It felt like Christmas Eve.

I was assembling my macaroni salad extravaganza when the back security door was thrown open and Rosie stepped into the kitchen.

He was carrying a gun.

And the gun was pointed at me.

I stared at him, wooden spoon in hand, dripping mayonnaise.

He looked like hell. Rosie had never been one to worry about personal hygiene overly-much, he groomed enough to make it not gross that he was serving coffee.

It was clear he’d slept a helluva lot less than I had and hadn’t had a shower since I last saw him.

“Rosie!” I cried. “Where have you been? I’ve been looking all over and worried sick.”

“Where are the diamonds?”

Uh, excuse me but this was beginning to piss me off. Why did everyone think I had the diamonds or knew where they were? I hadn’t even seen the fucking things.

He moved the gun jerkily and I quit thinking about the diamonds.

“Where are the diamonds?” he shouted.

I stopped staring at Rosie and started staring at the gun.

“I don’t know where they are.”

“Duke’s gone, they aren’t at his house.”

My eyes moved back to Rosie. He was definitely freaked out, panicked, and not in an artist-on-the-verge kind of way. It was far worse than that.

“You didn’t toss Duke’s house did you?” I asked.

“No! It was like that when I got there. I thought it was you and that crazy guy who taped me up.”

“I haven’t been to Duke’s but Duke’s coming back and I’m sure he knows where the diamonds are.” I tried to be calm and calm him. “Rosie, put down the gun, you need to stay someplace safe. I can call Lee –”

Rosie started waving the gun around and I stopped talking and stepped back.

“Don’t call that maniac. He taped me up! It took him, like, two seconds. I didn’t even get the chance to yell. I didn’t even hear him come in. He’s nuts.”

“Okay, I won’t call Lee. But Rosie, you have to be smart. Your friend –”

“He’s dead, they shot him. They fucking shot him!” He was shouting now, waving the gun around and seriously freaked out.

“Rosie –” I started.

“Yoo hoo!”

I heard the call from out the backdoor, complete with the clickety-clack of high heeled shoes and Chowleena’s nails on the bricks.

My neighbor, Tod.

“Tod, go back!” I yelled but Rosie had turned and pulled the trigger, shooting wild out the backdoor, three shots were squeezed off in as many seconds. I saw Tod’s arms flung out before him as he hit the deck and Chowleena started barking, each bark sending her upper body straight in the air. I knew this because I could hear the click of her nails hit the bricks every time she landed.

Rosie stared at the gun as if he forgot he was holding it and then ran out the door.

I ran after him.

“Rosie! Come back here! Don’t be stupid!”

But Rosie wasn’t listening to me. Rosie threw himself in a dark gray, old-model Nissan Sentra that was parked blocking my back alley and took off. I managed to read half the license plate before he turned left on Bannock and disappeared.

I ran back to the house. Tod was standing at my backdoor wearing a pair of white, to-the-knee jeans shorts, a wife beater and a killer pair of high heeled, strappy black sandals with sweet little bows on the peek-a-boo toes with rhinestones in the bows. He had his hand at his chest, his face was pale and considering the bloody areas, he’d scraped his knees and palms.

“Great shoes,” I said, trying to stay calm.

“I was coming over to show them to you, bought them yesterday,” Tod replied.

“Can I borrow them sometime?”

“Sure.”

Chowleena walked forward and shoved her face against my shins, completely unfazed by the gunplay. She was beige, small for a chow, fluffy in the extreme around her ruff with her butt shaved. The shin-butt was her way of giving a hug and saying, “hi” and, “give me a dog biscuit”. Her Dads were pretty strict about her diet but Auntie Indy was a pushover, one Chowleena hug and I had the dog biscuit box out.

We walked into the kitchen and I grabbed my cell, scrolled down to Lee’s number and hit the green button.

“Yeah?” Lee said after one ring.

“Rosie was just here. Took off north out of the alley onto Bannock in a dark gray Nissan Sentra.” I gave him the part of the license I could remember and he related the info to someone he was with, then he came back to me.

“How’s he look?”

“Not good and he had a gun.”

“How do you know he had a gun?”

“He was waving it at me and then he shot off three rounds when Tod came over for a surprise visit.”

Silence for a beat and then, “Tod?”

“My neighbor.”

Another silent beat, then, “Everyone okay?”

“Yeah.”

“Why’d Rosie come to you?”

“He thinks I know where the diamonds are.”

Lee sighed.

“Be there in ten.”

I flipped the phone shut, threw Chowleena a dog biscuit and deposited a still-stunned Tod in a chartreuse chair and ran up the stairs to my bathroom to get my medical supplies.

I was sitting on the ottoman, dabbing at Tod’s palm with alcohol-soaked cotton balls, then blowing on it to take the pain away, when Tod said, “I thought you were making up a story when you said you’d been shot at. I thought it was another one of your stories.”

“I don’t have any stories, all that shit I tell you actually happens.”

Tod stared at me while he processed this.

This was a new dimension in our relationship.

I always thought Tod and Stevie accepted who I was and were so world-weary that nothing fazed them. I mean, they were flight attendants, they’d seen it all.

I did not expect that they thought I was making up things to make my life sound more interesting.

For Tod, this meant I really was crazy and he lived next to a woman who gets herself into a situation where she gets shot at and kidnapped.

“Stevie wants to sell the duplex, buy a condo. Says it will mean no yard work and we can have underground parking so we don’t have to scrape our windshields in the winter,” Tod told me.

