3 Ways to Wear Red Read online

  3 Ways To Wear Red

  A Jennifer Cloud Novel

  Janet Leigh

  Janet Leigh Books

  Copyright © 2017 Janet Leigh

  All rights reserved.

  * * *

  ISBN: 1545381992

  ISBN-13: 9781545381991

  Library of Congress Control Number: 2017906199

  LCCN Imprint Name: City and State (If applicable)

  Created with Vellum

  For my two favorite fashionistas, who love the color pink:

  Joanna Adrian and Karla Perry.

  * * *

  Joanna: thank you for giving me Ian.

  * * *

  Karla: thank you for sharing your story of Toecheese.

  Contents

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Epilogue

  About the Author

  Prologue

  Legs dangling, the little girl sat at the antique dressing table, admiring a display of delicate perfume bottles. The large, round mirror attached to the back of the dressing table reflected each elegant piece of décor and her cherubic face. She twisted a strand of her long blond hair as she glanced over her shoulder at the door. Seeing no one, she reached out with a chubby hand and squeezed the pink bulb of the atomizer, causing a fine mist of White Shoulders perfume to cascade across her chest. Inhaling deeply, she replaced the bottle carefully on the table.

  Hooking her feet around the chair legs for balance, she leaned back and pulled open a long drawer that held an array of lipsticks, eye shadows, and blushers. She would try on just the lipstick. The pink tube revealed a creamy hot-pink color that she had trouble keeping in the lines of her lips.

  She examined her face in the mirror. Her eyes looked pale in comparison to her lips. She opened the peacock-blue eye shadow and was surprised to find a tiny brush inside. The blue would just match the color of her eyes. She used the brush and stroked the blue powder across her eyelid, as she saw her mother do each morning while she dressed for work. Her mother’s eye shadows were not as glamorous, however. They were browns and grays, not like the rainbow of colors the little girl had found in the drawer.

  She admired herself in the mirror. The part of her eyes above her eyelids looked naked in comparison to her new blue lids. She chose a shimmering neon green and loved the way it sparkled next to the blue as she covered every inch from her eyelid to her brow.

  The girl was delighted to find a pair of false eyelashes in a clear box hidden under a blusher. She opened the eyelashes and tried to dab them with a bit of the special glue to make them stick. The glue wouldn’t work. The eyelashes peeled up and fell off. The girl decided her own long eyelashes had prevented their attachment. Jumping down from the chair, she knew exactly where to find the solution.

  In the next room, a little boy was dressed in the official Native American headdress of a warrior chief and was stepping on the long train of feathers it trailed as he danced around the room. He wore the headdress proudly and pretended to shoot arrows at his plastic cowboys.

  The girl interrupted him. She wanted to borrow his scissors. He knew he wasn’t supposed to let her have them—she was too little—but she made him a bargain he couldn’t refuse. She would use the makeup to draw real warrior paint on his face and chest. He agreed, but only if she would allow him to borrow her Barbie dolls to use as settlers. The agreement was made, and a few minutes later, he looked like the warrior chief he was meant to be.

  The boy climbed up on the wrought-iron bed to retrieve the supply box from his backpack and removed the scissors. The box had Darth Vader on the top and was tattered from the school year.

  The girl watched the boy toss his supply box back on the bed. She took better care of her things—her Little Mermaid box looked brand-new. A wooden trunk with intricately carved wolves on its sides sat on the floor next to the bed. The girl peeked inside.

  “Why aren’t you wearing the necklace?” the girl asked, lifting a medallion on a silver chain from the box.

  “Necklaces are for girls,” he said and handed her the scissors.

  “I think it’s a charm…you know, like to keep the bad spirits away.”

  The boy stopped and stared at the medallion. “Put it on me,” he demanded.

  The girl did as she was told and used the lipsticks to draw a few more lines on the boy’s face. When he was satisfied, she returned to the dressing table. Sitting on her knees in the chair, she leaned in close to the mirror and carefully snipped the first eyelash. It made a little click and tickled as it hit her cheek and fell to the glass-topped table. For the next few minutes, it was click…tickle…click…tickle…click…tickle…until her left eye was free of the lashes in the way of her full and luscious falsies. As she reached for the set of false eyelashes to glue it to the now-smooth ridge on her eyelid, she heard a commotion in the other room.

  The boy was in trouble. She knew the tone of the woman’s voice. The girl slid off the chair and peeked into the next room. The woman was tall and smelled of the same perfume the girl had sprayed earlier. Her silver hair, pinned up in a twist, matched the angry twist of her lips. The woman was kind, and the girl loved staying at her house after preschool, but she was angry about something the boy had done.

  Hands placed firmly on her hips, the woman asked, “Land sakes, where’d you git that?”

  “Aint Elma gave it to me,” he said.

  “She shouldn’t of done that,” the woman scolded. “And where’d you git that paint on your face?”

  “She did it.” The boy pointed at the girl.

  The woman turned to see the little girl at the same moment the little girl noticed her Barbies scalped and hanging by tiny nooses from the wrought-iron bed frame.

