aroused her. But she didn’t have time in her life for any of that right now. Not confusion or anger, not distraction or embarrassment.
Not sex. Not him.
“Not sex with him.”
“Excuse me?”
She realized she’d spoken aloud when she glanced up and saw a man standing directly in front of her on the sidewalk. She’d almost barreled into him, paying attention only to what was going on in her head and not what was happening in front of her face. For a second she thought she’d just made an idiot of herself for about the tenth time in an hour in front of a complete stranger. But this wasn’t a stranger.
She wasn’t sure whether that made it better or worse.
“Uh, hi,” she said, clearing her throat. “I almost didn’t recognize you without salsa music or the smell of enchiladas.”
The Hispanic owner of the Mexican restaurant where Melody had hung out with her friends for years gave her a warm smile. “Believe it or not, this is my second favorite place to eat.” He pointed to the café she’d just left, which was only a few yards behind her. “I come here for grits and biscuits.”
The restaurant owner, who kept his few strands of overly shiny black hair brushed across his bald head in a blatant attempt to defy late middle-age, didn’t look like the grits-and-biscuits type. Though judging by the pendulous belly straining the buttons of his short-sleeved white dress shirt, Mel supposed he hadn’t been living on tortillas alone.
“You’re not with your friends this morning?” he asked, looking around as if expecting to see Paige, Rosemary or Tanya hiding behind a car parked at the curb. “I didn’t think you girls ever did anything without each other.”
She really hated the way some men called grown women “girls.” That was on her pet-peeve list. Along with men who called their cars their “ride” and their wives “baby.” Like her ex had.
“Not today. I’m all by myself,” she said.
He shook his head. “That is not good, señora. You shouldn’t be alone at this time. You should be with people…people who appreciate you and make you smile in that beautiful way.” His eyes glittered as he repeated, “Such a beautiful smile.”
His words were friendly, but something about the way he was looking at her made her uncomfortable. It was almost personal. Flirtatious. If he weren’t twenty years her senior and hadn’t been serving her and her friends chicken burritos since they were in middle school, she’d suspect the guy was coming on to her.
“I would give anything to see that smile every day.”
Okay, he was coming on to her. Eww.
Suddenly the idea of hooking up with an unsexy, unappealing guy for the sake of her ego became less palatable. Particularly when she, uh, pictured the possibilities with this one.
Nope. She couldn’t do it. Couldn’t have sex with someone who didn’t attract her, not even for the sake of her banged-up pride. Not for fun, not because of a list, not to get back in the saddle, not for anything. So, really, the only solution was to have no sex at all. Not for a long, long time. Years. Decades.
Then she pictured Nick’s face…his big hands, his hard body, his soft, sexy voice.
And wondered if she’d last the week.
CHAPTER FOUR
THE NEXT MORNING, as Nick headed from the station over to the D.A.’s office to pick up some paperwork, he realized he was still thinking about the woman he’d met for breakfast the day before. He hadn’t been able to get Melody off his mind since she’d walked out of the diner, leaving him there with a big smile on his face and a strong sense of anticipation in his mind.
It’d been a good long time since any woman had occupied his thoughts as she had over the past twenty-four hours. The past couple of weeks, really, since he’d been a little fascinated by her ever since he’d seen her spying on him with her camera.
A good long time? Hell, he couldn’t remember ever being so instantly attracted to someone. He’d had a hard time throwing off the image of her smile while he and Dex talked to their informant yesterday, and it’d been even harder to get to sleep last night with the sound of her laughter bouncing around in his head. He’d been so distracted, he hadn’t even noticed that Fredo was in his closet turning shoe leather into beef jerkey for a good bit of the evening.
He was still wondering why that particular woman wouldn’t leave his thoughts as he got into his car in the parking lot outside the station. Before he could even turn the key in the ignition, however, his cell phone rang. Checking the caller ID and recognizing the number, he answered, “Walker.”
“That’s my line.”
He shook his head, still not used to answering the phone and hearing Johnny’s voice on the other end. Damn, it’d been a long ten years without his one-year-older brother in his life. “Hey, Mr. Hotshot D.A. Does the town council know you’re making personal calls from the office?”
“Does the chief of police know you had breakfast with a strange woman yesterday?” his brother replied.
“Now, if we were both in Joyful, I wouldn’t even have to ask how you knew that.”
“Dex told me. I called you at your desk two minutes ago.”
Shaking his head as he buckled his seat belt, Nick said, “Knowing my partner is not a gossipy old woman, I gotta wonder what exactly you said to get that information out of his mouth.”
Johnny chuckled. “I asked him if you had any kind of social life whatsoever, since I suspect you haven’t been laid since making detective. You work too hard, little brother.”
Nick wasn’t going to argue that one. Because damned if Johnny wasn’t right.
Johnny had the courtesy not to rub it in. “So who was the woman?”
“I don’t know yet,” he admitted, knowing it was true. He didn’t know for sure who Melody was. “She’s a puzzle.”
Johnny understood. “Have fun figuring it out.”
No doubt about it. He was going to enjoy every minute of figuring what made her tick. “So what’s going on?”
“I promised Emma Jean I’d call and remind you about getting measured for your tux.”
Emma Jean was Johnny’s fiancée, the infamous woman who’d landed the former most eligible bachelor of Joyful. One more reason he’d never move back home…he sure didn’t want to inherit that title. “I have to wear an undertaker suit?”
“Undertakers don’t wear cummerbunds.”
“What the hell is a cummerbund?”
“Don’t worry. Your job is to show up, wear what you’re told to wear and not lose the ring.”
“I don’t suppose you’d consider eloping to Vegas?”
“I suggested it, but she didn’t
