For Want of a Memory Read online

  "Maybe not," suggested Brenda, twisting her writs to make the dildo sway back and forth. "Maybe he'd decide he didn't want you pleasuring yourself with this and take care of it himself."

  "What if he didn't?" asked Alice, who looked a little dazed as her eyes followed the swaying phallus.

  "Then this will do the trick very nicely," said Brenda brightly. "Trust me, girls, when there's no man around, the George Clooney Special here will rock your world."

  "That's ... his?" gasped Felicia Torres, a thirtyish dark skinned woman who worked in the patient administration office of the hospital.

  "So they say," said Brenda, grinning. "And it comes in a vibrating model too, with a reservoir that holds two ounces of the warm liquid of your choice."

  "Oh my goodness," sighed Hilda, who was seven years into her marriage and feeling somewhat neglected.

  "I know I love mine," said Lou Anne, just to see what the reaction would be. All eyes in the room turned on her. Most of them were wide with shock.

  "You have one of those?" gasped Hilda.

  "Well, not that exact model," said Lou Anne. "And don't look so shocked. Remember, you all have a man. I don't."

  "It sure looked like you had a man a few minutes ago," said Donna.

  "He's not my man," said Lou Anne.

  "Well he could be," said Jessica.

  "All I'm saying is that it doesn't hurt to have something around that will scratch your itch if the real thing isn't available," said Lou Anne. "That's all. It's only weird if you let yourself think about it as being weird."

  * * *

  Jess, of course, was the last to leave. Brenda was happy. She'd sold more than enough items to make the trip worth it. She presented Lou Anne with the black cherry nightgown she'd admired so much as her gift for hosting the party. Jess and Lou Anne helped repack Brenda's SUV and waved as she drove off.

  "That was fun," said Jessica.

  "I can't believe you bought the naughty nurse outfit," said Lou Anne, poking her friend in the arm.

  "I might never get to wear it," sighed Jessica. "But you never know. Do you think Kris liked it?"

  "I thought you were all gung ho on him being my man," said Lou Anne.

  "I am!" objected Jessica. "But he's a man and he saw me in it. At least ask him what he thought."

  "I'm not going to ask that man if he got turned on by seeing you in a slutty outfit," snorted Lou Anne.

  "If he did, I might let you borrow it," said Jess, smiling.

  * * *

  Lou Anne closed the door and sighed. The party had been interesting if nothing else. She wasn't sure it had been worth spending her night off for, but it had been interesting. She picked up her gift and, on impulse, took her clothes off and put on the nightie. It felt wonderful against her breasts. She pulled up the matching boy briefs and picked up her clothes. After she dropped them in the hamper, she went to look in on Kris and Ambrose.

  She was somewhat startled to find them sleeping, until she looked at her watch and saw it was after ten. Ambrose was lying on his back, on top of Kris. There was an open book resting on the little boy's chest. It was clear they'd been reading when one or the other had fallen asleep. She suspected Ambrose had fallen asleep first and Kris had just left him there, probably so as not to disturb him. Then he'd dozed off, too.

  Ambrose was still dressed, so she went to him and spoke quietly, waking him up and telling him it was bedtime. Kris rubbed at his eyes and sat up, swinging his legs over the edge of the bed. He got up and stood aside, as Ambrose took his clothes off, while Lou Anne got the bed ready for him. The boy crawled in and went limp almost immediately, closing his eyes while she kissed his cheek. She turned to find Kris staring at her and realized that, in her bent-over position, she had quite likely showed him her new boy briefs. His eyes went to the dip in the front of the shirt.

  "Do you like it?" she asked softly. "It was my gift for hosting the party."

  "Oh, I like it," sighed Kris. "You're insane to wear it in front of me, but I like it."

  "Are you dangerous?" she asked, cocking her head.

  "I feel pretty dangerous right now," he said.

  "I'm not worried," she said, tossing her hair to one side. "I've decided you're just a big softy."

  "Not right now," he said. Then he blushed.

  "Oh really?" Lou Anne felt her own cheeks get warm.

  "Never mind," he said hastily. "I didn't mean to say that. I should go."

  "Why?" asked Lou Anne. "I thought you were going to write tonight."

  "I don't know," he said, his voice nervous. "It's just that ... " His hands went to hover in front of his groin.

  "You hungry?" asked Lou Anne. "Why don't I fix us a bite. And I have to tell you about my dream."

  Chapter Fourteen

  Harper's review of cold case files found six cases in which there was either an attempted or actual kidnapping. Four of them contained DNA evidence. His next move was to ask the FBI to provide DNA samples from the Higginbotham brothers.

