For Love and Cheesecake Read online

  But why did his hand keep straying? Did he have indigestion? Heart problems? A ring in there, perhaps? And why on earth did I keep thinking about getting engaged between bouts of feeling sick to my stomach? If Ben got down on one knee, I’d probably barf on him by accident. Oy!

  But part of my poor little brain was almost disappointed when the evening ended with nothing of the sort. Not the puking part, because not doing that was definitely good, but the proposal. Which was weird since I had been sure it wasn’t what I wanted yet. I was comfortable with or at least getting used to the arrangement we currently had. Or maybe it had something to do with the fact that my best friend, Bella Landry, and her hunky boyfriend, Jared Henderson, had run off to Las Vegas last month and gotten hitched.

  Yes, I swear you read that right. Bella got married again. She’d managed to get Jared to agree to an elopement, even though this was his first marriage. I don’t know how, but it probably involved his handcuffs and some quality time with Bella in leather.

  Regardless, I did not want to think about it.

  So, that’s why it was so weird to have disappointment sitting in my stomach as Ben unlocked the front door to my, I mean, our house.

  I put my purse down on the front hall table and kicked off my shoes into the closet right inside the door. I didn’t think my poor feet could handle another minute in the spiky heels. Plopping onto the couch, I purred when Ben made a beeline for the opposite end, taking my left foot into his hand and massaging with those lovely, strong hands.

  “Oh, man, don’t stop!” I sounded almost orgasmic. My already loose-feeling legs took on the consistency of limp spaghetti when Ben growled low in his throat. Thank goodness I was already sitting down and not feeling so pukey anymore.

  His eyes gleamed with a wicked light while his hands roamed farther up my calves, trailing to my thighs.

  Oh, mama! Come to me.

  Chapter Two

  Now this is the part where I wish I could tell you Ben kept me up all night, loving me and making me sing arias like the finest of sopranos.

  Ha! The truth was we got it on and then I fell sound asleep, only to wake up with drool pooling at the corner of my mouth and my hair sticking straight up from my head. Nice.

  But the getting it on part was fantastic, no matter how little time it actually took. Which was entirely my fault. Hee-hee!

  Anyway, it wasn’t yet nine in the morning, and Ben was already gone. The smell of coffee wafted through the air toward me, tempting me to seek out the caffeine I so badly needed. Once I drank the heavenly brew, I had to get ready to go in to The Masked Shoppe, my combo costume shop/lingerie den. My lovely assistant, the irreplaceable Charlie Drake, was opening, but we were expecting a big shipment today to prepare for Halloween, our biggest holiday besides Valentine’s Day. I had to be there at a semi-decent time.

  Of course the phone rang while I was in the shower. It always did. I’d tried one time to jump out to get it and managed to almost kill myself when I slipped on the tile, so I let it go, figuring I’d check the messages when I was finished washing my hair. I was due for a touch-up on my roots soon. Last time I’d had it done was for Bella’s wedding. Since it had been her special day, I’d let her do whatever she wanted, which earned me highlights a little wilder than normal. All in all, they had been pretty, if streakier than I was used to. The wedding had been small but beautiful, and my hair had looked very nice in the pictures. Yay me.

  Once out of the shower, I wrapped myself in a robe, then went to the answering machine. After hitting the button and listening to the message, I had to shake my head. It was Martha, my stepmother, wanting to make sure I was okay. She’d heard I’d gotten sick at the restaurant last night, and wanted to let me know some kind of end-of-summer bug was going around. Apparently I should take vitamins right now.

  Laughing, I shook my head. I still was completely unused to having a woman around who acted like a mother, worrying about me being sick. When I was a kid, my dad had never known I had strep until I told him I had to go to the doctor and I’d already made an appointment for myself. He’d been a good dad, if a bit clueless. But Martha was very full of clues and kept watch over me. It was nice as long as it didn’t get stifling. I’d have to call her later, though, or stop by her diner for pie this evening, because right now I had the rest of my morning ritual to complete.

