“And then there was yesterday when you spilled coffee down your—”
“Okay, so maybe I’m a little clumsy at times, but I did not do this to myself.” Actually, I was the one pulling on Zelda before we fell, so I sort of did it to myself. “Not on purpose, anyway.”
“Does it hurt?”
Yes, damn it, but Addy didn’t need to know that or she’d be mothering me all night. At least the painkillers I’d popped earlier when I got back to my SUV after spying on Detective Hawke were dulling the pain a little.
“Only when I touch it.” I adjusted the towel-wrapped bag of peas higher on my cheek. “But icing it will help a lot.” At least I hoped so. I changed the subject. “Do you really think Elvis needs that much space in her pen? She’s only one chicken.”
She smiled extra big, her dimples showing as she batted her blond eyelashes at me. I knew that look too well. It was the same look she often hit me with when she wanted a candy bar while we were in line to pay at the grocery store. “I read that the happier you keep your chicken, the more eggs she’ll lay.”
“Are we in need of more eggs?”
“Doc says that eggs are a lot better when they’re fresh.”
Did he now? I had a feeling Addy had been flashing her dimples and batting her eyelashes at him down in the basement, too. “Is Doc still downstairs?”
“Yep. He’s trying to fix the light. You know, the one that keeps flickering.”
I did. “Go wash your hands. Supper is almost ready.”
“I already washed them once.”
“Do it again to make your mother happy, please.” As she started out of the kitchen, I called, “Did you get your homework done?”
“Yep. Harvey helped me.”
I pointed at the old buzzard who was pulling drinking glasses from the cupboard. “I owe you one.”
He snorted. “You owe me a helluva lot more than one.”
“Put it on my tab. I’m going to go check on Doc.” I set the bag of frozen peas on the counter for now.
“Sure ya are.” Harvey winked at me. “Just don’t take too long checkin’ on him. I don’t want to have to wait for you kids to finish neckin’ to eat.”
I stuck my tongue out at him. “Doc and I are capable of conversing without any hanky-panky involved, you know.”
“Sure, but you two like to do the hokey-pokey whenever you’re alone, and I’m too hungry tonight to wait for Doc to finish shaking it all about before I can eat.”
Reid let out a bark of laughter.
Fighting a grin, I detoured on my way to the basement and snapped Harvey’s suspenders. “Set the damned table, dirty bird.”
His chortles followed me down the steps.
I paused halfway down. The basement was dark and smelled like chicken—the living kind, not the mouth-watering rotisserie variety. “Doc?”
“Over here,” he said from the other side of the cool, damp room. He aimed a flashlight at my feet. “Careful on the stairs.”
I held onto the wall as I made my way down to the cobblestone floor, careful not to fall on my face and give Addy another example of my clumsiness. “Did you figure out what’s wrong with the light?”
Something clinked in the dark. “It’s probably just a bad ballast. How about you come over here to the breaker box and hold my flashlight, Boots?”
I chuckled at his flirting tone.
He shined the beam along the floor, lighting a path to reach him. Elvis clucked at me as I crossed in front of her pen. Doc handed me the flashlight when I joined him.
“Oh, you meant that flashlight,” I joked.
In the dim light, I could see his teasing grin. “Why, Violet Parker, whatever did you think I meant?” He leaned down and dropped a kiss on my forehead.
“You missed.” I wrapped my arms around his neck and pulled him down to my level, nuzzling his short beard. The darkness surrounding us heightened my senses. I breathed in the scent of his woodsy cologne on his neck and made a purring sound in my throat. “You smell like a hunka-hunka burnin’ love, Candy Cane. How was your day?”
Without giving him a chance to answer, I went up on my toes and locked lips with him, using my tongue to remind him why I’d given him that nickname.
“Better now that you’re here,” he said after I’d finished my seduction attempt. Then he kissed me back, taking his sweet time about it, and sent my temperature through the roof.
When he pulled back, I fanned myself. “Va-va-voom! I think you melted my underwear that time.”
He chuckled. “Tell me about your afternoon.”
I’d rather not revisit that train wreck yet. I leaned against him in a full-body press. “How about you kiss me again instead and we—”
“Time to eat, love bugs!” Harvey hollered down from the top of the stairs.
I snarled toward the steps at the interruption.
“Don’t make me come down there with a hose.”
“We’ll be there in a minute, Harvey,” Doc called back.
I stepped back from Doc to keep from being further distracted by his hands and lips, keeping the light aimed at our feet. “I need to tell you something before we head upstairs.”
“Is it about what happened at the Sugarloaf Building with Coop and that little gremlin?”
“Or imp.” I winced in anticipation of Aunt Zoe’s reaction to that particular piece of news. She’d warned me before about imp-like creatures and how tricky they could be. “No.”
“Is it about how things went with Prudence?”
My cheek throbbed on cue. “No.”
“Are you going to tell me who you and Natalie were spying on?”
“Not yet.” I wanted to save that for when Cooper showed up, which I figured was now very likely since I’d texted him before leaving the parking lot behind Calamity Jane’s, informing him that Natalie was coming for supper.
He crossed his arms. “I’m out of guesses, Killer.”
“I ran into Rex today.”
“Ah hell.” The heavy shadows made his frown lines look extra deep.
“He was in
