Secretive Stranger

Chapter 2

“You know how much I love Caviar…” Sophie had been bubbling on for the last few minutes, but her voice faltered when she reached the apartment door. Even days later, it was hard to open that door, hard to step into the front hall without reliving the vision of Jon’s body lying there.

Thankfully, the Sunday coffee klatch group had insisted on walking her home. Now the three women all crowded into the cramped hall, no one planning on staying, just keeping her company for a few more minutes.

They weren’t just supporting her, Sophie knew. Jon’s death had the whole neighborhood in morbid thrall-especially the women. Crime wasn’t new in D.C., but this was someone they knew. Every female in a three-mile radius-except Sophie-had lusted after Jon.

Quite a few had sampled his sexual talents-or so they claimed.

“Don’t start about that Caviar business, Sophie.” Jan Howell was the tallest of the three brunettes, the trust funder who loved a party, artsy clothes and anything to do with gossip. Still, she had a good heart, and automatically started handing over the debris Sophie had dropped on the walk-her fuzzy gray scarf, her mitten, her half-eaten muffin in a bag. “You’d take in every stray critter in the city, if we let you.”

“Not every one,” Sophie said, defending herself. When the women laughed, she tried a different defense, since they obviously weren’t buying that one. “The thing is, I really do love Caviar. And right now, it’s such a relief to have him. I come home from work and it’s so silent in here. At least I can curl up on the couch with some kind of warm body…”

Again, her voice trailed off.

Damn, but she couldn’t seem to stop reliving it. That night. The cops. The detective with the cheap coat and hound-dog eyes, hunkering over her, asking her slow, patient questions. Her, blurting out that she had to find Caviar. Him, acting like she was a rich, spoiled-and suspicious-fruitcake. The flashing lights and lobby full of strangers and then that horrible silence after they all left and she was alone, with a rotten case of the jitters.

“You called your sisters, didn’t you?” Hillary Smythe looked more like a bar waitress than a doctor. Shiny dark curls stretched down her back, accenting gorgeous skin and boobs that tended to exuberantly burst out of anything she wore. For the next year, she was studying under some fancy gene research doc at GW University, just a few blocks away. Sophie had long wondered if Hillary had some troubling secret in her past, because she was always so quiet-but she never missed a Sunday-morning coffee with the rest.

“I called both sisters the day after it happened,” Sophie assured her. “I almost wish I hadn’t. They’ve been calling nonstop ever since. Sooner or later, I’ll get a tougher skin about this. It’s just…right now I still have that image of Jon every time I walk in the door.”

“Well, of course you do. It was a god-awful thing to go through!”

Penelope Martin leaned against the thin row of mailboxes. She was stare-at beautiful, Sophie’d always thought. Breathtaking eyes, fabulous figure, dark hair rich and lustrous. The others sometimes whispered that she was harder than nails-Sophie could see she was a little manipulative, but she always stuck up for her. Penelope worked as a lobbyist, after all, and you just couldn’t be cupcake-sweet and do that kind of job. More than the others, though, Penelope was enthralled with “the Jon situation,” as she called it. “I just can’t believe that the police decided it was an accidental death instead of murder. I mean, from how you described it, Sophie-”

Sophie unzipped her jacket and sank down on the third step. “Well, they seemed to decide that he was naked because he’d probably been taking a shower. And then maybe he ran downstairs for his mail, thinking no one was there. I’m the only other tenant in the building right now, and Jon knew I rarely get home before five.”

“Actually, that sounds logical to me.” Jan invariably took the authoritative voice in these conversations, because she was the only one in the group who claimed to have nailed Jon-not that Hillary and Penelope hadn’t tried.

Jon would undoubtedly have fit them all in, if he’d lived long enough. With the exception of Sophie, of course. No one believed Jon would ever have come on to Sophie. Including Sophie.

Jan was still immersed in speculations. “Heaven knows, I can picture Jon running around naked without a qualm. He didn’t have a modest bone in his body. But it was freezing and rainy that afternoon. Logically, I’d have thought he’d have pulled on a jacket or something, even if he was only running downstairs for the mail.”

“Well, maybe it wasn’t for mail. Maybe it was a delivery. UPS, or something like that.”

