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“No.” He folded his arms, making me wish he was wearing something with long sleeves so that my eyes would stop being drawn to the flex of his muscles. “I said that I was going to put citrus peel down. It doesn’t poison cats—​they just don’t like it.”

I paused. Was that what he’d said? No, it had definitely been something vaguer and more sinister such as . . . otherwise I’ll have to put something down in the flower bed that she really won’t like. And that, in my mind, meant something poisonous. He was just attempting to gaslight me.

I straightened my spine. “Take down your Christmas lights.”

He raised his eyebrows. “No.”

I mirrored him, folding my arms and shifting closer so that we were nearly forearm to forearm. “You owe me. Take them down.”

He craned his neck to bring his face nearer to mine. “I said no. And I don’t owe you. I never did anything to your cat. Someone else must have run her over and hurt her leg.”

I gritted my teeth. This was my competition and he was stealing it from me. Just like his girlfriend had stolen my husband. Speaking of which, “That’s not the only reason you owe me.”

He jerked his head to the side, brows drawing tightly together.

I moved away, turning toward my house. “Get them down, or else you’re in for it.” I began to walk off, heat still pulsing through my body and warming my skin against the night air like a rage jacket.

“Or else what?” he called after me, his voice rising. “You’ll accuse me of more crimes I didn’t commit? That seems to be your hobby.”

I began to cross the street, turning my head over my shoulder to shout, “Screw you!”

“Give my regards to your cat Stumpy!” he called back.

The nerves supplying my limbs froze, and I came to an abrupt halt at the end of my driveway before I regained the use of my muscles and spun round to face him. “How dare you call her that! Cat murderer!”

“It would only have been murder if she’d died!” he shouted. “And she didn’t. She’s just Stumpy! And for the millionth time, it wasn’t me!!”

I clenched my fists so hard that my nails bit into my palms. I hated Kerr Murdoch.

I pointed my finger at him, like Nesta Archeron marking the King of Hybern. “You’ll pay for this, Kerr.”

Something flashed across his features, but I couldn’t tell what from this far away. Hopefully fear. And with that I whirled around and marched back into my house so that I could claim the last word.

6

Kerr

I SAT AT my kitchen table, morning mug of coffee in one hand, while I used the other to massage my aching temples. Apparently, a headache was the main symptom of living opposite Nisa Ansari.

I took a sip of the hot coffee and let the smooth, nutty taste eke into my system, reviving my burned-​out neurons.

I shouldn’t have called her cat Stumpy, and I felt bad about it. But she had riled me up with her nonsense to such a degree that, without thinking, I’d grabbed any chance to needle her with both hands. And it really wasn’t like me. I was the sort of man who kept any outward display of emotion tightly under wraps. I was good at it. Always had been. But it seemed that there was something about Nisa Ansari that made me get caught up in the turbulence of her expressive displays of emotion and then follow suit. It had been the same with our previous interactions, not that there had been many; it was more about intensity than frequency with us. And whenever she blew up at me, I seemed to lose my well-​cultivated ability to argue with logic and instead degenerated into losing my shit—​as much as it was possible for me to lose it, in any case, what with my locked-​down sensibilities.

How on earth could she still be accusing me of running over her cat? Why the hell would I want to deliberately harm an animal? I was a vet, for Christ’s sake! But there was no reasoning with the NCA. And to think I’d almost begun to warm toward her when I’d gotten home and seen that not only had she shed her hard-​nosed facade and decorated her house, but the main lights she’d chosen were the very same ones I’d selected for my own property. I hadn’t been lying when I’d said I thought we finally had something in common.

Once I’d decorated my house and gone onto the town social media page to log my entry, I’d spotted her entry on there—​another reason to think we might hold common ground. And I’d even liked her post.

The last thing I’d expected was her turning up at my door to have a go at me, all flashing eyes and tossing hair.

I paused, remembering that moment and the stir it had created deep in my belly—​a stir I had experienced before, I realized with a start. I’d had the same feeling when I first got the idea to decorate and imagined her turning up angry on my doorstep, though in the end she’d been upset for different reasons than I’d originally anticipated.

In any case, there was no way I was going to back out of my entry. Why shouldn’t I take part in the competition? I had just as much right as she had, and I didn’t owe her anything, despite whatever nonsense she’d been spouting the previous evening.

I finished my coffee and went to get ready to meet my open-​water swimming group. Perhaps a nice dip in a cold loch would clear my head.

*

It certainly was a cold one today. The first time in a while I’d had to break through ice on the surface of the loch.