Dangerous Desires

by Tia Siren

  There’s a silence that’s palpably awkward. I used to always know what he’s thinking, but right now I don’t. I just know that I’m feeling dumb for having shown him my enthusiasm so obviously. I decide to change the subject, and then I realize I’m still not sure exactly why he had the urgent need to call me just now.

  “So, I’m really glad to hear from you, Pat,” I begin, because I am, and I can’t help but tell him. “But does my sister know?”

  I would have assumed I would find out from her, but I don’t want to be rude and make Patrick think I’m lying about being happy to hear from him. So I just phrase it this way so as not to be too blunt in asking why exactly he’s calling.

  “Yes,” he says. “I actually called her first.”

  Again, that awkward silence. Clearly he hadn’t wanted to call me.

  Damn.

  But in his quiet, reserved way, he wasn’t going to tell me unless I straight up asked. That’s something I’ve always loved about Patrick.

  Other guys might act tough but cave under pressure—Patrick is steadfastly genuine and kind. A strong man who only shows his hand when it’s necessary, and does what he can to protect those he loves… or used to love.

  He clears his throat, and then says, “She thought I should call you.”

  Damn, that Maisy. What a great sister of mine. Always playing matchmaker, I think, and then quickly chide myself. I have no idea if Patrick is married, and I can’t exactly ask him without sounding nosy and desperate.

  He adds, “As I’ve said, there have been some rumblings, and… she thought it was best for me to go straight to you and let you know.”

  My heart had been fluttering around up near my throat the whole time Patrick and I have been on the phone, but now it falls down towards my stomach. It seems to join the knot that started earlier, so I guess I have a double knot in my stomach now.

  It hits me, hard, that he isn’t calling for any personal reason at all, except maybe as a favor based on our history together. He’s calling because there’s some sort of official business that it’s his duty to talk to me about eventually, anyway, and he’d rather me hear it from him than someone else. Even Maisy thought it was important enough to hear from him instead of her, and she knows I haven’t spoken with him or seen him since that summer I left Washburn for good.

  Well, this phone call has taken an even more bizarre turn than I thought it would when I first wondered who could be calling me. And I have a feeling there are still more surprises to be had.

  5

  Kelia

  “What kind of ‘rumblings?’” I ask.

  “Well, that’s the thing,” he says. “You know it’s a small town, and there are rumors. People talk about all sorts of things, and that doesn’t mean any of it’s true…”

  “What do you mean?” I ask him, suddenly on the defensive.

  I know all about how people in small towns talk. It’s one reason I couldn’t wait to get out of Washburn. They all called me a slut just because I didn’t hide the fact that I slept with Patrick, my boyfriend. Meanwhile, they all pretended to be virgins until inevitably one of them would fall pregnant and they’d have a baby but that was okay because they’d repent, or some other such nonsense.

  I feel much more at home in New York City, where there are millions of other people and none of them seem to be as judgmental as the people in Washburn. Sure, there are probably plenty who are just as judgmental if not more so, but none of them have ever talked about me behind my back or to my face like people in Washburn did.

  “Well, the word around town is that your aunt left the bakery and her house to you,” Patrick says.

  “To me?”

  I’m aghast. When I really think about it, I suppose there aren’t that many other likely people for her to leave it to but I’m still surprised she chose me.

  I don’t know whether to feel flattered or burdened—I have no idea how to handle an estate and for all I know the business might have more liability than profit, or the house might have an underwater mortgage. I know my aunt was a good businesswoman but she always had expensive tastes. Perhaps she spent any money her business made and was in debt.

  “Yes, and some people in town say that she was in the process of changing her will to leave at least some of her estate to Charles Tweed.”

  “Charles Tweed?” I ask, racking my memory but coming up short.

  “He was the groundskeeper for First United Church,” he says. “I think your mom knew him some.”

  “Oh, yes,” I say, a memory slowly coming back to me.

  I used to go to church but stopped because I felt it was a place for nosy, hypocritical people. My mom still went every Sunday, but she never made Maisy or me go with her—Maisy had declared herself a Buddhist by that point and she also went through a Hindu phase before finally settling on “secular humanist.”

  My mom and I had been at the local grocery store, Martin’s, when she nodded to an older man in a jacket and said hello. She’d introduced me and said, “Charles, this is my daughter Kelia. Kelia, this is Charles.”

  As we were shaking hands, my mom said, “Charles used to be the groundskeeper and janitor at the middle school, but now he works for the church.”

  “I see,” I told her, and the older man had winked at me devilishly and said, “I’m hoping that by doing the Lord’s work, I’ll buy my way into his good graces.”

  I’d laughed, genuinely amused, although I couldn’t believe he had said it. In the parking lot, I’d asked my mom about him.

  “Ha, yeah,” she’d said, lifting a bag of oranges from the grocery cart into the trunk of her Subaru while I did the same with a sack of potatoes. She’d always eaten so healthy, so all of us were surprised when she got cancer. “Charles is a hoot. His last name is Tweed. And he always wears a tweed coat, can you believe it?”

  I’d laughed and said, “Yeah, I noticed that. It’s only September and he’s dressed like it’s winter.”

