The Spy Who Kissed Me

by Pauline Baird Jones

Not just stopped, he went totally limp.

  From heady lover to Raggedy Andy in a heartbeat. Doggie painkiller takes down passion. I tried to oust regret and replace it with the more proper relief. It would have been easier if he had rolled off me, since my nerve endings still sparked with delight.

  “Kel?”

  He didn’t move.

  “Great.” I pushed. He muttered and buried his face deeper against my neck. Even unconscious he felt really good.

  It was too much. I was too tired to fight against the comfort of a warm, male embrace on a cold night. I’d just rest a minute, let him get deeper asleep, then I could slip away and curl up all alone on the cold, short, uncomfortable, couch.

  FIVE

  I was thirteen years old, when Freddie Frinker, the minister’s son, gave me my first kiss on the front porch of my house. It was squishy and slimy with too much tongue and too little yum. But the worst part was when he pulled back and I discovered we were still tenuously connected by a little strand of spit. With a tiny rainbow quivering at the center.

  I’ve had other embarrassing moments, but nothing that surpassed the horror of making a spit rainbow with Freddie Frinker.

  That is, until I woke up in my bed wrapped around Kelvin Kapone with a “K.” That he was wrapped around me did nothing to ease the situation. My head ached and I had the uneasy feeling that the kiss I’d been dreaming about hadn’t been a dream at all. In a moment of mutual consent we moved apart. My move rolled me off the bed. The thump against the floor rattled the windows.

  I cleared the huskiness from my throat and watched him from under my lashes as I said in my teacher’s voice, “Good morning.”

  The corner of his mouth quivered once, but his eyes were as grave as his voice. “Good morning.”

  The silence stretched like Spandex until I produced my next inane remark. “How are you feeling?”

  “Like I lost an argument with a truck.” He gave a half grimace, half grin and pulled himself into a sitting position against the headboard. His bare chest, crossed by bandages and a sprinkling of blondish-grown hair, immediately improved the plain expanse. It appeared that at some point in the night he’d shed Mike’s tent-like shirt. He looked pale, with the faint shadow of a beard adding an attractive texture to his strong chin.

  “Um, would you like one of the pain pills Mike gave you?”

  “I don’t think that would be a good idea, do you?” His voice was serious but his eyes, brightened by a highly suspect humor, met mine for a long moment.

  He couldn’t remember what happened last night, could he? I wanted to gnaw on this thought, the same way an animal will gnaw a limb caught in a trap, but it was hard to concentrate when he directed his attention to my bedroom.

  Plain, white walls and spare, natural wood furniture. The bed, though deep and soft, draped in prim white, except for the hideous purple afghan my mother had crocheted for me from some yarn she’d picked up at a yard sale. I have many other even more hideous things she’s made for me hidden in the hope-less chest at the foot of the bed. Would he notice it was a place where not much happened? How could he not? If he did, he kept his conclusions hidden behind a bland expression when his gaze returned to me.

  “I’m sorry I flaked out on you. Uh,” he blinked a couple of times, “Isabel? Is that right? My brain is still foggy from the doc’s painkiller.”

  If he remembered my name, what else did he remember? I scrambled to my feet, feeling terribly morning after-ish despite being fully clothed. It didn’t help that he seemed more comfortable in my bedroom than I did.

  “Everybody calls me Stan.” I don’t know why I said it again.

  His brows arched. “Why?”

  If he didn’t know, I wasn’t going to tell him.

  “Why don’t you go first in the shower?” I suggested. It felt like the polite thing to do, let him go first and had nothing to do with my desire that he go somewhere away from here.

  “I’m still feeling a bit groggy and you probably have somewhere to go?”

  I wanted to tell him he had to get out of my apartment before my mother saw him, but even inside my head, it sounded lame, so I nodded. The five steps to the bathroom seemed more like five miles and the door, when I closed it was more vapor than cheap wood. With the uncomfortable intimacy of a mere door between us, my angst was made worse by the realization that all my clothes were back in the bedroom with him.

  “Wonderful.”

