Snoops in the City (A Romantic Comedy) Read online

  He cocked a dark eyebrow. “The Tax Assessor. The guy who was hitting on you.”

  The possibility that somebody had been trying to score with her temporarily drove away her worries about the rift between Grady and their parents. She’d arrived at the party five minutes ago and hadn’t yet talked to anyone besides Grady. Wait. She’d asked the tall geeky guy with the wavy, dark hair where she could get a drink.

  “Are you talking about the stealth hunk?”

  Grady looked exasperated but nodded toward the man who’d directed her to the bar. “I’m talking about him.”

  “That is the stealth hunk.”

  “Okay. I’ll bite. What’s a stealth hunk?”

  She gave him a devilish smile. “A hunk dressed like a geek. Take off his glasses, get him out of those horrible clothes and you’ve got yourself one fine naked man.”

  “You say things like that to shock me, don’t you?”

  “Not really. Shocking you’s a bonus,” Lorelei said, laughing. She rubbed a finger against her lower lip as she stared at Wade Morrison. He’d be really yummy without clothes. “You truly think he was hitting on me?”

  “You’ve still got a lot to learn about men, Lorelei,” Grady said in that lecturing big-brother tone of his. “They always have a hidden agenda.”

  “And you think Wade Morrison’s hidden agenda is to get into my pants?”

  He cringed at her blunt language. “He’s bad news. He hits on all the girls. Breaks hearts all over the place.”

  “Is he married?”

  “I don’t think so,” Grady said, seeming disappointed he couldn’t add cheating husband to the list of Wade Morrison’s sins, “but he’s a real player.”

  “Hmmmm,” Lorelei said.

  “So you stay away from him, okay?”

  Lying to her brother violated Lorelei’s moral code. She gave him a dazzling smile and tried a bit of misdirection.

  “What's the name of the City Planning Director? With the beard, the long gray ponytail and the bald head?"

  "Larry Schlichter. Why?"

  "Isn't that him with the woman you were talking to?” she asked, nodding toward the couple. Grady’s head turned so fast she felt a breeze. “Looks to me like he’s trying to make time with her.”

  “Damn,” he muttered under his breath but not so softly she couldn’t hear. Now this was getting interesting.

  “Who is she?”

  “My date,” he said shortly.

  “Maybe you better rescue her. He’s invading her personal space. If she backs up any farther, she’ll hit a wall.”

  Grady took off without a backward glance, which freed her to head across the patio straight for the very man he’d warned her against.

  Wade Morrison had his back to her. It was, she decided, a very nice back. The material of his dress shirt, white with skinny blue pinstripes, stretched across surprisingly broad shoulders as he bent to take an hor d’oeuvre from the tray of a much-shorter waiter. Too bad the shirt was so ugly.

  She tapped him on the shoulder. He turned, his expression puzzled but not especially welcoming. His jaw worked while he finished chewing the hor d’oeuvre, which must have been a miniature egg roll considering he held another one.

  “Couldn’t you find the bar?” he asked with raised eyebrows. His wire-rimmed glasses slipped, and he pushed them back up his long, straight nose.

  With his regular features and long, aesthetic face, he really was a cutie. The best part was he didn’t seem to know it.

  His hair was such a dark brown that it was nearly black, and a lock of it hung nearly to his eyes. He could have dressed to accentuate his tall, lean frame but his pants were baggy and his shirt a half-size too big. And he had on, ugh, a tie.

  “I could have found the bar,” she said, smiling straight into pretty brown eyes covered by glasses instead of accentuated by contacts, “but I see something I’d rather have instead of a drink.”

  Wade turned his head as though checking if someone stood behind him. The only thing in sight was the pier that led to the mayor's luxury motorboat.

  His eyes narrowed suspiciously when they returned to her. “How old are you?”

  Lorelei laughed. He really was too cute. “Twenty-one.”

  “I’m thirty.”

  “You’re past the age of consent." She made her brows dance. "Just like me.”

  His Adam’s apple bobbed as he swallowed. Was this for real? Had she actually made him nervous? The notion charmed her, and she silently thanked her brother for pointing Wade Morrison out in the crowd. Grady had his information wrong about this guy being a player, but Wade definitely merited a second look. And maybe many more.

