CHAPTER FOUR—UNCORRECTED PROOF

UNCORRECTED PROOF—A pre-publication printing intended for editorial use, or occasionally to be sent out for review. Usually issued in plain colored wrappers.


We toyed with the idea of driving to New York for Book Expo that Memorial weekend but I really, really hate driving in New York. Words cannot express how much I hate driving in New York. How much do I hate driving in New York? I love driving D.C. rush hour traffic in comparison.

After great discussion, we decided to make an almost two-week vacation of it. A few days before, a few days after, the expo sandwiched between… Ray promised to feed Foot, and I knew Valerie could handle anything at the store—Evelyn had been right about her. Ducky made careful arrangements for his mother's care, and both Abby and Jimmy Palmer promised to stop by at least every other day, if not, more. We were good to go.

Our flight to Canada was uneventful. (That alone should have made me suspicious.) We spent a leisurely three days in Montreal (putting Ducky's excellent language skills and my remnants of High School French (I passed—barely) to the test) and hopped our flight to Chicago. Chicago? Yes, Chicago. For one thing, there is a medical examiner in Chi-town who's a friend of Ducky's who had been saying for years, "Let's go out if you're ever in town." Due to the vagaries only known only to the airline industry, we were paying less to go from Canada to New York via Chicago than we would a direct flight from Canada to New York. A lot less. So we opted for breakfast with Quint and Marci and a longer flight.

Ba-dum.

Ba-dum.

Ba-dum, ba-dum, ba-dum…

Cue the ominous music. Sharks circling, yet? Just wait.

Quint and Marci Desmond were friends of Ducky's back in the day when he was M.E. in Hollywood and had kept in touch over the years. They had been bugging him to visit for ages. They took us to a really off the wall place by the airport called "The Egg and I"—they only served breakfast food around the clock (perfect for 6 a.m.) and had a round-the-clock comedy show playing for thirty minutes on the hour. I can't imagine doing a comedy routine at sunrise, but the gal cracking one-liners pulled it off in spades. She was a riot.

We were back at the airport in plenty of time. Eight o'clock arrived. They announced a slight delay for our flight and I spent the time competing with the comedian from the restaurant, telling Ducky about my air travel tales of woe. Sadly… he doubted my veracity.

"Let's see. I flew from New Mexico to Maryland with screaming one year old twins sitting behind me the whole time. Every single minute. Non stop. The twins, not the flight. We got off the plane, mom shoved the kids at her husband and snarled, 'I want a divorce.'"

"Surely she wouldn't! You're joking," he laughed.

"If I'm lyin', I'm dyin'. Let's see… We were on a flight to—oh, gosh, where… Oh, yeah. We were in L.A., heading for Hawaii. It was one of those package deals, their own planes, their own condos, whole shebang. And they said we had a 'small mechanical problem.' So we sat on the tarmac at LAX. And sat. And sat. And sat. Now, the crew can work only so many hours before they're in violation of federal law, right? So we sat there and sat there—and they reached the kiss off point where either we take off or replace the cabin crew. Well, they didn't have a replacement crew—we're talking a real cheap company, Ducky. And that plane was not taking off." I leaned over to whisper, "They locked the door and pulled back the jet way."

He gasped. "Oh—please tell me you're joking!" I shook my head. "That's—that's illegal."

"Tell me about it. The cockpit revolted. They said they wouldn't endanger the passengers and wouldn't help the company put the flight crew in risk of losing their jobs so even if the plane got cleared to take off, they weren't moving. Holy crap, people were screaming, yelling, throwing things—one woman had an honest-to-god psychotic meltdown, she was on meds because she was severely claustrophobic and had a fear of crowds… and the meds wore off. She totally wigged out. That was when they finally let us out."

"I wish you had told me your unfortunate aviation history before we made our travel plans."

