In the kitchenette, the refrigerator throbbed and hummed and then the cycle ended and the apartment was impossibly quiet, impossibly still.
She had been lying on her belly, but when Willows entered the room she turned on her side, facing him. He knelt on the floor beside the bed. She reached out to him, put her arms around his neck and drew him close. His fingers traced a constellation of tiny beauty marks on the perfect curve of her hip. Her skin was smooth and firm, cool to the touch. He travelled down the length of her, a long and languorous journey.
He kissed her eyebrows, the bridge of her nose, her ears, her cheeks, her neck. He felt the hurried thump of her pulse beneath his lips.
A jumbled collage of his children playing and working and laughing and crying swept across his vision, and was swept away.
Parker’s eyes were dark, liquid. He kissed her lightly on the mouth and for the first time in a very long time, slipped outside of himself and was lost.
*
In the soft pink light of dawn, Parker gave Willows a present, a small box wrapped in gold paper and garnished with a bow.
“What’s this?”
“Open it.”
Willows fumbled with the ribbon, lost patience and snapped it with his fingers.
She’d given him a Richard Wheatley dry fly box made of brushed aluminum. He opened the lid. Inside were six small compartments, each about an inch square, with a hinged lid of clear plastic and a spring that made the lid pop open when a tiny lever was pressed. The box held about two dozen flies and it was full.
“Very romantic.”
“Well, you’re a pretty romantic guy.”
“Who chose the patterns?”
“The clerk helped.”
Willows snapped the box shut. “Thank you, Claire.”
Parker smiled. Rainbow in a snowstorm. His heart leapt.
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Hot Shots (A Willows and Parker Mystery) Page 20