  He cleared his throat. “You’re making a mistake.”

  “No mistake.” She took a step closer, and he stepped back. Good thing she hadn’t touched him. He might take a running leap into the Intracoastal. “I like you.”

  “You don’t know me.”

  “I’d like to get to know you,” she said. “I’m Lorelei Palmer. What do you say we leave the party and go somewhere more private?”

  His head shook back and forth so fast his features blurred. The eggroll in his hand plopped onto the tile at his feet. “No.”

  “Relax,” Lorelei said. “I didn’t mean we should go somewhere to have sex. I meant somewhere to talk. I promise I won’t ravish you.”

  At the mention of sex, his eyes took a quick dip down her body. Was that a sheen of perspiration on his upper lip? Good, she thought smugly.

  He picked up the eggroll with a cocktail napkin and shoved his hand behind his back. She hoped it was because he didn’t trust himself not to grab her.

  “I can’t,” he said.

  She smiled, enjoying his discomfort. “Why not?”

  “Because. . . ” He looked about, almost wildly. “Because I have social obligations. I see one over there. Excuse me.”

  And then he was gone, leaving Lorelei to stare after the beautiful retreating back encased in the ugly shirt. She put her hands on her hips. Well, damn.

  She shrugged. Wade Morrison was too skittish to withstand another approach from her tonight. She’d leave him alone but not for long.

  Because whatever Lorelei wanted, Lorelei got.

  Somewhere between her brother’s warning and Wade’s delightfully disconcerted reaction to her, she’d decided she wanted Wade Morrison.

  CHAPT ER EIGHT

  Telling Grady Palmer she'd been following him because she thought he was hot was a stroke of brilliance.

  Tori took in the wide set of his shoulders, the proud lift of his chin and the interesting cast of his profile and congratulated herself on her quick thinking.

  He was between the punch bowl and the far wall, immersed in conversation with the overweight man he'd partnered at the golf tournament. Pete Aiken, the City Clerk who was never without a cigarette. Tori knew enough not to let her own head get turned by Grady but that didn't change one irrefutable fact.

  Grady Palmer was one hot hunk.

  “Let me see if I’ve got this straight. You saw Grady and, zap, just like that you had to have him?”

  Tori reluctantly focused on the woman asking the question. Putting herself in position to be grilled by the hunky subject's sister had not been brilliant.

  Lorelei Palmer popped the olive from the end of her martini straw into her mouth, chewing it with obvious pleasure as she waited for an answer.

  Tori cast another glance at Grady, fruitlessly wishing he'd rescue her from this predicament. His full attention was on Pete Aiken.

  “You can’t stop looking at him, can you?” Lorelei asked.

  Tori’s head snapped back around.

  “Yes, I can,” she retorted, then frowned. How close were Grady and Lorelei? How much of this conversation would she report back to him?

  “I mean, no I can’t,” she said. “He does it for me.”

  Amusement filled Lorelei’s face. Her makeup was expensive, maybe even top-of-the-line Lazenby pr
oducts, but she’d applied it with such a heavy touch it was difficult to tell what she looked like under it. Her eye makeup was wrong, too. She should have used a deep blue to make her sky-blue eyes pop, but she’d gone with a light shade. Still, her eyes glowed with intelligence.

  “Of course he does it for you,” Lorelei said smugly. “A blind woman could see that.”

  “How so?” Tori asked, even though she had a premonition she shouldn’t.

  “Sense of smell,” Lorelei said. “The pheromones coming off you two are aromatic.”

  When Lorelei threw back her head and giggled, the sound was so lighthearted that Tori had to like her. Not that Lorelei was right.

  Yes, Tori kept looking at Grady. But not because he was the most attractive man at the party or even because the man could fill out a pair of khakis.

  She needed to figure out what was going on between him and Pete Aiken. She'd clearly seen Pete strike the golf ball that had nearly beaned Mayor Black yet Grady claimed responsibility. Why?

