My Only Vice

“Yep,” Ed said with complete confidence, running a hand over his graying crew cut.

Sam inhaled a deep breath and released it slowly. Only when he was certain he could continue with a straight face did he do so. “And what leads you to this conclusion, Ed?”

“Well, it makes perfect sense, doesn’t it?” the other man countered. “The drug traffic on campus started not long after she moved here. She owns a flower shop, for God’s sake, so she must know all about plants and how to grow them illicitly. Kids go into her shop on a regular basis but rarely come out with flowers or plants. At least none that I can see.”

Sam eyed the other man levelly, not much liking what he was hearing. “Are you telling me you’ve been staking out Rosie’s shop?”

“Not at all,” Ed assured him in a way that was in no way reassuring. “I eat lunch in the square when the weather’s nice, and I’ve just happened to notice that lunch hour is often a pretty busy time for Kabloom. Only the kids that go in there don’t seem to be coming out with anything.”

“Maybe they’re ordering flowers to be delivered,” Sam suggested.

“Maybe,” Ed conceded. “But I doubt it.”

“Maybe Rosie’s just popular with the college crowd,” Sam further posited. “She’s not that much older than they are. Maybe she’s just made a lot of friends since moving to town.”

“Oh, she’s popular, all right,” Ed agreed readily. “And she’s made lots of friends. Because she’s supplying them with drugs.”

Sam uncrossed his legs and leaned forward, propping his elbows on his knees. This really had to stop. If Sam didn’t dissuade Ed from his belief in Rosie’s guilt, he could potentially start skirting harassment behavior. Maybe even stalking behavior. Ed did seem to have one of those borderline personalities. Of course, Sam thought further, just about everyone in Northaven was at least a little surreal.

“Look, Ed,” he began, “I appreciate all the hours you’ve put in on this thing, but—”

Ed started talking again before Sam had a chance to finish. “And then there’s the fact that no record of Rosie Bliss exists anywhere in the entire United States.”

Okay, that got Sam’s attention. Not so much the part about there being no evidence of Rosie Bliss’s existence, but that Ed had taken it upon himself to look into Rosie’s background and had possibly violated police procedure—not to mention Rosie’s basic human rights—to do it.

“Ed, seeing as how you’re head of campus security,” Sam said cautiously, “I’m not sure it’s within your jurisdiction to run a background check on a Northaven citizen.”

Ed seemed in no way perturbed by Sam’s suggestion that he may have overstepped the bounds of his position. On the contrary, looking quite calm and complacent, he turned around to face his computer, typed a few keys and then moved out of the way. “Switchboard-dot-com,” he said as his browser opened a page on the Internet. “It’s a matter of public record for any private citizen who might be interested in looking.”

Sam duly noted the other man’s emphasis on the phrase that indicated he hadn’t been snooping on Rosie’s private life while he was on the clock. Which, it went without saying, was a huge reassurance to Sam. Not.

“No Rosie Blisses are listed in the entire United States,” Ed continued. “Not even in Northaven.”

“Ed,” Sam said patiently, “Switchboard-dot-com is an online phone directory. If someone has an unlisted number, it won’t show up there. Obviously, Rosie’s kept her number unlisted, which is something a lot of women who live alone choose to do for the sake of security.”

Ed blinked at him, looking a little nonplussed now. But all he said in reply was, “Oh.”

“Besides, Rosie’s probably a nickname,” Sam pointed out. “Try Rose Bliss this time.” And he tried not to think about how he was just encouraging Ed. Okay, so maybe he was interested in Rosie, too. Just in a non-criminal way. Except for the fact that the way she made him feel sexually was actually pretty criminal.

Ed turned back to the computer and entered the altered information, and this time more than a dozen names appeared.

“See there?” Sam said.

“There’s not one listed for Northaven,” Ed pointed out, though with considerably less flair this time.

“Like I said, Ed. Unlisted.”

Sam thought the other man would just let it go at that, and started to rise to make his way out. But he halted when Ed reached for the gold-tone badge pinned to his blue uniform shirt and unpinned it, then unhitched the gun on his belt and set it on the desk.

