For Love and Cheesecake Page 6

  “What?” The disbelief in his voice was palpable.

  “You heard me. Now go put something scrumptious together for my house tonight at seven, and I’ll get to finding your culprit and saving your restaurant.”

  Chapter Eight

  Where to start? Where to start? I hadn’t even seen the body or the crime scene of this particular murder, so I completely lacked any idea of where to begin. And since Ben had shut me out as far as helping from the beginning, I was loath to ask him what he had.

  About an hour later, I got over that stupidity because I did not want to do footwork that had already been done. Plus, Ben and I made a good team. Why mess with success? I didn’t have an answer, so I went to hunt him down.

  I found him at the newspaper putting together his articles for the week. I breezed into his cubicle, where fortunately he was not being mauled by the receptionist (as I’d found him one other time). In fact, they had a male receptionist now, and I’d be quite concerned if he was mauling Ben.

  “Hey, buddy, I need you.” I knocked on the door, loving the way his eyes traveled from the tips of my highlighted bangs to the tips of my low brown boots. Yes, I had introduced some brown back into my wardrobe. I had control of the impulse now, so I thought it was silly to completely eradicate (good word!) an entire shade from my clothing choices simply because I used to be obsessive.

  Anyway, back to the look. Ben perused me from tip to toe, making me feel flushed in all the right places in between. Yee-haw!

  I would have thrown him on top of the desk and had my wicked way with him, but we had things to do and, sadly, I was not one of them right now. Plus, I heard footsteps coming down the hall. Being caught naked at his work would be a million times worse than being caught at my work. Well, being caught at all would be beyond embarrassing right into mortifying, but I didn’t think I needed to go there.

  Harlow, Ben’s uncle and boss at the Martha’s Herald, came strolling into Ben’s office humming a tune under his breath while swinging something in his hand. “Hey, there, Ivy, I’m looking forward to dinner tonight. I can’t wait to see you and Noni together. Ought to be exciting.” His smile was vaguely sharky. “Do you mind if I bring the woman I’ve been seeing lately? I’ve been promising her Jerry’s cooking, but now that the restaurant is shut down, I can’t follow through. I am not going to get any action until I deliver on that promise.” He tapped me on the nose with the rolled-up paper in his fist.

  Um, yuck? He wanted to bring some woman to dinner so he could have nookie afterward? Not that I begrudged him nookie. He was a very fine-looking man for being in his mid forties. But ugh. Like I needed more people in my little house, or to make a bigger burden on Jerry.

  Although, on second thought, if the family hadn’t met this new woman, maybe some of the pressure would be taken off me when she showed up. Hey, maybe she was a floozy and I would look like the Virgin Mary next to her.

  I made a snap judgment I hoped I wouldn’t regret later. “Sure, bring her and a bottle of wine, because dinner is not free. And there will be no nookie in my house no matter how much she loves Jerry’s cooking. You can take it back to your own home.”

  He snickered on his way out the door, tapping the same paper to his forehead and starting back up with his humming as he walked back in the direction of his office.

  I turned to Ben to find him leaning back in his chair with his hands folded at his belt buckle. Man, did I want to be there, right there where his hands rested. Ahem. We would not have time for that until much later.

  “So,” he said, looking relaxed and a lot less ruffled than I would have been if he had tried to spring an impromptu dinner party of epic proportions on me.

  “So.” I smiled, my best smile, if you couldn’t guess.

  “No nookie in our house tonight?”

  Leave it to Ben to home in on that one particular thing.

  “Because I think I’m going to have to have nookie at our house tonight if you expect me to sit through this enormous dinner I assume you’re planning.”

  I jumped into his lap, not even offended when he let out a muffled, “Oof.”

  “Have I told you today how much I love you and think you are the best thing since sliced bread?”

  He laughed, and I felt it rumble against my stomach and chest. “No, I don’t think you have.”