"Wait, wait—I haven't told you the best one—"

His favorite story was the one about the layover in a town where the airport had only two "name" airlines, both of them shuttles operated under the umbrella of the big name airlines. There were several homegrown fliers—personally, Fly By Nite sounded interesting, but the less I knew about BubbAAir/Olaf's Bait-n-Tackle/Aunt Edna's Homemade Kimchee, the better. (I swear, it's true. Kimchee. And Bubba had obviously bought an old American Airlines biplane from decades ago and just worked around the old logo. The rest of the lettering—and they did manage to cram all of it on the side of the plane—was definitely home done. A little wobbly, and some drips from a couple of letters.) The airport had three cuisines—Aunt Edna's Café (pass—I don't care if she made the best kimchee in the world, to me that's an oxymoron, anyway), McDonald's and Taco Bell. The gift shop had five magazines (thee were People, The Star and The National Enquirer) and four books. Not just four titles—four books. I ended up reading a tawdry romance from cover to cover and discovering they had changed a lot since my junior-year fancy with Harlequins back in high school. A lot. (Ducky asked if I had taken notes from the book. I punched his arm.) He actually made me laugh over my horror tales.

We weren't laughing twelve hours later. But we were still sitting at the airport.

Our 9:48 a.m. flight was delayed. The equipment needed for our flight was coming in from Cincinnati and had been late taking off. Fine. They were due in two hours. No other flights to JFK (unless we changed airlines and paid a fortune for the privilege) so we waited. The Cincinnati flight arrived… and was promptly taken off the field for repairs. (Bet that made the Cincinnati passengers feel great.) Anticipated repair time—by 2:00. Ducky called Quint; he and Marci met us in the airport for lunch.

2:00 came and went. No aircraft. Half of the passengers from our flight had already bailed for other airlines, muttering "refund" and "lawsuit" as they stomped past. Those of us who stuck it out and were polite (what the hell, Expo didn't start until the next day) got refund forms, fistfuls of travel vouchers, free drink passes and hotel comp cards. I called Ink48 and told them (in censored terms) what had happened. I grudgingly gave the okay to charge out that night's stay for the sake of keeping our reservation; come hell or high water, we'd be there at some point. At a quarter to six, Ducky shook his head. "I can't call Quint for dinner. He and Marci would never believe this. I don't believe this."

"I'm sorry, sweetie…"

"It's not your fault."

"I just want a shower. I don't care about dinner, I want a shower." As Lorraine Bracco put it in Medicine Man, 'I've been in these clothes for more than one dance.' I had an uncomfortable thought that the hand-dyed colors of my gauze blouse had transferred to my body, perhaps permanently.

The desk agent we'd become friends with overheard me. Ducky had earned her eternal gratitude earlier; he deflected a very drunk, very disorderly customer, taking him aside and telling him he was a doctor, and expressing grave concern over his health. He gave him a lot of fancy terms and slow headshakes and the ashen-faced man took off for parts unknown. "I didn't lie," he said in great innocence. "I merely told him his eyes are extremely bloodshot, his coordination is nil and his breath reeks of cheap booze. I just used language he couldn't readily translate."

So when Debbi heard me whine, she crooked her finger at us. We followed her down a hallway. "We don't tell everyone about this, but—we have an employee shower…"

Fears of misdirected luggage had prompted both of us to carry an overnight as carryon luggage. We blessed Debbi Talley and enjoyed hot, hot water and soap. I know when I emerged a half-hour later I felt more human as we waited for our incredibly delayed flight; I can only assume Ducky did, too. (He had verified that my torso didn't look like an India-print Easter egg, too. That was all he did, given the semi-public area we were in. Add sexually frustrated to my list of complaints.)

"Okay, folks, everyone who's still trying to get to New York… come on down."

Ducky and I exchanged uncomfortable looks as we shuffled with the small crowd toward the main desk. Debbi's coworker, a perky young man named Shane, held the microphone and sounded way too chipper. "Looks like y'all have two choices." (Yes, he said 'y'all.' He was pure Georgia peach, this boy.) "Now. We have a flight heading to JFK at 4 a.m. Guaranteed." There were some heavy sighs around us. "All you die-hards, we have the Marriott at our beck and call. Free short-term rooms, you can shower, change, take a nap, and we have a shuttle there and back and security will check us back through in the employee area, so no two hour wait in line. Or…" His grin grew larger. "All y'all can come home with me!" We all laughed. "No, seriously! In case it escaped your notice, Ah ahm from the beautiful city of 'lanta! And we have a flight heading to 'lanta tonight because of problems we had on that route earlier today, then it's goin' on to JFK for equipment swap out and will get there about the same time as our other flight. And Ah will be on that flight back home. You can either fly with your luggage—or meet it there."

