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“I’d call her fiery.”
Xavier turned his head toward Shane and nodded amiably. “Fiery. That’s good.”
They walked up the path, Rhett ambling with them. Xavier trooped up the steps to the porch and spared a glance at the air mattress and Shane’s T-shirt, crumpled in a ball. “Restless night, son?”
“Slept like a baby.”
“I bet you did,” Xavier said, and went into the kitchen.
Agnes had awoken slowly to voices out by the gazebo and then quickly to the realization that she was naked on her back porch with a teenage boy imprisoned in her basement and a cop walking up to her back door.
Shit. She grabbed for her sundress and slipped it on, trying to stay below the screens while gathering up as much of the bedding as she could carry, then did a low dash into the house to get Three Wheels out before Xavier saw him. She shoved the table away from the basement door, pushed the door open, whispered, “Wake up down there,” and dropped one of the kitchen chairs into the opening. “Climb on that and boost yourself up here.”
She stood back as Three Wheels clutched and clambered out of the hole, skinny and dirty, seemingly made entirely of elbows and knees with a shock of reddish-blond hair sticking out from under his old Confederate army cap. When he was on his feet, she grabbed his shirt.
“Listen to me,” she said. “In about half a minute, Detective Xavier is gonna come through that door and ask who the hell you are. You agree with everything I say, and you won’t go to jail for threatening me with a deadly weapon, you understand?”
Three Wheels looked tired, scared, and mad, but when he heard Xavier’s voice, his eyes widened and he nodded.
Agnes shoved him into the nearest seat and said, “I’m making you breakfast. You’ll eat it.”
“Yes’m,” Three Wheels said.
Agnes started to put coffee on and then shifted course to the fridge and poured Three Wheels a glass of milk instead. She put that in front of him, stuck bread in the toaster to get him started—if his mouth was full of food and drink, all the better—poured coffee beans into the grinder, turned the gas on under the griddle, fired up her CD player, and then got out her bowl to make pancake batter. The toaster heated up, so Carpenter must have fixed the electricity. That was?—
Three Wheels was staring at her.
“What?” she snapped.
“Nothin’,” he said, looking away, blushing.
She looked down and remembered: no bra. “Oh, for the love of...” She reached over and grabbed her Cranky Agnes apron and put it on to cut down on the shifting problem under her dress. Then the toast popped and she loaded four slices up with butter and jam and put it all in front of Three Wheels. “Chew, don’t talk.”
“Yes, ma’am,” Three Wheels said, and began to eat as if he’d never seen food before.
She almost felt sorry for him, but he’d broken into her kitchen, pointed a gun at her, and tried to take her dog, so the hell with him.
She started the coffee brewing and melted butter in the microwave, then dumped flour, sugar, baking powder, baking soda, and salt in a bowl just as Shane and Xavier came through the back door from the porch, followed by Rhett, who immediately flopped down in a patch of sunshine and fell asleep. Well, it was a long walk up from the yard. She smiled at Xavier—see how friendly and unworried I am?—and said, “Detective Xavier, what brings you out here so early in the morning?”
“The smell of that wonderful coffee brewing in your kitchen, Miss Agnes.”
“It reached all the way into Keyes, did it?” Agnes smiled wider at him, trying to make the words warm instead of sarcastic. “Well, then I’ll pour you a cup as soon as it’s ready.”
“I’d appreciate that.” Xavier nodded to Three Wheels, who crammed the rest of his piece of toast in his mouth. “And who might this be?”
“This is—” Agnes began, and then Doyle came in from the front of the house, calling “Top of the morning!” Agnes crossed her fingers mentally and then said to Xavier, loud enough that Doyle could hear, “This is Doyle’s assistant. He’s helping with the painting, trying to get the house finished for the wedding.” She turned to Doyle. “Pancakes coming right up, Doyle.”
Doyle’s bushy white eyebrows had shot up, but she met his eyes and he nodded. “All right, darlin’. I could use ... some pancakes.”
Thank you, Doyle, she thought, and turned back to Xavier. “Did you come for breakfast, Detective?” Please God, say no. Three Wheels will never be able to fake it through a whole breakfast.
“No, Miss Agnes, I came for your basement,” Xavier said. “I’ll just be going down there now.”
Agnes looked at Shane.
“I’ll just be going with him,” Shane said.
Agnes nodded. It was a real shame she wasn’t going to be sleeping with him anymore. A man that fast on the uptake was a treasure. Of course, given his line of work, a man slow on the uptake was dead.
