LOVING HER SOUL MATE by Katherine Cachitorie Page A

they had on staff.  
    But John, for a minute, had been a
little smitten with Shay Turner.   Found
something remarkably different about her.   But time was a powerful antidote and he soon moved on, to cases that
required his undivided attention, to women who gave him what he needed without
any demands or expectations.   And he no
longer gave much thought about the young black reporter with the expressive
golden brown eyes.   Until he saw her
again this morning, at Chief McNamara’s press conference.  
    “You aren’t exactly little Miss
Martha Stewart are you?” he asked as he sat down on her sofa.
    Shay was at first surprised by his
honesty.   Then decided
that she liked it.   “I do my
housecleaning on the weekends,” she said with a smile.
    “Yeah, right,” John said
snidely.   “Me too.”   And they both laughed.
    “Would you care for something to
drink, Captain?” Shay asked before sitting down.
    “John,” John said.   “And no, but thanks, I’m good.”
    Shay sat down, placing her feet
beneath her butt.   John was leaned back
on the sofa, his legs crossed, his body turned slightly toward Shay’s.   As he looked around the books-and-newspaper-dominated
room, she took a quick look at him.   He
was obviously an attractive man, but it was his midsection that she found her
eyes drifting to.   She knew he was
packing a large bundle of joy inside that zipper, and it was beginning to
excite her again.   She even found herself
imagining what it would feel like to have that big, thick joystick inside of
her again.  
    And then she caught herself and
smiled.   She hadn’t thought about having
sex since she left John’s office three months ago, and now he showed up and she
was behaving as if all she thought about was having sex!   Get a
grip , she told herself.
    “You read all of this stuff?” John
asked her, picking up a book off of the coffee table.
    Shay knew her need to read didn’t
endear her to most men, but decided she could live with that.   “I do,” she said truthfully.
    “You know you could have a lot
less mess with a Kindle or a Nook.”
    “I know.   But I’m still relatively new to Brady so I’m
trying to learn the town’s history and culture.   You won’t find these books as eBooks.”
    “Understood,” he said, tossing the
book back on the table.   “So you want to
add that local flavor to your reports?”
    “Exactly.”
    What a thoughtful young lady, John
thought.   “Well that’s a good thing,” he
said.
    His acceptance of her hobby
surprised her.   “Really?” she asked.   “So you don’t find the fact that a twenty-six
year old is immersing herself in old newspaper
articles and local history books odd?   Everybody else does.”
    “Everybody?” John asked as he looked intensely at her.    “As in your new
boyfriend?”
    Shay was puzzled.   “What new boyfriend?”
    “I assumed, after Resden, you’d
find yourself another guy.”
    “Oh.   No.   I
meant everybody as in Aunt Rae, actually.   Although she’s not really my aunt, but just this
elderly lady who took a shine to me when I helped her get her prescriptions
straight at the drugstore.   We’ve
been friends ever since.”
    “And this Aunt Rae has a problem
with your reading habits?”
    “She does.   She says I need to get a life.”
    John laughed.
    “I kid you not.   A seventy-seven year old woman told me to get
a life.”
    “That’s a shame, Shay.”
    “Ain’t it a shame?   I told her I have a life, thank-you.   But she figures all you have to do is look
around this place to know that’s not quite true.”
    A quietness came over the room when Shay made that statement.   John could feel the change.  
    “Where are you from originally?”
he asked her.   Seeing her again sparked
his interest in her again.   And he
suddenly wanted to know all there was to know about her.
    “I’m from right here in Alabama,”
she replied.   “Birmingham
born and raised.   My parents