“I was trying to get a better look,” Jack explained. “And then I realized that from down there . . .” He glanced toward the bushes. “I was just trying to see the sculpture from a different perspective. I know it’s hard for you to understand. You’re surrounded by all this incredible history all the time.”
I think that’s the first we both noticed that we were still holding hands. My brain flashed back to Ray and Doris at the graveside. My body was focused on something else. Like the heat that intensified when Jack tightened his hold on my fingers and grinned. Still hand in hand, he led me over to one of the nearby picnic tables and we sat down.
“I’m so impressed with this place, I can’t even begin to tell you,” he said. “I just can’t get enough of it. That’s why I hung around, even after you closed up the memorial and left for the funeral. How was it?”
I’d been so busy staring up into Jack’s incredible blue eyes, funerals were the last thing on my mind. I shook myself back to reality. “Funerals are never fun. And when the person getting buried is a murder victim, it’s even worse.”
“Was the family very upset?”
I thought back to everything Nick had said about his aunt, and mumbled, “Delusional more than upset,” but when Jack didn’t catch what I said and asked me to repeat it, I told him it was nothing.
It was just as well since he was staring up at the Garfield sculptures again. On the relief he was looking at, the president was posed just like the statue inside, with one arm bent and his head high. He was surrounded by other figures. Some of them looked like the men I’d seen around the table when I got a glimpse of the ghostly cabinet meeting.
“It’s the kind of beauty money can’t buy,” Jack said on the end of a sigh, and I was all set to bat my eyelashes and make some half-baked protest about how I’d been blessed by good genetics and a better-than-average understanding of skin cleaners, moisturizers, and really good sunscreen, when I realized he wasn’t talking about me, he was talking about the monument.
I was appropriately peeved, but I didn’t let on. After all, he
Or maybe he did. When he looked back at me, he grinned, and whether he meant it as an apology or not, I decided to cut him some slack. He was too cute to get pissed at. At least this early in our relationship. “It doesn’t seem right to even be talking about money in a place like this,” Jack said. “Garden View is so impressive and so historic. It’s incredible, and they’re lucky to have a woman as classy as you on staff. Something tells me . . .” He cocked his head and gave me a slow look that spread fire every place his gaze touched.
Of course, I couldn’t help but think about Quinn. I mean, what woman in her right mind who’d been sleeping with the sexiest detective in town wouldn’t? Hot-as-hell smiles tend to do that to me.
Unlike Quinn, who was all about smoldering looks and pent-up emotions, Jack was much more aboveboard. He was open and honest and said what he was thinking. There was a concept that would throw Mr. Sexy Detective for a loop! It all made me think that, in addition to being as hot as a firecracker, Jack might also be a whole lot of fun.
“Let me guess, you live in a fancy condo in some trendy part of town.”
That was Jack talking, and I’d been so busy letting my imagination run wild, I hadn’t even been listening. Maybe he didn’t notice because he went right on to say, “And I suspect you have a great wardrobe, too.” He glanced over my khakis and polo shirt, which obviously weren’t anybody’s idea of a great wardrobe, and his golden eyebrows rose. “You vacation in fabulous places, right? Cancun? Rio? Punta Cana? No way you’re the skiing type. I picture you on a beach, palm trees swaying overhead and a drink in your hand. One of the ones with the little umbrellas in them.”
“I picture me on a beach, too, and in that fancy condo, but that’s not going to happen anytime soon. Do you have any idea the kind of money a cemetery tour guide doesn’t make?”
