Remember When

this one hit him right in the center. A man, he decided, could walk into this for the next forty or fifty years and feel just fine about it.
    Henry gave two thumps of his tail then rose to prance over and knock the mangled rope against Max's thigh.
    Tapping the spoon on the side of the pot, Laine turned and looked at him. "Have a nice nap?"
    "I did, but waking up's even better." To placate Henry, he reached down to give the rope a tug, and found himself engaged in a spirited tug-of-war.
    "Now you've done it. He can keep that up for days."
    Max wrenched the rope free, gave it a long, low toss down the hallway. Scrambling over tile then hardwood, Henry set out in mad pursuit. "You're home earlier than I expected."
    She watched him walk to her, her eyebrows raising as he maneuvered her around until her back was against the counter. He laid a hand on either side, caging her, then leaned in and went to work on her mouth.
    She started to anchor her hands on his hips, but they went limp on her. Instead she went into slow dissolve, her body shimmering under the lazy assault. Her pulse went thick; her brain sputtered.
    By the time she managed to open her eyes, he was leaning back and grinning at her.
    "Hello, Laine."
    "Hello, Max."
    Still watching her, he reached down to give the rope Henry had cheerfully returned another tug.
    "Something smells really good." He leaned down to sniff at her neck. "Besides you."
    "I thought we'd have some chicken with fettuccine in a light cream sauce."
    He glanced toward the pot, and the creamy simmering sauce. "You're not toying with me, are you?"
    "Why, yes, I am, but not about that. There's a bottle of pinot noir chilling in the fridge. Why don't you open it, pour us a glass."
    "I can do that." He backed up, went another round with Henry, won the rope and tossed it again.
    "You're actually cooking," he said as he retrieved the wine.
    "I like to cook now and then. Since it's just me most of the time, I don't bother to fuss very much.
    This is a nice change."
    "Glad I could help." He took the corkscrew she offered, studied the little silver pig mounted on the top. "You do collect them."
    "Just one of those things." She set two amber-toned wineglasses on the counter. It pleased her to see the way he switched between sommelier duties and playing with the dog. To give him a break, she squatted down to get a tin from a base cabinet.
    "Henry! Want a treat!"
    The dog deserted the rope instantly to go into a crazed display of leaping, trembling, barking.
    Max could have sworn he saw tears of desperation in the dog's eyes as Laine held up a Milk-Bone biscuit.
    "Only good dogs get treats," she said primly, and Henry plopped his butt on the floor and shuddered with the effort of control. When she gave the biscuit a toss, Henry nipped it out of the air the way a veteran right fielder snags a pop-up. He raced away with it like a thief.
    "What, you lace them with coke?"
    "His name is Henry, and he's a Milk-Bone addict. That'll keep him busy for five minutes." She pulled out a skillet. "I need to saut‚ the chicken."
    "Saut‚ the chicken." He moaned it. "Oh boy."
    "You really are easy."
    "That doesn't insult me." He waited while she got a package of chicken breasts from the refrigerator and began slicing them into strips. "Can you talk and do that?"
    "I can. I'm very skilled."
    "Cool. So, how was business?"
    She picked up the wine he'd set beside her, sipped. "Do you want to know how things went today in the world of retail, or if I saw anything suspicious?"
    "Both."
    "We did very well today, as it happens. I sold a very nice Sheraton sideboard, among other things. It didn't appear that anything in the shop, or my office, or the storeroom was disturbed-except for a little blood on the floor in the back room, which I assume is yours." She drizzled oil in the skillet, then glanced at him. "How's your head?"
    "Better."
    "Good. And I saw no suspicious characters other than Mrs. Franquist, who comes in once or twice a month to crab about my prices. So how was your day?"
    "Busy, until naptime." He filled her in while she lay the chicken strips in the heated oil, then started prepping the salad.
    "I guess there are a lot of days like that, where you go around asking a lot of questions and not really getting any answers."
    "A no is still an answer."
    "I suppose it is. Why does a nice boy from Savannah go to New York to be a private detective?"
    "First he decides to be a cop because he likes figuring things out