Excerpt from On the Rocks, A Dana Cohen Mystery, Book 1by Rebecca Marks
In On the Rocks by Rebecca Marks, Dana Cohen retires from her twenty-two year career as a NYPD detective, and increasingly relies on her drinking as her life becomes more complicated. Then her estranged husband comes back into her life – with flowers, promises and a murder he claims he did not commit.
An excerpt –
When I rounded the corner of the kitchen, I saw him. Pete. Standing there at the door, looking well dressed, like a little kid whose mother had spiffed him up for the first day of school, his hair neatly trimmed and brushed back, his face scrubbed, so sexy I wanted to take a bite out of him. I stopped short, brushed the sweaty hair away from my eyes, looked down at the faded pink tracksuit with a hole in the knee. I wasn’t wearing a bra, and my legs needed shaving.
“Shit! Pete, what the hell are you doing here?” I still hadn’t opened the door, and I saw he was shuffling back and forth from leg to leg. Even I had to admit I sounded pretty shrill.
“Are you going to open the door, or do I have to wait here all day and freeze my ass off?”
I opened the door, and he walked right in, Charlie jumping all over him and squealing. “You have a key. Why did you stand out there shivering?”
“I’m trying to be on best behavior here.”
I must have rolled my eyes.
“Aren’t you going to say anything?”
“I’m too stunned to say anything,” I said, regaining my composure a little.
“Not glad to see me?” He pushed Charlie away gently and tried to grab me with his free arm, but
I twisted away.
“I dressed up just for you. Those are the color you love, right?” He thrust a bouquet of yellow roses at me, and I took the bouquet and dropped it on the counter. “Don’t you want to put them in water?”
“I thought we agreed not to see each other for a while. After the…last time.”
“I missed you so much, Dana. And I missed this place.”
I had to look twice to make sure, but there was no question he was pouting, his bottom lip thrust outward the slightest bit. “Pete, did something happen? You always miss me when some woman dumps you and you’re not getting any.”
“You always say things that hurt me, Danny. I missed you. I love you. That never changes.”
“I look like hell. Probably smell like hell too. I hired a cleaning lady, but she’s better at tolerating the dog than getting the place clean, and besides, I have no idea what happened to her. She stopped coming.”
Pete is the only one who calls me Danny, and I hate to admit it’s endearing, as much as I want to be offended. That’s part of the problem with Pete. He does something obnoxious that makes me want to hate him forever, and then he calls me Danny and I melt.
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