Quint stood outside the restaurant, boot on, waiting for his “wife.” He did his level best not to be obvious about checking out the bar scene. The music thumped and it sounded lively in there. He tapped the toe of his good foot to the beat, noticing additional head count.
Ree came into view and his heart fisted. She stepped outside and met his gaze. Time stilled. All he could hear was a whoosh sound in his ears as blood rushed through his body. This was the same effect of an adrenaline rush without the smoking gun aimed at his chest.
Admittedly, he’d thought about Ree more times than he could count today, and spent even more time telling himself it was necessary for the investigation. The annoying voice in the back of his head countered his argument every time.
Right now, though, all he wanted to do was hold her against him and kiss those pink lips of hers. The kiss was for show, so he decided to be convincing. By the time their lips parted, they were both left gasping for air, chests heaving. If anyone watched, they should be convinced the two of them were into each other. Thankfully, he didn’t have to fake an attraction to her.
“Sorry about that,” he said low and under his breath, still in the mental fog that was Ree.
“About what?” she asked, slowly opening her eyes.
“All the kissing,” he said, remembering the stance she’d taken yesterday.
“If it has to be done,” she said, still a little breathless. His ego didn’t mind the fact she seemed to be just as affected as he was every time they were this close. She cleared her throat and put on a smile. “I mean...it’s important. You know?”
“Yes, which probably makes it wrong that I’m enjoying it so much.” There. He’d said it. He couldn’t stop himself. Plus, it was true.
Ree rewarded him with a smile that could melt ice in a freezer.
“Something smells amazing,” he said, redirecting the conversation by taking the doggie bag and then linking their fingers.
“Tonight’s special, packed by Chef himself,” she said. “Chicken and waffles.”
“My mouth is already watering,” he said. The restaurant portion of the business was legit and bustling, which could make it easy to hide illegal activity. There was a reason that crimes often occurred in busy places. Folks were distracted. There was lots of mental stimulation, sensory overload.
“Your mouth is very talented,” she quipped. Her cheeks turned two shades of crimson and pride swelled in his chest. His pulse kicked up a few notches, too.
“That’s good to hear. I was afraid being out of practice would show,” he admitted, and then wished he could reel the admission back in. A real attraction was out of the question with a colleague, so he did his best to quash his reaction.
“If being in practice gets better...” she said, the words so low he barely heard them.
Not the time to reply, Quint. Hand in hand, they crossed the parking lot. At the cabin, he opened the door for her. Once inside, he set the food bag on the table.
“Why don’t you take a load off?” he asked, nodding toward the table.
She toed off her boots and gave him a quick and dirty rundown of the day’s events, starting with the waitress trio. He made a note to check the roster Grappell had provided. “An establishment like Greenlight has a lot of moving parts, so it shouldn’t be too surprising there is specialized staff. We can double-check the roster but these things are usually out of date and fluid.”
“I sure hope you actually know something about fixing computers,” she said with a smile after updating him on Chef’s request.
“I’m handy. It’s kind of a hobby of mine and the reason it works as cover,” he admitted. “I like to know how things work.”
“Makes sense you’d use that in our cover story then,” she agreed.
He pulled out two plates and filled them with food. The garlic mashed potatoes smelled out of this world and there was just enough spinach on the side to make two meals. He grabbed a Coke from the fridge and poured it into a glass with ice.
“When you do decide to get married, your wife is going to be the luckiest woman on earth,” Ree said as she seemed to take in the setup.
“Let’s pretend that’s not an option,” he said, taking his seat. The first couple of bites sold him on Chef’s cooking abilities. Hook. Line. And sinker.
“Why not?” She quirked a brow. “Think about ever getting married?”
“Not my particular brand of punishment,” he stated.
“You wouldn’t be so bad to live with,” she shot back before quirking a smile. He could tell she grew up in a house of brothers, based on her sense of humor.
“Funny,” he quipped, and she seemed content to leave the discussion alone. It was a closed subject as far as he was concerned.
“I’ve been serving this dish all night. I wasn’t one hundred percent certain I could eat it if I wanted to but it’s literally the best thing I’ve put in my mouth in ages,” she said before blushing. “I mean, kissing you is pretty great, too.”
