Dying to Please Read online

  “She was named after the two grandmothers, Devonna and Darnelle. Which one would you like to be called?”

  “DeeDee, hands down.”

  “No joke. Dudley, now—his real name is Thane—is a state cop, so he wears the Do-Right uniform. Between the two of them, they've made me an uncle five times. DeeDee's the oldest, by two years. I'm thirty-six, by the way.”

  “You don't have any kids?”

  “No, thank God. That's the only good thing about my divorce, that we didn't have any kids whose lives we wrecked. The rest of the family always thought I was a slacker for not reproducing, but now they're glad, too.”

  “What about your parents?”

  “They thought I was a slacker, too.”

  She punched his arm. “Smart aleck.”

  He grinned, then frowned a little and rubbed his arm. “Ow. You pack a punch.”

  “I pulled it. You're just a wuss.” Yeah, right. His arm was so hard, she could have seriously damaged her knuckles. “Your parents,” she prompted.

  “They live in Kentucky. They had a reason for moving there, but I don't know what it was.”

  “What's wrong with Kentucky?”

  “It snows there.”

  “What's wrong with snow?”

  “I've been a patrol cop, you know. Have you ever seen what happens down here when it snows?”

  She began to laugh, because one inch of snow could and did cause havoc with traffic. Southerners didn't deal well with snow; it was a giant headache for patrol cops, with all the accidents. For someone who had spent one memorable winter in upstate New York, the alarm caused by a snow flurry down here was hilarious.

  Abruptly she noticed that they were heading south, away from town. “Where are we going?”

  “How do you feel about high school baseball?”

  She paused. “Is that a rhetorical question, or are you telling me something?”

  “One of my cousins has a game tonight, a doubleheader. We'll miss the first game, but by the time we get something to eat and get to the field, we should be just in time for the second game. JoJo plays shortstop.”

  JoJo was evidently the cousin. “I like baseball, but this jacket isn't heavy enough for sitting out for hours in the cold.”

  “I have a blanket behind the seat, a thick wool one. We can cuddle on the bleachers, and with the blanket wrapped around us no one will know if I sneak a feel every now and then.”

  “I'll know.”

  “God, I hope so. If you don't, then I've either lost my touch or my aim.”

  Maybe a public place was the safest place to be with him. “All right,” she said. “I'm willing. We can even grab a hot dog at the game if you want to catch some of the first one.”

  “I knew you were good folk,” he said happily.

  Sitting on cold bleachers on a chilly night, surrounded by yelling, laughing, chatting parents and siblings, a few teachers, and clumps of students, turned out to be more fun than she remembered from the days when Daniel and Noel had played baseball. For one thing, Cahill's cousins—there were about ten of them there—were all loony. She had to wonder if the sense of humor was a family trait. For another, cuddling under that blanket with him was . . . more than fun.

  The king-size blanket, as he promised, was thick wool. He wrapped it around both of them before they even sat down, so even her legs were protected from the chill. His body heat and the blanket combined to keep her toasty warm, even though the April night was so chilly their breaths fogged. He was pressed all along her left side, his hard thigh rubbing hers, and he kept his right arm around her except for those times when he felt compelled to leap to his feet and yell insults at the home plate umpire who, as it turned out, was yet another cousin.

  A few times he even managed to cop a feel, as he had promised. The caress was subtle, just his thumb rubbing against the side of her right breast, but it was deliberate and she knew it. The first time it happened, she glanced sharply up at him to find him innocently watching the game, a slight smile tugging at the corners of his mouth. She retaliated by trailing her left hand up his thigh, oh, so slowly, stopping just south of the bull's-eye. He tensed, the smile leaving his mouth, and though he kept his gaze on the game, he had that unfocused look that told her he'd lost track of the action on the field.

  She felt terribly naughty, doing such things in public, even though they were wrapped like mummies in that wonderful blanket and no one could tell a thing. She wanted to forget about teasing him and go for the gold with a stroke that would make his eyes roll back in his head; she wanted to twist her body a little so his hand was fully cupping her breast.

  She didn't have to twist her body. He managed just fine without her help.

  She caught her breath at the warm pressure of his hand, at the stroke of his thumb over her nipple. It didn't matter that the triple layers of bra, shirt, and jacket protected her skin from his touch; her breasts tightened, her nipples drawing into hard little peaks, and her entire lower body clenched in response.

  “Are you okay?” he asked, his tone casual, as if he were asking if she was cold.

  She really, really wanted to grab him, but squeezing a man's genitals on the first date was way out of her league. She settled for burrowing her right hand inside his shirt and pulling his chest hair. Hard. He couldn't control a flinch.

  “I'm a little hot,” she said, just as casually. “Maybe we can loosen the blanket.”

  “Good idea,” he said, sounding a little strangled now, and they both shrugged the blanket down to their waists. They resorted to coffee to fight the chill for the remainder of the ball game.

  Because he had to work the next day, after the game was over he drove her straight home. When he kissed her good night, she was smart enough to hold his hands while he did. He was grinning when he lifted his head. “I haven't had my hands held during a kiss since high school.”

  “I haven't been groped at a ball game since high school, either.”

  “It was fun, wasn't it?”

  She found herself smiling. “Yeah, it was.”

  “Do you have plans for tomorrow night? And every night this week?”

  “You're asking me out every night?”

  “I have to wear you down. How else am I going to get to second base without getting tagged out? Here's the agenda: tomorrow night we go bowling—”

  “Bowling?”

  “Cosmic bowling. It's a hoot.”

  She didn't bother asking what cosmic bowling was. “What about Wednesday?”

  “Movie.”

  “Thursday?”

  “Symphony.”

  From the ridiculous to the sublime. She shook her head in amazement; at least she wouldn't be bored. “Friday?”

  “I'm hoping by that time we'll have moved on to the wild monkey sex.”

  She hooted with laughter, and he smiled as he leaned against the doorjamb. “Is it a date?” he asked. “Or dates.”

  “Up until Friday.”

  “We'll see,” he said, and whistled as he walked back to his truck.

  He was positively Machiavellian.

  CHAPTER 15

  THERE WAS AN ARTICLE IN THE NEWSPAPER TUESDAY MORNING under the headline LACK OF EVIDENCE HAMPERS POLICE IN MOUNTAIN BROOK MURDER. Cahill grunted in disgust as he read the article.

  The Mountain Brook Police Department is offering no information other than “no comment” on their investigation into the murder of retired federal Judge Lowell Roberts. The investigation seems to have stalled, and concerned citizens are wondering if the department, which hasn't investigated a murder in five years, is experienced enough to handle this type of case.

  “That's bullshit,” he growled, tossing the paper onto his desk. All of the investigators in the detective division were pissed. The lieutenant was pissed. Basically, everyone was pissed. The investigation was stalled, all right, but it had nothing to do with incompetence or lack of experience. If the idiot who wrote that article had done his research, he'd have known th