For Your Eyes Only

by Sandra Antonelli

  She shook her head. “It’s not professional.”

  “Didn’t you meet Miles on a job?”

  “Yes, but when we started dating we weren’t working together. Oh, God, why me?”

  Mitchell shrugged and gave her a wry smile. “I was wondering the same thing. Oh, God, why you?”

  “Wanna know something?” Willa rose to take the wrapping from the basket, but her hands paused on the ribbon. “My mother’s been pestering me to start dating again. She started with that two months after Miles died. She persuaded a few friends to set me up on blind dates. I tried. I’ve gone out with a few men, but I reached a point where I thought I didn’t want to date again, but… I do. I want... I want…”

  “You want what?”

  A warm feeling crept up Willa’s back as she thought of John. Her heart began to dance a little tarantella. She felt buoyant, tipsy, but without the drowsy, nauseous bit that usually came with being drunk. Her stomach fluttered.

  And then every part of her fluttered.

  They were meeting later on, to grocery shop together. John had offered to drive her and her groceries home while the VW was in the Mobil service station having the tire repaired—again. Regardless of what she’d told him about not having time to date, she’d agreed to try, agreed to fit him in when she could, like a bunch of mini-speed dates. This wasn’t just about saddling up again. She couldn’t deny sexual attraction played a part. Something else was there as well, which was ludicrous when one took into account it had only been four days, but Cupid had no sense of time. He just let loose with the darts of amore.

  Right. That was a ridiculous thought.

  As if there was some fat little angel who shot people with arrows full of love. Everyone knew Cupid didn’t use arrows.

  He used a steamroller.

  Willa smiled and the upward tipping of her mouth broke through her contemplation of heavy-machinery-riding cherubs.

  Good Lord, didn’t she suddenly have a big filter-less mouth? And what had happened to her fabulous poker face? The way Mitchell was looking at her made it plain she wore a moony expression. Oh, yeah, this was preposterous nonsense that felt…

  Wonderful.

  Blinking, she looked at Agent Mitchell.

  He was attractive, movie-star attractive. His looks were disarming, and he had a laid-back demeanor, both strengths when it came to FBI work. He set people at ease, charmed them with his smile and easy wit. They trusted him and opened up to him. It wasn’t long before suspects got comfortable and confessed things to him. His affability had worked on her too.

  Mitchell was grinning at her, broadly, handsomely. Knowingly.

  Willa covered her face, suddenly embarrassed. She’d been doing that a lot lately, being embarrassed and hiding behind her hands like a little girl.

  A very surprised Thomas Mitchell rocked forward and stood. He wasn’t sure if he’d heard Agent Heston correctly. He reached out and squeezed her shoulder. “Willa, listen.”

  “Oh, boy, Tom,” she said behind her hands. “This whole thing has come out of nowhere.”

  “It usually does.”

  “I can’t believe I brought this up. I can’t believe I said all that.”

  And Mitchell couldn’t believe his luck. She’d been on a date with that cop the other night, but she’d just told him she was interested. In him.

  Yep, it was inappropriate. He agreed with her about that. In fact, he agreed so much he pulled his fingers away from her, so they wouldn’t slide under her chin and continue the inappropriateness.

  There was part of him that wanted to say to hell with the rules and decorum. He was getting pretty tired of being that agent, the one nippers like Adams looked up to like some kind of moral compass and big brother. Yet, there was another part of him that knew skirting the impropriety, maintaining a professional distance would heighten the anticipation. The sexual tension would build and expand like a balloon full of promise, and damn, that was exciting, exhilarating. Keeping his hands off her for the duration of this investigation was going to be maddening.

  It was exactly the kind of challenge Mitchell loved, and he laughed. “I’m just as surprised.”

  Her palms came away from her face.

  “Don’t be embarrassed. There’s no need for that.” Mitchell rested his butt against the table. “We are friends, aren’t we?”

  “Friends? Yeah. We’re friends. So, what the hell. I’ve already said too much, so what’s a little more stupidity between pals? Be honest. Do you think I’m too old?”

  “Too old for what?”

