Marry, Kiss, Kill

by Anne Flett-Giordano

  “Such as?”

  “Such as, you still think I know who leaked the story and maybe getting a couple of drinks in me will make it easier to get a name out of me.”

  “Do you know who leaked the story?” he asked.

  “Nope.”

  “Fine. Now that’s out of the way — you like trout? They do great trout here. Wood-fire grilled.”

  “I love trout. So I have your word of honor as an officer and a gentleman that inviting me to dinner tonight isn’t just part of some military black op?”

  “Black op?”

  “Did I use that wrong?” Nola shot the bartender a grateful look as he returned with her sugar-free cocktail.

  “Seems a bit dramatic,” Bryan said. “Now I’m starting to wonder if the only reason you accepted my invitation was because you think I have some dark secret to hide.”

  “Do you?” she asked.

  “Nope. So where does that leave us?”

  “Both liking trout and both still pretty suspicious of each other,” she said, sipping her drink.

  “I’m good with that,” he said, smiling. “Most couples have to be married for years before they reach this level of mutual distrust. I think we’re making excellent progress here.”

  Bryan’s smile was like Joshua’s trumpet; Nola’s walls didn’t stand a chance. She hated herself a little for being so easy, but the guy could have the Taliban at hello.

  Even the pretty hostess who escorted them to a twinkle-lit table on the patio couldn’t take her eyes off him. She was obvious to the point of being rude, but Nola forgave her. His face was like a gorgeous traffic accident; people couldn’t help but look.

  When the waiter came, they both ordered the trout. When their salads arrived, Bryan put his napkin in his lap and his cards on the table.

  “I know it’s customary to save the big stuff till at least after your second drink, but since you’re the forthright type, what do you say we do it now, and get it out of the way?”

  “Okay. Provided you go first,” Nola said, wondering what was coming next.

  “Married twice, no kids, one big, old, slobbery black lab named Jackson. How ’bout you?”

  “Never married, no kids, currently no pets, but my biological puppy clock is ticking. I definitely see a little shelter mutt in my future.”

  “Bigger is better.”

  “Only guys think that,” Nola said, smiling. “So tell me, what did you like most about each of your ex-wives?”

  Bryan raised an eyebrow. “Strange request.”

  Nola shrugged. “Just being pragmatic. If you say it was how serene and self-possessed they were or mention their love of all things domestic and the way they always woke up looking beautiful in the morning, I’ll know I’m not the girl for you, and we can finish our salads, cancel the fish, and call it a night.”

  “Is that what you’re hoping for?”

  “Don’t deflect. You must have loved something about them. You married them.”

  “Okay. Well, I guess I loved Kate because she was feisty and athletic, crazy competitive, and she didn’t care how she looked in the morning, although I have to say she always looked pretty great.”

  “All good, but very not me. Next.”

  “Okay, next was Sally.” He smiled, remembering. “She was always happy. Whatever we were doing, she found a way to make it fun. We’d probably still be together, but she couldn’t deal with the stress of my occupation, and the fact that I was away half the time. Oh, best thing about her, she didn’t care where I dropped my stuff, or if the bed was made, and she was only woman I ever met who didn’t own a coaster. It was like living with a sexy, female guy.”

  “Yeah, I think you might want to ask for the check about now.”

  “Hang on, what’s your story? You said you’ve never been married, but a woman like you hasn’t spent her life in a monastery.”

  “No, but what can you really say about rentals?” she said, sipping her drink and hoping to avoid what she knew was coming next.

  Bryan eyed her dubiously. “Must have been a couple you kicked the tires and thought about buying.”

  “One. But it was long ago and far away. On cold nights, the elders sometimes gather the children and tell the legend around the fire.”

  “Stop kidding and spill. What rare qualities did you love about him?”

  “Okay, I suppose fair is fair. I think mostly it was his boundless curiosity. His excitement just swept me along in its wake. Also, and the importance of this can’t be stressed enough, in spite of being hella smart, he could be incredibly silly without being childish or annoying. He’d hide drawings of super villains for me to find in the toilet paper and drive me through sprinklers in his beat-up convertible to make me laugh. He was pretty magical when he was manic.”