  “Well, let me show you,” I said a moment before I kissed him like he hadn’t been kissed outside a bedroom before. I took the back of his head in my hands and let my tongue have serious playtime.

  And at this point, if Harlow had walked in and tried to chastise Ben for unprofessional behavior, I’d have pulled my invitation for his girl-toy.

  “Why, oh, why did I agree to do this?” I asked four hours later as I was stepping into a pair of black heels.

  “All I can say is I never, ever want to ever hear you get on me for having those old biddy makeup parties. This is so much farther down the crazy pike than those will ever be.”

  “Thank you, Bella. I so appreciate your support of me in this trying time.” I elbowed her away from my mirror and stuck my tongue out at her.

  “Oh, puh-lease. You’re lucky Jared and I were available on such short notice.” She knocked me out of the way with her little hips. Little hips that might soon be big hips, because she and Jared had decided to start trying for a family. I didn’t envy her. I might when she was holding the beautiful baby in her arms (and you knew they were going to have a beautiful baby, probably with a different hairdo every day), but not when that child started screaming and needing to be nursed.

  Supposedly they were “trying,” as she called it. I thought that was pretty funny, since from what I heard they were pretty much always trying. But I didn’t say it. Points for me.

  “I am lucky you were available, and I really do appreciate you being here. Apparently, there are going to be like fourteen or fifteen people here. I have no idea what we’re going to do with them all. I hope Jerry has enough food.”

  Just then, the man of the hour bellowed for me. Who knew the man who was such a peach on the dining floor could be such a bear in the kitchen?

  “I’m coming!” I turned to Bella. “Please kill me now.”

  “And have you miss all this fun? Not in a million years. Especially when I had to bring you every plate and piece of silverware in my house so you can feed everyone. I need you around to wash them all before I go home.”

  Nice. I hadn’t even thought of the dishes, but I certainly did when I hustled to the kitchen as fast as I could in my high heels and cocktail dress. The dark teal fabric that swished around my thighs made me feel sexy. Though I wasn’t sure that was the particular feeling I should be going for with literally everyone and their grandmother due at my house in about forty-five minutes.

  “What do you need?” I asked, choking back my scream of horror when I saw what a complete and utter mess my poor little kitchen was. Holy cow. This was obviously a lot more than when I threw some noodles into boiling water and opened up a package of teriyaki vegetables.

  He turned around, a streak of flour on his cheek and blood in his eye. “Put a smile on your face when you come into my kitchen,” he demanded, then immediately went on, not even waiting to see if I could get my facial muscles working properly. “Did I not tell you to get me fresh basil, my lugubrious lambchop? How am I supposed to work under these horrendous conditions with no prospect of fresh herbs? Did you even try?” The anger in his voice had me backing up a step.

  But this was Jerry. My cheesecake god. My alfredo sauce guru. He couldn’t be this beast in white, nearly frothing from the mouth over a freaking herb.

  “Let me see what I can do,” I said quickly, not wanting him to get angrier. I made tracks to find Ben to see if he had anything left over from his garden.

  “Ben. Ben! Ben!” I yelled as I ran down the short hallway, skirting around the table protruding from the living room. There was no way I could get everyone into the kitchen, so we’d put a couple of
tables together and made a really long one in the living room.

  Ben stepped out of his office, looking too delicious for words. Seriously. I licked my lips but then got my mind back on track.

  “I need you.”

  “Again?” And there was that half smile that did me in every single time.

  Yum.

  “Yes, but I need your herbs.”

  “Is that a euphemism for something else? Like when you wanted to refer to sex as strawberry pie when out in public?” he asked with a chuckle in his voice.

  I blew out a breath. “No, and there will be a complete and utter moratorium on strawberry pie of that kind if you do not come and help me right now.”

  He straightened up immediately, obviously making an effort to wipe the smile from his face. “At your service, ma’am.”

  “That’s better.” I blew out a breath, ruffling my bangs. “Now, do we have any fresh basil? His highness in the kitchen is demanding it.”

