“You’re all wrong. I’m not attracted to Quinn because I feel sorry for him. Or because he needs to be rescued. I’m attracted to him because…” She thought of his intense brown eyes and long lashes. His square jaw covered in five o’clock shadow and the sensual curve of his mouth. “Because when he looks at me, he’s looking at me. When he asks me about my life, I feel like he really wants to know. That he’s not asking just so he can spend the rest of the time talking about himself. When I’m with him, he makes me feel like he’s really into me.” She took a bite of her lunch and looked at the stunned faces of her friends. “What?”
“You sound like you’re falling for him,” Maddie pointed out.
“Yep,” Adele added.
Clare nodded. “That’s what it sounds like.”
“No, it doesn’t. I have a book to write. I don’t have time to squander on a man.” Lucy reached for her drink. “And besides, I don’t know him well enough to be falling for him. Half the time I don’t know whether to be flattered by his attention or scared.”
A crease appeared between Maddie’s dark brows. “Why are you scared? Is he crazy? What did he do?”
“Nothing. Maybe scared is too strong a word.” Lucy paused and tilted her head to one side. “Puzzled might be better.”
“Why are you puzzled?”
“Because he wants to see more of me. He wants to call me and take me out and-”
“He’s pursuing you,” Clare pointed out.
“I guess.” Lucy paused a moment to collect her thoughts. “It’s just that I’ve never met a man who wanted to see so much of me right off. You know how men are, they take you out and might call you again in a week or two or not at all. Quinn doesn’t seem to know that he’s supposed to keep me waiting by the phone, wondering why he isn’t asking me out again.”
“Wait.” Adele held up her fork. “You don’t want to go out with him because he seems really interested in you? Now that’s crazy.”
Lucy shrugged. Maybe, but there was something about him that she just couldn’t quite put her finger on. Something that told her he was too good to be true, and in her experience, if something looked too good to be true, it was too good to be true. “Maybe I don’t trust the whole my-wife-died thing. I don’t get the impression that he’s lying about it-exactly. I can’t put my finger on it, but I just don’t trust him completely.” She shook her head and cut into her chimichanga. “Maybe I’m being overly suspicious.”
Adele looked up from her salad. “Get him to take you to his house. If he won’t take you, then it’s probably because his wife isn’t really dead.”
“Are you high? That’s how Richard Franko got five of his victims,” Maddie said, referring to the serial killer she’d written about several years ago. “He just invited them home and, like lambs to slaughter, they went. Lucy could be walking into a nightmare.”
It really was no wonder Maddie didn’t date. She viewed most men she met as psychopathic killers. “He’s not a killer. I just wonder if he’s too good to be real.”
“Adele might be on to something,” Clare said. “If you see his house, you can tell right away if he’s still married, or if he’s set up a shag pad. If he won’t take you home, he’s married. If he does take you home-”
“Then he’ll expect sex,” Maddie interrupted.
“True.” The thought of having sex with Quinn wasn’t unappealing, but so soon after meeting him was out of the question.
“If you’re going to be foolish enough to go to his house,” Maddie said, “be sure and take the personal protection I’ve given you.”
“I will,” Lucy promised. For Christmas the previous year, Maddie had given them all pepper spray, a personal alarm, a stun pen, and a pair of brass knuckles. “And I’ll make sure I have my car,” she added, even though she wasn’t even sure she would ever end up at Quinn’s house. “So I can leave before there’s any danger of getting naked.”
“I don’t know which is more dangerous,” Adele said. “You at some guy’s house you don’t know, or driving your car.”
“I’m an excellent driver,” Lucy insisted.
“That’s what Rain Man said,” Clare pointed out.
Lucy knew that her friends thought she was a bad driver, but she wasn’t. Sure, she drove a little fast and yelled things at other cars, but she hadn’t had a wreck in five years. “How’s everyone else’s love life?” she asked, purposely changing the subject once again.
