“I can’t figure it out now. I’m too stressed. I may be pregnant. I think I need to go out and buy vitamins or something.”

He pulled me deeper into him and I could feel his body shaking with his hilarity. I didn’t think it was hilarious, I thought it was scary as shit.

When he pulled himself together he said, “We’ll move to your place. It’s close to Fortnum’s and you have good neighbors. And I like your bedroom. I’ll rent this place out.”

Somehow, that made the panic ease but not totally subside.

He looked down at me.

“Happy with that?” he asked.

I nodded.

He got that soft look on his face and the melty look in his eyes, my knees started to buckle and I leaned into him.

Then the door buzzer went.

“Fucking hell,” he muttered.

He let me go and went to the door.

When he came back, he said, “Darius is coming up.”

I’d already met Eddie in Lee’s shirt, I wasn’t going to gallivant around in front of Darius in Lee’s tee. I mean, I was possibly pregnant. Pregnant women didn’t run around in front of just everyone wearing nothing but panties and t-shirt.

I grabbed my coffee, topped up and ran to the bedroom.

I slapped on some happy makeup, lots of glittery eyeshadow, thick mascara and dewy-blush. I topped some jeans and the black belt with rivets that Lee gave me with a white t-shirt that said, “I shot J.R.” in black and slid on my black flip flops.

I flip flopped my way back to the coffeepot, poured some in a travel mug and headed to the balcony where Darius and Lee were lounging.

I stood in the French doors. “Hey Darius.”

He’d watched me while I approached and he nodded and gave a bit of a smile but didn’t say anything.

I turned my gaze to Lee. “I gotta get to the store.”

“Take the Crossfire, I’ll take the Duc in this morning,” Lee said.

“The Ducati’s here?”

“Yeah.”

Wicked.

I kinda wanted him to take me to work on the Ducati but I wasn’t going to ask.

“I’ll take you out on the bike tonight,” Lee offered, the crinkles showing beside his eyes.

“Get out of my brain,” I returned, putting my hand on my hip.

That made him give me an out and out smile.

“Walk me to the door?” I asked.

I watched him get up and I started to turn toward the front door, then came around and looked at Darius again.

“We’re having a family barbeque on Saturday, Ally’s place. I’m sure everyone would like to see you,” I told him.

Lee dropped his chin and gave a couple of shakes of his head in that “I don’t believe she’s such an idiot” way.

“Thanks Indy, I got things to do,” Darius said.

“Okay, come after you’re done,” I said to him.

Darius shook his head.

“Then come before, bring your Mom and your sisters. I haven’t seen them in ages.” I kept going.

Lee’s hand wrapped around my upper arm and he turned me and marched me toward the door. I twisted around and I could see Darius grinning.

“See you later!” I called, already around the couch and in the kitchen.

As we passed, Lee snatched the Crossfire’s keys off the kitchen counter and at the front door he pulled me to a stop.

“What’d I say about trying to save Darius?”

“What? I just asked him to the barbeque.”

“You’re a nut,” he said.

I put a hand on a hip. “Excuse me?”

Lee shook his head. “Nope, not gonna happen. I’m not biting. We are not fighting today. No matter how far you push it.”

I’m so sure. Like I wanted to fight.

I got up on my toes and kissed him, giving him a quick peck and then grabbed the keys out of his hand.

“What was that?” he asked.

“A kiss good-bye,” I told him.

He took two steps forward and I took two steps back, slamming into a wall. His hands went to my ass and pulled me against him and he kissed me breathless.

“That was a kiss good-bye,” he said.

I took in a shaky breath.

It sure was.

* * *

Ally and Tex were behind the coffee counter at Fortnum’s when I got there. There were six people waiting in line and three people who’d already ordered and were waiting for their coffee. Every chair and couch had someone’s ass in it, all of them drinking coffee.

Motley Crue was blaring “Girls Girls Girls” from the CD player.

I looked at my watch, it was ten to eight. We’d only been open for twenty minutes.

Apparently people would pay to have a guy who looked like a serial killer serve them coffee.

“Holy shit,” I said.

“Get your butt behind this counter, woman! Does it look like there’s nothin’ to do and you have time to stand around gawkin’?” Tex boomed.

I walked around the counter, saw Annie, the blonde, helmet-head lady who yelled at me during the Rosie riot. She was staring at her cup with a reverence normally only befitting the unveiling of front row tickets. She looked up at me.

“Where do you find these guys?” she breathed.

“Luck,” I said and got to work

We were so busy, for hours I thought of nothing but coffee, milk, syrup and all the money that was being shoved into my cash register. We’d never been this busy, even with Rosie. We had good crowds, but this was crazy.

By ten thirty, the crowd had died down. Duke came in and manned the book counter which was also seeing business. We had a goodly number of folks sitting, reading and enjoying their coffee.

“Are we still ticked at each other?” Ally finally had the chance to ask me.

“Well, since you being pissed at me went hand in hand with me being pissed at Lee… and since Lee and I are no longer on a break… then no, we aren’t ticked at each other.”

Ally grinned. “Good.”

That’s the way it was with best friends. You got mad, you got over it.

I turned to Tex. “But you’re a traitor and I’m not talking to you ever again,” I told him.

“You get number seven last night?” he asked.

I stared at him, not knowing what in the hell he was talking about.

Then it dawned on me.

Orgasm number seven.

Yikes.

Maybe I did share too much information with Tex last night.

Since I got number seven last night and number eight that morning, I didn’t answer.

