Frankie moaned and flopped her head back. “No . . .”
“You shouldn’t underestimate the draw of zebra mussels. They’re scary.”
“So that’s it?” she asked. “Marnette Lewis gets her cousin’s husband to run an article that makes me look like an unstable criminal and I get a ‘Sorry, I did a half-ass job’ clarification next to the mussel warning?”
“No, the only way to really hurt Gary is to cancel McCready’s advertisements in the paper for the next three months and to tell his boss that the reason I’m cancelin’ them is because of Gary’s ‘creativity.’ ”
“Won’t that hurt the business, too?”
“Honey, we’re the only funeral home in town,” he told her. “We buy ads in the Ledger because we want the Ledger to stay in business. Small local papers are the heart of towns like ours. But if they bite the hand that supports them, they deserve to feel the sting.”
“Damn, Uncle E.J.J., that’s downright Machiavellian of you.”
“The business has weathered worse storms than this, Frankie. In the 1940s, there were rumors that we buried somebody alive. In 1962, your grandpa tripped at the county fair, split his pants, and mooned the mayor’s wife. In 1979, your aunt Tootie played the wrong song for a funeral, which caused a fight and someone ended up getting thrown through the stained-glass window. And now, you’re in a battle of wits with a teenager, and losin’.”
“Hey!”
“The amazin’ thing about small towns is that, eventually, someone else will come along and do something dumber and get people’s attention, and they’ll forget all about you.”
“We didn’t really bury someone alive, did we?” Frankie asked. “Because you were a little vague with the details there.”
“Not that we know of.”
“Not reassuring.”
He snickered, wrapping his arm around her shoulders and kissing her temple. “I think maybe you should talk to your sheriff friend. He was trying to get a hold of you and was pretty worried when you didn’t pick up.”
“Well, I would, but someone took my cell phone.”
He chuckled and dropped the phone into her hand. “Good night, honey.”
As he shuffled toward his front door, Frankie unlocked her phone and scrolled through the messages and missed calls. Her thumb hovered over the settings icon. Thinking of Margot and the huge steps she was taking, Frankie opened the privacy settings and flicked her thumb over LOCATION SERVICES. Taking a deep breath, she turned it off.
Her dad would just have to learn to live with it.
DESPITE THE FACT that she’d had a very long day, Frankie took Duffy’s truck and drove to the old Pickney place. Frankie McCready might be stuck in emotional limbo and have medical anxieties out the wazoo, but she was not a coward when it came to men. If Margot could face her unexpected bun in the oven, Frankie could talk to Eric and have a grown-up discussion about boundaries and sex and intimacy. And if it turned out he didn’t like her that way after all and she had completely misinterpreted every gesture he’d made, she would just use the funeral home’s backhoe to dig her own grave and hide out there for a few months.
The Pickney place was one of the cheaper vacation cabins in town, having been rented out by Roseann Pickney’s children when Roseann went to assisted living. It had gotten pretty run-down after the water dump. With so many options available, the tourists went after the nicer places at discounted prices available during an economic crisis.
Still, the Pickney place had a beautiful view of the lake and the hills, far away from the town proper so there was no light pollution, noise, or . . . people to ruin it. Frankie approached the chain-link fence, where Herc met her at the gate. She felt like she was being approved by the dog before being allowed to visit his master.
Herc sat back on his haunches, which she interpreted as doggy-speak for You may pass.
“Eric?” she called. “It’s Frankie.”
Herc trotted alongside as she circled the cabin. Eric wasn’t on the back deck, with its mismatched chairs and Herc’s chewed-up hanks of rope. Through the back door’s window, she spied a big blue dog cushion by Eric’s couch, with HERC embroidered on it in gold letters. She smirked.
“You’ve pretty much got him wrapped around your little paw, don’t you?”
Herc yowled and nudged her leg. He seemed to be herding her toward the water, so she carefully picked her way down a sloping hill. She heard splashing and peered through the fading light to see a man-type shape slipping through the water.
