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Dance considered. "What year is it again?"
He smiled. "Come on. We won't be that late."
A glance at her watch. "I don't know." Kathryn Dance hadn't played hooky in school, much less as a senior agent with the CBI.
Then she said to herself: Why're you hesitating? You love Michael's company, you get to spend hardly any downtime with him.
"You bet." Feeling like a teenager again, though now in a good way.
They were seated beside each other at a banquette near the edge of the deck, overlooking the hills. The early sun was out and it was a clear, crisp June morning.
The waiter--not fully uniformed, but in a suitably starched white shirt--brought them menus and poured coffee. Dance's eyes strayed to the page on which the restaurant bragged of their famous mimosas. No way, she thought, and glanced up to see O'Neil looking at exactly the same item.
They laughed.
"When we get down to L.A. for the grand jury, or the trial," he said, "champagne then."
"Fair enough."
It was then that O'Neil's phone trilled. He glanced at caller ID. Dance was immediately aware of his body language changing--shoulders slightly higher, arms closer to his body, eyes focused just past the screen.
She knew whom the call was from, even before he said a cheerful, "Hi, dear."
Dance deduced from his conversation with his wife, Anne, a professional photographer, that a business trip had come up unexpectedly soon and she was checking with her husband about his schedule.
Finally O'Neil disconnected and they sat in silence for a moment while the atmosphere righted itself and they consulted their menus.
"Yep," he announced, "eggs Benedict."
She was going to have the same and glanced up for the waiter. But then her phone vibrated. She glanced at the text message, frowned, then read it again, aware that her own body orientation was changing fast. Heart rate revving, shoulders lifted, foot tapping on the floor.
Dance sighed, and her gesture to the waiter changed from a polite beckon to one of mimicking signing the check.
