With Her Last Breath

by Cait London

  The kitchen door opened and Dante warily studied the people on the deck. “Can I come out now? Look what I baked—”

  Maggie waded through the tension on the deck to play hostess. From this point on, everyone had to make his own choices.

  “I’d like this recipe,” Lorna said, as Vinnie sucked the frosting off her fingertips.

  Nick groaned painfully and his stare accused Maggie. “I suppose before I do any finger licking, I will have to—”

  She held out her hand. “You’re right. You will have to kiss it. But right now, give me that key.”

  After a day of Nick’s frowning and gloomy silence, and visiting Lorna’s extensive cellar with him to keep peace, Maggie decided she needed a little space from brooding males, and her camper was like a cool, quiet oasis.

  Maggie ignored the big man on the deck. He paced, using his cordless telephone to make business calls and substitution offers—while he watched her unlock the camper.

  The hum of her tiny air conditioner was comforting, almost a melody as she settled down with a stack of women’s magazines. She smiled as she thought of Beth’s baby news and set forth to wallow in sloth with a cinnamon roll, chocolate milkshake, and salty munchie orgy. She totally deserved every calorie.

  The knock on her door was ominous. “Yes?”

  Scout whined softly, and her pleading look said her buddy Nick was at the door.

  “Are you coming out?”

  “I don’t have any plans at the moment.”

  “Make plans.”

  She waited, letting him think over the pushy male routine. “What was that again?”

  The long silence said Nick was thinking very hard. “Thanks for helping,” he said finally.

  “You’re welcome.”

  “Would you open this door?”

  “It’s locked, like you told me to.” With a sigh, Maggie rose from her luxurious peace and potato chip sloth, and opened the door to Nick.

  He looked tired and wary as he thrust a bouquet of roses at her. “Celeste’s plants miss you. So do I. How long are you going to stay in here?”

  Nick looked closely at her. “Whatever you’re eating is all over your face.”

  “Chips, cinnamon rolls, a chocolate milkshake.”

  “Is that what you do when you get upset?” He looked so worried and confused that Maggie’s desire for ultimate peace slid into a warm puddle.

  “You’re not exactly a stress-free-maintenance item.” She tentatively lifted a finger laden with frosting and potato chip crumbs.

  Nick’s mouth was hot and warm and the look in his eyes sent definite hungry messages to her body.

  “When was the last time you spent the night in a camper?” she asked, fisting his shirt and tugging slightly.

  “Is that an invitation?” But he was already moving toward her with that look that said he intended to be very thorough.

  Like an artist, Brent studied Ed’s slumped body, and the suicide note next to the whiskey and pills. Experienced with drug effects, Brent checked Ed’s pulse and lifted his eyelid. In an hour or less, Ed would no longer have any problems. The bar had been closed for two hours; Shirley was due in the morning and would probably let herself in when Ed didn’t answer.

  Investigators had been snooping around Blanchefleur all day, and Lorenzo Alessandro was busy digging for information too. According to Ed, his notable, ongoing conflict with the Alessandros had made him a perfect suspect. The police were only gathering evidence now, but they would soon pressure Ed in hard interrogation, taking off the gloves. It was only a matter of time before he revealed the identity of his upstairs guest. The incident with the spider in the garage said Ed was unstable and would likely break under intense interrogation.

  And Ed had made the mistake of arguing with Brent, of telling him what to do.

  “My ultimate conclusion, Ed, old boy, was that you had to go. Thanks for the hospitality and the tranquilizer dart gun for the dog.”

  By the time Shirley found Ed, Brent would be like any other tourist, sleeping in his anonymously rented hotel room. He ran through his checklist: The telephone records would show that calls from Ed’s phones had been placed to Leo just prior to Leo flying into Louisville and renting a car. That car was in Ed’s salvage garage, complete with Leo’s wine-stained boots. The stolen bottles of Nick’s best wine were easily seen on the tavern’s bar.

  Brent walked to turn one bottle until the labels were exactly straight and even. He wiped a spot off the otherwise gleaming bar and took one last look to see if all the pictures in the bar were straight.

