Page 64 of Playing with Fire

I really needed to hunt Quinn down and figure out why we couldn’t have gotten the preliminary documentation from a New York courthouse. Why would anyone, including the police commissioner, suggest Virginia or Ohio? “Why are we here again?”

Next time, I needed to ask more questions before I got into an SUV with anyone. How had I ended up so far from home? What had I been thinking? Oh, right. I hadn’t been thinking. I’d been too tired to think.

“Why are you asking me?”

“Because I have no idea what’s going on. I haven’t had enough coffee yet.” To demonstrate the truth of my words, I took another sip of coffee. Then another. I guzzled it down and set the empty cup in the holder. “I haven’t had enough coffee yet,” I repeated.

Snickering, Perky opened the door and untangled me from Quinn’s blanket. “You’re still tired, aren’t you? Poor girl. You’ve had a tough week.”

“I will kill you, Perky. I will smile while I do it.”

“No, you won’t. You like me too much to kill me.”

I sighed because it was true. “How much dust did you give him?”

“The last I saw him, he was smiling ear to ear. I may have heard him giggle.”

“God. You got him that high? He only needs a light dose. I’m surrounded by idiots!”

Perky laughed. “You better go rescue him, then.”

“I really will kill you, Perky, and I really will smile while I do it. Why the hell did you drive us all the way here? We could have gotten a stupid bogus license anywhere, even in New York. Damn it!”

“You were so much nicer after Chief Quinn tucked you in and you were sleeping like a little baby. Well, except for when you had that nightmare, screamed, and startled me so much I may have driven the SUV right off the road into a ditch. Fortunately, it was a shallow ditch. My SUV didn’t mind too much.”

“You drove your car off the road.”

“You slept right through it, too. Fortunately, you only screamed once and whimpered a few times before settling down.”

Great. Now everyone would be questioning my sanity. “You’d have nightmares, too, if you had the week I’ve had.”

“Gardener, I’d be dead.”

I grimaced. “While that might be true, you didn’t have to say it.”

“If you say no, he’ll cry.”

Full stop. Startled, I stared at him. If I said no? If I said no to what? To who? “What?”

“If you say no, Chief Quinn will cry.”

With one mystery solved, I tried to deduce what I might say no about. Sex? There was no way in hell I could see myself saying no to sex with him. Well, unless I was dying of the plague or something. That would make some sense. Or in public. I couldn’t imagine Quinn wanting to have sex in public. He seemed like the type to enjoy his privacy. “Say that again. Slowly, just to make certain I heard you correctly.”

“If you say no, Chief Quinn will cry.”

Did anyone think I’d say no to a marriage license so no one would bother me about being a surrogate? I’d enjoy my claim to Quinn for the next six months. “Explain it in smaller words I can understand.”

“Wow, Gardener. I used monosyllabic words. How the hell am I supposed to use smaller words? Most of them max out at three letters. You know what? Forget I said anything. I’ll just sit back and enjoy the show.”

What show? All I needed was a stupid piece of paper proving the existence of a man idiotic enough to marry me. What did Perky think was going to happen?

Crazy cops.

“I need more coffee for this.”

“Fortunately for you, Chief Quinn anticipated your special needs and bought you a second one.” Perky pointed at a cup in the front seat holders. “Take it for the road.”

Miracles could happen. I grabbed the cup and slid out of the SUV, stifling a yawn. “Thank you, coffee gods.”