Hot Spot (14 page)

Which begged the question, what was real and what was make believe about the fascinating, flame-hot Stella?

He found himself smiling despite his major break-in crisis, his brain flooding with sexually explicit, berween-the-sheets images of the hot-to-trot lady he'd spent the night with.

Maybe he should just chalk it up in the no-harm-done category and be more watchful and vigilant in the future. Put in a few more safeguards. Ramp up his security system. Take care not to fall asleep if he's entertaining Miss Comic Book at home.

On the plus side—and it was a very large plus—everything was secure, no fire walls had been breached, and
Universe X
was still safely within the circuits of his computer.

Although, no doubt, the time had come to use his safe for more than his custom-made Berettas and his first editions of
Spiderman
.

DANNY SPENT THE rest of the day putting every facet of his new game on disk, revising his security codes in the event he or she had gotten to first base, and finally setting up the security camera that had been sitting in its box for six months. Apparently even Mayberry country wasn't safe—electric gate or not. Not that there was any point in putting in a yard security system. The local police wouldn't get here in time if it were broached anyway.

During the course of the due diligence required to secure his office, he was able to distract his mind from its preferred focus on sex with Stella Scott. But the second after he shut the office door and locked it behind him, he was right back on that hamster wheel—reliving the nirvana of the previous night… wanting sex… wanting her. Despite the fact she was a prime suspect.

There was no explanation. Or at least no rational one.

He'd never obsessed over a woman before.

Never.

In an effort to distance himself from his fixation, he called his sister. She was always good for a nonstop monologue about her husband, kids, or the state of the environment. Maybe she could divert his mind from sex with Stella Scott.

Or then again, maybe she couldn't.

No more than two minutes into Libby's discussion of the new chickens her kids were raising for a 4-H project she said, "You aren't listening. What's wrong?"

"Chickens. I heard."

"What about Jenny's 4-H project?"

"Okay, I may not have listened to every word."

"My first impulse would be to say it's a woman, but with you I know better. Care to talk about it?"

Libby was three years older and uberheedful of her role as big sister. Not that he confided in her much, but she had this sixth sense. "It's nothing. Have you heard from Mom and Dad? I had a call last week from Nepal, but the reception wasn't great." His parents were trekking with some
National Geographic
tour.

"They called yesterday. They'll be in Beijing next week. You weren't home. They tried calling you."

"I was at Lumberjack Days this weekend. Lots of stuff was going on."

"Such as?"

"A friend of mine has a good-sized boat. We went down the river, swam, that kind of thing."

"Anyone fun in the party?"

"Fun?" he evasively replied, because she wasn't asking that.

"Like interesting."

She wasn't asking that, either. She was asking about women, and that was the last thing he wanted to talk about. "There were a few interesting people—a museum curator, a political activist for global warming I think, a couple developers who were doing green stuff. I mostly swam though," he lied.

"And then what?"

She was like a human lie detector. "And then nothing. I came home."

"No you didn't. You never just come home after a party. You always bring people with you."

"A few people came home, I guess."

"Anyone I know?"

"Jesus, are you writing a book?"

"I just thought you might have seen that bookstore owner I met at your party this spring—you know, the one with the store in White Bear."

Wrong bookstore owner, he thought. The one he'd brought home didn't talk about esoteric literature. She didn't like to talk at all. She just liked to screw. "The guy who had the boat came over and some friends of his and a woman who owns a comic book store, too." How was that for casual?

"A comic book store? You two must have hit it off. You've been collecting comics from the time you could read."

"She has a really good store—you know… well-stocked, comprehensive." He kept his voice bland.

"What about her? Young, old, fat, thin, married, unmarried?"

"Sort of young, not fat"—how was that for cryptic— "unmarried, I think."

"Does she have favorites like you?"

Hot sex. But his sister meant comics. "I didn't ask. She writes her own comic though, and it's not bad."

"She sounds like a match made in heaven for you, not that I'm matchmaking when I know how much you like your independence, but—"

"You always do," he grumbled.

"What's a big sister for?" she returned, undeterred in her mission. "And consider, if you don't marry until you're fifty, you'll have one foot in the grave when your kids graduate high school."

"A charming image," he drawled.

"You know what I mean."