  I showered and dried myself at light speed, donned a minuscule terry robe hanging on the back of the door, made sure it was securely fastened, then with a deep breath, opened the door.

  Kel was leaning against the frame of the French door that opened onto a little balcony that overlooked Rosemary’s garden. I’d never be able to come in here again without remembering the way he looked against my white curtains with the winter-bare trees in the background. Or lay in my bed without remembering how it felt to be touched by a master craftsman.

  He turned, managing to look both relaxed and alert, his brows arching over eyes openly amused. “I must be losing my touch.”

  “Huh?”

  “When I spend the night with a woman—”

  Was that admiration in the bold gaze sliding down my body? Heat followed the path of his eyes.

  “—she usually undresses before we go to bed.”

  My throat went bone dry.

  “How nice for you.” I sounded indifferent, but had a feeling a rampaging blush gave away how not indifferent I was. “I’ll just see what I can do in the way of food while you wash up, Mr. Kapone.”

  I turned, the short distance to the door taking an eternity, when I could feel him watching me. My hand was on the door when he spoke.

  “Isabel?”

  I hesitated, then looked back.

  “Yes?”

  “I thought I asked you to call me Kel?”

  He slipped into the bathroom and closed the door, so he missed my body-wide blush—and the smile edging up the sides of my mouth.

  * * * *

  I fanned my hot face as I poured Addison his mega-serving of dog food, then brooded on the problem of Kelvin Kapone. He was a man who couldn’t be any of those things on his business cards. I’d seen him get shot, spent the night with him, and I still didn’t know who or what he was. Or what he thought about last night, about me. Did he remember everything that happened last night? To myself I could claim good copy as my excuse, but he didn’t know that. What if he thought I wanted him to maul me in that highly pleasurable way? What if he tried to repeat some of those heart-stopping things in broad daylight? What if he tried to kiss me again?

  I discovered I was smiling again and straightened my mouth. It was obvious that thinking wasn’t going to get me anywhere, so I opened the refrigerator and dug out some cold pizza, a tub of chocolate chip cookie dough and a liter of Pepsi. I paused, frowning.

  Something was missing.

  “Fruit.” A former teacher ought to know her food groups better than that. I replaced the Pepsi with Cherry Coke, then cleared the cluttered top of my tiny breakfast bar, so I could set out paper plates, glasses and spoons. I finished my preparations just as Kel emerged from the bedroom.

  He scrubbed up real good, even wearing slept-in, bled-upon pants. Nothing in his relaxed stance indicated injury except the white bandages across his mid-section visible where Mike’s shirt hung open.

  He paused in the doorway and looked around. My apartment, which gave me an illusion of separation from my omnipresent family, covered the entire garage. The public part had been unevenly divided into a living room and kitchen, with most of the footage going to the living room. Since cooking wasn’t high on my list of approved activities, I didn’t mind.

  Just past the kitchen was a hallway that led to the main house and the alcove where Addison lurked in his crate when he wasn’t hanging out with Rosemary’s son.

  My living room was mostly work area. The broken down couch and chair serving as spill over for my drafting
table and desk. There were no shelves, the scummy Dag had fled with his bimbo before finishing that chore, so my books, sheet music, sketches, stereo, keyboard, and miscellaneous papers and magazines were stacked on furniture and floor.

  Kel looked at me and I went on the defense. “I know where everything is.”

  “I can see that.” His intense gaze hooked mine, starting that weird stirring in my midsection. “That breakfast?”

  “Uh, yeah—”

  “Stan?” It was Rosemary in the hall outside my door and heading this way. “Are you up yet?”

  My eyes popped wide. “My sister.”

  Kel and I looked at each other for a frozen moment. If I’d blinked, I’d have missed his panther-like retreat to my bedroom.

  Rosemary poked her head around the door. Addison, now replete, almost knocked her over as he squeezed past her on his way to say good morning to Dominic.

  Rosemary shut the door. “Are you all right? I thought I heard you fall or something?”

  “I fell out of bed.”

  Rosemary’s brows arched. “Aren’t you a little old to be falling out of bed?”