"You want to go to the Marriott? Or beautiful 'lanta?" I asked.

"Well… if we take the Atlanta flight, we might feel as though we're accomplishing something, however infinitesimal." A couple of hours later, we dutifully trooped to the aircraft; there were only fifty people or so on the plane, and most of them disembarked in Atlanta and headed for the luggage carousels. We wandered the empty concourse for a couple of hours, then headed back to the plane.

Remember that Stephen King miniseries, where people fell asleep on a plane and woke up with everyone else… gone? This was close. There was nobody on the plane. Well, almost nobody. Pilot, copilot and navigator, one would hope. Four flight crew, ten passengers plus us. Three to one ratio meant very personalized service. And since it was now two in the morning (NY time, anyway), everyone should be asleep. (Hopefully, not the cockpit crew.)

"We're really heading to New York?" Ducky whispered.

I snuggled closer. "Better be. Expo starts this afternoon. We won't have time to play in the Big Apple until the end of the expo—except for going out at night."

He smiled wickedly. "Oh, I'm sure we'll have time to… play… in the Big Apple."

I love how he thinks.

The lights were out and almost nobody was home. It was a nice, dark cocoon in our back half of the plane; everyone else was sitting up in first class just for the thrill of sitting in first class. It was like a different country altogether. The flight attendants had fussed over us for a half hour, trying to coax us to join the others (apparently a good poker game was in the offing); we told them, in turn, that we were just fine being left alone, we wanted to nap on the flight to New York. They took the hint and left us alone.

"Hey."

"Mmh?"

"Is that your hand?" I whispered.

"It better be."

We didn't really need to whisper. With as far away as everyone else was and the laughs and hilarity from the game, we could have yelled and not raised notice. We were using our coats as blankets (who knows when those itchy blue blankets were last washed?) and had brought our own inflatable pillows (ditto for the hard lumps of foam they called pillows). Not as nice as our suite at the Ritz-Carleton in Montreal or the one waiting us at Kimpton's Ink48, but not too bad—'specially because of the company. "How many hands do you have?" I swear, he was touching me in seven places all at the same time. A talented lad, Dr. Donald Mallard is. I wriggled in my seat as he worked his hand under my shirt and caressed every inch of skin he could find.

"Such lovely breasts," he whispered. He made a soft, purring hmmmmm and his breath tickled in my ear. I shivered.

I turned and was the recipient of a hot, deep kiss that almost blasted me out of my seat. "Jeez, Ducky," I finally gasped. "You're usually so… reserved in public."

"There's a certain… thrill… to possible discovery as opposed to necking in the middle of the National Mall." He slipped an arm behind my shoulders and pulled me close for another searing kiss. He rubbed the fingers of his other hand over the seam of my jeans, the one that ran right down my crotch line.

Turned on? You bet. Boy, howdy, was I getting turned on. So was Ducky. My hands were doing their own exploring and there was a nice, hard bulge south of his belt. "Going for Mile High Club membership?" I teased.

I have never seen such a lascivious look on his face. Wish I'd had a camera. "Want to risk it, my dear?"

It had never occurred to me, to be honest. I dunno, maybe it's a Y-chromosome thing, something a guy would think of. That doesn't mean I didn't like the idea… It could be interesting. Ducky was always more interested in long, slow lovemaking; while everyone was off in first class and the flight attendants hadn't bothered us in quite a while, that didn't mean someone might not stroll back from behind the iron gray curtain. We'd have to be quick.

Hmm. "Hmm…" He kissed his way down my throat, hands holding my breasts up for quick licks and suckling kisses. It was kind of a kicky idea…

The plane made a gentle bump. Huh. It we hit turbulence, we might get a visit from an attendant or two. Better hurry… I reached for the zipper on his pants. "Let's see just how coordinated you are, Dr. Mallard."

I wriggled around until I sort of lay across the three seats, my hand slipping his erection free. Mmmmm, yum. Oh, man, I wanted him. I wanted him like crazy.

