“What I’d really like to do is work on a, sayPirates of the Caribbeantype of movie,” she was saying. “Something like that. Something where I can really transform a person into someone else entirely, rather than just prep their face for camera work. I’m fortunate to have a steady job right now, though. I’m hopingThe Rushgets picked up for more seasons.”
That would mean she’d be around more, but neither of them pointed that out.
“Say I’m an actor, getting ready for a scene. What would you do to my face?” he asked.
She tipped her head and studied him. “Well, we’d start with moisturizer, of course.”
Of course? Did he look like a catcher’s mitt? “Sure. Of course,” he repeated dryly.
“And your eyebrows—” Suddenly she leaned forward and she reached across and lay her finger like a sextant over his brow bone.
His eyes crossed involuntarily. Her fingers smelled like some light floral lotion.
“Everything beyond my finger toward your temple would have to go. Yank.”
She was touching his face. Which seemed awfully intimate, if not innately sexy at the moment.
He’d never thought minutely about his eyebrows before. Occasionally a few hairs would spring up between them but the unibrow never seemed to threaten. The Barlows weren’t an inherently hairy people.
She took her finger away as the waiter sauntered over with a basket containing a variety of hot little bread rolls.
“Tossed a couple extra in there for you, Deputy Barlow. The ones with seeds that you like.”
Bethany reached for a roll speckled with little seeds and leaned toward him confidingly, her eyes sparkling. “In this town, it’s likeyou’rea celebrity. Everyone knows you’re a cop. Do you shake them down for protection money?”
He smiled. “Yeah, I get paid in bread rolls and special tables by the window. The bread here is great, by the way. They make it in SON OF ABITCH.”
Bethany jumped and her roll shot straight up in the air, landed three feet away, and rolled across the floor.
That *$!#! blue Porsche had whipped by going at least sixty miles per hour.
It was all he could do not to chase the guy and rip his bumper off with his teeth.
He whipped his head back toward Bethany.
“Oh God. I’m so sorry about that, Bethany. Cop instincts. Francone. That guy is a menace.”
Someone at a table down the way toed the roll back toward them, as if he’d friskily invited them to play soccer.
The waiter gracefully strolling down the aisle swooped upon it and took it away as though flying bread rolls were only to be expected.
Bethany shook her head. “Franco and his Porsche.”
“Yeah,” Eli said blackly. “Franco and hisPorsche.”
“You know, I still can’t believe I’m actually working with Franco Francone and John Tennessee McCord. Can’t believe I call himFranco. ‘Franco, hold still and let me pluck your eyebrows.’”
“I can think of a few other things you can call him.”
She smiled at that. “Let’s talk about you. Did you always want to be a cop?”
Damn.
A seemingly simple question, and the kind he ought to expect on dates. But he dreaded it. Because he didn’t like to lie. And leaving stuff out sometimes felt like a lie.
He considered his answer. The easy thing to say would be “yes.” Not, “no. I was going to college on a football scholarship and my dad was shot and killed during a routine traffic stop and then I suddenly felt like I needed to be a cop. It was like I could undo that injustice every day one person at a time, but of course that’ll never happen because people will keep on being people. But I love what I do and I’m good at it.”
And then he’d have to talk about his dad.
