Blue Dahlia (In the Garden 1)

"Don't 'honey' me in that southern-fried twang. "

"You know, Red, I like you better this way. "

"Oh, shut up. Pavers. Personal or professional use?"

"Well, that depends on your point of view. " Since there was room now, he edged a hip onto the corner of the desk. "They're for a friend. I'm putting in a walkway for her - my own time, no labor charge. I told her I'd pick up the materials and give her a bill from the center. "

"We'll consider that personal use and apply your employee discount. " She began tapping keys.

"How many pavers?"

"Twenty-two. "

She tapped again and gave him the price per paver, before discount, after discount.

Impressed despite himself, he tapped the monitor. "You got a math nerd trapped in there?"

"Just the wonders of the twenty-first century. You'd find it quicker than counting on your fingers. "

"I don't know. I've got pretty fast fingers. " Drumming them on his thigh, he kept his gaze on her face.

"I need three white pine. "

"For this same friend?"

"No. " His grin flashed, fast and crooked. If she wanted to interpret "friend" as "lover," he couldn't see any point in saying the pavers were for Mrs. Kingsley, his tenth-grade English teacher. "Pine's for a client. Roland Guppy. Yes, like the fish. You've probably got him somewhere in your vast and mysterious files. We did a job for him last fall. "

Since there was a coffeemaker on the table against the wall, and the pot was half full, he got up, took a mug, and helped himself.

"Make yourself at home," Stella said dryly.

"Thanks. As it happens, I recommended white pine for a windbreak. He hemmed and hawed. Took him this long to decide to go for it. He called me at home yesterday. I said I'd pick them up and work him in. "

"We need a different form. "

He sampled the coffee. Not bad. "Somehow I knew that. "

"Are the pavers all you're taking for personal use?"

"Probably. For today. "

She hit Print, then brought up another form. "That's three white pine. What size?"

"We got some nice eight-foot ones. "

"Balled and burlapped?"

"Yeah. "

Tap, tap, tap, he thought, with wonder, and there you go. Woman had pretty fingers, he noted. Long and tapered, with that glossy polish on them, the delicate pink of the inside of a rose petal.

She wore no rings.

"Anything else?"

He patted his pockets, eventually came up with a scrap of paper. "That's what I told him I could put them in for. "

She added the labor, totaled, then printed out three copies while he drank her coffee. "Sign or initial," she told him. "One copy for my files, one for yours, one for the client. "