Page 19 of Home Body
“Well, I’d better get back at it,” he said, backing up and breaking the spell.
“Oh. Yeah. Me, too. Back at it.”
“I’ll see you around.”
“Ah huh. ’Bye.”
She hightailed it back to Mama Mamie’s kiosk where Rose waited, albeit standing in front of the table instead of behind it with her grandmother. Rover stood next to his girl, dutifully guarding his charge. Dalia could tell the child had a straight-line view of the spot where she and Deputy McIntyre had been talking.
“Mommy,” Rose said as soon as Dalia reached her, “you gonna marry that dep-itty?”
“What? No! Why no. Whatever made you say that?”
“He wanted to kiss you.”
“Really? How do you know that?”
“That’s what they do in movies I watch with Grammy on TV while you’re at the res-trant. They always want to kiss but they don’t. They just stand there staring at each other.” The little girl opened her eyes wide and comically wobbled her head. “Then at the end they kiss and get married. It always happens that way.”
“Well, this is no movie and I’m not marrying the deputy. Why, I hardly know the man.”
“He don’t care. He wants to kiss you.” Rose put up her palms as if that was a given.
People jostled them to get to the goods, so Dalia pulled Rose around their table and into the kiosk with her, thinking about how her love life had become so desperate she was taking advice from a five-year-old.
But what if the kid was right? What if Brody McIntyre had wanted to kiss her? Because she sure as hell wanted to kiss him back. The heat level that guy gave off might make her spontaneously combust.
CHAPTER 14
Kenyon rolled onto her stomach on the poolside chaise, allowing the heat of the sun to soak into her backside. She wiggled her butt in pleasure. “Ummm. This is heaven.”
“Please don’t make me go back to college.” Jessa rolled onto her tummy, too. “Let me stay right here for – ever.”
“Aw, come on. If we stayed forever, we’d be drunk every evening, hungover every morning, and useless in-between.”
Their chaises had soft, little pillows, so each faced the other with her head resting on her pillow. Only a few people swam in the luxurious hotel’s giant pool; a few lounged on the other side. It was a perfectly peaceful afternoon in tropical paradise.
Jessa reached back to unhook her bikini top and slip it out from under her, dropping it with a flare. “Yeah, useless works for me.”
“You know what?”
“I wouldn’t dare venture a guess.”
“I admire your inhibition. I don’t know why I can’t make myself go topless like that.”
Jessa shrugged. “No biggie. Nobody can see anything.” That was true with her breasts beneath her. “I know why you can’t.”
“And why would that be?”
“You’re a prude.”
Kenyon snatched a paper napkin off the small table between then, wadded it up, and threw it at her friend.
“Pfft. It’s true,” Jessa insisted. “You need to let go more. We joke about it but you’ve hardly even taken a drink since we got here. I, on the other hand, am enjoying plumping up the moron’s bill as much as possible.” She reached for the daquiri on the table, lifted her head to take a sip through the straw, put it back, and plopped her head back down.
“Getting drunk once, the night before my wedding-funeral, was enough.” Kenyon ignored her Coke that also sat on the table, sweating in the heat. “I’ll never do that again. And hey, I got us the works in the salon and those super-duper massages, didn’t I? That’ll cost the moron a pretty penny.”
“True. And I thank you. That was great. Too bad, though, that they only had masseuses and not masseurs.”