  His new instant tan, his wig and glasses and padded waistline, were perfect disguises. Rented with a fake ID, his car wouldn’t be questioned—not with all the tourists in town.

  He hummed as he bent to read the note Ed had written at the point of a gun—and a threat to Beth.

  The poor dumb jerk really seemed to love that slut, probably enough to die for her. Whether Brent kept his promise not to harm her depended on if Beth was in his way or not.

  “I can’t live with myself any longer,” Ed’s note read. “I’d had all I could stand of Nick Alessandro and I called Leo Knute because I knew he’d had a run-in with Nick. Leo took care of Nick’s winery, and when Leo started shooting his mouth off about my girl, I saw red and we started a ruckus. He’s out in the lake somewhere, but his boots are in my garage. It’s easier this way. The law won’t have trouble matching us up. I’m not serving time again. I did once. Ed.”

  “Thank you, Ed. That was nicely said,” Brent said as he picked up his bag. In it was the tranquilizer gun that Ed had provided for the dog.

  Brent let himself out into the alley. “It’s neat enough to let everyone go back to their business, relax a bit, and then I can attend to Maggie.”

  Out of habit, he reached inside his light jacket for his silver flask and cursed when he found it gone. It was all he had left of his power and money—Maggie had taken everything else away.

  With the ten thousand cash and a box of heisted jewelry from Ed’s private cubbyhole in the floor and Leo’s ten thousand traveling-money, Brent would have enough to get back on his feet again.

  Breeding the dog constantly, selling her pups for a healthy price, was just payback for obeying another man.

  Maggie’s payback would be slower, and she’d beg him. Brent looked forward to the begging part, when he felt all powerful. When they told him they loved him. Maggie’s sister had done it very well.

  Brent heard a tinkling of wind chimes, the sound eerie, echoing off the bricks of the alley. The sound made the hair on his nape lift and goose bumps ride his skin, though the August night was hot and still.

  He mocked himself with a grin. “Ed’s fear of the witch woman must be contagious. Well, now they’re together.”

  Yet the tinkling found him in his dreams—in the nightmare of the giant spider wrapping its silk around him. Then Brent awoke to his own scream.

  Dante nudged Nick as they stood in front of Ole’s gym, looking through the window. Maggie was doing push-ups inside, a reminder of their lovemaking on the single bed in the camper. Nick swallowed tightly, his body responding to all that long, sweet, very fit feminine softness on the mat inside.

  Dante spoke quietly. “Lorenzo and the investigators have their hands full now with Ed’s suicide. His note was backed up by the evidence—your missing case of wine, Leo’s car in Ed’s shop, the phone records proving Ed contacted Leo.”

  When Nick didn’t answer, Dante continued, “Just a guess, but I’d say whoever came after Scout was probably hired by Leo. I never thought Ed would be a neat freak, but according to Lorenzo, that upstairs apartment was almost sanitized. They say he must have been on a cleaning binge before he died. Every bottle in the place was systematically arranged.”

  Nick had just decided that Maggie had the cutest behind and shook himself back into the bright daylight. “Huh? Oh. Uh-huh. There will be enough stock to hold our shelf space and take care of our orders. The
customers were happy with the replacement. We’ll be able to limp along until next year. The winery has been released and we can sanitize it and try to salvage whatever.”

  He watched Scout trotting down to Marco’s shop. His cousin held a big fat knuckle bone out to the dog, who took it and the rough ear rubbing before trotting across the street. Scout disappeared into the alley that led to the Alessandros’ backyard, there to gnaw in pleasure.

  If Nick could give Maggie back her sister and her friend, he would. But Maggie hadn’t said she loved him; she hadn’t agreed to marriage, and they seemed a long way from the future he wanted…

  From the old lighthouse that night, he watched Maggie with Scout on the beach. She needed thinking space, and he needed her.

  The most difficult task in Nick’s life was waiting for Maggie to trust him, to turn to him fully—there was always that distance.

  She stepped into the waves, surprising him. Working with her fears, Maggie had kept him away.

