Walking After Midnight

by Karen Robards

  “I hate beer,” was all she said.

  “Drink it.”

  She accepted the can with a grimace, propping it against her leg. Steve took a long swig from his can. There was so much else to worry about that Summer couldn’t summon more than a flicker of dismay over her self-confessed alcoholic’s apparently nonchalant consumption of beer. If the can even held beer. She was beginning to know him well enough to suspect it did not.

  “Water?” She hazarded a guess, cocking a brow at the can.

  He looked at her in some surprise. “What makes you think that?”

  “It is, isn’t it?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Thought so.” Her lip curled in satisfaction. She hadn’t been mistaken in her reading of his character.

  “Think you’re pretty smart, don’t you?” he asked.

  “Yeah.” She had to smile. “Where’d you get it?”

  “I drained out the beer and filled the cans up with water from a tap at the campground when I came looking for you. See the little hole in the lid? Easy. As long as you plug the hole with something. In this case, bubble gum.”

  “You mean mine’s water, too?” Summer glanced at her can with genuine excitement.

  He nodded. She grinned at him and took a big swallow. The water was lukewarm and had a faintly metallic edge, but still it tasted wonderful. She drank again, then returned to the matter at hand.

  “Could you, please, tell me how you wound up in the funeral home the other night? Everything seems to have started then.”

  Steve shook his head and devoured another marshmallow. “No, everything didn’t start then. It actually started more than three years ago. This is something to do with the case I was working on when I—when Deedee died.”

  He looked pensive suddenly, or as pensive as it was possible to look when licking marshmallow goo from one’s fingers.

  “Go on,” she said a tad irritably. Deedee was beginning to get on her nerves.

  “You want to know the whole thing?” His glance was inscrutable. “All right. It was supposed to be confidential, but under the circumstances I think you deserve to hear it. Hell, maybe you can help me figure it out. So far, I seem to be missing something. The key.” He laughed and fed Muffy the badly charred end of his hot dog without her even having to yap for it. Muffy gobbled up the morsel greedily.

  “You know I am—was—a detective with the Tennessee State Police.” It was as much a question as a statement, and Summer nodded.

  “About three and a half years ago I was asked by my superiors to investigate possible corruption in a small-town police department.” He glanced at Summer, hesitated, and swigged his water. “Hell, you might as well know that it was the Murfreesboro Police Department. Chief Rosencrans made the request. It seemed that the corruption—the alleged corruption—was so widespread in his department that he needed outside help in rooting it out. They weren’t sure which, if any, of their own guys were clean.”

  “Then doesn’t that prove that Sammy’s not involved? All we have to do is contact him and …” Summer broke in eagerly.

  Steve shook his head. “It doesn’t prove a thing. Did you ever hear of bluff and double bluff? Just because Old Rosey asked us to investigate doesn’t mean he wasn’t involved. Maybe he just thought initiating the investigation himself would be a good way to obscure his involvement in what was going on. Hell, I don’t know. When you’ve been a detective as long as I have been—was, whatever—you learn never to take anything at face value. Just because it looks like a cow, and sounds like a cow, and smells like a cow, doesn’t mean that it is a cow, if you follow me.”

  Summer thought about that and nodded. Exhaustion was taking its toll. Her brain was not the sharpest it had ever been at that precise moment, but she was pretty sure she got the main idea: Maybe Sammy was a good guy, and maybe he wasn’t.

  “Anyway, I investigated, and I concluded that there was something rotten in Murfreesboro. Something really rotten. Those guys were being paid off by the bushelful—but by whom? And why? This was a hush-hush investigation. Nobody was supposed to know about it but my immediate superior and Chief Rosencrans. All the action seemed to center around Harmon Brothers funeral homes. Something was going down on the premises—a big-time drug operation, I’m fairly certain, though I never had a chance to prove it. Whether the funeral home people are involved, or just the premises themselves, I’m not certain. I suspect at least some of the people—employees or owners—have to be in on it, or they’d be filing complaints about strangers coming and going at odd hours at their cemeteries. No complaints were filed. I checked. I also got whiffs that some high-society types around the state might be involved. Some politicians might be involved. And some cops might be involved. I was just getting pretty deep into it—and then Deedee died.”

