Miles wasn’t a fool. He didn’t move even a single step toward her. “Six-two, something around there. I’m not planning on jumping you, by the way,” he said and grinned like a schoolboy who’d just shot a three-pointer from twenty feet.
Katie shook her head, both at him and at herself. “This is all just so weird.”
“But just look at what you’ve accomplished in the space of a very short time.” He tapped off his fingers. “You’ve known me for this entire week, enough to know I’ll make a terrific mate, and you’ve made our kids so happy they just might not act bratty for another week. Your new last name isn’t that bad at all. The best thing is that I really like you, Katie. Really. You looked great in your wedding dress.”
“Don’t forget the three-inch heels that brought me eyeball to eyeball with you.”
“Never.” He hadn’t seen her in a dress until their wedding seven hours ago.
“I’m thirty-one years old.”
“Yeah, I heard you tell the county clerk. I’m thirty-five, which means I’ve got more experience than you, a really finely honed judgment, and you should trust me completely.” He held out his hands to her, palms up, fingers spread. “These are perfectly good hands you’re in, Katie.”
“Yeah, yeah, you’ve had more years to learn how to joke around and be an all-around smart guy.” She paused a moment. “I haven’t really trusted anyone-a man, that is-since Carlo.”
“That makes sense, since the guy was such a gold-plated jerk. But I’m me and there’s no gold plating about me. I’m not a shit, Katie, believe me. Now, it’s nearly midnight on a fine Monday night. I’m exhausted, you’re exhausted, and even Keely and Sam didn’t complain about going to bed.”
“That’s a first and likely a last.”
“Come here and let me kiss you. Then we’ll go to bed and get our first good night’s sleep in a week.”
Katie looked at the bed, then back at Miles. “I haven’t had sex in so long I think I’ve forgotten what comes after a kiss.”
He started ticking off on his fingers.
“What are you doing?”
“Trying to figure out when I had sex last. I’ve used up all my fingers. This is truly pathetic. Maybe we can figure it out together, sooner or later. What do you think?”
She wasn’t thinking anything, her brain was on hold. She tugged on her sleep shirt that showed a buzzard wearing a cowboy hat singing “Howdy, Howdy, Howdy, I’m a cowboy.” He’d have liked that sleep shirt to disappear. He really liked those long long legs of hers; he’d really like them wrapped around him.
“Which side of the bed do you prefer?”
She pointed to the left. After he climbed in beside her, Katie said, “Those pajamas look brand new.”
“They’re my official wedding pajamas.”
Miles flipped off the lights. Silence fell. After about five minutes, Katie said, “What are you humming?”
“Just an old buccaneer song.”
“Miles?”
“Yeah?”
“How about we try a kiss, and maybe then those wedding pajamas can go back in the drawer.”
A younger man, he thought, rolling over to a beautiful woman who was also his new wife, might feel a little nervous, but all his parts that counted were working just fine.
“We’ll always have fun in bed,” he said against her mouth, “maybe moan and thrash about a bit, and you’ll see, our problems won’t follow us here. You know something else?”
“What?”
“I swear I’ll respect you in the morning.”
When he had her under him, those long legs of hers wrapped around his flanks, and she was panting, biting his earlobe, kissing any part of him she could reach, he said, “We’re going to be just fine, Katie,” and he laid his hands on her then and she would have flown out the window if he hadn’t been on top of her.
37
S herlock heard a shout and turned to wave at Sean, who was running after Keely and Sam. Then Sam turned, held out his hand, and Sean latched on to it, shrieking. She smiled as she said to Katie, “They’re really good with him.”
“Yes, Sam told me he had to take care of Sean because he was little and ignorant.”
Sherlock laughed.
“Keely said Sean would grow up fast enough. Then she said since boys had so much to learn, she’d better start teaching him stuff now. She didn’t want to have to wait and cram everything into his head when he was grown up.”
Another shout. Katie looked over her shoulder to see Miles throw a Frisbee to Keely. So much laughter. It warmed her all the way to her bones.
Katie said, “It’s been two weeks and no more math teacher murders. Maybe the madman has simply left the area.”
“Thank God for no more murders, but I really hope he hasn’t left, it would make it that much harder to get the creep. Dillon hasn’t said much, just told me he’s doing good old-fashioned police work, and then he smiles. We’ll see. I’m busy on other cases, so it’s really pretty much in his bailiwick. Calls on the hot line have dropped over the past two weeks to only about fifty a day. You wouldn’t believe how many man-hours it takes to check just fifty calls, and all for nothing.”
“I can’t begin to imagine. I never had to do anything like that.” Katie shaded her eyes and looked over the park, always coming back to Keely who was chasing Sam, Sean running as fast as he could behind them. She didn’t realize she’d stopped walking and was staring at nothing in particular when Sherlock said, “What’s up, Katie?”
Katie gave a start. She looked down at the small woman who could probably knock her on her butt. “Do you fight dirty, Sherlock?”
“Dirty? Hmm. As in would I do anything at all, no matter how rotten, to disarm a bad guy? Oh yeah. Why?”
Katie shrugged. “I was just wondering, that’s all. Would you look at this gorgeous day. Can you believe this Indian summer? In early December?”
Sherlock raised her face to the sun that was bright and warm. A crisp breeze rustled through the nearly naked tree branches, ruffled her hair. Winter was lurking just around the corner, but not today. “Thank God, all that interminable rain has stopped. I swear I was starting to grow mold. At least we’ve got a couple of beautiful days before that snowstorm hits on Monday.”
“Mom says it’s finally stopped raining in Jessborough. Everything is still soggy, but things are getting back to normal. Do you know what she sent me for a wedding present?”
“A whip?”
To Sherlock’s surprise, Katie looked like she would burst into tears. “What is it, Katie? What did she send you?”
Katie wiped her hand across her eyes, and shook her head. “I didn’t mean to lose it like that. What you said about the whip-that’s funny, but it’s just that every time I think about it, how much it means to me and how she knew how much it means. She sent me copies of all her family photos, put them in three big albums. You know I lost everything when the house burned down. But now I have Keely’s first five years again.”
“Oh my, that was nice of her. Your mom is the greatest, Katie. Sam’s a lucky little boy to have such a wonderful grandmother. You said you guys are going back to Jessborough for Christmas? And there’ll be a religious ceremony this time for your mom and all your friends?”
Katie nodded. “She didn’t want to come here right away. She wanted to give the four of us time to get settled in with each other.” Katie sucked in a deep breath. “You know, Sherlock, it just doesn’t smell like eastern Tennessee here.”
“No,” Sherlock said. “Here, there’s always the underlying scent of car exhaust.”
“No, it’s more than that.”
“Okay, there’s also the scent of politicians, and that’s worse than car exhaust. But you know, springtime in Washington is really beautiful, if you just forget politics.”
Katie laughed, but to Sherlock’s keen ears, it was forced. She said, “Miles mentioned yesterday that as soon as Savich was up for it, they were going to work out together.”