  “That’s Charles for you,” she’d said, with a grin. “He says it’s his trademark.”

  “He seems to say a lot of…unique things,” I’d remarked.

  “Yeah, he sure does,” she’d said. “It’s none of my business, and I don’t really care, but people at church say he’s quite the ladies man.”

  “Really?” I’d whistled, under my breath, shaking my head both at the unsurprising fact that people at church were spreading rumors about someone and also the rather surprising fact that someone his age was known to “get busy” with the ladies.

  So now, I can’t help but bring this up to Patrick.

  “I’ve heard of him,” I tell Patrick. “So were he and my aunt…serious about their…relationship?”

  I’m not sure how to ask it, so I decide to elaborate. “I’ve heard he was, um, quite the playboy.”

  “I’ve heard that too,” Patrick says. “But people say your aunt fancied him very much, so much so that she was going around telling everyone that she was going to leave him a little something.”

  Go Aunt Belinda, I think, happy that she found love again before she died. My uncle had passed away from complications of emphysema when I was just a child and I had never known my aunt to be serious about anyone since then. I suppose that that didn’t mean she didn’t have what she would have called “gentleman callers,” though.

  “So, I’m confused,” I tell Patrick. “What does my aunt’s love life, no matter how colorful or gossip-worthy, have to do with me?”

  “People are saying her cause of death wasn’t natural,” Patrick says.

  My heart pounds as I realize what he means people are inferring.

  “They think someone murdered my aunt?” I ask him.

  There’s a pause, and then he says, “Yes.”

  “They think I murdered her?” I exclaim.

  “I guess some people do,” he says. “Again, I’m just hearing the rumblings. Some think that you were angry she was going to cut you out of her will and change it so that h
e gets everything, so you poisoned her. I know that’s ridiculous, but, depending on the autopsy results, I’ll probably be assigned to investigate it and I didn’t want our first conversation after so long to be…”

  He trails off, so I fill in the blanks.

  “‘Hello again, did you kill your aunt?’” I guess.

  It would be comical if it weren’t so awful.

  “Yes,” he says, “Something like that. I know you didn’t. I just wanted to fill you in, give you a heads up.”

  “Okay,” I tell him, sitting back down on my comfy couch but feeling miles away from where I had fallen asleep. I can’t believe I had just been here fantasizing about Patrick like I do practically every night, and now I’m on the phone with him and he’s telling me I’m likely to be a murder suspect.

  “Are you going to come to Washburn?” he asks.

  I can’t help but think his tone sounds hopeful. I know I’m probably being too optimistic, though.

  “I suppose her funeral will be there,” I tell him. “She hasn’t been back to Chicago since…”

  I trail off, not wanting to finish the sentence.

  Since my mom died.

  My Aunt Belinda always said she didn’t like Chicago. The family moved to Washburn when my grandfather was hired by a manufacturing plant that had long closed down.

  But my Aunt Belinda enjoyed small town life much better than what she called “the violent, dangerous Chicago,” so she only went back when she had to. My mother, on the other hand, had fond memories of Chicago and wanted to be buried in the family burial plot. I’m pretty sure my aunt—always an independent thinker—would have made arrangements to be buried in her beloved Washburn, the place she always called her “adopted hometown.” “…for quite a while,” I finally finish, choosing a different ending for the sentence than I had originally been planning. “I guess I should also go take care of arrangements and… whatever I need to take care of, for her estate.”

  I’m flustered, realizing I don’t really know what all there is to take care of, and that I have to figure it out. Of course, there’s also the news that I might be investigated by my ex-boyfriend for the murder of my aunt— that would set anyone off balance. But I can’t deny that a big part of the reason I’m flustered is that I’m faced with the possibility of seeing Patrick again.

  Sure, I always knew it could happen. It’s a small town. and whenever I’m there I’m always sure I’ll see him at a restaurant, or that one time that Maisy dragged me to a new karaoke bar. But it never happened and now I’m faced with the probability that it actually will. I can barely contain my excitement and also my fear. Fear that I’ll mess up and say the wrong thing and leave Washburn—and Patrick—again, even worse off than I left it last time.

  “Okay, well, maybe I’ll see you, then,” he says, and now I’m pretty sure I can hear a twinge of excitement in his voice. “And if not, I’ll be in touch by phone again soon if there are any questions I need to ask you.”

  “Sure thing,” I tell him, and realize too late that I sound really cheesy. I just don’t want to betray how much I’m hoping we’ll actually get to see each other—and also that he isn’t married with 2.5 kids and a white picket fence by now.

  “I’m very sorry for your loss,” he adds. “Good-bye, Kelia.”

  “Good-bye, Patrick,” I tell him, even though I’m glad it’s not actually good-bye for good, this time.

  It makes no sense to me that I’m wanting there to still be hope for us when I don’t see how that could even happen, even if he’s still single. I couldn’t wait to leave Washburn and now that people there are saying I would murder my aunt, there’s no way I could go back for good, even if I hate my job and seem to have no prospects of it continuing unless I keep sleeping with my lecherous boss. And even though, I have to admit, that just as often as I’ve fantasized sexually about Patrick, I’ve harbored a small hope that maybe we could be together again, in the small town he loves to call home.

