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  Copyright

  Published by

  Dreamspinner Press

  5032 Capital Circle SW

  Suite 2, PMB# 279

  Tallahassee, FL 32305-7886

  USA

  http://www.dreamspinnerpress.com/

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of author imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Baja Honeymoon

  © 2013 Roland Graeme.

  Cover Art

  © 2013 Daniela Barisone.

  Cover content is for illustrative purposes only and any person depicted on the cover is a model.

  All rights reserved. This book is licensed to the original purchaser only. Duplication or distribution via any means is illegal and a violation of international copyright law, subject to criminal prosecution and upon conviction, fines, and/or imprisonment. Any eBook format cannot be legally loaned or given to others. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without the written permission of the Publisher, except where permitted by law. To request permission and all other inquiries, contact Dreamspinner Press, 5032 Capital Circle SW, Suite 2, PMB# 279, Tallahassee, FL 32305-7886, USA, or http://www.dreamspinnerpress.com/.

  ISBN: 978-1-62798-295-5

  Digital ISBN: 978-1-62798-294-8

  Printed in the United States of America

  First Edition

  November 2013

  To my friends at The Cactus and Succulent Society of America

  CHAPTER ONE

  THE BECKONING CAT

  KENNETH BOLLINGER popped the anise-flavored cookie into his mouth. He took his sweet time chewing and swallowing it, savoring every bit of the buttery goodness.

  “Rosa,” he declared, to the motherly-looking woman behind the counter, “you are what they call an enabler. All right, give me a half dozen of these. Oh hell, go ahead and make it a dozen. After all, they’re small.”

  Rosa Sereni smiled as she began to put the cookies into a box. She’d been in business long enough, Ken thought, to know when she had a customer hooked.

  Ken was making what he thought of as his midmorning rounds, a leisurely stroll around several blocks of the neighborhood. This part of Culver City consisted mostly of small storefronts, although there were some apartment buildings and private houses mixed in. Ken would stop at a newsstand to see whether there was anything he wanted to read and at a coffee shop to enjoy his usual café latte. And he invariably went into Sereni’s Italian Bakery to chat with Rosa Sereni or whichever other member of her family happened to be behind the counter, and to check out the pastries. Walking into the store with the intent of purchasing one item, Ken usually walked out carrying two or three. He was trying to watch his weight, so he felt guilty about indulging himself, but it was a delicious kind of guilt.

  “If you had a nice Italian girl to cook and keep house for you,” Rosa said as she handed over the box of cookies and rang up Ken’s purchase, which also included a long loaf of Italian bread and some dinner rolls, “then you could have things like this baked especially for you, every day.”

  “But I do have a nice Italian girl, at least to do the daily baking,” Ken pointed out. “Namely, you. And if I had one like you at home, I wouldn’t have any excuse to come here. Are you so determined to see every single guy in the neighborhood married off that you’d be willing to lose a customer to do it?”

  “In your case, yes. You need to settle down.”

  “Ouch. When you say ‘settle down,’ don’t you realize that those are the most dreaded words in the English language, as far as a bachelor is concerned? You sound exactly like my mother. If I didn’t know better, I’d think you and she were carrying on long-distance phone conversations, checking up on me and conspiring together behind my back.”

  “What makes you think we aren’t? Maybe she’s told me to keep an eye on you.”

  “I wouldn’t put it past her. But now you’re making me a little paranoid. I do a lot of things that I wouldn’t want my mother to know about.”

  Rosa let out a guffaw of bawdy laughter. “Your mama may know more about you than you think. And she may be a lot more open-minded than you give her credit for.”

  “Open-minded, huh? A woman of the world? Like you?”

  “Yes, like me.”

  “I’d better get out of here before I get myself into some real trouble.” Ken picked up his purchases and turned away from the counter.

