Free Together Again: Book 3 in the Second Chances series (Crimson Romance) by Peggy Bird Page B

before, have you? Anyway, she signed you up. Told me when you’d be at her house and suggested I ‘accidently’ run into you and ask you to go with me.”
    “So you ran a con on me with my mother’s help? Or was it vice versa?”
    “I’m not really sure. Whatever her plan was, mine was to get you here after the reunion dinner, which was where I was headed before my nephew interrupted us at the reception.”
    “But we were slow dancing at the reception — well, before you danced me down the hall to that little dark room. And you didn’t want to slow dance at the reunion.”
    “Do you remember what song we were dancing to at the wedding?”
    “No, do you?”
    “It was ‘I Can’t Help Falling In Love With You’ and I’d asked the DJ to play it at the reunion. But the plan sort of went south because you wouldn’t wait until the right song was playing.”
    “I can’t believe you remembered something like that.” She reached over and touched his hand. “But I’d say the pager going off was more to blame for the plan blowing up than my insisting we dance to the wrong song.”
    He laced his fingers through hers. “Yeah, the damn pager even fucked up Plan B.”
    “Plan B?”
    “Sunday. My goddamn pager goes off when I’m in the middle of kissing an almost-naked woman thinking my luck was holding.”
    “So last night was Plan C. I thought maybe it was because we were both, you know, happy about how well the presentation had gone. Or that we’d had too much to drink.”
    “I very carefully had only two drinks before we got to your hotel, which is hardly too much alcohol. And I’m not in the habit of bedding the nearest beautiful woman when I’ve had a good day.”
    “Not that you couldn’t if you wanted to.”
    “What’s that mean?”
    “Beth said that you were … ” She pulled her hand away and covered her mouth. “Oh, God, never mind. I think I’ve had too much wine tonight. Go back to what you were saying.”
    “No, I’m finished with my confession. Sounds like you have one to make, too.” He settled back into the couch and half-smiled. “What’d Beth say?”
    “Do I have to?”
    He nodded.
    She sighed. “All right. She said you were a person of interest, I guess would be a good description, with the women in the DA’s office and the police department.” She was twirling her wine glass by the stem, not looking him in the eye.
    “And … ?”
    “She said something about a virus.”
    That made him sit bolt upright. “Oh, for chrissake, she didn’t tell you about that.”
    “You know about the Alessandro virus?”
    “Yeah, a couple guys I work with found out about it and made sure they told me. In front of a whole lot of other guys I work with. It was fun.” His expression said otherwise.
    “She told me I looked like I had a bad case of it. Said I looked at you like you were dessert. I told her we were old friends but I don’t think she believed me. Neither did Danny, for that matter.”
    “We are old friends. Now, we’re more than that. Is that bad?”
    “No, Tony. It’s good.”
    He stood up and held out his hand. “So, now that we’ve both gotten our confessions out of the way, I’m ready to be distracted. How about dessert?”
    “I think I’ll pass, if you don’t mind. I ate too much pasta.”
    He raised an eyebrow. “I thought Beth said you looked at me … ”
    “Oh,
that
kind of dessert.”
    • • •
    Somewhere in the middle of the night she woke, unsure where she was for a few minutes until she saw Tony sleeping next to her. She tried to go back to sleep but she couldn’t get her mind to turn off. It was like having a head full of possessed hamsters running around on squeaky wheels, pestering her with questions.
    She eased her way out of bed, grabbed the first piece of clothing she found and went out to the darkened living room wearing Tony’s T-shirt. She flicked on a small lamp and looked for something to read that might quiet the damned hamsters. But