Earthly Delights by Kerry Greenwood Page A

with impatience. I thrust the phone into her hands and she clasped it to her bosom (such as it was) with a gesture that would have been considered overdrawn on ‘The Bold and the Beautiful’.
    ‘I might have missed a call!’ she complained, giving me an accusing look. Then she saw Daniel behind me. Her mouth opened and I knew that she was about to make a declaration as to why I had shut her out of the shop. I reminded her that she had calls waiting, closed the door, and leaned on it.
    Then I looked at Daniel and he looked at me and we started to laugh so hard that we ended up sitting on the steps, clutching each other and practically crying. Every time I started to regain some control he would make a most endearing snuffling noise and set me off again. We sat there for some time. Horatio, confronted with the essential irrationality of humans, had mounted to the parlour and was enveloped in slumber.
    ‘We’re alone,’ said Daniel huskily.
    ‘Alone at last,’ I agreed. ‘We had to resort to sitting on cold stone steps but we did it.’
    ‘So before someone else rings the doorbell, calls out fire or reports a landing of Martians on the roof garden, I am going to kiss you,’ he declared, and did.
    He was strong and tasted spicy and his mouth was softer than silk. I had to pull away to draw breath. I was close enough to notice that his eyelashes were fringed and absurdly black. Beautiful Daniel. And with all the thin gorgeous girls in the world, he was kissing me.
    And doing it damn well. Important parts of me were melting when we finally drew apart. I could feel his handprintson my back. My whole body protested when I was no longer in contact with him.
    ‘Well,’ he said pleasantly. ‘That settles that question.’
    ‘Which question? You never asked a question,’ I mumbled.
    ‘Do you kiss as well as I thought you would?’ he said. ‘Not possible to answer without empirical data. Can we stop sitting on the steps now?’
    ‘I think we should,’ I said, and led the way upstairs to the parlour, beyond which was my bedroom with a bed quite big enough for two humans and Horatio …
    But now it came to it I couldn’t. Not yet. I didn’t know enough about him, just that I wanted him. I knew that I wanted him badly, but I hadn’t had a lover since James and I split, and I had what was either a sudden failure of nerve or an attack of common sense.
    Daniel sensed that I had backed off and just sat down with me on the sofa. It is a large overstuffed sofa and very comfortable, though after a few hours one has to be extracted from it by crane. He held out his arms again.
    ‘Not rushing into anything, ketschele,’ he said quietly. ‘I haven’t had a lover since Sarah died and I don’t even know if I can remember …’
    ‘How long ago?’ I asked, snuggling back into his em-brace. His skin, under the shirt, was hot against my cheek. This man would have been in great demand in the cave during the Ice Age.
    ‘Four years. A suicide bomber took her with him. In Tel Aviv. I wasn’t there and they wouldn’t let me see her when I returned. Then I came back here. I like Australia. What about you?’
    ‘Not since James. We split and I sort of lost confidence. And I was busy. Bakers don’t keep disco hours, if I ever went to discos, which I didn’t. I’m sorry about your wife.’
    ‘I was only married a couple of months. We didn’t ever get to know each other. It would have been nice, getting to know her,’ he said.
    I didn’t reply but cuddled closer. This was the first real hug I had had since so long ago that I don’t remember. Grandma Chapman hadn’t gone in for physical affection much.
    Presently we got up and finished lunch. Then Daniel went away and I put Horatio and me to bed for the rest of the afternoon. It had been an emotional day, and emotion makes me sleepy.

 
     
     
     

CHAPTER SEVEN
     
    On Saturday morning I woke promptly at four and then did one of my favourite Saturday things. I turned