  “She committed suicide,” Summer said softly, wanting him to face it. He glanced over at her, his expression suddenly harsh, intent.

  “Did she? That’s that they said. Hell, there’s a good case for it, at least on paper. We did have an affair, and I did break it off kind of abruptly. But would Deedee hang herself over that? I always did find that hard to believe. I just can’t see Deedee killing herself over me. I can’t see her killing herself at all. Deedee wasn’t the type. She was—vibrant, I suppose, for want of a better word. She was the type to grab life with both hands and twist its tail until it gave her what she wanted.”

  “Maybe you just don’t want to see it.” Summer thought, hoped, that if she pressed him to get everything that had happened out in the open, it might have a healing effect. It was time and past that Deedee’s ghost was laid to rest. “Didn’t she leave a suicide note, or, er, videotape?”

  “Yeah.” The tips of Steve’s ears reddened. He took a sip of water and cast Summer a sidelong glance. “Somebody—I can’t believe it was Deedee; you can bet your life I never saw the camera if it was—videotaped us, uh, doing it. There was some pretty steamy footage on that tape—I know, because during the course of the investigation into whether or not I should be fired they made me watch it three times. Deedee was—a free spirit. She liked to try different things. Like being tied up, or having sex in unexpected places.”

  “Like on your desktop.” Summer’s voice was dry. She knew she was idiotic to resent any sexual encounters that he might have had before he even met her, and sexual encounters with a dead woman were certainly no threat—but she resented them, anyway. Because, she decided, to Steve, Deedee was very much alive. He even had visions of her ghost.

  She was shocked to realize how much she needed for him to put Deedee, living or dead, right out of his life.

  “A fan of the National Enquirer, are we?” he asked, cocking a sardonic eyebrow at her.

  “Actually, I think I saw it on Hard Copy.”

  “Jesus.” Steve picked up his can as though to take a drink, then set it down again without doing so. “After the first thrill of making it with Deedee wore off—I’d had the hots for her from afar for years, you understand—I started to feel guilty as hell. There was Elaine. She was my wife. We were in love when we got married, or at least I was in love. I can’t speak for her. By the time the kid was born, the flame had flickered out. Still, we kept going through the motions. Don’t get me wrong, Elaine was—is—a good woman, a good mother. I’m not going to say otherwise to try to justify what I did.”

  He picked up the can and this time guzzled about half the contents. When he put it down, he wiped his mouth with the back of his hand and glanced at her. His eyes were unreadable, shiny black disks in the dark. “Even worse than Elaine, there was Mitch. Mitch is—was—my best friend. We went to kindergarten together. We went to elementary school together. We met Deedee together, when we were in high school. Mitch was the quarterback on our football team. I was the center. The only thing we didn’t do together was join the Marines. He went to college instead. But when I got out of the service, I went to college too, and ended up in the state police with Mitch. He made detectiv
e the year before I did. Hell, when Elaine and I bought our house in Nashville, he bought one right down the street. He was there at the hospital passing out cigars the night my daughter was born. We hung out together. We were tight, tighter than a lot of brothers. I screwed my best friend’s wife. It was indefensible. I know it, believe me.”

  He broke off. His jaw hardened, and Summer was treated to a view of his stony profile as he stared into the fire. After a moment, as though he felt the weight of her unspoken sympathy, he slanted a brooding look her way.

  “Deedee and Mitch had been married forever, and he’d been screwing around on her for years. Maybe she’d been screwing around on him, too. I don’t know. How can anybody know? Anyway, this time he was involved in an affair that Deedee seemed to think was pretty hot and heavy. She needed a shoulder to cry on, and whose better than mine? We’d been friends, all of us, for so long. I never meant what happened to happen. It just did. I was drinking one night, and she was lonely, and—it happened.” He covered his face with his hands suddenly. “God, if I could only take it back. Just that one moment. If I could only take it back, I would.”

