Lucy jumped in her car. On the drive home, her thoughts returned to Quinn. Maybe Adele and Clare were right. Maybe he was just a normal man pursuing her. Maybe she was looking for trouble.
She wove in and out of traffic and blew through a yellow light on Thirteenth and Fort, telling herself that it was safer to go through a yellow than to slam on her brakes. As she drove past the junior high she’d attended as a teenager, the rational part of her brain took the opportunity to ask her if normal men trolled for women in chat rooms. No, they didn’t. Not unless there was something wrong with them. Or…they were in it for sex.
After a few more turns, she pulled into the alley behind her house. When she was with Quinn, she didn’t get the perv or creep vibe. On the contrary. More like he had a smooth sexual energy vibe. One that she had to admit was a little mesmerizing.
She hit the garage door opener pinned to the visor and waited for the old wooden door to lift. A lot of the houses in Boise’s North End had been built around the turn of the twentieth century and still had carriage blocks by the curbs. But once Packards started rolling into town, Boiseans abandoned their carriages and built small detached garages in their backyards. Many of the single-car structures like Lucy’s were still in use because there wasn’t room for anything larger.
Lucy pulled the Beemer inside and shut the garage door. She entered the back of her house through the kitchen and tossed her purse on the tile counter. She looked out the window over the sink and into the neighbor’s backyard. Mrs. Riley was out back, pulling up plastic poinsettias and replacing them with bright tulips. Plastic, of course. She would repeat the process this coming summer and fall. Lucy had asked her once why she planted plastic flowers each season, and she had answered as if it had been the most logical thing in the world, “Why, because I like pretty things.” Which also explained why she’d painted her house bright yellow, blue, and green.
As Lucy watched Mrs. Riley work in the yard, her thoughts returned to Quinn and her date with him that evening. She was looking forward to seeing him more than she wanted to admit. More than was wise, since she didn’t even know him.
It was possible he was a plumber trying to move on after the death of his wife, but it was just as possible that he was one of the seventy percent who were online just looking for quick sex.
Lucy supposed the bigger question, and the one more difficult to answer was, why was she picking him apart only to make excuses to put him back together again? Why was she obsessing over a guy she didn’t know?
Chapter 6
“Get Ready for This” pounded the air inside the Bank of America Centre as the captains for the Idaho Steelheads and the San Diego Gulls faced off at center ice. The music stopped, the puck dropped, and the sound of hockey sticks hitting the ice filled the arena.
Game on.
Quinn looked across his shoulder at Lucy Rothschild, at her red-and-black Steelhead’s jersey and the big foam finger stuck on her hand. He’d never encountered anyone in his life who looked
“That’s what I’m talking about!” she yelled as a Gull got knocked on his ass.
Okay, so she was a little bloodthirsty, but for some strange reason, that didn’t shrivel his sac. Nor did the tape recorder jabbing the small of his back, reminding him that she just might be a psychopath who got off on watching men die.
Quinn leaned back in his seat, and the small black recorder pressed into his spine. Kurt was across town on a date with brneyedgrl, while Anita sat in the van recording the other detective. Quinn was on his own tonight, but he wasn’t real worried, the most obvious reason being that it wasn’t likely Lucy would try and kill him in an arena filled with several thousand pumped-up hockey fans. But even if they’d been alone, getting hot and sweaty in his bed, he wasn’t all that convinced Lucy was a serial killer. He just didn’t feel it in his gut. No, when he looked at her, he felt something entirely different in that general area. But just because he didn’t feel she was a killer didn’t mean he was going to rule out the possibility either.
“You suck!” a young guy a few rows up yelled as a Gull muscled the puck from a Steelhead.
Quinn didn’t know much about hockey. He was more a football guy. He’d played the game from the age of ten to eighteen and knew the rules. As far as Quinn could see, hockey was chaos on ice. It looked like a bunch of guys chasing a puck and knocking the hell out of each other when the referees weren’t looking.
“Ooow,” Quinn winced as two players collided like freight trains but managed to stay on their skates. Beside him, Lucy laughed, and her eyes lit up like a kid on Christmas.
“Lord, I love this game,” she said through a huge smile. “Especially in the play-offs when both teams are out to kill each other.”
So maybe she was more than a
“Do you come to a lot of games?” he asked above the sound of sticks hitting the ice and the rise and fall of shouting from the crowd.
“I try to see as many as possible. How about you?”
“I’ve never been before tonight.”
She turned her head, and her big blue eyes met his. She blinked as if she couldn’t quite figure out what she was seeing. Like maybe he was an alien. “Never? You’re kidding me?”
“Nope. I’m a football guy.”
“Football’s okay, I guess. But hockey is more fun to watch.”
“It looks chaotic.”
“It’s organized chaos.” She returned her attention to the ice but leaned her head close to him. “The players up front are the forwards and the center.” She removed her hand from the foam finger and pointed. She’d painted her fingernails red. “The guys that stay back are the defenders, and of course, the goalies.” She dropped her hand to her thigh. “There are a lot of rules in hockey, and I can’t keep all of them straight. And just when I think I’ve figured them all out, they change.”
Quinn had always been a sucker for shiny red nails. He absolutely loved watching a woman slide her long fingers and red nails down his abdomen.
“See the player with the puck? He’s a forward and he’s about to pass it to the center.” She leaned in a little closer, and her shoulder brushed his. “Just like that. Now he’ll set up a shot.”
Through the wafting scent of beer and concessions, he smelled her hair. He recognized it from the night of the Red Feather, when she’d reminded him of a garden and sunshine. With her head tilted toward his, her hair brushed the shoulder of her jersey and his bomber’s jacket. If he leaned just a bit, he could bury his nose in the top of her head.
“Damn it!”
“What?” Quinn’s gaze slid from her hair to the side of her face.
“The goalie stopped the puck.” She turned to look at him, and her nose lightly brushed his chin. If she raised her face a few inches, his lips would touch hers. A dull ache settled between his legs, which was ridiculous. He was thirty-six. He kicked ass and took names for a living. He was on a job. He didn’t get sexually excited just thinking about kissing a woman.
Not usually.
Lucy lifted her gaze to Quinn’s, and within her eyes he saw the same need that was twisting his insides, reflected back at him. He wondered what she’d do if he kissed her right there in front of thousands of people? If she’d kiss him back like she had on a downtown street?
She straightened and turned her attention to the game, but he hadn’t imagined the desire in her eyes. Knowing she wanted him as much as he wanted her turned him from semi to stiff in seconds, no matter if he wanted to be turned or not. And he didn’t. Not in the middle of a hockey game, and not with a murder suspect. If he hadn’t purposely worn his jacket to conceal the recorder taped to his back, he would have slipped it off and covered his lap.
