Heather Webber - Digging Up Trouble

Looking around, I realized I missed the darn chimes. I went outside to look and found them in a boxwood near my TBS truck. As I reattached them to the door, the phone rang.

I gave Sassy a pat as I picked up the phone on Tam’s desk.

“Taken by Surprise, this is Nina Quinn.”

“This is your date, wondering where you are.”

My date. Oh no! “I’m so sorry, Bobby! I forgot.” We’d had plans to go to a Reds game. “It’s been crazy here.” I’d talked to him last night, told him all about what had happened. “The widow is still threatening to sue me. I hate to say it, but she has a case.”

“My cousin Josh is a lawyer. A good one. Let me call him for you.”

I had independence issues and thought I should call my own lawyer, but decided I needed help. I couldn’t do it all, as much as I wanted to. “All right.”

“How about dinner and a movie now that the game is just about over?” he asked.

“Bobby, I’m so sorry I forgot about the game!”

“It’s okay. They’re losing anyway. Dinner? Movie? It will take your mind off things for a while.”

I agreed before I thought too much about it, and hung up before I changed my mind.

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I knew I needed to decide how I felt about Bobby. Soon. I didn’t want to hurt him.

The phone rang again, reminding me that I also needed to find a temp for Tam, though no one could ever replace her.

She was the backbone of TBS. She kept things running smoothly, me organized, and track of all loose ends.

Not to mention she answered the phone.

“Taken by Surprise, this is Nina Quinn.”

“You’re too busy to be answering the phone.”

Tam. I smiled.

“You really need to find a fill-in for me.”

“I know.”

“Let me call a few people. I’ll have them there Monday at ten a.m.”

“Okay.”

“Wait. Check the schedule. Make sure you don’t have anything going on.”

I checked the schedule, feeling a little bit like a kid being told what to do.

“Nothing,” I said.

“I’ll take care of it.”

“You really should be resting.”

“All I do is rest.”

She had a point.

“How’d the visit to the dead guy’s wife go?”

I hedged.

“I told you so,” she said.

I heard corroborating clucking in the background and groaned. “I gotta go,” I said.

“Liar.”

“ ’Bye!”

I hung up, switched on the voice-mail system, and tried to get some work done.

Ten

“Do you want to have kids?”

I choked on my coconut ice cream, spitting some out, which was a shame because it was really good.

Bobby patted my back, a smile pulling at the corners of his lips.

“Sorry,” he said. “Just trying to get your attention.”

We were at StarBright, an old-fashioned drive-in movie theater. A speaker box was hooked over Bobby’s half-lowered window as Star Wars —the original—played on the big screen.

“Well, you’ve got it now.” I wiped a speck of coconut from the dashboard.

I’d been a crappy date. So lost in thoughts over lawsuits and blackmailers I hadn’t paid Bobby any attention at all. I was wasting prime drive-in make-out time.

“You thinking about that dead guy?”

Sadly, I stared at what was left of my little cup of ice cream. I’d lost my appetite. “Yeah.”

“Everything will work out.”

“Wish I could believe that.”

I must have sounded pathetic because he rubbed a knuckle over my cheek, leaned in and kissed me. I tried to move 84

Heather Webber

closer to him, but he drove a Celica that had bucket seats and one of the boxes in the middle that was a car’s equivalent of a kitchen junk drawer. Whatever happened to good old-fashioned bench seats? Did some sort of abstinence group have them outlawed?

A car honked next to us, followed by a series of “Woo-hoo, Mr. MacKenna.”

I’m sure I was blushing, but glad it was dark so the teens in the car next to us couldn’t see.

Bobby wiped his lips, gave a little wave to the group.

“Students,” he said.

“I figured.”

“Maybe we should go somewhere private?” he asked, a husky tone to his voice.

Panic swelled. This. Was. It.

Could I really do it?

It wasn’t as though I didn’t like Bobby. I really did. And it wasn’t as though my body wasn’t begging for me to say okay. It was.

I just . . .

“You’re thinking too much,” Bobby said, leaning in to kiss me again.

More honking ensued from the car next to us, but I couldn’t have cared less. Bobby either, apparently, because he didn’t pull back right away.

When he finally did, he looked at me, saying nothing.

I tried to catch my breath, and finally said, “Private is good.”

He fairly chucked the speaker box out the window, started the car, throwing it into reverse. The kids next to us cheered.

“Riley’s not home, right?”

My libido was doing a happy dance. “He’s not home.” He spent most weekends with Kevin.

Digging Up Trouble

85

Kevin.

No, no, no! Don’t think about him, I told myself.

Over and over again.

Because apparently it was the only thing I could think about right now. I needed distraction. Immediately.

I reached over, took Bobby’s hand as he sped through the streets. “So,” I said, picking up his line of questioning, “do you want kids?”

He didn’t hesitate. “Yes.”

“How many?”

“At least four.”

“Four!” All right. This might not have been the best dis -

traction.

He laughed. “You should see your face.”

I could imagine.

“I want a big family.” He rubbed a finger along the palm of my hand, sending delicious shivers up my arm.

“Oh.”

“You never did answer me, by the way.”

“What? When?”

“Do you want kids?”

This was probably one of those conversations all people should have at some point in their relationship, but now, on the way to do what we were going to do, I didn’t think it was the best time.

“Nina?” He sounded worried. “You don’t want kids at all?”

“No, I do. I do. I don’t know about four, but I do want kids. Someday.”

He glanced at me. “Someday?”

“Someday.” I didn’t know when. How did a person know when?

In the streetlight, I could see him nod. “I suppose we should just get it all out.”

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“All?”

“Everything.”

“Like?” I asked, wishing my ice cream wasn’t a puddle in a cup on the floorboard. I could use some fortification right now.

“How do you feel about marriage?”

I groaned.

“Well, that answers that.”

“Don’t get me wrong. I think I could marry again . . .”

“Someday.”

“Exactly.”

I noticed his finger had stopped rubbing my palm.

“What about relocating?” he asked.

“Relocating? Where?”

“Anywhere.”

Moving? I just couldn’t see it. This is where my family was. As dysfunctional as they were, I loved them and couldn’t imagine not being near them. And work . . . Tam, Kit.

And Riley.

“I don’t think so.”

I wondered at the turn in the conversation. A rather large part of me wished we were back at the drive-in, making out.

Hating the silence, I struggled to find something to say to ease the sudden tension.

And couldn’t find one thing.

Mostly because my thoughts kept turning back to Russ Grabinsky. I was debating whether or not I should call Kevin about the man who threatened Greta.

Then I kept thinking that I should just stay out of it.

But . . . The man from Greta’s kitchen had had a very identifiable wedding ring. If I could just find him . . .