“Nonexistent,” Maddie complained. “There aren’t any men in this town.”
Adele reached for her margarita. “I found an old face scrubby and a Crock-Pot on my porch yesterday.”
“Dwayne,” the other three said, all at the same time. Alean, mean, buff machine, Dwayne Larkin hung drywall for a living, and for two years Adele had thought he just might be Mr. Right. She’d overlooked his habit of picking his teeth at the table and smelling the armpits of his shirts before he put them on. Because he looked kind of like Viggo Mortensen, she’d put up with his beer-guzzling, belching ways, right up to the moment he’d told her she was getting a “fat ass.” No one used the f-word in reference to Adele’s ass, and she’d kicked him out of her life. Too bad he wouldn’t go completely. Every few weeks, Adele would find one or two of the things she’d left at his house sitting on her front porch. No note. No Dwayne. Just random stuff.
“Sheesh. He just doesn’t give up.”
“It’s like he’s holding your stuff hostage,” Lucy commented. “Doling it out like body parts or something.”
“It’s creepy.”
“How much more does he have?”
Adele shrugged. “I don’t know. We were together for two years, and I stayed at his house a lot. I’m sure there’s more.”
“If I hadn’t already killed Dwayne off in Shot of Love,” Lucy said, referring to her third book, “I’d kill him for you.”
“Thank you.”
The subject changed from men to writing, and by the time Lucy paid her portion of the check, they’d given Adele advice on what to do about her problem with Dwayne and helped Clare plot the next three chapters of her book.
Earlier, Lucy had printed out the first six chapters of her current manuscript for Maddie to look over for inconsistencies and mistakes. Maddie might be a little freaky and inappropriate sometimes, but she was brilliant and gave excellent critiques. In turn, Lucy helped Maddie out when she needed it.
Maddie followed Lucy to her car. “Promise you’ll be careful about this Quinn guy.”
Lucy handed over the manuscript pages and looked into Maddie’s brown eyes. Sometimes Lucy got the feeling that her friend was hiding from something. Something that she hid behind her brash personality. Something she never shared with anyone. Lucy wasn’t the sort of person to dig and pry, but if Maddie ever wanted to share, Lucy would be there to listen. “I promise,” she said. “And you promise not to be such a hard ass.”
Maddie said but didn’t promise a thing.
Lucy jumped in her car. On the drive home, her thoughts returned to Quinn. Maybe Adele and Clare were right. Maybe he was just a normal man pursuing her. Maybe she was looking for trouble.
She wove in and out of traffic and blew through a yellow light on Thirteenth and Fort, telling herself that it was safer to go through a yellow than to slam on her brakes. As she drove past the junior high she’d attended as a teenager, the rational part of her brain took the opportunity to ask her if normal men trolled for women in chat rooms. No, they didn’t. Not unless there was something wrong with them. Or…they were in it for sex.
After a few more turns, she pulled into the alley behind her house. When she was with Quinn, she didn’t get the perv or creep vibe. On the contrary. More like he had a smooth sexual energy vibe. One that she had to admit was a little mesmerizing.
She hit the garage door opener pinned to the visor and waited for the old wooden door to lift. A lot of the houses in Boise’s North End had been built around the turn of the twentieth century and still
had carriage blocks by the curbs. But once Packards started rolling into town, Boiseans abandoned their carriages and built small detached garages in their backyards. Many of the single-car structures like Lucy’s were still in use because there wasn’t room for anything larger.
Lucy pulled the Beemer inside and shut the garage door. She entered the back of her house through the kitchen and tossed her purse on the tile counter. She looked out the window over the sink and into the neighbor’s backyard. Mrs. Riley was out back, pulling up plastic poinsettias and replacing them with bright tulips. Plastic, of course. She would repeat the process this coming summer and fall. Lucy had asked her once why she planted plastic flowers each season, and she had answered as if it had been the most logical thing in the world, “Why, because I like pretty things.” Which also explained why she’d painted her house bright yellow, blue, and green.
