Ridley Pearson - Killer Summer

“Beautiful night,” he said.

“Someday I’ll tell you,” she said, surprising him.

“No need. You’re right about the past. I like what you said.”

“Easier said than done, like everything else.”

“Looks like the Dalai Lama’s coming to town.”

“Are we changing the subject?”

He chuckled.

“What?”

“Nothing. Well… not nothing. Gail and Brandon.”

“What about them?”

“Just before the auction dinner, she ripped him a new one. Made him heel like a bird dog.” He rubbed Beatrice’s head.

“Because?”

“That’s the beauty of it. That’s why I can laugh about it. I have no idea. If I had to guess, it was that he missed some appointment with her. She has this real thing about being stood up. But it could have been him taking the wrong car, or forgetting to fill the ice trays or not cleaning hair out of the shower drain. But what got me was how sweet it was not to be on the receiving end of it, how I wouldn’t have traded with him for anything.”

She reached down for Beatrice as well, and their hands touched. Or was that what she’d meant to happen? he wondered.

Ridley Pearson is a New York Times bestselling author. He was the first American to be awarded the Raymond Chandler/Fulbright Fellowship in detective fiction at Oxford. He lives in Hailey, Idaho.