  She looked at him, head cocked to one side as she licked her bottom lip and swallowed. “To sleep with.”

  His mouth quirked, but Mitchell managed not to grin. “Well, Willa, I think you’re just the right age.”

  The expression on her face went from pleased to pink, and she made a small noise. “I can’t believe I just asked you that,” she said as her face went even rosier. “I can’t believe I said any of this. I’m sorry, Tom.” She turned away and began to tear the cellophane from the basket in earnest. “This isn’t the place for a discussion like this. It’s very unprofessional.”

  “Yes. It is.” Mitchell nodded, grinning like a fool.

  Coffee in hand, Willa stood outside Smith’s, the town’s only grocery store, and waited for John. Tiny winged creatures danced about her insides. They floated in an airy waltz around her tummy and skimmed against her heart.

  The sun felt good on her shoulders, and she’d walked to the supermarket after a stop at Starbucks. It wasn’t exactly cold, but it wasn’t balmy either. The temperature hovered somewhere around sixty degrees. Waiting outside was pleasant.

  I gotta bad case of luh-vin’ youuuu. Willa took off her jacket, unaware she was singing snippets of Robert Palmer in between sips of coffee. Half the coffee was gone when she glanced at her watch and frowned. Either she had the time wrong, her watch was fast, or John was late.

  Or he’d forgotten. Or he’d reconsidered the whole fit-you-in-when-I-can-speed-date thing and wasn’t coming.

  The eager butterflies that had been flittering around in her stomach turned to lead. The music in her mind went off key. She got cold and put her jacket on. She took a long drink of coffee and tried not to grumble.

  All right, so John was standing her up. What business did she have engaging in the business of romance when she had a job to do, anyway? His not showing up was not a big deal. It. Was. Not. A. Big. Deal.

  So why did it feel like one?

  Grumbling, Willa raised the cup to her lips. If it had been empty she would have crushed it against her forehead, the way movie tough-guys did with beer cans.

  “Your Majesty.”

  Mouth full of lukewarm Caffé Verona, Willa turned. She’d been facing the wrong way. Her eyes had been on the opposite end of the parking lot. She’d been watching the corner by Ulli’s boutique. The leaden butterflies in her stomach sprang back to life and they invited some friendly bees over. Her insides flittered and buzzed and she swallowed. “Detective.”

  “Sorry I’m late,” he said with a smile. “There was a hold-up at the bank. Wait. I mean the line was long, not that there was a robbery.”

  She snorted at him over the top of her Starbucks cup. “Thanks for playing taxi to me and my groceries during your lunch time. I couldn’t deal with another peanut butter sandwich for dinner tonight.”

  “No problem. You left your car at the Mobil station to sort out the tire?”

  “Yeah. Andy there said he thinks the plug that was put in the other day probably came out or that there’s a hole the guy down in Madrid missed.”

  ”Mind if I have some of your coffee?” John asked, reaching for the container in her hand. Two seconds later, his mouth fit over the little opening in the lid, where her mouth had been a moment before. The coffee was strong, but he tasted Queenie’s sweetness rather than the dark roast inside. He wanted more of that sweetness—with lips and a little tongue. Instead, he handed back the
drink. “Very nice,” he said.

  “Have more if you like.”

  “More? More would be nice, but I’m afraid I’d be a little greedy, and I don’t have a enough time to enjoy it.”

  Queenie put the coffee in his hand. “Nobody in Smith’s is going to care,” she said as she started walking to the store’s entrance, “if you drink and shop.”

  “They might consider my technique a little unusual and call the cops.” John followed her inside chuckling.

  “You are the cops.” She pulled a shopping cart from a queue and wheeled it towards him. “Are we going to need two of these, or can we share?”

  “I’m good at sharing, but how come you get to drive?” he asked.

  “I grabbed the cart when we came inside.”

  “She grinned and hurried through the bakery section. It smelled of doughnuts, roast chicken, and apple pie.

