On Pins and Needles

by Victoria Pade

  But he didn’t follow suit. Instead he stayed staring after them until they’d driven out of sight.

  Then he retraced his steps back to the house and came in without so much as a knock on the front door that opened into the living room.

  Still, he didn’t say goodbye. He didn’t say anything. He merely leaned a nonchalant shoulder against the door he’d closed behind himself and gave Megan the once-over.

  “Time for my strip search?” she said facetiously before she realized what she was actually saying.

  Josh cracked a smile—the first since he’d shown up at her office that afternoon—and raised a charmingly lascivious eyebrow at her. “Are you offering?”

  Megan could feel her face heat and knew it was turning cherry-red—a hazard of having such a fair complexion. “I just meant that that seems like the only thing you haven’t done here, so I’m wondering if that’s what I’m in store for since you didn’t leave with the rest of them.”

  She was only making it worse and she knew it, so she finally stopped talking.

  Josh’s smile remained, as if he were still enjoying her blunder and the blush it had induced. “As a matter of fact, I’m off the clock now and I thought I’d help get everything back in place.”

  “Oh,” she said for lack of a better response as his big hands began to roll up the cuffs of his uniform shirt, exposing thick wrists and hair-spattered forearms.

  Helping to put everything back in place was a nice thing for him to do but it left Megan in a melee of mixed feelings.

  She was mad at him for this whole thing. For suspecting her parents. For searching her home.

  But at the same time, here she was feeling pleased by his offer to pitch in with the cleanup and admiring the sight of oh-so-masculine hands and wrists and arms, of all things.

  Of course it had been that way all afternoon and evening. Even in the midst of invading her privacy not a detail about him had escaped her notice.

  She’d taken in every scuff on his cowboy boots, and the snug caress of blue jeans that fitted his to-die for derriere like kid gloves. She’d studied his uniform shirt—a tan color with darker brown epaulets and flaps on the breast pockets. She’d surreptitiously read the lettering on the sheriff’s department insignias that rode each of the sleeves where his biceps stretched them to their limit. She’d memorized the number on the badge emblazoned on a chest that appeared to be made up of massive pectorals. And all in all she couldn’t help but be aware of how incredibly appealing he looked. Despite the fact that he was tossing her home as if she were a common criminal.

  “So what do you say? Let’s put this place back in order.”

  For a moment more Megan just stared at him. He’d been freshly shaved when he’d shown up at her office and she could still smell the faint scent of a sea breeze-like after shave wafting to her from where he stood.

  Tell him no thanks, she ordered herself. Tell him that if his business is finished he should get out, that he isn’t welcome here.

  But the trouble was, as much as she knew she should say exactly that, she couldn’t quite do it.

  Instead, another voice some where in her head said, He was the one who made the mess, he should be the one to clean it up….

  And somehow that seemed perfectly reasonable.

  “Where would you like to start?” she heard herself say suddenly.

  “How about in the same order I messed things up? You can put your things back in the bathroom and the dresser drawers while I get the beds and bureaus against the walls again.”

  Megan was about to agree when her stomach rumbled quietly and reminded her how hungry she was.

  “Or you could go to work on the furniture and I could make us a couple of sandwiches,” she suggested.

  “Better yet. It’s way past sup per time and I’m starving.”

  And wasn’t this all amiable and companionable? Megan thought, feeling disloyal.

  But again there was emotional confusion because she was also feeling a twinge of excitement at the prospect of the two of them sharing a light, impromptu supper alone together.

  This was really crazy, she decided, wondering if she should rescind her own offer of sandwiches, reject his offer of help putting the house in order, and call it a night after all.

  Only once more she just couldn’t bring herself to do it.

  It would be rude, she rationalized. Not to mention that being on the good side of the sheriff seemed wiser than alienating him any more than she already had.

  It didn’t mean she was any less resentful of his suspicions of her parents or any less on their side. It was just good public relations, she assured herself.

  “Sandwiches,” she repeated as if to remind herself.

  “Furniture,” Josh said the same way.

  Then he pushed off the door and spun around to the stair case.

  And only when his eyes slid away from her then did she realize he’d been watching her very intently. So intently that it was almost as if she’d been under a heat lamp. A heat lamp that had just been turned off.

  It was a strange sensation. Especially since it was ac companied by the slight wave of disappointment she was experiencing, as well as the desire to regain the warmth of that midnight-blue gaze in whatever way she could.

  Crazy. Definitely crazy.

  “Food,” Megan whispered to herself, again in reminder.

  Maybe she hadn’t gone crazy, she thought then. Maybe hunger had made her go haywire. Maybe as soon as she got some thing in her stomach she’d be more resist ant to Josh Brimley’s effects.

  And it was with the hope that that was true that she forced herself into motion and went to the kitchen.

  It took nearly forty-five minutes for Megan to get the sandwiches ready. The search had left her kitchen in as much disarray as the rest of the house and she had to clear space among the dishes, pots and pans, utensils, and even food stuffs that had been left out of cup boards, drawers and pantry to litter the counter tops and kitchen table.

