SULLIVAN'S MIRACLE

by Lindsey Longford

  “Were you?” She glanced at the cycle. “You don’t strike me as the ‘tooling around’ type.”

  “Slumming and stopped because I saw your car?” He shoved his hands through his already disheveled hair. It should have looked messy. Instead, the brown strands curving around his corded neck underscored his lean and hungry look.

  “You don’t know what kind of car I drive. You’ve never seen my car. Not that I know of.”

  “I followed you here.” He cut to the bottom line with a vengeance.

  “What?”

  “Yeah. You in your unremarkable blue two-door and me on my cycle. From your apartment building and right down the Trail. You stopped for fifteen minutes at the police station. A wonder you didn’t see me.” He scraped the bottom of his boot on the edge of the step. Clots of dried brown mud from under his heel showered the step. That dirt hadn’t come from the beach. The police station was surrounded by asphalt and grass. He’d been somewhere else before he followed her, because it had rained early in the morning before she’d left her apartment.

  “You followed me?” She should have noticed. One more bad sign, that kind of carelessness. A dangerous inattention. She couldn’t afford lapses like that. “Why in the name of heaven would you follow me?”

  “I told you I don’t like secrets.” He slipped his fingertips into his back pockets. “You interest me. I wanted to know what you were up to.”

  “And I’m not flattered by your interest, trust me.” Maggie resented his invasion of her privacy with a force that left a bitter taste in her mouth.

  “But that’s the problem, you see. Trust.”

  “I don’t see, but at least now you know what I’ve been ‘up to,’ as you put it.”

  “No,” he corrected gently. “I know what you were doing today. And why.”

  “You still think I’m trying to double-cross you.” She was astounded by his skepticism. “You don’t trust anybody, do you?”

  “I wouldn’t want to be caught short.” Cynicism wound between the syllables of his studiedly agreeable tone. “I don’t like surprises.”

  The tenuous link between them snapped with an almost audible pop. Words slipped out before Maggie could stop them. “I sure hope you’ve told all your family and friends not to give you any birthday parties without checking with you first.”

  His face tightened, the bones sharp under his skin, but he let her gibe pass unanswered.

  “Did seeing me fall apart satisfy that itch you were talking about?” The severing of that slight connection between them left her bereft.

  “Nowhere near.”

  Hunger and heat and loneliness stared back at her, and she remembered the feel of him against her, his arms strong under hers as he steadied her. Remembered the ravenous seeking of his mouth over hers.

  It was the loneliness in his grim face that stirred her, a loneliness that mirrored her own, but she was too offended to draw back. “Are you going to let me do my job without sniping and spying and second-guessing everything I say or do?” Her outrage came as much from knowing that he understood things about her she’d hidden from everyone else as from the realization that he didn’t trust her.

  He reached down and picked up a stone, tossing it from one hand to the other as he answered. “I won’t make any promises, but I’ll cooperate.”

  “For reasons of your own.”

  He slung the stone into the weeds at the edge of the lot. “For reasons of my own,” he echoed. “You can interpret that any way you want to. But if you can’t handle it, let me know.” He kicked a chunk of broken stone off the sidewalk and walked toward his bike. “Or complain to Jackson and have him take you off the case,” he tossed over one shoulder with a lifting of his lips that was no smile.

  As little as she relied on her instincts these days, Maggie knew as sure as she knew anything anymore that Sullivan had intended all the time to go along with her. He’d followed her, sure, but he’d planned on cooperating at some level with her investigation. She wouldn’t forget again that Sullivan Barnett had his own agenda. Whatever it was, it would come first with him no matter what her investigations turned up.

  Maggie stayed where she was, letting her voice carry to him. “I’m not going to complain, and I’m not going to fail.”

  “No?” He turned toward her, no real interest in his face.

  “I will find out who’s been sending you those letters, and I’ll follow up on the bombing. Even though the case is officially closed, it’s connected to these letters, and I’m going to pursue it. I’ve already made my purpose as definite as I know how.” Perversity made her kick the stone back in his direction. He trapped the skittering pebble with the edge of his boot as she persisted, “But I’ll be damned if I’ll have you looking over my shoulder with every move I make.”

  “Tough. That’s the way it’ll be.” Every line of his tall, muscled body was unyielding. He rolled the stone back and forth under his booted toe.

  Maggie had a strong desire to jump all over his dusty boots until he cried uncle. She didn’t think he would, though. That stopped her—the sure knowledge that she’d be the loser in a battle of wills with him. Biting her tongue, determined not to let him know he’d gotten to her, she snapped, “Whatever you say. After all, we cops are the servants of the community.” She wrinkled her nose as if searching her memory. “And I’m almost positive that includes reporters.”

  The corners of Sullivan’s mouth twitched.