  She bypassed the deli counter and chose a route that wound through shelves of salad dressings and display bins of citrus fruit. Old ‘80s pop tunes played over the store’s PA system. Peter Cetera, the onetime lead singer for Chicago, was crooning about being a man who’d fight for his woman’s honor as Queenie pushed the basket into the produce section. John watched her stop in front of a pyramid of apples. After a moment of digging around for the grocery list in her jacket pocket, she affixed the sticky side of the post-it note to the cart’s handle.

  She said, “Did you want any fruit?”

  With a nod, John knocked back the last of the coffee in one gulp. He put the empty container in the child seat of the buggy. A fat spool of plastic bags sat between a neat row of bright green Granny Smiths and yellow Golden Delicious. He pulled off four baggies and gave two to Queenie. She picked four gleaming Honeycrisps and placed them in the shopping basket. John took his time choosing his Fujis. By the time he’d finished, she was over by the carrots and lettuce. He caught up to her at the dairy section. He reached for a carton of chocolate milk and turned to put it in the basket, but she’d moved on before he had the chance.

  “Did the bread aisle move?” she asked when he’d caught up. “I remember it being over here where all this salad dressing is,” she said over one shoulder, wheeling the cart into the left corner of a cardboard display of cereal sample boxes.

  “Bread’s on the other side of the store, across from the meat.” John took two steps toward her and set his palm over the back of her left hand. Her skin was warm, delicate under his touch. The softness of Queenie’s flesh, no matter how little was touching, super-heated the center of his chest. “Give me the keys, Queenie. You’ve had too much to drink. You’re speeding through here and driving recklessly.”

  She loosened her grip on the wire basket’s plastic handle and placed her hand over the top of his. “It’s the caffeine. I’ve had quite a bit today.”

  “Is overindulgence in coffee how you got all those dents in your car? Reckless inattention due to over stimulation led to dents and dings in your car?” The sensation that flames had spread from his chest to other parts of his anatomy made him think he might have been sweating. Maybe he needed to press his spine up against the refrigerated glass doors of the diary section to cool down.

  “Actually, it was Miles’ car.”

  “So he was a bad driver?”

  “No. He was a bad walker.”

  Sniff-sniff-sniff.

  She pursed her lips and smirked. “Thanks for laughing.”

  He shrugged. “I figured I was safe not to tippy-toe around. You like black humor, don’t you?”

  “I like my humor like I like my coffee, and black humor trumps pity any day.”

  “I know many law-enforcement types who would agree with that—except for maybe the salted-caramel-mocha-latte-with-whipped-cream-and-nutmeg drinkers. They’re more the isn’t-it-hilarious-Bob-got-hit-in-the-balls-slapstick humor types.” He brushed his thumb over her knuckles.

  Willa dug her toes deep into her shoes to impede a shiver that tried to launch the moment his thumb moved across her skin. “You’ve put a lot of thought into this.”

  “You have to laugh at life sometimes or go nuts.”

  She nodded. “It took me a while to remember that after Miles died,” she said and moved aside to let him drive, taking her hand away. “How long have you been a detective?”

  He repositioned the shopping cart and started to push it to the next aisle using one hand. The contraption wasn’t heavy, but the angle of the handle made his arm ache. “Sixteen years.”

  “Do you like it?”

  “Yeah. A lot. I didn’t like what it turned me into when I was up in Denver. It made me cynical, but I learned to let go of that stuff and found my way back to Mr Nice Detective. In the words of Jim Morrison, ‘people are strange’. It’s an interesting insight into the human psyche. You get to be a good judge of character and separate the genuine from the fakes.”

  A frown flashed over Queenie’s face. John wasn’t sure if the phantom grimace had actually been there, but it suddenly made him think about all the dents in her car again and that cooled him down. A little. “Can I ask you something personal?”

  “I guess.”

  “Miles, after he died, did you find out he’d been seeing someone on the side?”

  Queenie crossed her arms and considered the question for a moment. “You mean did his mistress show up at his funeral in a low cut dress? Did Dominic have to drag her away kicking and screaming, and did I have to take out a restraining order against her the next day?” She sighed and let her eyes shift to boxes of Hostess Ho-hos and Twinkies. “Did I go berserk and bash the shit out of Miles’ car with a bowling ball and jump up and down on the hood in a pair of army boots?”

