didn’t say anything for a moment, as if contemplating his request. And then she asked, “But what good is that when you don’t know what the key goes to?”
“I’ll find out. So will you get an indention of that key?”
“I don’t know, Drey….”
“Please.” If he sounded desperate, there was no help for it. He needed to know everything about Joe Dennis’s death, especially now that he knew it hadn’t been from natural causes.
He could hear her deep sigh and felt his heart begin to beat wildly in his chest. Even her sigh was a turn-on.
“Okay, fine,” she said.
He couldn’t help but smile. If he solved the case and was able to link it back to Harmon’s death, then he owed her more than just dinner. “Meet me tonight so I can give the kit to you.”
“Where?”
“You name the place. Better yet, if you give me your home address I can drop it off there.”
He heard the hesitation in her voice and was about to throw out another option when she said, “That’s fine, since I really don’t want to go back out tonight. I live in the Rippling Shores Condos.”
He knew the area. It was a newly developed subdivision of nice townhomes. “I know where it’s located. What’s the condo number?”
She rattled it off to him and he saved it in his memory. “I’ll be there in less than an hour.”
He smiled when, with not even a goodbye, she hung up the phone. For some reason he was looking forward to seeing her without her lab coat.
Chapter 2
Charlene glanced out the window and wondered for the umpteenth time why she had given Drey her address instead of meeting him somewhere. What had happened to her “do not mix business with pleasure” rule?
She was used to seeing him in a business setting, but now he would invade her personal space. The only consolation was that since he was dropping something off she wouldn’t have to invite him inside.
Satisfied with that, she glanced down at herself. Okay, so she had decided to change out of the frayed pair of shorts and T-shirt she had put on after coming home into a skirt and blouse. No big deal. It wasn’t as though he would see her in them. It was dark outside and all she had to do was poke her head out the door to get whatever he had to give her. Again, no big deal. She sighed deeply, thinking she was definitely making a lot out of things she considered to be no big deal.
When she heard a car door slam, her breath caught and for a moment she didn’t move. She inhaled deeply, trying to control her racing pulse. There was no reason to get nervous and jittery. Drey St. John wasn’t the first guy to come to her house…but she had to admit he was the first one in over a year, if you didn’t count the serviceman who dropped by a few weeks ago to take a look at her computer when it had gone on the blink.
She didn’t want to think about Carlos Hollis, the guy she had dated nearly two years ago. They had met at one of those financial seminars and she had taken him up on his offer to go somewhere for drinks afterward. They ended up going on a couple of dates after that, and when he began hinting that he wanted to sleep with her, she felt it was only fair to let him know up front that she was a virgin. He informed her that most guys were turned off by any virgin over the age of twenty-two, and to prove his point he never called her again.
Charlene heard the knock on the door and for a brief moment she contemplated not answering, which made absolutely no sense. There is simply no reason for you to be nervous, she told herself firmly as she headed toward the door. She reached for the doorknob and paused before turning it, convinced that even through the thickness of the wood that separated them she could breathe in Drey’s scent. At least it was the scent that she always associated with him, robust and definitely manly. Drawing in a deep breath, she opened the door slightly and saw how the glow from the porch light lit his handsome features before she acknowledged him. “Drey.”
“You shouldn’t have opened the door until you were absolutely sure it was me, Charlie.”
She thought about closing the door on him but decided she was a lot more mature than that. Instead, she opened it a little wider to place her arms across her chest and glare at him, or at least she tried to while attempting to downplay the heated sensations flowing through her. “The name is Charlene and I knew it was you.”
“And how did you know that? I note you don’t have a peephole in your door.”
There was no way she would tell him that his scent had been a dead giveaway for her. “I just did. Now, if you don’t mind, please give me what you drove all the way over here to deliver.” She reached out her hand.
Instead of placing anything in her hand, he took her hand into his and looked at it. The moment he touched her she felt a slow sizzle move up her spine and she kept her body still, not to let him know the effect of his touch.
“You have pretty hands, Charlie.”
She tensed at the compliment before pulling her hands from him. “Thanks, and how many times do I need to remind you that it’s Charlene?”
Drey then glanced back at her and noted her stance and felt his temperature rise. There was just enough light from the lamppost to see her outfit. The skirt and blouse looked cute. No, they looked exquisite, in a subtle sort of way. His gaze moved down to her long, shapely legs.
His eyes met hers then as he decided he owed her an explanation for his intense scrutiny just now. “This is the first time I’ve seen you without a lab coat and you look different.”
She lifted an arched brow. “Different how?”
“Different as in nice. Not that you didn’t look nice before, mind you.” Nice was too mild a word but he felt it would be out of place for him to say anything else. He doubted he could ever call her Charlie again without thinking how much like Charlene she now looked.
Whenever he dropped by the coroner’s office she would be sitting behind her desk and wearing her lab coat with her hair twisted on top of her head in a ball. Now she was standing up and wearing a skirt and blouse with a mass of long light brown hair flowing around her shoulders. In his opinion the entire package was sexy.
Desire flowed hot and heavy through his veins and he downplayed his rapid breathing when he said, “So, what’s a nice-looking girl like you doing home on a night like tonight? Why don’t you have a date?”
Charlene’s glare deepened. It was the same question her mother had asked her when she’d called earlier tonight. Nina Anderson-Smallwood-Caldwell-Olson actually thought a woman’s life centered on a man. But after four marriages Charlene wasn’t surprised her mother would think that. Her father was just as bad with wife number three. Since her parents seemed happy with their lives, she left them alone to do as they pleased and reminded them of their pledge on her twenty-first birthday to do likewise with her.
“I don’t have a date because I don’t want a date, so now give me the wax kit before I change my mind,” she said, extending her hand back to him, hoping he didn’t pull what he had before and take her hand again. His touch evoked feelings within her, unfamiliar feelings, feelings she could very well do without. When she was around him, a keen physical yearning
