Page 52 of Last Date
I laughed weakly. “I guess I’ll take one, if you have enough.”
“I had a hundred made.”
Surprised, I took the shirt when he handed it to me. Every indication was that Bob was dirt-poor. How had he been able to afford to have T-shirts made? “These must have been expensive to have printed.”
He dropped his gaze. “Uh… yeah… I… I inherited some money from my… aunt.”
“I see.”
His gaze zeroed in on a couple walking toward the store entrance. “Thanks for your signature, Kip.” He brushed past me with his clipboard and approached the couple.
I tucked the folded T-shirt under my arm and headed into the grocery store. When I got home with the groceries, I was surprised to see Merrick’s car parked in front of my house. My stomach twisted with anxiety as he unfolded from his car and approached.
I pretended I hadn’t seen him as I tried to think of what to say. We were on such awkward terms with each other, “hello” just seemed inadequate. I lowered the tailgate and grabbed a few bags of groceries. When he reached me, Merrick cleared his throat, and I was forced to look at him. “Oh, hey, Merrick.” My voice wobbled annoyingly.
“Hello.”
“What, uh… brings you here?”
“Let’s talk,” he said, his green eyes very serious.
Feeling breathless, I shrugged. “Okay.”
Without another word, he grabbed the last two bags of groceries.
I led the way into the house, and Spot went insane with happiness at the sight of Merrick.
Traitor.
While I put the groceries away, Merrick played with Spot. I watched them out of the corner of my eye, wondering what “Let’s talk” actually meant. If he was here to arrest me, I highly doubted he’d be playing with my dog. So what could he need to talk to me about? Did it have something to do with Allister’s murder? Or maybe it was about the assault at the Rusty Pier?
As I watched Merrick play with Spot, I was almost jealous. Merrick was always so controlled around me, like a tightly coiled spring. But as he played with Spot, he seemed carefree. He tossed the toy and laughed huskily at the dog’s silly antics. Was he like that with Peter? Warm and affectionate? Why was he always so uptight with me? Did I make him that way because I was uptight?
Once I had all the groceries put away, I moved into the living room. Merrick had managed to exhaust the dog, and he lay at Merrick’s feet. Having shed his suit jacket, Merrick looked more relaxed with his tie slightly loosened. He looked like something out of aGQmagazine article: Sexy Cops Edition.
I perched nervously on the arm of a chair. “So, what did we need to talk about?”
His gaze dropped to my throat. I’d purposely worn a mock turtleneck to hide the bruises, but my face still warmed at the intensity of his gaze. It was like he had X-ray vision and he was seeing through the thin cotton material. “I heard about your assault.”
“Let me guess, from Thomas?”
“Yep.”
I shrugged. “I’m fine. Just a little tender.”
“Any idea why that guy wanted to hurt you?”
“No.”
“He wasn’t familiar to you at all?”
“No. Not really. I didn’t see his face. I just saw that he had a mustache.”
“A mustache?”
“Yes. I only mentioned that because there was another guy who followed me the other night who also had a mustache.” I felt stupid fixating on the mustache angle because tons of people had mustaches.
“I hadn’t heard about that other guy.”
