A Scene for the Flirt Fest Entry

The blog "Critique this W.I.P." has a Flirt Fest blog festival today, where participants post a scene involving some flirting. I'm not sure I'm ready to post something from The Man Who Did Too Much, but I have something from another mystery that has some romantic elements.

In this comic cozy adventure mystery, Mick and Casey are newlywed gunslingers in the old west. He's young and inexperienced, and has much too sunny a disposition for a gunman. She's younger, meaner, less experienced, but a much better shot. They got married the day they met and still getting to know each other. Since Mick has to be very careful about how he goes about courting a rattlesnake, I figure any romantic scene between them is a flirting scene.

In this scene, they just accepted a job Casey thinks is beneath them, and she's very depressed about the murder of an old man, and the fact that nobody was impressed with her shooting the guy who shot him.

From HAVE GUN, WILL PLAY

"We should be doing something more useful. We should be going after those guys," said Casey.

She was getting back to herself again now, but that made her a little too eager to go chasing. I raised my eyebrows and leaned closer.

"And help Addley squeeze out the settlers up the valley?"

"No." She turned her back, and sat there, hugging her knees. But she had her head tilted so she could watch me.

"Well," I said. "There are other useful things we could be doing."

"Like what?"

"Smooching."

"That's all you think about, isn't it."

"Yep."

She turned completely away and thought about it. Then, instead of turning back, she lay down and looked at me upside down. Took my breath away, to see her spread out like that in the firelight. Watching at me with her head tilted back and her chin pointing up, arms and braid flung this way and that. I got my breath back fast, and picked my jaw up off the floor before she could see my reaction. Casey got self-conscious real easy. I couldn't let her catch me gaping at her.

"We ain't gonna have too much chance for privacy coming up," I said. I leaned in slow and set my arms on either side of her face. "We'll be keeping watch and all that."

I brushed my fingers down the sides of her neck. Her eyes got a little wide at that and she looked nervous, but she must have liked it, because if she didn't she would have punched me. We didn't have too many communication problems in our marriage, for all that we were still awful new at it.

I leaned in and kissed her upside down. Down her lip, and then on the chin, rubbing my chin against her mouth. I started down her jaw toward the side of her neck.

"Ain't I too young for this?" she said. I liked the funny sound in her voice.

"Hope not," I said. I had a funny sound in my voice too, but that was partly because I had a mouthful of ear at the moment.

"You're kissing me upside down."

"Good way of doing it," I said. "Hats don't bump."

Her hat had already come off. She reached up and I pulled away, but she managed to rise up and knock mine off. I grabbed her while she was up off the ground and wrapped her up in a big tight squeeze, kissing her good.

It wasn't the most comfortable place to spend the night, but a couple of horse blankets and our bed rolls, and it did all right. No miners or lice.

end scene

I'll post the progress on my current book a little later tonight.