Tomb With a View

He shot Jennine a thousand-watt smile by way of excusing us, then took me by the elbow. “A little privacy would be nice,” he said.

I yanked my arm out of his reach. “Why?”

“If I wanted to stand here in the hallway and tell you, we wouldn’t need the privacy.” He knew where my office was; he led the way.

I made sure I closed my office door behind me, then crossed my arms over my chest. “Well?”

He’d already taken a seat in the chair behind my desk and he looked up at me, as unruffled at the center of personal drama as I’d seen him at the scene of a homicide. “I missed you, too. Why don’t you sit down.”

“I don’t need to be invited to sit down in my own office.” I took a couple steps closer to my desk, the better to glare at him when I asked, “What do you want?”

“I thought we should talk.”

“If you wanted to talk, you shouldn’t have walked out on me. Then we could have talked.”

“You’re angry.”

I tossed my head. “No wonder you’re a detective. You’re a real whizbang when it comes to getting to the heart of things.”

“Which is how I know you wouldn’t be angry if you still didn’t care.”

“Oh, no!” I backed off and backed away. It was better than daring to get too close and catching a whiff of the expensive aftershave he always wore. That stuff made my knees weak, and Quinn knew it. Rather than dissolve into a puddle of mush, I sat in my guest chair. “You’re not going to pull that on me.”

“What?” Quinn had a way of shrugging that emphasized his broad shoulders. His eyes were the exact color of my emerald dress and they glittered at me across my desk. “You’re being unreasonable.”

“Me?” I was out of that chair in a flash. “You haven’t seen unreasonable, buddy, not from me. I’m the one who was always up front with you, and you’re the one—”

“Who’s had three weeks to think about everything we said to each other last time we were together.” He stood, too, and came around to the other side of the desk. A stronger woman might have backed away, or at least taken a swing at him in an effort to wipe that sexy smile off his face. But I am not a strong woman, not when it comes to Quinn, and I didn’t move a muscle, not even when he settled his hands on my shoulders.

“I am about to prove just how very reasonable I am,” he said, his voice honey. “I’ve done a lot of thinking in the past three weeks, Pepper.”

I swallowed hard. I knew what he was talking about, because I’d done a lot of thinking in that time, too, and somewhere between the anger and the misery, I’d decided the only way I would ever take Quinn back was if he came crawling. He wasn’t on his knees, not yet anyway, but I could afford to curb my temper and bide my time. I felt an apology of epic proportions coming on. Oh, how I was going to enjoy hearing it!

He leaned a little nearer, and I knew that if I gave in the slightest bit and moved a fraction of an inch closer, he would have kissed me. As much as I wanted it, it was too soon to surrender. I kept my place, just like I kept my mouth shut.

He skimmed both thumbs over my collarbone and said, “I’ve decided to forgive you.”

Even I didn’t know I could move that fast. I had his hands batted away and the desk between us before Quinn knew what had happened. And believe me, I wasn’t at a loss for words, even though I was just about choking on my anger. “You? Forgive me?”

Maybe he looked a little uncertain because he’d never seen steam coming out of a woman’s ears before. “Yeah, I’ve thought about it, and I realize when you told me all those crazy things you told me—”

“About talking to dead people.”

“Well, yeah.” He scraped a hand through his inky hair.

“Me walking out on you, it was a knee-jerk reaction, and it’s not like anyone could blame me. I had every right to ask what was going on with you, and when you made up that nonsense about ghosts—”

“Get out.” The bouquet of flowers was the perfect prop, but I motioned toward the door with it a little too forcefully. A shower of rose petals rained down on my desk. “Get out of my office, and get out of my life, and if you ever think of forgiving me again, get that out of your head, too. I don’t need your forgiveness, Quinn, and I don’t need you.”

“I thought you’d be happy.”

“Oh, I’m going to be happy, all right. As soon as you’re out of here and you close the door behind you.”

He did, and guess what? I didn’t feel any happier. Just to prove it, after he was gone, I winged the bouquet of flowers at my closed office door. The ribbon around the stems of the flowers came loose and unrolled, and I saw that there were gold foil letters glued to the ribbon.

Dearest Grandmother, it said in loopy letters.

“Oh, you forgive me all right,” I mumbled to myself, giving the bouquet a kick across my office just for good measure. “And you proved it by bringing me a bunch of flowers you swiped off a grave!”

4

Never let it be said I don’t have a social life.