Deadly Reunion. Lauren Nichols
as it had been two years ago. Their tongues met and tangled. Their sun-warmed bodies strained against each other, even though it was impossible to get any closer. And inhaling deeply, Lindsay pulled his musky male scent into her nostrils, into her throat, into her quivering stomach. Groaning her name, Ike slanted his mouth over hers and went back for more.
It was almost as though they’d suddenly been given the power to turn back time, almost as though the years and the tears hadn’t happened.
But…they had.
Lindsay stopped kissing him. Stopped moving her hands through the soft, thick shag of hair at his collar.
Then slowly, with embarrassment stinging her cheeks, she slid her arms from around his neck and pressed her palms to his chest. She had to put some space between them.
It took a moment for the murky desire in Ike’s dark eyes to fade. Then they regarded each other for what seemed like an eternity, acutely aware of their labored breathing and runaway pulses, painfully conscious that something dangerous had just occurred without their willing direction.
The startling slam of a car door and the quick turn of an engine gave Lindsay a jolt, and she stepped back against her car, appalled. Dear God. The driver at the far end of the lot had to have walked right past them on the way to his vehicle—there was no other entrance. Yet Lindsay hadn’t heard a thing but the rush of blood in her ears. For those few reckless, irresponsible seconds, her world had been Ike and everything beyond her closed eyelids had ceased to exist.
Flustered, she glanced away to comb her fingers through her hair and study her sandals. How on earth did they get past this?
“I—you were about to say something,” she stammered.
“Yeah,” he said quietly. “Yeah, I was.” He didn’t go on until she looked at him again. “I was about to ask if you wanted some help varnishing your woodwork since I’d be sticking around for a while.” His heated gaze dropped to her lips and lingered a bit too long before he went on in an uneasy tone, “But maybe that’s not such a hot idea right now.”
Or maybe it was too hot, Lindsay reflected, her blood still pumping hard.
The car she’d heard approached. Quickly, she turned her face away then sent the driver a veiled glance as the car passed. Her heart sank when she recognized the woman behind the wheel of the green Chevy Impala as one of her mother’s Red Hat Society friends. Madeline somebody. She and her mother weren’t terribly close, but Lindsay knew the woman by sight, and the woman knew her.
“Wonderful,” she said, expelling a sigh. “My name will be on everyone’s lips by sundown.”
Ike nodded in the Impala’s direction. “I take it, that woman’s going to be a problem?”
“No. Maybe. I don’t know.” Lindsay shook off her uncertainty, then said firmly, “No. She won’t be a problem.”
She wasn’t a child. She was thirty-two years old, and it was senseless to worry about what people—even her mother—thought about her swallowing a man’s tongue at one o’clock on a sunny afternoon in a public place. She couldn’t change what happened. She could only make sure that it didn’t happen again.
Gathering her sensibilities, she returned to his earlier comment. “Thank you for offering to help, but I have errands to do, then I want to stop by my mom’s house to talk to her again. Whether you believe it or not, I’m as committed to this search as you are.”
His brow lined beneath his wind-tossed hair. “Good. Call me. I’ll hang around until four, but then I’m going back to the city. There’s someone I have to see before I head down to Old Port tonight.”
The flippant question leaped off her tongue before she could call it back. “Heavy date?”
He wasn’t amused. In fact, he looked annoyed. “What do you think?”
She thought that even though she’d asked, she didn’t want to know. Not when his kiss still burned on her lips and her nerve endings still hopped like jumping beans beneath her skin. Not when it would hurt to hear him say yes.
“I’ve been asked to serve a summons on a deadbeat dad,” he said when she didn’t reply. “I got a lead that he’ll be coming in on an early flight, and I need to serve him before he takes off again.”
Lindsay grimaced inside, wishing she’d learn to think before she spoke. Funny how that particular shortcoming only cropped up when Ike was around. Pulling her car door open wider, she climbed inside and slid behind the steering wheel. She met his eyes again. “Where will you be until four?”
He took her iced tea from the roof of her car and handed it to her. “Millie’s. I brought my laptop with me, so if she doesn’t have a full house, I’ll commandeer a back booth and catch up on some work while I wait to hear from you.” He paused, his expression warming a little and faintly nostalgic. “She’s curious about us.”
“I know.”
“If she asks?”
Lindsay put her drink in her cup holder. “If she asks, tell her the truth.”
But what was the truth? she wondered. There was the truth about her brother. But there was also a truth about them—two people who’d been so wildly, joyously in love it had been impossible to keep their hands to themselves as they’d gobbled hot wings at Millie’s, then rushed to their secret spot on the shore to snuggle and watch the sun set. Their current truth was that, while love was gone, they still wanted each other with the same passion and desperation they always had.
“Ever think about those nights on the beach?” he asked quietly, almost as if he could read her mind.
“Sometimes,” she admitted, because she wouldn’t lie to him. But that didn’t change anything. “Be careful at Old Port tonight.”
Then he nodded, and she shut her door.
But as she left the lot, Lindsay looked into her rearview mirror and watched him walk to his SUV. And back came the breathless tingle she’d felt in his arms. They’d done well ignoring that kiss, she decided, her spirits suddenly sinking again.
How amazingly skilled and civilized of them.
At eight-fifteen that night, Ike ambled wearily up the hall of his apartment building, unlocked the door to his efficiency and stepped inside. He tossed his keys on the cheap end table beside his cheaper sofa. The room was furnished in Early-American Attic, but it was fine for his purposes. He was out on jobs so often that all he needed was a clean place to flop when he was in town. Now, with the summons served and still no call from Lindsay, he dropped his duffel on the brown tweed couch, glanced around and saw the glaring difference between his place and hers.
There were no flowers, no framed prints on the walls, no lacy doilies on antique tables, no ivies spilling from window-hung pots. But that was fine. He had a nineteen-inch TV, a bed, table and chairs, and the utensil drawer in his tiny kitchenette wasn’t sticking shut this year. Good enough.
Crossing to his painted-white cupboards, Ike picked up the note his cleaning lady had left taped to the coffeemaker. He read it, half grinned, then opened his refrigerator and took out the large margarine container with the masking tape on the lid. Printed in Leona’s strong hand were the words: MINESTRONE SOUP—THROW OUT AFTER TUESDAY. Next to it was a loaf of homemade bread.
Counting himself lucky to know Leona Parlavecci, he emptied half of the soup into a bowl, popped it into the microwave and went to the phone on the wall.
“You don’t have to feed me, Leona,” he said when she picked up.
The short graying woman with the thick Italian accent chuckled. “And you don’t have to overpay me when I clean your place, but you do. You like the bread?”
“Haven’t tried it yet. I just got in. But the soup you left is warming, and I’ll be cutting the loaf any minute.”
“Good! When I emptied