“Oh, now, Ed, there’s no reason to go to that extreme,” Sam hastily reassured him, taking his seat once more. “You don’t have to resign over something like this. It’s no big deal, really. You and I can just keep your investigation of Rosie Bliss that may or may not be a violation of police procedure,” he inserted meaningfully, since it never hurt to emphasize a reminder like that, “between ourselves. No one else has to know. Now put your badge and gun back where they belong.”

Ed looked confused for a minute, then when he seemed to understand what Sam had said he looked shocked. “Resign?” he echoed indignantly. “I’m not resigning. I’m taking a break. As of this moment, I’m a private citizen, off the clock.” He pointed to his watch. “It’s lunch hour. Man’s gotta eat.” And with that, he pulled a paper sack out of the side desk drawer and unwrapped a sandwich, chips and can of soda.

Feeling a little confused himself now, Sam nevertheless said, “Well, then, I’ll be off.” Though he still wasn’t confident Ed had let the matter of Rosie Bliss go.

That was only reinforced when Ed said, “And maybe while I’m having lunch, I’ll just do a little surfing on the ’Net. I like to surf the ’Net to search for things. Search for people. You never know what’ll turn up. You ever surf the ’Net, Sam?”

Sam closed his eyes and counted slowly to ten. However, it was less because he was trying to manage his impatience with Ed and more because he was trying not to think about, ah, surfing the ’Net of someone whose net he very much wanted to, ah, surf. In fact, he was probably thinking about, ah, surfing the net of the same person Ed wanted to surf the ’Net for. Just, you know, not in any Internet sense of the word.

“Ed…” he began wearily.

But Ed had turned around to the computer again, and was punching more keys. This time, the Web site that popped up on the screen was for an online private investigative firm called WeFindEm.com. In big red letters at the top, it said, When You Can’t Find ’Em, We Can! And We Can Find Out Things About ’Em You Never Knew! In A Matter Of Minutes! In smaller letters, it said how much it would cost someone to have WeFindEm.com do just that. Very little, to Sam’s way of thinking. Amazing how people’s lives and secrets could be purchased so reasonably on the Internet.

“So since I’m on my lunch hour,” Ed said, “and since I’m not, technically, in uniform, I’m visiting this site as a private citizen. Which means I’m not violating police procedure.”

Maybe, Sam thought. It was a blurry line Ed was walking. Of course, it really didn’t matter, since the idea of Rosie Bliss being a drug pusher was still laughable, so any information Ed may uncover about her—or even purchase about her—was beside the point. If it was even reliable. Were those online investigators monitored? Hell, were they even licensed? Who knew what Ed would get for his $49.99? Other than the shaft? $99.99 if he wanted Rosie’s criminal records along with the shaft.

“Ed,” Sam began again.

He chose his words carefully, reminded himself to be gentle. It was common knowledge in Northaven that Ed Dinwiddie’s dream in life was to make a major bust that would gain him national acclaim. It was also common knowledge in Northaven that that wasn’t likely as long as he was head of security at the college. Hell, Ed being Ed, that wasn’t likely to happen even if he found a job with a metropolitan police department. Any force in their right minds—assuming they lost their minds long enough to hire Ed in the first place—would assign him to desk duty. Preferably in the fund-raising department where the most damage he could do would be to the decorating committee of the Policeman’s Ball.

“This’ll just take a few minutes,” Ed said as he turned to the computer, pulling his wallet out of his back pocket as he did.

“Ed,” Sam tried again.

But Ed started humming “Stairway to Heaven”—loudly—interspersing it with admonitions like, “I can’t hear you. I’m humming ‘Stairway to Heaven.’ La la la la la. I can’t hear you. Buying…the stair-way…to heaven. La la la.”

So Sam had no choice but to give up and accept the inevitable. The inevitable being that Ed wasn’t going to let this go until Sam had had a look at the report with him. Which actually might not be such a bad thing. Because once that report came through and showed that Rosie Bliss wasn’t the hardened criminal Ed was certain she was, he’d have no choice but to abandon his conviction and leave Rosie alone.

WeFindEm.com was as good as their word, and by the time Ed finished his lunch—and a few more fractured Led Zeppelin numbers—the computer was telling him he had mail. The report was attached, and Ed immediately printed up two copies, one for himself, and one for Sam, who accepted it grudgingly and gave it a perfunctory look.

