Killing the Blues - Michael Brandman [21]
“But you got hurt,” she said.
“My shoulder,” he said.
“Do you miss it?”
“Every day.”
They wandered over to the French doors.
“It’s very secluded here,” Alexis said.
“I like secluded,” Jesse said.
“Am I safe in the assumption that you live here alone?”
“Of late, there’s been a cat hovering about. Other than that, you’re safe.”
He suddenly remembered his manners.
“Forgive me,” he said. “Can I get you anything?”
“You can take the food,” she said.
He took the food.
“Is there vodka,” she said.
“I think so.”
“You think so? You mean you don’t know for certain?”
“I’m a big-picture guy,” he said. “Sometimes the small stuff eludes me.”
“I guess that eliminates the possibility of tonic.”
“Not necessarily. Let me go look.”
He left her and went to the kitchen.
When he returned, he found her outside on the porch.
He was carrying a vodka and tonic, garnished by a slice of a somewhat tired lime. He stepped outside.
He was surprised to see her holding the black-and-white cat. She was seated on the love seat, and the cat was nestled comfortably on her lap, where it allowed itself to be petted. It appeared to be purring.
“I love cats,” she said.
Jesse didn’t say anything.
He started toward the love seat, but somehow the cat misunderstood and, without warning, it leapt from Alexis’s lap and jumped off the porch.
“We just recently met,” Jesse said. “It likes what I feed it, but it’s very standoffish.”
“Be patient,” Alexis said.
She stood up and walked over to him. She took the drink from his hand and sipped it. Then she put it down.
She placed her arms around his neck and kissed him.
She leaned back and looked in his eyes.
“Hello, Jesse Stone,” she said.
Then she kissed him again.
He kissed her back. She tasted of vodka and tonic and old lime and life.
“I hardly know you,” he said.
She looked at him.
“Who are you, Alexis?”
“I’m an ambitious careerist who finds herself in a strange town and has discovered a mysterious man whom she finds attractive.”
“I don’t think it’s such a good idea.”
She looked at him.
“Why,” she said.
“I’m unreliable,” he said.
“Me, too,” she said.
“I’ll run at the first sign of trouble,” he said.
“Me, too,” she said.
“Aw, hell,” he said.
He kissed her. Then he kissed her again.
“Be tender, Jesse,” she said.
He looked at her for a moment.
Then he picked her up and carried her upstairs.
Afterward they feasted on Chinese. Jesse wore his boxer shorts; Alexis wore his T-shirt. They ate prodigious amounts of kung pao shrimp, chicken in garlic sauce, and barbecued beef, which they washed down with several bottles of Tsingtao beer, which Jesse kept on ice.
“How is it you’re not spoken for, post-Jenn,” Alexis said.
“I thought I was. But I don’t think so anymore.”
“Who?”
“A private detective from Boston. I met her on a case. She’s somewhere in Europe now. Have you heard of the movie actress Moira Harris?”
Alexis shrugged.
“Moira Harris was shooting a picture in Boston, and Sunny was hired as her security.”
“Sunny?”
“Sunny Randall,” Jesse said. “Moira got a movie shooting in London and Prague. She asked for Sunny. That’s where she is now.”
“Do you love her?”
“That’s a loaded question. There was a time when I thought we’d be together. She thought so, too. But somehow things didn’t go that way.”
“Why?”
“History, I guess. Each of our marriages had ended badly. We were both damaged goods. All the king’s horses and all the king’s men . . . We couldn’t be put back together again. We tried. Then she took the movie. When she left, I thought I’d miss her, but I don’t, really. Out of sight, out of mind, I suppose.”
“Are you over her?”
“I don’t know,” Jesse said.
Alexis didn’t say anything.
“And you? Have you ever been married,” Jesse said.
“God, no. Married to a job, perhaps. I’m not a good catch. I’m an anathema. Guys take one look at me and start clutching their balls.”
They sat silently for a while.
“Thank you for being honest,” she said.
Jesse didn’t say anything.
Alexis stood up and walked over to his chair. She insinuated herself onto his lap.
“That kind of honesty