Tracy Kelleher: It's All About Eve

Eve shifted her attention—well, her partial attention—to the two young women. With graduation scheduled for the coming week, they were looking for a present for their roommate. “What about this pair of boxers with the lips? Too obvious?” she asked. Out of her peripheral vision, she saw Melodie leaning more closely than was strictly necessary. Her hips, in her black stretch pants, were slung so far forward Detective Moran could have done a pelvic exam.

She focused even harder on her customers. “Maybe your roommate is more the playful type? Yes, I know just the thing. Look, these elephants sniffing petunias are great. And they’re the same red as the university’s colors. Or how about the tropical fruits? Very Carmen Miranda.” It was only a matter of time.

A few minutes to be exact. As she finished gift-wrapping the sale—the elephants won out—Melodie joined her behind the counter.

“Just a box is fine,” Carter said, reaching in his back pocket and pulling out his wallet.

Eve watched Melodie fold tissue paper around a champagne-colored silk teddy. It was virtually unadorned except for a small satin bow at the center of the neckline. Something she would have picked out—for herself. She craned her neck to try to get a glimpse of the size.

“Do you approve?” Carter asked her.

Eve hastily readjusted her posture. “I approve of all purchases made in my store, not that you should have felt obligated to buy something.”

“Just trying to expand by horizons.” Carter winked and handed over his credit card to Melodie. He pulled out a business card and offered it to Eve. “Don’t forget, someone will be around to dust the mannequin for prints. But if you think of anything else or have any more problems, give me a call at that phone number. My pager number’s there, too.”

“Thanks.” Eve took the card. It felt warm from being in his wallet. She absentmindedly rubbed it, then looked up. He was watching.

The cash register printed out the credit card slip. “Here you go.” Melodie fished a pen out of a cup.

Carter signed and reached to put the shell-pink pen back.

“Keep it,” Eve said. “It’s got the store’s phone number on it.”

“Thanks.” He slipped it into the side pocket of his pants, near his holster. “The color goes with everything.”

Eve watched, fascinated and somewhat put off by the gun.

He watched where her eyes had moved. “So,” he said.

She shifted her gaze back to his face. “So.” She offered her hand. “Thank you for coming in so promptly, and thanks for all your help.”

His hand met hers. “I haven’t done anything yet.”

But he had. Or rather, he was. True, the handshake itself was brief, one solid up-and-down motion, very brisk. But the separating of flesh—now that seemed to linger a fraction too long to be kosher. And was she mistaken, or had his thumbnail inadvertently—or maybe not so inadvertently—trailed along her palm when their hands parted?

Eve inhaled sharply and lowered her hand to her side. The skin felt hot, tingly hot, as if she’d licked her index finger and stuck it into a light socket. And the line where his thumb had grazed—well, that was like dropping a clock radio into the shower with Howard Stern on the air.

Eve didn’t know what to say. The brief contact had been wildly arousing. Yet surprisingly intimate. Definitely secret. But completely out in public. Had it provoked some latent sexual fantasy she never knew she possessed? If so, she wasn’t entirely sure she wanted to go there.

Melodie came out from behind the counter and handed Carter his purchase in a pink Sweet Nothings shopping bag. “I hope we see you again.” She seemed blissfully unaware that she was standing perilously close to a surging electromagnetic field.

Not so Carter. Frankly, he looked a little shocked—and by more than 110 volts. He cleared his throat. “Yes, well, thank you.” He reached for the bag, and slowly turned and walked out the door.

Melodie slanted her head, angling for a better view. “Oh, my God. I feel like I’ve died and gone to heaven. No check that. The way I’m feeling I’ve definitely gone to hell.”

“If you go for the type.” Eve aimed for blasé. What a joke.

“Eve-y, you’d have to be dead not to go for the type.”

How true. Still, dealing with the opposite sex was like taking on a second job. And it entailed far fewer guarantees of a profitable payoff than starting up a new business—a pretty scary thought, especially when you considered that fifty percent of all new businesses failed after one year. Since Eve had no intention of being anything but a success, all her attention had to be focused on that goal. Daydreaming of true love—or even true lust—was out. Definitely out. Especially when the current object of desire appeared to be already attached to one very nice but very scary lady.

Eve walked to the counter. “Did you call in his charge card to make sure his credit was good?” She looked at Melodie who had moved closer to the door.

Melodie didn’t bother to turn around. “Eve, he’s a cop.”

Eve straightened a pair of satin traveling slippers that sat on the glass top. “You can never be too safe.” She paused. “Who picked out the teddy anyway? You or him?”

Melodie had her nose practically stuck to the glass front door. “He did.”

“Hmm-mmm,” Eve murmured—and she wasn’t sure if it was a hmm-mmm good or a hmm-mmm bad. “Who’d have thought Detective Moran had such good taste. I figured he’d do the typical male thing and pick some red negligee with a plunging neckline.” She thought a moment. “You should have shown him the leopard-print pajama ensemble, bottoms for him and top for her.” The top portion didn’t showcase many spots since the amount of skin it covered was less than two whiskers.

Melodie stepped back from the door. The entertainment must have been over. She didn’t bother to wipe away the nose print on the glass either. “Why? You think they’re more his style?”

“I wouldn’t know. But they’re definitely more expensive.”

SIMONE HELD OUT a gin and tonic to Carter. “So, what did you think of the lingerie lady?”

What didn’t he think about the lingerie lady?

Not that Carter was about to admit his fascination with Eve. Instead, he rested his tennis racquet against the picnic table and lowered himself gingerly into an Adirondack chair. “I don’t know what’s going to kill me first—the thought of Eve Cantoro’s tap pants, your gin and tonic, or your husband’s kick serve into my body.” His old Grantham University T-shirt was soaked. “But since we all have to die of something, pass that drink over here.”

Ted Daniger, Simone’s husband and old friend of Carter’s, sat in a nearby chair, slouching as comfortably as if he owned the place. Which, in fact, he did. The Daniger family mansion was a tidy Georgian brick pile that oozed the right mixture of substantial wealth—hand-carved moldings, crushed-stone circular drive, servants’ quarters—and laid-back bonhomie—a horseshoe pitch in the backyard and holes in the window screens from rambunctious Labradors. A descendant of one of those canine forebears lay panting at Ted’s side, a wet tennis ball at his feet—Buster the dog’s, that is. “You’re getting old, Moran. I’ve never beaten you in straight sets before.”

“You’re the same age as I am, Daniger.” Which was thirty-four to be exact. “It’s just that you weren’t up all night on a domestic violence case, followed by a double shift.” Carter had filled in for a fellow officer who was on his honeymoon in Cancun. Carter had felt like telling him to take the money and invest it in CDs—the financial sort—rather than blowing it on a week in Shangri-La. In his experience, paradise was greatly overrated.