanks. You wouldn’t happen to know whose Miata that is?”

“No. But I can call a tow truck and get it hauled out of there.”

“Let’s give it ten minutes, then you can do what you need to do.”

An SUV pulled up alongside them. Camille Lewis
hung out the window. “Tre,” she said in her heavily accented voice, “what’s with the Miata?” She peered at him over owl-like sunglasses.

Tre stretched his lips into a grimace of a smile. Camille was probably taking notes so that she could fill the building in. Now she stuck her entire head out of the window.

Tre tried to keep his voice even. “I guess someone decided my spot was more convenient than theirs.”

“You know that someone,” Camille said sweetly. “

I’m going up. Want me to knock on 5C’s door?”

“Please.”

He was starting to lose it. Just this morning he’d gotten a call from the leasing office telling him they’d received a complaint about his loud music. It hadn’t taken a rocket scientist to figure out who’d complained about him. He’d lived in the building over two years and not once had a neighbor ever called the leasing office on him. He’d planned on visiting the witch next door later and straightening her out. Now it looked like later was here.

“Should I call the tow truck?” the guard, whose head ping-ponged back and forth taking in the conversation, asked.

“No, hold off for a moment.” Tre tossed the man a couple of CDs from his stash.

After
thanking Tre profusely, the guard loped off. He yelled over his shoulder, “You’re the man. Call the office if you need me, and I’ll be here on the double.”

Meanwhile Camille had parked her truck in the underground garage. She was undulating toward the building. Tre propped his feet on the console and prepared for a fight.

Ten minutes later, his attractive neighbor waltzed out. She had the grace to look embarrassed.

“I’m sorry, I didn’t expect you’d come back so soon,” she said, the moment he depressed the button and the window slid down. “I expected to be gone just a short time but then my phone rang.”

He wanted to say, “You are so full of it.” Angry as she’d made him, Tre couldn’t help noticing the way the pencil-thin skirt with the slit cut high on the thigh hugged her hips, and those marvelous honey-colored thighs.

Sliding out of his vehicle, he rested his butt against the driver’s door, crossed his arms, and gave Jen a steely-eyed look.

“You are probably one of the nerviest people I know. You called the leasing company on me, yet you have the gall to pull into a spot that costs money and isn’t your own.”

“It was close,” Jen said disarmingly. “Was that
your music keeping me up all night or was that my imagination?”

Tre glared at her, ignoring the delicious smell of her perfume wafting his way. “What did you hope to accomplish by calling the leasing office?”

“I needed leverage to get through to you. I’d already tried appealing to your sense of decency.”

He wanted to shake her. The truth was that he was actually enjoying the banter. His adrenaline flowed when a woman could keep up with him. And she wasn’t starstruck. Maybe she didn’t know who he was or simply didn’t care. And even if she did, he had the feeling that his near celebrity status would not have made a difference.

“Truce?” Jen said, sticking out her hand. “Let me buy you lunch?”

He looked at her, frowning. This was one chick with lightning-quick moods. Just when he thought he’d figured her out.

“Fine and on one condition. No yogurt, rabbit food or cottage cheese for me. I’m not on a diet.”

Tre allowed his eyes to travel the length of her body. His intent was to unnerve her. She didn’t flinch.

Jen placed a hand on her hip as he continued to gawk. “Who said anything about being on a diet? Can you move your car so that I can get out? I’ll check in
with you—maybe we can do that lunch later this week. Now I have to go. I’m already late getting back to work.”

Move his car? She was in his spot.

“What is it you do that requires such dedication?”

She smiled. “Nothing important. Office work. There’s the usual hour for lunch and right now that hour is up.”

Tre sensed something missing. He didn’t think she was a clerk. She seemed too take-charge. She was used to managing people. He got back in his car, and slowly put the Porsche in Reverse.

Jen scooted into her vehicle and shouted from the open window, “I’ll be in touch.” Burning rubber, she zoomed from the parking lot.

Tre heard laughter drift from up above. Camille was hanging out of her window, her cell phone to her ear, watching as he maneuvered his car into the vacant spot.

Jen St. George was a pain in the butt, and a fine-looking pain at that. It would be his mission to get to know her a whole lot better. She would be his challenge, a project to keep his adrenaline flowing.

Jen raced into her office waving a manila envelope at Chere. “Got it!”

Flopping into her seat, she shoved the disk into the
computer’s drive and began banging away at the keyboard. So much to do and so little time.

“Glad you found it,” Chere said, looking up. “I wouldn’t want to be around if you had to retype that whole thing.”

