Three Alarm Tenant

181 Pages·2016·0.68 MB·English

by  McClain Charlotte

Back Cover Copy
Katherine lost one hero in the line of duty—can she risk loving another?
Katherine Pelham's fiancé was a police officer, shot and killed during a
robbery. Left with a house she can't afford, she must rent out the first floor to
solve her money woes. Before she can finishing putting up the For Rent sign,
along comes a man who seems interested in more than just the apartment.
Fireman Jack Connelly is in a bind: he's rescued a dog, and his lease doesn't
allow pets. The new apartment would be great. The new landlady, even better...
Content Warning: Contains emotional scarring, hot firefighters, plumbing
disasters and a slobbery dog
Highlight
“Ms. Pelham, there’s a cop here,” Jason blurted out.
Katherine lengthened her stride, hearing the noise level in the room rise as
every one of her students decided they needed to know what was going on. For a
dizzy instant, she thought there really was a police officer outside the door, and
he’d come to tell her her fiancé was dead. But no, when that happened they’d
gotten her to the office before they told her. And her fiancé was already dead. He
couldn’t die again. Jack stood in the hall as if he wished he were anywhere but
here.
“All right everybody, back to work. Jason, I’m impressed that you don’t
know the difference between a police officer and a firefighter.” She steered Jason
in the direction of his seat and clapped her hands. “I’m going to be in the hall. I
expect everyone’s list to be done by the end of class. Remember, what you don’t
finish now you have to do at home.” She stepped into the hall, propelling Jack in
front of her.
He looked perplexed and a little embarrassed. “I’m sorry. I didn’t think I was
going to create a scene.”
Three Alarm Tenant
978-0-9824170-7-2
0-9824170-7-1
Copyright © 2009, Charlotte McClain
Edited by Pam Skochinski
Book design by Emma Wayne Porter
Cover Art by Mina Carter
First Lyrical Press, Inc. electronic publication: May, 2009
Lyrical Press, Incorporated
17 Ludlow Street
Staten Island, New York 10312
http://www.lyricalpress.com
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PUBLISHER'S NOTE:
This book is a work of fiction. The names, characters, places, and incidents are
products of the writer’s imagination or have been used fictitiously and are not to
be construed as real. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, actual events,
locale or organizations is entirely coincidental.
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responsibility for author or third-party Web sites or their content.
Published in the United States of America by Lyrical Press, Incorporated
Table of Contents
Back Cover Copy
Highlight
Copyright
Dedication
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Epilogue
About Charlotte McClain
More From Lyrical Press
Dedication
To Jackie for great info, great convo, and great lunches, and to the guys of
the Dodge Street station who haven't minded my stalking.
Chapter 1
Katherine Pelham hefted the hammer and pounded the For Rent sign into the
frozen ground.
“Happy Val-En-Tine’s Day,” she emphasized each syllable with a thwack. A
truck slowed on the street, but she resisted the urge to look. She’d probably
smash her thumb. Already this morning, she’d stubbed her toe, spilled hot
coffee, and ripped a hole in her skirt getting it out of the dryer. Going back to
bed sounded ideal.
She stepped back to admire her handiwork. The sign wasn’t crooked and the
post hadn’t snapped. The perverse Ohio weather that transformed her yard to
concrete had warmed the air until she only needed a sweatshirt. With the
apartment done, she needed a reliable tenant. Then she could handle the
mortgage, the credit cards and her leftover college loans. She started toward the
front door and stopped. It wasn’t her door anymore. Her apartment opened from
the side.
The servants’ entrance.
Oh, she could have taken the first floor, but it still would be half the house.
And the half closer to the basement spiders. She walked around the side and up
her new steps. As she reached for the door, a car pulled into the drive.
A truck actually. A green pick-up. A tall, broad-shouldered man climbed out.
He looked as if he’d stepped out of an action adventure movie.
“Hi. You have a place for rent?”
His warm tenor voice worked its way through her ears and made straight for
other parts of her body. She nodded.
“Do you take pets?”
“What kind of pets?” she asked.
“A dog.”
A dog. She’d never had a dog and envied people who did. When other girls
wanted ponies, she’d wanted a puppy. How wonderful would it be to have a dog
romping in the back yard? How wonderful would it be to have this gorgeous
man romping in the backyard with the dog? “What kind?”
“A big mutt.” He held his hand two feet above the ground. Katherine
wondered if that meant head height or shoulder height. Either one wasn’t bad.
Plenty to play with.
“Sure.”
“How much is it?”
“Six hundred.” Everybody said it was too low, but it sounded high to her. It
covered the mortgage payment, freeing up her paycheck for other non-essentials
like food.
“Plus utilities?”
She shook her head. “I cover utilities, but I control the thermostat.”
He nodded. “What’s the deposit?”
“One month’s rent.”
“And the pet deposit?”
Katherine bit her lip. Should she charge extra for pets? How much damage
could it do? She supposed that depended on the animal, but the landlord book
hadn’t mentioned that, and she didn’t want to take advantage. “Even for the
dog.”
He blinked. “Wow. Can I see the place?”
“Now?” Katherine’s mind reeled. She’d just hammered the sign in the yard.
She hadn’t even put a notice in the paper yet. Everyone warned her it might take
a month or, God forbid two, before anyone answered her ad. The book said she
might show it dozens of times before an acceptable tenant came along. She’d
braced herself to show the apartment until summer. This could be another
