Low Sided by A.J. Downey (best detective novels of all time txt) 📕

“That’s a lot of weekend adventures with me,” he said. “You sure you’re down for the whole ‘until we die’ part?”

“Mr. Anderson!” I cried, and he laughed at me. “What is the point in being your ride or die if I’m not in it until we die?” I asked.

He grinned and said, “Fair point, well made, my lady. Fair point, well made.”

We clicked glasses and drank our silly little toast just in time for my linguine with fresh clam sauce to be set in front of me, and Mace’s lasagna with meat sauce to be set in front of him. I smiled, and we both ate until we were stuffed.

After, we decided to ride right away would be foolish – especially with such a lovely and wonderful slice of downtown to explore. A lot of the shops and things were, granted, touristy, but several were super cool. There was a little grocer that had hundreds of varieties of black licorice, just everything you could want from Australian, to Swedish, to Finnish, to German varieties, from salted to soft eating licorice, to hard pastilles, I was in love!

Mace, on the other hand, thought my fascination with the stuff was gross but that was the nature of black licorice – either you loved it, or you hated it. I don’t think I had ever met someone that was just kind of meh about it.

Still, despite his strong feelings about the stuff, Mace bought me some, and with the plain little white grocery sack looped around my wrist, we continued on, hand in hand to the bakery down the way.

This place was totally Mace’s jam and smelled absolutely divine.

“What should we get?” I asked as he eyed a pull apart bread, sticky with cinnamon and melted sugar, lousy with raisins that was in the window.

“Breakfast?” he asked, nudging his chin toward the confection.

“That sounds good,” I declared. “Do we have room on the bike?”

He grinned.

“Where there’s a will there’s a way,” he said, and I laughed.

“Oh, lord of light and lady of night!” I knew what that meant. The pink box in its plastic bag would be riding around my wrist to wherever it was we were going for a final destination.

The last stop we made along the little historic main drag was a bookstore and bath supply place. It was a unique but perfectly suited combination, let me just say that. While I was engrossed in perusing the books they had on offer, Mace snuck up to the register with some bath treats. By the time I had caught him, they were already wrapped and bagged, and he wouldn’t tell me what he’d bought.

“You’ll find out later,” he said, kissing me soundly, and I knew when to quit while I was ahead.

The ride from Poulsbo was beautiful, with towering trees high to either side of the highway, and points where we dipped out onto a wide, flat floating bridge across the Hood Canal. We even saw porpoises on crossing that bridge which was just phenomenal to me!

We turned through a small town called Chimacum, where he pointed off to one side at the only little four-way stop and a fancy in its rusticness.

“Yeah!” I called out, letting him know that I was seeing what he was pointing at, and he turned left down the way and up into the lot.

“Oh! I didn’t know you meant to stop – but hell yeah, I’m in,” I declared.

“Good deal, they have really damn good cider here.”

“You know, you’re absolutely spoiling me,” I said, getting off the bike so he could back it into a space etched out in the gravel.

“Ah ha, good to know I’m succeeding at my goal here.”

I grinned stupidly, he had that effect on me, as I took off my helmet. We went up to the hostess hand in hand and she asked us if we wanted to be seated at the bar or out in the orchard. We opted for the orchard, seeing as how beautiful it was today.

We were seated at a glossy, live edge picnic table among the trees which were budding green, their petals all fallen to the grass like snow.

“You hungry?” Mace asked, as we perused the menu on his phone, a little card in the center of the table with one of those QR codes printed on it, an effort to be earth friendly and green, to reduce waste.

Lunch had been only a few hours ago, and I was thirsty more than anything, but I looked at the snacks on offer on the menu and said, “I could go for one of their pretzels.”

“Sounds good.”

We each ordered a pretzel and a flight of their ciders they had on offer. He ordered one set, and I ordered another, so that we could try them all.

“Good day so far?” he asked, as I watched birds dart through the tall grass and wildflowers beyond the orchard where we sat.

“The best day,” I told him with a smile. “Feels good to be out here.”

He smiled back and nodded. “That it does, but only because I’m out here with you.”

I blushed, he always seemed to have that effect on me. He showered me with compliments near constantly and they just never got old.

“So, am I allowed to know where we’re going yet?” I asked.

“We’re almost there,” he said. “Another twenty minutes, maybe.”

“Yeah?” I asked, shading my eyes from the sun to look at him.

“Yup.”

“You’re a little infuriating, you know that?” I asked, and he laughed.

“You really don’t like surprises, do you?” he asked, and I thought about it for a second.

“No, I do,” I said slowly.

“But?”

“No but,” I said. “I mean, I used to love surprises, but I think now maybe I just have a few too many trust issues.”

“You don’t trust me,” he gently teased, and I shook my head.

“No, no, no! Don’t you even suggest that! I do. I just think this might be a new ‘me’ problem that I need to work on.”

“Babe, tastes change over