  “And when he was ‘depressive’?”

  “Ah, then the world went dark.” She sighed. “He’d get so close to what he wanted, then he’d shoot himself in the foot by worrying that it might not be what he wanted after all. Of course, that made him vulnerable, which made him sweet, and it made me feel needed. Until I wasn’t. Sound anything like you?”

  “Not even in a neighboring ballpark. Emotionally, I’m on an even keel, this conversation is about as silly as I get, and the Air Force really doesn’t do vulnerable.”

  “Yikes,” she said. “Shall we quit now and just split the check down the middle?”

  “Nah, let’s give it a shot. Luckily, the quality I like best in a woman is an abiding love for mesquite-grilled trout.”

  By the time they’d passed on coffee to finish their wine, they were laughing like old friends. In spite of possibly having tried to steal a weapon that could put whole ecosystems at risk, Bryan was turning out to be a great date. Of course, Nola knew part of what she was feeling was just a biological predisposition to be attracted to his perfectly symmetrical features. Any ape would feel the same. Then there was her self-imposed chastity over the last few months. A libido can only be suppressed for so long. How else could she explain why, after a single piece of fish, she was ready to ride him like a stripper pole? Thankfully, she was far too old to be having sex on a first date. She resolved to take things slow. A small after-dinner kiss, say goodnight, and go.

  “You up for a walk to the Coffee Cat?” he asked. “We could grab some dessert and take it over to the park. It’s too nice to be inside tonight.”

  “Love to.” It wasn’t the quickest turn on a dime and break your resolution she’d ever made, but it was close.

  They strolled up Anacapa, grabbed coffees, and skipped the park in favor of the courthouse. Sitting with Bryan on the low, stone fence by the sunken garden with one manly black coffee, one girly nonfat café au lait, and a brownie to share felt as warm and comfortable as the tattered old sweater she only wore when she was alone. When he kissed her this time, it was for real. So real and so good she had to resist the impulse to curl up in his lap and purr. Purrable kisses made her nervous. First dates going this well made her nervous. And feeling nervous made her prone to say exactly the wrong thing.

  “What are you thinking about?” he asked.

  “A dead body.”

  Oh, my God, she thought. Tony was right. It was amazing she ever got a second date. After they’d kissed, her eyes had lit on the spot where she’d first seen Charley’s body, and when Bryan asked, she’d just blurted it out.

  “You’re a very unusual girl, Ms. MacIntire.”

  “I’m sorry I said that. The kiss was perfect. Honest. It’s just that I caught a murder here a few mornings ago. The body was right over there in the grass. He was a street singer, sweet guy. There was no rhyme or reason to the killing, and I’m fresh out of suspects. You’re never going to kiss me again, are you? I don’t blame you. Really, it’s better you know I’m an idiot now while there’s still time to save yourself.”

  Yep. She was definitely a candidate for shock therapy. If Bryan had half a brain, he’d gulp down his coffee and start saying his goo
dnights. Surprisingly, he didn’t.

  “I read about that in the paper,” he said. “I forgot they . . . I mean you . . . found the body here. Maybe you should email me a list of your current crime scenes, so I’ll know where not to try and kiss you in the future.” His laugh was everything good in the world, and the way he’d deftly slipped the word “future” into the conversation was the stuff that fairytales were made of.

  “It’s my fault,” Nola said. “I should have said something when you suggested we walk over here.”

  “No worries. I skipped the park because I saw a big party tent set up over there. Probably some gala thing for the film festival.”

  “I saw it, too. You a movie guy?”

  “Depends on the movie. How about you?”

  “Love ’em. Unless they’re based on a true story, because they always change the truth for dramatic effect, which presumes a level of stupidity on the part of the audience that I find really insulting, she said pedantically.”

