Total pages in book: 137
Estimated words: 135696 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 678(@200wpm)___ 543(@250wpm)___ 452(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 135696 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 678(@200wpm)___ 543(@250wpm)___ 452(@300wpm)
“Sorry, honey, but we already came up with that theory when I talked Harry into opening the file.”
“Oh.”
No wonder that had been the bent of their conversation.
“Forgot to mention it,” he said.
“That’s okay.”
He kept driving.
I went after something else that was on my mind.
“Does Harry have a partner?”
“The sheriff doesn’t normally work with a partner.”
“No, I mean in life.”
His response was openly guarded. “Why do you ask?”
I looked to him. “Is it a secret? Is he gay or something and there are shitty homophobes around who’d have a problem with it?”
“No. But you said he was awesome earlier, and now you’re asking if he has a partner, and last night, and the night before, and so on, you been fucking me, so gotta wonder why the interest in Harry.”
Now I was staring at him.
I did that awhile before I said, “Riggs, I’m only not laughing my ass off right now because I don’t think you’d appreciate it, considering that’s ridiculous.”
“He’s a good-lookin’ guy.”
“He’s nowhere near as good-looking as you. And I doubt he makes brats as good as you, because, as far as I can tell, no one can. And I don’t know if he’s a dad, but he’d have fierce competition to be a better one than you. And I wouldn’t like being able to make him smile as much I like making you smile, because I don’t like making anyone smile as much as I like to do that for you. And I love my very dearly departed husband, and he didn’t stink in this department, but he was nowhere near as good in bed as you. Do I need to go on?”
“No,” he grunted.
“Is this a macho-man jealousy thing?” I pressed.
He didn’t answer.
The things his mother said, not to mention what he said, hit me like a bullet.
“Riggs, you’re all that,” I said quietly.
“Okay,” he said quickly.
“You really are.”
Riggs had no comment.
Something else hit me.
So I went after it. “The day after we first did it, I asked if you were for real, and you had an odd reaction to that. What did you think I was asking?”
“What are you talking about?”
“I think you know.”
“Did it?” he teased.
It was a cute tease, and I liked him teasing me.
What I didn’t like was him dodging me.
“Had sex, copulated, fornicated, whatever you want to call it.”
“Princess, that was solid gold fucking.”
Now he was being hot and teasing, which, if I didn’t nip it in the bud, would work.
“Stop deflecting,” I warned.
He blew out a sigh and said, “If memory serves, I didn’t know what you were talking about then, and I asked after it.”
“It was just that?”
“Honey.”
That was all he was going to say.
“Talk to me, Riggs,” I demanded.
“Right, I wake up to a woman, I scoot her on her way. I don’t tell her to put her toothbrush in my bathroom.”
“Okay,” I said cautiously.
“And I reckon you know that. Saying that, I’m not a player. But I get myself some. It’s just the women I got it from know that’s all I’m after.”
“I do know that.”
“So I wasn’t sure how you’d behave knowing I didn’t consider us a one-and-done situation, not even close to it.”
“You thought I’d think it was?”
“I didn’t know. It seemed like a weird question for you to ask.”
“I was just surprised you had any motor skills at your command. Even though I did my best, you did most of the work, and I was still shattered.”
That made him smile.
“Riggs, I’m into you,” I said softly.
“I get that,” he said brusquely.
Okay, this was making him uncomfortable. I had to let it go.
That said.
“For your information, there is no way I’d get involved with my neighbor if I wasn’t seriously interested. Especially after learning he had a son. And that’s not about you having Ledger and me thinking that’s baggage I don’t want to deal with. It’s about another human being in the mix. So the decision I made was considered, and made mostly because, I’ll repeat, I’m into you, and I am because I really like you.”
He reached out, squeezed my knee, put his hand back to the wheel and muttered, “I really like you too, honey.”
“Good.”
“And to answer your question, Harry is not gay. Harry was married to a really amazing woman, he was head over heels for her, she felt the same, but a year after they got hitched, her horse threw her. She broke her neck, the kind of break where she lost her life.”
“Oh God,” I whispered.
“He still has his stables, but he got rid of his horses, and part of him died when she did. I don’t think he’s had a single date since that happened, and it was years ago.”
Poor, handsome, good-with-Ledger, good-friend-to-Riggs Harry.
“I understand that,” I said. Though, I got myself some (as he put it) on occasion.
“Bet you do,” he muttered.