LITMIR.BIZ

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swiveled in her chair to face him.

      “How are you feeling?” he asked. She had the strange notion that something new lurked beneath the surface; a wariness in his voice and in his blue eyes.

      “Fine, I guess. Did Luther find anything?”

      Ray shook his head. “No.”

      She didn’t think there was any way the killer could find her, but she worried just the same. What if, somehow, he knew where she lived? What if she walked into her house tonight and found him waiting for her? She shivered as she recalled the way he’d so easily snapped a man’s neck. She’d surprised him and gotten away once. She didn’t think she’d have the opportunity again.

      “You’re really worried about this, aren’t you?” Ray asked softly. He stared at her obstinately, as if trying to read her thoughts. If anyone could…

      “Yeah,” she admitted.

      Ray looked comfortable in his uncomfortable chair, at ease in a cramped office he’d never set foot in before. But then, he always looked at ease. He fit in, wherever he happened to be.

      “Grace,” a gratingly familiar voice called from the hallway just before stepping through the doorway into her office. “Did you finish…” Dr. Dearborne suddenly stopped speaking, as he saw Ray sitting against the wall. He even took a half step back. “What are you doing here?” A hint of revulsion touched his voice, and he paled. Just a little.

      “Hi, Doc,” Ray said with a wide smile.

      “You two know each other?” Grace asked, more than a little confused.

      “We’ve met,” Ray said casually.

      Their meeting had probably had something to do with Trish’s unpleasant encounter with the dentist, Grace reasoned. Ray could be downright old-fashioned about some things; like honor and the way a lady should be treated. It was the Southern gentleman in him, she supposed. Still, he sometimes went too far.

      Dr. Dearborne put his less than steady eyes on her. “Never mind, Ms. Madigan. What I wanted to speak to you about can wait until tomorrow. Or Monday.” He gave her a sad, weak smile as he backed out of the office. “Nothing important.”

      Grace hadn’t been working for Dr. Dearborne all that long, but she recognized fear when she saw it. The poor, personality-challenged dentist was so anxious to get out of the room he tripped over his own feet. After a quick recovery, he disappeared down the hallway.

      “What on earth did you do…” she began.

      Ray stood, quick and graceful. “How about I buy you dinner?” he interrupted.

      Just as well. She didn’t need to hear how he’d so gallantly defended ex-wife number two from the man he insisted on calling Dr. Doolittle.

      But dinner sounded too much like a date. “I don’t feel like going out,” she said as she reached into the bottom drawer of her desk for her purse. But oh, she didn’t want to be alone. Not yet. “I can cook you dinner.”

      He made a face, screwed up his nose and squinted his eyes until she could no longer see the vibrant blue. “What have I done to deserve this?”

      She smiled as she stood. “I’m a much better cook than I used to be. Give me a break. I was just nineteen when we got married. At the time all I could do in the kitchen was make macaroni and cheese out of a box and open a can of soup.”

      She wished she could take the statement back, or at least reword it. Suddenly she remembered the times they’d made love in the kitchen. On the table, against the counter, on the floor. Ray would come home and find her trying her best to hone her abysmal domestic skills, and with a touch and a whispered word or two the recipe was forgotten. He’d lift her up or lower her down and she dismissed everything else. Everything. How many pots had she burned? How many leathery roasts had they laughingly tossed in the garbage? It was no wonder she hadn’t learned to cook until after the divorce.

      Her face felt warm. Once the memories came they were hard to shake. She tried to put the heated recollections in perspective. So, they’d had great sex. She’d learned the hard way that you can’t build a lasting relationship on lust. Eventually you need stability, commitment, compromise. Ray didn’t know the meaning of the word compromise.

      “And if it was the kind that said ‘add water’ we were in trouble,” he said.

      “What?”

      “The soup,” he clarified.

      If he knew what she was thinking about he didn’t show it. But then, Ray was a master at concealing his feelings. No wonder working undercover came so easily to him. He could become whomever and whatever he wanted; he revealed only what he wanted to reveal.

      “Steaks,” she said, headed for the door with her purse clutched in her hands. “Salad and baked potatoes. We’ll have to run by the grocery store, though.” She glanced over her shoulder to see that Ray followed; close but not too close.

      “No problem,” he said, as he ushered her out the door and to his car.

      Ray hadn’t expected he’d ever find himself sitting on the couch in Grace’s new house. Sure, they saw one another now and then, but she always managed to keep her distance, to keep things casual. In order for her to actually invite him here, she had to be either really scared, or else desperate to keep him from going to Mobile.

      He wondered, as he watched her work at the bar that separated the long, narrow kitchen from the living room, just how far she’d go to keep him around.

      He had no illusions about Grace. She’d loved him once, and she still cared for him; at least a little. She cared for him enough to worry on occasion, and she trusted him enough to come to him when there was trouble. Enough of a spark remained between them to provide the occasional uncomfortable moment, like in her office just a short while back.

      But she didn’t care enough to stay. Sometimes he had to remind himself of that fact.

      In a flash he knew Luther’s suppositions about the murder story being concocted just to keep him in town were bull. Grace hadn’t made anything up. She didn’t care enough to stay; she sure as hell didn’t care enough to fight.

      Annoyed at himself for studying Grace so intently, he turned his attention to the room. This house was old, but had been recently remodeled. Instead of a small parlor and eat-in kitchen, there was now one main room that consisted of a living area with a sofa, chairs, television and small stereo; the open kitchen and the bar that separated it from the living room; and a smaller space for a round oak dining room table with four chairs. The layout was simple and practical.

      He saw Grace in this room, in the comfortable caramel-colored furniture, in the fat pillows scattered about the seating area. He saw her in the thriving plants and the lace curtains and the knickknacks on the single bookshelf. Snow globes. She loved snow globes. He recognized a couple of them as gifts he’d given her, years ago. A big snow globe with a white carousel horse, given to Grace for her twentieth birthday; a smaller one with a little boy and a little girl leaning forward for an innocent kiss, presented on their fourth anniversary.

      She chopped vegetables for a salad while the potatoes baked, keeping her eyes on the knife and the cutting board and the vegetables. A strand of hair fell over her cheek, a long, dark strand that looked so soft and tempting his fingers itched.

      What would she do if he walked into the kitchen, put his hands on her face, and kissed her long and hard? If he pulled that body up against his and quit pretending he didn’t want her? He had a feeling that before this crisis was over, they were going to find out.

      When they’d come in from their trip to the grocery store, she’d declared microwave potatoes “not the same,” so they waited for the real thing: big fat potatoes baking in the oven. The steaks were marinating, a gas grill awaited on the patio out back, and the ice cream he’d sneaked into the grocery cart sat in the freezer. And if Grace chopped those vegetables much more they would be baby food,

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