Nothing but Trouble Read online

  Chapter 1

  “Bob, I need your help. It’s an emergency!”

  Robert slowly straightened up from the microscope and slid his hands in his jeans pockets, pushing the long lab coat out of the way. His back was to her, but he would recognize that voice anywhere.

  The blonde whirlwind was back. And she still hadn’t learned how to knock on doors. She still didn’t know what “Authorized access only” meant.

  And for some reason, he noticed as he turned towards her in resignation, she was taking the trouble to lock the door carefully behind her.

  There was probably a reason for that. It might not be a reason that would make sense to anyone else in the world, but it was no doubt a perfectly good reason in Linda’s world.

  If he bothered to point any of those things out to her, she’d only laugh. And she’d call him Bob. And she’d probably touch him. She had this habit of linking her arm through his that was very disconcerting.

  As she smiled-despite the supposed emergency-and walked towards him in that way that was more like a dance than a walk as any other person walked, he knew he wasn’t going to point anything out.

  He just knew she was trouble.

  He also knew that she was just as beautiful as his memory had insisted on informing him frequently over the last few weeks. It wasn’t only her classic blonde looks and her sky-blue eyes, but also her bouncy attitude and sunny disposition. Linda seemed to him so filled with life. She vibrated with energy.

  It was probably no wonder that she assumed him stuffy and dull, with his calm, predictable life dedicated to research and academia, books and papers.

  She looked different out of the flight attendant uniform he was accustomed to seeing. The summer dress complemented her hair and her eyes and, damnit, as good as her usual knot looked, he did have a definite weakness for long ponytails.

  “My name is Robert,” he replied brusquely, more out of habit than anything else. He had all but given up hope that the woman would ever learn or use his first name. “What’s your definition of an emergency this time?”

  “Can you teach the monkeys to look really in love?” She waved towards the chimp’s room, an alcove at the back of the room, separated from the lab by bars. “You know, like they can’t survive without each other?”

  He folded his arms on his chest. “They’re apes, not monkeys. I repeat: what is the emergency, and how could it possibly be solved by my chimpanzees falling in love?”

  “Ellen and Chris,” Linda said, as if that explained everything. “Ellen is being a total idiot, but I have a brilliant idea on how to knock some sense into her and make her realize they can’t live without each other.”

  Robert turned back to his microscope and measured three drops of plasma into a test tube. He sensed a twisting road of female logic looming up ahead, and was pretty sure he wouldn’t like the scenery. “Good.”

  “But I need your help.”

  “Ah. Not so good.”

  She hopped up on the counter next to his microscope and crossed her legs. They were bare under the yellow summer dress, the sandals nothing but bits of string that barely held together. Robert concentrated on his test tube and tried not to notice her ankles.

  “You see, Bob, Ellen has some crazy idea that she and Chris shouldn’t be together even if they are in love.” She shrugged. “It’s too long a story to get into it. But the bottom line is that Ellen really is a romantic at heart.” She gestured towards the cage again. “The other day she was telling me about Aphelion and Perihelion and how they were in love. You should have seen the look on her face.”

  “I’ve seen it,” he said, warming the pink liquid. “I work with her every day, remember?”

  “Great!” Linda said, bouncing with enthusiasm. “You understand. Then you’ll help.”

  It was a statement, not a question. He might as well give in already. “What do I have to do?” he asked, resigned. He’d only known Linda for three weeks, and met her through their mutual friends perhaps a total of four times, but he already knew well enough that there was no way she’d leave him alone until he agreed to whatever plot she had dreamed up.

  Linda glanced at the slim watch on her even slimmer wrist. Her wrists had a lot in common with her ankles. Slender, fine-boned and just the right size for him to circle with his hand. Damnit. He muttered an oath under his breath and glared at the glittering fluid under the lens.

