Howard likely would be upset that I’d be out of the office once again, but I fully intended on talking up the case and convincing him I’d be spending my time working on beefing up next week’s police blotter. What I planned to be doing with Alex wasn’t anything close to that, but Howard didn’t need to know that.
“I like how you think, Officer Montero. I think a nice night out at your house might be good. Any chance I can get you to cook for me, or is that asking too much? You know how much I love your cooking.”
Alex raised his eyebrows and looked down at me. “You don’t have to charm the man who loves you, Poppy. You can save that for people like Derek.”
Before I could answer, he turned and walked away. As I hurried to catch up to him, I said, “You think that was charm? Oh, that was just me being honest. I can turn on the charm, though. Just say the word.”
He held the front door to the police station open for me and grinned as I passed. “Later, Miss McGuire. For now, we have somewhere we need to go.”
* * *
We walked into McGuire’s to find the bar empty except for one older man sitting at the end of the bar nursing a glass of ginger ale and regaling my father with his tales of how he’d been part of the town council when some streaker made his appearance at one of their monthly meetings back in the late seventies to protest the town’s decision to not allow a famous fast food restaurant in Sunset Ridge. Instantly my heart sank. What I had feared all along with this case had come true.
My father’s business had been ruined.
“Poppy! Alex! I’m so happy to see you two!” my father said as he came toward me with his arms open ready to take me into them for a hug.
“Dad, I’m so sorry. It’s happy hour and nobody’s here. This is so unfair.”
He kissed me on the cheek, ignoring my comments, and then turned to shake Alex’s hand. “How are you, Alex? What can I get you two? We need to make a toast to you solving the case.”
“I’ll take a scotch on the rocks, Joe,” Alex said as he sat down on a barstool near the door.
“Make that two, Dad. Do you want me to get them?” I asked as I inched my way toward behind the bar.
My father put his hand up to stop me. “No. Get back out there and sit down. You two are the honored guests tonight. I’m even going to have a drink to celebrate.”
He poured our drinks and placed them in front of us. Lifting his own glass of scotch, he smiled. “To Alex and Poppy for solving the case and clearing my name.”
The three of us took sips of our drinks, but I couldn’t help think that we hadn’t done enough or done it soon enough. Looking around at the empty bar, I said, “But Dad, there’s no one here. It’s dead.”
“Don’t worry, honey. The people of Sunset Ridge will return and this place will once again be bustling in no time.”
Alex raised his glass to make a toast. “To that happening just as soon as possible.”
We drank to my father’s bar becoming a success again, and then my father had to answer the phone so he left us sitting alone. Alex turned to me and shook his head.
“I can’t help but admire how much Joe still believes in the goodness of small town people. You have to give him that. He’s a true believer.”
“That’s all my father can do, but he does believe with all his heart that the people of Sunset Ridge are good. He always has.”
The big city past in Alex made it hard for him to understand how my father could think that way. “No matter how many of them I can point to who aren’t.”
I gently elbowed him in the side and joked, “What is it they say about a few bad apples? So Sunset Ridge has a couple rotten ones.”
His face serious, he said, “Poppy, a few bad apples can rot an entire barrel.”
“You and the other cops on the Sunset Ridge police are what stops the town from becoming a rotting barrel of apples.”
He leaned in and kissed me sweetly on the lips. “You too. You’re part of that effort.”
I smiled and kissed him back. “So now that the case is over, let’s talk about our vacation that’s less than two months away.”
With a look that was entirely too sexy, he said, “I think we might need to practice that whole tub thing before then. What do you say to going home and doing that tonight?”
I loved how serious Alex could be and then how sexy he became when it was just the two of us like this. “A practice makes perfect kind of thing?” I asked with a smile as I thought about how delightful it was going to be to practice that.
“In a way, although I think what we have going on right now is perfect. I just don’t want to see you end up having to go to the ER on our vacation.”
I couldn’t help but laugh at his teasing me about my almost complete lack of physical fitness. He worked out every day, but it had been since sometime last year when pumpkins were all the decorating rage in the fall since I’d stepped on my treadmill, which had unofficially become an extension of my closet in that time.
Cradling his face, I kissed him and whispered, “I’m amazingly limber for someone who doesn’t work out much. I think you know that.”
“That I do. I’m always impressed at how flexible you are, Poppy. So maybe we don’t need to practice?”
“Well, I don’t want to be hasty about things. A little practice never hurt anyone,” I teased back.
Tipping his glass to his mouth, Alex downed what remained of his drink and pushed the glass away. With that look in his eyes that never failed to make me melt, he said, “Then I think it’s time we took this celebration home. Are you with me?”
As he took hold of my hand, I smiled at how sure my answer to that question was.
“Always.”
Poppy and Alex return in The Witching Hour:
A Poppy McGuire Mystery (Poppy McGuire Mysteries #6)
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About The Author
Anina Collins has always loved a good mystery. From Agatha Christie’s Hercule Poirot to Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s famous detective Sherlock Holmes to Dan Brown’s intrepid Professor Robert Langdon, she’s spent some of her favorite reading times with mystery novels. When she’s not writing her favorite mystery couple, she can be found watching entirely too much Supernatural and dreaming about the beach.
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Books by Anina Collins:
The Poppy McGuire Series
The Eleventh Hour (Poppy McGuire Mysteries #1)
After Hours (Poppy McGuire Mysteries #2)
Top of the Hour (Poppy McGuire Mysteries #3)
The Darkest Hour (Poppy McGuire Mysteries #4)
Happy Hour (Poppy McGuire Mysteries #5)
The Witching Hour (Poppy McGuire Mysteries #6)
The Finest Hour (Poppy McGuire Mysteries #7)
Project Artemis Series
In The Darkness
After The Storm
Behind The Scenes
Happy Hour Page 22
