TITLE: A Conversation with Cindy about Tom and Heather… With Some Slight Interference
PAIRING: Lindsay/Cindy
DISCLAIMER: Women’s Murder Club does not belong to me. The characters do not belong to me. They are the property of James Patterson, 20th Century Fox Television and ABC. (Well, not anymore. Jackasses.) I have no problems with that as long as I can borrow them for short bursts and use them in pursuit of my own enjoyment. I am not trying to infringe. Though, I don’t know why anyone has a problem with fan fic. After all, it really is a compliment. If anyone wants to write fan fiction about my book, feel free.

“Linds.”

Lindsay’s heart skipped at least four beats as she turned immediately in the direction of her name. She had a right to be surprised by an unexpected visit. It needed no further explanation.

“Oh hey… there… Cindy,” she fumbled helplessly. “How’s it goin’?”

Well, if that wasn’t a raring return of the Texas drawl she tried so hard to keep in check in San Francisco.

Shifting her eyes to Jacobi, she wanted to scream curses at his amused expression. Damn everyone for making this all weird. Cindy was her friend, and now she was acting like a blundering idiot around her because she felt like she was harboring some big secret, when, in fact, there was no secret to harbor!

“I’m good,” Cindy returned with considerably less effort. “Hey Jacobi.”

“Hey wily redhead.”

Cindy laughed, bestowing Jacobi with her patented nose crinkle of curiosity. Jacobi laughed and gave a broad, what Lindsay could only describe as ‘aggressively flirty’ grin, his eyes dancing over Cindy as if she were a mannequin in a store window and he was considering whether or not to buy.

“Don’t you have some work to do, Jacobi?” Lindsay rejoined the conversation in a hiss.
 
For the sake of their mutually beneficial partnership, he could have been a little less humored when he glanced her way.

“You’re right. There is definitely something I should go handle,” he smirked.

Trying not to throw up in her mouth, Lindsay gave him her most intense laser vision, badly wanting to see him wilt accordingly, but it never seemed to affect him the way it did Cindy. When Jacobi just shook his head at her ineffective attempt, Lindsay had to bite back the growl in her throat with a surprising amount of vigor. Something about this exchange was seriously bringing out the primal instinct in her.

“Well go handle it,” Lindsay said low, giving him a shooing look, only becuase, with Cindy standing right there, she couldn’t give him a nice brutal push.

“I’m going,” Jacobi responded half-heartedly, casting Cindy a last glance. “See ya Red.”

“Bye,” Cindy uttered, appearing rather confused as to what exactly just happened.

Lindsay waited until Jacobi was long out of range before turning back to Cindy, just in time to see her do that quick lip-wetting thing she loved to do that brought her tongue fleetingly to the surface, and quickly glanced away again.

“Are you two okay?”

Eyes finally finding the nerve to shoot back in Cindy’s direction, Lindsay discovered Cindy looking worriedly at her. Of course she was, because Cindy was always concerned about everyone else. Her especially.

The thought brought a smile to Lindsay’s lips, and she took a steady breath that brought some small measure of composure.

“We’re fine,” she assured her. “It’s kind of a slow day. We’re getting on each other’s last nerves.”

“Are you sure you’re alright?”

“Yeah,” Lindsay replied, meeting light brown eyes gazing up at her with sincerest interest. “I’ve just got to stop letting him get to me.”

Cindy wordlessly examined her, with an expectation of some higher truth tumbling out, Lindsay suspected. Which was just fine with her. If Cindy insisted on scrutinizing her like some kind of experiment, that was all very well and good. She had every ability to scrutinize back.

She could scrutinize those constantly inquisitive eyes, now probing her for more information, and the exceedingly long lashes that sheathed them when Cindy was trying to hide something, usually unsuccessfully, from her.

She could scrutinize the thick red hair, slightly wavy today where it fell down past Cindy’s shoulders.

She could scrutinize Cindy’s lips, which she had, of course, noticed, with some envy, before as being remarkably full.

Cindy ran her tongue over her lips again, and Lindsay had a sudden, catastrophic brain disaster, in which all cognitive functioning ceased at once, save for a single improper, unsolicited neurological hallucination.

It wasn’t just a thought. It wasn’t simply an impulse. It was the strikingly real phantom sensation of Cindy’s decidedly kissable lips pressing against her own, immediately followed by a rush of blood that reminded Lindsay those kinds of thoughts had a tendency to be more full-bodied than brain-centered.