Eric was swimming, without a shirt. And she didn’t see any trunks, either.
Oh, praise Legolas.
Even though it was blurred by the water, she was seeing a lot of Eric.
A lot of Eric.
It was like watching a dirty merman fantasy come to life. He was diving through the water, turning, barreling, stroking around the dock. There was no rhyme or reason to it. He was just having fun. Frankie didn’t think she’d ever seen him having fun. His whole body shape was different, relaxed and loose . . . and so naked.
Now Eric was looking back at her. Frankie was ogling him pretty openly. And somehow, she’d moved much closer to the dock than she realized.
“Shit!” he yelped, ducking deeper under the water.
“Yipe!” she yelled back, clapping her hands over her eyes.
Herc barked from the back porch, because he apparently didn’t want to be left out of the conversation.
“I’m sorry, Frankie! I didn’t know you were comin’ over!” he shouted, treading water and moving behind the dock, where she could see less.
“I would have called, but I didn’t think you would be super-thrilled to have me come over. What are you doing?” she said.
“I’m swimming,” he said. “I think that’s fairly obvious.”
“Are you aware that indecent exposure is a crime in this state?” she asked, nodding toward the discarded towel on the dock.
“Yeah, well, you’re the only person that’s come out here since I moved in, so I figured I was safe. Why are you out here, anyway?”
“My uncle thought I should probably check in with you. He said you were worried when you couldn’t get a hold of me.” She smirked.
“I wasn’t worried,” he scoffed. “I was interested in knowin’ where you were, because I couldn’t reach you. And that’s . . . important, because . . . there could be an accident and I would need you. Because . . . dead people.”
“Smooth,” she told him.
He laughed and slapped a bit of water at her. She shrieked as it splattered across her cheek. “Yikes! Aren’t you freezing?”
“Not really,” he said. “It’s not any worse than a swimmin’ pool. You coming in?”
Frankie grinned and dropped to a sitting position on the dock. “Nope.”
“Why not?” Eric edged closer around the dock, keeping his waistline well below the water.
“Because swimming in the lake at night—naked—is how horror movies start.”
He grinned, slicking his hair back from his face. “First, don’t knock naked swimmin’ until you’ve tried it. And second, come on, hundreds of people swim in this lake every day over the summer.”
“Yeah, in the deeper parts of the lake. Not in the shallows, where there are hundreds of turtles, including snappin’ turtles, who are more than willin’ to take a bite out of your bits when you step on them.”
Eric was about to scoff, but his face went slack as he jerked left, as if something had touched him under the water. “Shit!”
Frankie cackled as he scrambled toward the ladder and leaped out of the water. Her laughter died on her lips as full-frontal Eric came into view: long, muscled legs; rangy arms; slender, high-arched feet that were directly proportional to, well—she tried not to look, honestly, but it was right there at eye level. The water, clearly, had not been that cold. On the other hand, if it had been cold and he was still in that range? Damn.
His proportions—his other proportions??
?didn’t seem quite human, either. How was it possible to have hips that narrow with shoulders that wide? How did the little droplets of water manage to cling to every dip and outline like that?
Frankie opened her mouth to say something, anything, that would somehow make this moment less awkward, but nothing could possibly accomplish it. There was a long silence while they stared at each other and then Eric smoothly dropped to his knees and slid his mouth against Frankie’s. The shock of the cold flesh against hers was enough to make her gasp. His tongue tentatively reached out for her parted lips and she welcomed it. Whatever uncertainty he had about his job and his home, Eric was sure of himself here; tasting and taking and nipping at her lips until she felt disconnected from everything but his mouth.
The kiss became soft and lazy. She felt enclosed as he crouched over her, like he was protecting her from the wind and the potential angry woodland creatures. She slid her hands over his bare wet shoulders and into his thick hair. Her fingers worked down his body, exploring those ridges and dips of muscle. She liked this thing where the guy started off naked. It meant less work for her.