  “I would gladly slay a battalion of underlings for a mere handful of fresh basil,” Jerry yelled from the kitchen.

  “He might not want to say that too loud,” I whispered into Ben’s ear.

  “But I thought he was a god and could do no wrong in your book because he made food that caused you to weep.”

  I glared at Ben. “Yeah, well, I never had to see him in the kitchen before, only out on the floor. And there he is a totally different person than in the kitchen.”

  “And you got that all from five minutes in there with him?” Ben’s disbelief was clear on his face.

  “Hey, I’m a pretty good judge of character, usually. I had Kitty pegged way before she tried to kill me. I just didn’t trust myself.”

  “No, I’m not doubting your judgment. I was thinking it took me quite a few conversations to get anyone to admit he’s a terror at work. Most people absolutely would not say one bad word about him.”

  Go figure. I actually managed to get something right on the first try. Interesting, but it had nothing to do with the current crisis. “We’ll have to table the murder conversation for another time.” And how weird was it to say that in the course of a normal exchange with my boyfriend. “Right now we are in desperate need of fresh basil. So someone either has to go to the store and snag some, or you better whip some out of your little kitchen garden.”

  He gave me the eye. I could almost see the words on the tip of his lovely tongue. He wanted to make some smart comment about whipping something out, but I had an eye of my own. And Jerry started yelling in the kitchen again, this time for free range eggs, which I might not be able to help him with. We didn’t have any chickens hiding in the back yard. Not that I knew of, anyway.

  I couldn’t even tell you how everyone managed to fit into my house for this dinner, but they did, and it was a blast. Jerry was back to his normal self, all laughing and smiles, taking the compliments to the chef with a grace I would not have thought him capable of less than an hour before.

  I got grilled some by Noni, but Harlow’s girlfriend was a sight to behold—once she showed up—and most of the attention was directed to her massive cleavage and the way she’d crammed it into a teeny-tiny shirt. The way her bangs stuck six inches up from her head in a fan probably came into the conversation, too, though she didn’t try to show us how she did that after her offers to show her boob job were turned down by every female in the room. Since we outnumbered the men, they didn’t have a chance. But I was pretty sure Harlow was going to be seeing them this evening. Bambi or Betty or Bippy had seemed very pleased with her meal and with the prestige she thought she shared by being served a meal by the famous Jerry in a home instead of a restaurant.

  They might not have even made it out to the car if they weren’t driving Noni home to Ben’s parents’ house.

  And the reason they were driving Noni home was because Jerry had made so much food Ben’s parents didn’t have enough room in their car for Noni. Jerry had container after container of leftovers, and even an extra cheesecake I let him offer to Ben’s mom in hopes she would maybe like me more. Though by about halfway through the meal I understood this might never happen once she realized Noni liked me.

  I told Ben this as we were getting ready for bed. He was brushing his teeth, so I waited patiently for his response while sitting on the edge of the tub.

  “Come on. It does not take that long to brush those pearly whites!” So much for patience. But then we all know that’s not exactly one of my strong suits.

  He spit, and I tugged on his pajama pant leg. “All right, jeez. You’d think a man could brush his teeth in peace.”

  “And you’d think a man hadn’t been living with Ivy for the last several months.”

  His teeth were extremely pretty when he flashed them at me in the mirror. “I shook my head about Mom not liking you because it could also go the other way. Kathy Fallon can be very perverse when it comes to that kind of stuff, let me tell you.” He wiped his hands on the towel next to the sink, then ran a comb through his golden-tipped brown hair. “She will most likely decide that if Noni likes you and you like Noni, that she, Kathy, has to make you like her more. She can’t stand to be second best to Noni. So she either won’t try at all, or she might be crawling up your ass so much you’ll want to scream.”

  I personally didn’t like either of those scenarios. “And what if I want to have a relationship with you and not your family?”

  “I’m sorry, babe, but your reprieve from my family is just about officially over.”

