Page 15 of Rest In Pink

“Remind me never to ask again if you know what you’re doing,” I said into his shoulder. “You know what you’re doing.”

“So do you.”

“We’re knowledgeable people.”

He kissed me and I shut up.

I really have no idea what’s going on with Vince and me, aside from a lot of sex that has slowly gotten more inventive over the five weeks we’ve been doing one-night stands. That is, we both know any one of these nights could be our last together because neither one of us is interested in commitment or marriage and because I am moving on with Anemone in September. What I also know is that Vince Cooper is a good man and he does it for me in bed. And on the counter of his Big Chef. And now on the shore of the beautiful Ohio River. And I evidently do it for him since he keeps coming back for more, which is cheering.

“You are quiet but you are not asleep, Magnolia,” Vince said. “That worries me.”

Saying “I’m thinking about us” would not be a good move, so I said, “Congratulations on your promotion, Detective Cooper.” Then I heard a faint buzz and sat up. “Vince, I really do hear a mosquito. And I have a lot of skin exposed here. I am basically Naked Lunch.”

“There’s going to be one dead head mosquito tomorrow.” He stood up and offered me his hand. “But, in the meanwhile, what do you say we make a tactical retreat to my bedroom. I believe we’ll be rested enough by then to move on to phase two of my plan.”

“There’s more?” I gathered up my sundress and took his hand to let him pull me to my feet, flashing back for a moment to the afternoon we’d met, when he’d stretched down his hand and pulled me out of a ditch. Good times.

“Of course there’s more. The night is young and we’re celebrating. By the way, did I tell you I make sixty dollars more a month as detective?”

“We can live large while on the lam.” I bundled the dress under my arm and brushed off some general dirt I’d gotten earlier. It was sticking to the anti-bug stuff I’d sprayed on. “I need to shower this stuff off. The last thing I want to do is poison you now that the inventive part of the night is over.”

He shook out the blanket to wrap it around me and I tucked it under my arms. An army blanket sarong. That would probably turn him on, too.

“The inventive part of the night is not over,” he said.

“Oh, goody.” I followed him back up the riverbank to the Big Chef, watching the set of his shoulders.

They were a lot more relaxed now that he’d had his way with me, but I knew Vince. Sooner or later the problems with George and Thacker and the idiot mayor and everything else he dealt with would come back and those shoulders would tense again, hunch up a little. I was dying to ask about George, about what was going on that was so worrying him, but I’d just gotten him to stop hunching, I didn’t want to start over, at least not until tomorrow morning when he had to face Burney again.

When I had to face Burney again.

I was going to have to tell him about Cash before somebody else did. He wouldn’t care, I was sure, but still . . .

He opened the door to the Big Chef for me.

I hesitated and he waited. “You know, this place could use a light. You sure you don’t want to get the Big Chef sign lit?”

He leaned in the doorway. “Just tell me what’s bothering you.” I opened my mouth, and he said, “I know it’s not the light.”

I nodded. “Well, just so you know, Cash asked me to lunch tomorrow, and I said no, I had to work, so he asked me to dinner tomorrow night and I said I had a date.”

He nodded. “So where are we going?”

“You don’t have to—”

“Come on, Liz, we’re past that. We’d probably be together anyway.”

“Why did he ask?” I was standing there wrapped in a blanket, but I felt like I needed to get Cash out of my head before I went in.

“Because he wants you back,” Vince said. “Because you were the best thing that ever happened to him. Because you’re funny and kind and smart and hot and terrific in bed, and any guy would want you, dummy. And you’re honest. To a fault, which I really like. You coming in here or not?”

“I don’t want him asking me out,” I said. “I don’t want him in my life.”

“Want me to talk to him?”

“No.” I went toward the door.

“You staying the night?” he said when I went past him, brushing his naked chest with my naked shoulder.

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