In Too Deep

8

The smell of freshly brewed coffee and the unfamiliar sounds of someone moving about in his kitchen awakened him. The cramped, stiff feeling told him that he had fallen asleep on the office sofa again.

He opened his eyes and looked out the window at the dark sky of a foggy winter dawn. It was raining but his office seemed much cozier than usual.

Something wrong with the view, Jones. You're a hotshot detective. Figure it out.

Not his office. Not his kitchen. Not even his sofa.

Memory kicked in. He'd had decompression sex with Isabella, eaten her homemade soup and then proceeded to fall asleep on her sofa.

Hell of a way to impress a woman, Jones.

It was an awkward scenario but he felt surprisingly good, rested. He glanced at the table. The clock was still there, wrapped in its blanket, silent and still.

"Good morning," Isabella said.

He turned his head and saw her. And instantly got hard. She was in the kitchen, looking as if she had just stepped out of a shower. Dressed in a robe and slippers, her hair caught back in a ponytail, her face still bare of makeup, she was the most erotic sight he had ever seen.

He tried to think of something intelligent to say and came up empty.

"Morning," he managed.

"How did you sleep?" She cracked an egg into a bowl. "The sofa is a little on the small side for a man of your size, but you were sound asleep. I didn't want to wake you."

Feeling like a great, clumsy mastodon, he lumbered to his feet.

"Sorry about this," he said gruffly. "Not sure what the hell happened."

She looked amused. "You were exhausted. You went to sleep after dinner. That's it. No big deal."

"Didn't think I'd be able to sleep at all."

"You've been pushing yourself and your talent too hard for too long. Yesterday you drew on the last of your reserves when you took down Andrews. Last night your body signaled that it had had enough. It more or less forced you to give yourself a chance to recover."

That wasn't the full answer, he thought. He'd experienced the after-math of violence before and it had kept him awake for a couple of days. It was Isabella's good energy that had made it possible for him to get some much-needed rest last night. But he did not know how he knew that, much less how to explain it to her.

"I'll have breakfast ready when you come out of the bathroom," Isabella said.

Grateful for the opportunity to have a chance to figure out how to handle the situation, he headed down the hall. Once again he contemplated the man with the thousand-year-old eyes gazing back at him in the mirror.

The damage was done. There was nothing he could do now to stop the gossip.

"You really screwed up," he said to the man in the mirror.

When he emerged from the bathroom fifteen minutes later Isabella handed him a warm mug.

He drank some of the coffee and studied the rapidly lightening sky.

"I'd apologize," he said. "But it won't do any good."

"What are you talking about?" Isabella asked.

"This is one very small town," he said. "When I leave here this morning to go back to my place, someone is sure to see me."

She opened the door of the ancient refrigerator. "So?"

"So, by noon, everyone in the Cove will know that I spent the night here."

She closed the refrigerator and set a dish of butter on the counter. "So?"

His usually reliable brain seemed to have locked up like a computer that had been hit by a stealthy cyberattack. It took him a second to realize that he was actually feeling a condition that could be classified as confusion. He never got confused. He tried raising his talent a few notches to see if he could achieve a clearer view of the situation, but it didn't help. If anything he was more confounded than ever.

"It doesn't worry you that everyone will know I slept here?" he asked.

"Of course not." She dropped two slices of bread into the old-fashioned chrome toaster. "It was a rough day at the office. We had a couple of drinks and a meal to unwind and you fell asleep on my sofa. It happens."

"It's never happened to me. Not like that. And we didn't just have a meal and a few drinks, damn it. We had sex."

She raised her brows. "You're worried about your reputation?"

"The problem," he said, groping for the right words, "is that after today the entire population of the Cove will know that we had sex."

"Who cares?"

He drank some more coffee, hoping the hit of caffeine would help him untangle the strange bewilderment that was fogging up his senses. Isabella did not seem to mind the possibility that people would know that they had spent the night together. Why was he worrying about it? Enlightenment did not come.

"It's my reputation you're worrying about, isn't it?" Isabella said. "It is very sweet of you to be so concerned. It's not necessary, but it is sweet."

"Yeah, that's me," he said into his mug. "Sweet."

"There are so few true gentlemen left in the world."

"Uh-huh." He sensed that things were going downhill fast, but he could not think of a way to stop the runaway train.

A rush of tiny springs followed by small popping sounds interrupted his fugue state. In the kitchenette, two slices of toast leaped high into the air.

"The toast," Isabella yelped.

She managed to snag one slice out of midair, but the other landed on the counter.

"Oh, good," she said. She smiled her brilliant smile. "They didn't fall on the floor this time. Of course, those of us with a strong background in the food-and-beverage business do have this two-second rule that is generally applied in such situations. But I hate to apply it in front of guests."

"Who gave you the toaster?" he asked.

"Henry and Vera. They said they found it in one of the cabins at the old Sea Breeze Motor Lodge."

The Sea Breeze had been abandoned for decades. A few years back, using a somewhat dubious legal claim of squatter's rights, Henry and Vera Emerson had moved in and proceeded to make it their home. To date no one had challenged them. Given the very large dogs they kept on the premises, it was unlikely that anyone in his right mind would try to evict Henry and Vera without the backing of a small army. Thus far no one with an army had shown up.

"You know," Fallon said, "now that you've got a steady job, you could probably afford a new toaster."

"Probably." She slathered butter on the toast. "But I like this one. It has a cool vintage look, don't you think?"

"Probably because it is vintage. Must be more than fifty years old. Amazing that it still works."

"It needed a little tuning up, but Henry got it running again."

"I can see that. Not every toaster can put a couple of slices into orbit."

"Nope." She looked pleased. "Mine is one of a kind."

It occurred to him that he had not given her a housewarming gift.

He sat down at the wooden table and examined the two neatly arranged place settings. The knife, fork and spoon were in proper order. The napkin was neatly folded. There was a tiny flower in a miniature bud vase positioned between the two place mats. He felt as if he had stepped into another dimension.

"So," he said. "When are you going to tell me how you wound up in Scargill Cove?"

"Later," she said. "At the office. Breakfast first. It's the most important meal of the day."

SHE FED HIM a heaping plate of eggs scrambled with ricotta cheese, a pile of toast and a fresh, juicy pear, hoping that the old adage was true and that the way to a man's heart really was through his stomach. A large man like Fallon Jones needed his food.

He left after his third mug of coffee, taking the clock with him. She stood at her window and watched him walk through the fog—the damp kind off the ocean—to the office of Jones & Jones.

She had seen him kill. He was certainly not the first extremely dangerous man she had known. But he was different. Fallon Jones was that rarity in the modern world, a man who lived by a code, a man who cared about old-fashioned things like honor and a woman's reputation.

The Sunshine Cafe was open. She knew that the regulars would be at the counter, eating Marge's delicious homemade muffins and drinking coffee. They would see Fallon come down the street and go into his office. By noon everyone in town would know that he had spent the night with her.

She smiled to herself. "Fine by me."