He ignored her question, didn’t even give her the satisfaction of a double entendre or a sexy look. Instead he laughed. “Remy threatened to cancel, didn’t he?”
“Of course.” The September afternoon was hot. She unbuttoned her jacket, slid it down her arms, then threw it across the bag of groceries. Nick watched. Despite the sunglasses he wore, she felt his eyes on her breasts beneath her thin cotton shirt. Though that might have been Wendy’s wishful thinking. It wasn’t the late afternoon heat, it was him. He melted her from the inside out. Just like he’d done to Wendy. It was happening because of Wendy. She had to find the woman’s killer soon, very soon.
“Remy threatens cancellation every month.”
Damn. For a moment she didn’t understand his comment, then she remembered what they’d been talking about. “I assume that means your wife’s late with the payment every month? Why don’t you just send the check yourself?”
He stepped off the curb, crossed his arms, pulling the blue material of his shirt snug against his chest. “I wouldn’t want to get in the way of their fun.”
Max tried not to think about watching him work shirtless in the hot afternoon sun. God, he would have made one helluva ditch digger. Oh yes, she’d bet the farm he drove a black Ram.
She tried to keep her head. “What if Remy did cancel, and your kids were left without insurance?” Facts were facts. Cancellation wasn’t an employer option. She tested Nick anyway.
He widened his stance, all trace of a smile wiped from his lean features. “I’ll see that my kids never want for anything.”
He would. No matter what. Max pushed a little harder. “And what about your wife?”
“Ex-wife.” His lips thinned, tensed. “At least, she soon will be, when the papers are signed.”
Hands on her hips, Max leaned in. “She doesn’t say ex, soon-to-be or otherwise.”
He flashed her a humorless smile. “Jealous?”
God, he sounded like Cameron, turning her own words back on her. “Don’t make yourself look ridiculous.”
A ghost of a smile touched his lips, as if he accepted she’d scored a point. “The divorce should have happened years ago. Would have except for my kids.”
“I suppose your infidelity had nothing to do with it, huh, Nickie?”
Head cocked to one side, he seemed to study her a moment. “No one but Wendy called me that. You didn’t pick that up from her date book. You knew her, didn’t you? She told you about me.”
He moved in closer as he spoke, invaded her space, turned the heat up. Her mouth went dry.
Max was tall, but he was taller by a lot. She tipped her head back. “I never met her.”
“Liar,” he drawled. “What’s your game?”
Max shrugged. “I don’t have one.”
“Is that why you were playing patty cake with the detective the other day?”
She laughed. “Patty cake?”
“He held your hands. Not very detective-like, if you ask me.”
Humor laced his voice. Imagining his laughter did something quirky inside her chest. She adored a man who knew how to laugh. So had Wendy.
He’d just given her an opening she couldn’t pass up. “What were you doing outside Lilah’s? Waiting to have your nails done?”
“Watching you.”
Yes, yes, yes. Please. “Or watching Lilah?”
“Still think I’m a suspect, Max?”
He was so close she could see the individual whiskers of his five o’clock shadow. She raised one eyebrow. “Definitely. You could have killed Wendy to hide your affair, and then you went after Lilah to hide your first murder.”
Nothing phased him. He didn’t back off the way a man should have when he’s just been accused of homicide. “There was nothing to hide. I’m a good listener, and Wendy needed someone to talk to.”
Her stomach lurched, as if Wendy screamed at his casual denial. “Before or after you started fucking her?”
The lines at his mouth deepened as his lips tensed. “I never fucked her.”
“You were just helping her build self-esteem by showing her how attractive she was? Is that what you told your wife?”
“My ex-wife knew nothing about Wendy and me.”
“Well, she certainly knows now.”
He rocked forward. His closeness dazzled Wendy, made Max herself lose her train of thought. Maybe even her sanity.
“What do you think you know?”
Know? She didn’t know anything except that the shape of his mouth would fit hers precisely, that he smelled of aftershave, that she was sick of her own reflection in his damn glasses.
“Someone hated Wendy enough to kill her.” She took a chance despite not being able to gauge his expression behind those mirrored lenses. “And your soon-to-be ex-wife had reason to hate Wendy. Maybe even reason to kill her.”
He backed off then, instantly, features frozen. Max felt the power shift. She had the driver’s seat now, and she drove right over him. “Why is she divorcing you, Nick?”
“Who says she’s divorcing me?”