considered this mystery for several seconds, before deciding there wasn’t anything she could do about it, and it was just too aggravating to contemplate. If he, his wife and his wandering eyes wanted to throw themselves into a newlywed encounter group, that was their business.
Wagging the Explorer’s Journey folio at him, she plastered on a wide, chipper smile. “This sucker was expensive and I’ll be glad to get it off my hands. But you do know it leaves first thing in the morning, right? Do you and your wife have time to pack?”
“I’m not married,” he said quickly.
She knew it! There was totally an unmarried aura just hovering all around him. She was thrilled for a second, realizing that her instincts had been right. But then she had another depressing thought.
“Oh.” Zoë crossed her arms over her chest. “So you’re taking your girlfriend. I thought you could only do the program if you were married. Although now that I think about it, doing it before you get married sounds like a much better idea. Or are you planning to just lie and tell them you’re married? Not that it matters to me.”
Slowly he asked her, “Why would I need to be married?”
“Because…” That gave her pause. He wanted to go on the Explorer’s Journey and he didn’t know? She narrowed her eyes. Feeling very shrewd, she inquired, “You don’t know what the Explorer’s Journey is, do you?”
He just looked at her for a long moment.
“You don’t!” she exclaimed. “I can tell you don’t.” Now this was getting interesting. Zoë advanced on him, her eyes wide with curiosity. “Why do you want to go if you don’t know what it is? Is your girlfriend making you go?”
“I don’t have a girlfriend,” he said reluctantly.
Yes! Zoë felt like doing happy dances. She refrained. But she felt the triumph in her heart. She wasn’t wrong about him! Single, single, single!
But if it wasn’t for a relationship, then why did he want to go? “Is it for work? You have to go for like, official police reasons?”
“No.” Other than that, he kept his mouth shut. His lips looked even more intriguing pressed together like that.
Zoë was nothing if not persistent when it came to mysteries and puzzles. She drew a little closer. “You don’t think I’m going to hand over my tickets unless you tell me why you need to go, do you?”
“I’m not at liberty to discuss this with you,” he said tersely. “And you said tickets, plural. I only need one.”
“Well, you certainly can’t go by yourself.” All by his lonesome? Mr. Cute Cop hadn’t done his homework, had he? She tapped the ticket packet against her chin.
“Why exactly is it a problem if I go by myself?” he asked. He was starting to sound a little testy. “What were you talking about before, about having to be married, or taking a girlfriend? What is this all about? What kind of exploration are we talking? North Pole? Mount Saint Helen’s? What?”
“Forgive me,” she said thoughtfully, looking him up and down, “but you don’t seem like the explorer type.”
“Neither do you.”
She shrugged, not at all concerned. “Are you going to tell me why you want to go? Or am I going to hold on to my tickets and my explanation of just what exactly the Explorer’s Journey is?”
Finally he muttered, “It’s none of your business, but the truth is… I have to find someone. I have reason to believe she’ll be on this tour.”
“She? So you have to find a woman.” Zoë was very close now, looking right up into his face, and she found this all fascinating. Her mind was working a mile a minute, considering possibilities. Not married. No girlfriend. Dying to go on the Explorer’s Journey to find a particular woman. “Is she your ex-girlfriend or something? She dumped you, hooked up with some other guy, got married, and now she’s going on the Explorer’s Journey with him. And you want to follow her. Why? Are you stalking her? Maybe you think you can get her away from the other guy? Or are you just torturing yourself?”
“You’re giving me a headache,” he said between clenched teeth.
“Oh, c’mon.” She jiggled his elbow. “Stalker? Win her back? Torment yourself?”
“None of the above. And why do you care?” he asked darkly. “I need to find her. She may be on this tour. That’s it.”
“Well, you can’t go by yourself.”
“Why not?” he snapped.
Zoë beamed up at him. “Because…if you must know…” She let her voice trail off. She was kind of enjoying letting him dangle now that she knew he was single. He was so very cute and his impatience only made him cuter somehow.
“Yes?” he prompted.
“Okay, okay. I guess you don’t watch Oprah, do you? Because the Explorer’s Journey has been all over Oprah. How to describe it?” She bit her lip. “Hmmm… I guess the closest I can come is to say it’s a kind of a combination of group therapy and a honeymoon.”
His eyebrows arched. “Group therapy? Honeymoon?”
Taking in his expression, she said slyly, “That’s right. And let me tell you, Jake, I can’t see you enjoying either all by yourself.”
He recovered quickly. “Yeah, but…somebody must go solo on this thing.” He sent her a quick glance. “People break up all the time. But, hey, they already paid the money, so why shouldn’t one of them go ahead and take the vacation? Like you. You broke up with your boyfriend, right? A few weeks ago.”
“He was my fiancé. Ex-fiancé. And that’s why I wanted to cancel my tickets. I sure wasn’t planning to go without him.”
Pacing farther away, over near the bookcase, Zoë shook her head, hoping they could change the subject. She did not need to be thinking about her lamented love life right now. She picked up the deck of tarot cards again, absently shuffling them.
His eyes measured her. Gruffly, in a way that told her it had nothing to do with the Explorer’s Journey, he asked, “So when were you supposed to get married?”
“Well…today.”
“Oh.” He lifted his shoulders in a very small shrug. “Sorry. That’s a tough break.”
“Yeah.” Zoë kept her mouth shut. There was no way she wanted to discuss that at this moment. Just don’t be nice about it, will you, Jake? Don’t be nice to me. I don’t want to lose control and melt all over you. Turning back, she asked, “So, Jake, tell me, are you going on this tour or not?”
He started to nod, but stopped suddenly. “That’s the second time you’ve called me Jake. But I never told you my name.”
Uh-oh. She covered quickly. “You must have.”
He shook his head.
“Wasn’t it on that identification thing next to