The look became less perfunctory, however, as the information became more inculpatory. Because if WeFindEm.com was right, Rosie Bliss hadn’t existed anywhere in the entire United States before she moved to Northaven.

“There you go,” Ed said triumphantly, having obviously read to the end as Sam had. “No evidence of Rosie Bliss’s existence prior to her having moved here two years ago. No birth records, no work records, no addresses, no licenses for anything, nothing. She doesn’t show up anywhere until she moved here.” He glanced up at Sam, looking even more triumphant than he sounded. “Now how do you think she’s made her way as an adult without having a bank account, owning property or applying for a job? The first time her name shows up as having any of those things, it’s here in Northaven.” He pointed to the investigative report before adding, “And look at this. She doesn’t even have a mortgage on Kabloom. When she bought it two years ago, she paid for it in full, to the tune of a hundred and fifty-eight thousand dollars. Cash.”

“That doesn’t make her a criminal, Ed,” Sam pointed out. But even he was starting to feel a little niggle of suspicion at the back of his brain. What Ed had discovered about Rosie was a little odd.

“Maybe not,” the other man conceded with clear reluctance. He pointed to the investigative report. “But this sure isn’t the report of a person who has nothing to hide.”

“Maybe she’s an heiress,” Sam said. Not that he believed it for a minute. The last thing Rosie acted or seemed like was a person from a monied, privileged background. “She never had to work or live anywhere other than with Mommy and Daddy Warbucks, who took care of everything for her.”

“That still doesn’t explain why she doesn’t have any birth records,” Ed said. “Or why she never turned up anywhere before now.”

Sam sighed heavily. As much as he hated to admit it, the information in the report, if accurate, certainly roused his curiosity. It was odd that there was no record of Rosie’s existence anywhere prior to her coming to Northaven. But it certainly didn’t mean she was selling drugs. Or that she was committing any crimes, for that matter. There was still enough of the Boston vice cop lingering within him to think that maybe, just maybe, she deserved another look.

Maybe he should verify the information from WeFindEm.com himself, if for no other reason than to make sure the Web site wasn’t peddling erroneous background checks to people like Ed who might use them to feed their erroneous assumptions. There was a good chance WeFindEm.com had made a mistake in reporting Rosie’s vital statistics. And Rosie deserved to have any misinformation about herself that was floating around out there erased. She was part of what was good and decent in Northaven. She was part of what needed protecting. Sam wouldn’t be doing his job if he just let this thing go as it stood.

And damned if that wasn’t the finest bit of rationalizing he’d ever concocted for sticking his nose into someplace where it didn’t belong.

He gazed at Ed levelly as he folded the report in half, then quarters, and tucked it into his jacket pocket. “All right, Ed. I’ll look into it. Just promise me that, from here on out, you’ll stay out of it.”

“Until you need me to coordinate on an investigation,” the other man said.

Sam nodded reluctantly. “All right.”

With any luck at all, though, it would never get that far.

3

THE MORNING FOLLOWING her sexual encounter of the baguette kind with Sam in Alice’s studio, Rosie was in her not-yet-open flower shop, still thinking about him. In fact, she hadn’t really stopped thinking about him during the past twenty-four hours. He might have drifted from her conscious into her subconscious from time to time—something she’d realized when she sat down to eat her dinner of bagel and Polish sausage, which she’d for sure never fixed for dinner before—but he’d always been present in her brain in some form. And his form was usually naked and sweaty when he’d been present in her brain. And he hadn’t been present in just her brain, but he’d also been present in her heart. And also a couple of other body parts—at least, figuratively speaking—that she’d as soon not dwell on right now.

She sighed and brushed a hand down the front of her embroidered, dark green peasant shirt and faded blue jeans to dislodge a few remnants of dirt, but mostly all she dislodged was the shirt—over one shoulder, something it had a habit of doing thanks to its deeply scooped neckline. The spilled dirt was another by-product of thoughts about Sam, since being preoccupied was what Rosie had been doing when she pulled a big bag of potting soil off a shelf without realizing it was open—until she’d dumped a good bit of it down the front of her clothes. Pulling her shirttail from her jeans, she shook the rest of the dirt out, not bothering to tuck the garment in again when she was done.

