Get Blondie

Kane McNabb was just as sinfully handsome now as he’d been five years before. The two of them had made a terrific team. Like synchronized swimmers, they’d worked with one mind, swimming the waters of danger in perfect rhythm.

They’d spent two weeks in Libya posing as husband and wife scientists in an effort to learn how close Qaddafi really was to obtaining nuclear weapons. They’d pretended to be brother and sister for several weeks to infiltrate a cult in South Carolina.

Their assignments took them far away from home or as near as their own city as they took care of problems that fell through the bureaucratic cracks of other agencies.

He’d also been the best lover she’d ever had. But that was the past and the past was best left alone.

After two cups of coffee she felt lucid enough to get behind the steering wheel of her car. Max would be expecting her between now and noon for their ritual Saturday morning breakfast. If anyone could put her right with the world again it was Max Monroe.

Before she left the house, she grabbed the address that Kane had left on the table the night before and shoved it into the bottom of her tan purse.

The June sun was already hot despite the early hour as Cassie left her house by the front door. As if on cue before she could reach her red Mustang in the driveway the sound of the lawn mower came to an abrupt halt.

“Ms. Newton…Cassandra.” Ralph hurried toward her, his bulldog features in a pregrowl expression.

Cassie hesitated. She had two choices…quickly jump in her car and drive away or stand and bicker with her pesky neighbor. Before she could make a choice he stood directly in front of her. Procrastination would one day be the death of her, she thought with a sigh.

“I’ve been trying to speak to you for the past week,” Ralph exclaimed, his jowls flopping with each word. “Haven’t you received any of my notes?”

About every other day for the past two weeks Ralph had been taping notes to her front door. She could wall-paper her bathroom with all the notes he’d left.

“Mr. Watters, I’ve read your notes, but we have nothing more to discuss.” Cassie tried to keep her voice pleasant.

“I want that tree cut down.” The tree he referred to was a lush sugar maple just inside her property line in the backyard. Ralph was obviously not a member of the Hug a Tree Association.

“We’ve been through this a dozen times. I’m not cutting down that tree.” She smiled in an attempt to soften her words.

“That tree is a nuisance. It sheds seeds all over my property in the spring and leaves in the fall.”

“But it’s a beautiful tree and it provides wonderful shade,” she replied.

“Then what about that bush?” He pointed to the bush next to her front porch.

“What about it?”

“It’s dead,” he exclaimed.

“It’s dormant,” she countered.

He snorted. “If I was that dormant they’d have me in a coffin and buried six feet under.” A spot of spittle flew out of his mouth and landed on his chin. He swiped at it with the back of his hand and drew a deep breath. “I’m just trying to be a good neighbor here, you know, keep the neighborhood looking nice.”

Cassie had to fight the impulse to snort back at him. “And I appreciate it. Have a nice day, Mr. Watters.” Before giving him an opportunity to reply she slid into her car and started the engine with a roar.

She backed down the driveway, then threw the car into first gear and popped the clutch. Tires whined, then grabbed with a squeal as she peeled down the street.

An utterly childish display, Cassandra Marie Newton. Still, she smiled in satisfaction as she imagined Ralph’s outrage at her antics. Sometimes being childish was mentally healthy.

She shoved thoughts of Ralph Watters out of her mind as she made the fifteen-minute drive from her home to Good Life Gardens, the assisted-living facility where Max lived.

Built with a flair of Spanish-flavored architecture, Good Life Gardens was an immense sprawl of buildings on twenty acres of lush, treed acreage. When Cassie had moved Max from California, it had taken her months to find a place she thought worthy of Max’s presence. Good Life Gardens had lived up to her expectations.

The complex was enormous, but Max was never difficult to find. If he wasn’t in his apartment, all she had to do was check the common areas, and wherever there was the biggest gathering of little old women, Max would be in the center.

Max loved the women, but Saturday mornings were devoted to the little girl he’d met on the streets of Los Angeles, the teenager he’d taught everything he knew, the woman he loved like a daughter.

Cassie could smell the scent of cooked breakfast sausage before she reached his door. The savory scent brought back memories. The first meal Max had ever cooked for her had been sausage and eggs.

She’d been almost fourteen and after three years of living on fruit swiped from an open market and whatever could be found in Dumpsters and trash cans, those eggs and sausage had seemed like a gift from a God she’d begun to think had forgotten her.

She rapped on the door twice, then turned the knob as Max’s deep voice boomed a welcome. She found him in the kitchen pulling a tray of golden-brown biscuits from the oven.

“Juice is in the fridge, coffee’s made and breakfast will be ready in another ten minutes or so.”

“And good morning to you, too.” Cassie walked over to him and bent to plant a kiss on the top of his head.

He grinned at her. “It will be a good morning if this new egg casserole recipe lives up to its ingredients.”

Cassie poured herself a tall glass of orange juice then sat at the small oak table and watched him finish the breakfast preparations.

Max Monroe, known as “Mad Max” in his Hollywood stuntman days was still handsome at almost seventy years old. His hair, so black and shiny when she’d first met him, now sported shiny strands of silver. His features were ruggedly handsome and his brown eyes snapped with the gift of laughter and an exuberant love of life.

Too many movie stunts had put him in a wheelchair. Although he wasn’t paralyzed, crushed and shattered discs in his back caused him excruciating pain when he tried to stand on his feet. A yearlong bout with a whiskey bottle had made him nearly lose his mind.

He’d always said that finding Cassie had saved his life, but she knew the truth. If it hadn’t been for Max Monroe Cassie would have probably been in jail, or on drugs, or a prostitute…or dead.

Although Cassie had continued to live on the streets of L.A. until she was seventeen, Max had taken her under his wing. He’d taught her everything he knew about physical strength and skill, about martial arts and achieving death-defying feats.

He’d also educated her so that she could get her GED and build something of her life. He’d been her savior and she would die for him.

They didn’t speak until breakfast was ready and Max had wheeled himself to the table opposite where she sat. “You got that look,” he observed as he passed her the plate of biscuits.

“What look?”

“You know, the one where you look like you want to tear somebody’s head off and spit down their neck. Old Ralph giving you a hard time again?” he guessed correctly.

Cassie laughed, already feeling her foul mood transforming into something more positive. “The man is relentless.” She pulled apart a biscuit and began to slather each half with butter. “Out of all the neighborhoods in Kansas City, out of all the people I could live next to, I get Mr. Rogers with an attitude.”

Max laughed and shoved the plate of sausage patties closer to her. “You take the man too seriously.”

“Too seriously? He wants me to cut down that beautiful tree in my backyard. Now this morning he asked me what I was going to do about one of the bushes by my front porch.”

“You mean that dead bush?”

“It’s dormant, not dead.”

Max raised an eyebrow and eyed her wryly. “He’s a lonely old man.”

“Maybe he wouldn’t be so lonely if he wasn’t such a pain in the neck,” she retorted.