  I hunted around for the paper to go with my consumption (good word, not to be mixed up with consummation) of my daily three cups of coffee and a set of Tastykakes (yeah, I know, breakfast of champions), but couldn’t find the Martha’s Point paper anywhere. No one better have taken it off my front porch again, because that would make me a little bitchy. I liked to start the morning reading the tip column Ben had begun a few months ago. Now not only did he write up restaurants and solve crimes, he also told people how to prune their flowers and the best cow crap to put on their vegetable beds to make them grow like he made my backyard garden grow.

  Once I was done with breakfast, I did the hair thing and dressed in a pair of blue jeans paired with a long-sleeved sage green shirt. I threw some tennis shoes on, and a jacket, and hoofed it down the street to the shop, ready to start the day. The sign was always the first thing I saw. I loved it as much today as when I first saw it. The weathered wood gave me a warm, fuzzy feeling inside my stomach.

  When I opened the front door, the little chime did its thing, welcoming me into The Masked Shoppe—my pride and joy. If the shop were a child, I couldn’t have been prouder. And it was all mine, right down to the last riding crop in my secret backroom that really wasn’t a secret to anyone in our small town.

  I strolled right on in through the front door, then quickly shut my eyes. I was barely able to stop myself from snickering at the sight of Charlie and Detective Bartley in a serious lip lock behind the long wooden counter. Charlie’s hands were buried in her mass of red hair.

  Now, really, I should be the strict employer and frown upon the whole public display of affection in the workplace. But to be honest, Ben and I had done a whole lot worse than kiss in the store. And I might have been many things, but I was not a hypocrite.

  Instead, I cleared my throat while turning around to look at the new display in the front window. I had let Charlie take over the job since I pretty much sucked at coming up with interesting stuff to draw customers in. He had taken an old spider-backed chair and placed bright orange candles around the base in swaths of black satin. An old coat rack stood behind the chair and held a rainbow of scarves and feather boas, along with a long red cape.

  I had thought it was going to clash when he told me about the colors, but looking at it now, while still trying not to pay attention to the snog fest going on behind me, I realized there was a subtle undertone in all the colors that really brought the whole thing together.

  By now I had definitely given the two unlikely lovebirds enough time to finish up business. If they weren’t done—and it didn’t sound as if they were—then that was tough noogies for them.

  I cleared my throat.

  The sounds continued.

  I turned around and cleared my throat.

  I might as well have been a light breeze trying to tap on the front door.

  I yelled, “Hey! Enough already! Get a room!” Lots of exclamation points in there, though I almost never used them.

  Finally, they broke apart. Detective Bartley, or Debbie as she had told me I could call her, stepped back with one more quick kiss on Charlie’s nose, a twinkle in her blue, blue eyes. She flicked me a smile while trotting past me toward the door.

  “See ya,” I said feebly. Nice job, there, Ivy.

  Charlie snickered, giving me somewhere to direct my consternation (ooh, good word, but not good enough to make me bite my tongue).

  “Ever heard of professionalism? How about showing a little embarrassment for a totally over-the-top public display of affection?”

  All I got was a smirk on his full lips.

  “Why is it that I put up wit
h you, again?”

  “Because you love me.”

  The cheeky smile on Charlie’s face made me soften a little. But then I hardened myself again. I was the boss here. “No, I don’t think that’s it.”

  The smile faltered for a moment, only to come back full force a second later. “Well, honey, if you don’t love me and don’t know why you keep me around, then I guess I’ll get going. I’m almost positive you can take care of Mr. Hanks and his new order this morning. He’s trying a new product today, so you’ll have to make sure the fit on the back of the thigh is good.” He picked up his ever-present backpack, threw it across his shoulder, and walked around the end of the counter.

  In the three seconds it took him to make the move, I went from joking to sick to my stomach. I dry-heaved, leaning on the back of the chair in the window. Then I started the always unattractive sucking and blowing like I was hyperventilating, which I was pretty sure I was going to do. Maybe even fainting, which would be embarrassing, if nothing else.