  Good enough. Maggie was pleased. Later she would remember that tiny twitch and wonder why, in spite of her anger and frustration, she’d been pleased that she’d coaxed the closest thing she’d seen to a real smile from his hard-edged face. “I promise you I’m going to get to the bottom of what’s happening.” The ball was in his court now.

  Skipping the stone back her way soccer-style between his feet, Sullivan skimmed it to her at the bottom of the steps. When she blocked it, he nodded. “Maybe you will, Detective Maggie. But as I live and breathe, it will be a miracle if you manage to accomplish even one of those commendable goals.” He sauntered over to his bike. “You’ll understand, won’t you, if I don’t applaud until after I hear the jail doors clang?”

  The blood rushing to her face sizzled the roots of her hair. “I’m not interested in trophies. Of any kind. I told you last night.”

  “So you did.” As he straddled the bike, his long legs rested comfortably on the dirt, his boot heels braced. The V of his spread legs strained the zipper seam to its limits. “I remember that.” His look said he remembered a lot of things. “Your call, Detective. What do you want to do next? Got your detecting kit handy? Ready to solve twenty crimes and call it a day by five?” The cutting edge had returned once more, and as he jabbed the temples of a pair of sunglasses through his spiky hair and settled them in front of his shrewd eyes, Maggie knew the barricades were back in place—his.

  Hers.

  “Fifteen, maybe.”

  Pushing his glasses firmly onto his narrow nose, he paused, an unwilling twitch again crooking one side of his mouth. “Only fifteen? I’ve overestimated you, it seems, Detective. I was sure you could knock off at least twenty and then go home and turn out a three-course meal.” He half stood from the seat and reached into one pocket for his keys. With one hand in his pocket, one resting on the handles of his bike, the muscles of his thighs half bent, he was wholly male, whipcord lean.

  Maggie couldn’t look away from him, and his untidy masculine strength engrossed her. She wanted to smooth down that shaggy brown hair, erase the line between his eyes, touch the long length of those strong legs. Royal in all his golden smoothness had never affected her the way Sullivan Barnett did, and her fascination with him made no sense, not in this life, not in the next. She didn’t even like him.

  “A three-course meal?” She had to laugh. “Mr. Barnett, you’ve been reading too many women’s magazines. The days of women doing it all are gone. Men are just as likely to cook up the grits in the kitchen.” She chuckle
d again, amused by his never-say-die razzing.

  “Yeah? I’ll keep it in mind the next time I find myself in your kitchen, Detective Maggie.” He kicked the starter and fired the engine.

  Maggie’s face flamed. He hadn’t been talking about cooking. But she knew it was still part of the game he played with her—because she was a cop or because something about her in particular got under his skin, she didn’t know. But she’d die before she let him know he bothered her. “My kitchen? Oh, I don’t think so,” she said sweetly. “I rarely cook.”

  He stared at her for a second, measuring her. Then, over the roar of the cycle, he said, “Truce, Detective. What’s the next step?”

  She walked closer so that she wouldn’t have to shout. She didn’t want the whole parking lot to hear what she said to him. “I want to follow you like a burr on a hound dog for a few days. I need to see what your pattern is, who you talk to, who contacts you and how people act around you. And I want to see first where the car bombing occurred.”

  He interrupted. “You don’t need me along.”

  “I want to see it with you so that you can answer my questions.”

  “Detective Kelly—”

  She stopped him. “I know. He went over the details with you. I read his notes. However, I haven’t gone over it.”

  The engine noise almost drowned out his wry comment. “You’d make a good reporter, Detective. Nosy.”

  “Really?” Maggie smiled up at the dark circles of his glasses. “And you’re so suspicious of everyone, you might make a good cop.”

  “Truce didn’t last long, did it?” Thumbing the gears on the handles, he looked over the top of his glasses, holding her gaze for a long moment before sighing. “Sorry. My fault.” He lowered his head, contemplating the dirt under his feet, where a few pink oleanders were crushed. “Look, if you’re going to handcuff me—”

  “Only if necessary.” She forced a smile one last time.

  “All right. Fine. But I have an errand to run first. It doesn’t have anything to do with the bombing. Or the letters.”

  “I’ll follow you.”

  He quirked an eyebrow. “Think you can keep up?”

  “Oh, if I can’t, I’ll pull you over and give you a speeding ticket after we arrive.” She turned her back and strode to her car, where she’d stashed the bag with her pistol and gear as soon as she’d left Taggart’s. She’d never made it back inside to the bathroom, to throw up in privacy. Instead, Sullivan had found her collapsed on the cement steps outside.

  She might have known he’d do the unexpected. He waited for her to pull up behind him before he signaled for a southbound turn onto 41. As sedately as any of the blue-haired snowbirds driving the crowded highways during the winter, he putted along, making a mockery of the sleek power of his motorcycle. No lane changing, no zippity-do-dahing, but straight-ahead, picture-perfect driving until they pulled into the side streets of a palm-lined area one block off the main highway.