“Well, thank you,” he said, not minding the compliment.
“I just mean that you’re pretty good at it. I can hardly tell you’re acting at all,” she said before taking a big bite of food, clearly oblivious to the hit he’d just taken to his pride.
Ouch. The offhand remark shouldn’t bruise his ego like it did. No one had ever complained about his kissing abilities before. So why was he all of a sudden questioning himself? Rather than give away his true feelings, he laughed it off. “What can I say? I’m good like that.”
“A little too good, if you ask me. But it’s good for the investigation. You almost convinced me you meant it and I should know better.” She shrugged as she chowed down, unaware of the fact she’d just delivered a second blow.
“It’s good to put on a show in case someone’s watching,” he said.
“And someone is always watching while on a case,” she quipped. “I know I’m new to the restaurant and, therefore, will be under scrutiny until I prove myself, but I can’t help the feeling of being constantly watched.”
“You’re new. Might come with the territory,” he said before updating her on Patricia.
“Do you think Bald Guy and Ruddy Complexion were behind the bribe?” she asked point-blank.
“No idea. But I did work with a sketch artist today on that subject.” He grabbed his laptop and opened it to show her the sketches filling the screen.
“Those look good,” she said, then pointed to Bald Guy. “He had a dark mole near the tip of his nose.”
Quint took note.
“And Ruddy Complexion had thicker eyebrows.” She examined the sketches for a long moment. “Other than that, these are on point.”
Quint made the notations and sent an email to Aaron to make the changes.
“What did you find out in town?” she asked when she’d brought him up to speed on the rest of her day. Her plate was clean and her glass empty.
“Turns out Cricket Creek’s Cricket Toss Festival used to use live crickets,” he said with a forced smile.
“For real?” She scrunched her nose up and it only served to make her adorable.
“According to the lady who runs the post office, they stopped doing that years ago. Now all the critters are stuffed and no one gets hurt in the festivities.” He polished off his meal and water glass in record time. The food at Greenlight was top-shelf. Of course, that could be part of the distraction. If folks showed up for the food and the live band, money flowed, and people had a good time. No one would dig too deep into the financials.
“At least they stopped. That’s good,” she said.
“You might want to hold off on your relief. They serve cricket pie and fried cricket,” he said, unable to imagine a worse taste than either of those two.
Her entire body shook. “Oh, heck, no.”
“Not exactly going to make the menu at Greenlight,” he quipped.
“What else haven’t we covered?” he asked, before remembering to give her the new key for the changed lock.
“I already know where you stand about marriage. Are you in a relationship?” she asked, catching him off guard with this line of questioning.
“Whoa there. I should have specified work questions,” he said. “Ask away. While we check the footage from the past twenty-four hours.”
He rinsed off the plates and then left them in the sink to be dealt with later. He slipped off his boot and brought his laptop over to the couch as he updated her on Lionel’s situation.
“Do you mind if I grab a shower real quick? I need to wash the work ick off me,” she said.
“Go for it. I’ll go ahead and start.” This was the tedious work of an investigation. Things didn’t work in real life as they were portrayed on television. There was a whole lot of sorting through footage, gathering information, and then waiting. In life, cases weren’t neatly wrapped up in less than an hour. He grabbed his laptop and checked the employee roster at Greenlight.
Quint heard the spigot being turned on in the room behind where he was sitting. An image of Ree slipping out of her clothes and into the water assaulted him. He gave himself a mental headshake, trying to erase the image. They didn’t lack a spark between them but it was good she didn’t seem attracted to him in a greater sense. Seriously. All good.
Running through the recording, Quint snapped a couple of screenshots. There were three repeat customers from yesterday. He opened a file and typed in the license plate numbers with a pic of each driver and their vehicles. He then sent the documents to Grappell. There was a dairy delivery around back that he took note of. Wednesday whiskey. Thursday dairy. Chef had come in both mornings by 7:00 a.m. with his arms full of bags of fresh ingredients. He made three trips to his sports car on Wednesday and five this morning, which probably coincided with anticipated business levels. Naturally, there’d be more customers on live band night. At least, that was the working assumption from his experience surveilling other restaurants.
