Talk Nerdy to Me (31 page)

"Sounds
like a plan." She hesitated. "Um, does that cut out your 'getting
back on the horse' idea?"

If
he hadn't been falling in love with her before, that question tipped him right
over the edge. He wanted her so much at that moment that he couldn't speak. Finally
he cleared his throat and managed an answer. "I don't think it has
to."

"Oh, good."

Yeah,
he was done for. How he'd ever reconcile that with his future plans was
anybody's guess. He might have to clone himself.

If
she had to be in this situation, Eve was glad she was in it with Charlie.
Granted, she hadn't been in this situation until she'd revealed her hovercraft
concept to Charlie, his cousin, and his cousin's two assistants. Until that
night at the Rack and Balls, she'd muddled along on her own, with only a minor
explosion.

But
as she walked with him to the front door, she wondered if the explosion had
been her fault, after all. She didn't want to suspect Eunice, but it would be
just like Eunice to enter the house for her own purposes and then decide to
stay and watch the sexual show in the bedroom.

When it came to that,
Eunice was the only person Eve could picture doing something like that. And the
woman was frustrated by her inability to buy the finer things of life. Yet that
didn't explain why she'd sabotage a project that she wanted to steal.

And
there was the broken back door. If Eunice could get in with a key, would she
break down the door to confuse the issue? That seemed like a lot of extra work
when she could slip in and out undetected.

Charlie
walked into the entry way and stopped. "Damn it. The door's
unlocked."

Eve stared at the position
of the dead-bolt lever and shivered. It was open.

"You
didn't leave it that way by accident when we left, did you?" Charlie
asked.

A
headache was coming on. Eve put her fingers to her temples and began a slow
rotation. She pictured leaving the house on the way to the bakery. She'd been
aware of Charlie watching her to make sure she'd locked the door. And she had
locked it.

"I
wish I could say I wasn't sure." She looked at him. "But I am sure. I
remember thinking that you'd give me a lecture if I didn't lock the dead bolt.
But I would have locked it, anyway. I'm not casual about that anymore."

They both looked at the
door in silence for several seconds.

"Maybe it has
fingerprints on it," Eve said at last.

"I
doubt it." Charlie sighed. "Whoever is doing this is trying to
confuse the hell out of us so we won't guess. I'm going to bet they're at least
smart enough to wear gloves."

"They
were here when we had sex, weren't they?" Eve looked at Charlie in growing
horror. When it had been only a possibility, she'd been able to keep the creepy
crawlies at bay, but now, facing the unlocked door, she couldn't deny the
obvious.

"That doesn't mean
they watched."

"Yes
it does!" Eve began to shake. "Otherwise, why did they wait until it
was over before they left?"

"Could
have been coincidence." He gathered her into his arms and nestled her head
against his chest.

She
rubbed her cheek against the soft flannel and wound her arms around the solid
comfort of his body. "Some coincidence."

"No,
really. They could have been rummaging around getting whatever they were after
and they happened to be ready to leave right then."

"You're just trying to
make me feel better."

"I'm
trying to make us both feel better." He nestled his cheek against her
hair. "That's a yucky thought, that someone could have been ... standing
in the doorway while we—"

"Don't
say it. Let's decide it was a coincidence." In her gut, Eve didn't believe
the coincidence theory, but she'd work on convincing herself.

"Fine with me. It was
a coincidence."

Eve
thought she'd have an easier time with the coincidence theory the longer she
stayed tucked in Charlie's arms listening to the steady beat of his heart.
"Can we assume they have a key?"

"Not
until we go outside and check your car. If you left it unlocked, then they
could have come through the garage, like you said. Then, just to drive us
crazy, they could have locked the kitchen door after them, but not this
one."

"I
would have recognized the sound of the dead bolt being locked," Eve said.
"I wasn't sure about the door closing, because it was only a soft click,
but that dead bolt going in is a much louder noise."

"And that could be why
they didn't lock it. Both of us would have been out of bed like a shot."

Eve remembered the sated,
lazy feeling of lying in bed with Charlie. "Maybe not quite that
fast."

"As
fast as humanly possible, then. It was only that I wasn't sure of what I'd
heard, and I wanted it to be something else."

"Me,
too." She'd felt so warm and cozy with Charlie's body tucked in around
hers. "You have a nice way of not crushing a girl afterward."

"Weight
distribution. My forearms and my knees can keep approximately half the weight
elevated."

Eve
did her best not to laugh, but she had to swallow hard. Between the scary parts
of tonight and the lusty parts, all her emotions were turned up to full volume.

"And
since the other half is evenly distributed," Charlie continued, "it
puts minimal stress on—"

A snort escaped, despite
her best efforts.

Charlie sounded offended.
"What's so funny?"

"You."
She lifted her head to gaze into his wonderful, intelligent face. "You are
such a nerd. And I love that about you." The words were no sooner out of
her mouth than she wanted them back. The nerd part was fine, but she could have
gone all night without making a comment that included the I-word.