Suddenly weak, she watched those lips moving, which meant that she was still staring, and she also had no earthly idea what Cindy just said.

“Sorry,” she whispered, struggling through the mental confusion still clouding her thought processors.

“Whoa, Linds. Are you okay? You look like you’re about to fall over.”

Cindy’s hand reached out to her. Lindsay saw it coming, but it wasn’t until Cindy’s fingertips came in contact with her heated wrist that she truly grasped the ramifications of the action in the moment. With an unnerved, and completely out of place, laugh, Lindsay pulled her arm away.

“Fine, yeah,” she answered way too loudly. “So, what did you need?”

Still visibly concerned, Cindy finally shrugged.

“I have to ask you something,” she said.

“Ask away. Shoot. Hit me.”

She only needed one of those things, and she could tell by Cindy’s varying expressions that the second made her seem overeager and the third brought the concern about her well-being back.

“Okay,” Cindy started slowly. “What’s up with Tom and Heather?”

Terrifying as the question was, it did have the power to shake Lindsay out of her crazed stupor.

“What’s up with them how?” she muttered, face tightening.

Oh God. They said something. They totally said something to Cindy. Ridiculous, because there was totally nothing to say.

“They sent me flowers at work, with a card that said ‘We’re sorry’,” Cindy informed her. “Um… what do they think they did?”

Lindsay overcame the prevalent desire to drop her head into her hands and moan vigorously. She seriously could not believe this was happening.

Actually she could, which made it all the more irritating.

“It’s not something they did,” she clarified in a quiet grumble. “It’s something they think I did.”

“Oh,” Cindy responded. “What do they think you did?”

That was an opening. They could have this discussion now, talk about how absurd everyone’s erroneous theories were and be done with it. Or, Lindsay reconsidered, eyes roaming to Cindy’s lips again before she hurriedly wrenched them away, they could do it later.

“It doesn’t matter,” she finally answered, “because I didn’t do anything. Right?”

“As far as I know,” Cindy replied. “So weird.”

Yes it is, Lindsay silently agreed, fighting the unnaturally strong compulsion to look at Cindy’s lips again.

“So, have you heard from Pete yet?”

Did Cindy sound hesitant? She sounded hesitant. Didn’t she?

“Pete?” Lindsay managed past the lump forming in her throat.

“Yeah, you know, Pete… the guy who’s on his way to a foreign country,” Cindy teased, “the Ken Doll you’re absolutely mad about.”

“No,” Lindsay shook her head, her inspector components kicking into gear. “Not yet.”

“I’m surprised he didn’t call you from the plane.”

Is that how a joke sounded? Two days ago, Lindsay would have been certain that’s what it was, but now she couldn’t help debating whether there was something more significant in it.

“He didn’t,” was all she could get out.

“I’m sure he will soon,” Cindy smiled.

Abnormally mesmerized by the very normal Cindy grin, Lindsay didn’t know what to say. To Cindy. Or to Pete when she did talk to him.

“I should go back to work,” Cindy announced, and she realized that she’d lost her chance to say anything.

“Oh, okay,” she nodded in stark contrast to her total disapproval of the idea.

“I’ll see you later.”

Inner turmoil, and the resultant slowing of her reaction time, let Cindy get almost out of earshot before Lindsay got her bearings.

“Cindy!”

“Yeah?” she replied, turning back casually, the sunlight streaming in through the windows giving her a rather angelic glow.

“Do you, uh… do you still think Jacobi is sexy?”

Cindy’s soft, surprised snigger was like aural silk to Lindsay’s ears.

“Yeah,” Cindy nodded, giving Lindsay a small shudder of hostility, before adding, “You know, for an old guy.”

Cindy smiled good-humoredly, and Lindsay was helpless but to smile back.

She watched Cindy head down the hall, not fully comprehending how particularly conscious she was of every slight movement. It wasn’t until Cindy disappeared around the corner, and her brain reengaged, that Lindsay became aware of what she was doing.

Spinning away from the scene of her crime, she found herself alone in the hallway, with nothing to distract her from her own torrent of disobedient thoughts, most of them centering on Cindy’s lips.

Trying not to panic, Lindsay struggled for internal footing, instead finding herself flat on her back in her mind’s eye with a very enthusiastic Cindy on top of her.

“Dammit!” she screamed at no one in particular, stalking off down the hall, trying like a madman to outrun her own thoughts.