Rush

by Carsen Taite

  “I work hard enough.”

  Ellen placed a hand on her chest. Warm heat poured from her touch, burning quickly into intense attraction. “I hope it wasn’t too hard for you to play the part of my date tonight. You were perfect, and I’m pretty sure Sophia and her friends are telling everyone I had the catch of the night.”

  The blush burned Danny’s cheeks. The pleasure had been all hers, but she couldn’t resist the question on the tip of her tongue. “Want to repay the favor?”

  Chapter Thirteen

  Ellen threw another discarded outfit on the bed. Danny had said dress casual, but the range of casual defied her. Picnic casual, go to the mall casual, business casual? She laughed. Her mother didn’t believe in casual. Vivian’s range of clothing went from dressy to dressier, and she believed that every time a lady left the house was an occasion and she should dress as if she might run into the president or a foreign dignitary while out and about.

  She finally settled on tan slacks, a light blue sweater, and flats. A couple of modest pieces of jewelry to finish out the look. A little preppy, but casual and put together. Should work no matter what Danny’s family had in mind. Not that she gave a rip what her family thought. She was dressing to impress Danny. She had to do something to keep her interest since it was pretty clear Danny had written her off. Hell, she’d practically tricked Danny into inviting her to this event, and she was both nervous and excited. Family wasn’t her thing. Not her own anyway, but other people’s families usually embraced her, possibly because they sensed she had no real family of her own.

  The doorbell signaled Danny’s arrival. Ellen grabbed her purse and practically ran to the door. A polite hostess would invite Danny in, offer her a drink, but she wanted this date to actually happen, and following convention hadn’t worked out so far. She swung open the door and stepped out. “Look at you, exactly on time.”

  Look at her indeed. Danny was dressed in another pair of snug-fitting jeans, a crisp black cotton shirt, and black loafers. Dark and dangerous, exactly the opposite of the approachable look Ellen had been going for. And totally hot. “You look fantastic.” She’d resolved to keep things as casual as she could, but she couldn’t help the arousal that seeped into her tone. She looked down at her own outfit. “Do I look all right?”

  Danny smiled. “You look great. Mama will say you look like spring.” She glanced at her watch. “We don’t have to leave right now if you don’t want to.”

  Ellen cocked her head, trying to read the hesitation. “Having second thoughts about taking me to meet your family?” Probably not a bad assessment. How would Danny introduce her? Here’s the woman I told you about, you know, the one that invited me over for dinner, but tried to get in my pants instead. Or better yet, here’s the woman I’m only interacting with because she has information about a case I’m working.

  Danny shook her head. “I’m not having second thoughts about inviting you out. It’s the meeting my family part.”

  “I get it. Maybe you should just go on your own.” She pulled her keys back out of her purse and reached to unlock the door, but Danny’s hand on hers stopped the action.

  “I hate going over there alone.”

  The whispered confession sounded painful. Ellen looked into Danny’s eyes, trying hard to read the message behind the words. “Detective Ramirez made it sound like your family is a big ball of love.”

  “If you’re going with me, you better start calling him George. And they are. Too big. If you show up with me, my mother’s going to start planning our wedding. I should’ve thought of that before I asked you.”

  Or did you and you just conveniently forgot to mention it? Ellen tried not to over think Danny’s invite. She’d known when she accepted an invitation to a family gathering that no matter how casual the event may be, the invite wasn’t. But she’d accepted anyway. She had to because she couldn’t deny the attraction she felt between them. The entire night of the mixer, she’d been distracted, wondering where Danny was, who she was talking to. And then the flirty intern Angela, handing her a white rose. She imagined the roses signified what they always had. The official flower of Alpha Nu had turned into a calling card, an invitation. Sorority members handed them out at the end of a function to whoever they wanted to sneak up to their rooms, whether it was a guy from one of the fraternities or, in her case, a fellow Greek from a rival sorority.

