Lori Avocato - Dead On Arrival

I decided right then-and having a visual of Airbrush Lady actually was the catalyst-that I was not going to think of Jagger again. Well, not tonight anyway.

I rather liked this guy…

We walked toward the boardwalk that led to a pavilion on the beach, and Dano placed his hand on the small of my back. I loved that! It was such a minor little thing but said a wealth of romantic stuff in my mind. Dano wanted to make physical contact and that was fine with me, so I leaned into him a bit.

When we walked through the pavilion onto the beach, a gust of sea air tousled my hair, pushed me into Dano a bit more (really!) and made my perky you-know-whats stand out in the stupid Spandex. Oh, my.

Naughty nurse versus CSIC alumni (Catholic-school-induced conscience). Talk about being conflicted!

We walked for several minutes, and then Dano stopped, held my arm, slipped his feet out of his cowboy boots and yanked off his socks. He looked at me as if we were in the throes of passion and he was waiting for me to disrobe.

Trying to ignore how hot that made me feel, I smiled, bent down and slipped my feet out of my little white flats. No nylons. The cool sand felt gritty against the soles of my feet, but it was kinda neat to be sans shoes. Dano took them from me and with his, set them on the edge of the pavilion boardwalk.

“Look, the sunset is beautiful,” I said, pointing toward the russet sky in the west.

Before I could mention the cloud formation like some dummy, his arms were around me, pulling me closer and whispering, “I’m seeing beauty all right.” His lips landed on mine-not so softly, which was pure ER-while his arms tightened their hold.

All I could think of for a second was, my “perky problem” was going to be solved in this position, since I was now burning hot.

Dano kissed me for several seconds and then eased his tongue past my lips and into the warmth of my mouth. Ah. What a fantastic feeling!

I ran my hands up his back to reach his cheeks. When I stood on my tiptoes, I couldn’t resist brushing back his hair with both of my hands.

He moaned.

I joined him while we kissed for several more minutes.

Without a word, he led me toward the little sand dunes filled with bushes and wild grass of sorts-a perfect spot in which to hide from the world.

I thought of the cold sand for a second, since I’d left my jacket in the car, but before I knew it, Dano had his jean jacket off, laid it down, smoothed it out best he could and waved a hand over it.

I laughed, joining the squawking gulls and crashing waves in the musical ambiance of the shore.

Dano eased me down onto the hillside of sand and joined me. I found myself moving closer, snuggling, kissing and even wrapping my leg over his. It felt…so right. So damn right.

Ah…

My fantastic, larger-than-life make-out session with ER Dano had me all hot and bothered and not in the least in need of a jacket. With no words spoken, we shared an intimacy that I was barely able to stop.

“Hey, there’s a time and place for everything, Nightingale,” he said in all his realism, yet they were the most disappointing words I’d ever heard!

Dano leaned to the side, bent forward for a quick kiss on the lips and then took my hand into his. “You fit perfectly.”

Wow. Nice sentiment.

“Um,” I mumbled. Funny how when you click with a guy, your intelligence sometimes bottoms out.

He was correct about the time and place, although for a few fleeting, CSIC-less minutes, I might have gone a bit farther if he hadn’t stopped us.

Pauline Sokol: real naughty nurse!

For a change I’d thrown caution to the wind-and I loved it! Hey, I told myself, this was the twenty-first century and women were allowed to have sensual feelings. Even allowed to be the ones to start the romantic/ sensual actions.

But this really wasn’t the place, so I tucked my desires into the back of my mind in a new folder called “ER Dano…Yum” and sat silently looking at the sunset.

We left the beach, since it closed at sunset, and he drove me home. He said good night with a decent kiss and, most important, an “I’ll call you.”

Now, I was no fool. Having a guy say he’d call was akin to having someone say “I’ll see you” when you meet them on a vacation, they live on the other side of the world and you didn’t even exchange email addresses. I’d long ago learned not to trust those words when a guy said them, so I quickly added, “When?” and Dano and I soon had a date set up for Friday night.

I mentally patted myself on the back when I went inside my condo and marked our date down on the calendar.

A light at the end of the single Pauline Sokol tunnel.

My mother would be stuffing lacy table favors with candy-coated almonds in pastel colors right now, if I told her.

No one was home, so I hugged Spanky for a bit, set him outside and pressed the play button on the phone recorder.

“Pauline Sokol? This is your m-m-o-t-h-e-r-r-r-r.” The last word came out in a slow, deep voice, much like Darth Vader’s.

I shook my head but sat down and listened, knowing the tone was all in my mind.

“Your sister Mary is coming over for lunch tomorrow. I thought you might want to join us-”

“I’m gonna have to pass despite the tempting offer,” I mumbled.

“-Oh, and Uncle Walt has to have his wisdom tooth out. Who would touch an old man’s wisdom tooth? Can’t they just dope him up so he’s comfortable? Pauline?” Silence. “I thought I heard a click and maybe you came in and picked up the phone. Just to let you know, you are not home much lately. Well, ever since that job. You know that job…”

I laid my head down on the counter and shut my eyes. I wanted to keep smacking my head against the counter, but that might dent the counter, and Miles would be pissed. I wasn’t crazy…yet.

“-Okay, I guess you did not come home. From where? It is nearly eight o’clock on a Wednesday night. Where are you at this late hour?”

This time I was really tempted to slam my head into the counter-a few times. Instead I sat up and went to press the stop button. Too much Stella Sokol at this time of the night could cause wicked nightmares.

“-Well, you call me before I go to sleep so I don’t worry. It is still eight o’clock, well, four minutes after. Wait. Wait a minute. I’ve got five after on my watch.”

I could hear she had put her hand over the phone receiver to yell, “Michael, what time do you have?” Daddy was probably asleep, so she took her hand away and said, “I go to sleep at nine sharp, Pauline.”

As if I didn’t know that. Creature of habit Stella Sokol had gone to bed at nine sharp and woke up at six sharp my entire life. I only hoped that as a baby, I woke her up a few times during the night.

Mentally I chastised myself and stuck my finger on the stop button-

“Meet me at our spot at ten…”

Shoot! I stopped the message before it finished, but knew full well whose voice that was and where our spot was.

Ah…

As I’d stripped off my beach outfit to don dark clothes, I knew Jagger had called to work on the case. My case. Our case, as it so often became. I appropriately had stuck on “investigating” clothing, along with stuffing my pockets with work tools like gloves, my camera beeper and a tissue (okay, that was mother induced, like don’t leave home without going to the bathroom first or wearing clean undies).

Once dressed, out the door and into my car, I pulled into the Dunkin Donuts parking lot and into a space near the back. Soon Jagger’s SUV drove up beside me. Without a word I got out and hopped into his car, and we were off without any explanations needed.

Before long, we had come to the intersection where TLC Land and Air was located. My heart started to race in anticipation of finding something, some clue, no matter how tiny, that would jump-start this case.