"Yeah, yeah." This wasn't a new conversation. Libby had been talking up marriage ever since she'd married Rick ten years ago. Apparently, wedded bliss actually did exist in Sheboygan, Wisconsin.

"You can introduce me to the comic book woman in two weeks," his sister said, with altogether too much cheer. "We're coming to shop at Mall of America. And see the Ikea store and Camp Snoopy."

"Two weeks?"

"Don't sound so alarmed. I'll bring my own sheets, and the kids love your pool."

"I have sheets, okay? I just meant—it's a surprise. You usually plan months in advance."

"I'm dying to see the Ikea store. There's one in Chicago, but then you're not there. This way we can see you and the store at the same time."

"Sounds great." He sort of meant it. He liked his sister and Rick and the kids. But he was having trouble dealing with the insistent images of Stella Scott looping through his brain at the same time his sister was talking about Ikea and getting married, not to mention his libido was doing its damndest to block out everything but his insatiable craving for what he couldn't or shouldn't have.

"A little more enthusiasm if you please."

"Sorry. There was something scrolling on TV." Lie. "I'd love to see you all again. I'll get some kid food in the house. Or are you still on the no-sugar regimen?"

"I wish. That lasted about two days. The whining got so loud I had to give in."

"Good, 'cuz Count Chocula builds strong bodies and minds."

"
Plueese
. Although a man who makes a living designing video games can't be expected to act like an adult."

"What can I say? The bar's way the hell too high."

She laughed. "Okay, okay, consider my lecture over. We'll see you in two weeks."

THE STORE CLOSED EARLY ON SUNDAY. IT WAS her nod to the day of rest. Not that a handful of kids didn't always whine and moan when she rousted them out a half hour after closing time. But hey, the doors would open at nine tomorrow morning, and they could hang out here again.

She had a bunch of regulars who had more time than any kid from a normal family should. Many of them preferred her store to home. With some, it was a refuge; for others, it was just a quiet place in a noisy world. Several of them were serious about writing their own comic book; a couple kids were journaling. She had a real cross-section of teenage humanity and angst at the Hot Spot comic book store.

At times she thought she would have been better off with a degree in psychology than math. Like when Ryan Kath had threatened to kill Richie Mosbak if he didn't let him buy the last copy of
Wolverine
. Tragedy had been averted when Stella had given up her personal copy. But she'd had a little talk with Ryan after that—you know the one about anger management and no knives in her store. It turned out that Ryan had a couple hundred issues going on at home, starting with his mom's new boyfriend moving in with his three kids.

Ryan had come around and turned out to be one of her best student tutors; he was some kind of math whiz or idiot savant. She wasn't sure which, but he could do algebra formulas in his head, knew every batting average of every baseball player since dirt, and had all his comics arranged in a numerical sequence based on three squared.

So he couldn't always deal with his mom's boyfriends. Who the hell could? They came and went through a revolving door. And much as Stella liked Josie Kath for her ready smile and unending optimism, Ryan did not have a Rock of Gibraltar mother going for him.

She understood. Much as she loved her mother, she'd been raised by an unconventional woman who made garden ornaments, had tried every diet known to man, and had thrown herself body and soul into every new cause that came down the pike. If Virginia Scott wasn't painting blue cats and purple frogs, she was trying to get her husband and daughter to eat cabbage soup and little else or extolling the merits of the banana-and-peanut butter diet, not to mention her higher calling crusades to save the gorillas, timber wolves, eagles, or some obscure fish in Montana or Swaziland. Take your pick.

So Stella knew about being a rock. Someone in the family had to be. Her father was a research scientist and didn't actually relate to the real world. In a way, becoming den mother, a shoulder to cry on, and the last resort before failing math for a boatload of kids wasn't a real stretch.

She'd always been the most feet-on-the-ground stable one in her family.

THE LAST KID had meandered off. They always moved in slow motion. Shuffled, slouched, walked like they were thinking about getting where they were going in the next millennium.

She stood at the door, gazing through the window etched with the excessive curlicues of Victorian fashion. It was quiet in the store, the street outside empty of traffic, the late afternoon heat curling the leaves on the pink coneflowers lining her walk.

A white pick-up turned at the corner, and her pulse kicked into overdrive. Did Danny Rees drive a Dodge or was it a Ford? A Chevy? She racked her brain.