SULLIVAN'S MIRACLE

by Lindsey Longford

  “Yes.” She dropped her hands to her side. “I’m sorry. You were expecting someone else.”

  His angry bark of laughter surprised him. “I wasn’t expecting anyone.” Some stubborn part of his brain still functioned despite the alcohol, and he strove to make sense of what had happened. Maggie Webster had no business being on his deck, and even in his woozy state, he knew he wanted an explanation. “Did nosy little Goldilocks come looking for porridge and wind up in the wrong cottage?”

  “Don’t play mind games with me, Mr. Barnett. Your reporter-with-an-attitude act doesn’t impress me. It didn’t this afternoon. It doesn’t now.”

  “Shucks,” he managed to say. “And here I was hoping you were ready to run for the woods, Goldilocks.”

  Her lips tightened, rose turning white at the corners. “This isn’t a fairy tale, Mr. Barnett. You’re not Papa Bear, and, in spite of your best attempts, you’re sure not the big, bad wolf.” She jerked her chin up, and her unruly hair swung free. One strand lay dark on her cheek and she shoved it again behind her ear.

  Sullivan wiped his mouth. The burn of that wild strand lingered on his lips. “To what do I owe this dubious pleasure, then, Officer Maggie?” he drawled, clinging to consciousness as his words slurred.

  Her shrug pleated the red T-shirt over small breasts, and the willful curl sprang free, brushing the corner of her mouth.

  “In the neighborhood, huh?” Sullivan nodded sagely. He planted his hands against the floor, preparing to stand up and show her the quick way out. “Not that it hasn’t been a pleasure having you drop in—” he slumped back to the floor “—but it hasn’t been. And don’t try to tell me you were taking a nighttime stroll down my beach because I wouldn’t believe you if you swore it on a stack of Bibles.”

  Two Maggies wavered in front of him. He shut one eye.

  “The better to see you with, my dear,” he said and his head fell forward, the oblivion he’d sought so diligently finding him too late.

  When Sullivan’s head sagged, his fierce gaze releasing her at last, Maggie let out a whoosh of air and gulped. She felt as if she’d been holding her breath for minutes. She understood the dazed look in his eyes. She knew he was drunk. She’d seen the liquor bottles. What she couldn’t explain was that anger swirling in his alcohol-blurred blue eyes.

  She could understand his being ticked off. He’d said he wasn’t expecting anyone, but clearly he’d lied. His reaction had been stronger than disappointment and irritation.

  Deep in the ocean blue of his eyes she’d seen stark betrayal, bleak and devastating, as he stared at her in the kitchen light.

  Sullivan Barnett was angry and bitter. She didn’t understand him one bit, and she’d kissed him.

  Shivering and hot, she’d gone still as his tongue touched hers, his touch tugging at something so basic that she’d gone under without a whimper, surrendering to his hunger, kissing him back as though her soul depended on answering his insistent demand.

  She hadn’t lost herself in Royal’s kiss.

  Sullivan’s arm jerked. Maggie didn’t move as she watched his twitching fingers. The beat of her heart quickened to restless fluttering as if he drummed relentlessly on it, compelling entrance. When his fingers lay quiet, Maggie touched her wrist. Her pulse was thudding as if she’d run three miles.

  If she were smart, she’d turn and run back down the beach as fast as her feet could move.

  She made the mistake of glancing around the cottage. White dust sugared the surface of shelves, but the sink was clean. A partially filled whiskey bottle was the only thing on the blue-and-green-ceramic counter that made an L from the sink to the refrigerator. Not even thinking, she wandered past Sullivan to the refrigerator. A grocery bag lined the blue plastic garbage container where he’d tossed a soup can and an empty bottle.

  A scallop-shell magnet, its bottom ridges chipped, held a yellowing piece of newspaper to the refrigerator door. Tentatively, she touched the dried paper and flattened it.

  As was usual with obituaries in small towns, it included a picture, the name in bold print underneath. Maggie thought she would have liked the woman smiling back at her from the fading picture. Thin-faced with high cheekbones, she’d tilted her head and smiled tenderly at the photographer. Falling smoothly to the base of her long, slim neck, her fair hair captured and held the light in its gleaming strands. It was one of those pictures where the eyes seemed to look directly at the observer, and behind the shyness in those trusting, clear orbs, mischief peeked at Maggie.

