by Misty Simon
I’d wait the two minutes until we were home to start grilling him. Until then I’d graciously keep quiet.
When we pulled up in front of the house, I glanced over to make sure all of Myrt’s lights were off. The house was dark, with nary a twinkle of electricity. Hopefully she would sleep soundly tonight, though I didn’t know if that were possible if she still thought she had killed Mac.
Maybe I should take her something tomorrow. Like a soup, or cookies, something neighborly-like.
I’d have to see what was on sale at the Food Lion.
Ben exited the car and walked up to the house without waiting for me. Still trying to keep on my good-wife hat, I saw the limo off and followed along behind my husband. He could have another minute, and then he was going to start talking to me about what had happened and what Rukey had said on the short car ride over to the station. It had to be something bad if Ben was being this quiet.
Point in his favor, he did hold the door open for me, letting me enter first before closing it behind us.
And then it was like a dam had burst. His hands were on my waist, then in my hair, and then after a long leisurely journey from one place to the next, back on my waist. He kissed me as if he’d been in prison for ten years instead of in a cell for thirty minutes.
My dress was over my head and sailing for the floor before I could catch my next breath, and then my naked time commenced the way I had been dreaming of for the last month.
Chapter Six
I sang a song of utter and complete bliss the next morning as I made my way into the Shoppe. No flying elbows, no falling out of bed, no being quiet because the kids might hear us. Last night I didn’t care if half the town heard us when Ben did what he did best and made me feel like a million dollars in the process. In the bright light of morning, I didn’t even mind that he’d left me for the judges at the restaurant last night, especially since he’d promised he would get us new reservations for tonight.
I was turning the key to unlock the front door of the Masked Shoppe when I realized it was already unlocked. Visions of nastiness flung through my head. Kitty and Jackie and that guy who had hid the diamonds. But nothing, and no one, had broken into my store in years. So I calmed myself down and called out.
Charlie came running from the back of the store, tucking his shirt into his pants. I did not want to know why, especially when I heard the door in the back close.
Apparently Debbie and Charlie had some early morning business to finish in the store, or maybe they’d never gotten to go at it last night and were finally getting around to it this morning. I didn’t find that I felt too bad about that, since Debbie had refused to answer her phone last night, which precipitated (fantastic word!) the whole fiasco at the station.
“Busy morning?” I asked, looking pointedly at Charlie’s fly, which was still open enough for me to see he was wearing hot-pink underwear.
He was quick to zip up, then smiled at me. “Just a little morning hello, and then I’m inventorying the stock.”
“As long as you weren’t getting off on top of the stock.” I gave him my Eye of Forbiddance. He had the grace to blush.
“Of course not.” He finished tucking himself in and hitched up his belt. “We only do it on the floor.”
“Too much information. Too much information!” I clamped my hands over my ears and squeezed my eyes shut to keep the image from fully forming.
He laughed, the jerk. “Just trying to make sure you know I would never do it on the merchandise, Boss.”
When I opened my eyes, he winked at me. “Now, I thought you were supposed to be going to the station with Ben this morning to fill out a report.”
Damn, I had forgotten all about that in my sexual bliss haze. “Give me five,” I said as I walked into my tiny office. At one time I had wanted a bigger one, but honestly, not much businessy stuff happened in here. And I had been unwilling to give up any of the customers’ floor space to make a bigger office when hardly anyone ever came in here.
I placed a quick call to Ben.
“Why, hello there, tiger, missing me already?” he asked in a sleepy voice.
I rolled my eyes, even though I really did already miss him. “No, you dork, we were supposed to go down to the station this morning and put in that statement. Did you forget?”
“No, I called Bartley and told her to let me know when she’s going to be there, and I’ll do it then.”
Hopefully he hadn’t called her within the last ten minutes or he might have heard more than he was willing to. I didn’t say that, though. Not with Charlie within eavesdropping distance.
“Did she give you some idea of when?”
“No, I’m waiting for her call now. I don’t want to be in the same room with that Rukey guy if I don’t have to. I’m definitely not going to fill out a statement about him with him breathing over my shoulder.”
I didn’t blame him in the least. Rukey was a pain in the ass. “So do you want me to come with you, or can you do it on your own?”
“As much as I love your offer of support, I can handle it on my own.”
“Okay, then.” That was my man. He knew what he was doing and that left me to go do what I needed to do, which was get to work.
I opened the store and ushered in a few women who were going on vacation with their husbands and wanted something a little spicy to make the nights just that much wilder. They ranged from twenty-five to seventy, and I loved every one of them for shopping here and loving themselves enough to buy whatever fit their fancy.
I did steer Mrs. Winslow away from the leather riding crop, since I didn’t think eighty-five-year-old Mr. Winslow would survive it, but other than that, it was a day at the park.
Well, until my dad came flying in with his perpetual tan and his new shorter hair. He’d gone totally silver, and it was a good look for him. We called him Stan the Tanned with good reason. Between helping Martha with her diner and running his dance studio, he was a busy man.
The man had made sure to follow along with the town’s alliteration tradition and named it Stan’s Salsa and Samba Saloon. I know, I know. He was ridiculous. But he was my dad, so I just called it the Quad S and left it at that.
