Chill Factor

by Sandra Brown

  Making as little noise as possible, she turned to look at him and smiled. He was too long for the sofa. The armrest caught him midcalf. He’d rolled a pillow into a neck support to keep the back of his head elevated.

  He was covered with blankets up to his chin, which overnight had become shadowed with stubble. He’d had years of exposure to wind and sun, but he wore their damage remarkably well. She liked the lines that radiated from the corners of his eyes. His lips were slightly chapped. She remembered that from the kiss, how they’d felt rubbing against hers.

  She wouldn’t have minded a longer kiss. Or a second one. Her refusal to sleep with him hadn’t necessarily excluded kissing, but apparently he had taken it as such.

  Either that or he hadn’t liked it as much as she. No. Impossible. Even if she hadn’t felt the unmistakable pressure in his groin, his low growl of self-denial when he released her was enough to convince her that he’d been into it as much as, if not more than, she. He’d seemed almost angry when he broke the kiss, released her, and turned away.

  So why hadn’t he continued? Or at least asked if it was all right if he did? She’d made it clear that she no longer had any romantic inclinations toward Dutch. He should assume she wasn’t involved with someone else, but—

  Her train of thought derailed.

  She wasn’t involved with anyone else, but what about Tierney?

  He didn’t wear a wedding ring. He’d never mentioned a wife or significant other, but she had never specifically asked. It meant nothing that he’d asked her for a date the day they met. Married men dated other women all the time.

  Last night he’d made no reference to a wife or girlfriend who would be worried about him when he didn’t return home, but that didn’t mean there wasn’t one who was frantically pacing the floor and wondering where he was and with whom, just as she’d wondered about Dutch too many nights to count.

  How naïve of her to assume there wasn’t a woman in his life. A man who looked like him? Come on, Lilly, get real.

  Her gaze drifted from him to his backpack, which was still on the floor beneath the end table where he’d pushed it last night, claiming it contained nothing useful.

  It might, however, contain something informative.

  • • •

  “Scott.”

  “Hmm?”

  “Get up.”

  “Hmm?”

  “I said get up.”

  Scott rolled onto his back and pried open his eyes. Wes was standing in the doorway of his bedroom, frowning down at him. Scott propped himself on his elbows and looked through the window at total whiteout. He couldn’t even see the backyard fence. “They didn’t cancel school?”

  “Sure they did. But if you think you’re going to lay on your lazy butt all day, you’ve got another think coming. Get up. I’ll be waiting for you in the kitchen. You’ve got three minutes.”

  Wes left the door open, signaling that there would be no going back to sleep for Scott. With a curse, he fell back onto the pillow. He wasn’t even allowed a snow day. Every other person in town would get to blow off today, but no, not him, not the coach’s son.

  He wanted to pull the covers over his head. He could probably sleep away the whole day if he was left alone. But if he wasn’t in the kitchen in three minutes, there would be hell to pay. A few extra z’s weren’t worth the hassle.

  With a scorching shit! he threw off the covers.

  His old man had actually been timing him. When he entered the kitchen, Wes glanced at the wall clock, then gave him a look that let him know he hadn’t made it under the deadline. His mom came to his rescue.

  “Good morning, sweetheart. Bacon and eggs or waffles?”

  “Whichever’s easier.” He sat down at the table and poured himself a glass of orange juice, yawning widely.

  “What time did you turn in last night?” his dad asked.

  “I’m not sure. You weren’t home yet.”

  “I was with Dutch.”

  “All that time?”

  “Hours.”

  “Did you make it up the mountain?”

  By the time Wes had finished giving them an account of the previous night’s events, Dora had served Scott a plate with bacon, two fried eggs, and two waffles. He thanked her with a smile.

  “We had a real adventure,” Wes said. “Especially driving out to that dive where we picked up Cal Hawkins. We were lucky to escape without being shot or buttfucked by a trio of hillbillies.”

  “Wes!”

  He laughed at his wife’s horror. “Relax, Dora. Scott knows such things go on, don’t you, son?”

  Embarrassed for his mother, Scott kept his head down and continued eating. His dad thought it was cute to use vulgar language around him, like he was including him in the society of men who were allowed such privileges. It was bogus, of course, because in every other respect, he was treated like a two-year-old. He was only a few months away from his nineteenth birthday, but he was told what to eat, when to go to bed, and when to get up.

  He was the oldest student in the senior class. His dad had made him repeat sixth grade, not because he’d failed any courses, not because he was socially immature or in any way maladjusted, but because Wes had wanted to give him an extra year to grow and develop before he went into middle school sports.

  Being detained had been humiliating, but Wes had made the decision before discussing it with either Scott or his mom, and he’d stuck to his decision despite their protests.

  “College scouts start looking at players as early as seventh or eighth grade,” he’d said. “Another year of growth will give you an advantage. Coming from a small school like ours, you’ll need every leg up you can get.”

  Wes was still making all his decisions for him. Legally, Scott was a man. He could go to war and die for his country, but he couldn’t stand up to his father.

  As though reading his mind, Wes said, “Finish filling out those application forms today. You’ve got no excuse not to.”

