Copper Lake Confidential - By Marilyn Pappano Page 0,53
with anyone else.”
Marnie spoke up. “Just as you would rather be spending your evening alone with Macy than here with all these people.” She gestured around, then her faint smile returned. “Here comes Detective Scary Pants.” She finished with a soft snort of amusement.
Kiki was on her way back, making a beeline for him, and she didn’t look happy. He looked behind him. Ten feet to the hallway, another ten to the front door. He could claim an emergency call from the clinic.
Nah, she probably had her service revolver in her purse and would suggest putting the poor critter out of its misery.
“Come on, Noble, we’re outta here.” Ignoring Marnie and John, she dozed her way to the door, where she shot him a look that could kill over her shoulder.
“You’re getting lucky, man,” John said.
Stephen stared at him, both dismayed and turned off by the mere idea.
“She’s getting you out of here early,” John explained. “Another guy’s got her panties in a wad, and she’s not going to be asking you to help her out of them. You get to go home without her.”
“Noble!”
Stephen glanced at her, arms crossed, gaze narrowed, then at John—three prestigious university degrees? Panties in a wad?—then touched Marnie’s shoulder. “See you. Nice to meet you, John.”
By the time he caught up with Kiki, she was striding through the wrought-iron gate onto the sidewalk. He’d parked two blocks to the north after dropping her off at the entrance so she wouldn’t have to walk that far in her killer heels. Now she waited as if she expected him to pick her up.
“I’ll get the car,” he said, pausing beside her.
To his surprise, she turned. “I’ll walk with you.”
They’d covered a block in silence before he hesitantly asked, “What’s up with you and Ty?”
“Ty’s an idiot. He thinks we need a break.”
“I’m sorry.”
She scowled at him. “You’re an idiot if you think he’s getting it. Like I told him, it was a mutual decision to start dating. It has to be a mutual decision to stop. I don’t acknowledge his breakup.”
“I didn’t know you could refuse to acknowledge a breakup.”
“Of course you can.” Though she didn’t add an insult, her tone made clear there was another idiot implied. “There are two people in every relationship. Each one has equal say in what happens. You can’t start a relationship with someone who doesn’t want to be in it, and you can’t walk away from someone who doesn’t want to end it.”
Stephen grimaced, grateful she wasn’t looking at him. He was pretty sure she didn’t tolerate people who grimaced at her logic. “Substitute ‘marriage’ for ‘relationship,’ and you’re talking about divorce. And I’m pretty sure ‘breakup’ is the relationship equivalent of divorce.”
She stopped beside his car and gave him a scornful look from head to toe. “No wonder you’re single. Let me explain it in terms you can understand. Ty has commitment issues. We date. We have sex. We get intimate. He backs off, breaks up, wants to play the field. He gets over his fears, we get back together, we repeat. It’s our routine. But this time I’m going to get a different outcome. We’re going to deal with his issues, and I’m going to get a commitment.”
When she waited pointedly for a response, he said, “Oh.” It was the best he could manage.
But thirty minutes later, sitting at the island in Macy’s kitchen, he said what he really thought. “If Ty has any sense, the only commitment she’ll get is an involuntary one into a high-security loony bin for stalking him. She’s not only scary, she’s nuts.”
The spoon Macy was holding clattered to the floor, and she ducked to pick it up. It clattered again when she dropped it into the sink. When she turned, her smile was wan, her eyes shadowed. “From what I’ve heard, Ty Gadney is a smart man and a good detective. It probably is their routine to break up, get back together, break up again. My college roommate and her boyfriend were like that. We actually kept a chart on the refrigerator door. It had a green magnet for On and a red one for Off. I swear, sometimes it was the only way she could keep track. They got married after graduation.”
“And let me guess—they lived happily ever after?”
“Nope. Divorced at least three times in six years. They can’t live together, can’t live apart. I’m glad I’m not her.”
He slid off the stool and circled the island to slide his