  I arched mine back at her. “I didn’t know there was an age limit.”

  She picked up a piece of pizza. “You haven’t forgotten you’re driving carpool this morning, have you?”

  Carpool? Crap. “No. Why?”

  “I thought maybe you’d like to meet me later, do some shopping? I want to pick up a girdle.” She helped herself to a spoonful of cookie dough, leaving a dab of brown on her upper lip.

  “Do they still make them?”

  “Of course, only they call them body shapers.”

  A least a shopping trip would give me a reason to survive the carpool. And there was my date tonight. I could pick up something to wear for it.

  “What time and where?”

  “Macy’s? Lingerie section?” I nodded and she looked at her watch. “Oh! I’d better blow. My glue gun class starts soon. I’m getting pretty good with it. I just pretend everything is Dag and it’s easy.” She took a bite of pizza, swallowed, then said, “Meet me one-ish?”

  When I nodded, she looked at her watch, dropped the half eaten slice back in the box and hopped off the stool. “Where’re my car keys?”

  The car.

  “I left them in the car. In the garage.”

  I followed her out the door and down the stairs, although the last thing I wanted to do was be there when she hit the roof.

  In the dim interior of the garage, the car looked dusty and innocuous, like cars in the winter when you can’t keep them clean. The scrapes along the sides and roof, the bullet hole in the bumper seemed as bright as neon to me, but Rosemary didn’t notice as she slid in. “I’ll see you at one.”

  It wasn’t until she drove away that I remembered the gun that had fallen to the floor when Kel passed out. Had we done anything with it? Of course not. That would have been the sensible thing to do. Did it have a safety? Was it on or off? Off. It had to be off. Kel had switched it off so he could shoot bad guys, but he’d passed out.

  Great, she’d be armed and dangerous. And I’d be the one she was hunting.

  Kel was gone when I got back upstairs. I checked through the whole apartment just to be sure. In the bedroom the French doors were ajar, the curtain still quivering as if from recent passage. I told myself I was glad and went back to the kitchen to clean up the uneaten breakfast. I only noticed the white square after I’d put the pizza away.

  A business card.

  I eyed it for a moment, wondering which profession he’d chosen. But it wasn’t any of them. There wasn’t a name, just a telephone and fax number and on the back in bold slashes: Thanks.

  I frowned, tapping the card against my temple. Was he thanking me for the room and board or—

  No. It was better not to know.

  SIX

  If I were a character in a book, my next step would be to get out my trench coat and magnifying glass. But I wasn’t, so I got out my underwear and skirt. Okay, so almost getting killed had jolted me out of my rut, but it was easy to hunker back down. And if I were inclined to linger before hunkering, all I needed to do was think about my mother finding out what happened last night. Rosemary wanted me to distract her, but I don’t think she meant by giving her an apoplexy.

  Of course, keeping my mother from finding out wouldn’t be easy. She has a built-in sixth sense when I am trying to hide things from her.

  I brooded on tactics while randomly pulling clothes out of the closet. When I was dressed, I collected my huge, brown purse, the one filled with the non-essentials of living I’d left home last night and went to look for Dominic.

  Dom is Rosemary’s baby. Like most men, he’s six going on two with an inflated sense of his own importance in the eternal scheme of life. But he’s still young enough and cute enough to get away with it. He has this annoying way of looking up at me, his eyes round and guileless in his thin, sweet face that turns me to putty in his grubby hands. Kind of like the look Kel had in his eyes last night. The dirty dog.

  “Ahoy, Captain.” I peered into Dom’s bedroom. I had good reason for caution. Dom thinks he’s a pirate. As soon as he learned to count, he began counting the days until he could get a tattoo. Then he’s heading to Florida so an alligator can bite his hand off. The plastic hook “hand” Rosemary bought him doesn’t slash the way he’d like it to.

  “Avast you scurvy dog!” he cried, turning to brandish his sword. He wore his “scalawag” gear, a red vest over his tee shirt, scabbard strapped over his jeans, eye patch, and a plumed tricorn hat.

  “Ship sails in fifteen. Where’s Addison?”

