Drowning Barbie Read Online Free PDF Page B

She’d heard the pain in his voice and his plea for understanding and wondered at the man who in spite of her bitchy behavior had been supportive during an extremely difficult time in her life.
    â€œI don’t know if I should cry or be angry” she’d said to him at the time, “and here’s something else for you to think about, I think you are the most irritating, engaging, infuriating, attractive man I have ever met.” And, that said, she’d stepped up and kissed him. “Smooched” him, she’d described it in their Las Vegas hotel room, wearing nothing but an overlarge bath towel. My God, how far they’d come. She smiled at the image. Not much had really changed since that early beginning. Nothing about Ike, that is. He could still be irritating and engaging, infuriating and attractive. And lately, she found him to be the coolest man in a tight spot she’d ever known or imagined.
    Now, things had to change. They were no longer playmates. Their sandbox days were over. No more necking out at the quarry…well actually, that hadn’t worked out too well. The two superannuated teenagers would have to settle into adulthood. And when they went public, there could be no turning back. She took a deep breath. They’d manage it, somehow.
    Second thoughts? No, none. They’d figure it out.

Chapter Six
    Essie looked up from her dispatch desk and raised one eyebrow. The clock read 7:45, early for Ike under any circumstance. He backed in the door, a box under each arm.
    â€œAn improvement of which everyone will approve,” Ike said in response to her unasked question. “Clear the stuff off the table in the corner.”
    â€œThat’s the coffee corner, Ike. What kind of improvement comes from dumping the coffee pot?”
    â€œA great deal, trust me. Just do it.” He put the boxes on the floor next to the table while Essie began moving the coffeemaker, jars containing sweeteners and lightener.
    â€œWhere do these go?”
    â€œThe pot in the trash, the other stuff on the empty desk. That reminds me. Did you post the job opening on the town website?”
    â€œI did and in the journals and all the other places you wrote down. Why are you chucking the coffeepot? Have the food police finally arrived?”
    â€œIn the first place, it’s not a pot exactly. It’s a very tired old urn. It is going because I am no longer willing to risk life, limb, and tooth enamel on the stuff that pours out of its spout. I am replacing it with modern technology.”
    â€œLike what?”
    â€œK-Cups.”
    â€œWhose cups?”
    Ike unpacked the two boxes and placed a K-Cup coffee brewer on the table and handed Essie a plastic container he detached from its side. “Here, fill this tank with water, then watch and learn.”
    He opened the second box and pulled out one of the cups.
    Once the tank had been filled and the brewer plugged in, he loaded the small covered cup into the receiver, tapped the start button, and the machine groaned, gurgled, and hissed out a single cup of coffee. He added his creamer and a half package of sweetener and took a sip.
    â€œEvery cup fresh and, even better, making coffee will no longer be on your job description.”
    â€œIt never was. I just did it because the department is full up with out-of-date macho guys who can’t or won’t, and I got tired of the whining. Makes me wonder how you manage to catch the bad guys. ”
    â€œA pungent observation. Score one for you. And you’re welcome. Now all you need to do is teach those macho whiners how to do this and make sure the last one to empty the tank refills it. So, no more liquid asphalt, burned, or industrial-strength coffee. Now ditch that piece of crap that used to be an unhealthy part of our lives.”
    Frank Sutherlin, who served as acting sheriff when Ike was off duty, had entered the room and listened to this last exchange. “Can it