Jeffery Deaver - Solitude Creek

‘I thought Anne was back,’ she’d said. Well, stammered.

He’d blinked. ‘Anne? Sort of, I guess. She and her boyfriend are getting a small place in the Valley. She knows she hasn’t been the best mother. She’s resolved to change that and’s going to spend a lot more time with the kids. I was proud of her.’ He’d given a shallow laugh. ‘Anne has nothing to do with us. You and me.’

‘Oh, my,’ Dance had whispered. Her eyes, too, fell on the jaundiced feline sculpture squatting on her desk. It had never been examined as much as it had in the past three minutes.

Now, sitting on the chill Deck, she recalled perfectly O’Neil’s next words: ‘So there, I’ve said it. Will you marry me?’ He looked her over closely. ‘You know, I’m thinking, after all these years knowing you, working with you, I don’t believe I’ve picked up a lick of kinesics. I have no idea what you’re thinking.’

And Dance had risen from her office chair and walked around the desk to O’Neil. He, too, had stood up.

She said, ‘Sometimes it’s better to leave kinesics out of it. And stick with words. Well, one word.’ She’d put her arms around him and, her mouth close to his ear, gripped him as tightly as she could. And answered his question. ‘Yes,’ Kathryn Dance said. ‘Yes.’