  What the hell did that mean?

  But then I didn’t have a chance to ask because Ben shared his wonderfully minty breath with me, and I severely tousled his freshly combed hair as we fell into our bed of sin.

  He touched me and I sighed, much like I had when we’d first started making love together. But now it was so much better because I knew him like I knew myself. And he knew all the right places to touch on me, the right things to say, and the right areas where I most desperately needed his attention. Not to say there weren’t some surprises along the way every once in a while, or that we didn’t sometimes flub it up and I nailed him in the cheek with my elbow or knee.

  But for the most part it worked. Beautifully. And I could almost have sworn he asked me to marry him as I drifted off into sleep.

  Chapter Nine

  I was nearly afraid to truly believe Ben had said anything to me as I drifted off to sleep. But one of my many faults was an overabundance of curiosity, so I had to say something to him the next afternoon after I returned home from another busy day at work.

  While he was turned away from me, putting on different pants, I said, “So, um, did you say anything to me last night right before we went to sleep?”

  “Huh?” He straightened up, tucking his shirt into his buttoned jeans. He’d looked yummy in the tan chinos he’d worn to the Martha’s Herald, but he looked positively scrumptious now.

  I was so not going to repeat myself. Especially not after it had taken quite a bit of courage to ask the question in the first place. “Never mind. What are you up to today?”

  “I’m going to Heather’s brother’s house to see if he can shed any light on where she is.” Stepping into his sneakers, he thumped his feet down to make them fit right. It was such an ordinary, domestic thing that it made my heart clench with love for him.

  It made my stomach clench, too, and I had to make a dash for the bathroom, barely closing the door behind me before bowing to the porcelain god.

  Ben knocked on the door but must have learned his lesson last time because he didn’t try to come in. “Are you going to the doctor tomorrow? I really don’t think it’s normal for you to be throwing up still. Do you?”

  No, I didn’t. And I was going to be really pissed if I’d contracted some heinous disease when I finally had my life in almost the right place. I flushed the toilet, then went out into the bedroom as he was tucking his wallet into his back pocket.

  “I’m fine now,” I said and meant it. Maybe I
had eaten something wrong today or last night. But then I remembered it was Jerry who had made dinner. If I had food poisoning, so might everyone else. Panic hit me right in the solar plexus. I clutched my stomach again but didn’t dash anywhere since I was pretty much rooted to the spot.

  “I can practically see your poor little brain spinning. I doubt there was anything wrong with the food last night. I would assume I would have been sick too by now, right?”

  “Okay.”

  “So don’t worry.” He caressed the side of my face. “But I do want you to see the doctor, as soon as possible.”

  “Yes, Mom.”

  “Don’t sass me.” His dimple winked out at me.

  “I will if I want to,” I sassed. “Right now, I’m going to come with you to see the brother. I think you need me this time.”

  “I don’t think that’s necessary.” The way he moved around me made me think of avoidance and placating. I was not much for either.

  “I’m going to be there. In fact, I’ll go with you right now and call for a doctor’s appointment on the way. I’m sure they can probably fit me in sometime tomorrow morning. I’ll be good to go after we do our interrogation.” I followed him out of the bedroom, shadowing him in case he thought for a second he would be able to shake me between here and the front door.

  “I really don’t think—”

  “No, you really aren’t thinking,” I interrupted, “if you for a moment are considering saying I don’t have to come along. Must I remind you of our previous forays?” I plopped my hands on my hips as I continued to stalk him to the front door. “And if you leave without me, I will hunt you down like a dog.”

  “But I didn’t think you wanted to be a part of the investigation.”

  “Don’t pull logic out on me. You know I’m not going to be able to stay out of this. If not because of you, then because of Jerry. And I’d rather give that scary man a personal update instead of third- or fourth-hand information.”

  “So he’s scary now?” We were out at the car when I realized I still had on slippers. Crap. I couldn’t go like this.