What a curious request. She thought about it for a moment, digging into her repertoire. “I can recall the plot of every Columbo episode. Just name the actor-murderer and I remember how the deed was done. Assuming you know your Columbo.” Columbo had been her dad’s favorite TV show. The man had a killer Peter Falk impression.
“I remember some of them. Mr. Spock was in one, I think.”
“Ooh, Leonard Nimoy! A particularly deadly episode with three murders. Dissolving suture, tire iron to the head, forced drug overdose.”
“Dick Van Dyke?”
“Fake-kidnaps his nagging wife than shoots her.”
“Damn, that’s quite the talent. I can’t think of any more Columbo episodes.”
She was impressed he even remembered those. Not everyone was as tapped into the seventies TV oeuvre as Kennedy. Those afternoons after school, watching reruns with her dad, were among her most cherished memories. They would hang in the den while he expounded on why Barney Miller was the most underrated sitcom ever or how the true stars of Starsky & Hutch were Antonio Fargas and the car. Benjamin Clark had opinions, kind of like Reid.
“Everyone’s got a hidden talent,” she said, putting those memories back in their box. “What’s yours?”
He frowned, or maybe it was his hurting head getting the best of him. “I’m only good at hockey.”
“That’s not true. You’re amazing with Bucky. Your vegetable chopping skills are coming along by leaps and bounds. And no one, I mean no one, can wither like you can.”
“Wither?”
“The withering look. The one that makes someone want to shrivel up and die.” Really it was an incinerate-all-panties look but she couldn’t say that.
“I should use that in the games. Wither the competition.”
Incinerate all jock straps? It could work.
She thought of something that might resonate more. “If you were a superhero, what powers would you have?”
“Telepathy.”
“Because?”
“I usually can tell what my opponents are thinking, but I’d like to know for sure. It’d give me an advantage on the ice.”
Sounded awful. “I’d hate to know what other people are thinking. You’d have to be really thick-skinned and not care that someone called you a bitch because you drove too close to her side mirror or that so-and-so you thought was your friend hates you for a reason you can’t fathom.”
His eyebrow clearly disapproved of her weakness. “I don’t care what people think of me, but I’d like to know why someone hates me. All stuff I can use.”
Of course Reid would see the benefit of that. “Okay, your turn.”
“What’s one thing that people wouldn’t believe is true about you?”
Good question, Mr. Durand. “That I have an IQ of 154.”
“Smarty pants, huh?”
Not always—witness her presence in this room—but she tested well. “Hard to believe, right?”
“Why do you think people wouldn’t believe that about you?”
“People take one look and make a call, don’t they? My hair, the way I dress, my attitude, my jobs. Those are all ways we judge people and some people might say I’m not that smart if I’m always broke and scrounging for employment.”
“There are different kinds of intelligence. The kind that gets you a well-paying job is different than the kind that has given you skills to adapt and survive. Or whatever intelligence is needed to look after animals. I don’t have that. I’m trying to learn it, but it’s a skillset I have to acquire rather than something innate like what you have.”
What a nice thing to say. She knew she had other kinds of intelligence. She’d never considered herself book smart, but she had emotional smarts and chameleon skills, advantages not always appreciated in our money-making, beauty-obsessed world.
They stayed there for a moment, drinking each other in, and she wondered if this was a good idea. Talking with Reid, even a sick Reid, was sexy.
She wanted more. “What’s your most prized possession?”
“Bucky.” No hesitation. If that didn’t get a girl’s hormones popping, then nothing would. She could make a smart-ass comment about ownership of another creature being patriarchal or colonial, or that the Buddha thought you can only own your words or actions. But she knew what he meant. He and Bucky belonged to each other.
“What about you?”
“My independence.” He maintained the stroke over her wrist, a sensuous encouragement to elaborate. It worked. She hadn’t shared this much in years. “I love that I’m not tied to any one place or feel trapped in any way. I’m a one-woman show and I make my own path.”
“But you have your grandmother.”
“She’s my closest relative, I suppose. Not by blood, but we have a close bond.” She lay alongside him, leaning up on her elbow.
“If she’s not a blood relative, how do you know her?”
“She was married to my grandfather.”
He nodded, not questioning further, though she almost wished he had. Now that she’d opened up some, she wanted to tell him about her parents, how she missed them so much the ache still throbbed in her heart all these years later. Why she felt this constant urge to move. To keep busy.
But she shouldn’t make it all about her when she was merely a guest in his home and his life. Instead she returned the conversation to him. “How long have you had these migraines?”
“On and off for years. It’s not anything serious but sometimes it knocks me out. That’s why I’m careful about my diet, my regimen. A lot of things can trigger them.”
“I should let you sleep.”
“I’ve lost my sleeping buddy. Stay a while.”
Shifting her position, she lay her head down on the pillow, facing him. Usually when they spoke on their ships-passing moments in the kitchen, she was conscious of how much taller he was, at least a foot. Meeting him at eye-level in the intimate half-dark was more comforting than she expected.
He released her wrist, but she didn’t take her hand back, not when she was this close to him. She brushed his hair from his forehead and softly stroked the side of his head.
“Does this bother you?”
“No, it’s nice.” His eyes flickered like butterfly wings. He must be trying to stay awake.
“Go to sleep, Reid.”
Thankfully, he did.
16
Kennedy awoke from a lovely dream where someone was lapping at her with a warm and wet—oh, crap! This better not be some sitcom quality deal where she found the dog licking her face.
She peeled open her eyes. Just a dream, thank God, no actual face licking. The room was dark, though a sliver of light had snuck through from the hallway, shining on the spot where Bucky would usually be. He must be off, snacking.
Her body felt lethargic, weighted, and it took her a moment to realize why.
A hand was splayed between her breasts, not favoring one or the other, just lodged in neutral cleavage territory. Reid’s hand along with Reid’s nose in her hair and Reid’s … oh, a lot more Reid. They were spooning and the big spoon was made of stainless steel.