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"Did you see Kathy Bates in Misery?" he asked as the legs of his chair hit the floor. "She was scary as hell." He reached for another sandwich and took a bite.
"Yes she was, Mr. Man."
He laughed and swallowed. "So you quit your job and moved to Gospel because a psycho nut killed his family?"
That was one reason. "I quit because I could no longer tell myself that the people I tracked down were lowlifes and deserved to be found and that I was somehow better."
"You came here for a change just like me," he said as if it was fact.
"Maybe."
"Do you think you'll ever go back?"
"To detective work?" She shook her head.
"To Vegas?"
She thought a moment. Vegas had chewed her to pieces and spit her out, but sometimes she really missed the bright lights of the big city that truly never slept. "Maybe. I've spent a lot of my life there. That's where I graduated my last year of high school, and I went to ULV. That's where I used to party like a rock star and later got my PI license. It always felt like home to me. Maybe it will again."
Rob polished off his sandwich and hers, then he took her back upstairs. They had sex against the granite wall of his shower, taking care of fantasy number nine hundred and ninety-six. Afterward, he dried her off and they watched the ten o'clock news. He fell into an exhausted sleep during the weather report.
Kate removed his arm from her waist and gathered her shoes and underwear. She looked at him one last time, asleep within the tangle of sheets and the sliver of moonlight pouring across the bed. She walked downstairs and pulled her dress over her head. She stepped into her shoes and shoved her panties and bra into her little black bag.
Then she left, quietly shutting the door behind her, because that's what you did with a fantasy man. You left before you did something stupid like spend the night. Before you could fool yourself into thinking that what you had was real.
Rob walked into the M &S the next morning, and his gaze instantly sought Kate. She stood behind the counter ringing up items from a blue plastic basket for Regina Cladis. She looked good. Good like something he wanted to toss over his shoulder and carry home. The older woman said something and Kate laughed, a warm, amused sound that seeped between his rib bones and lodged in his chest.
"Morning, Rob," Stanley called out to him from his position at the coffee machine.
"Hello, Stanley."
"Hey, Rob," Dillon Taber said from behind his coffee mug.
"Hey, Sheriff. How's it goin'?" Rob asked as he walked through the store to the counter.
"Can't complain."
Kate looked up at him. The corners of her mouth curved just a little, as if she was trying very hard not to smile. She wore a white shirt that closed with laces across her breasts and had some sort of black thing beneath it. The shirt wasn't real tight, and it didn't show off anything fun, but it still managed to be sexy as all hell.
"You should try the jalapeno jelly," he told Regina as he moved behind her in line. "It's really good."
"That's what Kate says." Regina turned and squinted at him through her thick glasses. "But I'm going to pass."
"Okay, but yesterday I saw Iona fighting with Ada over ajar."
Her magnified eyes narrowed. "Why would they fight over the same jar?"
He hadn't thought of that. "Who knows what drives some women to drop their gloves."
"Huh?"
"Here's your change, Regina," Kate said through a smile that she could no longer contain.
As soon as the older woman grabbed her bag and walked away, Rob took her place at the counter. "We need to talk about somethin', babe."
Her smile flattened. "You're calling me babe again."
"I know." He placed his hands on the counter and leaned closer. "Do you want to talk here, or somewhere more private?"
