Page 134 of Hot & Heavy

"You knew I would come back eventually."

"Oh, really? And how in hell was I supposed to know that?" He barely restrained himself from reaching over and shaking her. "For all I knew, you could be dead."

"I told you I love you. Didst think I say that to everyone… or anyone, for that matter? You should have known I would not leave you."

She still loves me. Oh, God! I should not care, but I do. I want to wring her neck and kiss her at the same time. "What planet do you come from?"

"No planet. Just time—"

"Don't even say it. I am not in the mood for that time-travel crap."

She shrugged, as if to suggest that time-travel needn't be an important issue between them. Then she sniffed several times and said, pointing to their dishes, "Is that garlic I smell?"

Huh? "Yeah, there's some garlic in this salad." Actually, there was quite a bit, now that she mentioned it.

She did the oddest thing then. She clapped a hand over her mouth as she began to retch. Then she ran away from them, presumably to find a ladies' room.

He looked at Laura. She looked at him. "Go," she said.

Placing a twenty on the table, he squeezed her hand and said, "Thanks. And, for the record, she's not my wife."

Laura grinned at him. "She should be."

He grinned back. "Yeah."

Halfway down the block, he caught up with Maddie, who was heading into an alley. He grabbed one hand, the one that still clutched the shopping bag, and stopped her so that she turned to face him. She still had one hand over her mouth.

"Are you sick?" She does look kind of pale.

She shook her head, took several deep breaths, then said, "It was just the garlic."

"Garlic? I thought maybe it was me." Maybe I should apologize. I don't know what for, but I'll say I'm sorry for just about anything if she'll come back. How pathetic is that?

She didn't react to his words. "Ever since those terrorists kidnapped me and did so much cooking with garlic, I have developed this… reaction."

Oh. Well, I'll be damned if I'll apologize for garlic. Even I am not that pathetic. He had backed her up against the brick wall in the alley. She smelled like flowers… the same scent that had hit him the last night he'd been with her. She'd told him it was body lotion. "I've never heard of garlic doing that to a person."

"You look awful," she said.

"Thanks a bunch."

"There are circles under your eyes and you look thinner."

"Well, you look great. In fact, you're glow…" His words trailed off as the most bizarre idea occurred to him, and several facts flipped through his mind like a deck of cards: how glowing she'd looked walking down the street, and how white her face was now; and the retching.

Is it possible?

Nah!

But what if… ?

"Why are looking at me so funny?"

He linked his fingers with hers and said, "Come with me."

The whole time as he dragged her along to the drug store and selected and paid for his purchase, she berated him, "You are such a low-down, good-for-nothing weasel. What were you doing with that woman? Oh! You had better not have tupped her. If you tupped her, I just might lop off your head.

Better yet, another body part. Where are we going? You are walking too fast. I'm hungry of a sudden.