  She touched the face, smiling back at Lizzie O’Connell. Under her finger, the vibration from the humming refrigerator made the picture seem to move.

  “Got a search warrant, Officer Maggie?” The slurred drawl tickled her ear.

  She froze. Dropping her hands, she turned to face Sullivan Barnett. “Do I need one?”

  Swaying slightly, he’d braced himself with one hand on top of the refrigerator. With the other, he straightened the magnet that had shifted when she’d touched the picture. He didn’t look at her as he concentrated on making the hinged edge of the shell perfectly level. “Oh, yes, sweet Maggie, I think you do if you’re going to come uninvited into my house and search it. Yes…” he nodded thoughtfully, “…I think that’s still the law. Or has the law changed since I last checked it?” His forefinger stroked the side of the picture. Then he looked right at Maggie, animosity in his brilliant blue eyes.

  There was nothing she could say, but she didn’t look away from his cold eyes.

  “Illegal search and seizure, isn’t it, Officer?” His gaze swept her from head to bare feet. “But I’ll be damned if I can tell what you seized. Or did you bring something to plant?” He patted her pockets. His fingers closed around what he’d discovered there and dragged it out.

  Maybe it was the remote dislike in his face, maybe the feel of his palm skimming her hip as he reached inside her pocket, but Maggie shivered, regretting the impulse that had driven her from the sanctuary of her apartment.

  “Cat got your tongue, little Maggie?” he whispered, menace in his low drawl. His long arms surrounded her as he placed his closed fist on the refrigerator. “Where’s all that reckless courage now?”

  Carved in hard lines, his mouth was too close to her as he whispered, and she remembered what had happened when he’d kissed her by mistake. Darting under his arms before he lowered them, she grabbed the back of his belt and pushed him none too gently against the refrigerator.

  “Look, Barnett, I’m not dumb. I know what you’re trying to imply—”

  “Not trying. Saying.” He turned easily, freeing himself from her grip, but he leaned back on the refrigerator and folded his arms. “If you want it spelled out, I think you’re trying to set me up, Officer Maggie.” He held his fist to her and opened it finger by finger until he revealed what he’d yanked from her pocket.

  “Seaweed? You think I’m trying to frame you with dried seaweed?” Maggie slapped the shreds to the floor.

  “Seaweed,” he echoed, frowning. He stared at the floor, and swayed once as he started to reach down but changed his mind.

  “What did you think it was? Grass?”

  “Yep.” He straightened to his full height. “I sure did.” He strolled past her to the kitchen table. He could almost have passed a straight-line test, but the oomph he made as he sank into the chair gave him away.

  She knew he was trying to figure out what had happened, but even drunk as he was, he didn’t lose the thread of his accusations. “Maybe you’ve already stashed the evidence somewhere I won’t find it until it’s too late.”

  “Don’t be an idiot.” She didn’t want to explain what she was doing at his house or why she’d stayed during the moments he was unconscious.

  “I’m skunk drunk, but not stupid.”

  “Really? You could have fooled me. I think it’s pretty stupid to leave all your doors and windows open after you’ve gotten eight threatening letters and had your car blown to kingdom come.”
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br />   “Stupid? Whatever you say.” The expression in his eyes was so lost that she knew stupidity hadn’t made him leave his house open to the wind and whoever wandered by. “But you still haven’t explained what you’re doing here, Officer Maggie.” He kicked out the chair facing him. It teetered, and he watched it settle before he caught it with his foot and continued, “Sit down and tell me.”

  “If I don’t?” Maggie faced him and folded her arms. She’d made a mistake, but she could handle it. Now that he was five feet away from her, she could.

  Even slurred with drink, the rhythm of his voice was smooth. “I’ve messed up big time the last few months.” One side of his mouth drew up as he added, “But the pen—or chip, I reckon—still has some power in this town.” His eyes narrowed, he pushed the chair once more toward her. “You don’t want me writing about you in my column, sugar-buns.”