  But that was in college. She’d outgrown silly gestures like white roses, but she wished she hadn’t. Waving a flower would be so much easier than putting words to whatever this was she was feeling. For now, she’d settle for playing the part of date. She put her keys in her purse and led Danny down the walk to her truck. As Danny helped her climb in, she said, “I’ll call Detective Ramirez, George. As for the wedding plans, you’re going to have to wear the white dress. White washes me out.”

  “I doubt anything could make you look bad.”

  The blush warmed her. “You shouldn’t say things like that.”

  “Why not? If you’re going to pretend to be my date, you should try on the part before we get there.”

  Ellen took the out. “Fine then. I suppose I should know a little more about you as well.”

  “My favorite color is blue. Indigo. I hate long walks in the rain. Never have understood why anyone thinks that would be romantic.”

  “So you like romance?”

  It was Danny’s turn to blush and Ellen enjoyed watching her fumble for an answer. “No one’s ever accused me of that.”

  “It was a question, not an accusation. Come on, Counselor, don’t you know the difference?”

  “I may not be as good at reading situations as some might think.”

  Ellen couldn’t ignore the implication, but she didn’t have to rise to it either. Their easy levity fell away and the rest of the ride passed in silence. Ellen spent the time staring out the window, watching the neighborhoods change as they drove across town. Soon they were in a neighborhood in Garland quite unlike her mother’s. Instead of custom homes, the streets were crowded with single-story brick look-alikes. Kids played basketball in the street, and driveways were littered with hastily thrown down bicycles. When they pulled up in front of a small but well-trimmed lawn, the silence between them was so stark she could hear Danny’s breath hitch. Out of the corner of her eye, she watched her staring at the house, her face impassive, but Ellen sensed she was girding herself for whatever she would encounter inside. A family who loved her so much they wanted her to be happy? Relatives who’d tease her about her relationships? On a purely intellectual level, Ellen understood how Danny might be annoyed at the unwanted attention to her personal life, but she couldn’t help but wish for an ounce of the attention Danny professed to dislike. For one night, she could pretend her life was something other than what it was. She reached over and grasped Danny’s hand. “Let’s go inside and show them what a great couple we are.”

  *

  Danny grunted as her mother’s hug threatened to crush her ribs. “Ma, you’re going to make me drop the bowl.” When sufficient injury had been inflicted, Mama took the covered bowl out of her hands and inspected her date.

  “She’s beautiful, but skinny.”

  Danny rolled her eyes. “This is my friend, Ellen Davenport.” She had practiced the introduction several times that afternoon, worried any hesitation on her part would leave an opening for too many questions. As it was, Mama Soto was certain to assume Ellen was a serious girlfriend since the last woman she’d brought to a family gathering had been Maria. For the fortieth time that day, she questioned her judgment in bringing Ellen here.

  “Ellen, welcome to our home.” Mama Soto gently pushed Danny aside and led Ellen toward the kitchen. “We have chips and guacamole, and if my daughter knows what’s good for her, this bowl is full of queso.”

  Danny laughed at the worried look on Ellen’s face, unable to tell if it was the food or the fact she’d been kidnapped that had her stressed. She started toward the kitchen to run inte
rference, but was stopped by a hand on her arm.

  “Hey there, pal, you have some explaining to do.”

  Danny faced George’s questioning stare, daring him to ask what she knew he was dying to. After a few beats of silence, he must have decided she wasn’t going to volunteer any information on her own.

  “Pretty sure that was Ellen Davenport your mother just abducted and is probably putting into a food coma as we speak.”

  “Yep.”

  “The same Ellen Davenport who runs the sorority that is definitely connected to each of our victims?”

  “Yep.”

  “You want to tell me anything?”

  Danny squared for a fight, but then decided there might be a way to avoid the battle. “Actually, I want to ask you something. Any more news on the guy from the mixer?”

  “You know what I know. Sarah and a few of our guys have him under surveillance. They’ve been watching him since he left the bar at the hotel.”

