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Adam pulled up in front of his house, looking at it critically for the first time in years. What would Beverly make of it? The same woman who was used to places like the Apple Valley Resort, with its marble this and crystal that? Zelda had picked out this house, falling for its Adirondack style with a slate roof, board-and-batten siding, and wraparound front porch.
He noted the peeling paint around the windows and how the siding had faded a notch or two. When had that happened? To be honest, he hadn’t paid much attention to the house since the divorce.
He said, “This should only take a few minutes. You can keep the heater running.”
Adam ducked inside, looking around for the files, but didn’t see them right away. Where had he worked on those? Last night while watching the game or at the kitchen table? After checking the floor and the countertops, he came up blank. He headed toward some boxes near the wood stove, when a turn of the doorknob stopped him in his tracks.
The front door opened, and Beverly walked in, with a tentative smile. “I didn’t want to run the engine too long. Carbon monoxide.”
“Ah,” he said. “Sorry about the delay. Can’t seem to find those files.”
Beverly looked around the room, then pointed to his bookshelf in the corner. “You mean those folders?”
He walked over and grabbed the folders off the top of two books that were appropriately titled Criminal Investigations and The Case Files of Sherlock Holmes. With a grunt of disgust, he tossed the folders onto the table next to the couch that also served as his bed most nights. “Gotta get more organized.”
“I don’t know,” Beverly put her hands on her hips as she surveyed the room. “It’s better than I expected.”
“Oh? And what did you expect?”
“Clothing everywhere. Day-old pizza cartons. Bachelor kibble.”
“Bachelor kibble?”
“You know, chips, nuts, pretzels—things that come out of bags.”
“Have you been talking to Jinks?”
“She might have mentioned something like that.”
He shook his head. “I had too many lectures from Zelda about picking up after myself, I guess.”
Beverly snorted. “You are not a dog needing kibble.”
“A lot of people still refer to cops as pigs, so there ya go.”
She giggled. “That is so not the image that comes to mind about you, Adam.”
“Really?” Adam raised an eyebrow.
“More like Fern’s Bruno Giacometti.”
“The Italian Stallion?”
“Better than that.”
“Any better than that, I’d make millions running in the Derby.”
She bumped into a table and knocked over a picture frame, rescuing it before it fell to the floor. She looked at the photo and asked, “Where is this?”
He moved toward her to remind himself which photo it was, and then he remembered. “It’s a cabin overlooking Beaver Pond Brook, not far from the Nature Preserve.”
“A vacation home?”
“I just liked it.” At her questioning look, he added, “It’s where I wanted us to live when we first got married.”
She studied the photo. “I love this wooden bridge over the brook. And you can walk right out your front door and sit on the patio next to the water. It looks peaceful.”
“You’ve got the sound of the water, but it’s a gentle sound. Nature’s lullaby.”
“It’s beautiful. Did someone else beat you to it?”
“Zelda didn’t like it. Too far out of town and isolated, she said.” He waited for her to agree with his ex, but she didn’t say anything. She put the photo down, then spied the open case next to the table and exclaimed, “A guitar! I didn’t know you played.”
“I dabble.”
“Play something for me.” She sat on a chair and looked at him expectantly.
“I don’t know. I should get you back.”
“Not ‘Classical Gas’ length. Something shorter.”
He picked up the guitar and brought it to the couch, where he checked the tuning. It was weeks—months?—since he’d touched the instrument, but when he started to play, it felt more like yesterday. Like reuniting with an old friend, and when he finished, he didn’t want to stop.
Beverly clapped her hands. “That was beautiful. What is it?”
“It’s a Spanish dance by Granados, ‘Andaluza.’”
“Where did you learn how to play?”
“My father taught me. Now there was a guitarist. Puts me to shame.”
Beverly pointed at the guitar. “Was that his?”
Adam got up to put the instrument gingerly in its case. “Yeah. Playing it makes me feel close to him somehow.”
She hopped off her chair so fast, she lost her balance. He reached out to grab her arm before he fell backward and pulled her toward him. He was so concerned to see that she was okay, he didn’t realize at first how close they were. And when he did realize, he also knew that he liked it. A lot.
But he didn’t want to be like the man in her past who’d hurt her. There was a fine line between wanted and unwanted advances, and he was slipping and sliding all over that line.
Her lips were so soft-looking, so inviting. Alarm bells were screaming in his head. He should back off, drive her to the station.
To his surprise, she leaned toward him, not away. Her lips parted ever so slightly as her face grew nearer to his. He bent his head so close to hers he smelled her breath that held hints of wintergreen. The spell of that first kiss, so tantalizing, so electric, so. . .
A knock at the door broke the spell in one explosive vexation of sound. He sighed and looked into her wide blue eyes. She said, “I guess you should get that?”
He stomped over to the entry and opened the door. No mailman, only a lone truck disappearing down the street. One of those small white trucks, like online stores used to ship purchases. But he hadn’t bought anything lately. A gift? A look at the brown-paper package showed a computer-printed label with his name and address. But no return address. And no postmark.
They say instincts are a cop’s number one defense, and in that one moment, something about that package made him toss it into the front yard and slam the door. Moments later, an explosion of sound hit his ears, followed by a percussive blast wave that hit the front of the house and knocked him backward onto the floor.
He struggled to rise up to protect Beverly, but he didn’t have to. Once again proving how smart she was, she’d already hunkered down next to him, with her arms over her head.
He waited for a few moments and then helped her off the floor. They both turned to the door, which was still intact but bowed inward. Remarkably, it opened, and they stepped outside to survey the damage. A mini-crater lined his front yard, and the passenger side of his car was blackened. He walked out to see if he could open the car door, and it did, but he knew he was looking at a pricey repair job.
He scowled at it. “This car is cursed. I just got it fixed after it went into the pond three months ago. It’s totaled, anyway. I’ll have to get the department to loan me a rental until I can buy a new car.”
Beverly took his arm and turned him around toward the house. “Could have been worse,” she said. And she was right—the front windows were partly shattered and would have to be replaced, as would the door. But otherwise, the house was intact, livable, and not on fire. All good things.
“This was a smallish pipe bomb, a warning of some kind. If they’d wanted to kill me, it would have been quite a bit bigger.”
“There’s always lemonade.” She smiled at him.
“Lemonade?”
“Fix up the broken bits and use this opportunity to buy that cabin.”
He could have kissed her right then and there. But instead, he reached into the car to use his police radio and alert the station. There went his nice, relaxing evening. He held out his hand toward the house, motioning for her to precede him inside. “Well, Miss Laborde. Never let it be said I show you a dull time.”
Her eyes glinted with something he hoped was silent laughter. “Let’s see. One near-drowning, one near-shooting, and now one near-bombing. Or not-so-near-bombing. You definitely know how to show a lady a good time.”
“I’m beginning to think I’m underpaid.”
Then, she really did laugh. And he joined right in.
