Chapter Twenty-Two

We were hot and heavy, roaming hands and panting breaths, when the shrill ring of the phone cut through a particularly yummy growl from the vicinity of my left thigh.

“Should you get that?” I asked, wanting to kick myself in the head. Hello? Why would I want him to do anything that was guaranteed to stop the delicious wanderings of his hands and tongue?

“No. No,” he breathed against my flesh. He was getting closer to the place I most wanted him to be when the answering machine picked up.

“Ben, this is Marty.” Ben’s hands froze an inch from my skin, and I shuddered, groaning, and not in a good way. “I need you in here right now. Peter’s out on a story, and I got a call about a burglary in progress that went all wrong. If you want me to take you seriously with this private investigator license thing, you’ll get your ass down here as soon as you get this message.” And then there was a click, and we both sat trying to get air back into our lungs.

Ben dropped his head onto my naked hip and I could feel his breath fan near my belly button. “My boss,” he said.

Despite the lust and need clouding my brain, I could think well enough to realize this could be Ben’s big break into crime reporting. The paper hadn’t given him anything but his usual food critic stuff since he’d graduated from his online course, and he was getting down about the fact that he wasn’t going anywhere. Now this opportunity fell into his lap just as I was about to get him in my lap. Sigh. I knew what I had to do. I tried to move out from under him, but his head was heavy on my hip and he gripped me tighter around the backs of my thighs.

“Don’t move,” he said, his voice low and strained. “Just don’t move.”

Um, okay. Could I at least talk? Apparently not before he did again.

“I can not believe this,” he mumbled against my stomach. “I’ve waited and waited for them to notice me for this position and now, now, he calls.”

“I was pretty impressed with your position.” Good, Ivy, make a joke right now. That ought to get you another chance at seeing Ben’s beautiful hair from an aerial view.

But he laughed and some of the tension seemed to drain from his body as his grip on my body loosened. “I don’t want to go. I do not want to go right now.”

And I don’t want you to go, I thought. But I also didn’t want to make this harder for him. “You have to go, Ben. This is your chance, and I don’t want you to miss it.” I combed my fingers through his hair and sighed. Why is my life always like this? I’d been an animal when we were in the thick of things, and now I felt like I’d stepped into one of those jaw traps you see on television.

Ben placed a kiss right on the swell of my hip that made my stomach jump. Then he got up in all his nude male glory and stalked across the room. “Do you hate me?” he turned and asked.

What? “What? Of course I don’t hate you.”

“I hate myself, that’s why I asked. I want you, and here you are laid out like a dream.” At least he didn’t say turkey dinner. “A dream I crave, and I’m caught between wanting to ignore Marty to stay with you and running to the office. I’m an ass. Why did this have to happen now?”

“Ben, let me tell you, this is the way my life always works. I would have been surprised if nothing interrupted us. That’s the way it is for me. I don’t hate you, and you shouldn’t hate yourself.” I shifted on the couch—yes, the ugly couch, because we hadn’t had time to make it to the bedroom—and pulled a pillow over my lap. “We’ll have plenty of time to take up where we left off, but I don’t want to be the one who kept you from taking the chance of a lifetime.”

“You’re being awfully understanding.”

I was, wasn’t I? Good for me. Then again, when I’d pulled the pillow over my legs it was because I could see them in the light spilling from the kitchen. Now that Ben wasn’t between them, I didn’t want him to get a good look without the benefit of heavy panting, which I assumed clouded the vision.

“I admit I wish you weren’t leaving, but I also get why you have to. So go get dressed,” I said, shooing him away with my free hand.

He seemed to struggle with himself for about a second before he sprinted down the short hallway, and I heard rummaging and muttering.

Jumping off the couch, I quickly retrieved my clothes from the floor, the lamp, and the corner of a large framed picture of a mountain range. Ben had some throwing arm.

By the time I was all put back together, except for my panties, which I could not find, Ben was hurtling back from the bedroom and ready to go.

“We’ll pick up where we left off as soon as I get this story.” He gave me a long, deep kiss that set my knees to jiggling and escorted me out to my car. “Thanks, Ivy, for understanding. I really appreciate it.” And then he was gone and I was left standing in the parking lot, sans panties, on a frigid and windy night.