  Looking at him, looking at the broad shoulders slumped now in defeat, at the bowed head, at this strong man suddenly brought low in an attitude of utter despair, Summer realized the sad truth: She was in love with him.

  God help her.

  And she couldn’t stand to see him hurting. Even if his pain was caused by his grief for another woman, she had to do what she could to ease the sting.

  She crawled over to him and wrapped her arms, quilt and all, comfortingly around his shoulders.

  And pressed her mouth to the unshaven, sandpaper roughness of his cheek.

  His hands fell away from his face. His head lifted, turned, and his black eyes bored into hers with blast furnace intensity.

  32

  Except for the orange glow of light cast by the flickering flames, the forest was dark as pitch. Shadows from the fire leaped and danced like pagan phantoms among the black trunks of trees. The wind moaned in the treetops. Small animals scurried and squeaked.

  Summer studied the fathomless black eyes, the unhandsome, powerfully magnetic face, the wide shoulders, the rough black hair.

  She was in love with this man. The thought was so scary that it almost made her sick—but it was exhilarating, too.

  He tilted his head and kissed her mouth.

  Summer closed her eyes. It was a tender kiss, a sweet kiss, and the emotions it brought with it were so intense, she wanted to cry.

  Then, without warning, he broke off the kiss. Summer opened her eyes, bewildered, as he drew back.

  “This is a mistake.” His voice was unsteady.

  Hurt, Summer started to draw away in turn. But then she remembered that this was Steve, proud, unreachable Steve, whom she loved. Steve, who had been hurt and was still hurting. Steve, who needed her.

  Instead of giving up, she tightened her arms around his neck. Closing her eyes, she lifted her head and found his lips with hers. When her mouth touched his he did not pull away, but neither did he respond. She might as well have been kissing a statue as she rubbed her lips sensuously against his weather-dry mouth.

  He was resisting her. Why? Because of Deedee. Summer knew it instinctively. She and Deedee were locked in battle for Steve’s soul.

  Never mind that Deedee was dead.

  His lips stayed stubbornly closed against hers. Summer, who had never deliberately set out to seduce a man in her life, did now. She traced the outline of his mouth with her tongue, probing at the line where his lips joined. She could feel every muscle in his body stiffen as he fought against responding.

  “Make love to me, Steve,” she whispered against his mouth. Even his neck was rigid with resistance as she stroked its nape with gentle fingers, trying to coax his head down.

  “For both our sakes, I need to keep a clear head,” he said, sounding strangled. Summer smiled at him and crawled into his lap, adjusting the quilt so that it cocooned both of them. Her arms wrapped around his neck. His raised knees and long, muscular thighs on the one side and warm abdomen and wide chest on the other made a nice cradle for her bottom. Her breasts brushed his chest. His hands, quite of their own volition she was sure, found and tightened on her waist.

  “You don’t need a clear head tonight.”

  He could have put her off his lap easily. Summer knew he could; she had experienced his strength before. And he was certainly ruthless enough not to care about hurting her if ridding himself of her was truly what he wanted. But it wasn’t. She knew it wasn’t.

  “Summer …” Despite his protests, those black eyes were fixed on her mouth.

  “Shhh.” Summer put a finger to his lips to silence him. She couldn’t stop looking at him. She was so close to him that she could see every mark, every bruise, every scar on his skin. She could see, individually, the thousands of stubbly hairs that made up the rough black shadow that darkened his jaw, the faint puffiness that still distorted the right side of his face, the yellowing edges of a deep purple bruise on his forehead, the discolored circles around his eyes. The gash over his cheekbone was just starting to heal; so was the one at the corner of his mouth. His battered state should have lessened his appeal, but, oddly, it didn’t. He looked like a weary gladiator, this man she loved, she decided as she absorbed everything about his face from the bushiness of his black eyebrows and the bump in the bridge of the harsh blade that was his nose, to the unexpectedly tender curve of his lower lip above a mulish jaw.

  “Look, I don’t want to get involved.…” His breathing was uneven. Summer smiled at him tenderly.

