The Perfect Wife. Блейк Пирс

his when the doorbell rang.

      “You’ve got to be kidding me,” she groaned.

      “Why don’t you answer it?” Kyle suggested. “I’ll find a fresh shirt to throw on.”

      Jessie walked to the front door, beer in hand. It was her little rebellion against being interrupted mid-seduction. When she opened the door, she was greeted by a perky redhead who looked to be about her age.

      She was cute, with a little button nose, gleaming white teeth, and a sundress that was just tight enough to prove she never missed a Pilates class. In her hands was a tray of what looked to be homemade brownies. Jessie couldn’t help but notice the massive wedding ring on her finger. It gleamed in the late afternoon sun.

      Almost without thinking, Jessie found herself profiling the woman: early thirties; got married young; two, maybe three children; stay-at-home-mom but had lots of help; nosy but not in a malicious way.

      “Hi,” the woman said in a chipper voice. “I’m Kimberly Miner from across the street. I just wanted to welcome you to the neighborhood. I hope I’m not disturbing you.”

      “Hi, Kimberly,” Jessie replied in her friendliest, new neighbor voice. “I’m Jessie Hunt. We actually just finished moving our last box in a couple of minutes ago so this is great timing. And this is so sweet of you, literally! Brownies?”

      “Yep,” Kimberly said, handing over the tray. Jessie saw her pointedly pretend not to eye the beer in her hand. “They’re kind of my specialty.”

      “Well, come on in and have one,” Jessie offered, even though it was the last thing she wanted right now. “I’m sorry the place is such a mess, as are Kyle and I. We’ve been sweating all day. He’s actually looking for a new shirt right now. Can I offer you something to drink? Water? Gatorade. A beer?”

      “No thanks. I don’t want to impose. You probably don’t even know which box has your glasses yet. I remember the move-in process. It took us months. Where are you coming from?”

      “Oh, we just lived up in DTLA,” Jessie said and seeing the confused look on Kimberly’s face, added, “Downtown Los Angeles. We had a condo in the South Park district.”

      “Oh wow, city folk,” Kimberly said, giggling a little at her own joke. “What brought you to Orange County and our little community?”

      “Kyle works for a wealth management firm,” Jessie explained. “They opened a satellite office down here earlier in the year and it recently expanded. It’s a big thing for them because PFG is a pretty conservative operation. Anyway, they asked him if he’d help run it. We figured it was a good time to make a change since we’re thinking about starting a family.”

      “Oh, with the size of this house, I assumed you already had kids,” Kimberly said.

      “Nope—just being optimistic,” Jessie answered, trying to hide the sudden embarrassment she was surprised she felt. “Do you have any children?”

      “Two. Our daughter is four and our son is two. I’m actually going over to daycare to pick them up in a few.”

      Kyle arrived and wrapped one arm around Jessie’s waist as he extended the other to shake Kimberly’s.

      “Hello,” he said warmly.

      “Hi, welcome,” she replied. “My goodness, between the two of you, your future children are going to be giants. I feel like a munchkin next to you both.”

      There was a brief awkward silence as both Jessie and Kyle wondered how to respond.

      “Thank you?” he finally said.

      “I’m sorry. That was rude of me. I’m Kimberly, your neighbor from that house,” she said, pointing across the street.

      “Nice to meet you, Kimberly. I’m Kyle Voss, Jessie’s husband.”

      “Voss? I thought it was Hunt.”

      “He’s Voss,” Jessie explained. “I’m Hunt, at least for now. I’ve been procrastinating on doing the paperwork to change it.”

      “I see,” Kimberly said. “How long have you been married?”

      “Almost two years,” Jessie said sheepishly. “I have real problems with procrastination. That might explain why I’m still in school.”

      “Oh,” Kimberly said, clearly relieved to move away from the delicate last name topic. “What are you studying?”

      “Forensic psychology.”

      “Wow—that sounds exciting. How long before you’re officially a psychologist?”

      “Well, I got a little delayed,” Jessie said, sharing the obligatory story from every cocktail party they’d attended for the last two years. “I started out in child psychology when we were undergrads at USC—that’s where we met. I was even doing an internship for my master’s when I realized I couldn’t handle it. Dealing with children’s emotional problems was too much for me. So I switched.”

      She pointedly neglected to include some of the other details of why she’d dropped out of the internship. Hardly anyone knew about them and she certainly wasn’t going to share them with a neighbor she’d just met.

      “So you find dealing with the psychology of criminals less disturbing than children?” Kimberly asked, dumbfounded.

      “Weird, huh?” Jessie conceded.

      “You’d be amazed,” Kyle piped in. “She has this knack for getting in the heads of bad guys. She’s going to be a great profiler eventually. Any potential Hannibal Lecters out there better look out.”

      “Really,” Kimberly said, sounding properly impressed. “Have you had to deal with serial killers and stuff?”

      “Not yet,” Jessie admitted. “Most of my training has been academic. And with the move, I had to change schools. So I’m going to do my practicum at UC-Irvine starting this semester. This is my last one so I’ll graduate in December.”

      “Practicum?” Kimberly asked.

      “It’s a little like an internship, only less involved. I’ll be assigned to a prison or a psychiatric hospital, where I’ll observe and interact with inmates and patients. It’s what I’ve been waiting for.”

      “The chance to stare the evildoers in the eye and see into their souls,” Kyle added.

      “That might be overstating it just a bit,” Jessie said, giving him a playful punch in the shoulder. “But eventually, yes.”

      “That is very exciting,” Kimberly said, sounding genuinely intrigued. “I’m sure you’ll have some great stories to tell. Speaking of, you said you two met at school?”

      “Freshman year dorm,” Kyle said.

      “Oh,” Kimberly pressed. “Bonded while doing laundry, that sort of thing?”

      Kyle glanced over at Jessie and before he even said a word, she knew he was going to dive into their go-to cocktail party story.

      “Here’s the abridged version,” he began. “We were friends but started dating midway through the first semester after she got stood up by some jerk. He got kicked out of school, not for bailing on the date I assume. Still, she dodged a bullet in my opinion. We broke up junior year, got back together as seniors. We dated for a year after that before moving in together. We did that for a year before getting engaged. Then we tied the knot ten months after that. It’ll be two years of wedded bliss in October.”

      “So you’re college sweethearts. That’s so romantic.”

      “Yeah, it sounds that way,” Kyle said. “But it took a while to win her over. And the whole time I was beating the competition off with a stick. As you can imagine, pretty much every guy who saw her was immediately smitten with Ms. Jessica Hunt. And that’s just looking at her. Once you get to know her, you’re even more besotted.”

      “Kyle,” Jessie said, her face turning red. “You’re