  Maggie didn’t give an inch, but for the moment she ignored the deliberate provocation of “sugar-buns.” “I’d survive.” She smiled. “But would you? All six-foot-four, hundred-and-eighty-pound you harassed by five-feet-three, hundred-and-five-pound me? Golly gee, if that story appeared in the paper, wouldn’t you look silly?” She widened her eyes in mock innocence.

  “You haven’t been following the reports I’ve been working on, have you?” He rocked the chair invitingly. “It’s about corruption in beautiful Palmaflora, Gateway to the Gulf.” His mouth quirked again. It would have passed for a smile in anyone else, but didn’t with those accusing blue eyes staring at her. “You know what I’m talking about, don’t you, Officer Maggie? Corruption involving payoffs to people who have land to sell, loans to lend, protection to offer? You know, like protection by the brothers and sisters in blue?” He rocked back in his chair. “Sure you won’t sit down and have a little chat with me? Might save us both a lot of embarrassment, don’t you think?”

  “If we chat, do you think you can drop the ‘sugar-buns’? I’ve already warned you about that.” She stalked to the table. She didn’t know what he was talking about, but since he seemed to think she did, she’d stay until she found out what he was referring to.

  Momentarily diverted, be looked at her bare legs and concentrated on them. And such concentration. If he’d slid his finger over her thighs and ankles and down to her bare toes, she couldn’t have been any more aware of him. With his blue-eyed gaze moving over her so intently, she couldn’t take a deep breath. Lightheaded, she couldn’t move, couldn’t get enough air into her lungs.

  His eyes lingered at the edge of her shorts and he frowned. “Officer Maggie, why aren’t you in your little cop outfit?”

  She wanted to tug the sides of her shorts down, wanted to hide her naked feet. If it killed her, she wouldn’t give him the satisfaction of letting him know he’d rattled her. He’d finally pushed her too far. She fixed him with her best cop-on-the-beat glare. “Look, you may be drunk, and I shouldn’t be here—I admit it. But I’ve been promoted. I’m a detective, not an officer. I’m not in my cop clothes because I’m off duty, and I’m just about ticked off enough right now to haul you in and book you.”

  “Ah.” He pinched his ear. “Got a charge thought up yet?”

  “Resisting an officer.”

  “Oh, Maggie, you walked right into that one.” Both sides of his thin, mobile mouth lifted, but his eyes were still cold. “Neither one of us resisted, did we? I know I didn’t. Seems to me you kissed me right back. Very nicely, too, I might add.”

  Maggie could feel the blood roaring in her ears, heating her cheeks. “You win.” She yanked the chair away from his foot and sat down. “Ask your questions.” She could pull her hair out by the roots, she was so mad at herself. “But you ought to think about this habit you have of shoving chairs at people.”

  She was furious with him, but it was herself she could smack for winding up in Sullivan Barnett’s kitchen. For kissing him. Maggie hooked her toes in the rung of the chair. “Come on, time’s wasting, Barnett. What do you want to know?”

  “I asked already.” He rocked on his chair, his long legs letting him tip dangerously.

  “So remind me.”

  The rising wind rattled an aluminum chair on the deck. The incoming tide had a heavier sound as it rolled onto the beach.

  “It’s time for good little girls to be home tucked in bed. So why aren’t you, Maggie-the-Cop?”

  Maggie hadn’t been a little girl for a long time, but she would have given a hundred dollars to be home in her own bed. She hadn’t landed herself in this mess by being a bad little girl, but by being an impulsive woman who should have known better. Well, she’d known, but she’d still yielded to that stupid impulse and stepped up onto Sullivan’s deck. “It’s a long story,” she began, sorting out what to tell him, what to omit, wary of the cynicism still sharp behind the alcohol glaze in his eyes.

  “They always are,” Sullivan said. His hands resting on his head cast shadows over his eyes, hiding them as he rocked slowly back and forth like a metronome. “I’ve never heard a short one.”

  “You could rile a saint,” Maggie said, shifting irritably on the chair.

  “But you’re not a saint, are you, Maggie? You’re a cop.” Back and forth, back and forth, never missing a beat. “A cop who needs a real good reason for showing up at my house.”

