Heat Wave by Judith Arnold Read Free Book Online Page B

College cap, which he’d been
wearing ever since he’d gotten his acceptance to that school. But
he relied more on wit and charm than on his intelligence to achieve
his goals. A lot of people managed to get quite far on their wit
and charm, but she would rather see Matt rely on his brain instead
of his dimpled smile. His attitude toward her was often almost
flirtatious.
    Did he have a crush on her? Stuart
Kezerian’s implication about her supposed attractiveness in the
eyes of impressionable teenage boys unsettled her. She didn’t want
her students to be infatuated with her. She wanted them to learn,
to develop their minds, and—for heaven’s sake—to get crushes on
people their own age.
    What if Matt did have a crush on her,
though? What if he’d been at the town beach last Sunday? What if
he’d seen her naked breasts? His classroom behavior hadn’t changed
in the two days since that ridiculous incident. None of her
students had mentioned it, and she assumed none of them were aware
of it. Whoever had dumped ice on her back was probably a
trouble-maker, and she didn’t have trouble-makers in her classes.
At least, they didn’t make trouble around her.
    But what if…? What if some of her students
had seen her?
    Forget it, she ordered herself. What was done was done. And
thanks to Caleb Solomon, part of what was done had been undone.
Time to move on.
    Once her dinner with Caleb was done, her
debt to him settled, she would.
    ***
    Ed Nolan got off his shift at five-thirty,
earlier than expected. Naturally, he headed directly to the Faulk
Street Tavern to see Gus. He’d told her he would stop by around
six, but he doubted she’d mind if he showed up earlier than
expected.
    She would be busy. The bar always started
filling up around now, as the locals finished work and wandered in
for a drink or two. Hell, he wanted her busy. Busy meant more money
in her cash register. But he didn’t want her so busy he couldn’t
grab a kiss when she wasn’t pouring wine or mixing a margarita in
the blender.
    Entering the tavern, he searched the bar and
spotted her right away, placing a pitcher of beer and a platter of
wings on a tray for one of her waitresses. Ed struggled to remember
their names, but they were all a blur of young, energetic girls in
tight black pants, white shirts and black aprons. They reminded him
a little too much of his daughter Maeve, who was about their age
but was somewhere in California. He hadn’t seen Maeve in years. She
assured him she had a good job designing clothes or some such
thing, but who knew? She could be working as a waitress in a bar,
which wouldn’t be so bad. A hell of a lot better than pan-handling,
or turning tricks, or God knew what.
    In any case, a girl the age of his daughter
was way too young for him to notice. He was more interested in
women with a few years on them. One woman in particular.
    Turning from the waitress, Gus spotted him
and smiled. Busy or no, she seemed happy to see him.
    He sauntered to the bar in time for her to
place a Sam Adams draft in front of him. “You’re early.”
    “I decided the station house could survive
without me,” he said, leaning across the bar and touching his mouth
to hers before he took a sip of beer.
    “Slow day?”
    “Pretty much.” Bar owners might welcome busy
nights, but cops welcomed slow days. No crime. No accidents. No
vandalism or drug busts, no shoplifters or cats stuck in trees. He
settled on a stool and surveyed the room, his gaze journeying from
a booth crowded with burly guys where the waitress had delivered
the pitcher and wings to a booth with three women sipping mixed
drinks, from there to the door, to the jukebox, and up the other
side of the room.
    He spotted Caleb Solomon. Damned good
lawyer, which sometimes made Ed’s life harder. That was the way it
went: cops arrested people, and lawyers got people off. Solomon was
good at getting people off. As long as the bad guys wound up paying
for what they’d done, it was