Smokin' Seventeen: A Stephanie Plum Novel (Stephanie Plum Novels)

for you.” He searched around and came up with the cutting board. “I’m going to fix the lamb chops. You can peel the potatoes and cut them into slices about an eighth of an inch thick.”
    When I was almost done cutting, and he looked over my shoulder to check my progress.
    “Perfect,” he said. “It’s too bad we didn’t know each other better when we were in high school.”
    He was way too close. I could feel his breath on my neck, and the brush of his chest against my back when he leaned in.
    “You’re too close,” I said. “Remember the men with the guns?”
    He took a step back, and I cut the last slice. “Now what? Do I put them in the casserole dish?”
    “Yes, but you need to butter it first.”
    He took a stick of butter from the fridge and put it on the counter. He added butter, milk, and already-shredded Swiss cheese.
    “Butter the dish, layer the potatoes, dot with small chunks of butter, sprinkle with the shredded cheese, and add another layer,” he said.
    “Okeydokey.”
    I sprinkled the last of the cheese on the potatoes and stood back to admire my work, thinking it looked pretty darn good.
    “What’s next?” I asked him.
    He took a beat to answer. “Milk.”
    Thank goodness. For a single irrational moment I was afraid he was going to tear my clothes off. And I might have a hard time defending myself. He had height and weight on me, and he wasn’t in great shape, but he wasn’t in terrible shape either.
    He added milk to the potatoes and slid the dish into the oven. “I have the salad and lamb chops ready to go. The only thing left is the wine.”
    “What do we do with the wine?”
    “We drink it until the potatoes are done.”
    I accepted a glass of wine, and the lock tumbled on the front door. There were only two people besides me who could unlock my door. Morelli had a key. And Ranger had skills normal law-abiding citizens didn’t usually possess. I knew it was Morelli because I could hear Bob panting on the other side of the door.
    The door opened, and Bob rushed in, stopped short of Dave, and did his happy dance. Bob loved everyone. Especially people with food in their hand.
    “Hope I’m not interrupting something,” Morelli said, pulling a dog biscuit out of his pocket, tossing it into the living room to distract Bob.
    “Nope,” I told him. “Dave stopped by to make dinner. And I’m sure we have enough for you and Bob. I made scalloped potatoes almost all by myself.” I went to the oven and opened the door. “Look!”
    Morelli looked into the oven and grinned. “I love scalloped potatoes.” He wrapped an arm around me and kissed me on the temple. A big smackeroo kiss Dave couldn’t ignore. “Nice of you to help Steph with the cooking,” he said to Dave.
    This was the equivalent to Bob lifting his leg on his favorite bush, marking his territory. Morelli had me firmly plastered to his side. He took my wine for a test drive, found it lacking, and got a beer from the fridge.
    “How’s it going?” Morelli said to Dave. “I hear you’re working for your uncle.”
    “It fills in the empty spaces,” Dave said. “What’s new in your life?”
    “Murder,” Morelli said. “Someone is giving Trenton bad statistics. If this keeps up we’ll be the new murder capital.” He took a pull on his beer. “There was a home invasion and double murder in the projects last night.”
    “Robbery? Domestic violence?” I asked.
    “Don’t know. I’m not the primary.”
    Dave took his lamb chops out of the refrigerator and put them on the counter. “How were they killed?”
    “Shot.”
    “Messy,” Dave said.

THIRTY
     
    MORELLI WAS KICKED BACK on the couch, shoes off, working the channel changer. Bob was squished onto the couch on one side of Morelli, and I was on the other. The dirty dishes were in the dishwasher. The few leftovers were in the refrigerator. Dave had declined an invitation to watch a rerun of
Bowling for Dollars
and had gone his way.
    “This is the life,” Morelli said. “A fantastic home-cooked meal, and now relaxing in front of the television. And later, some romance.”
    Oh boy. More romance. And the bladder infection was back. “What do you think of Dave?”
    “He makes a mean lamb chop.”
    “Besides that.”
    “He has superior social skills. Probably was on the fasttrack professionally before he got caught up in someone’s get-rich-quick scheme.”
    Bob got up, turned around twice, and squeezed himself back into the space between