LITMIR.BIZ

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turning a meal into a celebration,” she commented, accepting her plate with a piece so large it hung over the edges.

      “You’ve got that right,” Nick said as he handed Josh his piece.

      “Do you need help cutting that?” Tate asked her son.

      “Mom, you don’t cut pizza. You pick it up and bite it.” Wrapping both hands around it, curling the piece, he took a huge bite, demonstrating.

      “Yeah, Mom,” Nick echoed. “Where you been?”

      She smiled as she picked up her fork. “Some of us are more civilized.”

      “Fingers were made before forks,” Nick added before tasting his piece. “Mmm,” he purred. “This is better than…better than most pizzas.” He’d been about to say better than sex, but stopped himself just in time.

      Meeting his eyes, Tate guessed exactly what he’d been thinking. For the first time, she gave him a genuine smile, one that reached those incredible eyes. “I agree, to your first thought, that is.” When he laughed out loud, she joined in.

      The atmosphere, the good food, the noise insulating them in their own little pocket of privacy—all seemed to relax them and they ate in comfortable companionship. When Josh asked for a second piece, Tate was truly shocked. She dished it out, pleased her picky eater had an appetite on this disturbing day. She was glad she’d accepted Nick’s invitation after all, if the visit here made Josh put Maggie’s ordeal out of his mind even temporarily.

      Intent on keeping things pleasant, Nick searched his mind for a neutral subject. “You never came here when you were going to U of A? It’s a big college hangout on weekends.”

      Tate dabbed at her lips with the paper napkin. “No. I didn’t have a car so we stuck kind of close to the campus.”

      Nick finished his second piece, debated about a third, then decided to go for it. “I’d have thought some of your dates might have brought you here. It’s been open about ten years.”

      Tate shook her head. “I didn’t date much.”

      He had trouble believing that. A woman as gorgeous as she was had to have had her pick of men. “From where I sit, I find that impossible to imagine.”

      “I had to spend more time studying than either of my roommates. Molly was the smart one. She helped me a lot on subjects we took together.” Remembering those happier times, Tate felt a rush of nostalgia. “We had these nicknames for each other. Molly was the brain and Laura was the big bucks.”

      “And you?” he asked, thinking that he knew.

      Tate shrugged. “Seems silly now.”

      “You were the beauty, right?”

      Her green eyes raised to his, studying him, not answering. She was trying to figure him out, Nick decided. He liked keeping her off balance. “Want to know what they labeled me in college?”

      The spell broken, Tate nodded.

      “Bookworm. I’m the first, the only one in my family to go to college, much less graduate. Now you’d think that would fill my parents with pride. Nope. As I said earlier, they wanted me in the family business, and you don’t need a degree to build houses, or so my father said. I’d get tired of books and come back to them, he predicted. So I studied and studied so I could prove him wrong. I was dull, a regular nerd.”

      It was Tate’s turn to register disbelief. “Come on. With your build, you must have gone out for football or maybe basketball. I can’t believe you sat in your room studying instead of dating a whole flock of coeds.” Even if she shaved off ten years, he was more than average attractive. Was he fishing?

      “Not so. You can ask my family. Girls scared me so I hid behind books.”

      Still smiling, Tate shook her head in amazement. “Me-thinks you doth protest too much.”

      Josh drained his root beer mug and, having made it halfway through his second piece, sat back looking stuffed.

      “You really like this pizza, eh?” Tate asked, handing him his napkin.

      “It was great.” Josh swiped at his mouth halfheartedly.

      Now that they were well fed and smiling, Nick decided they were relaxed enough to give him some answers. “Josh, Maggie watches you after school and sometimes on weekends when your mom has to work, right?”

      The boy shot a look to his mother.

      “It’s all right, sweetie. Remember, Nick’s a detective and he wants to find the man who hurt Maggie. You can answer him.” But she intended to guide this question session.

      “Yes,” Josh said.

      “Do the two of you usually stay in the house or does Maggie take you places?”

      “Sometimes we go to the park. I like the jungle gym.”

      “Have you ever noticed any strangers, someone you might have seen more than once, hanging around the park or near your house?” Nick watched Josh again glance at his mother before answering.

      “There was this one guy. I saw him one day at the park, then later he was in a big black car across the street from Maggie’s.”

      Now they were getting somewhere. “What did he look like?”

      Josh screwed up his face, thinking. “Just a guy. He had black hair in a ponytail, not as long as Mom’s. And both times, he wore black pants and a black shirt. He had on sunglasses.”

      Tate’s gaze swung to Nick’s face, recalling that Maggie had told them the intruder who beat her had a black ponytail and wore black clothes. She saw that he remembered, too.

      “You’re very observant, Josh,” Nick praised. “You’re doing great.” Even though there was a look of anxiety on Tate’s face. It seemed that the boy hadn’t told his mother about the man in black. Did she recognize that description?

      “Did the man come up to you, try to talk to you?”

      Josh shook his head.

      “About that car, can you tell me what it looked like?”

      “It was black and really long. And the windows were dark.”

      “You mean like tinted windows?”

      “Yes. The man got out of the car and stared at our house. I was watching from mom’s bedroom window.”

      “He just stared, didn’t do anything else?”

      “He talked with someone in the back seat.”

      “Did that person get out, too?”

      “No. The window was open halfway, but I couldn’t see him. He was smoking a cigarette and he tossed it out. Then the other guy got back in and they drove away.”

      Nick looked at Tate. “Your son has the makings of a first-rate detective. He seems to take in every detail.”

      “That’s not the life I want for him, thank you.” Tate stroked her son’s blond hair. “Is that all?”

      “Just one last question. Josh, if I showed you a bunch of pictures, do you think you could pick out the man with the ponytail?”

      Suddenly frightened, the boy moved closer to his mother. “No. He had sunglasses on. I don’t want to look at any pictures.”

      “Okay,” Nick hastened to reassure him, as well as his mother. “No pictures.” What had spooked the kid? he wondered. Realizing the tension was back, Nick signaled for the check.

      There was a short discussion about paying, but Nick won. “You can pay next time,” he told her.

      Out in the parking lot, he held the door for Tate while she made sure Josh was buckled into the back seat. But before she stepped in, he leaned close to her, resolutely ignoring her scent that

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