His expression registered
the impact of that word, too. She could tell he was trying to think of a
response that wouldn't embarrass them both.

"I
didn't mean that the way it sounded," she said. "It's just one of
those expressions everybody uses."

His
gaze told her that he didn't buy it. But he smiled like the nice guy he was.
"Yeah," he said softly. "I knew that."

Close
call, Charlie thought as he released Eve and went back to the
kitchen to get his jacket and put on his boots. Good thing they had something
to do right now, or no telling what kind of confessions they'd both make. Instead,
they could concentrate on this breaking-and-entering situation.

By
the time he came back to the entryway, Eve had on her jacket and boots and was
smiling brightly. She was smiling a little too brightly, as if mentioning the
word
love
in connection with him had
all been a silly misunderstanding and she was moving past that moment as fast
as possible.

"After
we check the car, we need to see if anything's been disturbed in the
garage," she said.

"Yep."
He pretended to be all business, when all he could hear ringing in his ears was
"And I love that about you."

If
she only knew how close he'd come to blurting out his feelings for her, too.
That wouldn't do either one
of
them
any favors. He tried not to think about the fact that she might be falling for
him just as he was falling for her.

But
he thought about it anyway as they walked out the door. She took her keys and
made a production of locking up once they were outside on the porch. He was
glad to see she was being extra cautious. He didn't want to contemplate what
he'd do if anything happened to her. She was fast becoming the most important
person in his life.

Hell,
what a mess. She was everything he'd ever wanted—brainy, fun to be with,
creative, sexy. He was also aware of her beauty, but that wasn't the tipping
point for him.

He
was falling for her because she got him. And he liked to think that he got her,
too. They might be—what was that corny term?
Soul
mates.
He'd never believed in the concept before, but then
he'd never seriously considered Eve as a life partner. And he still couldn't
do that.

Because
of the way he felt about her, he could never ask her to give up her dream of
living in what she considered the ideal little town. He'd researched the area
around Hoover Dam. There were no quaint little villages there.

Vegas
itself was big, modern, and busy. He found the concept exciting, but she wasn't
into exciting cities at the moment. Sure, the neighboring towns of Henderson
and Boulder were smaller, but they weren't anything like Middlesex. New England
generated its own brand of cozy little community, and Middlesex was a perfect
example. If she loved this, he couldn't imagine her loving Nevada.

He
could change his plans and stay here, of course. That option had crossed his
mind more than once, and he'd ended up rejecting it every time. The thought of
staying in Middlesex forever caused something vital in him to start withering.
He'd end up resenting the sacrifice, one Eve probably wouldn't let him make,
anyway.

"I
don't know which to wish for," she said as they crossed the yard.

He
was startled. Had she been reading his mind? "What do you mean?"

"If
the car's locked, then we know the person has a key, so that narrows it down to
Eunice."

And
your sister,
he thought. He didn't say it, though. She was
probably thinking the same thing. "At least then you could confront Eunice
and get to the bottom of it."

"I
don't want it to be Eunice. I don't want to think that I bought a house right
next door to someone like that. This town is supposed to be my safe haven. So
if the car's unlocked, we still have no idea who's doing this. It could still
be Manny or Kyle, for that matter."

"They'd
have had to make a speedy trip. When we left they were still frosting
cookies." He considered how long he'd diddled around in the kitchen while
he'd tried to decide how to manage the chaps. "And I hate to admit this,
because I like to think of myself as having more staying power, but it wasn't
as if we spent a lot of time on the main event."

"We spent exactly the
right amount of time."

"I'm
glad you think so, but it still wouldn't have given Manny and Kyle much
opportunity to do anything."

"But
we have no idea what they intended to do," Eve said with perfect logic.
"It could have been a short-term thing."

"Yeah,
but if someone had access to the garage and they were after whatever was in
there, why wouldn't they just leave the door open and go back out that way? Why
bother to close the garage door and go out the front?"

They
reached the driveway, where the Civic sat there looking the same as it had when
they'd arrived earlier. The footprints in the thin layer of snow beside the car
could have been anybody's. Charlie supposed a crackerjack crime team might be
able to take some impressions, but a crackerjack crime team wouldn't be
bothering with this trivial stuff. The cooking oil was undisturbed.

"They
closed the garage door and went out the front because of what you said a while
ago," Eve said. "They want to confuse us so we don't know who it
is." Grabbing the passenger door handle, she pulled it open.

Charlie
took a deep breath. He'd been hoping the car would be locked. That way they
could narrow it down to Eunice or Eve's sister Denise. Because he didn't really
think her sister was the culprit, then Eunice could be nabbed and the threat
would be gone.

Now
they were back to square one. "Is your opener still in there?" If
someone had swiped it, they had another problem.

"It's
still here." She pressed it and the garage door opened.

They
stood together watching it go up as if waiting for a play to begin.

"Everything looks the
same," Eve said.

"We
have to check it out, though. Something could be missing."

"That's true."
She started forward.