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  But she’d told him she didn’t want one.

  Which was probably another reason he’d scooted out of here.

  Still, why be depressed when she’d had such a great time? She didn’t want a man, remember? And a man still wouldn’t fit in her life, with Michael acting so weird and the Cayenne guy out there.

  At least Michael was staying home today. Hunched over his computer, but that was normal for him. Spending time with his new friends did seem to make him less normal. Then about three in the afternoon, she heard him talking to someone downstairs. Had his friends come to the house?

  She wasn’t dressed to face anyone. She was dressed for plumbing the depths of poetic negativity, but she didn’t want to miss meeting his new friends. She ran down the stairs.

  Michael was at the front door talking to someone, all right, but the man on the porch, carrying two full grocery bags, was Wes.

  *

  When Wes saw Annie come into the living room, all the mixed up feelings that had been beating him crazy all day—all the wishing he’d never found Michael at the mall or, even better, had been assigned to a completely different case far away—slid right out of his mind. The sinking in his gut, that was forgotten too, replaced by much more pleasurable stirrings. Because he was glad to see her again, no matter how peculiar the circumstances.

  She was clearly not expecting company, wearing what looked like a man’s plaid boxers and a baggy gray T-shirt with a faded but still homely image of Joey Ramone, and no bra. He was pretty sure about the no-bra part, and it gave him such a rush of delight that he was glad he hadn’t called ahead and told her he was on his way here, something he’d debated doing.

  But it hadn’t been necessary since both her Subaru and her bike were still sending their GPS coordinates from her garage. He’d known she was home.

  By arriving unannounced, he’d also caught her tangle of red curls just as messy as when he left. This made him want to run his hands through those curls because even though they looked kind of like a Brillo pad, he’d found they were in fact sensuously soft. Just as she’d turned out to be much softer than he’d thought.

  But she didn’t look as if she wanted his fingers twining through her hair.

  He gave her a grin that usually smoothed women who had become ruffled up—he knew it was going to take some work to get her past his botched morning exit—and he headed for the kitchen before she could stop him. “I checked with my partner,” he called over his shoulder. “Think I got all the steps figured out. You like enchiladas?”

  “I like enchiladas,” Michael said. So Annie couldn’t throw him out, could she?

  Wes maneuvered his bags through the clutter of the dining room with its mountains of junk mail, some of it slowly slithering down the slopes like glaciers, and he kept up a steady stream of dazzle about the enchiladas. Then at the kitchen table he pulled from the bags onions, tomatoes, and four kinds of peppers—spices too since he’d found so few in her kitchen—announcing each ingredient until she began to look a little less miffed.

  When he stopped for breath, she said, as he’d hoped, “You’re going to make them from scratch?”

  “And you’ll never buy a can of enchilada sauce again.”

  “Aren’t they awfully complicated?”

  “That’s why I’m here so early. Dinner’s at six.”

  When he pulled out the Masa Harina and the tortilla press, she was definitely mellowing and suitably impressed.

  “You’re going to make the tortillas from scratch too?”

  “And it’ll be all we can do to wrap them up into enchiladas,” he said, “instead of eating them straight from the frying pan.”

  Michael had picked up the tortilla press and was opening and closing it. “You smash the dough in here? Can I do that?”

  “Sure,” said Wes. “That’s your job.”

  And finally, Annie gave him a smile. It was her wide happy smile which went straight to her green eyes squeezing them almost shut. He liked some of her others more, like the wicked one she did when she danced, showing him her stuff, or even better, the soft, heavy-lidded one that came when he touched her right. At least she was over her initial snit, and maybe she was coming to realize that he’d had to hurry off this morning because he’d had business to do.

  He took care of some of that business right now, while she was reading the labels on the spices. He reached under the edge of the table and peeled off the microphone. He dropped it into the pocket of his shorts, which wasn’t a total solution, but it was all he could do with her standing right here. Later he would take care of it in a more permanent way.