And the feeling was mutual. He all but yanked my pants down to my knees—I was surprised he took the time to undo the zipper and snap. I couldn't move very far, but by angling my hips up he was able to slide into me and, oh, damn, it felt great. His thrusts were fast, deep, and his shaft tugged my swelling clitoris with every stroke. And the gentle rock of the plane on the air currents was nice, better than the waterbed. I was gasping, whimpering even, trying to stay as quiet as possible lest we catch the attention of anyone in the forward cabin. I grabbed at his back, hard, biting his arm to keep from screaming as I literally shook with an explosive climax. It was only a few moments before he came, deep and hot, unable or unwilling to stop the groan when he did.

"Holy shit, that was good," I panted. Fast sex had never been a favorite of mine, but there's always the exception.

He was breathing hard, too. "I agree," he said, giving me a long, slow kiss. "Of course… with you it's always good."

I grinned and kissed him on the nose. "We'd better put ourselves back together before anyone joins us."

"True," he said regretfully.

Far, far too late, I had a sudden flash of panic. This was the first time we hadn't used protection. A couple of times we'd come close, suddenly realizing we didn't have an available condom. We'd always just rolled with the punches, switching to other ways of pleasuring each other. We'd never been so flagrantly disregarding of the risk—until now.

Oh, hell. We'd be okay. There's only, what, three or four days a month when a woman can get knocked up. Now, if we were on a soap opera, of course I'd get pregnant. But the odds were with us. I hoped. (They'd better be.)

Ducky kissed me, only his mouth holding me still while his hands tucked himself back away and fastened his slacks. "Welcome to the club," he murmured.

Welco— Wait. "You mean you—this isn't—"

He grinned. "I never kiss and tell."

When one of the stewardesses came back around four, we were innocently snuggled in the corner, his arm around my waist and my head on his shoulder, our clothing back where it belonged (if slightly rumpled). We told her we were just fine, thanks. Just fine. When she returned an hour later, Ducky's clothes were a little more disarranged and he had a wonderfully lazy, contented smile on his face. I probably looked smug, like the cat that swallowed the canary… or something. We decided that coffee would be lovely, thank you.

* * *

"Wow."

"Oh, my."

I wandered slowly around our suite. "Okay. Color me impressed." It was worth the cost (and deductible, to boot). It was the first hotel where the furnishings were nice enough that I wanted to steal them. The bedroom was freaking huge, the sitting room was a respectable size and from my special request, I knew the bathroom would be large, too. And after my phone call the day before, our tale of woe had inspired the manager to send up a lovely gift basket when we finally arrived: wine, cheese, specialty nuts and so forth. (It probably cost half of one room night's charge.) Ducky poked around in the basket and pulled out a box with a singular silver and lavender ribbon. He waggled it at me, grinning: Charlotte's Chocolates. "Nothing like a taste of home," I laughed.

We set to unpacking; Ducky passed me, taking his toiletries bag into the bathroom. "Oh, hullo!" I heard him exclaim in surprise and I grinned; I had kept the in-suite Jacuzzi a secret. He reemerged, smiling broadly. "Hydrotherapy. I heartily approve."

We weren't fully unpacked when there was a very soft knock at the door. It was barely 7:30; we weren't due to check in at the Expo until that afternoon so I doubted it was a friendly seller I'd met at a prior Expo, looking for a breakfast mate—and we hadn't done anything illegal or immoral (yet), so it shouldn't be security. (Do they have house dicks—ah, detectives any more? Or am I dating myself again?)

Surprise. It was the concierge, Ms. Sato.

"Miss Talmade. Your reservations." She handed me an envelope and disappeared before I could even think of scrambling for a tip. "Let's see…" I sat on the foot of the bed and opened the manila envelope.

When I had spoken with Hoshiko Sato when I had made the reservations for the hotel, I came away with little hope of getting much of anything. A good concierge is worth his or her weight in gold. (A really good one earns that kind of money in tips.) Now that I'd seen her, I knew she fit my mental image. The Ink48 concierge was not your typical NY concierge (a perfect blend of deference and aggression). She looked like a Japanese schoolgirl—plain white blouse, black skirt and jacket that could pass for a school uniform, long black hair caught in two pigtails that made me think of Abby and a soft, sweet voice and shy demeanor. Right out of central casting. I figured she would be sneered at by maître'd's and theatre managers would laugh uproariously as they slammed the phone in her ear.