I was not happy about this news. They were the best neighbors ever and they were my friends and when I needed someone with a steady hand to put on my liquid eye-liner, where was I going to turn?

Tod went on. “We both didn’t want to leave you. You’re incapable of yard work and Stevie spent a lot of time on that yard. It’s his legacy.”

“So now you’re getting shot at, you’re gonna leave me?”

“Girlie, I’m from Texas. We shoot at each other to say good morning. Now you’re getting shot at, we can’t go.”

I didn’t have time to feel relief or gratitude at this news as the front door opened and Lee and Matt walked in.

I was on the ottoman doing my Florence Nightingale impersonation. Tod was still wearing the high heeled sandals, blood was dripping from his knees down his hairy shins and he had not yet shaved his face. Chowleena barked three times, her nails clicking on the hardwood floor each time her upper body landed after a bark. Then she sat down, looking excitedly between the four of us obviously wondering which one would toss her a dog biscuit.

I introduced everyone then Lee said, “Can I talk to you alone?”

He didn’t wait for an answer and he, nor Matt, reacted to me administering to a from-the-ankles-down drag queen. Lee calmly walked up the stairs.

“There’s cold drinks in the fridge,” I told Matt and Tod and followed Lee, finding him in my bedroom.

He was looking around with curiosity. The walls were pale pink and the floors were covered in cream wool, thick-weave carpet. There was a dressing table with a big mirror and padded bench with tubs, brushes and bottles scattered across the top. The bed was big and had a pink Pottery Barn comforter cover with little hot-pink flowers and lots of fluffy pillows at the head.

It was a girlie room, not the room of a Rock Chick and thus was kind of a naughty, little secret, just like my underwear.

When I entered, Lee turned melty-chocolate eyes to me.

“Nice room.”

My toes curled into the carpet. I read a magazine article once about how guys actually liked feminine rooms, made them feel like a conqueror when they invaded such a room.

Lee’s face showed he was in the conquering mood.

This didn’t last long, his eyes cleared and he became all business.

“Tell me about it.”

I ran down the story of Rosie and Lee showed no reaction.

“How did he know Shubert had been killed?”

I shook my head. “He didn’t say.”

“Was he there?”

“He didn’t say but he seemed pretty freaked about it.”

“Why are you the focal point of all this?” he asked.

I shrugged.

He watched me for a second then said, “You smell like a beach.”

“Suntan oil,” I responded.

His eyes dropped to my body and they became melty again and his intentions were clear before he made a move. He snagged the knot in my sarong and brought me closer.

“You’ll get oil all over you.” I told him.

“Then I’ll take my clothes off.”

Holy shit.

My heart skipped a beat.

“Have you heard from Duke?” I asked, changing the subject.

Lee obviously didn’t want the subject to change, he was yanking his t-shirt out of his jeans.

“Duke’ll be home in a couple of hours. Tex is cool. He knows the drill. We abandoned the lead on Rosie when he showed up here.”

Lee had unknotted my sarong and it dropped to the floor. His melty eyes started glittering.

“Matt and Tod are downstairs,” I informed him.

He reached beyond me and shut the door.

“Lee! I’m in the middle of making macaroni salad and there are bullet holes in my fence! This has got to stop and you’re supposed to be the one stopping it.”

He pulled me into him, close enough for my breasts to brush his chest. A rush of electricity shot through my body as his arms slid around me.

“I don’t get a taste of you soon, I’m givin’ up the search and takin’ you to my cabin in Grand Lake. No phones, no cell coverage, no buzzer. Anyone knocks on the door and I’m shooting them.”

Lee had a cabin in Grand Lake.

I didn’t know that.

I loved Grand Lake.

I shook off thoughts of Grand Lake.

“We’re supposed to be having a talk,” I reminded him.

“Oh, we’ll talk,” he promised and I had that Christmas Eve feeling again, except it was Christmas Eve with the devil.

He was watching me. “I can’t read your face.”

“Some thoughts are secret.”

He seemed happy with that, which was surprising.

In my experience, there were two types of guys. One type asked you every five minutes what was on your mind and then got pissy when you didn’t feel like sharing. The other type never asked and you got pissy when they didn’t seem to care.

Lee, apparently, was a third type, a mutant type, knowing something was on my mind but happy to leave me to it. I didn’t know what to make of that. I did know it made me feel less pressured but more confused because one of us was supposed to be feeling pissy and neither of us were.

“I’ll tell you one thing,” I said to him, “I don’t know what to make of you. I can’t get my head wrapped around any of this.”

His arms tightened and his face came closer then deviated from its course at the last minute. He whispered in my ear a couple of things I could make of him and another couple of things I could wrap around him. My nether regions quivered and I couldn’t help myself, I put my lips to his neck then touched my tongue there. It seemed I couldn’t wait to taste him either.

Then the door bell rang.

Lee stopped whispering in my ear and started cursing.

I pulled out of his arms, grabbed the sarong and knotted it at my hips. Lee tucked his shirt back in.

Maybe Grand Lake was the way to go.

By the time we made it downstairs, Tod and Matt were both staring at a huge, glossy white box with a red ribbon tied around it that was sitting on the ottoman. Matt was holding a can of diet pop. Tod was holding a pop in one hand with his other arm wrapped around the biggest display of long stemmed red roses I’d ever seen, at least two dozen of them.

I’d had flowers delivered before but never on this scale and never accompanied by glossy boxes. I looked to Lee but he was staring at the flowers, his face tight. Clearly, whatever this was, it was not from Lee.