  Nola and Tony frequently referred to themselves in the third person for fun. She hoped Bryan would get the joke and not think it was just another personality quirk that was coming off weird. Bryan broke the brownie in two and handed her half. “I just don’t get all the fuss people make over them, cameras, press conferences. They’re just movies. I never go near that festival hoopla, he said with a sly note of superiority.”

  “Oh, my God!”

  “What? Did I do the ‘he said’ thing wrong? Maybe I should just kiss you again.”

  “No, you’re brilliant. The night Charley was shot, he was coming from the Arlington. He was singing to the crowd waiting for the Batman movie. Some news crew might have footage of him with whoever killed him, or at least with the last people to see him alive. It’s a long shot, but it’s something. Okay, now you can kiss me. And by that I mean . . . yay!”

  The next kiss started the kind of chain reaction that makes a woman smile in her dotage because when she remembers it, it still feels like yesterday.

  Forty-Seven

  The sex that night was baby-bear’s-bed good. Not too hard, not too soft, just blissfully, wondrously, incredibly just right. Nola was so lost in it she never once fell into her usual habit of thinking about all the other women who’d come before her or all the ones who’d surely come after. Bryan’s body was the best ride at Disneyland on the best destination-birthday any girl ever had.

  The sex the next morning was even better. She had to struggle to keep her happy-exhausted cowgirl legs from going rag doll as she kissed him goodbye at her door.

  Fortunately, Bryan’s back was to the hall, so he was unaware of Nancy and Ro stumbling out of Nancy’s front door in a matching state of bliss. Nola kissed Bryan again while she signaled for them to get back inside quick. Nancy gave a conspiratorial little thumbs-up as she shut the door behind them. Love, even the rebound kind, was conquering all that morning.

  When the coast was clear, Nola let Bryan catch his breath.

  “Wow,” he said. “I will definitely call you.”

  “And I will definitely answer.”

  By the time she shut the door, grabbed a Pellegrino, and went out on the balcony to watch him drive away, her phone was ringing. “Hello?”

  “Hi.” It was Bryan calling from his car.

  “What’s up? Did you forget something?”

  “No, I said I’d call, so I’m calling. You free this weekend?”

  “Maybe, what have you got in mind?”

  “Astronomy. Sounds sexy, right?”

  “Mmm . . . All of us are in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars. Pretenders via Oscar Wilde, and yes, I would love to make out in a planetarium.”

  “I’m talking real stars. How are you at camping in the wilderness?”

  “I’m better at wrestling alligators. Don’t suppose we could start in the backyard and work our way up to wilderness?”

  “A good plan violently executed now is better than a perfect plan executed next week. George Patton via the German army.”

  “See, it’s the violently executed part that worries me. Will there be bears?”

  “No fun if there isn’t.”

  “Okay, I’m in.”

  “Really? ‘Cause my backup plan was a trip to Paris.”

  “Wait—”

  “Sorry, too late. I’ll call you later to plot course and plan strategy.”

  “Roger that, over and out,” she said, happy as a champagne pop. “PS, I had a really nice time last night.”

  “Yeah, me too. I’m going to call all my buddies now to tell them I got laid.”

  “What a coincidence. Me too.”

  A sexy guy she could talk nonsense to. It was the romantic jackpot. So he had a thing for telescopes in the forest with the dirt and snakes and poison oak. There’d be plenty of time for theater dates later. She had the “new boy bounce,” and it felt so good. A thousand aerobics classes’ worth of endorphins were pumping up her endocrine system. Unable to stop grinning, she called Tony to spread the glad tidings.

  “Angellotti,” he answered.

  “Hi. Hope I didn’t wake you. Just calling to see who didn’t get laid last night.”

  “Thank God. I can finally stop lighting candles for you up at the mission.”

  “And, not only was he a great lay, he gave me a great lead.”

  “Good, ‘cause I need an excuse to get out of here.”

  “Uh-oh, Chelsea?”

  “Yeah, she’s moving way too fast. She showed up uninvited last night, naked under her coat.”

  “Actually, that sounds like something you’d like.”