  “Ellen should be here in about twenty minutes, right?” Linda continued, but didn’t wait for an answer. “Okay, when she gets here, you tell her something like that you can’t work with the chimps. You tell her they’re too much in love and it interferes with their...”, she waved a hand, “with whatever it is they do.”

  Hard as he tried, Robert really couldn’t find anything more of interest in that pool of pink fluid. Besides, Linda didn’t even need to be in the center of his visual field in order to occupy his full attention. He pushed himself away from the workbench and faced her again. “Tell me again, how will this catapult Ellen into Chris’s arms?”

  “Isn’t it obvious?”

  “Not to me, no. I never took Matchmaking 101.”

  Linda winked and he could swear she fluttered her eyelashes at him. “I bet you took some chemistry, though.”

  He settled for rolling his eyes in response.

  “Anyway, it’s simple. She’ll see the chimps in love, you’ll tell her they’re about to be torn apart and will never see each other again, and she’ll immediately realize she can’t live without Chris.”

  Robert rubbed at his temples. “I see. Do you have any idea how farfetched this plan is?”

  “It could work.”

  “Unlikely.”

  “Well, we’re desperate. That is, Chris is desperate. She loves him, he loves her...” She pointed an accusing finger directly at his heart. “It’s worth a try. You don’t want to stand in the way of true love, do you?”

  “Never,” he muttered, knowing he was beaten.

  Linda squealed, a sound he connected uniquely with her, and for some reason did not find stupefyingly annoying. In itself, that was stupefyingly annoying. “You’re a gem, Bob.” She grinned. “Maybe they’ll name their children after us.”

  The door rattled and they both jumped. Linda bounced to the floor and steadied herself by grabbing his upper arms. He winced. That scent was real. It hadn’t been just a figment of his imagination, created in his dreams by his sadistic subconscious.

  “Darn!” Linda said in a stage whisper loud enough to carry through a lead wall. “Ellen’s here already. Are you ready with our plan?”

  “Your plan,” he corrected. “Fine. I’ll give it a try tomorrow.”

  “Robert? Are you in there?” Ellen’s voice came from behind the door, accompanied by the jingle of keys.

  “Damn!” Linda exclaimed. “She has keys?”

  “Of course she has keys. She works here. Just a moment,” he called to Ellen. “I’ll open up for you.”

  “Okay.” Linda patted his arm and looked frantically around. “Okay. This will be fine. Don’t panic. Don’t panic. There’s no reason to panic.”

  Robert raised an eyebrow. “I’m not panicking. Not at all. In fact, I’m beginning to enjoy myself.”

  She wasn’t listening. “Okay. This is all for the best, anyway. There’s no time like the present, they say.” She took one last desperate look around, then with obvious relief pointed at the door to the inner lab. “I’ll wait in that closet, and you’ll break the news to her. If all goes well, she’ll be out of here in no time looking for Chris.”

  “And if she doesn’t?”

  Linda shrugged. “Then you’ll just send her on an errand or something so I can get out of there. You’ll think of something.”


  Anything to get this over with and Linda out of his lab. Every time he met her, the next few days his mind was filled with thoughts of her, when he should be concentrating on animal hormones, and not his own.

  His lips twitched. Speaking of animal hormones, he wondered how she’d react when she found out what was inside the ‘closet’. Would she scream? Faint? Attack him with those long red nails? “Okay, get in there, then. We’ll give it a try.”

  “Good luck,” she whispered, and stood on tiptoe to kiss him on the cheek.

  His hormones really, really, did not need a kiss, even a chaste one on the cheek, as fodder for their already fevered imagination. He grunted and waved towards the inner lab door. Better get this over with.

  He was just too cute when he scowled like that. Smiling, Linda hurried into the closet, which was rather bigger than she had anticipated. As she the door closed behind her she realized this was not a closet, but a small windowless room. It was dimly lit, smelly... and noisy in a subdued kind of way.

  She felt around the door until she came across light-switches. The first one plunged the room in total darkness, but the second one bathed the small chamber in bright fluorescent light. She blinked and then almost screamed as she saw the interior.

