Show Me (Thomas Prescott 4) by Nick Pirog (best ereader for textbooks .TXT) 📗

as the tablecloth—which I’m positive was not a coincidence and took a few phone calls to accommodate—was Caroline.

Our eyes met and she tried to bury a smile in her cheek. The man to her left glanced at her, then up at me. He was ten years my senior, with salt-and-pepper hair and a trim goatee. I didn’t recall ever seeing him before.

There were three other gentlemen at the table, and the only seat available was on Caroline’s right. After searching for an empty seat at any of the nearby tables and coming up empty, I reluctantly sat down.

“Caroline,” I said with a light nod.

“Thomas,” she said, her hand gently brushing over my thigh under the table.

Ruh roh.

The man to her left cleared his throat, and Caroline straightened. “Oh, forgive me. Thomas, this is my dear, dear friend, Jerome.”

Jerome and I shook hands. I read his nametag: Jerome Bidwell, Law firm of Bidwell & Benson.

I could see him reading my nametag, then sneering in annoyance.

Caroline followed his eyes to my nametag, then read aloud, “Thomas Prescott, Farmer, Detective Extraordinaire, and Naked and Afraid Enthusiast.”

She stifled a laugh. “What is Naked and Afraid?”

“It’s a show on the Discovery Channel.”

“It’s amazing,” quipped one of the three gentlemen to my right. “They put a guy and girl in the wilderness naked and they have to survive for twenty-one days.”

“They’re naked?” Caroline huffed.

“Naked as the day they were born,” I said.

“Sounds pretty dumb,” said Jerome.

“No, really, it’s great,” another gentleman said. “We have a viewing party every Sunday.”

I gently slid my chair a couple inches to their side of the table.

Battle lines had been drawn.

The three gentlemen introduced themselves as the Fulton brothers: John, Mark, and Luke. They owned a tire business on the south side of town.

“You guys Muslim?” I asked.

All three laughed.

A few moments later, the first course was served. A tomato and corn salad. The waitress gave a long-winded explanation of each and every ingredient and which farm it came from. Mallory Farm’s butter lettuce, Wildwood Farm’s tomatoes, Joe Schmo Farm’s roasted corn…

I made small talk with the three brothers, mostly about N & A, but a little about tires, and some about my being a famous detective.

Caroline kept sneaking glances my way, but Jerome was clearly threatened by my nearly dry Hanes T-shirt and furrowed his brow at every snippet of conversation he overheard.

At one point during the main course—hazelnut-crusted halibut on a bed of purple cauliflower puree—I counted the number of tables.

Twenty tables.

Six people at each table.

One hundred and twenty guests—nearly five percent of the entire town of Tarrin—and at $500 a plate that was nearly $60,000 for the Mayor’s reelection campaign.

I fixed my gaze on David Ramsey up front.

How many people would have paid the $500 if he hadn’t been speaking? And more importantly, how much was he being paid to speak?

The servers took coffee orders and since they didn’t have Pumpkin Spice Lattes available, I declined. But I was interested in dessert. I’d been eating healthy for nearly a month now and I was eager for some crème brûlée. But first, I had to use the restroom.

I excused myself, then made my way through the hallway and to the restroom. Halfway through my whiz, the door opened and in walked Caroline.

She teetered on high heels, a consequence of the several glasses of wine she’d slugged down over lunch.

“You never called,” she said.

I finished, zipped up, and turned around.

I never called, but that didn’t mean I hadn’t thought about it. That I hadn’t thought about what she’d whispered in my ear: Oh, the things I would do. I dialed her number twice but stopped short of hitting Call. Finally, I ripped up the card she wrote her number on and flushed it down the toilet.

I didn’t know what to say, so I didn’t say anything. I just washed my hands instead.

“What?” she said, with pursed lips. “You don’t want my apple pie?”

“I don’t know if your apple pie is exactly what I need in my life right now.”

She closed the distance between us. Put her hands around the back of my neck and pulled my head down toward her chest. Caressed her fingers through my hair. My nose was inches from her breasts.

I knew I should stop this.

But I couldn’t.

The ship had left the harbor.

SS Dingdong.

Bound for Mistake Island.

She pressed her hips against me.

Against it.

Then her lips against mine.

The Mayor was speaking when I returned to my seat. Caroline had left a few minutes ahead of me and she was turned in her chair, eyes focused on the woman behind the podium on the dais. I don’t know how she explained the five minutes she was gone, the five minutes she had her tongue rammed down my throat in the high school bathroom.

Whatever she said, Jerome knew the truth. I could feel his eyes boring into the side of my head as I sat. Jealousy and anger will do that.

He was probably thinking of something he could sue me for. Wrongful making out with his luncheon date. Three counts of violating the Bro Code. Acting like a horny sixteen-year-old in public.

I ignored him and turned my attention to Mayor Van Dixon. She was wearing a green blouse and tan pants. Her gray-streaked hair was tucked behind her ears. She had a massive gold and bejeweled broach on her shoulder that was the size of a small bird’s nest.

“Our town is prospering,” she spoke. “Small businesses are not only surviving in Tarrin, they are thriving.”

Many of the guests applauded. I guessed many in attendance, like the Fulton brothers, were small business owners.

She prattled on about the many great things she’d done over the past eighteen years and the many great things she planned for her next term. I listened halfheartedly, giving the majority of my attention to the crème brûlée in front of me.

Finally, after what seemed like an hour, but was probably closer to twenty minutes, she said, “Now it is my great pleasure to introduce my