Page 70 of To Catch a Latte Thick as Thieves

“I don’t suppose they mean that in the...uh...romantic sense?”

“That’s a definite no.”

Fisher sighed, then changed the subject. “So, what’s our perp been up to?”

“Juggling accounts like there is no tomorrow,” Brian said. “I was just waiting for the last batch of electronic information to come in.”

“Let’s go take a look,” Fisher said, happy to escape to the office. After all, who knew what else his parents had done in their absence.

“Fisher!”

Too late. A door slammed and Annie’s heels clicked across the wooden floor back into the main room.

“What happened to my office?” she snapped. “I don’t even recognize it.”

“I think I can explain,” Brian offered, raising his hand like a kid in school.

“What happened?” she asked through gritted teeth.

Brian took a step backward. Fisher couldn’t blame him. Annie looked furious. She also looked pretty damn sexy. Her sundress was the worse for her long nap in the car. Deep creases had formed in the skirt and matching jacket. Her hair had come loose and fell down around her shoulders in long twisting curls, which smelled like the roses she’d worn in her hair for their wedding. Desire slammed him harder than a fist.

“You see I had to commandeer the office to make it easier to keep tabs on the files and to monitor who came and went into the store. I promise it will all be restored as soon as we catch the perp.”

Brian was giving her his best Boy Scout routine and Annie was falling for it. Grudgingly. The color slowly faded from her cheeks and she looked resigned to the chaotic disarray her life had become. Fisher felt bad for her.

He walked toward her intending to give her a quick hug of comfort, but her scent enveloped him as soon as he wrapped his arms around her. The mingled scent of crushed rose petals and Annie would forever be married in his mind.

Before he had time to check the impulse, he found himself planting a long, slow, deep kiss on her very soft and pliant lips. A bawdy chorus of whoops and cheers surrounded them.

“Well, it must be love,” he heard his mother say. He glanced up to see his parents standing in the doorway of the kitchen with their arms around one another.

“I still don’t see why they had to buy into that societal nonsense called matrimony, but if it makes them happy,” his father sighed and planted a quick kiss on his mother’s head.

Annie took a step back from him, looking both dazed and bewildered. “I’m going to go take a shower.” Fisher wiggled his eyebrows at her and she giggled but then frowned. “A cold one.”

“Oh, Fish, you’ve got it bad,” Brian said as they made their way toward Annie’s office.

“Got what bad?” he asked, trying to sound innocent.

“It.”

“What is ‘it’?”

“The love bug,” Brian said. “You have the sorriest case I’ve ever seen. You’re pitiful, just pitiful.”

“What makes you say that?” he asked.

“I saw your face when she walked into the room,” he said. “You lit up. You beam at the sight of her. You’re in love with her. Deep-fried, flambéed, roasted on a spit in love.”

“I am not...okay, maybe a little,” he confessed. “So what?”

“You want to stay married to her, don’t you?”

Fisher was silent.

“Don’t you?” Brian persisted.

“I can think of worse ways to spend my life.”