  “Everybody’s invited to Gary’s house to hang out.” Gary was one of his classmates. Scott didn’t particularly like him, but he had a rec room with a pool table. Spending a snow day shooting stick had more appeal than filling out college application forms.

  “Finish the forms first,” his dad said. “This time I’ll be checking to see if they’re done. After lunch, I’ll drive you over to the gym so you won’t miss a workout.”

  “I can drive myself.”

  Wes shook his head. “You spin out on the ice, hit something, have your leg broken. No, I’ll drive you.”

  His mom said, “I don’t think it would hurt to miss one workout.”

  “Then that shows just how little you know about it, doesn’t it, Dora?”

  The phone rang.

  “I’ll get it,” Scott said.

  “I’ll get it.” Wes snatched the phone from his hand. “You start on those forms.”

  Scott carried his plate to the sink and offered to help his mom load the dishwasher. She shook her head. “Better do as Wes said. The sooner you finish, the sooner you can join your friends.”

  Wes hung up. “That was William Ritt.”

  The hair on the back of Scott’s neck stood on end.

  “He said I should get over to the drugstore right away.”

  “What for?” Scott asked.

  Dora glanced out the window. “Is he open today?”

  “Oh, he’s open and doing business. You won’t believe who just arrived for a meeting with Dutch.” He held Scott and Dora in suspense for several seconds before saying in a stage whisper, “The FBI.”

  “What do they want with Dutch?” Dora asked.

  Scott could guess, but he waited for his dad to tell them.

  “I’d bet good money it’s about Millicent.” Wes retrieved his coat and pulled it on. “Since I’m chairman of the city council, Ritt thought I should know about this development.” He opened the back door, saying as he went out, “Maybe they’ve got a lead.”

 
Scott watched him go, staring at the closed door long after he’d left.

  CHAPTER

  15

  ORDINARILY, LINDA WEXLER REPORTED TO work at Ritt’s Drug Store at six sharp to start brewing coffee and making preparations to open at seven for the diehards who were there every morning hungry for grits and fried ham.

  This morning, she wasn’t going to make it. She phoned just before daybreak to tell William that her property looked like Siberia. “And it’s still coming down something fierce. Until the sanding truck makes it out to these back roads, I’m stranded.”

  William reported this to Marilee, who tried to dissuade him from leaving the house and opening the drugstore. “Who’s going to venture out this morning? At least wait a few hours, until the roads have been sanded.”

  But he was stubbornly committed to opening on time. “I’ve already shoveled the driveway. Besides, my customers count on me.”

  The attached carport had sheltered their cars. She watched through the kitchen window as William got into his, cranked the motor, and gave her a thumbs-up through the windshield when it kicked on. He backed out carefully and drove away.

  Although Marilee had tried to talk him out of going, she welcomed being alone in the house. To have an entire day to herself made her feel incredibly lighthearted and free. She returned to her bedroom, removed her robe, and climbed back into her warm bed to indulge in the erotic memories she and her lover had created last night.

  He never got to stay all night, of course, but he never left immediately after making love either. For a brief but enchanted while, they would lie together and engage in licentious dalliance. Their heads close, whispering, using the language of poetry or the gutter, they plotted fantasies that would scandalize even the most adventurous lovers. More often than not, they wound up acting out their verbal foreplay.

  She denied him nothing. He’d been given unrestricted access to her body. Before him, her sexuality had been an uncharted wasteland. Their first time together, without shame or reservation, she had invited him not only to explore but to exploit it.

  The buildup to that first time had been gradual. They’d been acquainted for years, but their perceptions of each other suddenly changed. Simultaneously, it seemed, they began to view one another in a different light. Each was unsure if this new awareness was reciprocated, so they gravitated toward one another cautiously, until the sexual interest was tacitly acknowledged.

  Once it was, they began inventing reasons to cross paths. Their conversations were spiced with suggestiveness, although to anyone else they sounded innocent and proper. Should their eyes happen to meet, even in a crowded, public place, they telegraphed an unspoken desire which, each confessed later, had made them flushed and weak.

  Then one evening they got what they had independently wished for—time alone. William had gone up the mountain to work on the old homestead, so there was no reason for Marilee to rush home after school. She’d stayed in her classroom, electing to grade papers at her desk rather than tote them home only to carry them back the following day.

  He’d noticed her car in the faculty parking lot and went into the building on the pretext of looking for someone else.

  He appeared at the open door of her classroom, startling her because she’d thought she was alone in the building. They ran their altogether polite and proper drill. He asked if she’d seen the individual he was supposedly looking for, and she said no she hadn’t, but each knew that the exercise was all pretense.

  He lingered. She picked up her stapler and studied it as though it were a new and incomprehensible invention, then set it back down in the same spot. He took off his jacket and folded it over his arm. She fingered her pearl earring. They exchanged chitchat.

  Soon they ran out of things to say that didn’t sound banal. Still, he didn’t leave. He stayed, gazing at her with longing, waiting for a signal from her to act on the physical yearning each felt in the other’s presence.

  In effect, he abdicated the initiative to her. He wasn’t free to take a lover. Marilee knew this, accepted it, disregarded it. For once in her life, she was going to be selfish and seize what she wanted without taking into consideration anyone else’s opinion. To hell with the consequences.

