But Jake made me feel better about myself than I’d ever felt. He’d given me about a million things and one of them was confidence in my appearance. He told me I was pretty. He grabbed me when no one was looking. He kissed me. He touched me. Most of the time, he made me feel like the model in the magazine.

So instead of frowning at all of the imperfections I saw in the mirror, I took a deep breath and reminded myself that my husband loved me. And he was a man. And lingerie was like catnip for a man.

I pulled on my robe and went back downstairs. I dug candles out of the cupboard and strategically set them around the main floor and then hurried back upstairs to put some in the bedroom, too.

My phone dinged and it was Jake texting me. He’d dropped Sophie at her sleepover and was fifteen minutes from home. And he was going to pick up Chinese food if that was okay with me.

Perfect, I told him.

I went back into the bathroom and teased my hair a little more. There were a couple of wiry gray hairs at my temple and I debated yanking them out. I decided against it; at the rate they were sprouting, I’d be bald in no time if I decided on that method of controlling them. I sighed at my reflection and the stubborn gray hairs and then returned to the living room. I lit the candles there and then went upstairs to light the ones I’d set up in our bedroom.

I heard the kitchen door open and the aroma of orange chicken drifted up the stairs. I untied the robe, thought about taking it off, then decided to keep it on, just untied. A little dramatic and a little sexy. I took another look in the mirror, squinting my eyes to soften my reflection.

Not bad for a harried mom and wife in her forties.

Then I went downstairs.

He was already sitting at the table, his back to the stairs, the food spread out in front of him.

And his laptop was open next to the food.

“Did the breakers trip?” he asked, without turning around. “I saw the candles. I’ll go check the box in a minute.”

“The breakers are fine,” I said, standing on the bottom step, waiting for him to turn around.

“Oh, okay,” he said. “Alright, you have to make a decision tonight.”

“A decision?”

“Do you know how easy it is to become an investigator in this state?” he asked, reaching for one of the white takeout cartons. “It’s really simple.”

“What?”

“I ran into Officer Ted at the Chinese place,” he said. “He told me you were asking about Amanda Pendleton when you ran into him today. So you need to make a decision.”

“Um, Jake?”

“Either get your license or leave it all alone,” he said, sticking a fork into a carton of rice. “And we’re going to make that decision tonight.”

“Jake?”

“I’m gonna hold you to it.”

“Jake?”

“What? And where are you?” He turned around. “The food is...whoa.”

I perched my hands on my hips. “Yeah. Whoa. While you’ve been ranting about my getting an investigator’s license, I’ve been standing here nearly naked waiting for you to turn around so I could seduce you. Because there are no kids here in this house tonight.”

“Wow,” he said, his eyes big. He swallowed hard. “Wow.”

“Yeah, wow,” I said, walking slowly toward him.

His eyes swept over me. “But...but...I’m serious. You have to make a decision. Tonight.”

“Sure,” I said, reaching his chair. “I can make a decision tonight.”

He looked me up and down again. “Where did you...get that?”

“I thought you wanted to talk about the license?” I said, pulling the robe tight around me. There wasn’t a hint of the lacy lingerie to be seen.

“Well, I didn’t know—”

“It’s fine.” I smiled at him. “We can sit down and work on this. I can read through whatever you found. It’ll probably take several hours.”

“Um...maybe...uh...I mean, we can do it later,” he stammered.

Jake was always calm and collected. Occasionally his temper flared, but most of the time, he was even-keel. Cool under pressure. I took great pride in creating a disturbance in his force.

“No, no,” I said, shaking my head. “You seem so intent on getting this done. We can just eat dinner…and read.”

He frowned, but seemed unsure as to how to handle this now. He’d clearly come home with a particular plan in mind and I’d thrown a big fat wrench in his plans. He was now caught between wanting to force me to do what he’d been on my back about and…the lingerie.

“Daisy,” he began.

“Jake,” I said, grinning at him, enjoying watching him squirm.

He frowned again, then stepped toward me. In one smooth motion, he wrapped an arm around my waist and hoisted me over his shoulder.

“Hey!” I said. I squirmed against him. “I thought we were going to do some research.”

“We are,” he said, heading for the stairs. “I’m going to research how fast that lingerie comes off of your body.”

NINETEEN

I stuck my fork in the carton of noodles. “Do you really want me to do this?”

We were back downstairs, a little sweaty and a lot more relaxed. After nearly an hour upstairs of...research...we’d realized we were starving and headed down to reheat the Chinese food Jake had brought home. I’d pulled the robe back on and Jake had changed into a pair of sweats and a T-shirt. We were huddled together on the couch, passing the cartons of food back and forth.

“I’m not sure that’s really the question,” he said, biting off a piece of orange chicken from his fork. His hair was all mussed and his cheeks had a healthy pink glow. “I think the question is, do you want to do it?”

“You’re the one pushing it.”

“But you’re the one who keeps...doing it.”

I traded him the lo mein for the chicken. “I don’t know that I keep doing it.”

He tucked his chin and stared at me. “Daisy. Seriously?”

I shrugged. “Things just happen. And I happen to be around them. It’s not my fault and it’s not like I go looking for trouble.”

“No, but once you find trouble, you tend to keep finding it until you figure out what’s causing it.” He stabbed the air with his fork. “That is the truth, whether you like it or not.”

“Hmm,” I said, digging around in the chicken, looking for the small pieces.

“So here’s my thing,” he said. He leaned back in the sofa and wound noodles around his fork. “I’ve said that if you’re going to do it, you should get paid for it. But I also think that it would protect you.”

“Protect me? From what?”

“I don’t know,” he said. “But if you were licensed, if you were an official investigator or whatever, then you could actually, like, investigate. You’d be allowed to. It wouldn’t be just sticking your nose into a situation. And if you were working for an agency or for yourself or whatever, then you’d have some liability protection.”

“Liability protection?” I asked, frowning. “What are you talking about?”

“Let’s say you were doing surveillance on someone,” he said.

“On who?”

“I have no idea. Just listen to me. But let’s say that’s what you were doing for whatever reason. And let’s say the person makes you.”

“Makes me? Makes me do what?”

Jake rolled his eyes. “‘Makes you’ – meaning, they see you spying on them. They identify you.”

“I think you’ve been watching too many spy movies.” I dug my feet under his legs and he wrapped his free hand around my knee.

“And let’s say the person doesn’t take too kindly to you watching him or her,” he said, ignoring my movie comment. “Maybe he or she accuses you of stalking or something along those lines. If you’re just a private citizen, technically, they’d be right. But if you were licensed?” He shrugged. “Then you’re justified and there’s not much they can do about it.”

I started to suggest that I doubt I’d ever do that kind of thing, but then wisely reconsidered. Over the previous few months, I’d done exactly what he was talking about. And he was right. I was lucky I hadn’t gotten in more trouble than I did. I’d been fortunate.