“It’s hilarious. That, particularly, was my favorite part.”

“I’m so glad you enjoyed it,” I said, sounding snotty.

He touched his lips to mine. “Let’s get you home.”

Whatever.

He let me go and got on the bike. I got on behind him.

He leaned back, grabbed my wrists and wrapped my arms tight around him.

I put my chin to his shoulder and we took off.

* * * * *

Sometime in the dead of night, I didn’t feel the bed move when Vance got in it but I did wake when his warmth hit me from shoulders to heels.

“Hey,” I mumbled.

“Hey,” he replied softly, “go back to sleep.”

I felt Boo walking up the bed and then heard him slip off the side to the platform with an I-meant-to-do-that meow.

“It was Nick,” I told Vance, still half-asleep.

“Sorry?”

“Nick made me cry. He approves of you, like, a lot.”

Vance’s arm tightened around me and drew me deeper into his body.

“Go back to sleep, Jules,” Vance whispered into my hair.

“Okay.”

I snuggled in and then fell asleep.

Chapter Twenty-Six

Shrink-Wrapped

The next morning I woke up before Vance and I tried my new skill of waking him with a kiss. This time I decided to put my lips on other parts of his anatomy.

I was left in little doubt that he appreciated my creativity.

We were showered, dressed and in the kitchen eating bowls of Cream of Wheat that I prepared because you could cook Cream of Wheat in the microwave. Vance was sitting on the kitchen counter. I was standing with a hip leaned partially into the counter, partially into Vance’s knee. Boo was sitting in front of us, tail sweeping the floor in a wide arc, staring at our bowls with greedy eyes.

“What’s on for your day?” Vance asked.

I looked up at him and gulped down a bite of Cream of Wheat. “Shelter. Then I should go talk to Heavy, Frank and Zip, tell them the party’s over.”

“Good idea.”

I had one more thing on my agenda that was waiting for my period to come. Vance and I were moving fast but not fast enough for me to share that.

Instead I said, somewhat wistfully, “I’m gonna miss the street.”

“You left it in good hands.” Vance’s lips weren’t smiling but his eyes were.

“How’s that?” I asked.

“Jack told me a dealer’s entire car was shrink-wrapped the other night.”

I felt my eyes widen. “What?”

“Tex shrink-wrapped a dealer’s BMW. Wrapped the whole thing in plastic wrap and then used a portable blow drier on it to tighten the plastic. Word has it, it was several layers deep.”

I was thankful I didn’t have a mouthful of Cream of Wheat or it would have come out my nose, I laughed so hard.

“Tex is a nut,” I said when I was done laughing.

“Tex is a nut,” Vance agreed.

“What’s on for your day?” I asked.

“Never know where the day’ll take me,” he replied.

I sighed and leaned into his knee. “That’d be nice.” I took another bite of Cream of Wheat.

“Jules?”

“What?” I asked with my mouth full (Auntie Reba would have had a conniption). Then I swallowed.

“Wherever it takes me, good to know in the end, it’ll lead back to you.”

Luckily I had swallowed because my mouth dropped open.

Vance watched me a beat and said, “If you f**kin’ freak out, I’m cuffin’ you to the bed.”

My mouth snapped shut. “Indy says that doesn’t work,” I informed him snottily.

He watched me another beat again openly surprised by what I shared. Then he laughed.

“That’s more than I needed to know about Lee’s relationship with Indy,” Vance said through his laughter.

Then a thought hit me. “Don’t tell anyone I told you that,” I demanded.

He grinned at me. “Why not?”

“Because it’s nobody’s business.”

“Indy told you.”

“Yes but she probably didn’t expect me to blab it to you.”

“Women talk.”

I turned away from him and put my bowl in the sink.

“Women talk! Ha!” I said. “You boys are the biggest gossips I’ve ever met.”

Vance jumped off the counter and leaned into me to put his bowl next to mine. “You ever do a shift in the surveillance room, you’ll understand. Gotta have something to break the monotony.”

I turned to him. “Well, break it with something else. I don’t want to make an enemy of Lee.”

His arms slid around me. “That’s not gonna happen.” His face came close to mine. “The cherry poppin’ conversation in your living room was the topic of conversation for days. Mace taped it and played it for the whole team.” I was back to staring at him with my mouth open and I think my heart stopped beating. “Look at this as your way of getting even,” he finished.

“That’s it!” I declared. “No cookies for Mace. I don’t care if he did beat someone up for me.”

I felt Vance’s body move against mine with laughter. Still laughing, he touched my lips with his own and said, “Gotta go.”

“Fine,” I grumbled.

He grinned, ignoring my grumble. “I get done in time, I’ll make dinner.”

“Fine,” I was still not over the fact that the cherry popping conversation was taped and used for the Nightingale Investigation Team’s amusement. Then another thought struck me. “If Dawn ever sees that tape –”

The laughter went out of his eyes. “Dawn is never gonna see that tape.”

At that, I smiled.

Vance smiled back, grabbed the cookies and then he was gone.

Then I remembered something and, probably too late, I yelled, “Don’t forget! No cookies for Mace!”

I heard the backdoor slam.

* * * * *

That afternoon still with no sign of my monthly visitor, who always came on time and was never late, I called Vance (though, not to give him a progress report on my monthly visitor).

“Yeah?” he answered.

“Hey,” I said.

“I was just gonna call you,” he told me.

“You making dinner?” I asked.

“Don’t think so, I’m in New Mexico.” My body went still and Vance kept talking. “I’m after a skip.”

I didn’t know what to say. It wasn’t often that you were standing in your kitchen in Denver with someone, calmly eating Cream of Wheat in the morning and in the afternoon, without warning, they were in New Mexico.