  The Serenis were Italian-American to the core, but that didn’t prevent them from being receptive to other cultural influences. In the front window of their shop, presiding over the displays of baked goods, was a large black plastic maneki neko, or Japanese “beckoning cat.” This particular wide-eyed, smiling feline had a movable, solar-powered upraised arm that swayed back and forth with metronomic regularity. The cat also wore an apron and a traditional baker’s hat, both of which had been made especially for it by Rosa. In addition to her baking skills, she was an expert seamstress.

  Ken happened to glance toward the window just as a pedestrian paused on the sidewalk outside. Obviously attracted by the beckoning cat, the passerby was now looking at the window display of baked items. After a moment, he pushed open the door, making the little bell mounted on its upper frame tinkle, and came in.

  “Buon giorno,” Rosa said.

  “Hi,” the potential customer responded—rather shyly, Ken thought. The two men made eye contact and exchanged nods.

  The man from the street looked around. Rosa was the kind of businesswoman who was attentive to her customers but not pushy, and she remained behind the counter, smiling and waiting patiently. Ken took advantage of the delay to continue to check out the other man.

  He had a nice face, to the extent that Ken could see it, with the kind of open, alert expression that Ken liked in another man. The “to the extent that he could see it” part was the result of the fact that the guy wore a baseball cap with the brim pulled down low over his eyes, and the eyes themselves were partly concealed behind sunglasses with amber-tinted lenses.

  His clothes, not unlike Ken’s own, showed signs of having been worn often and loved to death. The chambray shirt and jeans were faded and worn from repeated launderings. He had a scuffed brown suede leather man purse slung on a strap over one shoulder.

  “Wow,” the object of Ken’s scrutiny exclaimed at last. “Does everything in here taste as good as it looks and smells?”

  “Absolutely,” Ken said.

  “Is that what they call an unsolicited testimonial?”

  “Yes. Not that I can’t be solicited, under the right circumstances. But you can take my word for it, everything they make here is good.”

  “I keep him on the payroll to say things like that,” Rosa joked.

  “She wouldn’t have to pay me,” Ken conceded. “I’d be willing to do it just in exchange for the free samples they hand out in here.”

  “Yes, have a cookie,” Rosa urged.

  The new customer wasn’t so shy, after all. He accepted the cookie and bit into it.

  “Oh, this is good,” he mumbled around his mouthful.

  “I’m Ken Bollinger, by the way, and this is Mrs. Sereni.”

  “Call me Rosa. Everybody does.”

  “It’s nice to meet you. My name’s Rick. At least that’s what all my friends call me. It’s short for Richard Decareau.”

  “You must be new to the neighborhood,” Rosa said. “I haven’t seen you before. And I would’ve remembered such a handsome young man.”
<
br />   So would I, Ken thought. Aloud, he said, “You’d better be careful, Rick. Rosa will charm your whole story out of you, and then before you know it, she’ll be trying to set you up with some nice Italian girl.”

  “Too late,” Rick said with a big grin. “I’m already engaged to be married.”

  Oh damn, Ken thought. But he said, “Congratulations,” and Rosa echoed him.

  “But you’re right,” Rick was saying. “I did just move here, and I’m still finding my way around the neighborhood.”

  “You’ll like it here,” Rosa said.

  “I know I will. Everybody’s so friendly. And Culver City is almost like a small, self-contained town that somehow got plunked down in the middle of Los Angeles.”

  Ken laughed. “That describes us exactly. We’re sort of an oasis that people can duck into for a little quick relief when they get frazzled by the hectic pace of the big city.”

  Rick surveyed the range of baked goods. “Well, I definitely want one of those small round loaves of bread. They look just the right size for one person. And something for dessert tonight. Maybe one of those napoleons.”

  So, engaged or not, he’s shopping for one and eating alone, at least at the moment. Interesting.

  “You’d better have some of the cookies too,” Ken advised.

  “All right. Give me half a dozen.”

  “Take my word for it, they’ll go fast. You’d better make it a dozen, like I did.”

  “Okay, sold. Are you sure you’re not on the payroll?”