  Goosebumps erupted down her arms and her torso, even her face, starting at her forehead and rushing downwards.

  Counters lined three of the four drab concrete walls, broken only by two steel sinks, and several shelves, jam-packed with miscellaneous junk.

  On the counters there were rows of small cages.

  The cages were filled with monsters.

  They had sharp teeth and nasty claws, beady eyes and long twitching tails.

  Mice.

  Linda flattened herself against the door. Only the thought of her friends’ future happiness being resolved behind the door with the help of three primates of varying hairiness prevented her from running screaming out of the room in search of a chair to climb on.

  And of course, she remembered as she felt the door handle press against her arm, the lock. Robert might have turned the lock, preventing her escape from this pit of hell. Now that Ellen was inside the room, she couldn’t even risk turning the handle just to check if the door was locked or not.

  She gritted her teeth and fought the urge to grab the handle and shake it, screaming for someone to rescue her. Instead she stared at the lock, wondering if it was pickable with a hairpin, and if so, how the heck one picked a lock with a hairpin, and why such basic skills were not part of a normal high school curriculum.

  Not that any of that mattered since she didn’t even have a hairpin.

  She groaned, sending evil thoughts to Robert. Her only hope was that Ellen would come to her senses quickly and run out of there to jump Chris’s bones. Robert would probably be content to allow her to stay stuck in here all day on the pretext of Ellen being in the lab.

  He would pay for this, she thought grimly. Considering what was at stake, she wouldn’t have blown their plan by running out of the room even if the door was open, but she would feel a lot better knowing that lock didn’t stand between her and freedom. It was the principle of the thing.

  She took a deep breath and held a hand over her heart as if she could manually slow down its frantic pounding. There was no reason to panic. No reason at all. The creatures were just small mammals. Just small animals, much like Ellen’s cat. Much like food for Ellen’s cat, come to think of it. Heck, even a kitten could eat the whole bunch up and still have room for ice-cream. And besides, they were in cages, all locked up. They posed absolutely no danger at all.

  Taking another deep breath, she squared her shoulders and forced herself to look at the small creatures, determined to ignore the fresh burst of goose bumps that flooded every inch of her body. The mice didn’t seem to be paying any attention to her, let alone be eyeing her with evil intent.

  She gritted her teeth as she recalled the glint in Robert’s eyes when she’d suggested hiding in the ‘closet’. Now, there was evil intent.

  He would pay, she vowed. He would pay dearly. And she was not going to give him the pleasure of running out of there shrieking when he finally opened the door. No. She’d think of something more original.

  She rubbed her bare arms, trying to rid them of the goose-bumps, then took one more fortifying breath and bravely walked into the middle of the room, peering around and into the cages.

  Life was too short for phobias. If she was going to be staying here a while, she might as well get to know the locals.

  “I have to go. I’ve been so stupid.” Ellen frantically tore off the lab coat she’d just put on. Her dark curls were in even worse disarray then usual and she was trembling. “Promise me you won’t separate them until I’ve talked to you again?”

  “Okay,” Robert said, amazed that Linda’s scheme appeared to be working. He watched in astonishment as Ellen left her coat in a heap at the door and tore away as if Perihelion had suddenly mutated into King Kong. From within their cage, Aphelion and Perihelion frowned after her and mumbled to each other, cheated of their ritual of shaking her hand whenever she left the room.

  “Sorry, lovebirds, she was in a hurry to get back to her male.” Aphelion sent him a big-toothed smile. “You know the feeling, eh? Anyway, that was a great performance, guys,” Robert confided to the chimp couple. Right on cue, they had hugged each other in their most “we-belong-together” fashion, just as he’d told Ellen one of them would have to go. Now, however, they no longer seemed so desperately unhappy, but were searching each other for nonexistent lice. “You’ll get one Snickers each from Blondie. If she sticks around long enough,” he muttered under his breath.