  But even after making room to prepare their food there still wasn’t anywhere to eat it so, when she finished, she decided they’d have to dine picnic-style in the living room, around the coffee table.

  With that in mind, she piled everything on a tray and pushed through the swinging door that connected the kitchen to the living room.

  Josh was already in the living room, pushing the sofa against the wall facing the front door and the picture window. It was the last of the furniture to be put back where it had been and once it was he took a quick scan of the room.

  “All done,” he announced just as Megan set the tray on the coffee table. “Upstairs and down. I think I have pretty much everything in order again. Except the books in that case in the upper hall. I thought you’d probably rather put them in whatever order they were in before and I didn’t know what that was.”

  “I’ll do it later, when I put things back in the drawers and clean the kitchen,” Megan said. Then, glancing at the tray full of food, she added, “I thought we could eat in here.”

  “A picnic,” he said as if he’d read her earlier thoughts.

  “Mmm. The kitchen is in pretty bad shape.”

  “Sorry. But I think eating in here is a great idea anyway. I like things casual.”

  Megan knelt on the floor between the coffee table and the couch to set out the two food-laden plates, silver ware, napkins and tall glasses of iced tea.

  “Cloth napkins aren’t too casual, though,” Josh observed as he sat just around the bend of the oval table, also on the floor, with his back against the sofa and one leg bent at the knee to brace his forearm while his hand dangled over his shin.

  “We don’t use paper napkins. Cloth can be washed and reused. It’s better for the environment,” she explained.

  “Ah.”

  He didn’t say more on that subject and Megan appreciated his restraint.

  “Big sandwiches,” he said then, nodding toward his plate as he used his free hand to fl
ip open the cloth napkin and lay it across the thigh of the leg he had extended out in front of him.

  “The bread is seven grain, homemade,” Megan explained. “Inside yours is a grilled portobello mushroom, tomato slices, roasted red peppers, artichoke hearts, black olives, onion, sprouts and a little vinaigrette.”

  Some thing about that made him smile at the same time his brow wrinkled up. “I’d have been happy with meat and mayo. This sounds like more trouble to go through than a sandwich deserves.”

  “Try it,” she urged.

  He looked skeptical but in a more con genial way than he had the day before when they’d talked about acupuncture. Still, he didn’t dive in, though. It took him a moment of eyeing what was on his plate before he picked up one half of the three-inch-high sandwich. Then he gave it a meager taste, as if it might bite him back.

  Megan waited for the verdict, watching him chew and pleased that it was with his mouth closed and without so much as a crumb on his supple lips.

  Then he swallowed and his eyebrows rose. “It’s good. Almost tastes like a steak sandwich.”

  Megan felt as if she’d finally won one small victory. She stretched out her own legs so she could sit more comfortably on the floor, too, and finally began to eat her own food.

  “You told me what was inside my sandwich,” Josh said then. “Does that mean there’s some thing different in yours?”

  “Turkey, ham and bacon,” she answered with a straight face once she’d swallowed her own bite.

  His responding expression was exactly what she’d been going for and she laughed at him.

  “I’m kidding. Mine is the same as yours. Want to see?”

  He grinned at her joke. “Last time a girl asked me that she wasn’t talking about what was between two slices of bread.”

  Megan laughed at his innuendo but didn’t give him the satisfaction of a comment.

  Josh ate more sandwich, a few potato chips, and then poked his chin at the room in general. “Did I get the furniture pretty much back where you had it?”

  Megan glanced around just to be sure. “Close enough.”

  “I didn’t think I’d have a problem, that I’d just follow the marks on the floor. But there were other marks, too, so I wasn’t sure in some spots. Looks like you did some rearranging when you moved in.”

  “We did.”

  “Seems better than it would have been if I’d followed the old marks. More open. It has a nice feel to it.”

  “Feng shui.”

  “I beg your pardon?”

  “Feng shui is an ancient philosophy.”

  “An ancient philosophy of home decorating?”

  “It’s all about opening things up so there’s a free flow of energy. When there’s a free flow of energy you feel better and when you feel better everything is better. You said yourself that the room has a nice feel to it.”

  “You really believe that putting furniture in certain places will change your life?” he asked.

  “I believe that anything that makes anyone more comfortable and content is a good thing. Even if that’s all it does.”

  “Ah-ha! Then you admit it doesn’t have any magical powers.”

  “I’m not admitting anything. I’m saying that if that’s the least it does, it’s worth it.”

  “And I suppose that crystal mobile you have in the corner over there is for a reason, too?”

  “It helps direct the energy. Plus, I like the way it looks.”

  “Now that’s some thing I can under stand.”

  “So it’s not mumbo-jumbo.”

  He had the good grace to laugh. “Yeah.”

  Megan just rolled her eyes at him.

  “The sandwich was great, though,” he said with a nod toward the plate he’d emptied several minutes earlier. “I never would have tried it on my own but I liked it.”

  “Even though there was no meat and mayo?”

  “Even though.”

  “You get points for owning up to that, anyway.”