  “No such luck. But it’s just as well that I’m not. If I did hang around in here all day, I’d eat up all the inventory and turn into a blimp.”

  Rosa rang up Rick’s purchases. “Thank you, and please come back again soon.”

  “I’ll make a point of it. Tell me. Is that coffee shop down the street any good?”

  Ken spoke up. “I go there all the time myself, if that’s any recommendation. In fact, it’s going to be my next stop.”

  “I think I’ll try it out. Can I buy you a coffee, Ken?”

  “I won’t say no. But you’re going to have to promise to let me return the favor the next time I run into you.”

  “Agreed.”

  They said their good-byes to Mrs. Sereni and walked down the block to the coffee shop.

  “Mrs. Sereni seems like a nice woman,” Rick commented.

  “She is. She’s the motherly type, who more or less adopts everybody she comes into contact with. And wait’ll you meet the rest of the family.” Especially the sons, Ken almost added, but he caught himself in time. He wasn’t sure how frank he could be about his admiration for the Sereni boys—all three of them—with this new acquaintance, who was engaged to be married, presumably to a woman. “They’re good people,” he ended up saying, rather lamely, in order to justify his remark.

  “This looks like a nice little place,” Rick commented as Ken ushered him into the coffee shop. “I don’t care too much for the big franchise chains, you know? I always feel like I’m getting a standardized, assembly-line product there.”

  “I know what you mean. I like it here. The coffee is always good.”

  They ordered from the barista, who greeted Ken by name, and they took their coffees to a table.

  “They know you here,” Rick commented. “You must come in a lot.”

  “I’m afraid I’m a creature of habit. I have my daily routine. I don’t deviate from it very much. I suppose I’m terribly predictable.”

  “There’s nothing wrong with that. I’m sure that once I get settled in and know my way around the neighborhood, I’ll fall into my own routine.”

  “You’ve lived here exactly how long?”

  “Less than twenty-four hours. The moving van delivered my things to my new apartment yesterday afternoon. I’m still unpacking. That’s why I look so grubby.”

  “Oh, don’t apologize. You look fine to me. As you can see, I tend to be casual myself, on the verge of slovenly. Where exactly do you live?”

  Rick told him the address.

  “I know that building,” Ken said. “It may not look like much on the outside, but I understand they pretty well gutted the interior when they remodeled it a couple of years ago, and put a lot of money into it.”

  “Yes. The apartments are really nice. And there’s a parking lot in the back, which is an advantage.”

  Ken had a fairly good idea of what the rents were at that location, which suggested that Rick had a respectable disposable income.

  “What line of work are you in, Rick?” he asked.

  “I’m working in television now.”

  “Let me guess. That’s why you moved to this neighborhood. So you could be closer to the studio you work for.”

  “Exactly. That long commute to and from work each day was beginning to get old. This is much more convenient. And I do like the neighborhood, from what I’ve seen of it so far.”

  “Working in television must be interesting.”

  “It is, sometimes, but usually it’s just routine. But let’s not talk about me. I want to hear more about you. What do you do for a living, if you don’t mind my asking?”

  “I don’t mind at all. Some of my friends accuse me of not doing anything. You see, I own a few commercial properties, all right here in the area. Contrary to popular belief, maintaining them is a full-time job. Between trying to keep my current tenants happy and looking for new ones to fill the empty spaces, I sometimes feel as though I’m on call twenty-four-seven. There are days when a nine-to-five job, only five days a week, and being told what to do by somebody else almost sounds good. At least then, when you’re done for the day, you really are done. Here’s my business card. If you know anybody who’s looking for office space or a storefront, have them call me.”

  “I will. In fact, give me a couple extra of these, if you can spare them. I’ll put them up on the bulletin boards down at work. How’d you get into this business in the first place?”

