This Just In.... Jennifer McKenzie

Far less creepy.

      She’d known her parents owned an income property, half of a pretty little duplex in town, but she hadn’t known Mr. Mayor called the other half home and, upon learning this tidbit, she’d convinced them—okay, there might have been a teensy-weensy bit of begging involved—to let her move in. Their previous tenants had moved out a couple of months earlier and the apartment had been sitting vacant. Sabrina didn’t believe in astrology or fate, but her stars? Those were aligned.

      She wondered if Mr. Mayor was a briefs or boxers man. Really, it was the kind of investigative journalism that readers would want to know. Her cheeks warmed.

      “What are you thinking about, sweetheart?” Her dad interrupted her thoughts.

      “Just excited to be getting my own space.” She rolled down the window. Mr. Mayor wasn’t even her type. She preferred the slightly dangerous bad boys. The ones who demanded rather than asked and kissed a woman so hard that she popped right out of her shoes.

      “You haven’t even seen the inside yet.”

      Although it was now Friday and she’d talked them into letting her use the apartment on Monday, she hadn’t had a chance to come out until now. The coffee shop had been busy all week as tourists began spilling into town for the start of the summer rush. Sabrina had worked two double shifts already and in the few hours she’d had off, she’d been at the newspaper office getting to know the staff and preparing for her interview with Pete.

      But she didn’t need to see the inside to know the apartment was going to be perfect. Already, she could picture curling up in a cozy corner with a book, setting up her computer somewhere other than her bedroom and lingering over a cup of coffee on her mornings off without interruption.

      At her parents’ house, she sat at the same dining chair that had been hers since she was old enough to scramble up on it, slept in the same twin bed that she’d graduated to after toddlerhood and had to share the remote for the TV.

      It wasn’t that she didn’t love her parents. She did. A lot. But she’d lived on her own for the past nine years—except that one period when she’d had a roommate who spent the entire six months on the couch leaving crumbs on the cushions and smoking a bong. Never again. Sabrina was used to having privacy, playing the music she liked and watching various iterations of Real Housewives without having to justify herself to anyone.

      Her father smiled as they cruised through town. Probably because he and her mother were now certain that Sabrina would be staying in Wheaton long-term. She’d heard them talk about it through the wall in her bedroom last night. Apparently, her fib about writing that book hadn’t fooled them. But there was another more important reason to get out and into her own place. The discussion about her future hadn’t been the only thing she’d heard from her parents’ room last night.

      Logically, Sabrina knew they were still young and vibrant and sexually active, but she really didn’t need proof of that fact. Ever. Again.

      “Here we are.” Her father pulled into a long driveway and parked in front of the house. “Ready?”

      Ready? Sabrina was already out of the car and heading up the stairs that led to the long wraparound porch and front door. She hadn’t seen the place in over a decade but it was just as cute as she remembered. From the front it appeared to be a single dwelling with three steps that led to the blue front door.

      Matching sets of French doors, one on either side of the main door, opened to the porch, as well. In its original state, the house had been built for one family and the doors led to a pair of sitting rooms and could be opened to catch the summer breeze. Now they provided porch access for each apartment occupant without needing to go through the entry and front door.

      They were missing the artful iron vines she was used to seeing on large glass doors and windows in the city, but then security wasn’t such a concern here. Sabrina had been shocked to find her parents still didn’t lock their doors. And not just during the day when they happened to be at home. All the time, day, night, in or out.

      Petty crime—or non-petty crime—wasn’t something she needed to worry about in Wheaton. No one was going to snatch her purse off her shoulder or kick in her window to steal her valuables.

      Someone had planted shrubs along the sides of the house and in front of the porch. Probably her mother. They were well-tended, with small white flowers starting to bud.

      There wasn’t any outdoor furniture, but Sabrina figured she could borrow some from her parents. She’d already requisitioned a coffee table and the floor lamp with a pink shade and ’20s fringe from her mom’s sewing room. What were a couple of outdoor lounge chairs, a small table, maybe some oversized pots of brightly colored flowers added to her tally?

      Sabrina had loved her tubs of blooms on her balcony in Yaletown. Well, loved them until the tenant below her complained that they were making a mess on his balcony. One measly bud had fluttered onto his ugly wicker chair, but he’d acted like she’d purposely defaced his property. Her boot heels clacked a little louder. Please, her flower had done more to improve his decor than a mountain of furniture. Which she’d told her landlord, but he’d merely pointed to the clause in the contract that stated she needed permission to put anything on her balcony and she hadn’t bothered to get it.

      But there weren’t any balconies here and Sabrina doubted Mr. Mayor would get crabby about flowers. People in Wheaton were friendlier, more agreeable. He would understand that her decor improved his space, as well. Assuming he even noticed.

      She tried to peek through his curtain-free French doors while she waited for her dad to finish fiddling with the car and join her, but the glare from the sun prevented her from seeing much. She squinted, but couldn’t make out anything more than a couple of blobby shapes.

      There was always the possibility that they’d become friends and he’d actually invite her inside. So far, her old friends had made themselves scarce. She hadn’t even seen Marissa or Kyle. Not that she’d expected to.

      Her dad finally finished whatever he was doing and unlocked the front door. The entry was plain but neat. An overhead chandelier, original to the house, sparkled under the afternoon sun. Wood floors were polished to a golden gleam. A well-used Turkish-style rug lay in the center of the room beneath a round oak table that had a bowl of potpourri on it.

      Sabrina wrinkled her nose. “Potpourri, Dad? This isn’t the ’80s.” Which was exactly what she’d told her mother when she’d spotted it in the guest bathroom.

      He shrugged. “Your mother said it would smell nice.”

      Yes, if people wanted their homes to smell like an old lady’s underwear drawer. Sabrina made a mental note to take the bowl and all the dried flowers with her when they left.

      Her father walked past the offending decor without a glance and stuck his key into the interior door on the left. Men. Sabrina lingered, noting the cheerful welcome mat in front of the mayor’s door. There was a small nail beneath the peephole. Probably to hang a wreath at Christmas.

      “Sabrina?” her father called.

      She sent one last look at the door, not that it told her anything, and headed to what would become her new home. She imagined plain white walls, simple wood floors polished to the same gloss as the entry and maybe some architectural features found in older homes that gave them such character. Crystal doorknobs, paneled doors and thick crown molding.

      What she found would have caused her mouth to fall open in a gasp of horror had she not trained herself out of the habit years ago when one of her university friends told her it made her look like a rube.

      “What do you think?” Her dad was practically rubbing his hands together.

      Sabrina wondered if they were seeing the same thing because what she saw was that the bowl of potpourri wasn’t the only thing left from the ’80s. The walls of the duplex were pastel stripes. Yes. Pastel. Stripes. In four colors. Lilac and mint and blush and sunshine shown off in all their glory because there wasn’t any furniture to distract from it.

      She