  As I hang up, I can’t help but wonder what the hell has gotten into me—and how I’m ever going to snap out of it.

  6

  Patrick

  What does one wear when one is seeing his old high school flame for the first time in a really long time? Don’t ask me, because I have no fucking clue.

  And luckily for me, I didn’t have to decide. But unluckily for me, the reason behind that is because I have to wear my sheriff’s uniform.

  It’s a bright and sunny day when I knock on the door of Belinda Smith’s house. That’s where I’d heard that Kelia was staying while she was in town. I was rather surprised, thinking she might stay at Maisy’s place. And I know better than to trust what I hear through the grapevine around here.

  So, when I knock on the door, I don’t know how nervous I should be. Perhaps I’ll be face to face with the long-lost love of my life, or perhaps there will be no answer, in which case I’ll “mosey on down” to Maisy’s house, as folks around here would say.

  Either way, I can’t believe I’m about to see fucking Kelia Thomas. I may have taken her virginity way back when, but she stole my heart, and I’ve never been able to get it back.

  I sure wish our reunion was happening under better circumstances. I can’t believe I have to question her about the death of her aunt, which I’m very sure she did not cause. But such is the life of a small-town sheriff—I swear to God that if I’m not directing the fire department to get Miss Mansfield’s cat out of the tree for the fifth time this month, I’m investigating rumors that half the time don’t even turn out to be true.

  What’s worse is that department protocol says I have to show up unannounced, which someone along the way decided gives suspects less time to concoct some story. At least, I tell myself, as I wait to see if there’s any answer at her door, I gave her fair warning.

  I called her, which isn’t exactly department protocol, but I figured it was only courteous to call and give my condolences to my ex-girlfriend who had just lost her aunt—before she was officially under investigation. And I called her even though it was the last thing I wanted to do, since I’m sure my voice betrayed how much in love with her I still am. And I waited a respectful amount of time until after her aunt’s viewing and funeral.

  I knock one more time, and I’m preparing to leave when the door opens slightly.

  “Hello?”

  I’d know her voice from anywhere.

  “Kelia,” I tell her, “It’s me. Patrick.”

  “Patrick!” Her voice sounds surprised as she flings the door open, and then I see that she is only wearing a towel.

  Holy fuck.

  She looks just as good, or even better, as the last time I saw her. Her hips are a bit curvier and her breasts are a bit bigger, both of which are great things in my book. Her eyes are still a caramel color brown, of course, and I’m glad to see her hair is back to being dark brown, since she’d gotten what I thought was a bad idea to dye it blonde before leaving for college.

  She’d said she wanted a fresh start, a new leaf, and all of that. I couldn’t really fault her for that – not everyone wanted to go to the local community college and then join the police force, as I had, and I understood that she had big dreams, and wished her well – but I don’t know why she was so intent on not even trying to make things work long distance. And I don’t know why she had to go and change her beautiful hair.

  I’m glad to see it’s back to its natural shade, even though it’s dripping wet, and so is the rest of her. God, how I want her. It takes everything in me not to scoop her up, throw her over my shoulder, and carry her to the quickest surface I can lay her down and fuck her on.

  Instead, I try to act cool, calm and collected, which isn’t easy under any of these bizarre circumstances.

  “Nice to see you again,” I tell her, unable to resist the urge to look her up and down and crack a joke. “And I do mean all of you… or most of you, anyway.”

  She blushes, and it’s so fucking adorable.

 
“I just got out of the shower,” she says, opening the door and gesturing for me to come in. “I wasn’t expecting anyone.”

  “Of course not,” I reason. “Why would you be? I’m sorry, but they make me arrive unannounced…”

  “That’s fine,” she says, as she sits down on a couch.

  I like that she doesn’t run to put her clothes on right away. It feels like an invitation. And I’m known for taking what I want, especially when the one person I’ve wanted ever since she left is offering herself up to me so freely.

  Don’t get me wrong, I’ve dated and fooled around since we broke up. I’m a red-blooded male and she told me we were done for good. But I’ve never been able to look at— or touch— another girl the way I looked at and touched her. I haven’t been in any kind of serious relationship and I never really planned to be unless I met someone who made me feel the way she did. So far, that hasn’t happened and I don’t really think it will.

  Except, here she is, looking at me, licking her lips as if she wants me to take her. This is my lucky day, even if it came about in a way that I was never expecting.

  7

  Patrick

  I decide to skip the pleasantries. It’s been far too long to waste time on those. I’m also supposed to be interrogating her right about now. But all I want to uncover is the deliciousness that I know is under that towel.

  “I have some questions I have to ask you,” I tell her. “But first, there’s something I’ve been wanting to do ever since the last time I did it. Do you mind?”

  She opens her mouth and then closes it, looking both amazed and adorable. She smiles and then says, “No, not at all.”

  I pull her close and kiss her, my tongue wrapping around hers as if they’d never been apart. She eagerly returns my kiss, placing her hand on my thigh and seeming very happy I decided to go for it.