LITMIR.BIZ

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a little early for champagne, anyway,” Kane said lightly. “I’ll see you at the meeting tonight, Polly.” He touched my elbow again as if it were some secret erogenous zone that only he knew about, gave it a little squeeze and let it go. Then he walked quickly over to the picnic banquet, taking the time to tousle Bryan’s hair and whisper something to him. What a smoothie. He moved in on Arly, and I could hardly say I blamed him.

      “I had an extra pair of jeans in the car,” Becker said, handing me a plastic bag and following Kane’s retreat with his eyes before turning back to me. “They may be a little big for you, but they’re dry.”

      “Oh, excellent,” I said. My jeans were sticking to me in a clammy, unpleasant way, and the sun had gone in again. “I’ll just change in the bushes. Thanks.”

      “I figured you’d be getting into my pants at some point this weekend,” Becker said. “It’s a little premature, but hey.” I swatted at him and he ducked, grinning.

      “As you no doubt noticed, David Kane just joined the group,” I said. “I don’t think there’s any love lost between him and Vic Watson. Did you know that Vic almost fell off the Laingford lookout tower during a Camera Club outing last week? His lady friend saved him that time. He suggested he might have been ‘helped’ over the edge then as well.”

      “Interesting,” Becker said. “You think Kane’s trying to do him harm?”

      “Who knows? You might tell him to be careful, though. I wouldn’t trust David Kane any further than I could throw him.” Kane had slipped his arm around Arly Watson’s shoulders, and she put her plate down. Moments later they were slipping away from the group and heading for the trail. Champagne and caviar and a rich bachelor to boot. I just hoped she knew what she was getting into.

      “Hungry?” Becker said. “I have picnic stuff in my backpack, but there’s all that food over there. Vic said to help ourselves.”

      “Perfect,” I said. “You go ahead. Bryan’s already in there somewhere. I’ll just go do the Superman quick-change thing.” Becker had seen the elbow squeeze from Kane, and it had made a tiny worry line appear between his eyebrows. I hoped that he hadn’t read anything into it, but just in case, I put my face very close to his and stared into his green-gold eyes.

      “My jeans aren’t the only thing I’m wearing that’s soaked,” I whispered in my best phone-sex voice. “I want you to know that when I come out of the bushes in your pants, I won’t be wearing any underwear.” The green eyes got a shade greener.

      “You are an evil woman,” he whispered back and kissed me. Kissing is an art that can be taught, but only up to a point. You have to have a natural talent for it, and only instinct will tell you what kind of kisses are appropriate in public. Becker is the greatest kisser I’ve ever met, and I don’t think it was a required course at cop-school. He’s a cup-your-face-in-his-hand kind of kisser, as if the lips he’s kissing are slightly fragile and require special care. We hadn’t displayed much physical affection in public—both too shy, really, and the matter had never come up, so to speak. This was the kind of kiss that you could do in front of your grandmother, but it left me weak-kneed and slightly out of breath. I tottered up the rocks to the trail to find an appropriate bush for changing behind.

      As luck would have it, I had just stripped down to my damp gotchies when I heard someone approaching and ducked down out of sight. It was Kane and Arly. I saw the red sneakers and designer hiking boots go by through a gap in the bushes.

      “. . . don’t need much experience, because we’re going to be computerized,” Kane was saying.

      “At Dad’s we have one of those stupid old-fashioned tills to make the customers think we’re, like, pioneers,” Arly said. “It’s a real pain.”

      “Why don’t you come work for me?” Kane said. “We have a few cashier’s jobs left, and the benefits are great. What are you getting now? Minimum wage, I’ll bet . . .” The girl muttered something, and Kane laughed and continued his mesmerizing headhunter pitch as they carried on down the trail. Great, I thought. He’s stealing staff right out from under Archie’s nose. His own daughter, no less. Vic’s brother the grocer was going to go ballistic.

      Becker’s jeans weren’t too big—I’m not exactly a stick-insect myself, and I balled up my own soggy dungarees (along with my undies) and stuffed them into the plastic bag. The jeans were baggy and comfortable, but a bit long, and I had to roll them up at the hem. Something crinkled in the back pocket, and I reached in and found a business card. “K. Johanssen: Custom Jewellery” it said, with an address in Sikwan, the next biggest town south of Laingford.

      Now, I am not normally a jealous woman. Far from it. I’m dangerously lax when it comes to keeping an eye out for the signs that most women pick up with internal feminine radar. This has meant that in the past one romantic partner actually drifted away to the point of having offspring with another woman before I noticed. Maybe it’s because I’ve never bothered to invest much in a relationship. In the case of Becker, though, I found myself doing and thinking things that were totally against type. Seeing the word “jeweller” on the business card I found in the back pocket of Becker’s jeans set off a peculiar and totally illogical chain-reaction in my brain. 1. Jewellers make personal adornments for women, primarily. 2. Becker had never given me any jewellery, therefore his connection with K. Johanssen had nothing to do with me, therefore 3. it had something to do with another woman who was not me, to whom Becker should not be giving jewellery.

      Jeez, Polly, I told myself severely, before my train of thought screamed out of control down the Rockies. Mister K. Johanssen (or Ms.) could have been burglarized and called Becker to investigate. (Nope—Becker didn’t wear jeans on duty.) He could have dropped in to the jeweller to order a nice brooch for his mom’s birthday. (Nope. His mom died three years ago.) His sister then, the one in Calgary. I applied the brakes, Big Time, and crammed the stupid card back in the pocket from whence it came. Jealously was a new sensation for me, and I didn’t like it at all. A great big, cumbersome brain-scrambler, it felt like. A hot and heavy helmet, capable of wiping tender thoughts, like the ones Becker’s kiss had left me with, clean off the blackboard of my mind. Unlike jealousy, denial is something I’m used to. By the time I got back to the picnic site, I’d stuffed the jeweller’s name into the very back of my mind where I kept my fear of bears, my unhappy childhood and my terror of tax-forms.

      The scene which greeted my arrival scattered any remaining thoughts quite effectively. Vic was on the ground again, Sophie was crouched over him, and Becker was on his cell phone.

       Eight

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      As Becker had predicted, Vic had gone into delayed shock, brought on perhaps by the ecstasy of biting into one of Sophie’s lemon squares. He wasn’t unconscious or anything—he’d just, as he said, “come over all weak,” and Becker was doing his strong-arm act and ordering an ambulance. Vic’s protestations were half-hearted, and I don’t know about Becker, but I know I felt awfully guilty for not bundling him straight off to hospital in the first place.

      Becker put his cell phone away in a pocket and turned to me. “They’ll be here in about twenty minutes,” he said.

      “Couldn’t we take him? I could sit in the back with Bryan.”

      “It might be tricky if he goes into cardiac arrest,” Becker said. “Best to wait for the professionals.”

      “Twenty minutes is an awfully long time,” I said. “Do they have to catch the horses first?”

      “We’re a fair distance into the park,” Becker said. “The closest emergency vehicle is the fire truck in Willis Creek, which could get here in five if we needed

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