“But there was no package,” Hillary reminded them all-she who could always be counted on to remember details. “Besides, Sophie said he didn’t have a mailbox key on him.”

“He literally didn’t have anything on him,” Sophie affirmed.

Penelope backtracked to her primary area of interest. “So…was he as hung as all the women said? Oh, that’s right, Jan, you already knew firsthand-”

“God, what a thing to bring up.”

Penelope let out a bark of a laugh. “Up is definitely the relevant word. I heard that when a man dies, he tends to be erect. True or not, Sophie? You’re the only one who’d know.”

Sophie rolled her eyes. “You’re horrible! All of you!” But they weren’t horrible. They’d stayed long enough to make sure she was okay, even though she knew perfectly well they had stuff to do. “Thanks so much, everybody, for walking me in. I’m better, I swear. In fact, I’m going straight upstairs to curl up on the couch with my big guy.”

“That’s our Sophie. Always the wild one,” Hillary said, teasing, but then she said, more thoughtfully, “But that’s really the point about Jon. Why his accidentally dying just seems so ironic. I mean, he was wild. You’d think a number of the women he dropped would have been happy to kill him.”

“Happy to sleep with him, you mean,” Jan said dryly. “I’ll bet it was half the D.C. area. The only women wanting to kill him would be those under the insane misconception he might grow up and consider a serious commitment.”

“Well…” Penelope still wasn’t ready to let it go. “At least no one ever complained he didn’t show a woman a good time. He just couldn’t stick to one woman.”

“Except for Sophie, of course,” Hillary teased.

“Hey. No need to bring me into this discussion.”

“Well, you are the only woman who escaped being ensnared by Jon, that we all know of. Cripes, I’d have settled for being hurt. I never got a chance to make a play.” Penelope sounded increasingly mournful.

“Well, speaking for myself, I’m happier with Caviar. I’ll take my bodies rich and soft. Something to keep you warm at night and make no demands. In fact-”

Penelope suddenly let out a screech worthy of a cat in heat. “Oh! Oh my God, you scared me half to death!”

“I’m sorry.”

The front hall only had space for two bodies at the best of times, and temporarily there were three stuffed in there. Sophie was out of the way, sitting on the carpeted step, but she was just as startled by the sudden sound of a distinctly masculine voice. Sophie twisted, trying to catch a glimpse of the intruder from around Hillary’s elbow…and then froze in shock.

For an instant, she thought the man in the doorway was Jon.

Sophie had long accepted that she was doomed to have more bonkers moments than most, but believing in ghosts was still a stretch.

Yet even after a second glance, she still thought he was Jon.

She yanked off her glasses and squinted seriously now. Jon had unquestionably been a prize-winning scoundrel, but there’d never been any surprise how he attracted women. First off, he stretched to a good six two or three. Add in shoulders made for a tux, posture with a little arrogance and the most compelling blue eyes ever made. Then stir in the tasty stuff.

Jon’s face would have been Adonis-perfect, if not for the French nose, but his skin was Irish-clear, the hair a Nordic dark blond. His eyebrows had a hint of an Italian slant, the chin and bones a Germanic tough cut. And no, Jon couldn’t possibly have all those heritages, but that was the point. He was a universal hunk. Take all the parts, and the whole appealed to any and every woman’s fantasy…except for hers, of course. Sophie figured she was the only woman who ever felt completely safe around him, because there wasn’t a prayer in the universe he’d notice her. Not that way.

Now, though, her heart finally stopped hammering. The longer she scrutinized the intruder in the doorway, the more she realized this was no ghost.

He did look like Jon-amazingly like Jon-but there were interesting differences. This guy’s hair was blond, but darker than Jon’s, more whiskey-gold, all wind-riled-up, and longish. His legs were encased in cords-Jon never wore that nature of casual pants-and these were well-worn cords besides. The chin was scruffy, where Jon never left the house without fresh-shaved cheeks and an expensive aftershave.

And Jon had never once made her pulse bounce like a hormonal puppy…yet this man did. Sophie ignored the tickle of awareness, because she was obviously having a highly emotional week, and her judgment couldn’t be trusted.

