One Hit Wonderful (21 page)

“He’s a little…overprotective,” she said.

“Because of the break-in?”

“No. Well, yeah, because of that. But about Max too. I told him about the phone calls, that he was bugging Bridget in Hawaii. He asked me to tell him if Max called me again, he thinks he might be dangerous.”

“And you think…”

“That he’s being silly and overprotective.” She closed the second box and started going through the drawers of a desk. “Max is a weasel, but he’s spineless. He’s not dangerous.”

“But you think he broke into your apartment.”

“While I wasn’t home,” she pointed out. “He’d never break in when I was there.”

“So you haven’t told Nate you think it was Max who broke in?”

She shook her head and set aside a pile of ATM receipts from 1999. “No.”

“You’re an idiot,” he muttered.

“Just keep looking,” she told him. She held up a lab book from freshman chemistry. “That woman never throws out anything.”

Charles held up a plastic container, a look of extreme distaste on his face. “Tell me about it. I think this is her retainer.”

“Ew.”

They worked in silence for a while, going through boxes and papers and piles of leftover childhood memorabilia in search of…something.

After an hour, Lily sat back with a sigh. “Okay, I give. I have no idea what we’re looking for.”

“Finally,” Charles muttered. He slapped the lid on the box of books he was searching through and stood up. “Can we get out of here?”

“Yeah, sure.” She trudged to her feet with a sigh of disappointment. “You didn’t find anything that looked like something important?”

“Not unless you think Max would be desperate to get his hands on Bridget’s ninth grade health class term paper on acne.”

“Probably not.” She leaned against the wall while Charles relocked the storage unit.

“You look very disappointed,” Charles said, and curled an arm around her shoulders as they walked to the car.

“I was sure we’d find something,” she said.

“You can always come back and look again. Without me,” he clarified.

“Fat lot of help you are,” she muttered.

Her phone buzzed in the pocket of her jeans. “Maybe that’s Bridget. Hello?”

“Where’d you take off to, beautiful?”

“Nate.” She held a finger to her lips, signaling Charles to be quiet, and ignored his look of exasperation. “Charles stopped by to take me to lunch.”

“Ah. I wondered. The cleaning crew said some incredibly handsome man came and spirited you away.”

She grinned as she climbed into the car. “Were you worried?”

“Nah,” he said. “You’re addicted to my macaroni and cheese and hot fudge sundaes.”

“They don’t hurt, but I don’t think that’s what I’m becoming addicted to,” she purred, and smacked Charles as he made gagging noises beside her in the driver’s seat.

“Really?” he said, his voice rumbling in her ear and causing goose bumps to pop out along her skin. “Maybe you should come home and we can discuss that.”

“I’d love to,” she said then caught Charles’ eye. “But I promised Charles a day at the spa, and we’re already running late for our first appointment.”

“Spa, huh? Well, that’s okay. I’ve got a new direction on the score after this morning’s meeting, so I can use the time in the studio.”

“How about I bring home dinner, and we’ll talk addictions,” she offered. “Chinese food?”

“I’ll look forward to it.”

She clicked off, smiling, then looked up when Charles cleared his throat. “What? Okay, why are you giving me the stink eye?”

“You lied to that man.”

“I did not,” she retorted.

“You did too. We did not have lunch.”

She held up a finger. “Aha. I said you stopped by to take me to lunch, I didn’t say we actually had it.”

He rolled his eyes. “Semantics, sweetie. You lied by omission.”

“Nuh-uh.”

“Yes-huh. But don’t worry,” he said smoothly, smiling in a way that reminded her of a used car salesman. “I’ll let you treat me to one of those fabulous salads at the spa, and that way you won’t be a liar.”

“You’re all heart.”

* * * * *

Nate hung up the phone and tucked it into his pocket. “She’s fine.”

Detective Graham nodded. “I really don’t think she’s in any serious danger, Mr. MacIntyre. But the wedding dress is interesting.”

“Please, call me Nate.” He frowned down at the tattered remains of the dress he’d pulled out of the kitchen garbage. “She thinks I’m being overly protective, but with the phone calls and now this…”

“I understand,” Graham said. “But we recovered no fingerprints from the apartment other than yours, those of Ms. Michaels and a gentleman named,” he flipped open his notebook, “Charles Bouvier.”

“Her best friend,” Nate supplied. “He helped her move in.”

Graham made a notation in the book before closing it and slipping it back into his pocket. “Without anything else, we can’t even pull Mr. Carelli in to question him. However,” he continued, “if you’re truly concerned, I do have a friend in the private security business. He might be able to give you some peace of mind in the situation.”

Nate took the card Graham held out. “Keller Investigations,” he read. “They’re reputable?”

“Jonah Keller is the best in the business,” Graham assured him as he got to his feet.

“Great.” Nate held on to the card as he walked Graham to the door. “Thank you for all your help, Detective, I really appreciate it.”

Graham smiled. “Just part of the service. Please let me know if you think of anything else. And if you decide to hire Keller, let him know I referred you. He’ll keep me informed.”

“I’ll do that,” Nate promised. “Thanks again.”

He closed the door behind the detective and looked down at the card in his hand. He knew if he called in a private investigator without talking to Lily first, she’d be furious. The question was, was he concerned enough about her safety to deal with her anger if and when she found out?

“Yep,” he decided, and dug his phone back out of his pocket.

Chapter Fourteen

Lily knocked on Nate’s kitchen door that night with her hands full of Chinese takeout and a twinge of guilt in her heart. She ruthlessly squashed it and summoned a sunny smile when the door opened.

“Hi,” she chirped, and tilted her face up for his kiss.