  Nick heard the windowsill creak beneath the grip of his hands. There was always that tenuous distance, the feeling that at any time she would leave, and he could only wait.

  EIGHTEEN

  The waves washed over Maggie’s feet, sucking the sand beneath them. She walked slowly, thoughtfully, as she cradled Glenda’s locket in her hand. Out on the lake, tourist sailboats skimmed the water, making use of the wind that came to play in Maggie’s hair.

  In the last three days, everything had become so clear—as if a black cloud had been wiped away.

  The medical examiner had confirmed that Ed had committed suicide. Though the investigators were clearing up paperwork, his note and the evidence had eased questions about the vandalism at the winery and Leo’s death.

  Scout was safe now, free once more to roam on her visits to town. In Nick’s vineyard, his grapes were growing, and he was hard at work, salvaging his business. Profits would be almost nonexistent, but the all-precious customers’ goodwill, shelf space, and facing had only been slightly damaged. The wine growers’ association had already sent offers of help.

  Nick was still nettled that Lorna had come to his rescue, and his pride said he didn’t want Maggie working beside him in the winery. His instinct was to protect her, and he wasn’t shy about pointing out her mistakes. She loved him, of course, but she’d had enough of male pride and men setting rules for her.

  And within her lived the past, the ridicule of another man, the angry pain that she had given everything, just as her mother had taught her to do. Who was she really?

  Who was the woman she needed to know fully before giving herself to Nick? And why hadn’t the nightmares eased? Why was she uneasy? There was always the sense of an unfinished place in her life, but then Glenda’s death left no room for closure, did it?

  Maggie watched two boys fly a kite over the waves, and she instantly ached for Glenda’s sons, Seth and Cody. The boy with sandy hair was wearing a backpack, and he waved to her. “Where’s Scout? I’ve got a Frisbee.”

  “Hi, J.C. She’s at Tony’s, playing in the kiddie pool.”

  “She’d have more fun with us than a bunch of babies,” J.C. stated with a ten-year-old male’s arrogance. “Hey, do you want to see what I’ve got?”

  Leaving the kite flying to his friend, he ran toward her. J.C. sank into the sand, digging at his bag while Maggie came to stand beside him.

  He pulled out a net bag of prize shells, a piece of driftwood that looked like a deer horn, bluish gray and reddish stones perfectly smoothed by water, a baseball cap that had seen better days, and—

  Grinning proudly, J.C. held up his prize to her. “Mom washed it real good. It smelled like whiskey. Fancy, huh?”

  Maggie slowly took the silver flask, and the bright sunlight on the metal blinded her for a moment. She smiled, turning the prize slowly in her hand. “That’s beautiful, J.C.”

  “It has initials—see? Mom said I’d have to give it back if anyone asked around for it, and I had to leave a note at the city lost and found. Irma said I could keep it meanwhile, if I took really good care of it. See those initials? Mrs. Friends writes that old-fashioned way—”

  The initials B and T, ornately engraved, curled on the silver flask, and Maggie’s world stopped turning, her blood running cold.

  It was the same flask that Brent Templeton had taken out of his pocket the day she pushed her way into his men’s club, accusing him of ruining Glenda. While his powerful friends watched, he’d handed it to her, wanting her to have a drink and calm down. She’d thrown it back at him—

  “You like that? It had some pretty thread on it. Let me show you.” J.C. dug into his bag and came up with a scrap of red silk.

  Slender and gleaming in the sun, that tiny scrap matched Celeste’s favorite paisley scarf. “Can I have this, J.C.?”

  “Sure, I guess.”

  She thought of how many times Glenda had described drinking with Brent, his special little flask “just for us.” Maggie couldn’t bear to touch the flask, but the tiny part of Celeste she’d keep. The channel’s current must have wound the scrap around the bottle, keeping them together—or was it Celeste?

  “Listen very carefully, J.C. I want you to take very good care of that flask, because it’s important. Don’t ask me why, but someday someone might need it.”

