Four O'Clock Sizzle: An Inspector Rebecca Mayfield Mystery (The Rebecca Mayfield Mysteries Book 4) by Joanne Pence Page A

dropped it on the table. “Give Spike my steak. He’ll enjoy it more than I will.”
    “Wait,” she said. “You can’t just—”
    “Oh no? Watch me.”
    “Stop! You haven’t told me about the other bachelors yet! And I don’t want you to pay for my dinner!”
    He had no idea what she did next, because by the time she finished giving him orders, he was already out the door.
    o0o
    Richie decided to take Shay’s advice and not go back to Logan Travis’s home. Instead, he asked for a meeting at a bar owned by an old friend of his, Johnny Fazano. For one thing, he needed a stiff drink to calm him down after his fury at Rebecca. He really didn’t need her nitpicking his every move, always ready to criticize. One of these days, one happy day, he was going to meet someone who’d make him forget all about that cranky, uptight, suspicious cop. And then he’d never look back.
    What was unfortunate was that he had had glimpses of another side of her—a side he really liked. A lot. When she wasn’t going all ‘Rebecca Rulebook’ and hard-ass cop and every other walking cliché there to prove that she was every bit as tough as any male cop, she could be warm and funny and fun to be around.
    In fact, when he thought about her, about the way she handled herself, did her job, pulled herself up in the ranks of what was still very much a “man’s world,” he admired her. A lot.
    From the time he first met her on Christmas Eve when he went to homicide looking for help from his cousin’s husband but found Rebecca instead, he kept trying to walk away, and to stay away, from her. It hadn’t worked. Until now.
    Now, he’d had it.
    Sometimes he wished he’d never moved their relationship along to the next level. But at the same time, he found her too damned irresistible to keep walking away from. After they’d solved a case together—a case that had put his own mother in jeopardy—he knew it was decision time. He couldn’t get her out of his mind. Whatever was going on between them had clearly driven him mad.
    His thoughts returned to a Saturday night not long ago, and how, after he had closed up Big Caesar’s, he realized he couldn’t take what was going on between them any longer. He needed her, and more than anything physical between them, he wanted to know if she felt the same way about him. If not, he vowed he would never see her again.
    He had been heading home, but turned towards Rebecca’s apartment instead. Then, like some dummy, he’d stood out in the rain and phoned her.
    He’d been about 50% sure she’d hang up on him when he told her he was outside her apartment. Instead, she opened the door.
    He’d been a good 60% sure she wouldn’t let him whisk her out of her apartment to his car. She went with him.
    Some 70% sure she’d balk at going into his house. She didn’t complain.
    Definitely 80% sure she’d demand to be taken back home when he put his arms around her. She moved closer.
    And 90% sure she’d never welcome anything more than a chaste kiss. Instead, she made it 100% clear she was feeling exactly the way he was, and wanted the same thing.
    He wouldn’t have been surprised if she had walked out while he slept that night, but she hadn’t, and they had had such a good time together on Sunday, it still boggled his mind. They mainly stayed at his place, except for going out for lunch and taking a long walk along Ocean beach in the afternoon. For dinner, they ordered pizza and put a baseball game on the TV. He scarcely watched the game, so busy was he watching Rebecca.
    Everything had been so perfect it actually scared him. He hadn’t felt that way being with a woman since … well, not for a few years. And now …
    What a romantic idiot he’d been. If that was all it took to destroy her faith in him, the hell with her.
    He downed his whiskey and asked for another. That stupid tabloid had sent all his hopes about her straight down the crapper.
    They’d spent the next weekend together, and