I'm not allowed to touch, it seems only fair I be able to look. You've got this really terrific body. It's all just... just exactly right. And the way you're standing there, and this light, and...
Okay, yeah, you better close up shop there. That's about all I can handle."
"You're a strange man, Duncan."
"I've heard that. I want you, and it's keeping me up at night. I don't mind that so much, even though I like to sleep. But some things rate insomnia. You're one of them."
"Thank you. I think."
"But to get back to the rest. I think the point's just been made that I don't need to use Essie to get to you. And you know what? You should think more of her than that. More of me, too, and more of yourself."
"You're right. You're absolutely right, and I'm absolutely wrong. I hate that. My excuse, since we're using them, is I love her so much."
"I get that. You're lucky to have her."
Phoebe raked a hand through her hair. He meant that, exactly that, she realized. He saw her mother, and saw the value of the woman she was. "I know it. People, a lot of people, look at the situation and think she's some sort of burden. You don't. And I'm sorry for the way I handled this."
"I would be, too, except I got my hands on your breasts." She laughed. "Want that beer now?"
"Better not, I'm driving. Duncan, please don't take this the wrong way. I see the bars-you tended bar. And I could see if you bought a cab company, or a car service or some such thing. Maybe you have, I don't know, and that's part of it. I don't know how you do this sort of thing. And I don't know what you could possibly know about running a retail craft boutique."
"We'll find out, plus I wouldn't actually be running it. I've got somebody in mind for that. And you're thinking, hell, he can afford to lose a couple hundred thousand here or there."
"No, actually, I was thinking you'll probably find a way to make it work. I'm thinking I was scared because I came home to find my mother happy, bubbling with it."
"She was happy when she started with Reuben."
Now Phoebe pressed her fingers to her eyes. "Obviously I didn't connect those dots for myself before I came haring out here and laid into you."
"Hair trigger," he said, without heat.
"About some things, obviously. Now that I've connected those dots-or you have for me-I'm thinking if you hadn't had this idea I can't understand, exactly, my mother wouldn't have a chance to try something exciting."
"I wouldn't have made the offer if I didn't believe I could sell the sheer hell out of her work."
"Which, if I hadn't flown off, I'd have come around to on my own rather than driving out here to jump all over you. Which I don't regret because you got to get your hands on my breasts."
He smiled slowly. "How long before they think you'll be a hundred percent?"
She reached up with her good arm to touch his hair. She liked how it always looked as if he'd just taken a wild ride in that fancy car of his. "I'll get a note from my private duty nurse clearing me for physical activity."
"Works for me. Meanwhile, how about going out with me Sunday? Sunday-afternoon barbecue at a friend's. It'd be a chance to get to know each other, dynamics with others, before we lose ourselves in wild, sweaty sex."
"All right. Why not?"
"I'll pick you up about two."
"Two. I need to get home." She rose to her toes, kissed him, softly, slowly, on either cheek. "I hope I keep you up tonight."
He watched her walk away, flick a killer smile over her shoulder. And decided the odds were heavily in favor of insomnia.
As her car drove away, he went back to sit, to prop his feet on the padded hassock. Eating cold pizza, drinking warm beer, he thought it had been a hell of an interesting day.
Chapter 12
The call came through at seven fifty-eight. The kid was smart, very smart. He hadn't panicked, hadn't tried to play the hero. He'd used his head, and his legs, dashing away from the bungalow in Gordonston, hopping fences between the pretty backyards back to his own house, to the phone. And to nine-one-one.
He'd given names, the address, the situation. En route to Savannah's east side, Phoebe listened to the replay of the emergency call