I scanned the first sheet and my mouth fell open. "Honey… have you ever eaten at Per Se?"

"No… but I hear it's stunning. The chef changes the menu daily, I understand."

"You can find out for yourself. We have a 7:00 reservation tonight… followed by oh, good! Tickets for the revival of A Chorus Line. I love that show. Tenth row center, orchestra." The price being added to my room bill made my teeth ache—oh well; New York, New York, and you only live once. And I knew the price for dinner was going to be about what I paid for the latest trip to the mechanic's. But it was also a once-in-a-lifetime experience. "We also have reservations during the coming week at Tavern on the Green… Natsumi… oh, oh, Ayza!"

"What is Ayza?"

"It's a chocolate and wine bar!"

"We already have that," he said drily, pointing to the basket.

"Pooh on you." I continued to peruse the list. "And tickets for CurtainsLegally Blonde… Spring Awakening… Really good seats, too." My eyes widened. "And backstage passes to Spring Awakening. Private reception. Only for Book Expo attendees. Only for those who reserve tickets for the show that night, this wasn't even mentioned in the advance literature…! Oh… It seems one of the backers is head of a literacy foundation, this is a thank you to us book floggers."

Ducky turned back from arranging clothes in a dresser drawer. "You do get interesting perks."

"Yeah…" I reached out and grabbed his hand as he walked by, pulling him close. "But you're the best perk."

"Flatterer." I wrapped my arms around him and rubbed my cheek on his shirtfront. He has an endearing tummy curve (makes me feel better about my own excess chocolate cake poundage). He's the most comfortable person I know—and not just as a warm pillow. Comfortable in all ways. He combed through my hair and I sighed contentedly. "You want to take a nap?"

I tipped my head back and gave him a truly wicked grin. "Nap?" I slipped a finger through the gap between two buttons and brushed the back of the finger over his skin.

"Well, I had a rather… spirited flight," he said with a wry smile. "I don't know about you…"

Truth be told, I was tired. Except for a short nap on the Atlanta-NY jog (very short), we'd been up since before… I couldn't do the math. We left Canada on Monday and here it was Wednesday; a lot of hours, no matter who does the addition.

"How about… a backrub?"

"Sold." The man knows my weaknesses. (Plus he knows I'm big on reciprocation.) "But could we grab some breakfast, first?" He glanced at the overstuffed basket. "That's not breakfast. Eggs. Steak. Big steak. Hash browns. Lotsa hash browns. To—"

"That's not breakfast, that's the blue plate special for the coronary unit," he retorted.

"Do I have to wave my blood work at you again?"

"One of these days—"

"Yeah, one of these days isn't today. I'm hungry, Ducky!"

"I'm sure there's a restaurant downstairs…"

"Good. 'cause I'm about to sprinkle catsup on you and eat you for breakfast," I said, grabbing my purse. His chuckle made me look up—and, belatedly, I realized how that could be taken, given where I was sitting and he was standing. I felt my cheeks turn hot. Don't know why I still blush around him, given that we've been sleeping together for a record six months, but I do.

And he finds it cute. He leaned down and kissed me, the kind of kiss that made me consider foregoing breakfast—and lunch and dinner. "I'll remember that for later," he murmured. "Or is the Jacuzzi just for show?"

"Hell, no."

* * *

Ducky looked at the Expo as a great chance to observe a subspecies of the human race: booksellers and others in the industry. He found us fascinating. We picked up our badges and registration packets and sifted through the updated schedule; not many changes from the one I'd been emailed and had printed out. Ducky and I had highlighted the earlier version like crazy—yellow for the things he particularly wanted to see, blue for the things I didn't want to miss, and pink for the times where we had more than one thing going on at the same time. A lot of autograph sessions fell into the last category, so we did a trade off down the line.

"Now I understand why you brought walkie-talkies."

"You betcha. Evvie and I did this gig for years—as soon as you leave one session, call the other person and see if they've finished their 'assignment' and go from there."

"It sounds like a battle plan."

"Not far off."