As Lucy watched Mrs. Riley work in the yard, her thoughts returned to Quinn and her date with him that evening. She was looking forward to seeing him more than she wanted to admit. More than was wise, since she didn’t even know him.
It was possible he was a plumber trying to move on after the death of his wife, but it was just as possible that he was one of the seventy percent who were online just looking for quick sex.
Lucy supposed the bigger question, and the one more difficult to answer was, why was she picking him apart only to make excuses to put him back together again? Why was she obsessing over a guy she didn’t know?
Chapter 6
Getn2knowu: Seeks Honest Mate…
“Get Ready for This” pounded the air inside the Bank of America Centre as the captains for the Idaho Steelheads and the San Diego Gulls faced off at center ice. The music stopped, the puck dropped, and the sound of hockey sticks hitting the ice filled the arena.
Game on.
Quinn looked across his shoulder at Lucy Rothschild, at her red-and-black Steelhead’s jersey and the big foam finger stuck on her hand. He’d never encountered anyone in his life who looked less like a serial killer.
“That’s what I’m talking about!” she yelled as a Gull got knocked on his ass.
Okay, so she was a little bloodthirsty, but for some strange reason, that didn’t shrivel his sac. Nor did the tape recorder jabbing the small of his back, reminding him that she just might be a psychopath who got off on watching men die.
Quinn leaned back in his seat, and the small black recorder pressed into his spine. Kurt was across town on a date with brneyedgrl, while Anita sat in the van recording the other detective. Quinn was on his own tonight, but he wasn’t real worried, the most obvious reason being that it wasn’t likely Lucy would try and kill him in an arena filled with several thousand pumped-up hockey fans. But even if they’d been alone, getting hot and sweaty in his bed, he wasn’t all that convinced Lucy was a serial killer. He just didn’t feel it in his gut. No, when he looked at her, he felt something entirely different in that general area. But just because he didn’t feel she was a killer didn’t mean he was going to rule out the possibility either.
“You suck!” a young guy a few rows up yelled as a Gull muscled the puck from a Steelhead.
Quinn didn’t know much about hockey. He was more a football guy. He’d played the game from the age of ten to eighteen and knew the rules. As far as Quinn could see, hockey was chaos on ice. It looked like a bunch of guys chasing a puck and knocking the hell out of each other when the referees weren’t looking.
“Ooow,” Quinn winced as two players collided like freight trains but managed to stay on their skates. Beside him, Lucy laughed, and her eyes lit up like a kid on Christmas.
“Lord, I love this game,” she said through a huge smile. “Especially in the play-offs when both teams are out to kill each other.”
So maybe she was more than a little bloodthirsty, but she seemed to fit right in with the rest of the crowd.
“Do you come to a lot of games?” he asked above the sound of sticks hitting the ice and the rise and fall of shouting from the crowd.
“I try to see as many as possible. How about you?”
“I’ve never been before tonight.”
She turned her head, and her big blue eyes met his. She blinked as if she couldn’t quite figure out what she was seeing. Like maybe he was an alien. “Never? You’re kidding me?”
“Nope. I’m a football guy.”
“Football’s okay, I guess. But hockey is more fun to watch.”
“It looks chaotic.”
“It’s organized chaos.” She returned her attention to the ice but leaned her head close to him. “The players up front are the forwards and the center.” She removed her hand from the foam finger and pointed. She’d painted her fingernails red. “The guys that stay back are the defenders, and of course, the goalies.” She dropped her hand to her thigh. “There are a lot of rules in hockey, and I can’t keep all of them straight. And just when I think I’ve figured them all out, they change.”
Quinn had always been a sucker for shiny red nails. He absolutely loved watching a woman slide her long fingers and red nails down his abdomen.
“See the player with the puck? He’s a forward and he’s about to pass it to the center.” She leaned in a little closer, and her shoulder brushed his. “Just like that. Now he’ll set up a shot.”
