Stephanie shifted uncomfortably. She’d never had a stakeout partner look at her quite the way Ivan was looking at her. It wasn’t difficult to guess what was on his mind, and it was almost impossible not to respond. She knew if she gave him the slightest encouragement, they’d be in the house, under the covers, and the mystery would remain unsolved.
Maybe it would be worth it. It wasn’t much of a mystery, anyway. It wasn’t as if there were drugs involved. And in actuality, no one had gotten hurt. There was just a dead guy who turned up every now and then, and he’d been dead a long time. He could hang around a little longer while they took a night off to make love.
She took a moment to think about it seriously and decided there weren’t many things more important than making love to Ivan. She finally understood the enormous importance of the bedroom. It was a place where love was exchanged and strengthened, and the more time she spent with Ivan, the less she understood promiscuity and infidelity. There was a bond growing between them. A collection of shared intimacies, adventures, problems, and dreams. Private whisperings held them together as surely as steel bands, and she couldn’t imagine ever wanting to sever those ties.
Priorities, she thought. It was important to get her priorities straight. Ivan and Haben were at the top of the list, but it was a toss-up for the number one slot. Her emotional choice was definitely Ivan, but her more practical intellect insisted on Haben. She owned Haben. She was responsible for it, and it would guarantee her security in her old age. Someone was threatening her success as an innkeeper, and she had to find out who and why.
Ivan had watched the transformation take place inside her by studying her face. For a minute there, he’d almost had her. Then a variety of emotions had tramped across, ending in steely-eyed resignation, and he knew they’d be playing cop for a while longer. “Determined to get to the root of it?”
Stephanie looked grim, not completely happy with her choice. “Yeah. I hope this works. I’d dearly love to know who broke my toilet.”
Ivan pulled her onto the blanket. “I think you have a toilet fixation. You’re almost as bad as Melody and pork chops. Besides, how do you know the flying dead man has anything to do with your bathroom?”
“Woman’s intuition.” Stephanie sprawled on her stomach and felt Ivan move next to her, cuddling into her side, throwing his leg over hers. “Ivan Rasmussen, what do you think you’re doing?”
“Sharing body heat.”
“As long as you don’t share too much. I wouldn’t want to be so distracted that I missed the corpse dangler.”
“Spoilsport.” His hand inched under her sweatshirt. Stephanie murmured an unintelligible warning, and Ivan responded with a gentle squeeze. “Just warming my hand.”
Yeah, right. Stephanie didn’t think his hand felt cold at all. It felt nice and warm. And it was performing skillful manipulations that were encouraging more of the doodah humming.
“You know what you need? You need some hot coffee. Hot coffee will warm you up,” she said, pushing at Ivan, trying to wriggle out from under him.
“Maybe later. I’m warming up just fine now.”
“Yes, but will you be able to sprint across that yard if you have to?”
Ivan sighed. “I bet you were a terrific cop. Certainly never corrupted by forbidden temptations.”
“I had my moments.” She sat cross-legged and tugged her sweatshirt into place, turning her attention to the house. “What do you think of Melody?”
“I think she’s a fraud.”
“You have any idea who she is?”
“Not a clue, but she has a lot of nerve and a sinful sense of humor.” Ivan opened the thermos, and the rich aroma of strong coffee rushed out in a swirl of steam. “I didn’t pick up on her until tonight at the dinner table. I saw the expression on your face and knew you’d caught on, too.”
“I’ve been thinking about it. The reason we finally caught on is that she shifted her position. Up until tonight, we were the ones being tricked. Tonight she changed sides and threw in with us-at least for a while.”
“You sound cynical.”
Stephanie took a sip of coffee and returned the cup to Ivan. “She lied to us. You should be cynical, too.”
“You lied to a lot of people when you went undercover. Sometimes there are good reasons.”
She knew he was right, and she liked Melody, but she knew the danger of being betrayed by someone close. You kept your eyes open for the bad guys, but if you misjudged a friend, you were left hideously vulnerable. In undercover work it could cost you your life. She’d learned that the hard way. She reminded herself that this wasn’t undercover work and was most likely some goofy prank, but that was an intellectual conclusion and had little effect on the apprehension she felt.
They sat on the blanket in companionable silence for a long time. Finally, Ivan looked at his watch and sighed. “For two nights now, some idiot has dangled a dead body in front of the rear windows. Where is he tonight? Why is it you can never find a sicko when you want one?”
Stephanie kept her eyes on the house. “Now you know the truth about police work. Hours of tedium, occasionally livened up by a few moments of sheer terror.”
A chill ran along Ivan’s spine. He didn’t know what sort of terrors she’d experienced in the past, but he was going to make sure her future was free from that sort of fear. He wrapped her in the extra blanket and drew her into the circle of his arms so they were sitting her back to his front. “I’m glad I didn’t know you when you were undercover. I wouldn’t have been able to deal with the terror.”
“Undercover was cushy. I was always scared to death they might reassign me to traffic detail. I knew a school crossing guard who got her toes run over by a Volkswagen.”
He understood what she was saying, just as he understood that statistically air travel was safer than driving in a car, but those statistics didn’t make planes or police work any more appealing to him. He touched her hair with the tips of his fingers and wondered how she got it so silky. He felt the heat return and searched for a diversion. “Tell me more about being a cop. Did you like it?”
“Yup. It was the right thing for me to do at that point in my life. It wasn’t dramatic like on television. It was a job, and it gave me a sense of purpose. I think I basically have a blue-collar mentality. I like jobs that are physical. I wouldn’t be good sitting behind a desk all day making decisions or analyzing computer printouts.”
“I bet you were a good cop.”
“I was okay. Until the end.”
More silence stretched between them while Stephanie ran through the end in her mind, just as she always did when she thought of her life in Jersey City. She could feel Ivan watching her, feel the invisible support his presence always brought, and she knew he wanted to know more. She was surprised to find that she wanted to tell him more. He was a good partner. A good listener. A good friend.
He stretched his legs and leaned back on one elbow. “Are you going to tell me about it?”
“About being a cop?” She was hedging, she thought. Old habits die hard.
“About the end. Why did you quit?”
“Going for the jugular, huh?” Stephanie asked.
“I’ve been patient.”
She nodded. It was true. He’d been patient. And besides, the wound had healed. The embarrassment and disillusionment of her past had faded beside the glorious vitality of love and lust. “Okay. You want the long story or the short story?”
“The long story.”
Stephanie poured out the last cup of coffee and sipped slowly.
“When I graduated from the Police Academy, I didn’t look a day over sixteen, so I was the perfect person to plant in the schools. It was very small-time crime. All they wanted was to find out who the abusers were so they could get them into rehab and get rid of the pushers in the hallways and playgrounds. As I got older I gradually did more counseling and PR than undercover work.