him.'
'I happen to specialize in bears. What kind of bear is it?'
'He's a talking bear.'
'Sweety,' her mom interrupted, 'Mr. Eichord doesn't have time to—'
'No. It's fine. Really,' he said quickly. 'In fact that's the main reason I came out here, to see what some of these bears have been up to.' And Lee Anne was sort of helping him out of the chair and showing him toward the room where the bear was even as he soundlessly gave Edie the signal that it was okay with him, if she didn't mind, and she did a little shrug and head move kind of thing that said okay, but really said, well, whatever turns you on, because she was still angry inside. And before anyone could change their mind and let better judgment and wiser heads prevail, Jack Eichord, who a couple of minutes before had implicitly suggested Mrs. Lynch's late husband might have been having an extramarital affair was now in the bedroom with her daughter. Fate works in strange, mysterious ways.
'What is this talking bear's name?' she could hear him ask.
'My name is Ralph,' her daughter answered in her bear voice, 'and my brother's name is George.'
'Just give me the bare facts, please,' Eichord said, and the bear giggled.
'Now I've heard rumors that you have misbehaved. Could you tell us the bare essentials?'
'I bite sometimes.'
'Oh, my, Ralph. Biting is absolutely un-bear-able,' giggling, 'of course this is barely admissible evidence.'
'My brother George is a talking panda.'
'That's very interesting. I'm afraid I'm going to have to frisk you for weapons, Ralph old boy.' Squeals of delight. 'Uh-oh. Afraid this has become a ticklish situation. I don't think you'll be able to bear up under this sort of interrogation. If you promise to behave, I'll let you go with a warning, but no more biting. Okay?'
'Okay,' she said.
'And no putting up bearicades, either. It's too em-bear-using, if you know what I mean.' Lee Anne was laughing at the routine and he kept it up. So she had to show him George and Eichord had a long talk with the panda, and finally ended up back downstairs. Edie had been listening to every word of it and suddenly realized she'd been grinning from ear to ear for the last few minutes. They came back into the kitchen hand in hand, Lee leading him quite contentedly, both utterly charmed by the other.
'That was very nice of you to take so much ti— '
'Mom, I asked Mr. Eye-cord to stay for dinner is that okay?'
'I really can't,' he said before she could have a chance to be totally flustered by it, 'but that's very sweet of you, Lee Anne. Thanks.' He seemed nice. He seemed different now too.
'I have to get back downtown,' he said, and so very obviously didn't that before she could catch herself she said, 'We'd like for you to stay and have a bite with us. We're only having hot dogs. How about it?'
She smiled at him and he felt so warm all of a sudden it kind of stunned him and the usually glib Jack Eichord just stood there like a schmuck and went, 'Uh—' Brilliant, he thought. 'No. I appreciate it. That is very nice.' He was heading for the door. He felt like he was slogging through wet cement.
'Please,' she said, with sufficient sincerity that he turned. She was finally snapping out of her anger enough to have sensed what it was he had been going for and she realized that he was probably a pretty decent cop, trying to do what amounted to an impossible task. And she saw herself as having been a little bitchy, whether justified or not, and she decided she'd make amends.
'If you don't have to be somewhere for supper right away, please stay. We'd enjoy having your company. Just hot dogs. Nothing fancy and no trouble.' She told him with her eyes that she wasn't being polite and he stood there saying yes and felt a small hand pluck the hat out of his hand and the suffusion of warmth from a family start reaching out and touching him unexpectedly.
And something funny happened. Suddenly they were looking at each other and seeing a man and woman instead of the adversaries they'd been looking at before. And everything tilted a little, and Edie felt so funny as she was putting little slivers of cheese inside the split franks and putting them inside the microwave, and she was so dumbfounded at what she was suddenly thinking as she looked at this detective, this perfect stranger, thinking to herself the oddest damn thing, wondering what he'd be like, and she took a deep breath and couldn't make the thought go away.
And he looked at the back of her standing there in front of the oven with an apron over her dress and all tall and slim on those long, great-looking legs, and the look of her just came out of nowhere and destroyed him. He knew it was only because it had been so long since he had been in a situation like this, a real home, when it wasn't the home of one of his colleagues, and with an eligible young woman cooking him dinner, a lovely woman in fact, and not some one-night stand he'd picked up somewhere or the other way around. And the sight of her in heels, all that leg, and the little apron, with her back turned, just demolished him. And inside he went, Jesus, man, get a hold of yourself, are you nuts or what?
And inside Edie Was thinking with her back turned, What am I letting myself in for here? And sensing that he was looking at her and not really minding it so much but just wondering what was going on and then thinking she'd been imagining the whole thing. It was ridiculous. Shape up. And with a tilt of her head and a feeling of relief she turned and their eyes locked, and hell the old cliches like 'chemistry' have been so abused you can't even say them with a straight face but that's what it was, a chemical thing between them happening in spite of their best intentions, happening for no reason, coming out of nowhere, a thing that worked its way out of the secret heart of a person somehow and warms on its way up and then comes out of the eyes all hot and hungry.
This didn't even make a lick of sense she told herself and what are you doing and hold on and whoa and oh it's too late now, she thinks, sinking down into something that is pulling her like the current of a river of mighty whirlpools, and she tries not to let it show and feels the hot red flush of her cheeks and almost laughs at it out loud.
And he goes, Now wait you've got to be kidding here I'm not believing this, you go to somebody's house to ask some questions and you're looking at this woman like some love-starved teenage kid and this is some lady who lost her husband a couple of years ago and just what in hell do you think you're doing and they'll laugh you right out of the place if you and oh my God I'm failing and that wonderful awful feeling as he senses what is happening between them, wonderful if it's real, awful if it's onesided and then the chemistry is just so strong that neither of them are trying to hide it.
And the dinner is cold and they're still there at the table just talking, talking about nothing, who remembers what, who knows what, just watching each other's mouths move, carrying on a conversation. Christ, he thinks, even the word
It is very important to him now not to blow it. Not to do anything stupid or oafish or frighten her in any way. This is something special. Different. He feels something and he can't really analyze it because of the hot, flooding rush of desire that flows through his loins as he looks at her and he wants this woman and aware as they both are of the incongruities he can't stop himself.
Somehow they manage to part company that night, and of course he can't go out that door without leaving a connection, something, how the hell can he leave it so he can ask for a date, ask her out somehow, and he mumbles something about paying her back and he'd like to take her and her daughter to dinner next time mumble mumble, and now Christ almighty