  *

  Annie looked at all the different kinds of peppers, some bright orange, some shiny dark green, some twisted like old roots, and she couldn’t believe she’d spent the day in such a funk. Of course, Wes had come back. She’d seen the pleasure in his eyes, the gasp of surprise when her own pleasure had pushed them both past the point where maybe he’d been just following a script he’d followed many times before. Then neither of them had been in control—she knew this had been true for her. She was pretty sure it had been true for him, and he was probably used to staying in control.

  Her silliness over the way he’d left this morning had been exactly that, silliness, maybe due to some hormonal blip. He was a successful businessman, so he’d had calls to make, and emails to send, maybe some just as bothersome as the ones she’d had to send today.

  True, she’d come up with all sorts of reasons for not wanting him back—when she hadn’t thought she’d ever see him again—but the major problem she’d had with men in the past, their possessiveness, the way they seemed to think her music and her fans were in competition with them, he wasn’t going to be like that. He would want her to work as hard as ever on her music. In fact, she suspected he wouldn’t ask for anything more than a few more nights like last night.

  Plus he was so good with Michael. He was starting to mix up the masa now and talking to Michael about the texture of it and how to run the press. As she watched him work the dough, with long-fingered, sinewy hands—he could play a guitar or a piano if he chose—she decided she was attracted to him precisely because neither of them would expect commitment. Until he headed back to Seattle, she could just enjoy the way those long-fingered hands played on her. Maybe she could learn a thing or two from Buzzard about sex.

  She was as tough as Buzzard. Just forget all those messy feelings. Call it love lite.

  “You guys seem to have this figured out,” she said. “How about some cooking music.”

  *

  When Annie came back to the kitchen, her hair wasn’t quite such a tousled mess—a bedroom mess as Wes liked to think of it—and she was wearing a bra. But he wasn’t too disappointed. Now she had on a black T-shirt from some band he’d never heard of—probably one she’d played with on the road—and it was not only much more form-fitting than the Joey Ramone, it didn’t reach all the way to her navel. Plus she wore hip-hugging shorts, possibly the same jean shorts she’d worn in the record store, frayed to the point of near-indecency. This made it hard for him to concentrate on the enchiladas. Maybe that was why they didn’t turn out as moist as the ones Hector’s mother made whenever he and Hector visited her in San Antonio.

  Still, they were a big hit.

  The music was toned down from the night before. No wild dancing jammed in the midst of all that old-lady furniture. But this was good in that Michael left earlier for bed.

  Then Annie was clearly happy to go upstairs again.

  As Wes followed her up the stairs—slivers of moon peeking below her shorts right in front of him—he thought maybe he’d been hooked on her as soon as she’d stomped on Hector’s foot. Yes, he liked that side of her—the smart, bold side. But later, when he first sank into her warmth, and she caught her breath but kept her eyes open, stilled him with her eyes, grabbed his hips and stilled them both, he knew he was totally hooked on the way she made love.

  He’d thought he’
d known what to expect in that department. No more surprises. But the way she held him like that, in that first rush of heat and joining—until it was almost excruciating, and he couldn’t wait anymore—she was a surprise. Subtly and wonderfully different from any woman he’d ever been with before.

  She wasn’t clever in bed the way some women were. She wasn’t trying to impress him with her skills. She wasn’t manipulating him for her pleasure either. She was just fully there, going with him, taking him with her, so that he couldn’t think about impressing her, or manipulating her. He couldn’t think at all.

  Later, when he rested by her, emptied and filled all at the same time, feeling the smoothness of her skin where their bodies were still intertwined, he tried to describe her difference and decided it was much like what he heard in her music, the honesty and intensity, the many layers of feelings under the loud, raw sound, the way it grabbed you and held you, captured both body and mind.

  So maybe what he was doing with her was against regulations—in fact, disturbingly weird. Still, there was no doubt he wanted to keep doing it. And he’d found five mics—although none in her bedroom, thank God. He’d moved them all to the garage. That way maybe it would take a while for whoever had put them here to figure out they weren’t working anymore.