While Sophie was giving herself a mental slap upside the head, though, the other women were sizing him up as if they’d just discovered a sale at Bloomingdale’s.

The man was looking over the women just as sharply and intensely. His gaze roamed from one to the other like a bee checking out pollen-except for her. He spotted her sitting on the steps. His attention just immediately passed by her. No surprise there.

All three brunettes were gorgeous, but even besides that, Sophie knew men never noticed her. It was the same reason she’d been safe as a church with Jon. A woman didn’t wear oversize coats and big bags and gloppy hats for nothing. Sophie knew perfectly well she was ignorable.

Her neighbors, however, didn’t have the same life goal of being safe.

“You don’t live here.” Penelope surged past Hillary’s purse and Jan’s boots to extend a hand. “Not that you aren’t welcome.” She gave him a head-to-toe, at the same time he took in her red wool jacket, matching red lip gloss and flip-back brunette hair.

He accepted the handshake. “I’m Cord Pruitt. Jon Pruitt’s brother.”

“Oh. Oh.” Sophie almost laughed as Penelope’s expression changed channels from woman on the hunt to sweetie pie. Suddenly, her eyes were brimming with sympathy. “We were just talking about how much we all loved your brother and missed him. It’s been such a shock-”

Sophie relaxed another notch, now that his identity had been established. For some strange reason, though, he seemed to instantly lose interest in Penelope’s considerable charms-and moved on to Hillary.

Hillary, usually so quiet, seemed to perk up under the stranger’s attention. “Hi. I’m Hillary Smythe. I’m a doctor, on a research sabbatical at George Washington U. I met your brother almost the first week I moved here. We talked quite often. You must be the brother who’s the ultra brain?”

Sophie was amazed. Apparently, a terrific-looking man could coax Hillary out of her normally quiet mode.

“Thanks, both of you,” Cord said to the first two who’d introduced themselves. “I appreciate the chance to meet people who knew Jon. I hope you can find some time to tell me more, sometime over the next few weeks. I have to say, his death was a real shock.”

He had one of those sexy Josh Groban voices, Sophie realized, so it was perfectly natural that she couldn’t think straight. Any female old enough to walk would be mesmerized by that voice. Again, though, she noticed his attention zoomed past Hillary, and suddenly settled with dazzling concentration on Penelope. “You must be Sophie,” he said to Penelope. “So you’re the one who lived across the hall from my brother-”

Sophie was startled to hear her name-even more startled to see how fast he’d forgotten Hillary. No man in his right mind forgot Hillary.

She might be a little quiet, but she was both brilliant and stunning.

Since Cord had specifically spoken her name, though, she felt an obligation to pipe up, “I’m Sophie. And yes, I live upstairs, across from your brother.”

Penelope’s jaw dropped. She was clearly astonished to be passed over, and undoubtedly thought the grief-stricken man had made a mistake, because she homed in in front of Cord faster than a GPS. “And I’m Penelope Martin. I was friends with your brother, too. We all live within a few blocks of each other. You know how Foggy Bottom is. Jon and I loved to talk about the political scene after work on Fridays…and a bunch of us would have coffee early mornings at The Beanery, just down the street-”

Sophie wondered whether Cord needed glasses. Or bifocals. He completely ignored Penelope, too, almost pushing Pen aside to squint down. “You’re Sophie?”

Sophie could smell an insult from a hundred paces. She just couldn’t figure out what the insult was, exactly. For unknown reasons, he seemed surprised to identify her. Shocked, even.

Before she had a chance to respond, he echoed, “You’re sure you’re Sophie?”

As if she wouldn’t know who she was? She cocked a fuzzy-gloved hand under her chin. “Oh, yeah, I’m reasonably sure. And now I can see the family resemblance between you and Jon.”

Now he got the insulted look. Even though he couldn’t possibly know what the insult was, exactly.

Close up, Sophie’s hormones not only perked up, but suddenly stood at military attention. He didn’t just look like Jon. He was about a thousand, million times sexier than Jon. On a scale of one to ten, he scored somewhere around four hundred.

My God, those eyes.

That mouth.

That butt.

Not that his sexiness was relevant to anything.

But at least, for the first time in days, she wasn’t thinking about dead, naked bodies.