  He was feeling a bit guilty. In his personal experience, women and rodents generally didn’t mix well. But there had not been any sound from beyond the door. She must be coping.

  Aphelion walked over to the bars and reached out a long arm, jumping up and down and screeching.

  “More chocolate? Okay, okay,” Robert relented. “Two bars each. But that’s it.” He knocked with one finger on the door to the tiny inner lab. “All clear. I have no idea how or why, but your nefarious scheme seems to have succeeded.”

  There was no response. She hadn’t fainted, had she? He opened the door a crack, taking care in case she was on the floor behind. “Miss Stevens? Ellen’s gone.”

  No answer. His guilt escalated. She had turned on the lights, at least. Had she really fainted when she saw the animals? He hadn’t really believed she would. She seemed to be made of sterner stuff, but well, you could never tell when it came to women. He stuck his head inside and looked around. “Linda? Are you okay?”

  Something moved inside the door.

  “Aaargh!” Suddenly drenched in icy water, he jumped back. “What the hell...!”

  “That’s for locking me in a room with mice in it.” Linda stalked out, threw the empty bucket to the side, and pulled up a chair next to the chimp cage. She grabbed a Snickers from her purse and reached tentatively inside with bits of chocolate for Aphelion and Perihelion before turning her head to glare at him. “I couldn’t scream or anything with Ellen in here, and there wasn’t even a window to climb out of. I had to stay there, with millions of mice, for an eternity.”

  Torn between relief and exasperation, Robert clenched his teeth and proceeded to shake most of the water from his hair. “Twelve... mice, for no more than ten minutes. And the door was not locked.” This was probably not the best time to educate her about the difference between mice and rats.

  “Well, I didn’t know the door wasn’t locked, did I? I thought it was locked, which is just as bad as it actually being locked. And don’t think I didn’t hear you call me Blondie,” she added.

  “What a coincidence. You know, I’m constantly hearing you call me Bob. Must be some sort of a middle ear syndrome.”

  She ignored him. “I had a mouse phobia, you know.”

  “Had?” He leaned against the counter, grabbed a paper towe
l to dry his glasses and myopically watched her turn his chimps into hyperactive gremlins with her sugar bombs. Water was still trickling from his hair into his face and he impatiently brushed it back with his forearm.

  She glared up at him. “Yes. When you first locked me in that mouse cage. Of course I’m cured now. I didn’t have a choice, did I? So I made friends with John and Paul and Ringo and...”

  He groaned. “Please don’t tell me you named my lab ra... mice after The Beatles?”

  “Yup. And The Supremes. Or did the mice already have names?”

  “No!” he protested. “I’ve got better things to do with my time than think up names for the animals.”

  She gave him one of her brightest smiles. “Of course you do.” She gestured towards the inner lab. “I’m not sure I got the boy mice and the girl mice right, though. You’ll have to show me how to tell them apart sometime.”

  Robert slumped against the door and buried his hands in his hair. “Boy mice and girl mice. Named Ringo and Diana. Matchmaking chimps bribed with chocolate.” He pulled off his lab coat and used it to towel his damp hair before bundling it up with Ellen’s discarded one and throwing both in the laundry basket behind the door. He looked up at the ceiling and dug his hands deep into the pockets of his jeans. “I need a vacation. Somewhere far away from all this.”

  “Sounds great, Bob. I can get you cheap tickets. How about Hawaii?” She winked at him. “Just you, me, your glasses and one of those strangely sexy lab coats.”

  Okay. That was it.

  She’d crossed the line.

  He stared at her. And then stared some more, until finally she stopped smiling and preening and started frowning instead and looking unsure of herself. It took a while, but it worked at last.

  “Okay, Blondie. No more games. Let’s set things straight. What do you want from me?”

  Uh, oh. Linda squirmed and stood up in a futile effort to feel on top again. “Um...”

  “You see, your actions have me wondering if you’re an example of that interesting female species called Man-eater.”