Love Under Two Detectives by Cara Covington (good books to read for women txt) 📗

for the last couple of weeks. Tomorrow, most of the youngest among us will be within these old walls. I’ve invited the moms and the babies and whichever of the dads want to come for a Sunday afternoon get-together for tea and cookies and conversation. I will rejoice in the moment, even though I’m fearful of what’s to come. That, in truth, is the nature of life, isn’t it? We are all really only guaranteed the moment in which we are living. In my many years here on this earth, there have been more moments of dread, of danger and uncertainty, than I can possibly recall. But at the end of the day, we got through those tough times.

We’ll get through this one, too. Together, as a community. As a family.

Public reports aren’t making a big fuss over this outbreak in Asia, and that has me very confused. On the news media, they have mentioned it’s in this country, but no one seems to be connecting the dots. I have enough contacts in the intelligence community in this country, as well as a few old friends who work with the World Health Organization, among other places. And I have paid attention for all the years of my life.

This outbreak is already an epidemic, and I worry. I worry because it’s been just a bit more than a full century since the last major global pandemic. I didn’t witness that one myself, but my father told me about it. His own mother and his youngest sister died in that horrible Spanish Flu that infected a full one-third of the world’s population at the time. More than 50 million souls were lost to that horrid disease.

Unless we humans are all very careful, and very smart, this time, the death toll could be just as devastating. Yes, we have so many more modern advances to aid us. But this virus is also aided by the speed of this modern world.

It’s time for Lusty to circle the wagons. We will get through this. There’ll be hell to pay if we don’t.

Chapter One

Saturday night—the first Saturday night in February—and Mary Kendall found herself at the community center in Lusty Texas, attending the once-a-month Lusty community dance.

The band, Just Us, performed a cover of Tip of My Tongue by Kenny Chesney, and some of the family—well most of that part of the family she was sitting with—were up dancing. Others just sat and chatted and watched.

Mary Kendall was doing her best to convince herself that those two smoking hot and far too attractive cops sitting just to her right and on the other side of the table didn’t exist. Or maybe, that their existence had nothing to do with her. Technically, they weren’t actually sitting at her table, but the next one, because the family had put several together to fit everyone. That fact should have made the situation easier, but it didn’t.

Instead she felt like a teenage girl getting a close-up peek at her secret heartthrob, times two.

No, no, no. No secret heart throbs. Just because she was now a resident of Lusty, Texas did not mean she was looking for lust in her life. That was not why she’d fled New York City for here.

Of course, the self-talk wasn’t doing any good at all. Anthony Corbett—blond haired, blue-eyed, with just the right amount of buff drew her secret attention. Not a Mr. Universe candidate, but she bet there was power in those yummy muscles of his. Yummy muscles? Mary blinked and turned her attention to his cop partner. Toby Kendall, with his dark good looks and that teasing devil’s smile had pulled her in before she even fully knew what was happening.

She’d tried to tell herself he was off limits because they shared a last name, but the truth was the DNA between them went back too many generations to mean a damn thing.

Look whose girly parts are waking up!

That’s not my girly parts. That’s gas.

No, self-talk really was not doing any good at all. Her good versus bad inner imps picked a hell of a time to lip off.

She used her focus—that part of her that could close out the world when she wrote—and told her imps to stuff it.

Okay, so maybe she didn’t generally even notice a man in that way, let alone noticing two at the same time. Mary had so rarely been attracted to a man that she’d begun to wonder, a just in the back of her mind kind of wondering, if she was asexual. She tilted her head and looked at the beer she was slowly sipping. It couldn’t be the alcohol affecting her because this was her first beer. Maybe she should stick with water.

Mary reached for her water glass, then pulled her hand back.

“Hey, has anyone ever…”

“Had the water tested?” Tracy Alvarez Kendall, sitting beside her, grinned. “Yes. We can now answer yes to the question that nearly every newcomer to Lusty has asked. Jason Benedict—one of Leesa’s husbands—did that very thing. And it came back clear.” Then Tracy leaned closer. “So…it’s those two cops, isn’t it? Anthony and Toby. Hey, if Anthony called himself Tony instead of Anthony, they could bill themselves as T ‘n T.”

Good grief, if they did that, I’d be a goner. Mary shook off that wholly inappropriate thought. And then her gaze landed on the two cops in question. At that exact moment they both looked over at her. Toby raised his bottle in salute, and the look on both men’s faces let her know they were most definitely looking at her. Yeah, TNT all right.

Mary had let herself be talked into coming to this dance by Tracy and Ginny, two fun and funny women married to Kendall cousins. There was music and beer and food, and just a good time, they’d said. And while she’d never been a party person, she did like music and beer and food.

She liked her Kendall cousins—especially the female ones. In fact, they