Oh, hang it. She wouldn’t be opening for another two hours, so she had time to run to her apartment upstairs and change, once she had everything in the store set to go. All that was left to do—other than sweeping up what was left of the dirt—was to brew up and sample a new aphrodisiac tea she had blended for a client.

And, it went without saying, to think about Sam.

What was weird was that, as Rosie swept, she found herself thinking about him less in the hot, naked sex sense and more in the quiet, candlelit dinner sense. In fact, she found herself pondering the pros and cons of asking him out. Loaf of French bread aside, there had just been something about the way he’d looked at her in Alice’s studio yesterday that made her think maybe, possibly, he felt steam ballooning around them, too, but was just trying to pretend he didn’t.

Though why he would pretend something like that if he was feeling the steam was a mystery. Rosie thought she’d made clear her interest in him a long time ago. Why would a man deliberately avoid a woman who was interested in him and capable of putting a loaf of French bread in his pocket? That didn’t make any sense.

Okay, so that was one con about asking him out—even if he did like her, he still might turn her down on account of that mysterious pretending the steam didn’t exist thing. Pro, however, she was pretty sure he did like her. Con, on the other hand, if he turned her down, things between them might end up being even more awkward than they already were, and it might make for discomfort whenever their paths crossed again. And Northaven being a small town, their paths did cross fairly regularly.

Another con was that, since gossip was a popular pastime in Northaven, everyone in town would hear about the incident, and then everyone would know Rosie was jonesing for Sam. Not that she’d ever been bothered by gossip, but having it known publicly that she had tried unsuccessfully to enter the dating arena, everyone in town would suddenly want to fix her up with whatever single man they could find. Nephews. Cousins. Plumbers. Accountants. Plumbers’ cousins. Plumbers’ cousins’ nephews. Plumbers’ cousins’ nephews’ accountants.

In a word, oog.

Putting aside the cons, since they seemed to be piling up, Rosie considered the pros instead. Pro, if Sam agreed to go out with her, there might be some smokin’ sex at the end of the evening.

Well, there you go, she thought. Pros win, hands down. Next time she saw Sam, she’d figure out some way to work an invitation to dinner or a movie—or, you know, smokin’ sex—into the conversation.

When she finished sweeping, Rosie brewed up a batch of her new aphrodisiac tea. For convenience’s sake, she used the teapot in the front of the shop she always kept filled with regular herbal tea for her customers, so that they could help themselves as they browsed or placed their orders. As she waited for the tea to steep, she pushed all thoughts of Sam out of her brain. It was essential that she not be thinking about him when she drank the tea, to ensure it worked the way it was supposed to. Thinking about Sam just naturally turned her on. He was a walking, talking aphrodisiac unto himself.

After removing the muslin pouch full of herbs from the infusion, Rosie squeezed out the last few drops and set the bag aside. Then she filled one of an assortment of earthenware mugs on the shelf beside the teapot and lifted it to her nose, inhaling deeply and smiling at the hint of cinnamon she’d added this time to give the added benefit of freshening breath. After blowing gently on the concoction, she took an experimental sip.

The taste was better than the batch she’d mixed up yesterday, thanks to the cinnamon, and she couldn’t taste the kava kava now at all. But reducing the amount of kava kava might have also weakened the power of the recipe, so she’d doubled up on the damiana this time. Still, she knew she’d have to finish the entire cup and wait anywhere from fifteen to thirty minutes before she could be certain of its full effect.

She was consuming the last swallow when the bell on the front door announced the arrival of a customer, even though the store’s Open-Closed sign was flipped over to the Closed position, and the hours clearly printed on the window indicated opening was nearly ninety minutes away. Stifling her irritation, Rosie turned around to politely tell the newcomer just that—

And saw Sam Maguire standing framed in the doorway, his hands hooked loosely on his hips.

The door swung closed behind him, but he took a step forward and landed in a pool of golden, early-morning sun that filtered through the window beside him. The light was almost otherworldly, lighting dark amber fires in his chocolate-brown hair and somehow softening his rugged features. Even the starkness of his white cop shirt seemed to fade to a softer cream, the sun reflecting off the gold badge pinned to his pocket and making it shine like a beacon of goodness and decency.

