Page 10 of Wishes and Research

He’d even already known what I liked for breakfast.

In any other situation, I would’ve labeled him a stalker for knowing that, but no one in town seemed to have a job, so the gossip ran rampant. I shouldn’t know as much about the mysterious Lorne as I did, but I hoped he’d had fun being ravished in jail.

As excited as everyone had been for him, that had to be consensual.

Ugh.

The town had safewords.

I wasn’t so uneducated about modern life that I hadn’t realized what red meant, but I really didn’t like the questions it was bringing up.

I also didn’t appreciate what it was starting to say about the questions I’d been asked over the past couple of days.

“Oh, he’s here.” Taking a deep breath as an older model Jeep pulled up to the bed-and-breakfast-style boarding house I was staying at, I let it out slowly and quickly gave myself a pat down to make sure I had everything before I grabbed my bag and headed out.

Thankfully, the place wasn’t full at the moment and I managed to escape without running into my temporary landlady, so I wasn’t too frazzled by the time I walked out the front door. She asked strange questions too, but I was putting up with it because several of her recent guests complained about the odd bugs they’d seen.

Sadly, I hadn’t seen the bugs, but I had been subject to so many interviews I was starting to wonder if I should be getting paid to stay there and not the other way around. She was definitely getting a lot of social credit out of my stay and I wasn’t sure I appreciated it.

Especially at her rates.

But Fraser climbing out of the Jeep chased all those thoughts away with one wicked grin. “Eager for dinner or to escape all the nosy questions?”

“Both.” Oops. “I mean, lunch was a long time ago and I’ve done a lot of work this afternoon.”

The first rule of fieldwork was not to piss off the locals, but I was starting to think that wasn’t a reasonable one in my current predicament. His laughter just made it clearer I was going to have to reevaluate my rules.

“You’d have more privacy if you were staying at one of the motels by the interstate or looked into one of the cabin rentals.” Fraser took my problem seriously as he came around the front of the Jeep to meet me. “I think there are even some house rentals that are still available. We could find you a good deal.”

That was nice of him.

Oh.

He was planning on opening my door.

How nice was he planning on being?

“I…I was staying here because there were some reports of the beetles I’ve been looking for. But so far, I haven’t seen any.” And the reviews for some of the local house rentals were stranger than the ones for the place I was currently staying in. “But depending on how long my stay ends up being, I might relocate.”

To some place with more privacy so I could get work done more easily.

If I wasn’t going to be seeing the oddly camouflaged beetles, I needed to get work done and to be able to relax.

“She might’ve gotten the place fumigated.” Fraser chuckled when I frowned. “We do have an actual bug doctor, you know.”

He grinned wider when I huffed. “I will not call a serial killer a doctor.”

No.

Pressing his lips together, Fraser’s eyes sparkled as he nodded. “Got it. I’ll remember that.”

He seemed to think I was entirely too funny.

“Thank you.” I wasn’t sure what else to say, but that just made him want to laugh more. I finally glared at him and waved my hand. “Just do it.”

His laugher boomed out, which had me rolling my eyes as he quickly got it under control. “Oh, you don’t want to know what I really wanted to do.”

Wait.

---