It must have shown on my face because Tex let out a booming laugh then said, “You have no reason to be mad and I don’t wanna hear about it.”

“What’s he talking about?” Ally asked.

I turned to her. “Orgasms.” Her eyes got round. “Never mind. Do you know when you can take a pregnancy test?”

Now her eyes were about to pop out of her head. “No way.”

“I don’t know. I fucked up, I forgot to take my pills for a couple of days.”

“No way!” Ally shouted and a couple customers looked up.

“I didn’t do it on purpose,” I said.

“This is great,” she said. “I’m calling Mom.”

“No! Don’t call Kitty Sue! Don’t call anyone. This is not great. I don’t want a baby. Well, maybe I want a baby… maybe I want Lee’s baby… but not now. He hasn’t even seen all my underwear!”

“You aren’t getting any younger,” Ally said.

Dear Lord.

“Just answer my question,” I said.

“What question?”

“Pregnancy test.”

“I think you have to miss a period. I’ll run down to Walgreen’s and look at one.”

Then off she went, luckily Walgreen’s was only a few blocks away.

“Tex, can you make me a skinny vanilla latte, please?” I asked.

“So you’re talkin’ to me again?” he asked.

“Just make me one!”

“Who’re you? The Man?”

“No, I’m The Woman who wants a vanilla latte!”

“Fine. Jeez. I’ll make you a latte. I’ll make it decaf so you’ll calm down.”

“If you make it decaf, you’re fired,” I said.

“Caffeine may not be good for the baby,” Tex replied.

That’s when I screamed, full-on-Nightmare-on-Elm-Street-scream-your-lungs-out.

The customers jumped and stared.

The bells over the door went. I stopped screaming and saw Eddie coming into the store.

He didn’t look happy.

In fact, he looked scary unhappy.

His mirrored shades were off and his dark eyes were intense.

My frustration at my crazy, fucked up life went out the window and I walked up to him.

“You okay?” he asked.

I felt my stomach pitch. He wasn’t talking about me screaming.

By the look of him, I was assuming something happened to someone I loved. Seeing as I was a cop’s daughter, this moment was always in the back of my mind. For me, especially coming from Eddie, it could be anyone, Lee, Dad, Malcolm, Hank or dozens of other guys who were friends of mine or Dad’s.

I opened my mouth to answer and I heard then saw the Ducati. It stopped in front of the store, Lee pushed down the stand and swung his leg off. He came inside.

His mouth was tight, his eyes were blank, his expression was grim.

He looked at me, then at Eddie, then back to me.

“You okay?” he asked.

“What the fuck is going on!” I shouted.

“She needs caffeine.” Tex said, handing me my latte.

Lee came closer to me, both he and Eddie were less than a foot away, crowding me in. Tex was still beside me and Duke had wandered over, feeling the vibe, and was standing close behind me.

Bad news was coming.

“Cherry Blackwell’s car exploded this morning,” Lee said.

I stared at him.

What the fuck?

“Jeez-us. She the loopy-loo you scrapped with last night?” Tex asked me.

I ignored Tex and said, “Please tell me she wasn’t in it.”

“She wasn’t in it,” Lee said.

I let out a breath and then took a sip of latte. Even in that tense situation, I noticed that the latte was divine.

“What happened?” I asked.

Eddie answered, “We don’t know. Car’s still too hot to get near it. They’re guessin’ she was four, five feet away when it went. She got hit with flying debris and she was burned by the fireball. She’s at Swedish Medical Center.”

“Is she okay?” I asked.

“No update yet,” Eddie said.

Jeez, I didn’t like Cherry. In fact, I hated her, but I also didn’t like the idea of her getting hit with flying debris from a car explosion. The only person I’d want that to happen to was Osama bin Laden but I would prefer for him to be in the car.

I looked at Lee, he was still looking grim. I realized that they may have parted badly but she had still been his girlfriend. Twice. I slipped my hand in his.

“Are you okay?” I asked.

“Yeah,” he said, looking at me funny.

“She doesn’t understand,” Eddie said.

“Understand what?” I asked.

Then it hit me. Last night, I was rolling around in fried rice with Cherry, today she’d almost been blown up.

I looked at Eddie. “I have an alibi. Actually, I have two! And I don’t know anything about explosives.”

This wasn’t exactly true. Ally and I had famously set off a couple dozen bottle rockets in Nina Evans’s front yard after Nina had started a nasty rumor that Ally had herpes.

Still, bottle rockets and car bombs didn’t exactly compare.

“Yeah, she spent most of the night with me and the cats, eatin’ chips and drinkin’ moonshine. She wasn’t out of my sight until you came and got her,” Tex threw in, looking at Lee.

Eddie stared at Tex, some of the intensity going out of his eyes at the thought of me, Tex and the cats eating chips and drinking hooch.

“Darius told me that one of his guys was at a strip club last night and heard Coxy’s boy Gary talkin’ about your cat fight with Cherry,” Lee said.

This wasn’t interesting news. I figured I’d been a prime topic of conversation on police band for at least a week. I probably had my own code by now, Indy-666 or something.

Anyone could listen to police band.

“And?” I asked.

“And Coxy’s already gone out of his way to eliminate what he might consider your problems.”

I dropped Lee’s hand and took a step back. “You think Wilcox tried to kill Cherry… for me?”

Eddie answered again. “Too early to know. Cherry didn’t have a lot of friends but crisping her seems harsh retribution for bein’ a bitch.”

“This isn’t happening,” I said.

I was reeling. I didn’t know what to do, what to think.

“You guys want coffee?” Tex asked Lee and Eddie.