Page 83 of Thick as Thieves

“I don’t.”

“He hasn’t changed his spots since that night he climbed through your window, and I can’t always be around to protect you.”

“You protect me every day.” She looked toward the hallway that led to the bedroom. “As long as everyone thinks that you and I keep the sheets smoking, Marty and I are free to—”

“Why do you care what everyone thinks? Why don’t you two just go public?”

“I’ll have to work up to it. It took me years to go public about Morg.”

“Well, whatever you do, I’ve got your back.” He pecked her on the cheek and reached for the doorknob.

She put out a detaining hand. “Ledge, I’m sorry you had to hear about that night from Rusty. I’m sure he gloated. I know how much you would have hated that.”

“I did. He’s a hyena. But I accept your apology. I can’t stay mad at you for long. In all the time I’ve known you, I’ve only been mad at you once.”

“When was that?”

“When I groped your boob, and you slapped me. Hard.”

She laughed. “I had told you that no man was ever going to touch me that way again.”

“I’d’ve been less than a man not to test you.”

“You were sixteen.”

“Still.”

“Did I convince you?”

“I haven’t tried since.”

They smiled at each other, then she said, “You always alert me when you’re having a thing, so that I’ll be prepared when someone tells me, as a friend, of course, that you’re cheating on me.”

“A thing?”

She gave him a you-know-what-I-mean look, and he did know.

“Which makes me wonder why you haven’t said a word to me about Arden Maxwell.”

“Nothing to say. There’s no thing. She consulted me about doing some handiwork. I’m working up an estimate.”

“That’s it?”

“Yep.”

Crystal regarded him with the intuitive shrewdness unique to a woman, then she laughed. “If you say so.”

“I just did say so.”

&

nbsp; “What about her baby’s father?”

He raised his shoulders. “How would I know?”

“But she seems unattached?”

“As far as I can tell.”