  She already knew the rest. Sarah had run his plates and found his car was registered to a Ron Keck. A team had followed him home and then followed his every move. While they watched, Sarah had determined Keck was an employee of a mail service business located near the hotel and he had a rap sheet, although it contained mostly minor offenses, one of which was public lewdness. A misdemeanor and it had occurred in an adult theater, not a public park, so generally harmless. In the meantime, Danny had spent the day before going through the sorority’s files, which she’d convinced Ellen to let her take offsite. No other suspicious deaths, but she’d put together a list of women whose ages fit the killer’s profile and handed it over to Sarah to run through her magical FBI databases. Hopefully, it would all be for nothing. “You think he’s involved in these murders?”

  George shrugged. “Hard to tell. Flores and Buckner say Keck fits the profile. Middle-aged bachelor, lives alone, small crimes in the past as if he was testing the waters. But I asked you about Davenport. Why are you changing the subject?”

  “I’m not. It’s just that it doesn’t seem like you’re focused on sorority members as part of your investigation.”

  “No, besides the fact the killer is targeting them, I haven’t seen anything to make me think the good girls of Alpha Nu are killing their own. What’s your point?”

  “My point is if she’s not a potential suspect, what’s the harm in having her over to dinner?”

  “Danny, is this the woman you’ve been dating?”

  “Well, we haven’t really even made it that far, but I like her so I asked her to join me. Thought I’d try something different and bring potential dates to a family gathering first and weed out the ones who can’t handle the onslaught.” When she’d finally exposed Maria to her family, it only took a few minutes for her to realize they didn’t like her, but by then they were already living together.

  “Did you even prepare her?”

  “Mildly.”

  “What if info breaks that points in a different direction, like back at the sorority?”

  “Is it dumb to say I’ll deal with that when or if it happens?” She knew the answer, but she also knew George would have her back even if she chose to pursue a woman she shouldn’t. And she was right.

  “Maybe, but it won’t be the first time someone’s acted dumb about a beautiful woman.”

  “Well, we haven’t even made it through a meal together yet. If she can make it through a night full of Sotos, then she can handle anything.”

  “That’s for sure.”

  “What’s for sure?” Ellen looked between them with a beer in one hand and a bottle of water in the other.

  Danny took the beer Ellen offered. “You escaped.”

  “Only long enough to bring you a beer. If you’re going to stay here chatting, I’m heading back to the kitchen and the queso. It’s going fast.”

  George nodded at Ellen. “If you don’t go with her, I will. That queso is the only reason I’m here.”

  “Listen to the man.”

  Danny looked between them. “Come on, you two, let’s go.”

  Their arrival in the kitchen was met with shouts of greeting. Danny hugged her brother, Joe, and his wife, Pam, and introduced Ellen. But this time the “friend” reference didn’t go unnoticed.

  “Right, sis. You bring a woman home for the first time in I don’t remember how long and she’s just a ‘friend’? Give me a break.” Joe took Ellen’s hand and made a show of inspecting her fingers. “Where’s the ring?”

  Just as she was about to melt into the floor, Ellen saved her. “I’m not big into rings. I was thinking about a car instead.” She cocked her head and looked into Danny’s eyes with a dreamy expression. “What do you think, honey? Maybe something big enough for kids?”

  “Uh…” She’d stopped digesting coherent sentences after “honey.” Seconds later, Joe, Pam, and Ellen burst into laughter, but it wasn’t until Joe punched her on the arm that she realized they didn’t take Ellen seriously. “She’s a funny one. You should keep her around. Ellen, can I get you a margarita?”

  Danny watched while her older brother, who usually let everyone else wait on him, fixed a perfect drink for perfect Ellen Davenport. Ellen laughed at his antics and charmed everyone in the room. She was a perfect catch, but she was playing a part of the girlfriend, and Danny needed to remember playing didn’t make it real.

  *

  They’d been sitting in front of her house for several silent seconds when Ellen pulled Danny’s hand into her lap and said, “I had a good time tonight.”