  And why were the two men whispering, their heads close enough together that nobody could overhear? Grady didn’t seem happy about the discussion. His brow was knotted and his hand gestures seemed angry.

  What would a real private detective make of the situation? She frowned. She kept forgetting she was a real PI, entrusted with a case and determined to succeed.

  It seemed to her that she needed to investigate the people with whom Grady associated to find out what sort of man he was. Pete Aiken would be a good place to start.

  “Grady hasn’t had a girlfriend in ages," Lorelei continued, "but don’t worry that there’s something funny about him. He dated a couple of my friends in high school and they assured me he has all the normal male urges. Not that I particularly wanted to hear about it. But you know how a group of girls can be when they start talking about sex. Sometimes they forget who’s related to who.”

  Sex? Tori worked to keep her expression impassive but inside she frowned. She didn’t want to think about Grady and sex.

  “Then why hasn’t he had a girlfriend lately?” Tori asked like a good PI should.

  “The last one lied about being pregnant so he'd propose, but I don't think that's it. It's not like he fell for it or anything. I think it's because he's a frigging workaholic." Lorelei threw up one of her hands. Aside from her blue eyes, she didn't look like her brother but Tori recognized the gesture as one of Grady's. “With the schedule he keeps, he doesn’t have time for anything. Except nagging me, of course.”

  “What does he nag you about?”

  “You name it, he’s nagged about it. It’s worse since I went to work for him. He has this thing about punctuality and responsibility.”

  “That’s understandable,” Tori said, then backtracked when Lorelei made a face. “I mean, considering he is your boss.”

  “Yeah, but he doesn’t have to be so anal about it. I mean, what’s the big deal if I sleep in every now and then after partying late? I expect you to get the Duke to lighten up.”

  The Duke? Tori wondered at the nickname but a more pressing agenda was setting Lorelei straight. "I can't get Grady to do anything he doesn't want to do."

  Lorelei let out a bark of laughter, which still sounded feminine. “You must be kidding. We’re female. We have the power.”

  “I’m not so sure about that,” Tori hedged.

  “I am. See that tall guy over there in the awful shirt?”

  She indicated a dark-haired man leaning against a far wall, letting the party pass him by. Because he’d been part of Grady’s foursome at the golf tournament, Tori had made it her business to find out his name. Wade something or other.

  “I see him." Tori noticed he kept glancing their way for a couple seconds at a time, as though he couldn’t help himself.

  “Watch this,” Lorelei said.

  She puckered her lipstick-caked mouth – Tori would bet money the shade was Lazenby’s Scarlet Woman – before touching two fingertips to her lips and blowing him a kiss.

  Wade had been in the process of bringing a drink to his lips. He tipped the glass but its contents missed his mouth and dribbled down the front of his shirt.

  He looked down at himself, set the drink on the nearest flat surface and disappeared. Probably in search of a towel.

  “See,” Lorelei said smugly.

  Tori couldn’t help but laugh.

  “Now you try it with Grady," she suggested with an impish grin.

  Tori shook her head. "I couldn't."

  "Sure, you can. He respects people who are upfront about what they want and need. Go ahead. Blow him a kiss. Let him know you want to get busy with him tonight."

  Lorelei made the declaration matter of factly, as though it were a given that Tori wanted her brother in bed.

  The possibility that Grady had reached the same conclusion hit Tori like a lightning bolt.

  Could he really believe she wanted to sleep with him just because she'd admitted to following him all over town because she thought he was hot?

  She closed her eyes.

  Of course he could.

  Her gaze zoomed to him, and her mouth went dry at the virile picture he made. She needed to get to know a man before she slept with him. Fear that he'd discover she had him under investigation didn't constitute a strong enough reason.

  As she watched, Grady's body went rigid. He squared his shoulders and threw up his hands, alerting her that he hadn't liked what Pete said.

  "He looks busy," Tori said, relieved to have an excuse not to blow him kisses.

  "Yeah, he does," Lorelei agreed. "Although I can't imagine why he's letting Pete Aiken bend his ear. The air over there is positively putrid. That man smokes so much somebody should hook him to the end of a train. I swear, it boggles my mind, the people Grady's been hanging out with lately."