  But who had put them here? If his boss was lying to him, what he’d done might cost him his job. If his boss wasn’t lying, then who but the people Annie worked for would want to bug her house? He’d noticed a white van parked on her street that might be involved in surveillance. A blue pickup truck seemed to be manned too.

  So her bosses didn’t trust her?

  If he succeeded in using her to bring them down, what would they do to her?

  Her eyes were closed now, her hair a red cloud on the pillow they shared. He took in the spicy scent of her, the graceful bend of her neck only inches away, that enticing V of freckles that led to the roundness of her breasts—which weren’t very large but so perfectly shaped—and he knew what he had to do.

  He would free her from her dangerous job, but somehow he would also keep her safe from both his bosses and hers.

  Chapter 15

  Annie had never expected this, and she wasn’t sure it was a good idea—for Wes. Even though the Cayenne hadn’t reappeared, she was beginning to think there was a stakeout on her street. Maybe two. Had both the DEA and the FBI traced the LSD to her, and since they didn’t talk to each other—she’d heard this might be true—they’d set up competing stakeouts? The DEA in the white van that she didn’t think belonged to any of her neighbors, and the FBI in the blue pickup, or vice versa.

  She kept telling herself the house was clean, so even if the guys drinking coffee in those rigs decided to raid it, they would have no reason to arrest Wes. Or Uncle Michael.

  Still, it was an awkward situation. And all she’d expected, even after Wes had come back with the enchilada fixings, was a few more nights like the first one. Instead, contrary to anything she could have imagined, the guy had moved in! The day after the enchiladas, he’d gone back to his motel only long enough to pick up a laptop and a duffle bag of clothes.

  She saw this as more of his arrogance—he hadn’t asked to move in. But each time she woke to the warmth of his body against hers, the musky scent of him so close, all thoughts of how she ought to tell him to leave—for his own good, or because something always went wrong when she tried to be with a man—and why was he here anyway when he had a business in Seattle to run? Somehow all those sensible thoughts kept being shoved aside.

  So here she was, a week after the enchilada night, waking again in the golden morning light, and here he was sprawled beside her, barely covered by a sheet since the nights had become so warm. He lay on his stomach, his face half buried in a pillow and turned toward her. She studied the arc of the eyebrow she could see. He had feathery eyebrows that made him seem softer than she knew his body was. The fringe of his lashes a girl might envy and gave him a vulnerable look she suspected was totally false. She was fascinated by the way his sideburn faded into the rough shadow of his beard.

  She pushed the sheet down, starting to get up, but this uncovered the muscular curve of his shoulder and made her think she didn’t need to get up yet. She pushed the sheet further down and gently traced her fingers along the muscles from his shoulder down his back. The guy worked out. He grumphed and rolled away from her, still asleep, but now he was lying on his back. She smiled and pushed the sheet all the way to the foot of the bed.

  For a moment she just enjoyed the view of him, that wonderful male difference, the firm smoothness of his chest, the hard narrowness of his hips. She touched the soft brown hairs that sprouted on his chest and let her fingers follow the thin line of fur that led to his navel and below, watching with delight his body respond even before his eyes flashed open.

  Then he was reaching for her. What a nice way to start the day.

  Later, when they were resting again, his arms encircling her, she nestled her head into the hollow of his shoulder, and it did fit perfectly there. Suspension of memory, she thought. That was all it took. Just forget the vans and trucks and whatever on her street. Plus all the jerks she’d fallen for before, the ugly scenes when they’d broken up. Love lite was good.

  And maybe he was different from those jerks of the past.

  For instance, all the other guys she’d been with either nodded off as soon as they were done with sex, or jumped up as if they’d been caught in a compromising position. Or if they did stay awake and stayed with her, they talked about themselves. It was their plans, their dreams, or even their childhoods they wanted to talk about.

