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“It couldn’t hurt.”
“I’ll try. Thanks, Mr. Wainwright.”
“Still not budging on that ‘Grandpa’ issue, are you?”
I shook my head but grinned at him and squeezed his hand. “No.”
Mr. Wainwright squeezed my hand tightly, then turned on his heel and commenced chopping through the jungle plants again.
“Nola?” he called as he pushed into the brush. “Take it easy on Dick. He means well.”
* * *
Muttering to myself about unhelpful figments, I woke up with my head propped on my arm and the bare expanse of Jed’s back turned toward me. He was up on one elbow, holding something, shifting it back and forth in his hands.
“Are you all right?” I asked. Startled, he turned, and there was a strange, unfamiliar expression on his face. Sadness, regret, a touch of anger. I’d never seen those emotions on Jed’s sunny, open face. He looked down at me, a quick grin spreading across his features, chasing the sad expression away. “Yeah, just fine.”
“So this is incredibly awkward,” I said. I sat up, with the sheets pressed to my chest. I looked over Jed’s shoulder to find that he was holding the altar plaque in his hands, turning it over and over. “What are you doing?”
“I just didn’t get a very good look at it last night,” he said, turning onto his back and pulling me with him so I was splayed across his chest as he toyed with the plaque. “It’s just a chunk of clay. I was tryin’ to figure out what was so special about this that Jane Jameson would send us all the way down here for it.”
I carefully retrieved the plaque from his hands and wrapped it in the unbleached cloth I’d packed for just such a purpose. “I think it was the principle of the thing. Jane got really pissed at the idea that Mama Ginger had not only stolen from her but had also used ill-gotten goods to get out of shopping for a present. Reclaiming the gift would embarrass Mama Ginger, so the effort was worth it.”
“But why send you?”
“I’ve spent a lot of time at the shop lately, and I haven’t stolen anything from her yet. It fostered a sense of trust.”
“Not for me,” he said. “I plan on pattin’ you down after you get out of my truck.”
“Well, I was also one of the few people she knew who could make the trip down here,” I said. There was a pause, not awkward, just pleasant. I pressed a finger into the little divot in his chin, making him dip his head and bite down on my fingertip. I laughed and drew it away, but not before his rasping tongue on the ridges of my skin sparked some rather pleasant tingles between my thighs. “So last night . . .”
“. . . Was not a one-time occasion,” he informed me. “That was new for me. The whole talkin’ and actually tellin’ you what I think, instead of what I think you want to hear—I don’t do that with everybody. In fact, I don’t think I’ve ever done that before. This is a beginning, not a brush-off, understood?”
I nodded. “Still, it is incredibly awkward.”
“Did you have a good time?” He leaned across the sheets and pushed my hair back from my face. I nodded. “Do you think I’m easy?”
I burst out laughing. “No.”
“Good. I don’t think you’re easy, either. I think you’re sexy and fun and bendy in all the right places.”
“I told you, ‘bendy’ is a selling point.”
“Honey, I saw all kind of potential in you last night.”
* * *
The drive back was pleasant enough. I ended up sleeping for a good portion of it, which made Jed snicker about having worn me out. I snarked back that I was just trying to avoid further trauma from Atlanta traffic. We only made a few stops for coffee and Sno-Balls, and by midafternoon, we were rolling back into town.
I liked that despite the fact that we’d seen each other naked, nothing seemed to change. He still made inappropriate jokes. I made vague threats to his manhood. It was lovely, relaxed. But I felt strange that I didn’t feel worse. I’d fought with Stephen, but I wasn’t sure if I’d broken it off with him officially. He’d left me ten voice-mail messages, most of which I’d ignored. As far I knew, he was ordering bloody apology flowers and sending them my way. If so, I was a terrible girlfriend. But what bothered me the most was that I didn’t actually feel bad. Physically, I felt good—balanced, limber, and untroubled. The last time I felt this loose was after getting a massage at one of those day spas when Penny got married and insisted on a girls’ do.
I was a morality-free zone.
Still, it was hard to feel bad, knowing that the plaque was resting comfortably in my overnight bag. Jed pulled the truck into the driveway and slowed to a stop. “So, frankly, I’m sick of the sight of you,” he told me with a distressingly straight face. “Get out of my truck, and definitely do not come to my side of the house for dinner.”
“You are truly a bizarre man,” I told him.
“Is pizza OK?” he asked, grinning.
