She chuckled, fastened her seat belt. “Why are we in a rental anyway?”
“My truck’s transmission is on the floor of my garage. My neighbor’s helping me work on it but our schedules don’t mesh well. My other car’s a Harley. That’s for a different date.”
“If there is one.”
“Right. If there is one.”
“We haven’t even left the driveway.”
Sullivan took his sunglasses from the visor and put them on. He started the car and put it in reverse but kept his foot on the brake. “I thought the date began when I rang your doorbell.”
“Nope. I didn’t even have my earrings on then. The date starts when we’re on the road.”
Sullivan lifted his foot, gave the Beemer a little gas, and it rolled smoothly down the driveway. “I suppose I should have asked for the parameters in advance. How will I know when the date’s over?” He turned his head in her direction, ostensibly to look for cars in the street, but really to gauge her reaction. “The obligatory goodnight kiss or the sendoff in the morning?”
Ramsey gave a bark of laughter. “First, I don’t do obligatory anything so put that out of your mind. As for morning, I admire your optimism. I really do.”
“So that’d be a no way.”
“That’d be a no fucking way.”
“Good to know. Now I can relax. Anticipation is overrated.”
Realizing she was enjoying herself, she smiled. “There are no cars coming,” she said.
“Right. Leaving now.”
7
They arrivedtwenty minutes early for the ceremony and were ushered to the bride’s side of the roped off venue. There was seating for one hundred fifty guests on roughhewn, backless benches and standing room for at least another fifty inside the perimeter. A white canopy had been erected for the minister and wedding couple, but the bridal party was meant to stand on either side of it. Large wicker baskets of sunflowers lined both sides of the center aisle, and more baskets filled with daises and wild flowers rose in a five-tier display under the canopy.
People turned this way and that in their seats to get a glimpse of the bride but she was very well concealed inside a tent that Sullivan pointed out used to be the big top for the Ringling Brothers. Ramsey poked him with her elbow. “Someone will hear you and believe it,” she whispered.
“So? It could be. It looks like a circus tent.”
She shook her head. “And no one’s talking about us,” she said as though deeply disappointed. “We are practically invisible. You were so sure there would be comments.”
“Off to a bad start, are we?”
“Hmm.” Ramsey let it drop. Among all the guests, she felt certain she was more curious about Kay Dobbs than she was about the bride. If Medusa had emerged from the tent, she would not have blinked, but when the mother-of-the-bride finally made her appearance—wearing stilettos of all things—her jaw went slack because recognition was instantaneous.
It was not easy to forget the woman who had clobbered her two days before Christmas with a canvas tote bulging with a frozen turkey breast.
Kay Dobbs was not a big woman. She was downright delicate, in fact, petite in every sense. But three years ago, when Ramsey stopped her in the vestibule of the Ridge and confronted her with her theft, some inbred source of entitlement gave the diminutive Kay Dobbs the strength of a gladiator. She swung that tote as if it were a broadsword and nailed Ramsey squarely on the side of her head. Ramsey went down like a felled tree and Kay Dobbs marched out of the Ridge with no witnesses to what happened except for the surveillance cameras.
The concussion sent her to the hospital and kept her at home for a week; she never got to review the recording. Paul studied it for her and couldn’t identify the shoplifter. Something about static interference. She didn’t like it, but she had to accept it.
Ramsey figured the woman was so bold that she would come back to the store eventually. The shoplifters generally did, even ones as well dressed and well-heeled as this woman. Ramsey’s lip practically curled as she thought of Kay Dobbs asthis woman. If a thought was capable of taking on a sneer, then this thought did just that.
Sullivan leaned toward Ramsey and said quietly, “Hey, you don’t have to dislike her on my behalf.”
That’s when Ramsey realized it was more than a thought that was sneering. She carefully tucked the corner of her mouth back into position. “Sorry.” She ignored the odd look he gave her and turned her head to put Kay Dobbs out of her line of sight. She focused her attention on the bridesmaids who were leaving the tent and lining up at the end of the aisle with their escorts.
Ramsey concentrated on the ceremony. The bride and groom wrote their own vows and exchanged sentiments that were clearly deeply heartfelt. It surprised her, then, that when she looked askance at Sullivan, his expression was not merely solemn. It was grave. He told her he wasn’t married, and that was all she’d asked to know. In regard to dating him it was what was important. In regard to seeing him again, she wanted to know more.
It didn’t tweak her conscience a bit that she was not going to give up as much information as she was going to get.
“Are you up for this?” asked Sullivan as they waited their turn to be excused and herded toward the receiving line. “How would you like me to introduce you?”
