Goose in the Pond - Earlene Fowler [28]
“I was watching that,” he mumbled, his eyes still closed.
“You hate Laverne & Shirley,” I said, pulling off my thick cotton-velour robe and crawling under the sheets next to him. His body was already warm with sleep, and I cuddled up next to him.
“I like Lenny and Squiggy,” he said, pulling me closer and nuzzling my neck. “I love the smell of you fresh from the shower.”
“Gabe,” I protested in a harsh whisper.
“What?” He ran a hand down my thigh.
“It’s late.”
He glanced at the bedside clock radio. “It’s only eleven o’clock.”
“I’m tired.” He nibbled on my neck, and I gave a soft laugh.
He rolled over on top of me. “Relax, I’ll do all the work.”
I pushed on his chest, still laughing. “There are people in the house.”
He looked down at me with smoky blue eyes and smiled slowly. “Then, querida,” he said, his voice dropping down to a faint whisper, “we must be very . . .” He brushed his lips lightly across mine, his hands busy elsewhere. “Very ...” He kissed me harder, knowing just the right maneuvers to melt my last ounce of resolve. “Quiet.”
“You know way too much about me,” I said as he pulled my T-shirt over my head.
Afterward, as I rested my head on his chest, my mind drowsily traveling from one irrelevant subject to another, he brought up our houseguests.
“So what’s your cousin’s sob story?” he asked, his fingers catching in my tangled hair.
I opened my eyes and studied the small cleft in his chin. “I have no idea. I haven’t had the opportunity to ask, but I bet I know the answer. My guess is she caught old Skeeter fertilizing a stray heifer or two. I don’t know what she was thinking, hooking up with a rodeo bum like him.”
He chuckled and rubbed his face in my hair, inhaling deeply. “Let me see now, Skeeter is the one who’s seen you naked, right?”
I sat up and smacked him with my feather pillow. “I was wearing a T-shirt. And that’s an incident I’d just as soon forget, thank you very much.”
“I think I deserve equal ocular access to his wife,” he teased.
“Like they say, Friday, don’t wish for something. You might get it.”
“Intriguing thought.”
“Just don’t think about it too much.” Knowing this was as good a mood as I was likely to see him in for the next few days, I said, “We need to talk about Sam.”
He frowned and, avoiding my eyes, punched his pillow into shape. “Nothing to talk about. He can stay a couple of days then move on.”
“He’s your son. How can you—”
“I’m perfectly aware of who he is, and since you don’t know anything about my son, I’d prefer you let me handle it.”
“Well, excuse me for caring.” I shoved my pillow back in place and turned away from him.
“Querida,” he said, his voice tired. “I don’t mean to sound harsh. I just need to handle this my way. It’s more complicated than it looks. Can you try and understand that?”
I turned over on my back and stared at the ceiling. He leaned over and started kissing me softly along my hairline. “Sweetheart, please—”
“What did they find out down at the lab?” I asked, changing the subject.
He sat up and leaned against the pine headboard, staring at the blank television screen across the room. “The autopsy didn’t give us any surprises. She was strangled with some kind of rope and dumped in the lake. She’d been dead approximately eight to ten hours, which means she was killed the night before around eleven o’clock or so. Other than that, there are no leads yet.”
I pulled our quilt over my shoulders and shivered. “Who told Nick?” It hit me right then that I’d never called or gone by. Sam’s sudden appearance, the fight among the storytellers, then Rita’s arrival had pushed everyone’s problems but my own clear out of my head. I kicked myself mentally and promised myself that I’d go see him first thing tomorrow.
“Jim. The guy was upset, as you can imagine, but he was able to answer Jim’s questions pretty coherently and he voluntarily gave us a key to her apartment.”
“Did you find anything that might give a clue to her killer?”
He shrugged. “I dropped by when the detective team I assigned to her case was going through