He caught the rhythm pretty quickly. When the exhibits opened that Friday, we made a coordinated attack, making our way through the hundreds of displays, collecting books and freebies and toting them to the hotel room for packing then returning for another haul. And there were last minute additions to the autograph sessions, some which turned out to be very pleasant surprises. A friend of his from the Jeffersonian, Dr. Temperence Brennan, was signing autographs for her forthcoming book; she was delighted to see Ducky, and we made plans to go out for dinner the next night. Sneaky little bugger, all these months and he never mentioned he was best friends with one of the biggest names in the business.

Saturday of the Expo, while I was hurrying from one autograph room to another, I found Ducky standing in front of a large A-frame looking at the sign with a funny expression. It was flogging the big autograph session for that afternoon, every hot poli-thrill author around, all in one room. "I didn't know you liked political thrillers," I said. Everyone from Tom Clancy to Stephen Coonts, James Huston to Ed Gaffney was listed—even the almost-as-hard-to-get-as-Clancy Eric Van Lustbader (one of the most interesting people on the planet) was on the slate.

"Occasionally." He gave me a sideways look. "Would you like to attend?"

"I hadn't thought to—but they announced the cartoonists would be changed to tomorrow morning, so we have the time free. And we have advances from most of them up in our room. We can each bring an armload."

We grabbed a quick lunch and returned in short order, laden with packed canvas book bags (the best giveaway, by far). The line was long, but not unruly. Clancy doesn't do many appearances, so he was a big draw. We inched our way forward, chatting with the couple behind us, who owned a mystery bookstore down the street from Disneyland. By the time we got to the long table we were the best of friends.

Tom Clancy was his usual reserved self. Always very pleasant and accommodating, but he's a rather private guy. We made our way down the table, from author to author.

"Hi!" I said, slipping the next book on the table. The author, a relative newcomer, was still signing the last book for the middle-aged woman in front of me. He pushed it toward her and glanced up… and a look of pain crossed his face. I literally gasped. "Mc—"

"Mr. Gemcity." Ducky slid his advance copy of Deep Six: Rock Hollow next to mine. "What a wonderful surprise."

"Uh—yeah. Yeah." McGee was rattled beyond rattled. Please, please, don't give me away, his gaze said.

Now I knew why he'd looked so familiar all these months. I grinned at him. No, I wouldn't blow his cover. "So glad you have a second book coming out." I'd only skimmed the original Deep Six—but I was going to re-read it cover to cover. Soon. L.J. Tibbs.? Agent Tommy? Lisa? I managed not to giggle. "Third in the works?"

"Hopefully." He scrawled his name, giving me a grateful look.

"I look forward to it."

I didn't mention it until we were safely back in our room. "McGee?" I spluttered, laughing like crazy. "McGee?!! McGee writes political thrillers? I never recognized him!"

"Yes. His nom de plume—"

"Wait, wait—" I looked at the bright red cover of the proof. "Thom E.— T – I – M – O, it's an anagram, that bright boy. You didn't tell him where you were going this week, I take it?"

He looked almost affronted. "Timothy is not my social secretary."

"L.J. Tibbs? Tommy?" I giggled. "Pimmy Jalmer? Dr.—"

He silenced me with a kiss. "Watch out. I hear the good doctor is going to have a romantic entanglement in the next book."

I narrowed my eyes. I was going to have a long chat with young Timmy McGee when we returned home.

Dr. Brennan had a friend with her in New York, a colleague—a charming, good-looking man she introduced as Seeley Booth. She called him Booth, much as many people did with Gibbs, but he was fine with us calling him Seeley. He and Ducky had actually met a few times in D.C. courtesy their mutual friendship with Dr. Brennan. We clicked well over dinner and made plans to get together back in D.C. (Huh. It hit me during dinner that Ducky knew two authors—and had never said a word about either. Cagey man, my Ducky is.)

Book Expo behind us, we played around town another couple of days. And evenings.

The following Wednesday we dropped the last box with the concierge and checked our room for last minute left-behinds and I called the airline… just in case. Ducky rearranged the contents of one of his suitcases while I sat on hold. "Hi, yeah, I'm checking on flight 404 to Dulles?"

"One moment…" When the customer service rep returned to the phone, she was dripping with chipper sympathy. "I do apologize… we appear to have a delay on that flight…"

My eyes met Ducky's.

We took the train home.

(Guess what? There's a railroad club, too.)


-4-

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