  Her heart pounding with fear, Maggie set out at a run, her fist clutching the scrap—the physical proof tying Celeste and Brent at the same place. No one had believed her about his involvement with Glenda, but this proof couldn’t be denied. If Brent were near, he was capable of anything—and that included hurting the Alessandros and Maggie’s friends…

  In her panic, she could think of only one thing—that she couldn’t stay in Blanchefleur, endangering the Alessandros or anyone else. Brent wouldn’t stop. He would use other people to do his dirty work; his tentacles ran insidiously, spreading into other lives, twisting them. Lorenzo and his men couldn’t stop Brent; his friends were powerful, attorneys…The nightmare engulfed Maggie.

  She had to leave—to lead Brent away, and she couldn’t let him find Scout…

  “Nick? Has Maggie called you? Has she turned up at the winery? She can’t find Scout and is frantic. She’s calling everyone and asking them to hold Scout for her. She said she had an errand to do and she’d be right back. I’ve never seen her so upset.”

  Over the telephone, Sissy’s voice was worried. From his office at the vineyard, Nick noted Maggie’s pickup racing down the dirt road to his house, clouds of dust in its wake.

  “I just saw her go by. She’s okay. Let us know if Scout turns up. I’ll be with Maggie.”

  “Please tell her I’m sorry, Nick. Scout took off like she does when she knows you’re nearby, and I didn’t think anything of it. She’s run off to the winery a couple of times and I know Maggie doesn’t like that, but I didn’t want to worry her.”

  Logically Maggie should have called. She hadn’t. Scout had made independent visits in town and though scolded, she continued her regular visits when off the leash. Eugene, Marco, and the restaurant were regular stops.

  Taking care not to alarm his parents or the others, Nick placed a few brief calls. Sissy had already reached them, asking them to hold the dog.

  And yet Maggie hadn’t called Nick, the man who loved her and wanted to marry her. Scout was missing, and though Maggie knew Scout might make an independent trip out to the winery, she hadn’t called Nick.

  Nick punched out Dante’s number at the boatyard. In late afternoon, Dante would be winding up his day, getting ready to baby-sit at Tony’s. “See if you can find Scout, will you? She might have heard some kids on the beach and gone to play. She knows better, but check it out anyway, okay?”

  Nick closed the winery and drove slowly down the road, balancing his concern for Maggie against his anger that she hadn’t called him when in distress. If she left his house, she’d have to pass him, and would have a hard time doing so. He wasn’t above throwing a blockade in front of the woman he l
oved.

  When he saw her packing her pickup, anger took over. In front of the camper now, Nick reached inside the pickup, collected the keys, and slid them into his jeans pocket. He crossed his arms as he leaned back against the driver’s door and waited, his hurt and anger building. He’d be logical and listen; he’d understand whatever Maggie chose to do.

  The hell he would. He loved her and in everything but words, she had told him that she loved him. People who loved didn’t run out on each other. Not in his book.

  Hurrying out of the camper, Maggie stopped when she saw him. Sissy was right; Maggie was badly frightened and apparently in flight. His anger slipped a notch. “Let’s have it. The note you left for me. I deserve that much.”

  “Have you seen Scout? Is she in the house? I don’t hear her barking—”

  Nick reached out a hand to grip her upper arm, stopping her from running into the house. “She’s not here. If she were, she would be running circles around us now. What’s up?”

  Maggie’s eyes pleaded with him in her pale face. Her hand shook as she shoved a strand of reddish brown hair behind her ear. When she spoke, her voice trembled. “Nick, I wasn’t planning to stay in Blanchefleur. You know that.”

  His anger hitched back up, his gut churning with pain and passion that he exposed to few. “I thought things had changed. You know—my marriage offer, telling you I loved you, those sweet little nothings in bed that make a guy feel like he’s the only one in your life. Or do you just go around the country collecting guys like me and leaving them? Is that how you get your kicks?”

  As her lover, the man who loved and was fascinated by Maggie, he recognized every move of her body. Now it read that she wanted to hurry away from him, that she was frightened—

  Nick locked onto that incredulous thought. He pushed away from the pickup. “Maggie, are you frightened of me?”

  She bit her lip and hefted her canvas bag into the pickup bed. “I have to go, Nick. It’s time.”