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“Right. I’ll try to keep in touch as best I can.”
I acknowledged that promise with a slight tilt of my head. Soon enough, we were pulling up to the back of my building. He turned off the engine, and I lifted an eyebrow.
“I figured I’d see you inside,” he said. “Just in case there really are any serial witch killers on the loose.”
From the glint in his eyes as he spoke, I guessed he really wasn’t too worried about me getting ambushed by an axe murderer. No, I had a feeling I knew exactly what he wanted.
That hunch was borne out soon enough, because as soon as we were inside with the door safely closed behind us, he gave me another kiss, this one faintly flavored with honey mustard. Which was fine…I happened to love honey mustard.
It was a good, long kiss, one from which I emerged feeling slightly dizzy and not at all inclined to head into an afternoon of mundane work behind the counter at my shop. No, what I really wanted to do was drag him upstairs to my apartment and do unspeakable things to him. I’d just shoo Archie out into the hallway for the duration.
However, I knew that wasn’t going to happen…mostly because Calvin pulled away immediately afterward, saying, “And now I really need to get going. With any luck, that kiss’ll hold me for a bit.”
“If not,” I said with a grin, “I’d be all too happy to drive over to the police station and give you a booster to see you through the rest of the day.”
“Don’t tempt me.” He touched my cheek, a caress that sent a delicious shiver through my body. “I’ll try to call you if we come up with anything. You should be perfectly safe, but if you start to feel hinky about anyone coming into the shop, then just close up and give me a call.”
His words put a slight damper on the afterglow from our kiss. What, was he having second thoughts about my serial killer theory?
All I said was, “Isn’t this Chief Lewis’s territory?”
“Technically. But if it’s related to Lilith Black’s murder, then it’s my case.”
I had to be satisfied with that. The Goddess only knew that I’d much rather deal with Calvin Standingbear than Globe’s curmudgeon of a police chief. “Okay. But I’m sure everything will be fine.”
Another kiss — this one hot enough to steam up my sunglasses — and Calvin was murmuring a goodbye and then disappearing out the door into the white-hot glare of the parking lot beyond. I stood for a moment in the dimly lit little foyer, smiling a bit foolishly at the memory of yet another unforgettable kiss.
Maybe it was wrong to be so happy when Lilith had died so horribly just two days earlier…but I just couldn’t help myself.
15
Cooked Books
To saythe rest of the afternoon was an anticlimax would be the understatement of the year. Because it was Thursday and I wouldn’t have a real rush of customers until the weekend, the hours seemed to drag by. I got a new shipment of books and Tarot cards from Llewellyn Press, and so I used up a little time unpacking them and getting them properly entered into inventory before I put them out on the shelves, but it wasn’t the sort of project that took up hours and hours.
However, Hazel came in a little after three, looking glowing and happy. She took one look at me and said, “You’re all lit up. Are you absolved of Lilith Black’s murder?”
“Yes,” I replied, wondering if I should say anything about Calvin and me. Then again, he had told me he didn’t want to sneak around. Besides, if Hazel knew that Calvin and I had a thing going, then that should get rid of any lingering awkwardness about my one date with Chuck Langdon. “And Calvin and I worked everything out.”
Her eyes widened. “You did? So….”
“So, we had lunch. And we’ll be seeing each other again. I just don’t know exactly when, since he’s so busy right now with the murder investigation.”
Usually, the mention of a murder was enough to dampen a person’s enthusiasm, but Hazel still looked cheerful and rosy. “Oh, that’s great news! Chuck and I went out to dinner last night, and it went really well. We’re going to head over to Gilbert tomorrow to a place where he says we can go wine tasting.”
Never in a million years would I have imagined Chuck Langdon as the type of guy who liked to go wine tasting, but people did have a tendency to surprise you. Or maybe he’d suggested the activity because he knew it was the sort of thing Hazel would enjoy.
“I’m so glad for you two,” I said, and I meant it. Chuck and Hazel were both extremely nice people, and they deserved to be happy. “You’ll have to report back on the wine tasting. It sounds like something Calvin and I might want to try when he isn’t so busy.”
“I will. There are also a lot of places in Scottsdale for that kind of thing, but we’ll probably wait for the fall when it isn’t so hot.”
Was Gilbert appreciably cooler than Scottsdale? I had no idea, since I was only slowly coming to any kind of knowledge about the greater Phoenix area. Maybe Gilbert simply seemed more doable because it was so much closer.
“Anyway,” she went on, “I just wanted to check in because I was worried about you. The last time we talked, things didn’t seem to be going so well. I’m glad that you and Calvin patched things up, and that no one thinks you could have had anything to do with Lilith’s murder.”
That might have been taking things a bit too far — after all, I hadn’t done a poll of Globe’s residents to see what they thought of the situation — but I supposed just the visual of me going about my business, clearly a free woman, had probably done a lot to dispel anyone’s suspicions.
“I hope so,” I said lightly, figuring I might as well leave it there. “Maybe sometime after this investigation is behind him, Calvin and I can get together with you and Chuck to do dinner or something.”