  Wes seemed to like to linger in the quiet after-times as much as she, and during those times when their bodies were still so comfortable with each other that neither of them wanted to completely separate yet, he seemed to like to talk about her.

  He hardly ever mentioned his work as a booker anymore.

  Now he pulled her deeper into the hollow of his shoulder and did it again, continuing from where they’d left off last night as if it were an ongoing conversation. “So your dad was a pilot in Nam,” he said. “Then he started his own charter business? But didn’t you say he was from Pennsylvania? Why Idaho?”

  She could feel the rumble of his voice through his chest. And she enjoyed remembering her dad. He’d been playful like Wes. Still, “I can’t believe you want to hear so much about my father,” she said.

  “I want to know all about you,” he said. “I’m fascinated, enthralled.”

  There was a hint of a smile in his voice. No one could say that with a totally straight face. But he did seem to truly listen when he asked her questions like this, so lying there cradled in the warmth of his arms with the morning light streaming in, highlighting the different shades and textures of their skin and making her feel beautiful in a way she’d never felt before, she said, “It was the survivalist thing. The back to the land thing. Idaho is supposed to be one of the few places where you won’t be annihilated in a nuclear war.”

  “Handy to know. So your folks were hippies. Did they live on a commune?”

  “For a while. I was born on one.”

  “Really. Not in a hospital?”

  She nodded, and bonked his jaw with her head.

  “I’m guessing the head-butt means yes.” He shifted a little but kept her enfolded in his arms.

  “No doctor or even a midwife,” she said, careful not to punctuate this with another sudden move. “The women just helped each other.”

  “Sounds kind of third world. But you seem to have survived.”

  “Yeah, we all survived.” And she smiled, remembering life on the commune. “There were tons of kids, babies after babies popping out. Those women must’ve been caught up in some kind of mass ovulation.”

  “One big family.”

  “It really was. When I was little. I remember these Easter egg hunts, all us kids racing through the woods. For hard-boiled eggs! When we moved into town, I found
other kids got candy eggs for Easter. We got brown eggs. They were dyed, but they were brown, so they didn’t color well at all.”

  “You got muddy-colored eggs instead of candy, poor kid.”

  He tweaked a nipple, distracting her some, but she was still too satisfied to do anything about it. She just basked in his attentiveness, this easy intimacy.

  “You stay in touch with any of your old commune family?” he asked.

  “No.” And suddenly this didn’t feel so easy anymore.

  “Your parents must’ve stayed friends with some of them.”

  She shook her head. No head clunk—he must have dodged—but she said, “Sorry,” and tried to scoot away.

  He still held her close. “None of the old commune people stayed friends with you?”

  What could she tell him? “It was kind of a mess when it all broke up. I was too little to understand, but I guess a lot of people were pissed. They’d put in money, or they’d built a house. There were debts they didn’t think they ought to have to pay.”

  “So those people who had been almost like aunts and uncles to you, and those kids who had been practically your cousins, all of them just disappeared from your life?”

  Except for Russ and Char.

  “Like I said, I was too little to think about it much, but I guess they went somewhere else to get jobs.”

  The problem with Wes’s fascination, or enthrallment, or whatever it was, was that there were big chunks of her life she couldn’t talk about. Still. Now that she was no longer delivering LSD, she’d thought she wouldn’t have to lie anymore, and that barrier of secrecy that had kept her at a distance from everyone else, even the members of her band, would disappear. Then someday—not with Wes because he would soon leave, he was just love lite—but someday she would be able to be truly close to someone.

  The next time she tried to get up, he let her go.

  *

  Michael was trying to make a gear at least three feet in diameter out of chicken wire and crepe paper flowers. This wasn’t easy to do. Especially since neither Hank nor Smith seemed interested in helping him make it the way he saw it in his mind. But they’d told him he could design the float, and he thought a float should be made of flowers. If not real ones, then crepe paper ones mounted in chicken wire. He believed this even though none of the floats in the Johnson Fourth of July Parade were ever made that way.