The look he was giving her, however, was anything but decent. His eyes were narrowed, and his lips were flattened into a tight line. But the scowl did nothing to detract from his extreme good looks, and in fact made Rosie feel kind of—

Well. There was no denying it. Either her new recipe was working way faster than she’d thought it would, or Sam Maguire’s simple nearness was about to bring her to a cataclysmic orgasm. And although Rosie knew her aphrodisiac teas were good, she was pragmatic enough to realize they weren’t that good. So she had no choice but to accept the fact that human flesh and blood would always be more powerful than plant life in bringing a woman to the brink of sexual fulfillment.

Damn, she thought. So much for not polluting the effects of the infusion with thoughts of Sam Maguire. He hadn’t even said hello to her, and already her skin was growing warm—which was always her first indication that a new tea was working. The next indication was always the dampening of her palms, which—

Yep. There they went, right on cue. Except way too early for the reaction to be a result of the tea. Rosie just hoped the other kind of dampness that came next, the dampness between her legs, held off for a little while long—

Uh-oh.

Great, she thought as she vaguely registered Sam’s nod and softly muttered hello. At this rate, her nipples would begin to tingle in no time fla—

Oh, yeah. There they went, too, way ahead of schedule. Maybe doubling up on the damiana hadn’t been such a good idea after all….

Because it couldn’t just be Sam’s simple presence making her want to wrestle him to the floor the way she did just then. Could it? She always at least indulged in a little small talk before it came to that, even in her fantasies. It had to be some faster-than-usual reaction to the tea. Maybe the cinnamon and damiana worked better together than she’d realized.

“Um, hi, Chief,” she said, gripping her mug tightly with both hands to keep herself from…oh, she didn’t know…grabbing the placket of his shirt and ripping it down the middle, buttons flying. The top two were already undone—something that would have made her job much easier—and dark hair sprang from the opening, making her fingers itch to investigate further.

Unbidden, an image erupted in her head of him naked and prone on her bed as she dragged her fingers through the dark hair on his chest before inching them slowly, slowly, oh-so-slowly down to his flat abdomen. Then lower still, into the thatch of dark hair surrounding his cock, which she circled with sure fingers and drew eagerly toward her waiting mou—

Rosie squeezed her eyes shut tight in an effort to drive the vision out of her head. But that only made it more vivid. Because now she saw herself, too, naked and crouched over him on her hands and knees and faced in the opposite direction, with Sam gripping her hips in strong fists, his head lifted between her legs. Both of them seemed to be competing over who could consume the other first, and neither seemed to be slaking their hunger. As he hungrily ate her, she moved her head slowly up and down, pulling his big cock farther into her mouth with every descent. Immediately, Rosie snapped her eyes open again, but not before she saw the fantasy Sam’s tongue dart quickly in and out of her damp—

“I’m, um…I, uh…” She tried to remember what she’d been about to say, but couldn’t seem to string two thoughts, never mind two words, together. Definitely needed to lighten up on the damiana in the next recipe, she told herself. And also, the next time she mixed one up, she needed to be in a different ZIP code than Sam Maguire was in. Or maybe a different area code. Or country. Or hemisphere. Or galaxy. Yeah, that might be enough.

Finally, she managed to say, “I’m, ah, I’m actually not open yet….” Well, not her store anyway. There were other parts of her that were wide open, at least in the fantasy she couldn’t seem to chase out of her brain. “I mean, I, um, I haven’t even picked up my bank float for the ass register. I mean cash register,” she quickly corrected herself when she realized how egregiously she’d misspoken.

“That’s okay,” Sam told her. Though the look he was giving her was anything but okay.

Still, she couldn’t help thinking, if he wasn’t going to buy anything, then he must have come here for another reason, and maybe that reason was, oh…Rosie didn’t know…to have really smokin’ sex.

His expression changed suddenly, to one of worry. Color her crazy, but worry didn’t seem like the thing a man should be feeling if he’d just shown up for really smokin’ sex.

“Are you okay, Rosie?” he asked cautiously. Caution, too, she thought, probably wasn’t a good indicator of that smokin’ sex thing being only minutes away. “You look a little…”

“What?” she asked.

“Distracted,” he told her. Though he looked as though he’d been about to say something else. Something like, oh…Rosie didn’t know…profoundly turned-on in a way that makes me want to pull down your pants, spin you around, bend you over and bury myself inside you to the hilt.