Through the wafting scent of beer and concessions, he smelled her hair. He recognized it from the night of the Red Feather, when she’d reminded him of a garden and sunshine. With her head tilted toward his, her hair brushed the shoulder of her jersey and his bomber’s jacket. If he leaned just a bit, he could bury his nose in the top of her head.
“Damn it!”
“What?” Quinn’s gaze slid from her hair to the side of her face.
“The goalie stopped the puck.” She turned to look at him, and her nose lightly brushed his chin. If she raised her face a few inches, his lips would touch hers. A dull ache settled between his legs, which was ridiculous. He was thirty-six. He kicked ass and took names for a living. He was on a job. He didn’t get sexually excited just thinking about kissing a woman.
Not usually.
Lucy lifted her gaze to Quinn’s, and within her eyes he saw the same need that was twisting his insides, reflected back at him. He wondered what she’d do if he kissed her right there in front of thousands of people? If she’d kiss him back like she had on a downtown street?
She straightened and turned her attention to the game, but he hadn’t imagined the desire in her eyes. Knowing she wanted him as much as he wanted her turned him from semi to stiff in seconds, no matter if he wanted to be turned or not. And he didn’t. Not in the middle of a hockey game, and not with a murder suspect. If he hadn’t purposely worn his jacket to conceal the recorder taped to his back, he would have slipped it off and covered his lap.
He turned his attention to the ice and sucked cool air into his lungs. He leaned forward to rest his forearms on his thighs. On the ice the referees blew their whistles, and play stopped. Chumbawamba blasted through the sound system, singing about getting knocked down, and Quinn felt the heavy beat through the soles of his boots.
He didn’t know why he was getting all excited over Lucy Rothschild. Sure, she was a beautiful woman, but there were a lot of beautiful women around. She was a murder suspect, and that alone should wilt big Willie. But since the first night he’d seen her sitting in Starbucks, that fact seemed to be having the opposite effect on him. Probably because he knew he was going to have to push her for sex as hard and fast as possible. He didn’t stop and wonder why the prospect didn’t excite him with the other suspects. At the moment, he needed to get his mind off Lucy. Off getting hot and sweaty and freaky and back on the job.
On the ice, the puck was dropped and sticks slapped the ice. He thought he smelled flowers and sunshine again, and he purposely thought of Lawrence Craig and the others, bound to their beds, clear plastic pulled tight around their faces. Beneath his button fly, the tension in his groin eased, and Quinn relaxed.
When the first period ended, the Steelheads were up by two and the crowd buzzed with anticipation, although Quinn wasn’t sure which caused the bigger buzz-the score or the Bud Lite pouring freely inside the arena.
During the second frame, Lucy and Quinn ate soft pretzels and drank beer. On the ice, the players hammered the puck and each other. The penalty boxes were put to good use, filling the Plexiglas enclosures with bloodied players and blue language.
As the game progressed, Quinn picked up the rules and began to see that hockey wasn’t as chaotic as it seemed at first glance. Halfway through the third period, Lucy leaned close to Quinn and pointed to the penalty box, where a guy sat getting tampons shoved up his nose. “See number seventy-one, he still has the black eye he got four games ago.”
Quinn folded his arms across his jacket and told himself not to look at her so close again. Not to get excited. To just do his damn job. “Who did you come with to that game?” He couldn’t recall if any of his victims had been to hockey games.
“My friend Adele. She loves hockey, too. We spend a lot of time arguing about who’s the hottest player.”
Before he could stop himself, Quinn looked over his shoulder into Lucy’s eyes. “So, who’s the hottest player tonight?”
One corner of her mouth lifted. “Number twenty-eight on the Steelheads. He’s sitting on the bench right now.”
He glanced across the rink and looked at the hockey player with his helmet shoved up his forehead, chewing on his mouth guard. “You’re kidding. He looks about nineteen.”
Sex, Lies, And Online Dating Page 7