  “I don’t either, but I think it’s already too late.” She moved then, lifting her mouth toward him at the same time as she drew his head down to hers. He let her pull him down—she was under no illusions that he could not have stopped her if he chose—but that was all the encouragement he gave her.

  Summer closed her eyes and touched her lips to his, softly at first, in a butterfly kiss that tantalized. No response. Coaxing, her mouth stroked his, begging, promising. Still he resisted—but the sudden harsh indrawing of his breath told her all she needed to know.

  This was a battle she was going to win.

  He felt big and warm and solid against her. Summer snuggled closer, shifting so that she was half lying against his chest, her breasts pressed close against the hard muscles there, her arms locked around his neck.

  He opened his mouth to say something—make some other protest, no doubt—but she forestalled him by sliding her tongue inside his mouth.

  He stiffened as if all his muscles had tightened in a single spasmodic jerk. Would he fight to the end, this gladiator of hers? Summer drew back her head, her lids opening languorously. The black eyes blazed down at her, as scorching as the embers of their fire. She kissed him, softly, briefly. Still he didn’t surrender. Summer smiled at him as her breasts nuzzled into his chest. His eyes narrowed and his jaw hardened. Summer could feel the momentary cessation in his breathing.

  Then, “To hell with it,” he muttered thickly, and his mouth came swooping down on hers.

  He kissed her as if he were starving for the taste of her mouth. His lips and tongue alternately caressed and plundered, while his arms locked around her waist and back, holding her as if he never meant to let her go. Summer met his greediness with her own need, her arms wound tight about his neck, her head thrown back against his shoulder. She felt suddenly weak, as if all her muscles had turned to jelly. She doubted that she could sit up on her own if he should release her. Not that there was any chance of that. She could feel his passion building like steam in a pressure cooker; already she was being seared by its heat. He had taken over the kiss completely; she merely followed where he led.

  When his mouth left hers at last to slide hotly across her cheek to her ear, Summer moaned. He nipped the tender lobe, his teeth arousing rather than punishing, then kissed the soft skin below it.

  “I want you,” he mu
rmured, his breath warm against her ear. Uttered in a hoarse, ragged voice, the phrase was incredibly sexy. Summer began to tremble.

  “I want you too.” She threaded her fingers up through his hair and pressed her mouth to the warm hollow below his ear. She could feel the racing of his pulse against her lips.

  He was leaning back against the trunk of the pine and she was lying against his chest, her legs curled around his, the quilt covering them both. His hand slid up to cradle the back of her head as he tilted her so that his mouth could have easy access to the softness of her throat.

  Summer closed her eyes against a momentary glimpse of bats swooping after insects across a night-dark sky and refused to allow herself to remember where they were or why. She blocked out everything except the feel of Steve’s hands and mouth and body. He was what she wanted, what she needed—just Steve.

  His mouth traced its way down her neck, nibbling and sucking and licking at the soft column. Finally he reached the throbbing hollow at the base of her throat. He stopped there for a moment, his lips pressed against her skin. She could feel the hardness of his mouth, the roughness of his unshaven jaw, the warm wetness of his tongue as it lazily explored the soft depression. Then one large, warm hand found her breast.

  Summer’s head swam. Her nipple hardened instantly, pressing against his palm through the layers of sweatshirt and T-shirt and bra. He found the eager bud, stroked it with his thumb, then took it between his fingers, gently rolling it back and forth. The pleasure was so intense that Summer gasped.

  She was suddenly starving for the feel of his skin against hers. Her hands slid down his chest, burrowing under the Nike shirt, reveling in the feel of the hard, hair-covered flesh. She stroked his chest, his belly. He was warm, so warm—all she wanted was to get closer to that warmth.

  Her questing fingers encountered the waistband of his shorts. She found the button, freed it, tugged the zipper down. His mouth burned the skin of her neck, his hand on her breast went suddenly rigid, and she got the impression that he had ceased to breathe. Then her fingers slid beneath his briefs, across his tightening abdomen, to close around the huge, hot, hungry part of him that was made for her possession.