  “Normally I’d love it, but she said it was my early Christmas present. Christmas is eleven freaking months away! That’s girl-speak for ‘she thinks we’re still going to be together then,’ right?”

  “ ’Fraid so.”

  “Chelsea’s great and all, but I don’t know if I still want to be together in December. I’m not sure I still want to be together tomorrow.”

  “Then why didn’t you tell her to keep her coat on and go home?”

  “ ’Cause she’s got a banging body, and hello? I’m a guy.”

  “So you let yourself be date-relationship-raped? How dumb is that?”

  “I know. Now she’s making me pancakes. What do I do?”

  “Use your non-penis-centered voice and say, ‘no means no,’ then send her over here. I’m starving. And yeah, he was that good. He was carbs-for-breakfast good.”

  “Oh Christ, she’s squeezing fresh orange juice. I’m in domestic hell.”

  “You got yourself into this pulp-fiction romance — just man up and get yourself out.”

  “Yeah, I think I’d rather man up later over the phone. I can meet you anywhere in five minutes. What’s the lead Burnell gave you? I’ll need facts to back up my ‘gotta go’ story.”

  “The last place Charley sang was outside the film festival. If we’re lucky, some news crew caught a shot of him with his killer. I’m going to call around for footage and get Sebastian to put it together and screen it for us this afternoon.”

  “Okay, I’m on my way to the station now.”

  “Relax. It’ll take at least a couple hours. Just come over here, I’ll make coffee and burn you some toast.”

  “Yeah, Sam, I’ll be there ASAP.”

  “Ohhh. I take it she’s in the room with you. Is she giving you the ‘I went to all this trouble to make you breakfast and now you’re leaving’ look?”

  “You got it.”

  “Either say goodbye or put a ring on it, dude. You’ve already lost your window of opportunity for in-betweens. And lend her some sweats. The naked-under-the-coat thing is fun when you’re doing it, but it feels really stupid on the ride home the next morning.”

  Forty-Eight

  Monica and Malcolm lay entwined in her sleigh bed. They were upstairs in her bedroom in Larry and Jillian’s two-story guest house. A long night of light beer and heavy sex had begotten a lazy early mornin
g that was quickly morphing into a late one.

  Rancho Perdido (“Lost Ranch”), named for its hidden location in the hills, had almost quadrupled in value since Larry bought it. Oprah had purchased the estate next door, and having property abutting the pop-culture goddess was tantamount to hitting the real estate lotto. The heavenly scent from her mimosa trees alone added an extra hundred grand to the asking price, should he ever desire to sell.

  “What’s that smell?” Malcolm asked as he rolled over to check the time.

  Monica pulled the bed throw up around her shoulders. “It’s the mimosa trees next door at Oprah’s place.”

  “Really? You didn’t tell me you were squatting next to Montecito royalty.”

  “Didn’t think you’d care.”

  “Oh hells yes, shawty.”

  “Wow,” Monica teased. “Like, when you do dated urban slang, you’re like still sooo Bev Hills. But, whatevs.”

  “And when you do Kardashian, I want to bang you like Kim and strangle you stupid like the rest of them, but it’s time to start the play clock.” Malcolm threw off the throw and launched himself out of bed.

  Monica’s nipples perked up in response to his rough energy, the sudden blast of cold air, and the sight of his tight glutes as he stood bare-assed at the window.

  “Not a very imposing fence between you and the big O,” he said. “Maybe we should hit her place one night.”

  “One atrocity at a time, sugar.” Monica yawned and pulled the cover back over her. “Speaking of which, be careful getting the stuff out of the stable this morning.”

  “Afraid your pops might decide to go for a ride?”

  “Hardly. The horses are all for show. He probably gets saddle sores just riding my mother. But there are always workers around, so just be cool.”

  Their conversation was interrupted by a knock downstairs. The knocker didn’t hang around for an answer; he just walked right in.

  Larry never waited for his stepdaughter to invite him in. Monica lived in the guest house, but he owned it. As far as he was concerned, it was his to enter and exit as he pleased. He walked to the bottom of the short stairway and called up to her.