He bent his head and kissed her quickly. Leaving his lips in place, he whispered, “Then an even more pleasurable way of passing time indoors comes immediately to mind.”
He kissed her more firmly, and expertly parted her lips. But when his tongue touched hers, she recoiled. “No, Junior.” She was angered by the impropriety of his kiss and shocked by its failure to stir her sensually.
His kiss didn’t cause her veins to expand and her blood to pump through them with a new, feverish beat. It didn’t cause her womb to contract with a craving so severe she didn’t thi
nk it could ever be appeased. It didn’t make her think that, God, if he didn’t become a part of her, she was going to die.
About all Junior’s kiss did was alert her to the fact that he had misinterpreted her friendship. Unless she stopped it now, some dangerous groundwork, disturbingly reminiscent of the past, would be laid.
She eased her head back. “I need to work, Junior. And I’m sure you’ve got work to do, too.” He mumbled profanely, but conceded with good humor.
It was as he stepped back so she could get into the car that they saw the Blazer. It had crept up on them, and was now only a few yards beyond the hood ornament of the Jag.
The driver, whom they could see through the windshield, had his hands folded over the steering wheel and was watching them from behind opaque aviator glasses. He was sitting dangerously still and unsmiling.
Reede pushed open the door and stepped to the ground. “I’ve been looking for you, Alex. Somebody told me you’d left the courthouse with Junior, so I played a hunch and came here.”
“What for?” Junior asked touchily, laying his arm across Alex’s shoulders.
“We’ve located Fergus Plummet. One of the deputies is bringing him in now.”
“And that gives you the right to interfere with our date?”
“I don’t give a shit about your date,” Reede said, his lips barely moving. “She said she wanted to be there when I questioned Plummet.”
“Will both of you please stop talking about me as though I’m not here?” The tension that had arisen between the two of them because of her was untenable. It resembled the triangle between them and her mother too well. She shrugged off Junior’s arm. “He’s right, Junior. I want to hear what Plummet has to say for himself.”
“Now?” he whined.
“I’m sorry.”
“I’ll come with you,” he said brightly.
“This is official. Duty calls, and I’m on the state payroll. Thank you for lunch.”
“You’re welcome.” He gave her a soft peck on the cheek and said, loud enough for Reede to hear, “I’ll call you later.”
“ ‘Bye.” She rushed toward the Blazer and climbed in, though her high heels and slender skirt posed some problems. Reede pretended to be impervious to her difficulties. He sat behind the steering wheel glowering at Junior while Junior glowered right back. The second her bottom landed in the seat, Reede floored the accelerator.
When they reached the highway, he swung onto the macadam with enough impetus to plaster Alex against the passenger door. She gritted her teeth and hung on until he straightened out his turn and they were speeding along the center stripe.
“Have a nice lunch?”
“Very,” she answered crisply.
“Good.”
“Are you upset because you saw Junior kissing me?”
“Hell, no. Why should I be?”
“Exactly.”
Secretly, she was glad he had arrived when he had. The interruption had relieved her of having to turn Junior down flat. Feeling a trifle guilty over that, and trying to set things back on a professional track with Reede, she asked, “Where did they find Plummet?”
“Right where I suspected. He was hiding inside one of his deacons’ houses. He came up for air, and one of my deputies nabbed him.”
“Did he come peaceably?”