  “Ar, Grandma made him go outside. He peed on her tree.”

  Why couldn’t my dog learn to tell a silk tree from a fire hydrant?

  I found my mother in the kitchen reading the newspaper. It is an institution with her, almost religious, this gathering of printed information. I myself ascribe to the trickle-down theory of news. If it’s important, someone will tell me about it. As background, she had the TV tuned into the news. I will confess that since war broke out in the Gulf, I’ve joined the rest of the world in war-watching. I crossed to the cookie jar and had my hand in before my mother looked up.

  Her eyebrows did their usual climb as she surveyed my clothes. “Don’t you think it’s a little early in the morning for cookies?”

  “It’s never too early for cookies.” I opened the fridge and scrounged for some milk. My gauze skirt trembled from the force of her sigh. I waited for the lecture, but it didn’t come.

  “Mildred Hazel called me this morning.”

  That explained her lack of interest in criticizing me or her failure to notice I had a secret. She had a juicy bit of gossip to relate and I was the only available audience. Mildred Hazel is the church newsletter. She knows what is happening almost before it happens. I try not to think anything important in her presence because she can receive thoughts and convert them to gossip with the speed of light.

  My mother had a tiny crease between her brows and she was tapping absently on the table, indicating she didn’t just have news, she had Big News.

  “Elspeth Carter, from church—you know her, don’t you?”

  “Elspeth Carter?” I thought for a moment. “Isn’t she the one that looks like Hitler?”

  My mother’s nostrils flared. “She does not look like Hitler!”

  “Come on, she’s a nice old bird, but take away the glasses…”

  “Elspeth Carter,” my mother’s look was severe, “passed away last night.”

  Oops. My mother believes death is transforming. Mrs. Carter may have looked like Hitler in life, but in death she was the Angel Gabriella.

  “I’m sorry to hear that.” I meant it. Mrs. Carter was one of those women who make things happen, like saving historic houses, planting flowers on public fairways, and raising funds for worthy causes. I doubt if anyone knew everything she’d been involved in since retiring as a math teacher.


  “I didn’t know she was ill. What happened?”

  “Elspeth was murdered last night.” A wisp of handkerchief appeared in her hand and she dabbed delicately at her dry eyes. “A great tragedy, Isabel, and a great loss to our church, as well as to the community.”

  “Murdered?” I frowned. Last night had been a bad night for the neighborhood.

  “That’s right. Shot.” She spoke with that morbid relish that people, even nearly perfect people like my mother, use when faced with tragedy. “Mildred says the killer crashed through Elspeth’s bay window and fled in a Mercedes-Benz.”

  I should have seen it coming. How many shoot-outs could there have been in our subdivision last night? Only I didn’t, on account of my under-developed sleuth gland. I gave a tiny squeak. My mother’s face floated in front of me, her mouth opening and closing as she shot words, details at me like rockets—coals of fire being heaped on my head for helping a murderer to escape.

  But even as I assigned the label to Kel, my mind rejected it. I’d looked into his blue eyes. I’d been kissed by him. He couldn’t have killed—could he?

  “It’s an outrage that something like this could happen in our area. Mildred says he trashed her living room, but her sister says she doesn’t think anything is missing except a purse.”

  I squeaked again, my mind forming the words that my mouth couldn’t get out. Purse?

  “Apparently there was some kind of wild car chase through the streets when a citizen in a minivan tried to stop them—”

  No way was the round-headed man a citizen.

  “—Carol Williams, the Neighborhood Watch chairman, saw most of it. They drove across her lawn and right through her bushes. Hooster Crandall saw them, too, when he was walking his dog. He says they actually stopped to—” she stopped, a bit of color creeping out from under the circles of rouge in her cheeks, “well, never mind. Mildred says they have a partial number on the car and it shouldn’t be long before the police get them.”

  Was I right about that trickle-down theory of news? I always hear—even when I wish I hadn’t.

  My mother was so taken up with the sordid demise of Mrs. Carter she didn’t notice my shocked reaction, so in a way my situation got me out of my situation—an irony I could appreciate despite my state of panic.