  The little girl screamed, and a second woman came running. She was slender, shorter than the first woman, and had bright-blue eyes. The little girl had met her only a few times but enjoyed her funny stories about faraway places.

  “Why did you give him those?” The old woman pointed at the newly arrived woman.

  “He should have them,” the short woman said, dropping to her knees and wrapping her thin arms around the boy. “He might need them one day.”

  “Not as long as I draw breath,” said the first woman. “Take them off,” she commanded. The boy’s lips started to tremble, and tears began to wet his cheeks.

  “Did you have to make them cry?” the second woman asked, drawing the little girl into a hug.

  “This one is missing her eyelashes, and this one scalped all the Barbies,” the tall woman said, pointing at each child in turn. The little girl cried harder, clutching one of the hairless Barbies to her chest. “What are we going to tell the parents?”

  Chapter 1

  I woke to a loud banging against my wall. My bed vibrated from the force of each thrust. They were at it again. I pulled my pillow over my head, trying to drown out the noise and get another hour of sleep, but it was no use. I knew from past experience this would go on for another fifteen to twenty minutes. Brodie has stamina—I’ll give him that.

  From the time my cousin Gertie and my coworker Brodie began hooking up, my nights had been interrupted. Still, I knew I shouldn’t complain, because I’d never seen Gertie so happy.

  A shiver of excitement ran through my body as I thought about the day ahead. I, Jennifer Cloud, am a transporter for
the WTF, otherwise known as the World Travel Federation. I inherited a genetic gift from my great-aunt Elma Jean Cloud, lovingly referred to as Aint Elma. She was a kind old woman with a deep dark secret: she, and now I, can travel in time. Not to the future, where I could possibly get a glimpse of my future self or find out the winning lottery numbers and live blissfully rich for the rest of my life. No, I am able to travel only to the past.

  When I accidentally discovered I also had this gift, my whole world changed. Not many people can say they met the guy they are dating in the year 1568. I’ve heard it’s not a good idea to date someone you work with, but so far, we have managed to keep our love affair in check. Caiyan taught me how to use my gift, along with the other two pieces that allow me to time travel: my vessel and my key. I taught him what a blonde with long legs can do in the bedroom. I reached up and ran my fingers across my empty décolleté. The place just below my neck in the hollow of my throat was cold and vacant. Smiling to myself, I hoped my key would be there very soon.

  I threw off the cozy blankets and pulled on a robe. Bending over, I scooped my hair up on top of my head and wound it into a messy bun. After I secured it with a hair elastic, I checked my face in the mirror. Having a man in the house so early in the morning put a kink in my habit of wandering downstairs in my nightshirt and crazy hair.

  I examined my face in the mirror over my antique dressing table. Was that a pimple on my chin? I moved in a little closer for a better look. My mantra began to play in my head, and I immediately jerked the record from its invisible turntable. Not today. A little pimple threat was not going to scare me. I gave myself the stamp of approval to go downstairs and make coffee.

  When I walked out into the hall, Gertie’s attack cat was sitting guard outside her bedroom door. Brodie had kicked him out of his normal sleeping spot in Gertie’s bed.

  “Rough night, huh, Smoke?” I asked the cat as I reached down to scratch him behind the ears. He gave me a gentle swat with his paw. I considered this his way of high-fiving me. He followed me downstairs in a kindred bond against the sleep wreckers.

  Gertie and I lived in my childhood home, a two-story, four-bedroom town house in the small town of Sunnyside, Texas. My parents had bought it because it reminded my mom of her brownstone in New York. After my parents moved to a community for adults over fifty, they rented the town house to me. I couldn’t afford my shoe fetish and the town house by myself, so Gertie moved in while she finished her studies at SMU.

  A steaming pot of coffee was waiting for me in the kitchen, and I silently thanked the inventor of the programmable coffeemaker—and Gertie—for planning ahead. Smoke rubbed against my leg, demanding a cat treat. I complied and then poured myself a cup of coffee. He gobbled it up and licked his paw with satisfaction. I stirred sugar in my coffee and walked over to the sliding glass door. Brushing aside the sheer curtain, I looked out at the small fenced-in backyard. This was the big day. If the WTF gave its stamp of approval, I should get my key back today.

  My vessel sat in the backyard, surrounded by a haunted aura of depression. The outhouse was tall and made of solid wood with remnants of green paint streaked through its planks. The emblem of my key was carved above the door—a crescent moon with tiny stars dancing around it. I often wondered how these ordinary objects became vessels, but no one really knows the secret. I was told the gods had given this gift originally to a tribe of Ancalites, an ancient Celtic people, but the history of the gift is all speculation. I took a sip of my coffee and surveyed the small space.

  Normally, my backyard was bursting with glorious plants and flowers, thanks to my vessel’s green thumb. When my outhouse was in the same spot for more than twenty-four hours, the landscape became the Garden of Eden, but since I’ve been grounded, the flowers looked wilted, and a spot of crabgrass threatened to take over the area. My outhouse liked to travel, and my inability to do so was reflected by the surroundings.