  What on earth would I do without Charlie? And why did I always stick my foot in my mouth, even when I was only trying to be a jokester? Crapola!

  Charlie was by my side before I could blink back the tears, his big hands stroking my arm.

  I leaned into his cushy chest, hoping I wouldn’t feel the telltale signs of a bra. My assistant was very fond of our merchandise, which was fine with me, since money was money. I simply didn’t want to have to feel the evidence of who, precisely, he bought it for. He and Debbie didn’t wear the same size, after all, if you get my meaning.

  “Ivy, honey, I was only kidding with you. I would never leave you. Ever! Please don’t cry, and please don’t throw up on me.”

  I gave a watery laugh, feeling around behind me for something to lean on. With my hand on my heart, I tried to get myself back under control. “You heard about that, huh?” I blew out a weary breath, then changed the subject. “I’m being a ninny, aren’t I?” I wiped at my eyes with the back of my hand.

  “If I say yes are you gonna cry again?” Leaning against the counter with me, he reached out and touched my arm.

  I didn’t know if I wanted him to be nice to me or not, at this point. I was being dumb and didn’t deserve his niceness. “Tell you what,” I said, pushing myself away from the counter and turning to face him. “Why don’t I go back outside, come back in, and we’ll start all over again?”

  He laughed his belly laugh, making me feel a whole lot better.

  I did go outside again, and came back in feeling like a new person on a new day. “Hey, Charlie! How’s it going today?”

  When he whipped around, he nearly scared the crap out of me. He had a Speedo on his head, clamping down his bushy blondish hair, and a pig nose situated on the side of his face directly to the left of his own nose.

  I snorted right as the front door winged open and Mr. Hanks came sailing through. Oy!

  Thank God he was who he was and simply laughed at Charlie’s ridiculous costume. Hey, at least with the size of Charlie’s head, he hadn’t had to use one of the Speedos that would fit Mr. Hanks. One crisis averted, but really, as the day wore on, that was pretty much the only crisis I averted. Or at least it felt that way.

  Apparently many people remembered the crush of costume parties last year and were putting in multiple orders with various pickup dates. I’d had to add several pages to the calendar by noon when I sent Charlie to lunch, thinking I could handle it all on my own.

  Yeah, right. Who was I trying to kid?

  But soon after Charlie returned from lunch—with lipstick on his collar, but we won’t go there—we had everything back under control, along with several very happy customers. A new distributor had agreed to work with me on a plethora (good!) of costumes, so I was able to supply all the fairy costumes and Goth stuff that some of the younger crowd kept coming in for. I did have to make sure to keep some of the teenage boys out of the back room, but I had Charlie, who wasn’t a small man himself, and I made him the enforcement.

  The same thing happened the next day. When I sent Charlie to lunch this time, I knew it was going to be a mob scene. The fact that school was out for the weekend didn’t help things, either. I ended up having to call in my father, Stan the Tanned, to be the backroom enforcer. He was not a happy camper, even though he had softened some toward the back room since Martha shopped there, too. Not that I wanted to think about what they did with some of her purchases. Ick! However, at least I didn’t get the scowls that had punctuated Dad’s first trip into the back.

  Within fifteen minutes, even with Stan’s help, I was on the horn calling Charlie’s cell phone every two minutes between costume orders.

  I left variations of the same message, “Don’t come back without Tastykakes and a cheesesteak if you value your life. And hurry. Get your lips off Debbie.”

  I love Charlie. I wanted to state that before we went any further. In ten minutes, not only did he bring me a cheesesteak with lettuce, tomato, and mayo, he also brought me a big box of my favorite sweet snack, and a beautiful purple rose in a little frosted glass vase. No wonder I kept him around.

  He took over the front desk while I retreated to my miniscule office, propped my feet up on the edge of my dead potted plant, and shoved food in my face.

  Invoices were spread over the desk’s wooden surface, but I ignored those in favor of hot, yummy steak and delicious cheese in a soft roll. Mmm-mmm-mmm.