  The boldest thing she’d ever done was ask if he would accompany her into the storeroom and heft a box of books to bring back to the classroom. “My fifth-period class starts reading Ivanhoe next week,” she told him as they made the short walk, their footfalls echoing off the metal wall lockers along the deserted corridor. “The copies are stored in here.”

  She unlocked the storeroom door and went in ahead of him. She yanked on the string that dangled from the ceiling light, turning it on, then reached around him to shut and lock the door. Facing him, she stood with her arms at her sides and waited. She’d brought them this far. The next move was his.

  He held out for perhaps three seconds before pulling her against him and kissing her with unleashed ardor. He squeezed her ass. He fondled her breasts. He pulled the elastic band from her hair, then grasped handfuls of it and twisted it around his fingers.

  Marilee had only read fictional accounts of passion that fiery and could scarcely believe that she was the object of it.

  He groped beneath her sweater, but she did better than that. She pulled it over her head and removed her brassiere, revealing her breasts to a man for the first time. Reaching beneath her skirt, she peeled off her panty hose and underpants, then invitingly propped her hips against a stack of boxes.

  “Anything you’ve imagined or fantasized, do with me,” she whispered. “I want you to look your fill. Touch me to your heart’s content.”

  He slid his hands up her thighs. Already she was wet. As his fingers moved inside her, she threw back her head. “Anything you want. Anything.”

  His eyes were glazed with lust, but as he opened his fly and put on a condom, he had the presence of mind to ask if she was a virgin. She told him about her only experience. Her last year in college. A philosophy study partner. It had happened only once, with no more preliminary than a dry kiss.

  “The front seat of a car makes for a very unsatisfying fuck.”

  Miss Marilee Ritt was the last person on earth he would have expected to use that word. Hearing it from her prim lips aroused him beyond his ability to contain himself. It also swiped his conscience clear of any misgivings. He took her fast and furiously, climaxing before she did.

  Pulling out of her, he said, “You didn’t come, did you?”

  “It’s all right.”

  “Like hell it is.”

  He used his fingers.

  Afterward, she was so shaky she had trouble dressing. He helped her. There was laughter over his clumsiness with her garments, sighs when he paused to caress a part of her body, playful remonstrations over his deliciously lewd comments. He helped her into her panties, then stroked her through the damp fabric until she came again, clinging to his shoulders, gasping for breath against his chest.

  The air in the storeroom had become close and musky. As they left, Marilee wondered if the next faculty member to unlock that door would notice the scent of sex. She hoped so. The wicked thought made her smile.

  The clandestine aspect of the storeroom had added excitement to that first encounter, but from a practical standpoint they couldn’t continue to use it. Not only was there a high risk of discovery, but romantically speaking, it left a lot to be desired.

  “There are French doors on the north side of my bedroom,” she told him. “I’ll leave them unlocked for you every night. Come to me whenever you can.”

  He questioned the plan, but she dismissed his fears that William would discover them. “He goes to bed early and doesn’t leave his room until the next morning.”

  The first night he sneaked into her house, they agreed that making love lying down, in a bed, completely naked, was worth any risk. In words that made her blush, he praised every inch of her body. She amazed him with her unabashed curiosity over his.
/>
  “My beautiful lover,” she whispered now, repeating what she had said to him last night when she took his penis between her lips. He loved that. Loved it when she closed her mouth around just the tip, which was as smooth and firm as a plum.

  The telephone rang, shattering the lovely recollection.

  Rolling onto her side, she looked at the caller ID box beside the phone. William, calling from the drugstore. If she didn’t answer, she could always claim she’d been in the shower. But if he truly needed her help, could she ever forgive herself for not answering because she wanted to daydream about her secret lover? Guilt won out.

  • • •

  “What is it, William?”

  Marilee sounded groggy but also piqued. Had she returned to bed after he left the house? William wondered. Probably. She hadn’t gotten that much sleep last night. Ah well, such was the price of passion. Served her right if she didn’t get to lallygag around all day as she’d obviously planned to do after last night.

  Actually she was to be admired for her stamina. It was a marvel to him that his sister could crawl after one of her marathons of fornication. Her lover’s staying power was equally remarkable.

  Often he was tempted to ambush one or both of them with his knowledge of their illicit affair. He practically licked his chops in anticipation of the moment when he revealed that he knew about the fervent rutting in his sister’s boudoir. They would gape at him in horror, realizing that their futures depended upon his whim.

  It would be such a triumphant moment. Of course, half the fun was knowing that such a moment was inevitable, so he could wait. He would know when the time was right, and when it was, he would spring the trap. In the meantime, let them fuck themselves into complacency.

  It was difficult to keep the smile out of his voice. “Marilee, I need you to come to the store right away.”

  “Why? What’s wrong?”

  “Nothing’s wrong. I’ve got customers. Important customers,” he said in an undertone. “Two FBI agents. They were waiting in their car when I got here. They’re meeting with Dutch to discuss the Gunn girl’s disappearance. I should offer them breakfast, and as you know, Linda can’t get here.”