  John’s jaw clenched. Or was it his ass that did the clenching? He got his head and his ass confused sometimes. The one thing he wasn’t confused about was that he was an ass for asking her such a stupid question.

  Queenie’s gaze had moved on to the selection of Nabisco cookies down the aisle. She rolled the cart forward.

  “I’m sorry,” he said, going with her. “That was pushing the humor, and I’m embarrassed I asked.”

  She sighed again. “No.”

  “I am. I’m really sorry. I’m a dick for—”

  ”No.” Queenie chose a package of Nutter Butters and started laughing. “There was no mistress,” she said.

  His shock lasted two seconds. Sniff-sniff-sniff. “That was good. You had me going there.”

  Her expression smug, she said, “You’re an easy mark. I bet you’re a crummy poker player too.”

  “Can I ask you something else?”

  Queenie nodded.

  “Did you love him?”

  She put the cookies in the shopping buggy and nodded again. “Did you love your ex-wife?”

  “Yep.”

  “Do you still love her?”

  “We’re on good terms. We send each other Christmas cards and that sort of thing, but I can’t say I love her, love her. Do you still love Miles?”

  Queenie rubbed her thumbnail against her bottom lip. “I see. You want to know where you stand. You want to know how complicated my grief is or was. You want to know if you need to be jealous of a dead man. Fair enough. It’ll take longer than grocery shopping or a cup of coffee. It’ll take a few cups of coffee for me to explain it all, or tell you the things I can about my life and work and Miles. “

  “You want to coffee. I’m good with coffee. I’d be perfectly happy to coffee with you regularly. I want to get to know you, so when you have more time we can … whatever it is coffee leads to.”

  “Oh, brother,” she muttered. Queenie studied her thumbnail and exhaled. “Please don’t make this so hard.”

  John brushed a hand over his short hair. Well, she hadn’t exactly answered his question, but she didn’t confess she was pining for her dead husband either, and that was a good thing.

  The fact he’d made Queenie uncomfortable was not.

  He shook his head and heard rocks rattling aro
und where his brain was supposed to be. “I didn’t mean to turn this into something awkward. I like you. A lot. I understand there’s stuff you can’t talk about, things you can’t tell me, secret-hush-hush stuff. I’m not trying to rush getting to know you. You’ve got ten minutes to give me here and there for us to get to know each other and I’ll take that, but I’m going to keep trying ‘til you change your mind about waiting until you have more time to give me time. And you will change your mind. Before your work is done you’ll change your mind, and by then and we’ll have coffee’d our beans out.”

  Queenie chuckled, bringing a palm to her shaking head. “Do you have to be so funny? Do you always have to make me laugh?”

  He shrugged. “It’s a gift.”

  She reached for the Nutter Butter packet she’d tossed into the shopping cart, opened it and bit into a peanut-shaped cookie. It fell to bits. Golden crumbs cascaded down the front of her pale pink blouse, the rest landed on the tiled floor, peanut butter side down. She looked at the remains like a four-year-old staring at a dropped ice cream cone.

  Sniff-sniff sniff. John nudged her and handed her another cookie. After he placed the opened package in the seat of the shopping cart, he picked up broken, peanutty lumps from the floor, pulled off the lid of the empty coffee cup and put the bits inside. “You know, I’m pretty good at a lot of things, but I excel at just a few,” John said as he licked the corner of his mouth and smiled, pretending not to take any notice of the cookie pieces she kicked under a shelf full of bread.

  “Like what?”

  “Like turning a brilliant conversation into something awkward. You know, I get that from my dad—well, that, the ability to impersonate Jimmy Stewart, and same full head of goofy-assed hair like he had.”

  Willa tried to suppress it, but the chuckle came out anyway. He was so damned disarming, so sure of himself, so distracting. “Jimmy Stewart. Riiight.”

  John stood up very straight and his mouth twisted into odd shapes as he said, “The Queen will have bread and honey at the usual time.”

  She looked at him blankly.

  “That’s Jimmy in The Philadelphia Story.”

  Her expression remained passive.