“I just want to point out this is exactly how people die in horror movies,” she whispered as Eric nipped little kisses along her throat.
“Worth the risk,” he murmured against her shoulder.
Eric sat back on his haunches to pull her shirt off. She sat up a bit, wriggling out of her Survey Corps T-shirt. He took in the sight of her bright yellow bra with the little winky-face emojis and grinned. He yanked at one tightly laced purple sneaker.
“Wait, I’m a double-knotter.” But as soon as she said it, the shoe came loose and went flying over his shoulder and into the lake with a plop. She burst out laughing. “What are you doing?”
“I’ll get you other shoes,” he swore, swooping in for another kiss that was half laughter, half breathless anticipation of more nakedness. He peeled her leggings away and knelt between her thighs like a man at prayer. She slid her hands down his back, relishing the outline of every muscle, before squeezing his round cheeks. Yep, just as firm as she suspected.
He settled between her thighs, bracing his hands under her legs, and suddenly looked up. “You sure about this?” he asked. “You sure you’re okay?”
“You may recall I’ve done this before. Not on a dock, of course, but then again, I’m not the one throwing their partner’s shoe in the lake, rookie.”
“Point taken.” Eric laughed, kissing her jaw as he began the long, slow slide inside her.
FRANKIE WOKE FROM a deep and dreamless sleep and felt a breeze on her face. She was cold and could feel splinters in her butt. This was uncomfortable, but she definitely appreciated the techniques Eric had used to give her what amounted to sex Ambien. The man was good with his hands, and his tongue. And the other parts weren’t too shabby, either.
She lifted her head from the piled clothes supporting it. The moon was still rising over the water lapping at the dock. Eric was stretched out next to her, his arm thrown across her waist.
She really had to stop waking up in such odd situations with Eric. She reached into her purse and checked her phone. It was after midnight. She had three missed calls from her parents, who were clearly panicking that she was out so late. This was what she got for turning off location services.
She heard the click-clack of toenails across the wooden boards. She yanked her shirt over her chest and turned to see Herc’s long snout hovering near her face. He did not seem pleased to find his master in this position. If Herc had resented Frankie before, this would not improve things between them.
“Hey, Herc,” Eric mumbled, reaching up and patting the dog’s head.
“I don’t think Herc should see this. This is like your toddler walking in on you naked,” Frankie said with a yawn. “This could be traumatic for all of us.”
Eric took Frankie’s jacket and covered himself. “You’re probably right. Herc, go on up to the house.”
Herc whined, but trotted to the back porch.
“By the way, I saw the embroidered dog bed.” She picked up her panties and leggings and rolled them back on in one smooth motion.
Eric cleared his throat. “They were practically givin’ ’em away at PetSmart.”
“Mm-hmm.” She snickered. “I need to head home.”
He frowned. “Because your parents are expecting you?”
“There’s no official curfew. But the disappointed looks over the breakfast table are punishment enough.”
“Which you wouldn’t have to put up with if you moved out.”
“One step at a time,” she told him.
“What was the first step?” he asked.
“Turning off the location services on my phone so they can’t use nanny software to find me.”
“Wow, how did your parents respond to that?”
“I don’t know yet.”
An expression of disappointment crossed his face. “You didn’t tell them?”
“One. Step. At. A. Time.”
He sighed. “I’ll drive you home. The deer are out like crazy right now. And I wouldn’t feel right lettin’ you drive home all alone.”
“I’ve been drivin’ these roads since I was sixteen,” she said.
“How many fatal deer-versus-vehicle collisions have you handled since you became coroner?”
“This is going to be a very awkward arrangement if you’re going to insist on using logic.” It was no accident that she’d used the word arrangement instead of relationship. She’d enjoyed sex with Eric, but she wasn’t naive enough to believe that meant they were going steady. If he wanted to have sex again, she would be more than happy to throw herself right in, but all those old doubts about anything else were rising right back to the surface. She regretted nothing, but she wasn’t quite ready for more.
