Virginia Kantra - All A Man Can Ask

“Yeah, well, you better turn your back,” he said. “Or I’m going to give you something else to remember.”

Her face set in cool, disapproving lines. He could almost see how Miss Pixie might have kept order in a classroom.

“That won’t be necessary. I’m going into town now.”

“Running away?”

“Running errands.”

“That could be good,” he decided. After five days of bug bites and boredom, he was ready for a new angle. Karen’s lead only took him as far as the town. Maybe all this time, he’d been barking up the wrong tree. Staking out the wrong dock. “I’ll come with you.”

“No.”

“It would be good cover,” he said.

“I don’t want you to come.”

So she was running away. Aleksy tried to find that encouraging. Maybe he got to her the way she, improbably, got to him.

He observed her stiff face and the way she held her right arm braced across her chest. Or maybe she couldn’t stand the sight of him.

“Just into town,” he said. “You can let me out at—what is it?—Harbor Street.”

Faye shook her head. “I’m sorry. I’ve let you stay, but I won’t be involved in—in whatever it is you’re doing. You’ll have to drive yourself to town.”

The unnaturally red-haired woman behind the counter at Weiglund’s Camera—Greta, her name tag read—beamed at Faye as she popped her film into an envelope.

“You sure do take a lot of pictures for a single gal. Have you heard from your aunt Eileen yet?”

Faye blinked at the woman’s intrusive interest. Friendly interest, she told herself. It couldn’t hurt her. No one in Eden thought she’d done anything wrong. “I had a postcard from Galway. She thinks she’s found the parish where her grandmother was born.”

“Isn’t that exciting,” Greta Weiglund said, sealing the envelope and tossing it into a box behind her. “And do you like it at the cottage?”

“Yes, thank you.”

“Not your first visit?”

“I— No. I used to come when I was a little girl.”

“I thought I remembered that,” Greta said with satisfaction. “Of course, you stayed with your auntie, then. Don’t you find it lonely now?”

Dear heaven. “No. Are my other pictures ready?”

“Let me just check. I heard the police were out there the other day. A trespasser, was it?”

Faye fumbled with her wallet. Living in Chicago, she’d grown used to fending off muggers, purse snatchers and panhandlers. But she was defenseless against Eden’s small town grapevine. “It wasn’t anything. A—a misunderstanding.”

Greta twinkled knowingly. “A young man, I heard. Are you seeing each other?”

Faye had a mental flash of Aleksy half-naked in the lake, the damp hair curling on his chest, his dusky nipples puckered with cold. Seeing each other?

“I— That is—”

I didn’t want to blow my cover, he’d told her. I’m working a case.

Faye bit her lip. “I guess you could say we see each other occasionally.”

Greta Weiglund nodded encouragement. “Isn’t that nice?”

It was awful.

Faye did not want to get involved. On her way back to the car, past the Rose Farms Café and Tompkins Hardware, she rehearsed to herself all the other things she could have said to deflect gossip.

I’m not sure who you’re talking about.

We’re just friends.

That’s Raoul. He does the yard work.

“Faye!”

A man’s voice. Calling her name. She froze. But it was only Richard Freer smiling at her from the gleaming glass entrance of his sporting goods store, as well-groomed and ruggedly handsome as a race car driver hawking motor oil.

Eileen Harper didn’t like him. “Cuckoos,” she called him and the other wealthy residents who bought up land across the lake to build newer, grander houses. But he was the closest thing to a neighbor Faye had. They seldom spoke, but he always waved when he saw her.

He strolled forward onto the sidewalk. “I know Eden’s not the big city, but I didn’t know you were so hard up for entertainment here that you’d started talking to yourself.”

She forced a smile. “Hi, Richard. Sorry. I was distracted.”

“I could see that.” He looked her over with the confident air of a man used to paying for—and getting—what he wanted. Faye caught herself stiffening and ordered her muscles to relax. He didn’t mean anything by it. And she’d given up taking stands over things she couldn’t control.

“I haven’t seen you on the lake,” he said. “What are you doing with yourself?”

She wondered if she should try out her yard boy explanation on him. No. “Nothing much.”

His gaze focused on the bag she carried. “Still taking pictures?”

They were neighbors, of sorts. He’d seen her out with her camera, and she’d explained about her painting.

“A few.”

“Heard you had some trouble at your place the other day.” He shifted closer and lowered his voice. “You know, a woman alone should always have protection at hand.”

He couldn’t mean… Condoms?

“No, ma’am, you don’t want to be caught unprepared if a situation arises suddenly where you need it.”

Faye goggled.

“A gun,” Richard said firmly. “A nice, light ladies’ handgun, that’s what you need.”

“Oh.” Faye’s breath escaped on a shaky laugh. “I don’t think—”

“You’ve got to take care of yourself. A couple of vagrants have been spotted at the lake. I’ve seen one myself, hanging around your aunt’s cottage.”

Her relief died. “Well, actually—”

“Hi, sweetheart.” Aleksy’s warm, rough voice broke into her explanation. His warm, heavy arm wrapped around her shoulders. “Sorry to keep you waiting.”

And before she could get her mind or her tongue working, before she could react or protest or prepare, he bent his dark head and kissed her full on the mouth.

He tasted like coffee.

He needed a shave.

And he had absolutely no business putting his tongue anywhere near her lips.

Faye registered all this in the brief, confused moments when Aleksy’s hard arm squeezed her shoulders and his mouth crushed hers. Wild heat bloomed in her chest and in her face. Indignation, she told herself. Had to be.

And then Aleksy released her and turned his careless, all-guys-together grin on Richard Freer.

“I don’t think we’ve met,” he said. “I’m Alex.”

“Dick Freer.”

They shook in a ritual less complicated but no less appraising than the high fives and hand signals of Lincoln High’s homeboys.

“Are you in town long?” Richard asked.

“As long as Faye will have me,” Aleksy said. And don’t you forget it, she thought, her lips still tingling from his kiss. “You?”

“I’m lucky enough to live here.” Richard straightened proudly against the plate-glass entrance. “This is my shop.”

“Guess you don’t get to travel a lot, then.”

Richard pulled in his jaw, creating an important-looking double chin. “Oh, I get around. Trade shows. Gun shows.”

Aleksy nodded. “Ever get down to Chicago?”

“Not often. Most of my business is selling shotguns and rifles to local sportsmen. And self-defense, of course.”

“What kind of self-defense are we talking about?”

“Whatever makes a man feel free and his family safe. Are you interested in guns, Alex?”

Faye wriggled out from under Aleksy’s arm. He was too close. This was too weird. And she wasn’t crazy about Dick Freer’s aggressive salesmanship, either.

Aleksy let her slide from under his elbow and then caught her fingers in his. “I could be,” he said.

Richard’s smile broadened. “Are you a gun owner?”