Late Night
As resident fix-it girl for an apartment complex in a tiny Texas town, Bonnie James makes enough money to pay the bills and have a little fun on the side. She likes checking out the other tenants and sometimes indulges in her own sexual fantasies by watching them late at night. Its exciting, its erotic, and it always leaves her ready and willing for more
Turn On
When youre a bounty hunter, late night stake-outs are part of the job. So Wynn Collier should be concentrating on his own business, not watching a Peeping Tom with the sweetest body west of the Mississippi. But hes a hot-blooded male on a hot Texas night and he cant resist the chance to investigate every one of her delectable curves
CHAPTER ONE
Nothing, and I mean nothing, pissed me off more than having people stand around watching me work. And right now I had about a half dozen of them clustered around the pool's security gate. Dressed in bikinis, one piece swimsuits and cutoff, they shuffled from foot to foot, chatting among themselves, praying I didn't ruin their day.
You couldn't blame them, really, for wanting a swim. Not when it was 103 in the shade, but if they'd stop leaving their shit in the pool to get picked up by the filter or sucked up the drain, and stop burning up parts andSweat trickled down my cleavage. My head dipped under the weight of my ponytail, the aforementioned heat, and a healthy dose of frustration.
I sighed and wiped my forehead with the back of my hand, wishing I could go swimming today. August in Southwest Texas was the equivalent of a vacation in hell-in more ways than one. I'd about had it with doing apartment maintenance. Maybe it was time for me to move on, find something less taxing. Something cooler, like maybe being a supermodel.
I closed the cap on the poor drain thingy (technical lingo is not my forte) and crossed to the pump, switching it on. It slowly chugged to life, and I breathed a sigh of relief. I'd tried everything I could think of, and I didn't think the assembled crowd would be pleased if I had to take off for Cielo's one and only internet cafi for more troubleshooting. Since coming to Cielo, everything I'd ever learned about fixing anything, I'd found on the internet.
I loaded up my tools and gave the assembled crowd a stern look while briefly ticking off each familiar face, then tossed Tara Woods a bikini top that looked suspiciously like the one she'd been wearing last week, except more mangled. "I'd really appreciate it if you'd keep your swimsuits out of the drains."
In addition to the swimming attire I'd finally dislodged, the pool was a particularly bilious shade of green that said too many carpet creepers had pissed in it. I didn't even bother smothering the bubble of glee as I cheerfully called out, "Pool's closed today, folks."
I'm sure in some former life I'd been a sadist, and in some future life, I'd pay for my enjoyment of their misery. Scowls, grumbles, whines, and gasps of outrage were the response I got. Please, people, if you want to use the pool, don't piss in it!
"Thank Tara, everybody."
Tara smirked in return and walked away. The polkadot bikini she was wearing barely held in her naughty bits. Of course, the only person complaining was Mrs. Hollis in 3-A. Guess she got tired of watching her thirteen-year-old wander around with a minihard-on. He was in the laundry right this minute, washing his sheets. Yeah, I know...ew! Not something I wanted to spend too much time thinking about.
"Sen'rita." The sound of my assistant, Tony Ramirez's, voice got me moving. And for the record, he spoke English just fine, he just liked to keep me on my toes by playing the "dumb wetback -his words not mine. "The Johnsons need a new garbage disposal."
Toolbox in hand, I stepped through the metal gate that surrounded the pool and let it clang shut behind me. A new garbage disposal meant a half-day trip to Home Depot, which is why we normally tried to keep at least one around for emergencies, but we'd had a run on them lately. I didn't even want to know why. Regardless, I'd come to love Home Depot as much as I'd once loved Neiman's and Saks.
Okay, not totally, but life gives you lemons and you make Lemondrop Shots.
The residents of Marquez Terrace Apartments were nothing to write home about, but then I had no home to write to anymore. No more Neiman's Christmas catalog, no more manicures, no more gourmet cooking classes, no more sister to go shopping with.
Guess that made us even.
One thing you had to understand about Cielo, Texas, and Southwest Texas in general, was that if you weren't born here, you came here to get lost. This is where Tony Ramirez had probably come to get lost, where Tara and Jeanette and maybe even Old Homer had come to get lost.
And it's why I was here.
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