Even with the studio, he was never too busy to hang with my kids if I asked him to, but he had plenty to do, which left me happy and mostly alone, thank goodness. He tended to meddle when he was bored, and I didn’t need that.
“Ivy! Did you hear about the judge?” he said in a voice much louder than it should have been.
I quickly hustled him into my tiny office and slammed the door shut.
“Dad!”
“What?” He truly looked bewildered, but I didn’t have time to soothe his wily feathers.
“Keep your voice down. I don’t want the speculations to start again. Not only that, but they’re looking at Ben as a possible suspect. I don’t want the talk to start here.”
Stan slapped his knee. “No way is Detective Bartley looking at Ben as a suspect. That’s ludicrous.”
“Good word,” I murmured while I thought that over. Did she really see him as a suspect, or was that just Rukey being an idiot? “Okay, so maybe she doesn’t think he’s a suspect, but that new Officer Rukey does. He’s a psycho of the first order.”
“Ah, yes, that’s the one who came into Martha’s yesterday and wanted to make sure all her food was up to the FDA guidelines.”
I blew out a breath. He wasn’t the food inspector, though I heartily wished he were, since that would have nothing to do with Ben or me, and he would be out of our life. Unless he wanted to make sure my edible, scented body lotions were approved, too.
“Yeah, that’s him. Ben hit him with the golf cart last night, and the guy wanted Ben hauled into jail. Then the jerk handcuffed Ben at dinner at Jerry’s place, and I had to follow them down to the station.”
“So we’re on the case?” he asked so eagerly I barely kept myself from rolling my eyes.
“There is no case, and even if there
were, we’re not on it.”
“There’s going to be a case, whether or not you want it.” He took a step closer and lowered his voice. “And if that officer is after Ben, there are all kinds of ways he could stack the evidence against him. Do you want him to go to the pokey for all the wrong reasons?”
“He’s not going to the pokey.” My phone chose that moment to ring with a standard tone. Everyone else had a distinctive ring, but this was the generic one. Normally I would have let it go to voicemail, but something made me pick it up. On the other end of the line was Ben. In jail again. I was his one call. I was afraid to ask what else could go wrong today.
“He’s in the pokey,” I said to my dad, the avid listener.
He slapped his knee again, and I wanted to slap him.
“I told you! Didn’t I tell you? Now let’s let that Charlie handle this here while we go down to get Ben.”
“I don’t know if it’s going be that easy.” I grabbed my purse from the bottom drawer of my desk, then waited while my dad straightened his red polo shirt touting Mad Martha’s Milk and Munchies.
“We’ll make it that easy. If it’s not, then I’ll call in Detective Jameson. You and he might not have ever been very close, but he and Martha have a friendship that goes back years. He has dinner with us every once in a while. I’ll see if I can’t pull that string if the rest of them aren’t dangling enough.”
Fantastic. My dad along as the favor collector. This ought to be just awesome.
****
The station was not quiet this time when I came bursting through the front door. Shouting from the back and an empty front desk was all the invitation I needed to make my way back to the cells, where Ben was swearing a blue streak.
Chaos electrified the air, and Ben shook the bars, still swearing. Rukey remained standing in front of the cell with his arms crossed, calmly repeating the word “no” while Bartley had her feet planted on the floor with one hand extended and the other on her hip, demanding the keys to the cell.
What did I say earlier? That this was going to be awesome? Yeah, I think a much different word would have worked better there.
With the noise level, I was sure no one would notice if I slipped up and took the keys off Rukey’s belt. It occurred to me that perhaps that wasn’t my best idea when he whipped around, grabbed my wrist hard enough to make it feel like he was crunching my bones into dust, and said far more than “no” this time.
I won’t repeat the words here, since you, gentle reader, might not want to hear about what a raving bitch I was. For someone they called Dudley Do-Right, he was not swimming in righteousness at the moment. It did, however, give Stan the opportunity to grab the keys for himself and toss them underhand to Bartley.
She caught them in midair with a satisfied smile, then whistled shrilly to bring a halt to all movement and drama in the small area.
“Now.” She stared down Ben, Rukey, and me in equal measure, then smiled at Stan before turning serious again. “Rukey, you will step back from the cell. If you value your life, you will do it now. I have enough at this point to put you on administrative leave. I will do that at the first opportunity if you do not step away from the bars. Right. This. Instant.”
It took him at least five seconds. Five long seconds where his life, what little I knew of it, flashed before my own eyes. He was playing with fire to mess with a pissed Bartley. Jameson would have already had the guy out on his ear, but Bartley might not have as much power.
With Rukey up against the opposite wall, she watched him like a hawk until she had the key in the door to Ben’s cell. She opened the door, then made Ben walk out behind and around her to keep him away from Rukey. Fine by me.
Ben came to my side. I was a little in awe of how Bartley was holding back from giving Rukey a chunk of his ass served up on a platter. Fortunately, for once, I was smart enough not to say anything.
“Ivy, what are you doing here?” Bartley turned her attention to me with blood still in her eye.