  She wasn’t lying. The crushing embrace of Danny’s family had been more comforting than claustrophobic and she’d enjoyed the role as center of attention. Danny, on the other hand, was hard to read. Something about the evening had caused her to draw into herself, become distant.

  “They really like you.”

  “You say that like it’s a bad thing.”

  “It would be a great thing, if…”

  “If?”

  “Never mind.”

  Ellen squeezed the hand in her lap. “No, not fair. What’s on your mind? Spill.”

  “I really should go.”

  Ellen locked her fingers with Danny’s. “But I have you prisoner. Seriously, why don’t you come inside and tell me what’s going on in that beautiful head of yours?”

  “I’m not sure I’d know where to begin.”

  It wasn’t a no. Ellen took the slight opening and pushed a little harder. “I don’t want to end the night like this. I feel like something’s unresolved between us. I won’t be able to sleep. Come in. We’ll talk, just talk. I promise.”

  Danny squeezed her hand and nodded.

  When they entered the house, Ellen motioned Danny to the living room. “I’m dying for water after those amazing margaritas. What can I get you?”

  “Water’s good.”

  “Wait here. I’ll be right back.”

  Ellen stood in front of the refrigerator with the door open, hoping the cool air would give her an idea of what to say when she returned to the living room. All evening long, she’d sensed both attraction and resistance from Danny. Did Danny feel like she couldn’t date her because of the murder cases she was helping investigate? If that were true, why did she keep coming back? From the first night at Adair’s to becoming her personal escort to the mixer, to inviting her to a close family gathering, Danny was sending signals of attraction. But when she got close, especially physically, Danny pulled away, mixing up the message. She wanted to ask her what was going on, but she didn’t know how to approach the subject without spooking her.

  Maybe spooking her was the only way.

  When she returned to the living room, Danny was standing in front of the fireplace, staring at the mantel. “Hey, you want to have a seat?”

  Danny shook her head. “I’m good.” She accepted a water bottle and downed half the contents. “Joe’s margaritas are definitely salty.” She drank some more, and then pointed at the mantel. “The mantel at my mother’
s house is covered with family pictures.”

  Ellen sat on the couch and looked up at the mantel. An expensive crystal vase and an antique clock were the only features. She had a feeling she knew where Danny was going with this, but she decided to wait it out. “Your mom’s house is a very welcoming place. What’s your place like?”

  Another long drink of water and the bottle was empty. Ellen watched Danny look around for somewhere to set it down, but she could tell she was stymied by the formality of the room. She walked over, took the bottle, and with her free hand, led Danny to the couch. She pointed at the cushion. “You sit there and I’ll sit over here,” she pointed to the adjoining chair. “Tell me about your place.”

  “Not much to tell.”

  “Do you live near your parents?”

  “I have an apartment not far from them. One bedroom. It’s small.” She waved her hand. “Way smaller than this house. Of course, everything is way smaller than this house.”

  Ellen started to say “it’s not my house,” but she bit her tongue. Instead, she said, “It’s pretty crazy. Way too big.”

  “Why don’t you have any pictures around?”

  “What?”

  “Pictures, you know, photographs? Framed memories of people you love, people who love you? Even in my tiny apartment, I have personal stuff out. Nothing about this place is personal. Is that because you don’t believe in personal?”

  Danny’s tone was calm, but her words signaled anger, and Ellen was stung by the unexpected emotion. She started to tell Danny that how she chose to decorate her house was none of her business, but she had a feeling Danny’s anger wasn’t about the house. Something deeper was going on here, and as much as she didn’t want to get involved, she wanted to erase the pain from Danny’s face. She abandoned her promise about staying put in the chair and joined Danny on the couch. “I have pictures, but I have reasons why I choose not to display them. Maybe when we know each other better, I’ll tell you those reasons, but for now, why don’t you tell me what’s got you all twisted up?”

  “Nothing.”

  “It’s not nothing.”