annoyance in an already bad day, or a sign her luck was turning.
“If you’ve got time,” he added.
“Of course.” She walked back down the steps and tried to get a better look at
him. Did he look crazy? No, he looked nice. Tall, well-proportioned, dark blond
hair. His expression seemed to settle into bright-eyed amusement, as if life
entertained him. He filled out his blue fleece jacket nicely. She caught her breath
as she stepped past him to the door, wanting to run her hands over his fleece to
see how soft and warm it was. What had gotten hold of her? His height? She
didn’t know many adult men anymore. Most of the males in her life were high
school boys, or high school janitors who acted like juveniles.
“My name is Jack. Jack Conley,” he announced, holding out his hand.
She caught his gaze sweeping up her body. He was checking her out. For a
split second it annoyed her, but pleasure swamped that reaction. She waited until
his eyes met hers before shaking his hand. His eyes were extraordinary. Golden
brown and smiling even when his face was serious. He had a good grip, firm, not
crushing. His touch spread a liquid shiver up her arm.
“Katherine Pelham. Pleased to meet you,” she said, struggling to keep the
tremor out of her voice.
“Pleased to meet you, too.” He raised one eyebrow.
She unlocked the front door. The foyer still looked strange with the stairs
blocked off. It seemed cramped even though she'd painted the walls a pale tan to
make it appear larger.
“The back door lets into the yard. This is the foyer, and there’s the living
room.” She gestured through the archway as he pushed the door closed. She
jumped away at the soft click. Her nerves hummed, but the sensation wasn’t
unpleasant, which confused her more.
“What?” he asked. His hand rested on the doorknob.
“Nothing.” She stared at his hand. His fingers were long, graceful and
ringless. She forced herself to meet his eyes.
He searched her face—his lips tightening to the closest thing she’d seen to a
frown on him. “So. This is the foyer?”
Katherine forced herself to take a deep breath. She was acting like a fool.
She couldn’t deny a certain sense of tension around him, but it didn’t feel like
the tension of a scary situation. More like a warm ache she remembered feeling
once or twice, a long time ago.
“It could be anything you want. It was the foyer before we divided the house.
Through here is the kitchen.” She started down the hall, pointing to another door.
“This leads to the basement. This is the bathroom.” She pushed open the
bathroom door. “The shower’s behind the door. It’s very small.”
He crowded behind her to peer into the narrow bathroom, which she’d
painted mint green to brighten the windowless space.
Katherine found herself leaning toward him rather than away. He smelled
good. His firm jaw came to the top of her head.
And he was looking down at her with those amused eyes.
She frowned, but didn’t move. “It’s very small,” she repeated.
“It’s fine.”
She fled to the kitchen and waited for him, swearing she would gain control
over this interview right now.
“This is the kitchen. The bathroom used to be part of the kitchen, so it was
much larger. There’s plenty of room in the nook for a table, but the floor gets
cold in the wintertime. I don’t think there's any insulation under there.”
She’d loved the big kitchen when they bought the house. She considered it
the heart of the house. Now it was the smallest room because she’d had to carve
out space for the bathroom. “Through this door is—was, the dining room. I
suppose it would make a wonderful bedroom.” She blushed at the image of this
room as a bedroom with him in it. She was developing some sort of obsession.
Too many nights with a book and a bowl of soup. Nothing to do with the way he
looked at her. Or the way she hoped he looked at her. She pushed open a door
and stepped through it.
Jack crossed the room and peered at the inset china cabinet. He ran his finger
along the dark mullion windows, studying the uneven glass. “Is this original?”
“As far as I know. The house was built in nineteen thirteen, and it was very
fashionable back then to have built-in cabinets.” Katherine tried to pull herself
together. First time in a long time around an attractive man, and she started
babbling like a schoolgirl in a chance encounter with the captain of the football
team. So what if he was handsome? So what if she could almost feel his strong
hands gliding down her spine?
She clenched her teeth and walked out of the dining room, acutely aware of
him behind her. “There's another little room back here. We used it for storage.
It’s not insulated. Anything you put back here has to be able to take huge
temperature fluctuations.” She tugged open the French door leading to the
storeroom. It popped open and she stepped through. “That’s the back door. You
could put in a doggie door, then your dog could get out if he needed to.”
“Archer would like that.”
Katherine found herself trapped between Jack and the door, struggling with
the bolt. Blood rushed in her ears, and she couldn’t remember when she’d last
taken a decent breath. She seized the doorknob and yanked.
The door burst open. She stumbled backward. For an eternal moment, Jack’s
arms wrapped around her shoulders. Heat rushed to her face as she felt his hard
chest through his coat. She wanted to sink into his embrace and stay there.
“Sticky door,” he said, setting her on her feet. His hand trailed up her arm.
Katherine tried not to sound like a breathless fool. “It’s worse in the summer
when the wood swells.” She pushed through the storm door and took a large step
away to gain some room. Unfortunately, two feet of porch wasn’t enough to slow
her pulse or clear her mind. “This is the backyard. It’s fenced and it goes all the
way back to the alley.” She pointed to the tree line.
“Big yard.”
“We loved it when we bought the house, but we never got around to working
on it. Our neighbor has a beautiful lawn. I have moss. Feel free to look around.”