“Hi, yourself.” He stepped back to let her in, relieving her of one of the bags of food as she passed. “How much food did you get?”

“I couldn’t decide what I wanted,” she explained, “so I got a little of everything.”

He’d opened one of the cartons and was breathing in the fragrant steam. “It smells great.” He started to unpack the cartons.

“Wait, don’t unpack it yet.”

“You’re not hungry?”

She laughed. “I’m starved, but I thought we could take it outside. It’s a gorgeous night for a picnic.”

He dropped another kiss on her smiling mouth. “I’ll grab a blanket. Why don’t you head out, pick a spot?”

He headed off to dig up a blanket, so she gathered the food together again and slipped back out the door. She wandered around the side of the house to the backyard in search of the perfect picnic spot.

She was trying to decide where to set down when Nate emerged from the house, blanket in one hand and a six-pack of beer in the other.

“What do you think?” she called. “Under the oak tree or out in the open?”

“Out in the open,” he decided. “That way when it gets dark, we can see the stars.”

“I had no idea you were so romantic,” she chided gently as he spread the blanket.

“I’m a musician,” he reminded her. “A song writer. It goes with the territory.”

“Right.” She knelt on the blanket and started unpacking the first bag of food. “You know, I haven’t heard you play yet.”

“You haven’t?”

She shrugged and handed him a set of chopsticks. “Well, the occasional stray note drifts up from the studio when you’re working, but that doesn’t count.”

“No?” He passed her a beer.

She shook her head. “Nope. Since we’re dating, I think I rate a special, private performance.”

“I’ll give you a private performance,” he leered, and she laughed.

“Smooth talker. I want a private concert.”

“Now?” He stretched out on the blanket and reached for a carton of rice.

“No, of course not. But sometime.”

“I can do that,” he told her, and peered into the now empty bags. “Did you get any dumplings?”

She handed him a carton. “Pass me the moo goo gai pan?”

He slid a glossy white carton her way and fished out a dumpling, dipping it in ginger sauce before popping it in his mouth. “I didn’t think to grab plates.”

“Don’t bother,” she said, and dug into her own carton. “This is how takeout Chinese is supposed to be eaten.” She paused with the chopsticks halfway to her mouth. “Uh, where’s Beau?”

“Sleeping off his day,” he told her. “With the cleaners all over the place today and my conference call earlier, I didn’t want him to get in the way. My sister came and picked him up this morning. He spent the day at her house.”

“That was nice of her.”

He nodded. “Her kids love him, and they’ve got a huge fenced-in yard with a pool. He’s exhausted.”

“I bet.” She washed down chicken and vegetables with a swig of beer.

“So how was your spa day?”

Ignoring the renewed twinge of guilt, she smiled. “It was good. A massage always leaves me feeling like a limp noodle, all loose and relaxed. And Charles loves the seaweed wrap.”

An odd expression crossed his face. “That’s an interesting image.”

She grinned. “It’s better in real life, trust me. Anyway, it was a nice day. And since if it wasn’t for your cleaning crew I’d have spent the entire day shoveling out my apartment…” She leaned over to kiss his sticky lips. “Thank you.”

“You’re welcome.” He held out a dumpling for her to sample.

“Mmm. Those are good.”

“My favorites,” he told her, and popped another one in his mouth. When he’d swallowed, he said, “The cops were by today.”

“Yeah?” She stretched out on her side and reached for the carton of moo shoo pork. “Did they say anything?”

He shrugged. “Just that they didn’t have anything really. The only fingerprints in the place were yours, mine and Charles’.”

“Figures.”

“So unless something else happens, they’ll probably never figure out who did it. Oh, he told me to have you call him, give him the list of what was taken.”

She nodded, the twinge of guilt morphing into a full-blown spasm. “I’ll call him tomorrow.”

Before he could ask her what had been taken—and she was forced to lie outright—she said, “How does the apartment look?”

“Like nothing ever happened,” he assured her. “Except you don’t really have any clothes because I sent them all to the cleaners. They’ll be ready first thing tomorrow morning.”

“You didn’t have to do that,” she protested.

“I know,” he told her. “I wanted to.”

The expression on his face brooked no argument, and she was loathe to disrupt the quiet peace of the evening, so she just sighed. “Thank you.”

He smiled. “You’re welcome.”

“I replaced most of my makeup with samples from the spa today,” she told him. “They’ll at least get me through the next several days.”

“You’ll need new pillows too,” he reminded her.

She swallowed the mouthful of pork before replying. “I bought some on the way home, and new sheets. They’re in the car.”

He frowned, and she paused with her beer halfway to her lips. “What?”

“Are you planning on sleeping there tonight?”

“Yes.” She put down the beer with a sigh. “I have to sometime, Nate.”

He shook his head. “Sure, but I was hoping you’d wait until I had the security system installed.”

“What security system?”

“The one I ordered today.” Her face must have looked as mutinous as she suddenly felt because he held up a hand. “I know you said you didn’t want one—”

“I don’t need one,” she muttered.

“But I’m the landlord and I can put in a security system if I want to.”

She rolled her eyes. “Fine. But I’m still sleeping there tonight.”

“Fine. I’m sleeping with you.”

“Why, because you think I need protecting?”

“No, because it’s going to be hard to have sex with you if you’re in your house and I’m in mine.”

Grumpy and annoyed, she pushed food away. “Maybe I don’t want to have sex with you.”

He dropped a carton, scattering rice all across the blanket. “Excuse me?”

She sniffed. “Maybe I don’t want to have sex with you. You don’t think I can take care of myself or make sensible decisions.”