they feel enough confidence in their relationship with you to—”
“English, please,” Rafe interrupted. “I’m not fluent in shrinkspeak.”
Holly knew she was not being all that obtuse.
“Simple translation—there are all kinds of families and you and the kids are working to establish your own version. I admire that.”
“God knows why! After seeing what you’ll be living next to, you should already be in your car, heading for the real estate office to demand another place to rent.”
“Hmm, that penchant for high drama must be contagious.”
Was she being wry or sarcastic? Her delivery left room for interpretation, and Rafe tried to decide. His eyes narrowed. “Why aren’t you heading for the hills, looking for another rental? Why would you consider staying here after—all this?”
Holly looked at him and felt her insides clench, heat pooling deep within her, her breasts tightening. Once again, her sensual response to this man floored her. She almost reached out and touched him; she ached with the need to.
But she didn’t dare. He was already suspicious of her. He would probably either assume she was making a pass at him—and she wasn’t ready to deal with the consequences of that!—or he would accuse her of applying some sort of touchy-feely therapy.
Holly folded her arms in front of her chest, a defensive gesture to keep her hands from reaching, touching, feeling. “If I was the kind of person who ran away at the first small sign of difficulty, I would have never made it through med school, let alone my psych residency.”
“So you’re saying that you’ve dealt with a lot worse than the likes of us?”
Rafe wasn’t pleased by her answer. He wasn’t sure how he’d expected her to respond but relegating them to the ranks of “bad-but-I’ ve-seen-worse” definitely wasn’t what he wanted. Hell, he knew what he wanted—her!—but the likelihood of that happening was about as probable as Eva, Camryn and Kaylin going to the Empire Mall together for a jolly sisterly shopping trip.
“I’m saying that I’m moving in next door, come what may.” Holly’s voice jolted him from his reverie. “And I’m also willing to brave going inside your place for a cold drink—if you ever get around to inviting me in for one.”
Rafe shrugged. “Well, you can’t say you weren’t warned. Let’s go in.”
He almost reached for her hand; it seemed the natural thing to do. But he caught himself just in time. Natural? He really was losing it. He’d just met this woman and he was not the handholding type.
He never had been. One of the frequent complaints lodged against him by his girlfriends—back in the days when he’d had the time and energy for girlfriends—had been his reserve. He never indulged in demonstrative little signs of affection like holding hands... But he had almost taken Holly’s hand to bring her inside his home.
Instead, he walked briskly ahead of her. She followed at her own pace, making no attempt to match his stride.
Once inside the air-conditioned living room, Holly sat on the sofa and sipped a ginger ale while Rafe opted for his massive blue recliner and a root beer.
“I used to have the genuine stuff.” Rafe set his can of root beer in the drink holder built into the arm of his chair. “You know, real ale and beer. But Camryn and Kaylin and their delinquent posse drank every drop in the house one evening when I went to a movie. I never made that mistake again.”
“Which mistake?” teased Holly. “Going to the movies? Or leaving alcohol with unsupervised teenagers?”
“Both, actually. Now I wait for movies to come out on video and I only buy soft drinks. What a way to live, huh? My brother thinks I’m nuts.” He cast her a droll glance. “Oops, am I allowed to use that word around you?”
“I’m a firm believer in free speech. Say whatever you want.”
“I figure we’ve already offended you enough, Doc. No use adding more trouble to the tab. There’ll be plenty of time for that later,” he added under his breath.
“I heard that. And I’m not anticipating any trouble.”
“Well, you should be. From the time the kids moved in here, not a day went by without a complaint from Craig and Donna Lambert. They’re the couple who owned your half of the duplex, the people who couldn’t wait to escape from it—and from us.”
“Did it ever occur to you that maybe the Lamberts were pathological fault-finders?” Holly leaned forward, her brown eyes earnest. “That they were using their complaints against the kids as a bond between them because their marriage was falling apart and they needed something to unite them? But instead of facing their problems and their growing estrangement, they seized the easy way out. They found a convenient scapegoat to blame for everything—the kids next door. In some marriages, parents will choose one of their own children to fulfill the scapegoat role and—”
“Did it ever occur to you that not everything needs to be analyzed, Holly?” Rafe interrupted. “The Lamberts complained every day because they had reason to. Trent and Tony practiced Morse code on the walls in preparation for their career as Navy Seals. They played all kinds of sports right here inside in preparation for whatever pro career they were considering at the moment. That includes yelling, jumping, throwing, and knocking things over. You get the picture.”
“I guess there are practical reasons why sports are played outdoors and not inside a duplex,” Holly conceded. “Still, as the old saying goes, ‘boys will be boys.’ Craig Lambert used to be one himself and Donna Lambert was once a teenage girl who should’ve understood the—”
“As a teenager, Donna Lambert was nothing like Camryn and Kaylin. There’s no way she could understand them. Donna showed me her roomful of high school awards and trophies back when we used to be friends in the prekids days. She was a joiner, a high achiever, practically a different species from Camryn and Kaylin.”
“Am I to understand that Donna Lambert kept a shrine to her high school career?” Holly frowned thoughtfully.
“Well, I hadn’t thought of it as a shrine, but the stuff was impressively displayed. But before you pronounce her an insufferable egotist—”
“Ah! So she was one.”
“No! No, she—”
“You just said so, indirectly. Your choice of words was very telling.”
“Didn’t you promise not to go around analyzing everything you hear? Well, you’re doing it, Holly.”
“I apologize. But the more I hear about this Lambert couple, the more my sympathies tend to lie with the children. I think they’ve been unfairly maligned.”
“It should be interesting to get your opinion this time next week—after you’ve walked the figurative mile in the Lamberts’ shoes and literally lived in their ex-condo. And I almost forgot to mention Hot Dog, the hound from hell. The girls brought him with them from Nevada, and he barks and howls whenever the spirit moves him. That can be in the middle of the night, and often is.”
He stood up and began to restlessly pace the room. “I try to keep a lid on things when I’m here but I’m not always around. I can’t be. I have to go to the office, I have to go out of town on business. If the Lamberts were pathological fault-finders, ultimately, we drove them to it.”
Holly took a long drink of her ginger ale. He had painted a rather daunting picture of life in the House of Paradise—as well as life in the place connected to it. But she wasn’t about to let him unnerve her, she was no whiny wimp to be driven away. She promised herself then and there that she would not be like the Lamberts who protested every noise. Kids made noise, it was just a fact of life. And she’d always loved dogs.
Her eyes focused on the pair of school pictures in cardboard frames sitting