  "What are you up to now?" asked Agent Jefferson, who was frustrated by chasing what he now believed was a wild goose, concerning the "mastermind" of the Custer case.

  "I've got four cold kidnapping cases," said Harper, simply.

  "You want to stack the charges," suggested Jefferson.

  "No, I want to solve old cases," countered Harper.

  "Why do you think these three might have been involved?"

  "I don't. I'm just running down leads ... possibilities ... doing my job, Agent Jefferson."

  "Why muddy the waters?" asked the federal agent. "We've got them cold on this one. They're going away forever, if I can ever get the fucking civilians to let me close the case."

  "You married?" asked Harper.

  "What does me being married have to do with your cold cases?"

  "If somebody kidnapped her, and never got caught, wouldn't you want to know who did it?"

  "You're a crusader!" chuckled Jefferson.

  "I'm a cop. It's what we do. Now, are you going to help me or do I have to go through official channels?"

  "You don't have to threaten me," said the FBI agent. "And it wouldn't do you any good anyway. This one is too high profile." He frowned. "What's my probable cause for getting the samples?"

  "You've got blood at the scene, don't you?" asked Harper. "Have you positively confirmed whose it is?"

  "No need," said Jefferson. "Only the perpetrators were injured."

  "I'm sure the defense will see it that way too," said Jim.

  Jefferson snorted. "Okay, I'll get you your samples. But you report anything you find to me ... got it?"

  "I work for the city of New York," said Harper. "If I short circuit my boss, he'll have my ass."

  "Your boss is an ass," said Jefferson.

  "You'll know something just before he does. That's the best I can do. I have to live here."

  "You're on." The man smiled. "You really think there might be something here or are you just going through the motions?"

  "Going through the motions is what solves crimes," said Harper shrugging.

  * * *

  "Okay, so tell me about this dream," said Kris. "You said I was in it?"

  She looked a little uncomfortable.

  "It was a strange dream. You know how dreams can be strange and not mean what they appear to mean ... right?"

  He grinned. "You mean we were naked?"

  She blushed. "No ... not really. Oh, never mind! It was just a stupid dream."

  "Come on. You can't get away with that," he said firmly. "You brought it up, now you have to tell me about it."

  She looked uncomfortable again.

  "Okay, but just remember it doesn't mean anything."

  He waited, forcing her to speak.

  "Okay. We were ... um ... living together ... " He grinned, but didn't say anything. "And I was on some kind of spring cleaning frenzy."

  She stopped long enough that he felt like he could say something.

  "S
o what about the naked part?"

  "Hush!" she snapped. "I'm getting there." She looked away. "I was wearing a frilly white apron, with cherries all over it."

  "So I was the naked one," he said, his smile wide.

  "Will you shut up and let me tell this?" she yelled.

  "Okay, okay." He turned an imaginary key in his closed lips and then tossed it over his shoulder.

  Lulu stared at him, took a deep breath, and went on.

  "The apron was all I was wearing, and I had to climb up on ladders to get at the cob webs and dust the ceiling fixtures, and you were following me around, taking advantage of the fact that all I had on was the apron."

  "Sounds pretty normal to me," he said. "If you were cleaning things almost naked I would follow you around trying to peek."

  "That's not all you were doing," she said, sounding a little miffed.

  "I see," he said. "Was I being naughty?"

  "You were being very naughty!" she said emphatically.

  "So this dream means you want to get it on with me." He grinned.

  "If you'll remember," she snapped, "I reminded you that dreams don't always mean what they appear to mean. So just don't even think about it, buster."

  "Hey, it was your dream," he said, holding up his hands. He shrugged. "My dreams aren't so complicated. In my dreams, we're just in bed doing it like minks." He grinned.

  "This is weird," said Lou Anne. "We've only known each other for a few weeks and we're having strange dreams." She frowned. "Maybe it has something to do with this book you're writing. I keep thinking about the book, and things that could happen in it, and then you write something that gets me going.

  "It's the whole karma thing," said Kris smoothly. "When you saved my life, our souls were intertwined. It will just take a while to get them untangled. Anyway, I kind of like your dream. It has all the elements of something that might be fun in real life. Except for the cleaning part, maybe."

  She startled him slightly when she said, "It was the most fun I ever had cleaning." Then she fixed her eyes on him. "Okay, enough of dreams and all that. You need to write!"

  "I will, just as soon as I finish my snack," he said calmly.

