Voyeur - Lacey Alexander [73]
When Aunt Mimsey invited Riley and Sloane to tea on her back porch, Riley knew it was trouble. And she was proven correct before even lifting her aunt’s dainty flowered teacup to her lips.
“Winifred tells me you two are denying your feelings for each other,” Aunt Mimsey said with a giddy, knowing grin that made Riley want to sink into the porch’s wooden planks. It was bad enough that Aunt Mimsey and the Dorchesters had figured out something was going on between them, but a hundred times worse if they thought there were feelings involved. Because if Riley even hinted at having feelings for Sloane, she’d be humiliated. What she and Sloane shared was—at least in Sloane’s mind, she knew—strictly about getting horizontal. Or, well, in some cases perpendicular, and once even vertical against one of the pear trees—but she harbored no illusions that Sloane Bennett cared for her in any lasting way.
So she swiftly changed the subject. “Winifred has a wild imagination. No one here has any feelings for anyone else—Sloane and I are simply trying to solve this case. Which reminds me, we’ve come up with lots of new clues. Mostly in the garden—a secret garden,” she added, letting her eyes go wide. She suspected any sort of secret would catch Aunt Mimsey’s fancy and detract attention from her and Sloane.
“Oh yes, the secret garden,” Aunt Mimsey said, as if it were a boring piece of yesterday’s news.
Riley blinked. “You know about the garden?”
Aunt Mimsey took a sip of her tea, looking a bit wistful. “Well, I never mentioned it to anyone, but your uncle Walter and I used to make out there when we were first married.”
Sheesh, the secret garden was a regular lovers’ lane! Although it was hard to imagine Aunt Mimsey and Uncle Walter making out. Riley suspected she looked horrified.
Aunt Mimsey went on. “I never knew why the garden existed—I assumed Winifred just wanted a pretty place to stroll—but when Walter and I went there . . . well, let’s just say I spent a lot more time on my back than my feet.” Then she winked.
And Riley grew even more aghast. Ugh. “You’re not saying you and Uncle Walter . . . did the deed there?”
Aunt Mimsey narrowed her brow, her expression a bit befuddled. “Why, dear, I’m not sure what deed you’re talking about, but we had sex there many, many times, right on the grass under the pear trees.”
Riley and Sloane exchanged looks of rank disgust. “How . . . romantic,” Riley said dryly.
“Oh yes, it was,” Aunt Mimsey fluttered on, and before Riley could stop her, she regaled them with the tale of a particularly steamy August afternoon when she’d nearly swooned from the heat in the garden, but Walter had caught her—and made her “forget all about the weather,” she concluded with a girlish titter.
Between Aunt Mimsey’s continued stories of sex in the garden and further accusations of a relationship between Riley and Sloane, the next half hour was excruciating. When finally the teapot was drained and Riley managed to make their excuses, she and Sloane practically sprinted toward the arbor gate that would provide their escape from the yard.
“From now on,” Sloane said once they were free, “when we go to the garden, we’re taking a blanket.”
“Maybe two,” Riley concurred.
Although—even dismayed to find that apparently everyone they knew had indulged their sexual appetites in the garden before them—Riley never once thought about not returning there with Sloane. In fact, all this talk about it had her thinking she could use a little release right this very minute. “Want to go now?” she asked, tilting her head hopefully.
He didn’t even blink. “Wait here. I’ll find the blankets.”
And it was only when Sloane left her standing in the lush green grass behind the Dorchesters’ house that her mind cleared enough to realize a potentially frightening truth: if Aunt Mimsey knew about the garden, that meant, technically, she was a suspect, too!
Braden padded down the stairs, listening to the sound of Laura’s fingers dancing across the keyboard. He couldn’t believe anyone could type that fast and felt bad