I shivered.

One of his hands slid over my ass while the other one held tight at my waist.

“I love your ass,” he murmured in my ear. “I’ve always loved your ass.”

His words shivered through me. I had no idea he loved my ass, the very thought thrilled me to the core, so much so, I kissed him for all I was worth.

I heard him groan under my kiss and that thrilled me too.

The phone was ringing again and the thing on the night table vibrated and clattered. Lee’s hand was in my underwear and my hand was at his belly, exploring his washboard abs on a downward descent.

Then the door buzzer went, three quick buzzes and then a longer one.

Lee’s hand stilled.

“Fuck!” he clipped from behind clenched teeth.

“What?”

He flipped me on my back as if I weighed no more than a sack of feathers and gave me a quick kiss.

“Don’t f**king move,” he warned and angled out of bed.

He grabbed a pair of jeans before he walked to the door and I watched him go, frozen solid and fascinated by my first, unadulterated view of his perfect, na**d body including the particularly generous gift with which God had chosen fit to endow him.

At the sight and the realization that I was sleeping next to a na**d Liam Nightingale, I’m not embarrassed to admit, I think I had a mini-orgasm.

I heard voices, tried to get my body back under my control (and failed) but then in mere moments, Lee came back into the room.

He walked straight to the bed and hauled me out. I slammed against him and he kissed me, hard and deep, but unfortunately not long.

“I have to go,” he told me.

I wanted to scream, “No!” I was beginning to get seriously hot and bothered, he’d just admitted he loved my ass and always had, and I wanted to explore his God-given talents.

Instead, I just kept holding on to his shoulders because that was all I was capable of doing after his kiss.

He smiled.

Damn the man.

“I’ll pick you up at Fortnum’s as soon as I can. Promise me in the meantime you won’t get into trouble.”

I nodded my head.

He stared at me a second, then sighed.

“You’re lying.”

“No I’m not,” I replied.

“Just don’t do anything too stupid.”

As if!

He brushed his lips against mine. He let me go, headed straight to the bathroom, took a shower, dressed and left.

I called and asked Ally to come pick me up.

We had a long, busy day ahead of us if we were going to find Rosie.

Chapter Six

Kinky Friedman Zone

I decided to drag Jane into the search, in fact, I decided to drag everyone into the search.

We spent the morning waiting on coffee customers, the one person who actually wanted to buy a book and making phone calls to everyone we knew putting an APB out on both Rosie and Duke.

Regardless of her first shock at seeing the state of my face (I had a mini-shiner, not a full-blown black eye but a killer bruise on my cheekbone and yellow discoloring under the eye), Jane was excited. Jane thought this was fun. Jane had not been shot at or stunned-gunned (yet). She read romances but she also read mysteries and detective novels. She was in the Kinky Friedman zone.

Jane headed off to Evergreen after the morning rush to put a note under Duke’s door, telling him to call me the minute he got home (with a little PS to Dolores, inviting her to Girl’s Night Out next Wednesday).

I had decided that the morning’s weakness with Lee was temporary insanity and the aftereffects of sake. I was back to my decision that Lee and I weren’t a good idea. Most especially if he could (and would) leave me hot and bothered for whatever scary shit he did for a living. I knew my control was slipping but I had a new plan. All I had to do was not end up in his car, his company, his condo and especially his bed. That was the extent of my new plan.

The minute Jane left, I called Rosie’s parents in North Dakota. He had them as next of kin on his employment records. In order not to freak them out, I pretended I was an old friend from high school, calling to catch up.

“Isn’t that a funny coincidence?” Rosie’s Mom said. “Two nice gentlemen came around yesterday saying the same thing!”

I glanced at Ally with my “uh-oh” face and she returned an eyebrow raise.

Either it was Lee or it was Terry Wilcox. One spelled disaster for me and the other spelled disaster for Rosie.

I gave my name and number, disconnected and told Ally.

“Probably Lee, he has ways,” she decided.

Great.

“Tell me again why we’re doing this?” she asked.

“Lee and I have a bet, the kind of bet I don’t wanna lose.” It wasn’t a total lie. If Lee found Rosie, I would lose a lot, peace of mind, my grip on reality, things like that.

“So you bet Lee you’d find Rosie before he did and return a bag of diamonds to a bad guy?” Ally stared at me like I’d just had half my brain sucked out by brain-eaters.

“Yep.”

“Girl,” she drawled, “you’re so gonna lose.”

Lucky for me, Ally was into the underdog.

The door to Fortnum’s burst open and Andrea Cocetti stormed in.

Andrea was at school with Ally and me and she was in our pack. Rumor had it that Andrea made out with Richie Sambora backstage after a Bon Jovi concert but this had never been publicly confirmed or denied (privately, though, she admitted to both Ally and I that it didn’t happen and thus, in secret, I reigned supreme with my Joe Perry encounter).

We’d stayed friends over the years but didn’t see each other often. Andrea got married about twelve minutes after we graduated and now had four kids. Four kids, especially hellions like Andrea’s, were a good reason not to see each other that often.

Now, Andrea was Andrea Moran. She was pushing a stroller, dragging a child alongside her, while an older one followed, carrying a purse the size of an overnight bag and a diaper bag stuffed full to bursting, all this done with such practiced ease, it was as if they were all merely accessories, including the children.

“You hooked up with Lee Nightingale!” she shrieked, causing the four customers who were calmly sitting around reading and enjoying their coffees in quiet surroundings to jump and stare. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

Over the years, Andrea, too, had been drafted in some of my Lee Maneuvers. Andrea, too, was on Kitty Sue Nightingale’s Christmas Card List and therefore in her address book and therefore, no doubt, received a call. Perhaps, considering a day had passed, during the second wave.