Blood Orchid (Holly Barker 3)

“And how long will that be?”

“I don’t know; two or three weeks—a month, maybe.”

“Take as much time with him as you need, sweetheart.”

“You’re getting yourself a good man, Ed.”

“I’d rather have you.”

“You always know how to say the right thing, don’t you?”

“I try.”

“Bye, Ed.”

“Bye-bye.”

Holly hung up and sighed. Oh, what the hell, she thought, everything changes. Just make it work.

21

Holly had hardly gotten home when the phone rang.

“I’ve got some perfect steaks and a couple of bottles of sensational red wine,” a male voice said. “You want to join me for dinner?”

“I don’t know who this is, but yes,” she replied.

Grant laughed.

“I’ll do almost anything for a good steak.”

“Really?”

“I said almost.”

“Oh. Seven o’clock? We’ll catch the sunset.”

“I don’t know how to break this to you, but your house faces east, and in this part of the world the sun sets in the west.”

“Whatever you say.”

“Those words exhibit a good attitude. Remember them. See you at seven.” She hung up, fed Daisy, and took her for a walk, almost as far as Grant’s house. It was a good-looking contemporary of wood and stone, not very Florida-like. It suited him, at least from the outside. She walked slowly back to the house, thinking about the evening ahead, while Daisy frolicked in the dunes. By the time they were home, she had made her decision, at least tentatively.

Tentatively meant that, after showering, washing and drying her hair, and dressing fetchingly in short shorts and a low-cut T-shirt that showed a lot of belly, she put her diaphragm in her purse instead of in its final resting place. As an afterthought, she tossed in a condom, too. “Brazen,” she said aloud, checking the mirror for signs of wantonness. Then she walked back down the beach to his house.

She could see him through the sliding doors, dressed in Bermuda shorts and a polo shirt, barefoot, fixing something in the kitchen. She tiptoed up the stairs from the beach to the deck and rapped sharply on the glass, making him jump and drop a salad fork. He opened the door.

“An undercover agent must be alert at all times,” she said. “I could have snuck in, jerked down your shorts, and tattooed you before you even noticed.”

He flung an arm around her and kissed her lightly on the lips. “And what would you have tattooed on me?”

“KICK ME, I’M FBI,” she said, “in great big letters.”

“Thanks a lot, but you can jerk down my shorts anytime you like.”

“In your dreams.”

“Let me get you a drink, and I’ll start dreaming.”