At home I crawled into my cold, lonely bed again and fell asleep after a lot of tossing and turning. The next morning I woke from a dream so hot I looked for burn marks on my sheets. Ben had been doing things to me I’d only heard of, and in return I was a sexually ferocious vixen. As I sorted through my closet looking for an outfit for today, I decided next time with Ben I’d try some of the dream moves, and that whipped-cream-and-ice thing I’d read about. I fervently hoped next time would be soon.

On the walk to work I planned my day and tried to find a time when I could call Bella and tell her about this new development in the life and times of Ivy. But apparently Bella had been using her non-existent psychic powers, because she was at The Masked Shoppe two minutes after I’d opened the door.

“So, Ivy, where were you last night?”

“Why?” But I knew my smug, self-satisfied smile gave me away.

“You little vixen. You and Ben? Down and dirty?”

“I was just calling myself the same thing. And yes, dirty with an extra R.”

“No way.”

“Yes way.”

“No.”

“Yes.” Hadn’t I had a similar conversation last night? And didn’t that end up right where I hadn’t thought I wanted to be? Which, of course, brought me back to hot thoughts of the wonderful things Ben and his hands, lips, and tongue had done to me. It almost sent my knees to jelly again.

“You have a twinkle in your eye.”

“I don’t doubt it.”

“So I guess I don’t have to ask how it was. Do I?” Bella fingered some of the costume jewelry hanging on a skeletal tree on the counter.

I laughed. “You can certainly ask, but I’m not going to tell you.”

She looked at me, her face registering shock. “You won’t tell me, your best friend in town?”

“My best friend, period,” I said, laying my hand over hers and giving it a quick squeeze. “But no, I won’t tell you. I didn’t even tell my sisters when they each called this morning. It’s like they have hormone ESP. Suffice it to say that what there was of it was incredible, and I will be doing it—and more—again, as soon as possible.”

“You are bad.” She took a necklace from the tree, gave it her attention, and then placed it back on its branch before looking at me again, a twinkle in her own eye. The twinkle flashed out after a second and she said, “Wait. What do you mean ‘what there was of it’?”

So I had to explain about the infamous interruption. And after I talked Bella down from yelling at Ben about his priorities for the fifth time, she finally calmed down.

Thirty seconds later Kitty came in, putting a quick end to our conversation by giving me the same look I’d seen over the past few days. It was a combination of confusion and some other emotions I couldn’t quite put my finger on. She’d been distant and strange to me ever since the Harvest Ball, but I’d chalked it up to maybe some stress at home. Plus, I’d been so busy lately, and had so much on my plate with the shop, the theft, Janice’s death, and trying to find her killer, I hadn’t given Kitty and her petty nature a second thought. Only because Ben and I detoured into her neighborhood was I reminded of something she’d said on the Sunday after the dance. God, was that really only four days ago?

She’d been putting away stock and I came in to tell her we were moving the plastic swords to a different area for better traffic flow to the cash register. She kept her back to me and said, “It wasn’t supposed to be like this when I ran the store.”

Now, maybe I’d misinterpreted what she said, but since seeing Charlie in what was most likely my underwear, I’d begun to wonder about her. I also wondered what part she’d had, if any, in the lingerie going missing. I vowed to keep my eyes and ears open. Charlie would be in today, and his mother was already here.

Bella left after a little more whispered kibitzing. Two hours later, Charlie came lumbering into the store. I was in the storeroom and had a perfect line of vision to the fountain. Charlie bent over to place his tools on the side of the fountain, and I saw a glimpse of vibrant purple this time. Someone should really take the time to tell him not to bend over if he doesn’t want the world to know his fetish, I thought.

Then I heard Kitty call for him, and I moved quietly from the storeroom to the hallway outside my office. I guessed she’d decided to hold her impromptu meeting in my office without my permission. She really had been trying to take over lately, and I decided we might need to have a little talk about that sometime soon.

But my thoughts were cut off when Kitty’s furious whisper reached my prying ears. “Why didn’t you take anything last night? I told you to come in and take everything this time, not just the bras, and I saw everything is still here this morning. What is wrong with you?”