  He laughed again and Megan realized she was coming to like the sound of it. Probably too much.

  “I didn’t know you were keeping score,” he said. “But I’ll bet I can use all the points I can get.”

  “As a matter of fact,” she teased.

  “And I should probably leave while I’m ahead,” he added, pushing himself to his haunches and standing from there.

  Megan found herself awash in disappointment that he was leaving. But that fact alone—that she was disappointed—was enough to warn her she’d been enjoying his company too much. So, rather than protest, she stood, too, to walk him to the door.

  “Oh, I almost forgot,” he said along the way. “Did you try to reach your parents?”

  Back to business. That was really disappointing.

  “I put in the initial call this morning but it may be days before the connection can be made. All I can do now is wait for them to get the message and do a ship-to-shore call or dock some where.”

  They’d reached the front door by then and, with one hand on the knob, Josh turned to face her. “I need to hear from them as soon as possible. I hope you left that as part of the message.”

  “I did. But I think you need to be exploring other possibilities.”

  “What makes you think I’m not?”

  “Oh, please. You have your sights set on them. Just because they don’t live like most people and they’re a little more radical than the average Mr. and Mrs. John Q. Public you believe they’re automatically guilty.”

  “Right. It doesn’t have anything to do with the evidence.”

  “Evidence or not, you need to be investigating other people.”

  “Do you have someone I should put on the suspect list?”

  “No. I’m just saying that you have an obligation to keep an open mind, and I don’t think that’s what you’re doing.”

  “So you’re doubting my objectivity?” he said, but without any signs that that disturbed him.

  “Yes, I am,” she confirmed. “I’m worried that you’ve tried and convicted my parents already and that’s that—you aren’t even looking anywhere else.”

  “I wouldn’t want to worry you,” Josh said as if their entire conversation was amusing him. “Maybe you should tag along as I investigate just to make sure I leave no stone unturned.”

  If that was a challenge it was one she was going to take. “Maybe I should.”

  She met his midnight-blue eyes with her own and their gazes seemed to lock.

  “You’re welcome to,” he said more seriously, his voice deeper.

  “Then I will,” Megan told him, her tone suddenly softer for no reason she could fathom. “When?”

  “This case is all I’m working on. I’m going out to do inter views with your neighbors tomorrow.”

  “Tomorrow is fine. We could even do your acupuncture in the morning before and then head out.”

  That made his handsome face scrunch up and he broke off eye contact in the process, as if she’d suggested some thing un bear able.

  “Maybe you’re just afraid of the needles,” Megan said then, goading him.

  But it only made him chuckle once more. “Good bedside manner.”

  This time Megan had the grace to laugh before taking a better tack. “Give it a try. Just see if it doesn’t work. I’ll even make a deal with you—if it doesn’t you don’t have to pay me for the testing or the treatments.”

  His striking eyes caught hers again and there was pleasure in them that told her he was enjoying this as much as she was.

  “Okay, deal,” he agreed. “Tomorrow morning, first thing.”

  “And then I’m tagging along from there on your investigation.”

  “I wouldn’t have it any other way,” he said as if he were humoring her.

  With everything settled and planned he should have left then. But he didn’t. Instead he stayed there, still looking into her eyes.

  And as they had the night before, thoughts of him kissing her
popped into Megan’s mind.

  She told herself that really was crazy. That it was the very last thing she should be thinking about.

  But there it was just the same. The thoughts. And worst, the wish that he would….

  Then it seemed as if he actually might. It seemed as if he was leaning towards her a little. Maybe bending down.

  She didn’t mean to, but she tilted her chin ever so slightly upward and if he intended to kiss her, she would have been ready for it.

  But then all of a sudden he straightened away from her and opened the door. Almost startling her because that was not what she was expecting.

  “I’ll be at your office at nine,” he announced, his voice slightly husky, slightly gruff.

  “I’ll be there,” Megan assured him, falling short of strengthening her own tone because she was still lost in what now seemed to have been merely imaginings that he might have been on the verge of kissing her.

  Then he went out the door in a hurry, closing it behind him as if any less determined exit might not have been successful.

  And Megan was left staring at the oak panel.

  Staring at it and reaching a single hand to press her palm to it as if it were Josh’s chest.

  This will never do, she told herself, knowing without a doubt that she shouldn’t be feeling what she was feeling or thinking what she was thinking.

  But knowing it without a doubt and stopping it were two different things.

  And she just couldn’t stop thinking about what it might have been like if he had kissed her.

  And wishing he had.

  In spite of everything…

  Chapter 4

  BY THE TIME MEGAN opened the office the next morning she had a new determination about what could and what could not go on between herself and Josh Brimley when she saw him again.

  No more noticing how great-looking he was. No more flirting or encouraging banter that brought out his quick wit. No more getting lost in the effects of his simmering sexuality. And definitely no more thinking about him kissing her. Or wishing he would.

  He was a status quo kind of guy and no one knew better than she what that translated to in regards to a relationship with someone like her. It was some thing she needed to avoid at all costs. More so because of the whole criminal investigation he was engaged in.