  "Is that right?" Tori muttered, her attention still on Grady. His head bobbed as he directed a few more choice words at Pete before heading toward her and Lorelei with long, purposeful strides.

  “Speak of the devil," Lorelei said. "Hey, Grady, we were just talking about you. There’s so much Tori hasn’t told me yet.”

  “She'll have to take a raincheck," Grady said, taking firm hold of Tori’s arm. "We've got to be going."

  "It's not even ten o'clock," Lorelei protested.

  "I know.” Grade slid Tori a long look. "But we want to be alone."

  Tori's pulse did a mad dance and her stomach pitched toward the floor. Her moment of reckoning had come.

  So much for her brilliant strategy.

  ***

  TORI FREED HERSELF of Grady’s arm when they reached the covered walkway. She tried to disappear into the night, but he matched her brisk pace.

  She needed to think of a way to bluff herself out of this one. Quick. But how could she reject the man she was supposedly hot for?

  She’d almost reached her Volkswagen when she heard his silky voice. “I thought we could go somewhere more private.”

  Fighting an inclination to jump into the car and drive away, she bravely turned around. Moonlight cast a soft glow on his strong, ultra-masculine face, and her heart beat a quick tattoo.

  She nervously licked her lips, watched his eyes dip and nearly swallowed her tongue. Bad move. Lip licking would not convince him she didn't yearn to go to bed with him.

  "It's been a long day for you, with the golf tournament and all," she said. "I’d understand if you want to call it a night.”

  "I'm not tired," he said.

  The heat of Grady's body seemed to wrap around her, like a wool blanket on a chilly night. Even though Pete Aiken had all but blown smoke in Grady’s face as they talked inside the party, the scent didn't cling to him. His eyelids grew heavy, making her think of bedrooms and satin sheets.

  A pulse beat deep inside her body as she imagined the things they could do on those sheets. Oh, dear. Why couldn't Ms. M want an ugly man investigated? Then the too-hot-to-handle cover story wouldn't have occurred to her, and she would
n't be in this predicament.

  "In fact,” he added, “I'm feeling more wide awake by the moment."

  His eyes, which looked more violet than blue in the darkness, held a promise of pleasure. She hadn't gone to bed with a man in the six months she'd lived in Seahaven, and her body suddenly craved what it had been missing.

  Hey, wait a minute!, her brain screamed. Grady Palmer had it going on in the sex-appeal department, but tangling with him was strictly taboo. Her job was to dig up dirt on him. Under no circumstances could she sleep with him.

  "Why don't we—," he began.

  "I can't," she cried. "I mean, we can't. Because I'm not going home."

  He frowned. "Where are you going?"

  Where could she be headed so late at night? Tori looked away from the suspicion written on his face and tried to come up with a feasible explanation.

  The night wasn't especially bright, with cloud cover obscuring the moon, but Mayor Black's outside lights gave off enough voltage for Tori to make out some of the surroundings.

  Her gaze fell on the garish orange-and-black lettering on the window sticker of the BMW parked in front of her Volkswagen. That's it, she thought.

  "I'm going to Grim Tales from the Reaper," she said, reading from the window sticker.

  "What's that?"

  She squinted, unsuccessfully trying to make out the window sticker's small print. Time to improvise.

  "It's a play. A musical sci-fi spoof. Dancing. Singing. Screaming in horror."

  He ran a hand through his hair. "I didn't think plays started this late at night."

  "Not in Seahaven, they don't. But Grim Tales is showing in Miami Beach. At midnight."

  "Why midnight?"

  "It's a cult thing. Following in the footsteps of the Rocky Horror Picture Show. The midnight showing's part of its allure."

  "Sounds interesting," he said, although she doubted he thought so. "Mind if I come along?"

  "You can't," she quickly interjected. "It's sold out, and you don't have a ticket. My friends and I bought them way in advance. Oh, my gosh. What time is it?"

  He checked his watch. "A quarter past ten."

  "I was supposed to pick up my friends fifteen minutes ago." She remotely unlocked the driver's-side door of her Volkswagen and scooted around the vehicle. "Sorry, but I've got to go."