“You’re quite amazing, Rachel Lear.”
“Amazingly easy,” she said laughingly, looking down at her prunes.
“Just amazing. I don’t believe I’ve ever known anyone quite like you.”
His gaze was actually very intense, as if he was seeing her in a different light all of a sudden, and unused to that sort of acute attention, Rachel shyly glanced down, made a show of rearranging the things in her basket and turned toward the head of the aisle. “You mean anyone quite as weird,” she said with another self-conscious chuckle.
“I mean anyone as captivating.”
Damn, he was good. Rachel glanced up at him; he was just looking at her, his gray eyes holding her gaze, the warmth in them filtering down to the tips of her toes so that she felt all sparkly inside. “Do you say that to all the girls?” she asked with a smile.
“I’ve never said it before this very moment,” he said, and stroked her arm. It seemed to Rachel that in that moment, there was a weird lavender glow around them.
But then a woman turned onto the aisle with an overflowing cart, one child hanging on to the handle, and another in the baby seat, and the lavender glow disappeared.
Rachel laughed sheepishly, adjusted the heavy basket in her hands. “So what are you doing in this part of town? More local homicide investigations?” she asked with a wink.
Flynn’s cheerful countenance returned and he took the basket from her hand as they began to walk to the front of the aisle. “Actually, no. Someone threw a spanner in the works, unfortunately, so tonight I’ve been investigating another sort of crime.”
“Do tell,” Rachel said.
“Oh, I couldn’t possibly bore you with the details of it—just a bloke who nicked a few things, that’s all.”
“What things?”
“The Eiffel Tower. The Mona Lisa. And we’re not entirely certain, but we think perhaps that Staten Island ferry, of all things.”
Rachel laughed as they reached the cashier stand. “And how is it that a computer guy gets involved in all these crimes?” she asked as she began to unload the basket and put the items in front of the cashier.
“The usual way,” Flynn said with a shrug. “Hard work and perseverance.”
“You’re funny. Evasive, but funny.”
Flynn put down the pack of razors on the cashier’s conveyor and pulled out his wallet.
“And you came all the way to Mount Pleasant to buy razors? The last time I checked, it’s clear across town from your apartment.”
“What’s a few miles? I’ve heard they have spectacular razors here,” he said. “And for a bloke who’s a bit lost driving about on the wrong side of the road, it seemed the perfect place to pull in and have a look at a map.”
She was about to ask him what he was lost from, but the guy behind the stand said, “Thirty-two seventeen, lady.” She paid for the groceries, Flynn paid for his razors, and he accompanied her to the door, where he paused to pull the collar of his trench coat up around his ears. “Rather cold out tonight,” he said idly.
“Yeah,” she sighed, and glanced out the glass doors, thinking of Mr. Gregory. “It’s sort of poignant, isn’t it? That feeling of being alone is so cold anyway, but to feel it on such a frigid night . . .”
Flynn glanced down at her with a strange expression. “Are you cold, Rachel?”
The question startled her; he was looking at her very seriously, and she realized he was asking if she was lonely. “Who, me? Nah,” she said, waving a hand at him.
He nodded, looked toward the parking lot. “I can’t think of ever a time that it’s particularly good to be alone.”
She figured a man like him would hardly ever be alone, would have all sorts of hangers-on and women surrounding him. But then again, the man was constantly surprising her. And at the moment, he was looking impossibly gorgeous, and was holding the door open for her.
On the sidewalk, he pressed his lips to her cheek for a long moment, then pushed the errant curl from her eye again before letting his hand drift down her arm. “Wednesday?”
“Wednesday,” she said, giving him a mittened thumbs-up.
He winked, shoved his hands in his pocket, and strode down the sidewalk. But he paused a few feet from her, turning partway. “My condolences to Mr. Gregory.” He walked on, turned the corner, to where, she presumed, he had parked his car.
Rachel turned in the other direction, toward her car.
She stayed on with Mr. Gregory for a little while after that. They watched an episode of Trading Spaces together, while he ate an entire bowl of prunes and Rachel tried not to gag. Surprisingly, Mr. Gregory was just as hooked on the show as were she and Dagne.