Page 51 of To Die For

He took my hair down out of the ponytail and brushed it, though I could have done the brushing. I handled brushing my teeth, didn’t I? But he wanted to, so I let him. I did the skin-care routine, then asked for the drawstring pants and tank top I wanted to wear to bed. He snorted. “Like you’ll need them,” he said, picking me up and taking me to bed just the way I was, which was bare.

Poor Detective MacInnes, I’d forgotten about him, putting in long hours while Wyatt was at home with me. The phone rang just as Wyatt was getting into bed beside me; he had the receiver in his hand before the first ring had finished. “Bloodsworth. You got it?” He looked at me and said, “Dwayne Bailey. Ring a bell with you?”

An image shot to mind, that of a burly man about six feet tall, with a lot of body hair. “I remember him,” I said. “He needed electrolysis.”

“Could he have been the man you saw?”

I have very good visual spatial skills, and I could mentally place Dwayne Bailey standing beside Nicole’s car, comparing him to the man I had seen. “There’s no way I could recognize his face, but he’s about the right size. About six feet, a little on the heavy side. He was kind of surly, too, like he had a bad temper.” I remembered that because he’d been in an argument with another of our members, a regular, over using one of the weight machines. Evidently he’d been in a hurry and hadn’t liked waiting while the other man finished his sets.

“Good enough. We’ll go see him tomorrow,” Wyatt said. “MacInnes, grab what sleep you can.”

“Why don’t you roust Bailey out tonight?” I asked, a little indignant. They might have found the man who killed Nicole and shot me, and they weren’t going to pick him up right away?

“We can’t just arrest him,” Wyatt explained as he turned out the light and slid under the covers. “We don’t have probable cause, and no judge in town would sign a warrant. We’ll interview him, see what shakes loose. That’s how you investigate, honey, by talking to people.”

“And in the meantime, he’s running around shooting at innocent pieces of fluff. Something’s wrong with this picture.”

He chuckled and ruffled my hair, then settled me against him. “I never said you were innocent, either.”

I pinched his side. “Just think,” I said with fake anticipation. “This time tomorrow night, I could be in my own bed.”

“But you won’t be.”

“Why not?”

He chuckled again. “Because the piece of fluff can’t dress herself.”

Chapter

Seventeen

The next morning I could move my arm more, though very gingerly. While Wyatt was downstairs cooking breakfast, I brushed my teeth and hair, and just to show him, even got partially dressed. I found my clothes hanging in the closet next to his, which gave me butterflies in my stomach, seeing them together like that. He must have unpacked my bag when he brought it up last night, because I certainly hadn’t. I searched for my underwear and found it in a dresser drawer, all neatly laid out the way I would have done it instead of jumbled together the way I’d expected. The man had depth to him.

I looked through the rest of the drawers to see how he treated his underwear, and found that he was neat. His T-shirts were folded and stacked, his boxers were folded, his socks were matched and mated. There was nothing unusual about his underwear, just regular guy stuff. I liked that, because a relationship between two vain people can really cut into mirror time. One needed to be normal.

I admit that I’m vain. A little. I’m not as bad as I used to be, when I was a teenager, because as I got older I guess I got a little more confident about how I looked. Strange, isn’t it? When I was sixteen, which you have to admit is probably a peak year for body and beauty, I would spend hours fixing my hair and putting on makeup, trying on outfit after outfit, because I wasn’t sure I looked good enough. Now that I’m thirty, I’m much more comfortable, even though I know I don’t look as good as I did at sixteen. Having dewy skin takes an effort now. I have to work out like mad to keep my weight under control. When I’m going out for a big date or something more formal than my usual stuff, I can still make a big deal out of hair and makeup, but for the most part I don’t bother. A little mascara, a little lip gloss, and that’s about it.

I still loved clothes, though, and was perfectly capable of trying on every item of clothing I had in an effort to find just the right combination. And some days I couldn’t decide what color underwear I wanted. Was it a blue day, or a pink day? Or red? Or black? White, maybe?

Today was one of those days. First I had to decide what I was wearing, because that determines the color of your underwear. No dark underwear under white pants, right? I was feeling colorful, so I finally picked out a pair of aqua shorts, and teamed it with a pink tank top. My tank tops have wide shoulder straps, by the way, because I can’t stand the bra-strap-peeking-out style. I think it’s just tacky. Anyway, the pink tank top dictated that I couldn’t wear anything really dark underneath, so that meant a pastel. Pink would have been the obvious choice, but maybe too obvious.

Wyatt appeared in the bedroom door. “What’s taking you so long? Breakfast is ready.”

“I’m deciding what color underwear I want today.”

“Jesus,” he said, and left.

Yellow! That was it! Maybe you think yellow wouldn’t look good with pink, but the lingerie set was a pale yellow, and it looked great under the pink. Not that anyone other than me would see it—well, Wyatt would, because I still couldn’t manage a bra—but it made me feel like the ice cream cone he had mentioned yesterday. Maybe it would put licking in his mind again.

Food was calling, so I carefully pulled on the underpants and shorts, but I got one of Wyatt’s button-up shirts from the closet to wear until he could help me with the tops. I slid my feet into flip-flops—these had aqua sequins on the straps—and went downstairs.

He eyed me as I entered the kitchen. “Flip-flops and one of my shirts took half an hour to choose?”

“I’m wearing shorts, too.” I lifted the hem of the shirt to show him. “You’ll have to help me with the rest.” I sat down at the table, and he took a plate of eggs, sausage, and whole wheat toast off the warmer and set it in front of me. A small glass of orange juice and a cup of coffee completed my feast. “I could get used to this,” I said as I dug in.

“Do you cook at all?”

“Well, of course. I just don’t get waited on all that often. And I usually eat on the run, because Great Bods opens so early.”

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