Gemma Halliday - Undercover In High Heels

The third book in the Maddie Springer series, 2007

“Wait, Chad, don’t leave. I…I have something to tell you.”

“After all your lies and deception, there’s nothing you can possibly say to make me stay now, Ashley.”

“Chad, please! You know I love you. I only did what I had to to keep us together. Besides, you can’t go now…I’m carrying your baby!”

I gasped, grabbing another handful of popcorn as the TV switched to a deodorant commercial.

“Oh my freaking God, the baby is the gardener’s?” my best friend Dana shouted from the sofa beside me. “Her husband is gonna freaking flip.”

“Don’t worry, ” I said, taking a sip of Diet Coke. “He’s still in that coma, remember? He’ll never know.”

“Oh, right. I missed that episode. So does that mean the lady who hit him with the car went to jail?”

I shook my head. “No, her husband blackmailed the DA to get the charges dropped, but only if she checked herself into rehab. But instead of going to rehab, she shacked up with her sister’s husband at his place on the lake.”

“Oooooooh, ” Dana said. “So that’s why the sister is poisoning the husband.”

I nodded. “Shhh, it’s back on.”

Dana and I went silent, our eyes glued to the screen as Chad and Ashley fell into a passionate embrace. I’m not ashamed to admit it: I was seriously hooked on this show. Magnolia Lane was the hottest prime-time soap to hit the airwaves since Brandon and Brenda moved to the 90210, and I was powerless against its junk-TV spell.

My cell rang from my purse.

“You’re ringing, ” Dana said.

I waved it off. “Commercial, ” I mumbled around a bite of popcorn, my eyes glued to the screen as Chad asked Ashley just how sure she was that the baby was his and not her comatose husband’s. While, of course, Ashley’s nosy neighbor listened at the bedroom door, catching the whole conversation.

Just as they switched to a shot of Ashley’s husband in the coma ward, my purse rang again.

“You sure you shouldn’t get that?” Dana asked.

I shook my head. “Are you kidding? Ashley’s husband is about to wake up.”

I ignored the “William Tell Overture” trilling from the region of my Kate Spade, instead grabbing another handful of popcorn as Nurse Nan leaned over the comatose Preston Francis Barton III. Considering she was his wife’s secret evil twin sister, I figured we were in for two options: she was either going to smother him or pull the plug.

She leaned in closer. Her hands reached for the plug.

Dana and I did a collective gasp.

Then the screen went to a life-insurance commercial featuring a baby boomer in leather pants air-guitaring a Jimi Hendrix song.

“I hate it when they do that!” Dana said, throwing a piece of popcorn at the screen. Hers, of course, was minus the butter, oil, fat, salt, and flavor. Dana was an aerobics instructor-slash-wannabe actress with the kind of curves that caused car crashes on the PCH. Her body was a temple. Mine, on the other hand, required regular sacrifices from the natives of Double Stuf Oreos, cheeseburgers, and popcorn with lots of bright yellow butter flavoring made of ingredients I couldn’t pronounce. My theory? As long as my favorite Cavalli jeans still fit, I was doing okay. (Fine, so they were a little snug around the waist lately, but I could still zip them up!)

While Dana tossed another kernel of popcorn at the television, I reached into my purse and checked my cell readout. Two missed calls. Both from the same number, one that had me doing a little happy squirm in my seat. Ramirez.

Detective Jack Ramirez was not only the LAPD’s hottest cop, but as of last fall he was also mine. All mine.

Okay, so he hadn’t exactly officially said that I was his girlfriend yet, but I’m pretty sure that just last week he used the words girl and friend in the same sentence. Which was a start. Ramirez wasn’t exactly your typical happily-ever-after material. He was a homicide detective with a very large gun, a very large tattoo, and some very dangerous moves in the bedroom. More of a bad-boy Russell Crowe than a home-and-hearth Ward Cleaver. Not, mind you, that I was complaining. (See bedroom reference above.)

We were supposed to meet for “drinks or something” after he got off shift. Me, I was wearing a black lace Vicky’s Secret thong under my capris in hopes of the “or something.”

I keyed in my PIN number and waited for my messages while the Magnolia Lane theme song played and credits rolled over a backdrop of manicured lawns and a picture-perfect neighborhood.

“Hey, Maddie, it’s me, ” came Ramirez’s voice. “Listen, something came up. I’ve got to meet someone at the Cabana Club, so I can’t get together later after all. Sorry. I’ll call you tomorrow.”

Great.

Ramirez’s fatal flaw, as you may have noticed, was his tendency to make and break plans. Or, worse yet, not make them at all. Even though I was seconds away from actual girlfriend status, I hadn’t seen Ramirez since last Friday night, when dinner and a movie at City Walk had turned into appetizers and me in a cab when he got a call about a gang shooting in Compton. And now, true to form, he was blowing off our “or something” again. I narrowed my eyes at my cell, wondering what kind of someone he was meeting instead.

“What’s up?” Dana asked, watching my face fall.

“Ramirez. He’s canceling on me.” Again.

“What, again?” Dana asked, voicing my thoughts.

“I know! He said he has to meet someone. What does that mean?”

Dana shrugged. “I dunno.” She popped another piece of popcorn into her mouth.

“I mean, are we talking a work-related someone or a personal someone? ’Cause if it’s a personal some-one, why not just ask them to join us for drinks? Why cancel on me? What, is he ashamed of me? He doesn’t want his friends to meet me? That’s bad, isn’t it? It means something really bad. He’s having second thoughts about this whole relationship thing, isn’t he? I knew it. I knew it wouldn’t last. I knew he’d never settle down. I mean, not that I’m asking him to settle down. Oh God, do you think he thinks I want him to settle down? Is that it? Am I smothering him? Am I too needy? I’m not too needy, am I?”

“Whoa. Take a breath, Gilmore Girl. No wonder he needs a night off.”

Dana was right; I was beginning to hyperventilate.

“Look, he’s probably just out with the guys or something tonight. You know how those cops are. It’s a total boys’ club.”

“You’re right.” I took a deep breath. “Right. He probably just needs a night out with the guys. It’s not that he doesn’t want to be with me. I mean, of course he wants to be with me. Why wouldn’t he want to be with me? I’m so not smothery.” I paused. “But, just in case, how about we go on a double date this weekend?”

Dana shot me a look. “Double date?”

“It’s way harder to smother someone on a double date. Besides, it’ll be fun. Me and Ramirez, you and…” I paused, unsure which flavor of the month Dana was presently working her way through. As much as I loved my best friend, even I had to admit she had an uncanny ability to pick men destined for short-term romances. Case in point, her last boyfriend, Rico, a self-proclaimed urban soldier who’d ended up joining a group of mercenaries in Afghanistan searching for the last remnants of the Taliban. Dana was still nursing a sore ego at being dumped for a bunch of dusty caves halfway around the world.