  “I went for a walk.” Maggie folded her hands in her lap. If she weren’t wearing shorts, she’d cross her legs and dare him to think he was getting to her. Let him look at her legs and think about anything except the topic he was doggedly pursuing.

  “A walk? Tell me another one,” he jeered. “I know where you live, Detective Maggie. You didn’t go for a walk at midnight fifteen miles from your apartment.”

  “No. I went shopping.”

  Sullivan made a rude noise.

  “I needed milk and bread.”

  “Nothing open on the mainland?” He paused as if thinking. “Jack’s Supermarket on 63rd? Andy’s Swift-Serv? When did they quit staying open all night?”

  “I decided to take a ride down the island, and I remembered needed milk for my cereal.” Maggie kept her hands still with an effort. She knew Sullivan was watching her closely. In his place she would have been, too. Suspects gave themselves away with the smallest reactions. But she wasn’t a suspect. She simply didn’t want to tell this long-legged, persistent man where she’d gone or why, and since she couldn’t explain to herself why she’d climbed onto his deck, she sure didn’t have a chance of making him understand.

  “Keep talking.” Back and forth, back and forth he rocked. Maybe he’d get seasick. She sighed. How much longer could he stay upright? She’d give him facts, but not reasons.

  “So I stopped at the Quik-Deli.” She shrugged. “That’s all.” Sullivan’s chair hit the floor with a thunk.

  He was watching her blearily, and she saw his curiosity fighting the alcohol. She knew which side she was on. His thick eyebrows rose. “Still doesn’t make sense, Maggie Webster.” As he said her name, he frowned. “Webster,” he repeated, rolling the syllables slowly on his tongue as he fought the incoming tide of unconsciousness. “I know you.” He struggled to stand up. “Don’t I?” He thwacked his hand against his forehead, battling the tide. “I know something about you.”

  Maggie was married to her chair seat. With Sullivan Barnett leaning over the tablet his hooded bright eyes intent on her every reaction, she knew she wasn’t going anywhere until he fell asleep.

  “It’ll come to me. Damn.” He sank back into the chair, slumping onto the table. “Something I should know.” His head dropped onto his arm. “You stopped at the Quik-Deli?” His gaze sharpened and she couldn’t breathe as he added slowly, “Webster. You’re the cop who was shot at the Quik-Deli, aren’t you?” He fought to sit upright, his bare elbow slipping on a wet spot on the table. “Oh God. I was there. I saw you.” He was up and moving faster than she could have expected, and he had her wrist clasped in his fingers. “I was there when they took you off in the ambulance. The parame
dic said you wouldn’t make it to the hospital.”

  She pulled at her hand, but he gripped her tightly, desperately.

  Sullivan felt her slim bones twist in his grasp as reality and shadows fused. Her pulse was rapid against his thumb. Even with alcohol fogging his brain, he grasped the one essential fact that mattered to him, the one fact that he could understand.

  “Now I remember,” he said, staring at her frightened brown eyes. “The shooting. It was that week in November.”

  She was breathing rapidly and her red shirt moved with the frantic trembling of her breasts against his forearm. That shiver of red. Her blood had been dark red against the brightly colored labels on the cans lying around her.

  He leaned forward, searching for that elusive sense of familiarity. Her small, square face was inches away from his, her hair lashing him with softness and that flowery scent. Everything tumbled in his brain—sense and nonsense, half-seen images and old memories shifting into focus. “I wrote the story about you, Maggie Webster. Cop Shot. Saves Two Children. Fights for Life. I was there.”

  He stared at her. Her wrist twisted once in the tight cuff of his fingers.

  Her eyes were wide and terrified.

  *

  Chapter 4

  « ^ »

  Leaning over Maggie, Sullivan drowned in the darkness of her pupils which were so dilated they were almost black in her blanched face. They engulfed him, their darkness growing until the room filled with shadows and mystery, her eyes the only reality, her terror reaching out to him, feathering his skin until goose bumps lifted the hairs on his arms.

  Under his thumb the skin of her wrist was the only warmth in all the numbing cold rushing down on him, cold filled with terror and confusion and unbearable loss.