“Yeah, uh-huh.” He waved a hand at her as if she were a vaguely annoying fly. “I just want to rewind the video-tape, see if there were any visible manifestations.”
“You’d better put some clothes on because you’re a little . . . vulnerable to injury at the moment.”
“Hmm? What was that?” he asked distractedly.
“Why don’t we both get dressed, and I’ll let you get back to your work.”
Only an idiot, he thought, would turn a naked woman away to play with toys. Especially when the woman was Deputy Ripley Todd.
Dr. MacAllister Booke was no idiot.
“No. Let’s have pizza.” He picked up the box, and the scent of it, of her, stirred his appetite again. “I’ll go over the data tomorrow. It’s not going anywhere.” He went to her, skimmed his knuckles over her cheek. “I don’t want you going anywhere either.”
Fair enough, she decided. She would go over her internal data tomorrow, too. “Watch your step this time. I don’t want you falling on the box and smashing dinner.”
Ordering herself to settle down, she walked with him back to the bedroom. “How’d you get the scar on your butt?”
“Oh, I sort of fell off a cliff.”
“Jesus, Mac.” They settled on the bed, the pizza between them, and she handed him a beer. “Only you.”
She hadn’t meantto stay. Sleeping over was entirely different, in Ripley’s view, from sleeping with. It added another layer of intimacy that, too often, got sticky.
But somehow, without her being entirely sure how he managed it, she ended up squeezing into the tiny shower with him the next morning.
He proved to be very adept in tight places.
As a result she was feeling loose, a bit muggy in the brain, and vaguely embarrassed when she let herself into her own house. Her hope was to sneak upstairs, change into sweats for a run on the beach, and act as if nothing much had happened. That hope was dashed as Nell called out from the kitchen.
“Is that you, Ripley? Coffee’s fresh.”
“Damn it,” she muttered under her breath and reluctantly changed directions. She wa
s mortally afraid there was about to be a girl talk and hadn’t a clue how she should handle it.
There Nell was, working in the kitchen that was alive with the homey scents of baking, looking daffodil-fresh as she filled another round of muffin tins.
One look and Ripley felt bedraggled, awkward, and ravenous.
“Want breakfast?” Nell asked cheerfully.
“Well, maybe. No.” She sucked it in. “I really want to get a run in first. Ah . . . I guess I should’ve called last night to let you know I wouldn’t be home.”
“Oh, that’s all right. Mac called.”
“I just didn’t think . . .” In the act of reaching into the fridge for a bottle of water, she froze. “Maccalled?”
“Yes. He thought we might worry.”
“He thought,” Ripley repeated. Which made her, what? An inconsiderate idiot. “What did he say?”
“That the two of you were having hot monkey sex and not to worry.” She glanced up from her muffins, dimples flashing as she laughed uproariously at the horrified shock on Ripley’s face. “He just said you were with him. I inferred the hot monkey sex.”
“Aren’t you a laugh riot in the morning?” Ripley countered and twisted the top off the water bottle. “I didn’t know he’d called you. I should have done it.”
“It doesn’t matter. Did you . . . have a good time?”
“I’m walking in at, what, seven forty-five in the morning. You should be able to infer something from that.”
“I would, except you seem a little cranky.”
“I’m not cranky.” Scowling, Ripley glugged down water. “Okay, it just seems to me that he could have told me he was going to call you, or suggestedI call you, but either way that would’ve been assuming I intended to stay the night, which I didn’t, but which he obviously decided I was going to, which is pretty pushy if you ask me because it wasn’t as if he actuallyasked me to stay in the first damn place.”
Nell waited a beat. “Huh?”
“I don’t know. I don’t know what I just said. God.” Irritated with herself, she ran the cold bottle over her forehead. “I’m just weirded out over stuff.”
“Over him?”
“Yes. I don’t know. Maybe. I’ve got all these feelings piling up and I’m not ready for them. I need to run.”
“I’ve done a lot of running myself,” Nell said quietly.
“I mean on the beach.” At Nell’s sympathetic nod, Ripley sighed. “Okay, I get you, but it’s too early for metaphors.”
“Then let me ask one straight question. Are you happy with him?”
“Yeah.” Ripley’s stomach tied itself into slippery knots. “Yeah, I am.”
“It wouldn’t hurt to just go with that for a while, and see what happens next.”
“Maybe I would. Maybe I could. But I’ve figured out that he’s always one step ahead of me. Sneaky bastard.” She gave up, sat. “I think I’m in love with him.”
“Oh, Ripley.” Nell leaned down, took Ripley’s face in her hands. “So do I.”