  A walking path led from the back gate to the covered patio, where a wrought-iron table and chairs were centered next to a rusty barbecue grill. I opened the door to let the cat out for his morning stroll. A cool April breeze swept inside, along with the whooping of a whip-poor-will alerting the other birds that Attack Cat was in the vicinity.

  I closed the door and sat down at the kitchen table, pulling my feet up under me. My legs were lean and muscular from my training. The WTF’s main job is to chase bad guys, also known as brigands. These brigands relentlessly travel back in time to pillage, plunder, despoil, and fleece the poor, unsuspecting residents of whatever time they choose. We are sent back by the WTF to stop them.

  Time travel is somewhat finicky, and there are a lot of rules. Some of these rules are inherent with our genetic gift, and some of them are meant to be broken, mainly the rules enforced on us by the WTF. Our travel is concurrent with the day and time of the present, but thank God we can travel only during the full-moon cycle, or I could be living my life without indoor plumbing.

  The defenders do the stopping. Since they normally can’t carry two people in their vessels, if they are lucky enough to catch the brigand, they summon the transporters. We escort the brigand back to the WTF. Except I haven’t traveled in a while. I was grounded for disobeying my commanding officer. The WTF frowned on my inability to follow orders and locked up my key. In the short time I have been a time traveler, I’ve broken the code and taken Gertie back in time, accidentally, of course. I prevented a murder, which somehow managed to screw up the past, which meant I screwed up the future; I also caused Caiyan to lose his key. I don’t consider the last one my fault. We travelers have only about three to five days to get our mission accomplished and return home. If we don’t return, the time portal closes, and we are stuck in the past until the next month, when it opens again. When the portal snaps shut, it’s very painful for the traveler and not something I ever plan to experience.

  On his last travel, Caiyan stayed to help an old friend, and I went back to save him. Somehow things went awry, Caiyan had to cut a deal with a nasty little brigand and trade his key to save me. Caiyan is the WTF’s best defender, and the head honchos were pretty pissed when he showed up without a key.

  I was looking forward to getting my key back. The lateral travel was the main reason I hadn’t run away from this job screaming with fear—I can travel to any part of the world, anytime I want, as long as I fly under the radar. This means I don’t get into trouble, and I don’t allow anyone to see my outhouse. If I travel at night, I can usually do this without being detected.

  In order to see each other, Caiyan and I relied on the help of Ace, a fellow transporter, to haul our butts around. Only a transporter can carry one or two extra riders. Occasionally, if Ace was unavailable, Caiyan would use his company’s jet and come see me. Lately, his visits had been few and far between. He has a business in New York dealing mostly in art and antiquities. Go figure. He has an apartment in the city that overlooks Central Park, a flat in London, and a country house in Scotland. I’ve visited only the New York address. It had been three months since the last time we’d been together. He frequently traveled out of the country on business, and this trip was the longest one yet. He had agreed we should meet as soon as I received my key.

  My inner voice pulled out her planner, and I mentally perused my day. Keeping up with the pretenses of my normal life, I would go to work at my brother Eli’s chiropractic office, located in the quaint town of Coffee Creek. After I returned home from work, Ace would pick me up and whisk me away to headquarters, where my boss would convince the military commander in charge of the WTF I am ready to resume my duties as a transporter. If everything went as planned, I would meet Caiyan in New York City. He would—I hoped—have dinner reservations at Marea, one of my favorite restaurants, and we’d engage in a much-anticipated night of romance. I was pretty pleased the former playboy had settled down and become the man of my dreams.

  Brodie stumbled into the small kitchen, wearing a big grin on his face and sweatpants that hung l
oosely on his wiry frame. He was average height, and Gertie swore he resembled Keith Urban, the smokin’ hot country singer, but I was leaning toward Shaggy from Scooby-Doo. He did have a nice set of abs, and if his sweats dropped any lower, I was going to see what else he had that was nice.

  “G’day to ya,” he said as he helped himself to the coffee.

  “Good morning…sleep well?” I asked with a hint of sarcasm.

  He flashed his megawatt smile at me. “I did. I take it ya didn’t.”

  “Very funny. You two fornicate like rabbits. I don’t know how you go to work every day.”

  “I’m like Thor. It gives me energy.” He popped an English muffin in the toaster and took a sip of his coffee as he waited for the muffin. His goatee was perfectly groomed to the angles of his face, and his shoulder-length, brown hair was pulled back in one of Gertie’s pink hair elastics.

  “Well, Thor, you don’t have to worry about keeping me awake tonight, because I’m getting my key back today.”

  “That’s great—’ow is Caiyan handling that news?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “The fact that ya will be able to travel, and he will be left at home, sitting on his duff?” Brodie slathered butter on his muffin and joined me at the table.

  I hesitated. I hadn’t thought about how Caiyan would feel when I traveled without him. Would it be similar to a scenario where the husband lost his job, and the wife had to be the breadwinner? I knew money was not the issue with Caiyan, but would his ego stand the fact that I was going to travel again?