  * * *

  Lou Anne looked across the table at Kris, through the hair that had drifted down over her eyes. He was just eating. Both of them were, so there wasn't much talking going on. She stopped chewing and intentionally examined the atmosphere in the room. She decided it was comfortable. Even after talking about that silly dream, she still didn't feel uncomfortable. She had when she'd started, but his reaction to it had reassured her. She saw his eyes go from the sandwich he was taking a bite out of to the front of her night shirt. That felt comfortable somehow, too. She thought about that slap on the ass he'd given her, earlier in the evening. He liked her ass. He found her attractive. That much was obvious. She didn't know if he'd been kidding about his dream, but she found that it didn't bother her to think that he had dreamed about her.

  "So," she said, after swallowing. "How'd you like the outfit Jess was wearing when you almost destroyed our party?"

  He blinked and seemed to take longer to chew and swallow than was necessary.

  "It was okay," he said.

  "Just okay?"

  "It sounded like somebody was being murdered," he said. "You can't fault me for coming to make sure you were all right."

  "I didn't say I was upset about it," she said. "I just asked you how you liked Jess's outfit."

  Again, there was a long pause before he answered.

  "Why are you asking me this?"

  "What's the big deal?" she asked.

  "The big deal is that there's something in the tone of your voice that makes me edgy. It's like looking into the dark and not knowing whether, if you step forward, you'll just take a step or walk off a cliff."

  "My goodness!" said Lou Anne in mock astonishment. "I had no idea I was so scary."

  "Are we having an argument?" he asked.

  "Why would we be having an argument?"

  "I don't know, but it sure feels like we're having one, and I don't want to argue with you."

  "Why not?"

  "Because I like coming here, okay? I don't want you to get pissed off at me for some reason I don't understand and tell me to stop coming here."

  "I'm not pissed off."

  "Good."

  "So what did you think of the outfit?"

  He looked up at her and put the sandwich down. He looked a little frustrated.

  "When one woman asks a man what another woman looks like, there's something going on there. What do you want me to say? That she looked hot? That she was gorgeous? That I hoped the thing would fall off of her?"

  "I just wanted to know what you thought," said Lou Anne a little stiffly.

  "Well what I think is that you'd look better in it. But I'm not supposed to say things like that, because we hardly know each other."

  "You felt like you knew me well enough to slap me on the ass," she said, her voice still tight.

  "Okay, I screwed up. I'm sorry. I didn't mean to offend you. I won't do it again."

  "I didn't say you couldn't do it again."

  "What do you want from me?" he moaned.

  "I'm not sure yet," she answered. "But I'll let you know when I figure it out."

  "Am I in trouble here?" He sounded younger than he was.

  "Nope."

  "Nope? That's it? All that and you just decided everything was okay?" He looked a little pale.

  "You answered the question correctly," she said. "Why would you be in trouble?"

  "I did?"

  "Yes," she said, getting up to take her plate to the sink. "You said it would look better on me."

  * * *

  "Why don't you have him slap her on the ass, like you did to me?" asked Lou Anne.

  Kris looked at the screen. There were words there, and he knew he'd typed them, but he couldn't remember what they said.

  Lulu had suggested he write something, after whatever had happened in the kitchen. He still didn't understand what that had been about. But she was her normal self, so he moved to the computer and pulled up the file. She stood behind him, which normally wouldn't have bothered him, except that she smelled delicious. And if he looked over his shoulder at her, that amazing cleavage was right there.

  It wasn't cleavage in the classical sense. It was really just her bare chest, with the insides of her breasts showing. But when she leaned forward, that dark red satin fell almost far enough to show him what was under it.

  Almost.

  She'd picked a paragraph from the outline and watched over his shoulder as he began fleshing it out. She was very distracting, but he tried to concentrate. She'd stood behind him before, watching him work, but never for this long. In the past, it had seemed like she just drifted by, once in a while, and glanced over whatever was on the screen. Sometimes she'd make a comment, and sometimes not.

  But having her stand there, smelling so good, in that beautiful soft looking whatever it was, with that fabulous butt cupped in those short shorts underneath the gown ... It was just very distracting.

  "I have to go to work soon," he said, checking his watch.

  "Ohhhh," she pouted.

  "I'll work on it there. You can look it over tomorrow."

  "Okay," she continued pouting.

  He turned around to look at her and stared at her chest.

  "You apparently feel like you know me well enough to ogle my breasts, too," she said.

  He looked up, blushing and she was almost smiling. Her eyes were smiling anyway.

  "You apparently feel like you know me well enough to wear something like that around me," he tried.

  "I do!" she said, her voice bright.

  He suddenly felt like everything was all right after all. Her questions before ... they had felt dangerous, somehow. That was silly. She'd saved his life, but that didn't mean there was anything between them. Not that he'd mind, but she was a free spirit. That much was clear.
And he'd meant it when he said he wanted to keep coming over here to work. He liked being around her. Ambrose had him wondering if he'd missed out, along the way ... not getting serious with anyone ... not having a son.