Treachery in Death (In Death #32)(66)

He grinned like a moron—in Eve’s opinion. “Hi.”

Eve raked a hand through her hair. “This is just weird.”

“I think it’s delightful.” Roarke lifted his glass. “To new friends.”

Roarke took the wheel for the drive home. “Are you sulking, darling?”

“I’m not sulking. I’m thinking. I have a lot on my mind.” Sulking, she thought. What a crock. And speaking of crocks. “What the hell are they thinking, starting this up? They don’t even live on the same planet.”

“Love finds a way.”

“Love? Jesus, they met five minutes ago.”

“A bit longer than that, obviously.”

“Like a day. And now they’re all shiny-eyed, late lunch, theater going, and if they haven’t banged each other yet, that’s the entree on the after-theater menu.”

He swallowed a laugh, barely, and sent her a pseudo-sympathetic glance. “A little jealous, are you, watching a former flame light up for someone else?”

“I’m not jealous! I didn’t have any flame. He had the flame, and I never wanted him to have any flame. You damn well know I didn’t—” She broke off, and the sound she made was nearly a growl. “You did that on purpose, to trip me up.”

“Irresistible. I thought they looked wonderful together—and happy.”

“Happy-sappy, that’s not the point. I need Webster focused. This whole thing’s going to break, and soon. And he’s busy falling for somebody—somebody completely inappropriate given their situation.”

“Ah, that takes me back.”

“What?”

“How two other people who could have been considered completely inappropriate for each other, given their situation, fell in love when you needed to be focused on a difficult investigation.”

He took her hand now, brought it to his lips. “Love found a way. And justice was served.”

He made it hard to argue—and the old standby that was different sounded stupid even in her head. “You have to think it’s weird.”

“I think possibilities often come unexpectedly, and what you do with them, how much you’re willing to risk for them, can change your life and make it more than you ever imagined it could be. You changed mine.”

“This isn’t about us.”

“If you’d followed logic, a grha, if you’d followed the part of your head that said no, this is inappropriate, and impossible, you’d never have let me in.”

“You’d have broken in,” she muttered.

“I would have, yes, being mad for you from the first instant. But I wonder if it would be as it is between you and me if you’d shut down your heart and only listened to your head.”

He kissed her hand again, turning the palm to his lips.

“We found each other. We recognized each other—our two lost souls—when logic says we shouldn’t have. The choices we made once we did brought us here.”

And here, even now, she thought, his touch, the stroke of his voice, could turn her insides to jelly.

“I like them both. And okay, maybe I have a little speck of guilt about Webster because I didn’t see the damn flame until he practically scorched me with it, and you followed that by kicking his ass.”

“Ah, good times.”

She cast her eyes to the ceiling and really tried not to smile. “It’s that I can’t see how this can work. If they were just going for the bang, the vacation whoopee, fine. But that’s not what I was looking at across that table.”

“And who doesn’t enjoy the vacation whoopee? And no, that’s not what it is—or that’s not the potential of it. They’re adults, Eve, and they’ll figure it out, one way or another. Meanwhile, I enjoyed our little interlude—and watching them enjoy each other.”

“And now he’s going off to watch people sing and dance, and I’m going back to work.”

“Do you think he’s derelict in his duties?”

“No.” She let out a long breath. “No, I know he’s on top of it. And I know when I’m being pissy.”

He made the turn to home. “Would it help if I tell you how very entertaining—even arousing—it was for me to watch you metaphorically grind Renee into fuming dust to the tune of ‘Whiskey in the Jar.’”

“Maybe. It was fun.” She rolled her shoulders. “It was satisfying. More fun, more satisfying when it stops being metaphorical, but pretty damn entertaining.”

“And arousing?”

She shot him a quick, cocky grin. “Maybe.”

They got out of the car, and he caught her hand before she could start up the steps. “Come with me.”

“No, you don’t. I’ve got to—”

“Take a walk with me on this bright summer evening. Love’s in the air, Lieutenant.”

“You mean watching me be a bitch got you stirred up.”

“It did. Oh, it did.” He gave her arm an easy swing with his. “When we go inside, we’ll work. But just now? There’s a bit of a breeze—finally—and it’s stirring in the gardens, and the woman I love has her hand in mine.”

He broke a blossom from a bush—she couldn’t have named it—and tucked it behind her ear.