Page 32 of The Mermaid Murder

“What did you book us?”

He looked sideways at me and wiggled his eyebrows. “That.” He pointed, but all I saw was somebody’s house. A pretty stunning house, actually. Asymmetrical, dark wood and glass, wrap-around deck, lawn out of an HGTV show, and as he pulled farther along the curving driveway, I glimpsed what looked like a flower garden out back beyond a little gate.

“Is it some kind of B and B?” I asked.

“Yeah, the Air kind. We have the whole place for the weekend, with the option to extend through Thursday. Fully stocked. Anything we find inside is for our use.” He shut off the car and got out.

I loved the place at first sight. “It’s big enough for the whole family,” I said when he punched the combination into the door lock to let us in. There was a wide-open floor plan, with a hardwood counter between living room and eat-in kitchen. There was a brown sofa with a pair of recliners in darker brown and mustard. They looked cozy and clean.

“Four bedrooms upstairs,” Mason said. “The master is through here.”

“How do you know all that?” I asked.

“Online tour. Come on.” We crossed the living room and entered a short hallway. There was one door on the left, one on the right. I opened the right first and peeked in to see a big room with a treadmill, stationary bike, and weight bench. There was a TV mounted to one wall, and windows all around with views of that garden in back; a haze of pink and yellow, violet and red, with splashes of deep purple here and there and paths in between.

We backed out and stepped into the master bedroom. A gigantic maple sleigh bed took up most of the room. It seemed like a marshmallow cloud with its fluffy white duvet and pillow covers. Two dressers, walk-in closet, attached bathroom, but best of all were the sliding glass doors out onto the deck. “There’s a hot tub in that garden,” I said, pointing.

“Guaranteed freshly drained, sanitized, and refilled,” he said. “And exactly what my back needs after all that driving.”

“I’m gonna hit the shower first,” I said. “Keep the water warm for me.” I grabbed the front of his shirt and pulled him in for a kiss. “This is amazing. Thank you.”

“De nada,” he replied.

So I hopped into the big shower— not as big as mine, but whose was?— and I thought. I thought a lot. This was way nicer than a hotel. He was trying to make it special. Not that he needed to. Every day with Mason was special. I adored the man.

But I’d been slow about picking our next wedding date. We’d picked three wedding dates already, but Covid had other ideas. After the third pandemic spike, we’d put it off indefinitely.

And now I couldn’t shake that dream.

Maybe my hesitance had made my hot cop a little bit insecure. I should feel mean and want to make that right, and I did, but I also felt high as a kite that he loved me that much. I mean, I knew he did, but still, having it be that front and center, so big he’d get nervous…

Didn’t he know he was the only guy in the entire world for me?

I went back outside wearing a towel. Mason was already in there with a dewy can of beer in his hand. I slid into delicious heat, losing the towel and most of the air in my lungs on the way. “So nice,” I moaned, sinking all the way to my ears. Mason laughed, a low, sexy laugh and I knew what he was thinking, and curled my toes against his foot.

“Your drink is behind you.”

I looked, and there in a cup-sized depression was a dewy glass with dark liquid and two ice cubes. I took it and sipped, then made a face. “That’s not Diet Coke.”

“It’s Diet Cola,” he said. “Says so on the can.”

“Ahh. Yet the beer has a name.”

“And unlike the teeny tiny bottle I added to your cola, it’s full-size.”

“I guess you rate.” I held out my glass, and he tinked his can against it. I was sitting across from him, but our legs were together under the water, calves moving gently against each other now and then like languishing lovers.

I sipped my drink and waited for it to kick in. It took way less than it used to. We hardly ever drank at home anymore.

The second he’d turned twenty-one, Jeremy had applied to the police academy. Nine months later, he was a rookie cop in the Broome County Sheriff’s department. The reduction in our booze intake was probably good for both of us.

But when we were away, we indulged in a nip or two.

“This is nice, this place,” I said. “There’s room for Myrtle, even.”

“I miss her, too.”

“It’s weird not having her here.”

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