  “I acquired my first building the old-fashioned way: I inherited it, including the unpaid taxes. Then, gradually, once I began to make a profit, I bought the others one by one. Most of them needed major refurbishing.” Ken smiled. “You were just inside one of them, in fact. The Serenis aren’t just good friends of mine. They’re one of my tenants.”

  “Oh, that’s interesting. Next you’ll be telling me you own this building too?”

  “No,” Ken said with a laugh. “If I did, I’d make sure I got my coffee for free. But if you go two blocks north on this street and then hang a right, you’ll see an old red brick building with a couple of storefronts on the ground floor. One’s this little boutique, and the other one’s vacant at the moment. I live in an apartment upstairs. Which makes me a homeowner, I guess, although on a very modest scale.”

  “So we really are neighbors. We live within walking distance of each other.”

  “Yeah, we do.”

  “Once I get everything unpacked and my place starts to look halfway livable, I’ll have to invite you over for a drink.”

  “I’d like that. I’d be interested in seeing what they did with the inside of your building, to be frank.”

  “And I’ll have to introduce you to my fiancée. Too bad she’s out of town right now.”

  “When’s the wedding, by the way?”

  “In two weeks.”

  “So soon? Wow. You are making some major changes in your life, aren’t you? A new apartment and a wife. You don’t seem particularly jittery.”

  “Should I be?”

  “I always understood it came with the territory.”

  “I’m looking forward to it, actually. I mean, looking forward to being married. All the nonsense that’s leading up to it, planning the wedding and so forth, that I could sure do without. If it were up to me, we’d just elope.” Rick looked at Ken and smiled. “You’re single, I assume.”

  “Very much so,” Ken said, and he left it at that for the time being.

  “Well, that could c
hange, and when you least expect it.”

  Ken laughed. “Thanks for the warning. I’ll have to watch my back.”

  They had finished their coffee. “Would you like a refill?” Rick asked.

  “No thanks. I’ve had my caffeine fix for now.”

  “This has been fun. We’re going to have to do it again. But I really should be getting home. I still have all those boxes to unpack.”

  “If you need any help, let me know. I mean it, I’m not just saying it. Consider me your personal welcome wagon. My phone number and e-mail are on the cards I gave you.”

  “Yes, I’ve got them right here. Would you like mine?”

  “Sure.”

  Rick found a pen and a little pad in one of his pockets and wrote down his phone number for Ken. “Let’s get together sometime soon for a drink, or even dinner. A night out on the town.”

  “I’d like that. But we’d better do it soon, hadn’t we?”

  “Huh? Why’s that?”

  “You’ll only be free to do things like that while your fiancée is still out of town,” Ken teased.

  “Bullshit. I’ll be perfectly free to do them once she gets back,” Rick protested.

  “Oh, really? Doesn’t your fiancée keep you on a tight leash?”

  Rick grinned. “No woman keeps me on a leash,” he bragged.

  “Famous last words.”

  Outside on the sidewalk, they shook hands as they exchanged good-byes.

  “Call me,” Rick said, making the universal gesture of raising an invisible cell phone to his ear.

  “I will,” Ken promised. “We’re going to have to make the most of the limited freedom you have left.”

  Rick only grinned.

  Ken wasn’t above lingering for a moment in order to get a good look at Rick’s figure as his new acquaintance turned and strolled away. Nice shoulders. Nice ass too. A nice guy in general. Too bad he’s already spoken for. He doesn’t know it, but he’s already got the ball and chain fastened to his leg. I may not know much about women. But I do know that once they get hold of a guy, they want to run his life.

  He stopped at the newsstand he often patronized to buy a newspaper and a magazine. Before paying for them, he paused to scan the latest batch of tabloids on display. Ken never bought such rags, but he found their cover photos and headlines amusing. One publication featured a photo of a young woman in a bikini. She was beautiful enough, and her mostly bared body was voluptuous enough to make Ken give the cover a second glance. The headline, obviously dreamed up by an editor with a penchant for alliteration, blared The Bulgarian Bimbo, Her Billionaire, and Her Boy Toy.