Chef was in and out within an hour before returning three and a half hours later, presumably ahead of the lunch rush hit. No surprises there. Could the man pushing fifty be running weapons in those bags? Granted, looks could be deceiving, but Chef’s short, apple-shaped body and hair that was graying at the temples made him come across as innocent. Despite the fact it didn’t seem likely he was guilty, it was too early to cross anyone off the suspect list. Besides, trucks made the most sense in terms of moving the kind of volume that would have caught his agency’s attention.
The sound of water shutting off behind him sent his thoughts back to the place they didn’t need to go with Ree. Shoving them aside proved trickier than he’d have liked. He’d been distracted by her before and could have cost them their credibility. Quint refocused on the screen as he watched a guy go out back and have a smoke while he waited for someone. And that someone was Charley.
REE TOWELED OFF and dressed in her pajamas, thinking about how awkward she’d become with Quint after their kiss at the restaurant door. Seeing him standing there, waiting, had thrown her off-kilter. And then she’d tripped all over herself in conversation with the man.
She sighed. What could she do? Pick herself up and move on.
After brushing her teeth, she stood at the door ready to join him in the living area, doing her level best to forget how incredible his lips were when they were pressed against hers. And how right the world felt when she was in his arms. Ree had always relied on herself. Growing up with four brothers had toughened her up, taught her to depend on herself, and given her one wicked sense of humor. So the reaction she was having to Quint caught her off guard.
There was more heat when she was in the same room with him than during all of her past relationships combined. There was something a little unnerving about her attraction to him, an attraction there was no way he possibly reciprocated. He was going all in for show in order to sell them as a couple despite the bits of encouragement she’d received from him. It seemed he was trying to convince her, too. She took her hat off to the man. He was doing a great job of making her believe there might be something special brewing between them.
Ree could admit she’d been in a string of past relationships that didn’t do much for her. Except Preston. He’d been different. She could blame her lack of interest in long-term dating on the focus on her career, but that wasn’t exactly true. There hadn’t been anyone who made her want more than a few dates or a casual fling. There hadn’t been anyone who caused her heart to feel like it might explode out of her chest into a thousand flecks of dust if he walked out on her. And there hadn’t been anyone who could kiss her so thoroughly that she was probably going to be ruined for every other man for life.
Another sigh and she was ready to face Quint. It was a short walk into the living room, so not a whole lot of time to rid herself of the aftershocks of her realizations. He sat there on the couch, barely glancing up at her as she entered the room. Rightly so. They weren’t in public now and he could drop the facade.
He patted the seat next to him without looking up. “Want to see my notes so far?”
“Yes,” she responded, hearing the frog sound in her own throat. She took the seat next to him and tucked her phone underneath her leg. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw him wrinkle his nose. It made her want to sniff herself to see if she had body odor but she’d just gotten out of the shower so that was impossible. He might not like her choice in bath products. She needed to get over it all because she’d never been one to get inside her own head about the lavender bodywash she used.
Quint pulled up a document and explained what he’d observed so far. He brought her up to speed on Chef’s routine.
“Is it strange the barmaids come through the back door instead of the front?” she asked.
“It might be but I don’t think it’s unusual considering they enter while customers are already in-house dining. They probably don’t want to parade them in front of the tables while people are still eating,” he stated before picking up a small device from the coffee table. “This should help us figure out what’s going on in the breakroom.”
“Right. I meant to ask about a listening device,” she said.
“I didn’t want this to be anywhere near you for your first couple of days at Greenlight in case Charley or one of his cohorts suspected something might be up with you,” he said. “I do think it’s safe now, so you can drop it in the bottom of your handbag so it’ll be on-site when you are.”
“Of course, we don’t have any evidence so far that would convince a judge to give us a warrant so we can listen in,” she stated.
“Exactly. I’m planning to place a similar device out back but I need to make certain there are no cameras back there that might bust me. Have you seen anything that might indicate there are?” he asked.
“I haven’t been out back yet,” she said. Her gut instinct said Charley was a smart character and he would take precautions.
Right now, she wanted to ignore the way her heart pounded in her chest when she breathed in Quint’s spicy masculine scent and home in on finding answers.