Page 9 of The Scenic Route
He didn’t respond as he took the seat on the stool next tohers. He was close enough for Felicity to feel the heat radiating from his flannel-clad shoulder. She was tempted to lean away, since his proximity made her stomach feel fizzy in a way she didn’t want to analyze too closely, but that felt like letting him win. Instead, she held her ground and kept her gaze fixed firmly on her laptop, even though the words that had made perfect sense before he’d taken up all the space in the room were now a meaningless jumble.
“Who’s this?” Lou asked, eyeing the newcomer.
“My stalker,” Felicity answered matter-of-factly.
“Oh.” Lou looked back and forth between the two of them. “Is that a pet name or a cry for help? Because I can call the sheriff as easily as I can make this guy a coffee. You just say the word.”
Felicity finally looked at the mountain of a man on the neighboring stool. “You going to cause me any trouble, Mr. B. Green?”
“Nope.”
She’d forgotten what a nice bass voice he had. The memory of it just didn’t hold the full impact of hearing it in the moment.
“No trouble. I can even help,” he promised.
After another long pause, Felicity turned to Lou with a small shrug. “Let’s go the coffee route for now, but keep the sheriff option in our back pocket, just in case we need it later.”
“Got it.” Turning to the PI, Lou put on a big customer-service smile, as if she hadn’t just been discussing the possibility of calling the cops on him. “So what can I get you?”
“Large coffee, cream and sugar, please.”
Lou poured the coffee and set it in front of B. Green alongwith containers of cream and sugar. “I’ll let you doctor it up to your liking.”
Felicity could feel both Lou and the PI staring at her, but she refused to look up. She hadn’t decided how much to share with either of them, but she had a strong feeling that neither was going to quit looming until she told them something.
Lou was the first to break. “C’mon, Felicity, my new friend, my buddy, my sister from another mister. You need to satisfy my curiosity before the parents get done dropping their kids off at school.”
That caught Felicity’s attention. “Why is that the deadline?”
“This is their next stop after Simpson Elementary. I’ll be slammed for a good hour, and my curiosity will kill me within ten minutes. Spill, for the love of Pete!”
Felicity’s gaze slid to the big silent man next to her. He sipped his coffee while watching her closely, and she rolled her eyes back to Lou.
“You don’t understand,” Lou continued. “It’s been months—months, I tell you—since something exciting has happened here. Not even a hint of a mystery, no dead guys, headless or otherwise, just…nothing except making coffee for the boringly normal locals. My murder-solving whiteboard is covered in a layer of dust.” She grimaced a little. “Okay, fine. It’d be covered in dust if I wasn’t married to Mr. Clean-Freak Callum.”
This time, when Felicity glanced at B. Green, their gazes met in a look of confusion and an odd sense of solidarity. She looked away quickly, uncomfortable with any sort of bonding with this stranger, and met Lou’s begging eyes.
“My research here is boring.” Felicity didn’t want to raiseLou’s hopes just for her to be disappointed. “Just a run-of-the-mill meth dealer who skipped out on his bond. Everyone has their heads attached, and everyone willkeeptheir heads—and all other critically important body parts—attached during the course of my investigation.” It felt a little like a vow.
Despite Felicity’s attempt to keep Lou’s expectations low, the barista’s eyes lit up. “Ohh, you’re a bounty hunter?” At Felicity’s nod, Lou looked at B. Green. “How about you? Are you a bounty hunter too? Maybe a rival one who’s stalking Felicity so you can steal her rightful bounty out from underneath her?”
As amused as Felicity was by the accusatory frown Lou was directing at Mr. Green, her sense of fairness couldn’t let that go uncorrected. “He’s a PI, not a bounty hunter.” Felicity had to snicker a little at Lou’s disappointed expression. “What you just described did happen to my sister though. Except he wasn’t trying to steal her skips. He just had a crush on her.”
At this, Lou was positively dancing in place. “Really? Are they together now? Please don’t tell me she didn’t feel the same way and had to let him down easy, and now he’s nursing a broken heart.”
Felicity was glad she could give Lou good news. “They’re together.”
Lou cheered before focusing on B. Green and returning to her initial line of questioning. “So, Mr. PI, are you after the same meth dealer as my new bestie then?”
With a short shake of his head, he took a sip of coffee, obviously using it as an excuse not to talk.
“He’s following me because he’s looking for a stolen necklace,and he thinks I can lead him to it.”
Cocking her head to the side, Lou looked back and forth between them. “And can you?”
“No.”
B. Green gave a quiet, disbelieving grunt that made Felicity want to smack him.