Chere was actually attacking the stack in Jen’s in-box. Visions of a cruise must be dancing in her head. Jen had raced home because she thought she’d misplaced the column she’d been working on practically all night.

“I worked on this thing, tweaking it until I was bleary-eyed. I didn’t want to have to start again from scratch.”

“Luis is looking for you,” Chere muttered, a pen held between her clenched teeth. “Says it’s important.”

“Do you know what he wants?”

Since Jen started work at
The Chronicle,
Luis Gomez, her boss, had been too busy to do more than grunt in her direction. A compliment from him had been out of the question.

Jen reluctantly slid her chair out. She glanced at the sentences that Chere was highlighting.

Advice columnists are supposed to be open-minded.

Yet another reader ticked off at
Dear Jenna.
“

Who knows what Luis wants,” Chere snorted. “My girls think something heavy’s brewing. Maybe
he’s under pressure from the publisher because of all that squawking about you using the word
queer.
”

Jen groaned. “This is getting old. I’ll go see what Luis wants.”

Jen wended her way through a maze of cubicles, passing other staff members absorbed in various stages of production. Heads shot up as she went by but things seemed quiet, too quiet. She’d learned to pay attention to her instincts and something was definitely brewing. She had the unsettling feeling everyone knew she had an audience with Luis.

Luis Gomez was sprawled behind the cluttered desk of his enormous corner office. A huge glass wall provided him with an unobstructed view of the newsroom. The room was poorly lit. Luis depended on his desk lamp to read. He was huddled over, squinting at some piece of copy and she couldn’t make out his expression. His office was called The Dungeon, and for good reason.

“You wanted to see me?” she asked from the doorway.

Luis had an unlit cigar clamped between his yellowing teeth. The half-moon glasses perched on the end of the nose gave him a mad scientist look. Totally ignoring the smoke-free environment, he’d clearly had a few drags. Jen had never seen Luis light up, but
his office smelled like an ashtray and the odor lingered around him. He waved a meaty paw, gesturing for her to come in.

“Grab a seat,” he said, poking a stubby finger at a chair filled with newspapers.

Jen scooped the papers up but kept standing. There was no place to put them, at least no place she saw.

“Lay the lot over here.” Luis made room for the pile by sweeping another stack of newspapers to the floor. “Take a load off.”

Jen finally slid into the chair directly facing him.

“We got problems. We need to fix them,” Luis barked.

“What kinds of problems?” Jen asked carefully.

“Flamingo Beach is all stirred up. The gay alliance is bitching up a storm, claiming you’re homophobic.”

“Why?”

Let me spell it out,” Luis said, enunciating his words. “There is a very vocal leader who wants your hide. They’re ticked off and feel that you’re prejudiced against gays.”

Jen was out the chair like a shot. “That’s ridiculous. ‘Queer’ is a current-day expression.”

“Our readership is diverse,” Luis said patiently. “This
is a conservative town, but our gay alliance is powerful. We need to stay on their good side.”

“I see.”

Luis Gomez just reinforced everything she’d suspected. He was a wuss.

“I want you to use the Sunday column to publish a retraction.”

“You want me to placate the group?”

Do what you need to do. But when you write this Sunday’s column make sure to stress you’re in favor of alternative lifestyles. You may even want to state that your bachelor’s mother needs to encourage open and honest communication with her son. Make sure to mention America is about freedom of choice.”

“Will you be writing my column for me?” Jen inquired coolly. Why all of a sudden was Luis pandering to a group he’d never openly supported? She’d privately thought him to be homophobic.

“Not writing, just suggesting. I’ve lived in this town long enough to know the gay alliance can make things damn uncomfortable.”

Luis crooked a finger, beckoning Jen closer.

Jen reluctantly took a couple of steps toward him then stopped. She thought she would gag from the smell of stale tobacco.

“The mayor’s son, Chet, is gay,” Luis confided. “Now
you don’t want to tick off such an influential person. Solomon Rabinowitz may not be happy about his son’s sexual preference, but blood rules in the long run. He’ll support him and back the alliance one hundred percent.”

Jen took a deep breath. Should she tell Luis? No it would be her ace card. She’d learned one thing during her years as an advice columnist though: once you started waffling, you cut your own throat. From then on anything you said would be challenged. Her instincts told her to stick to her guns. But common sense reminded her she was the newbie in town and still unproven.

“I’ll compromise,” Jen promised. “How about I publish letters with contradictory opinions from mine.”

“Think about what I said,” Luis said, picking up the phone and punching in numbers. “The paper’s been flooded with calls. That disk jockey from WARP is all over you. He’s even challenging you to come on his station.”