“Please, for the sake of my patriarchal and overprotective heart, let me drive you home? I’ll pick you up in the morning in Duffy’s truck.”
“Fine.” She slid back into her shirt. “Because that means I get to watch you run naked back to your cabin.”
“But I have my towel.”
“No, you don’t!” She grabbed the towel from the dock and ran toward the house in her bare feet. She yelped as he picked her up and threw her over his shoulder in a fireman’s carry. The position put her up close and personal with one of her favorite body parts, which she liberally smacked as he carried her onto his porch.
“I would feel bad, but you did throw away my shoes.”
ERIC AGREED TO stop by the funeral home on the way to the family compound, just to make sure the newly reinstalled cameras were still intact. She was pleased to find that all was quiet when they rolled onto the gravel parking lot. But she noted that Eric cut his headlights the moment they turned off the highway, and he parked the squad car in a shaded area near the dock, away from the floodlights.
“I’m just going to get out and check the doors,” Eric told her, getting his holster and flashlight out of the glove compartment.
“Okay,” she said, hopping out of the truck.
“What do you think you’re doin’?”
“I’m goin’ with you.”
“No, you’re not.”
“I’m going to be able to spot problems way easier than you could.”
Eric scrunched up his face. “Logic.”
She snickered and followed him, picking her way carefully across the gravel in a pair of Eric’s old rubber boots.
“Just stay behind me,” he told her.
They checked the perimeter of the building and found nothing out of place. The cameras were running. The doors were secured. They were about to walk around the office building to Eric’s vehicle when a black SUV rolled into the parking lot on idle.
“What the shit?” Eric gasped, shoving Frankie behind the corner of the building, out of sight.
Eric’s whole body changed shape. His back was straighter, his shoulders wider. Frankie peeked around the corner and saw Jared Lewis’s lanky
form climb out of his SUV. He was dressed in all black, but hadn’t bothered to pull his ski mask over his face yet.
Frankie hissed angrily, rage burning up her throat to form some very foul words. Eric pushed her back again and shushed her. Shushed her!
Jared pulled his ski mask over his face and took a large crowbar out of the passenger seat. Frankie glanced toward the security camera, recently placed in a recessed eave of the roofline. Jared was right in view. With a grin that felt downright evil, Frankie pushed at Eric’s shoulders, but Eric shook his head. They watched as Jared approached the mortuary bay doors and slipped the crowbar into the doorjamb.
“Stop him!” Frankie whispered.
“I have to wait,” he whispered back. But the second Jared pulled on the crowbar, attempting to open the door, Eric rounded the corner, shining the flashlight in Jared’s face. “Sheriff’s department!”
Frankie was so caught off guard by the authoritative tone that for a second, she held up her hands. Jared, however, looked ready to bolt.
“Don’t do it, son,” Eric barked. “Now, drop the crowbar.”
Jared flung the crowbar on the ground, nearly to Frankie’s feet. Eric frowned at him. “Really?”
“You have to call my parents!” Jared squeaked. “You can’t arrest me without my parents’ permission.”
Frankie frowned. What legal shows had this kid been watching?
Eric responded, “I don’t have to do anything yet. Put your hands up and keep them there.”
Eric walked forward and carefully removed Jared’s mask. Frankie rounded the corner just as his face was revealed. She smirked even as he scowled at her. It was like the best episode of Scooby-Doo ever.
“What are you doing here, Mr. Lewis?” Eric demanded.
Jared widened his eyes, as if he could somehow channel the guilelessness of cute Internet kittens. “Well, Sheriff, I heard about all the trouble the McCreadys have been havin’ and I thought I should stop by to make sure the building’s locked up tight.”
“With a crowbar?”
Jared shrugged. “Sure, how else do ya check if a door is locked?”