“I think he’ll understand once we solve this case.”
“Needs must. And speaking of needs, food and heat are on the top of my list right now.”
“You wanted a chicken Caesar salad tonight, right?”
“That’s for later. Right now I want as many calories as I can tuck in.”
He laughed and headed them toward the diner. The kiss on the mountain seemed to have been put firmly in the past, an aberration.
Except to DeeJay, it didn’t feel like an aberration at all. It tingled through her with an awareness that wouldn’t quit, and a drumbeat of desire for more. Not good. She needed to cut it out, to be ruthless with herself as she had in the past. As ruthless as necessary. Everything else aside, her aversion for men, her own rape, none of that seemed as important as not screwing up her first partnership in her new job.
“Do you want to call this Craig Stone at the forest service?” he asked. “Or should I?”
“I’ll do it.” Despite being worn-out from the fruitless climb up that ski slope, the need to take action of some kind was still riding her. She hated how slow cases could move sometimes, like they were just marking time as they waited for a break. It was even more frustrating because right now they were dealing with a ticking bomb. Nobody could be certain when the killer would act again. The bomb could blow up right in their faces.
She dried to drag her thoughts back in line. “So you hadn’t really thought about how hard it would be for him to get the bodies up there?”
“No,” he admitted. “In retrospect that seems stupid, but I hadn’t. The crime-scene photos didn’t give me a real sense of the surrounding terrain, and I guess I was assuming there had to be a road nearby. A track of some kind.”
“Maybe there was. This Stone guy should know.”
“I hope so. There’s enough mystery surrounding everything without wondering if our perp is capable of levitation.”
That drew a laugh from her, and finally she let go of the tension inside. It had been just a kiss, after all. One little kiss and not a very big deal at all because of the cold and the quickness with which they had ended it. No reason to get all tied up in knots about it.
But she knew what she was really afraid of: that he might come on to her later. That he might think that was an invitation for more. That he might want to take this places she didn’t want to go.
Didn’t men always do that?
They decided to get takeout from the diner. The place was crowded. Either the search parties had quit for the day, or they weren’t going out.
“Storm brewing,” Mavis told them. “Gonna be a nasty one.”
“Great,” said DeeJay. Another hindrance, not that there was much they could do, storm or no storm. They didn’t need to review the photos and plans for the resort at all. That left getting in touch with Craig Stone, and who knew how long it might be before they could meet.
She turned from the counter with her share of the takeout and realized a young man was staring at her. Dark haired, dark eyed, slender just shy of frail. He stared, appearing almost hypnotized, then looked quickly away. Well, it wasn’t the first time some would-be stud had stared at her. She was used to it.
“Hey, Calvin,” one of the men called out.