I was careful with my answer, since I did not want to be the next target of her ire. “Ben used his one call to let me know he was in jail. I came down to see what I could do to get him released,” I said meekly, knowing well when the backbone was necessary and when placating someone would get me far more of what I wanted than coming out guns blazing.
“Take your husband home and keep him away from this station. I’ll take care of things on my end, but I can’t do that if either of you are snooping around constantly.”
I opened my mouth to tell her Ben had not been snooping around but was down there at her request. Then I thought better of it. Clamping my lips together, I motioned Ben to follow me out.
Stan did not follow. I was halfway down the hallway when I realized he was still back with Bartley. Asking Ben to stay in the hall was useless, so I dragged him back with me to the cells to find out what Stan thought he could do now that the situation was under control.
He handed her something and told her that if she needed help, she only had to give him a call. Stan was quick to run away, and he shooed us on ahead of him out the front doors, onto the street, and into my car. Before I could get a word out, he waved goodbye and said he would see us later, that he was taking the scenic route.
Ben and I stared at each other.
“What was that?” I asked first.
“I have no idea. I swear I only went in to sign a statement. Rukey was practically lying in wait, because as soon as I passed through the front door, he had irons clapped on me and was frog-marching me back to the cells. I think that one has my name on it now. Maybe I should have a plaque made. ‘Ben lives here’ it could say.”
I smacked him in the arm. “It wasn’t that bad. Was it?”
“Bad enough that I might be scarred for life if I don’t quickly do something life-affirming to change my memory of this day…” He raised an eyebrow at me. I looked at the dash clock in the car and realized that Charlie had given me at least three more hours. I knew what I could do with those hours.
Chapter Seven
Ben and I lay sweating in our bed after a bout of some very satisfying playing around. This was the life, and I was so happy I had found it with him. I loved the kids so much, they added a lot to our life and made our family a solid unit, but being away from them for a few days was good for all of us.
I lay with my hands stacked on Ben’s impressive chest and my chin resting on my hands. “Midmorning delight.” I smiled.
“Always a delight and definitely what I needed after all that crap this morning. You’re my stars, Ivy.”
He said things like that and I wanted to crawl up his body and just nibble him until he couldn’t take any more. I dug my knees into the mattress to do just that, but he was still talking.
“I know you don’t want to get involved in this judge’s death, but I think we might really need to consider it. I’m not going to be able to do much with Rukey breathing down my neck.”
I sighed and plunked myself up next to him on the bed. Cuddle time was over. Now it was murder-talk time. Ben had done a lot of cases over the years since our last amateur sleuthfest, but no murders. He mainly dealt with cheating spouses or child custody cases, back child support issues, and background checks. I helped out as much as I could, but it was mostly paperwork, and that was fine with me. I had my husband, my kids, my Shoppe, and my house to pour all my energy into.
However, that cat curiosity was digging its sharp claws into me with this death. We’d put Jackie Sturder behind bars for good six years ago, so I highly doubted she was the one masterminding anything this time. That left me with nowhere to start and not being sure I wanted to start anyway. This was supposed to be my week to enjoy with abandonment, yet that was looking less and less likely to happen except in moments like the one we’d just had.
“All right. Let’s think about what we have and what we don’t have.” I pulled the sheet up around my breasts, and Ben laughed.
“You don’t want me distracte
d?” He quirked an eyebrow at me.
I stuck my hand under the covers and showed him exactly what distraction could feel like. When he tried to tumble me back onto the mattress, I giggled and pushed him away.
“You’re the one who wanted to talk murder, so let’s talk murder.” I pulled the sheet tighter around myself and stuck my chin on my hand. “So we have a judge dead in a shed, and no way could Myrt have done it. She’s too fragile. She really thought she had caught the saboteur. But what was Mac doing out there? I can’t imagine he was the one sabotaging the crops, because without the crops there’s no Tasty Tomato Tournament. Without the Tasty Tomato Tournament, he no longer would have had a claim to fame.”
“This is true.”
“Of course it’s true. I said it.”
That got me a tickle. I almost fell off the bed trying to wiggle away from him. “Calm yourself, sir, or we aren’t going to get anywhere.” All that wiggling had made the covers drop below my yummy husband’s waist, and I was about to be very distracted if I didn’t rectify the situation. “You know what? We should probably get dressed first. Then we’ll talk.” I gripped his thigh and smiled. “First one with clothes on doesn’t have to make lunch.”
We finished dressing simultaneously, which was fine, since I enjoyed working in the kitchen with him. He pulled some herbs from the back yard and grabbed one of his precious tomatoes and a head of leafy green lettuce from one of his raised gardens. I pulled the bacon out of the refrigerator, because that was what I was good at, fried that stuff up, and then we sat down to the most amazing BLTs ever.
“I swear,” I said around a mouthful of bacon, lettuce, tomato, herbed mayonnaise, and toasty bread. “This is the best sandwich I have ever eaten. Ever.”
Ben reached across with a napkin to swipe off a dab of mayonnaise, then thought better of it and licked it off instead. I shivered all the way down to my pinky toes.