Ah-ha! So he had taken all the lingerie but only gave up the bras. I’d bet he gave the bras to Jackie; Kitty, with her little stick frame, would not fit in anything over a 32B.

“I’m done, Mom. I like Ivy, and I’m not going to mess things up for her again.”

“You will if I say you will.”

“No, I won’t. Between you and Jackie, I’m about ready to take a long dive off a shallow cliff. So get off my back.”

I heard a rustling sound and, afraid Kitty was about to come out, went back to the storeroom. Shoving aside several boxes, I grabbed my garbage bag of hidden evidence. I rushed back out because I wanted to corner them both at the same time and meet them head-on about their plans to “ruin me.” But when I made it back to the office, only Charlie was standing there.

I had to make a quick decision. Did I want them together or should I divide and conquer? I didn’t want to wait on this. It was too important. I still hated confrontation, but it was getting easier to do when people were threatening my shop and my livelihood—my reputation.

“Charlie, can I have a minute of your time?”

He jumped like I’d applied a cattle prod to his purple-silk-covered backside. “Uh, hi, Ivy. Uh, sure. I have a minute.”

“Good,” I said, as I pulled the trash bag from behind my back and dropped it on the floor in front of me. “Care to take that minute and explain this to me, then?”

His face blanched a truly pasty white, and his head dropped down. I waited impatiently for him to implicate himself and his mother, and maybe even Jackie, in this whole mess. In the meantime, my temper was really starting to boil. Images of me standing in the cold wind last night watching that raccoon walk away with my merchandise on his head made me hotter under the collar. How dare they?

Then Charlie started talking. “I’m really sorry, Ivy.” Guilt and shame washed across his face, but there was a hint of something more. Something very close to calculation. “I took the lingerie, and I’m sorry. I know that’s not enough. I can’t return most of the stuff I took, but I did it alone and by myself. No help from anyone, and I made the decision solo. I wanted underwear, so I took underwear. Sorry. So, uh, are you going to call the police now?”

The look of careful calculation hadn’t left his eyes yet, and it was now accompanied by an almost smile. Not a smarmy smile, like “ha-ha, I got you,” more like “ah-ha, I’ve found a way out.” I also noticed there was no mention of the mom-factor. He was totally taking the blame on himself, and I couldn’t prove he hadn’t acted alone; it would be my word against his. Should I leave Kitty out of it and deal with her on my own in another way?

“You want me to call the police?” I asked, then quickly backpedaled. “Of course, I’m going to call the police. Right now, as a matter of fact. You stay right there.”

“I’m not going anywhere except to jail.” He looked very satisfied with himself.

“I’m, uh, going to tie you to the chair until the police get here, okay?” That hadn’t sounded very confident, but he sat down. I couldn’t think of anything in the office I could use to tie him up, until my eyes fell on the bag of lingerie. I took out a pair of 3X peach elastic lace panties and made a big production of wrapping them around the arm of the office chair a couple of times before tying what I hoped was a good knot. Then I did the same thing with a pair of teal ones with no crotch. Ridiculous, I knew it, but without another idea, what was a girl to do?

I used the hi-tech three-line phone on my oak desk to place the call to the police department. We sat there, staring at each other as we waited for the cavalry. The whole time I wondered if I’d see Kitty again any time soon or if she’d stay away now that I’d gotten her son incarcerated.

“How bizarre,” Bella said when I called to tell her what had happened. “I’m still a little peeved you didn’t tell me about the missing lingerie before today, but I get that you wanted to do things on your own.”

Bella understood because she had a family life similar to my own. She was the oldest and had successfully opened her own shop despite her parents’ disapproval. I, on the other hand, had struck out on my own only because a shop had been given to me. There were some differences in how we got where we were, but the common thread was parental disapproval.

Speaking of my dad, he was due to fly into town in less than twenty-four hours. I told her I had to go and tried to remember if I had clean towels and sheets for his visit. I’d have to change the bed and fluff the comforter. I hoped this visit wasn’t going to be awkward and that he wouldn’t try to talk me back into the pink room.

He’d have a hard time convincing me to leave. I was now firmly ensconced in this little town, even if some of the residents still thought I was a freeloader. Besides, I was about to get laid by the hottest guy I’d ever seen.