“Can we do most of that over the phone from now on? I can't be expected to feed you every night.”
He gave her a look like,I never expected you to feed me.
She winked.
“Yes,” he answered. “We can do most of our talking over the phone from now on.”
“Excellent.”
As she accompanied him to the door, her hand shot out. She squeezed a piece of the shirt fabric covering his hard chest, then whipped her hand back to her side.
He froze, peering at the wrinkle she'd just given his shirt. His eyes rose to hers.
“Sorry,” she said. “I couldn't resist. You're so pressed.”
“I like it that way.”
“I see. So if I were to do this . . .” She squashed another piece of shirt fabric between her fingers, leaving an even bigger wrinkle. “You wouldn't like it?”
“No.”
They were standing very close. Oakmoss definitely formed one of the base notes of his cologne. She'd always been a sucker for oakmoss. “But you did not lose your cool.”
“No.”
“And you can roll with the unexpected.”
“Yes.”
“Very good, Jude. One suggestion for the future. If I do something charming and unexpected like that in front of Cedric—”
“Wrinkling my shirt classifies as charming?”
“—You're supposed to find itendearing, remember?”
He looked down his aristocratic Camden nose at her.
“Repeat after me,” she said, motioning to herself. “Endearing.”
“Endearing,” they said together in slow unison.
“As are you,” she told him, pinching his shirt one last time for the road. “So endearing!”
* * *
Jude had stolen something from Gemma.
Actually, two things.
Before knocking on her door last night, he'd flicked through the envelopes in her mailbox. Two of them had tripped his curiosity, so he'd slipped them into his jacket pocket. He'd been within his rights to do so. A judge had granted the FBI a search warrant pertaining to Gemma's communications so that they could, if they chose, supervise their cooperating witness. The last thing the Bureau wanted was to invest manpower in this operation only to have it ruined when Gemma went behind their backs to warn Cedric.
After he'd arrived home, he’d steamed open the envelopes' flaps so that he'd be able to stick them closed and return them to her mailbox on Monday without arousing her suspicion. It was now midday on Saturday and he half-regretted taking them because they were taunting him. He was getting ready to leave to play racquetball and should be thinking about that. Instead, he was thinking about this.
Eating a piece of avocado toast, Jude paused in front of the letters. They rested face-up on his kitchen island.
His five-year-old yellow Lab, Mabel, came to stop beside him. She gave him a look that said,Again? Staring at those letters again, buddy?
“Yeah,” he admitted.
