Page 29 of Dirty Laundry (Down and Dirty)

“She thought you didn’t recognize her. She hoped you didn’t. I guess she felt like she wasn’t where she intended to be in life. But she said to tell you that you were the best friend she ever had, even if you didn’t know it.”

Carine couldn’t be entirely sure, but she thought she saw Heidi’s forehead twitch a bit as she unpacked butter. “That’s sad,” she said after a minute. “But at least she’s still here.”

Carine didn’t need to probe her about what “still here” meant. She followed the news and listened to what shook out of the local grapevine. She knew what horrible things sometimes happened to people who felt they were out of options.

“She also said you frighten her,” Carine said, hoping to lift the mood.

“Good. That’ll keep the rumor mill churning about the right Mrs. Dowd.”

“You’re gonna make Valerie nearly as mysterious as you are, aren’t you?”

“Am I mysterious?” Heidi turned on the burner under the pot. How her gaze managed to smolder the way it did without her expression ever seeming to change didn’t make any sense.

Heidi was constantly breaking Carine’s brain. Her mood could shift from tiny-tot-story-time librarianto try-me-and-seeinstantly. The person most impacted by the change didn’t necessarily realize what was happening until that knot of suspense tightened in their belly.

People at Clay’s had described Heidi’s mind-fucks, but poorly. They never even realized they’d been rolled until someone else told them they’d been.

Carine was holding her breath, wondering if she should even bother responding. Heidi had given her leave to speak freely, but Carine was starting to think Heidi had laid a trap for her. Even if she hadn’t, Carine was going to tread carefully. It was still too early to go home.

Heidi sidled before her, impeding Carine’s view of the freezer door she’d been trying to shift her gaze protectively toward. “I know you know more words than what you’re giving me.”

“It wasn’t a hypothetical question, then?”

“I’d certainly like to know an answer.”

“You want to know if you’re mysterious.”

“I’d like you to confirm that’s what you meant. That’s the word that came out of your mouth. Was it the right one?”

Another thing people apparently didn’t notice about Heidi until too late was the way she subtly, word by word, changed her tone and phrasing. Carine didn’t know when Heidi had begun speaking in that meditative yoga instructor voice, but it had her lulled into stillness. It made her stop shifting her weight and fidgeting with the hem of the borrowed sweatshirt.

It made her breathe deeper and take in more of Heidi’s at-home scent. “You have to give me a list of things I can say that won’t get me into trouble with you.”

“You never needed one before now.”

Carine gritted her teeth. She’d also never been naked in Heidi’s bed before. Perhaps Heidi didn’t see how the two things were related.

“Usually, when folks can’t give me a straight answer, I think they’re up to something,” Heidi said.

Somehow, she was closer. Carine certainly didn’t remember her moving, but she apparently had. She was in kissing distance, but Carine didn’t think kisses were imminent, only more menacing because Carine couldn’t get her mouth to work right.

Carine squeezed her eyes closed tight and said in a rush, “I only meant that I thought I knew everything there was to know about you, and I was wrong. I don’t know a damned thing.”

“Are you calling me fake?” The sugar-and-cream voice of Heidi’s with its sultry drawl was meant for lullabies, not blood-boiling. Yet, there Carine was, fidgeting and sweating a little because Heidi had sucked all the air out of the room, and Carine’s heart wouldn’t stop pounding.

“No!”

“Aren’t you?”

Carine flinched at the unexpected press of Heidi’s hands to the back of her waist. She wasn’t repulsed but simply hadn’t expected the touch.

Undeterred, Heidi slipped her hands beneath the band and nudged Carine’s feet farther apart.

There may as well have been rebar fixing Carine to that spot in the kitchen. She couldn’t move anything. Not her eyelids, not her hands, not her buckling knees.

Heidi grabbed great handfuls of ass and squeezed tight, milking a gasp out of Carine.

“You’re not gonna get me worked up in my kitchen, are you, Carine?” Heidi whispered.

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