To Die For

them we were seeing each other?”

“Yeah. Because we are.”

“That’s debatable-”

“We’re living together. We’re sleeping together. How in hell is it debatable whether or not we’re seeing each other?”

“Because we haven’t started dating yet and this is just temporary. Will you stop interrupting me? My point is, who were you seeing that you dropped like a hot potato to chase after me?”

He ground his teeth for a few seconds. I know because I could hear them. Then he said, “What makes you think I was seeing anyone?”

I rolled my eyes. “Oh, please. You know you’re to die for. You probably have women lined up.”

“I don’t have women- You think I’m to die for, huh?”

Now he sounded pleased. I wanted to beat my head against the dash, only it would hurt and I had enough aches and pains at the moment. “Wyatt!” I yelled. “Who were you dating?”

“No one in particular.”

“It doesn’t have to be ‘in particular’; it just has to be dating. Because some women have unrealistic expectations, you know. One date and they’re picking out a wedding gown. So who was the last person you dated, and who maybe thought there was something serious going on, then went totally postal when you followed me to the beach? Had you been on a date last Thursday, the night Nicole was killed?” Notice how I slipped that in, because I’d been wondering.

By this time we had reached his house, and he slowed to turn in to the driveway. “No, that night I’d been teaching a women’s self-defense class,” he said absently, to my great satisfaction. “I don’t think your theory holds water because it’s been… God, almost two months since I’ve gone out with anyone. My social life hasn’t been as hot as you evidently think.”

“This last person you were with. Did you go out with her more than once?”

“A couple of times, yeah.” He pulled into the garage.

“Did you sleep with her?”

He gave me an impatient look. “I see where this little interrogation is going now. No, I didn’t sleep with her. And, trust me, we didn’t click.”

“You didn’t, but maybe she did.”

“No,” he repeated. “She didn’t. Instead of digging into my past, you should be thinking about your own. You’re a flirt, and some man might have thought you were serious-”

“I’m not a flirt! Stop trying to throw this back on me.”

He came around and opened the car door for me, leaning in to scoop me up in his arms so my stiff and sore muscles wouldn’t have to go to the effort of climbing out of the car, then gently setting me on my feet. “You’re a flirt,” he said grimly. “You can’t help it. It’s in your genes.”

He had a lot of “f” words to describe me, and I was getting tired of hearing them. Yes, I flirt occasionally, but that doesn’t make me a flirt. Nor am I fluffy. I don’t think of myself as a lightweight person, and Wyatt was making me sound like the most frivolous-another “f” word-nitwit walking.

“And now you’re pouting,” he said, rubbing his thumb over my lower lip, which might have started to stick out just the tiniest bit. Then he bent and kissed me, a slow, warm kiss that for some reason really melted me, maybe because I knew there was no way he was going anywhere with it, and he knew it, too, so that meant he was kissing me just to kiss me, not to get me into bed.

“What was that for?” I asked a tad peevishly, to hide the fact that I’d melted, when he lifted his mouth.

“Because you’ve had a bad day,” he said, and did it again. I sighed and relaxed against him, because, yes, I’d had a very bad day. This time when the kiss was over, he held me close for a moment, his cheek resting on top of my head. “Leave the police work to us,” he said. “Unless you all of a sudden remember a deadly enemy who’s been threatening to kill you, in which case, I definitely want to hear about it.”

I pulled back and scowled at him. “Meaning I’m such a dumb blond I wouldn’t remember something like that right away?”

He sighed. “I didn’t say that. I wouldn’t say it, because you aren’t dumb. You’re a lot of things, but dumb isn’t one of them.”

“Oh, yeah? Just what ‘things’ am I?” I was feeling truculent, because I was hurt and scared and I had to take it out on someone, didn’t I? Wyatt was a big boy; he could handle it.

“Frustrating,” he said, and I almost kicked him, because he’d come up with another “f” word. “Annoying. Stubborn. Slick, because you use the dumb-blond routine when you think it’ll get you what you want, and I figure it usually does. Your thought processes scare the hell out of me. Reckless. Funny. Sexy. Adorable.” He touched my cheek, his hand gentle. “Definitely adorable. And this is not temporary.”

Man, I wasn’t the only slick one around, was I? I’d been on the verge of a major snit; then he’d undercut me with the last three items. So he found me adorable, huh? That’s a good thing to know, so I decided to ignore that part about this not being temporary. He leaned down and kissed me again, then added, “To die for.”

I blinked at him. “That’s a girl thing to say. Guys shouldn’t say it.”

He straightened. “Why not?”

“It’s too girlie. You should say something macho, like ‘I’d take a bullet for you.’ See the difference?”

He was fighting a grin. “Got it. C’mon, let’s go inside.”

I sighed. I had two bread puddings to make, and I didn’t really feel like it, but a promise is a promise. No, the people at the police department didn’t know I was making it, but I had mentally promised it to them, so there you go.

Wyatt got the doughnuts and condensed milk from the backseat, then unlocked his trunk and took out a burlap bag with green strings hanging from it. He closed the trunk, frowning at the burlap bag.

“What’s that?” I asked.

“I told you I’d get you a bush. Here it is.”

I stared at the poor bedraggled plant. The green strings had to be its limp little limbs. “What will I do with a bush?”

“You said the house didn’t have a single plant in it, like that somehow made it unlivable or something. So here’s your plant.”

“That isn’t a houseplant! That’s shrubbery. You bought shrubbery for me?”

“A plant’s a plant. Put it in the house and it’s a houseplant.”

“You are so clueless,” I snapped, reaching to take the poor thing from him. “You’ve had it in your trunk all day in this heat? You’ve cooked it. It may not live. Maybe I can revive it, though, with some TLC. Open the door, will you? You bought some food for it, didn’t you?”

He unlocked the door before he answered with a cautious, “Plants eat?”

I gave him an incredulous look. “Of course plants eat. If anything’s alive, it eats.” Then I looked at the plant I held and shook my head. “This poor thing may never eat again, though.”

My injured arm was protesting holding the weight of the plant, even though I was using my right arm to do most of the work and was mostly balancing the thing with my left hand. I could have given it to Wyatt, but I didn’t trust him with it. He’d already proven himself capable of major plant brutality.

While he was bringing in my bags, I had the plant in the sink, gently spraying it with cool water in an attempt to revive it. “I need a bucket,” I told him. “Something you won’t miss, because I’m going to poke holes in the bottom.”

He was in the process of fetching a blue plastic mop bucket from the laundry, but he paused at my last words. “Why are you going to ruin a perfectly good bucket?”

“Because you have abused this plant to the point that it may not live.