September walked through the door of the house she shared with her fiancé, a modified 1950s rambler, and dropped her messenger bag atop her grandmother’s quilt, which was tossed on the couch. She could smell the barbecue before she entered the kitchen. Jake was on the back patio outside the sliding glass door, which was cracked open a couple of inches. He was tending to a couple of rib eyes he’d flung on the grill as soon as September had texted him that she was on her way home from work.
She lingered a moment in the kitchen while he still didn’t know she was there, her gaze skating over his lean form, the strong line of his jaw. She and Jake had been through a lot in the past year; both of them had spent time in a hospital recuperating from various injuries. When he’d asked her to marry him, September had said yes, then had suffered huge doubts about the possibility of wedded bliss . . . or wedded anything, for that matter. Her own family had its share of weirdnesses, and she’d suffered a low-grade panic attack, if there was such a thing, for months on end. But she’d come through that with a kind of what-the-hell’s-wrong-with-you moment. Jake Westerly was the only man she wanted and she was damn lucky he felt the same way about her.
So, now they were making plans for a wedding. He didn’t care when, where, or how, he just wanted it to happen.
“Hey, Nine,” he said when he saw her, a grin catching his lips. Most of the time he still called her by her nickname, the one her twin, August “Auggie” Rafferty had dubbed her with because she’d been born in the ninth month of the year . . . barely. Auggie’s birthday was August 31, while September had arrived a few minutes later, just after midnight, hence she was christened September. This was a strange quirk of their father’s, started before their births with their brother, March, and sisters July and May. September always wondered what her father would have done if they’d arrived in the same month, but Auggie always figured they’d be August and Augusta. . . . The sad part was, he was probably right.
Jake put down his barbeque tools and bounded back inside, sweeping her into a bear hug that caused September to laugh in surprise.
“You’re squeezing me to death!”
“Ah, no. We can’t have that.” He slowly released her, then laid a big smacker on her. “Got a big account today.”
Jake owned an investment business he’d toyed with selling, his desire to make people—rich people—money having waned over the years. He had a half-interest in his father’s winery—his brother, Colin, was his partner—and he’d thought about moving into the business more fully. But as soon as he decided to quit the investment world, suddenly everyone wanted him to be their financial adviser. So, he was keeping with it in the meantime, and he’d admitted to September that he had a new attitude since they’d become engaged. “I want to be married to you. Everything else is secondary.”
The hell of it was that September didn’t feel quite the same. She loved Jake, didn’t want anyone else and wanted to be married to him. That was all true. But as far as the job went, she liked being a homicide detective, and after over a year on the job she wasn’t quite the newbie she’d been. Not that Jake was asking her to quit, but he did worry about the dangers.
“Are the steaks burning?” she asked.
“Nah. Just a char. I’ll leave the salad to you. Pour yourself a glass of wine.” He indicated the open bottle of red on the counter as he headed back outside.
“It’s salad in a bag,” she said.
“Of course.” He threw her a grin.
Cooking wasn’t exactly her long suit.
She poured a small amount of a red blend they both liked, looked at the glass, then added in another healthy dose. What the hell? It was Friday and she wasn’t working tomorrow, though today had been long. She and Gretchen had changed direction at the last moment and decided to meet with Grace Myles, which hadn’t worked. Grace was apparently having a bad day and the detectives were politely, firmly turned away. They’d been on their way to meet with Bromward, but Gretchen had decided she would rather call on the phone than face the man’s cats again. Back at the station, she’d phoned the garrulous older man, who’d proceeded to hang on the phone with the just-one-more-thing line long after Gretchen’s patience could handle. September’s partner had finally just clicked off while Bromward was in midthought, and after spewing a blistering string of swear words, Gretchen had said to September, “Bromward’s yours from here on out. I’m not talking to him anymore.”
“That’s not how it works,” September said.
“Yeah, it is.”
Now, September grabbed the bag of Caesar salad out of the refrigerator, cut it open, and dumped the hunks of romaine into a bowl. Then she cut open the inner bags of shredded parmesan, croutons, and the dressing. One of the things she loved about Jake was that he could swing from the most gourmet meal to pedestrian fare without comment.
She set the bowl onto the table, scooped up her wine glass, and joined Jake outside. “Gretchen said the skeletons-in-the-closet investigation would be solved in a few days.”