Read Online Tulle Death Do Us Part by Annette Blair - Free Book Online

weren’t quite. “Working,” that was.
    When I pulled into the drive, Werner opened his front door, not the kitchen door I used to breeze through without knocking. Putting up a wall. Testing formality as its fabric. Self-protection, however weak.
    Never mind. I could knock down all his defenses with a pair of well-placed innocently lowered lashes. I needed the Wiener on my side today.
    Standing there waiting for me, he made a show of rolling down his sleeves and slipping into his suit jacket to prove this was business.
    Point taken, but I so wanted to keep him as a friend, frenemy, ally…as a pair of arms I could step into? Hmm.
    He left the door open for me and disappeared, and when I got inside, I found him in his home office, behind a desk bigger than the one he used at the station.
    All business.
    In the doorway, I raised my shoulders and lowered them again. Did I look innocent enough? What could I say, except: “I brought a peace pipe.”
    I stopped across the desk from him, almost at attention. If the words “peace pipe” made him think about us while we played the Indian lovers Running Bear and Little White Dove—an intimate rock and roll encounter during a previous sleuthing expedition of mine—well, so be it. It was a good memory that I did not want to lose.
    He tilted his head, and I guessed that was the most positive response I could expect, given the circumstances. We hadn’t talked much, if at all, since Nick and I got back together.And I’d missed this special old friend, but I couldn’t tell him that.
    Not that I’d actually dumped him. We were never an item. We’d just had some…special events…together. Memorable ones. When Nick and I became godparents to my sister Sherry’s twins, my family sort of pushed us together. It suited for a while, until Nick practically lobbied his way into feeding his adventure bug…again.
    “Again,” I said.
I’m ba-ack
, I did not say.
    Since I couldn’t seem to give our memories, including one thermonuclear kiss, the slip stitch, I kept them shoved deep at the back of my mind and rarely took them out to examine.
    “We both know the past is the past,” I said, and he nodded. “But the future holds promise. And our taste buds don’t change.” I pulled a Dos Equis from a recyclable shopping bag and set one bottle in front of him, one in front of me. This, too, came from yet another previous sleuthing experience we shared. One of our earliest ones.
    His eyes brightened, but his fists clenched. Fighting with himself. “I’m not supposed to drink on the job,” he said, sotto voce.
    “It’s after six, and I’d think working from home should have some perks. Besides, did I hear a no?”
    I cupped the back of my ear. “No?” I saluted. “I’m looking for a negative, Detective, sir!”
    He gave me a half smirk, and with a satisfied nod I shut his blinds.
    He raised both brows.
    “So people don’t see you drinking on the job.”
    He flipped on the desk lamp, and I hung the jacket of mydress in the room’s closet, since he made his “office” in a main floor bedroom.
    When I turned back to him, he’d already tipped back his bottle, his throat working convulsively.
    “That’s a mighty thirst,” I teased. Mighty fine throat work, too. Oh, oh.
    “Sweet,” he said, eyeing me.
    “The beer?” I asked. Or me? Okay, Cutler, stop flirting. He’s more than a rebound guy, he’s a friend. Don’t use Werner to punish Nick. But the truth was, I meant every word. Myself. I was being nothing but myself.
    “The hat,” he said, rising and indicating the chair across from him.
    I nodded. “I thought you’d make fun of the one with the feather.”
    “I would have.” He didn’t sit until after I did, and even then he watched me with speculation for a bit too long to be comfortable.
    I sat and clutched my gloved fingers before me on the desk—a nervous, guilty giveaway—and to make matters worse, I leaned forward as if this were just between us. I