  Right as I took the last delicate bite of the first half (okay, I crammed it in my mouth, if you must know), Charlie knocked on my door and Debbie shoved her way in behind him, making my small office even smaller.

  “Not to be rude, but what the hell are you two doing in here and why are you interrupting my all-important cheesesteak?” Yes, I actually said that after swallowing. I was getting bold in my older age, I guess.

  “Your cheesesteak is insignificant right now,” Debbie said.

  I gasped in horror. “Sacrilege!”

  “I have more important things to do.”

  “What could be more important than lunch?”

  “Another dead body.”

  Well, shit.

  Chapter Three

  “I have a body down at Jerry Boucheron’s restaurant, and it’s not pretty,” Debbie said while I held back the scream of frustration that we were going to be in the middle of yet another murder investigation.

  Seriously, no one had murdered anyone in the ten years before I came here. Everyone just died peacefully in their sleep, maybe a car accident or two. But it was like all the crazies had come out of the woodwork since my arrival. I wished they would go back in and leave me the heck alone.

  Detective Debbie Bartley was still talking, though, while I had my little mental ramble, so I tuned back in.

  “Don’t you ever read the paper? You and I need to have a talk, Ivy. You were one of the last people to talk to Jerry, and you were at the restaurant the other night.”

  Here’s where people would normally say they lost their appetite and put down the last half of their sandwich. Then again, this was me, and so I took the last two inches of the cheesesteak and crammed it into my mouth like a squirrel tucking away food for the winter. I was not talking about anything if I could help it without talking to Ben first. Was that where he had gone early this morning, and yesterday morning, too? Why hadn’t I heard anything about this before now? On that note, why wasn’t I getting my paper in the mornings? I’d noticed the paper was gone again this morning, but the thought was lost when I came into the mad house of the shop earlier.

  I had wandered through the shop some today but had put in a bunch of orders, so maybe I just hadn’t heard all the gossip flying around. Most of my conversations had been about bust sizes and cod pieces.

  My phone rang while I was still doing my squirrel impersonation.

  Charlie picked it up, muttered, “Uh-huh,” a bunch of times, then hung up the phone and speared me with a glance. “Ben says don’t utter a word until he gets here.”
r />   Debbie gave Charlie a pretty nasty look while crossing her arms over her chest and stomping out.

  “Wow, she gave up fast,” I said before I could think better of it.

  “Oh, no, I’ll probably hear plenty about it later, but right now she’s trying to respect my workplace. She was angry you gave me a hard time about the kissing thing yesterday and wanted to confront you, but I asked her to remember this was my job.”

  Nice. Now I bet she hated me and would make my life miserable. Wouldn’t that just be peachy?

  Although it probably wouldn’t be any different than usual. The police in the area were certainly more competent than they had been a year ago, but try though they might, they had yet to solve a murder without the help of yours truly. I couldn’t see the status quo changing at this point.

  “What does she want with me? Is she going to take me into some back room and beat me with a rubber hose for not letting you get down and dirty on my sales floor?”

  Fortunately, he laughed, as I had intended him to. I didn’t want to have the strain of bad vibes between us, with him working in the store every day.

  “Let’s not even talk about getting down and dirty on the sales floor. I clearly remember someone finding diamonds in a chest of drawers when she sent an elbow flying during orgasm in the back room.”

  I knew I flared a bright red, because I could feel the heat running up into my face from my chest. Nothing like flaming embarrassment to make every day complete. “Let’s not talk about that.”

  “Sure. But I do want to put in here that we were not going to do the down and dirty. It was a kiss.”

  “Yeah, one that nearly set my hair on fire.”

  His chuckle was very masculine and a little bit naughty. “Anyway,” he continued, “I explained to her that we never kiss like that at the police station or in her patrol car, so we shouldn’t do it here.”

  Which, of course, made me feel like such a prude. I honestly didn’t care if they kissed here, I just didn’t want to walk in and have to feel like a voyeur by accident. All my voyeurism was done on purpose. Kidding! Just kidding, of course. No voyeurism here. And certainly not with Charlie and his girlfriend.