Page 14 of Sweet Like a Psycho (Secrets of Suburbi 2)

“Whoa.” I caught her arm. “I’m not here on business. I’m here to have dinner with you. You know…like a date.”

She looked down at her arm and then back up at me. Her left eyebrow rose. “Like a date?” She laughed. “Look, you’re clearly from out of town, so let me help you out. I’m insane.” She pulled out of my grip and then gestured her hands around her head in a comical way, although it was a little intimidating since she was still holding the hammer. “People stay away from me. Be one of those people, Detective Reed.”

“You can call me Tucker.” I smiled again, ignoring her lame attempt at scaring me away. And I couldn’t help wondering why she so desperately wanted to be all alone. I certainly didn’t like being single. Four months of moping around were enough for me.

She sighed and looked down at her hammer. “You’re not supposed to be here, Tucker.”

I wasn’t sure what she meant by that. Here in the woods? Here with her? Here in this stupid town? She was probably right about all three of those things, yet…here I was. I shrugged. “Where am I supposed to be then?”

“Anywhere but here.” She absently tapped the hammer against her thigh a few times as she glanced at the bags of food.

“It’s a little too late for that, I can’t eat all this alone.”

She scrunched her mouth to the side in thought.

“Plus, I can fix that for you.” I nodded to her air-conditioner.

She still didn’t respond.

This wasn’t a hard decision. She was sick. There was no way that she was in the mood to cook tonight. Plus I was offering her free repair services. I was going above and beyond. “You know what? You’re right. You are crazy…” I knew I had her where I wanted her because a line in her forehead I didn’t know existed suddenly appeared. “…because you care about fixing your air-conditioner even though it’s freezing out. No wonder you’re sick.”

She frowned. “I’m trying to fix the heater.”

This time I did laugh. “That’s not your furnace. That’s the air-conditioning unit.”

She sneezed. “Ugh. I’ve been out here for thirty minutes trying to figure out how to open up the wrong thing?” She sneezed again.

“Let’s get you inside.”

She didn’t move, she just looked back down at the bag. “There’s really too much for you to eat alone?”

“I probably have enough food here for four people honestly. I went a little overboard because I didn’t know what you like.” The smile on her lips was small, but it felt like a win for me. “What do you say?”

She sighed. “No.”

What? Seriously? “I didn’t want to hang this over your head, but technically you did steal from a detective earlier. You can get into all sorts of trouble for that.”

“You gave me your jacket. I didn’t rip it off your back.”

“True. Scratch the petty thievery. But dinner’s getting cold. And I’m good at distinguishing between an air-conditioning unit and a furnace. What does a guy have to do to win you over?”

“Okay. Fine.” She pinched her eyes closed like she immediately regretted her decision. “You can stay.” She opened up her eyes again and pierced me with an intense stare. “But you have to fix my heater because the repair guy can’t come for two days and…” her voice trailed off when she sneezed again. “And this isn’t a date. Just give me three minutes.” She put up three fingers like she was talking to a child and then ran up to her house, her hammer gripped tightly in her hand.

My eyes gravitated back to her ass. She was wrong. This was most definitely a date. A fake one. Absolutely, 100 perfect fake. So stop staring at her ass.

Chapter 7

Violet

What the heck did I just agree to? I sneezed as I wiped down the counter once, twice, three times until every remaining spot of flour was gone. But a clean counter didn’t help. The rest of the kitchen wa

s a mess. The rest of the house was even worse.

Zeke and I had spent most of the day playing hot lava, which entailed pulling off all the couch cushions and pillows and putting them on the floor to hop on. I had melted in the lava way more times than Zeke thanks to my constant sneezing in between jumps.

“Mommy.” Zeke pitty-patted my leg. “What are you doing? It’s your turn to make it through the lava course.”

“I’m just…” I let my voice trail off. Screw it. I tossed the washcloth back down on the counter. My house was a disaster. And freezing cold. Zeke was dressed in his snow-pants and layered up in a few sweaters. The only reason I had agreed to let Tucker in was so that he’d fix the broken heater. Who cared what he thought of my house? This wasn’t a date. I wasn’t trying to impress him. We both knew why he was really here. He was fishing around for information. And my lips were sealed. And I was only going to open them to eat the food he had brought. If I hadn't been exhausted, I would have turned him away.

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