  He stopped in front of a cyclone-fence-enclosed yard, where children were lined up noisily in front of one big slide and three swings. On the front steps of the large, two-story house, a tall woman with her hair cut in a tight asymmetrical wedge called out, “Tommy Lee, wait your turn, now, hear?” The bantam-size redhead opened his mouth, but the woman put her hands on her slim hips and said, “Something you want to say, Mr. Gilbert?”

  The redhead shuffled his feet in the grass in back of the slide. “No’m. Reckon not.”

  “I didn’t think so.” Her smile was brilliant. “Everybody has to take turns, Tommy Lee. You’ll get yours. You know the rules.”

  “Yes’m.” But Tommy Lee made a face at the back of the little girl in front of him and muttered something under his breath.

  Staring at the two, the woman shook her head. She took a breath as if she were going to impart one last warning to Tommy Lee, a child most certainly with trouble on his mind, but she didn’t.

  Climbing out of the car, Maggie noted the pleasure in the woman’s face when she turned away from the preschool drama and saw Sullivan.

  “I wondered where you’d been the last few weeks.” She stepped lightly, gracefully down the broad wooden steps from the porch to the sidewalk, meeting Sullivan halfway. “The children have missed you.”

  Maggie blinked. Sullivan and children. Truly, a mind-boggling concept.

  Sullivan hugged the woman tightly. “How you doing, Alicia? Things cool enough in this heat?”

  “The downstairs air conditioner you sent over helps a lot. The kiddies can actually sleep during nap time now.” She scrutinized his face. “How you doing?” Patting his gaunt cheek, her hand a shade darker than his tanned face, she said, “Same ol’, same ol’, huh? No better?”

  He shrugged but didn’t answer.

  Watching the two of them, Maggie thought about the newspaper clipping under the magnet on Sullivan’s refrigerator, the careful precision as he’d straightened the magnet after she’d touched it. Remembered, too, the hunger in his kiss when she’d walked into his house. Remembered—and wanted to forget—his desperation.

  “I keep hoping you’ll…” Alicia hesitated, searching for words.

  Patting her back and halting her sympathy, obviously trying to avoid the subject, Sullivan still didn’t answer. His attempt at a smile held so much bleakness and emptiness that Maggie’s throat tightened. Nobody, not even cynical, sarcastic, usually rude Sullivan Barnett, should have to work that hard to summon up a smile.

  Unquestionably a woman to be reckoned with, however, Alicia wasn’t easily shunted aside by Sullivan’s brush-off. “I thought after all this time—”

  Before she could finish, several children spotted Sullivan and gathered in an ear-splitting, shrieking knot around his legs, pulling on the knees and pockets of his jeans. Hitching up his waistband and patting one thumb-sucking girl absently on the head, he scooped a small boy high up into the air with one arm and swung him in loops. When the boy was finally giggling so hard he couldn’t shriek anymore, Sullivan settled him on his shoulders, where the boy smiled triumphantly down on the rest of the kids attached like sandspurs to Sullivan’s knees.

  As if holding onto the reins of a horse, the boy yanked enthusiastically at a handful of Sullivan’s hair.

  Maggie winced.

  Though the giddyup pulling had to hurt, Sullivan only reached up and adjusted the small fists clinging to him. “Easy does it, Skipper.”

  Resting his dirt-smeared chin blissfully on Sullivan’s head, Skipper thumped his raggedy sneakers enthusiastically against Sullivan’s chest.

  “My turn.” The thumb sucker’s whispered plea around her firmly entrenched thumb had Sullivan kneeling down, Skipper swaying like a metronome on his shoulders. She gazed solemnly into Sullivan’s face, now only a few inches higher than hers. “Me next. Please. And thank you.”

  “Of course, Katie. Right after Skipper has his turn.” Sullivan’s words were so reasonable and calm that, listening, Maggie couldn’t believe he was the same man who couldn’t spend five minutes in her company without turning into a porcupine.

  And then she remembered his understanding at the pistol range, the compassion in his eyes, the slide of his fingertips through her hair.

  As if her thoughts had triggered his awareness, Sullivan swiveled on his heels and stared at her. Steadying Skipper with one hand, tucking Katie’s hand into his own, he stood up. “Uh, Leesha, this is—” He frowned.

  “Hi,” Maggie held out her hand. “Maggie Webster.” Name, no rank or serial number. She’d let Sullivan reveal anything else. He could fill Alicia in on whatever he wanted her to know.

  “Detective Webster, Leesha.” Worlds of meaning in the first three syllables. He slid Skipper off his shoulders and hoisted Katie in place. Unlike Skipper, Katie rested her hand lightly on Sullivan’s neck, sucking her thumb in quiet contentment.

  The man actually blushed! Watching him, the tall woman grinned. Turning to Maggie, she said, “Nice meeting you, Detective. I’m
Alicia Williams.”

  “Leesha owns the Sunshine Daycare Center.”

  “Partly. Mostly I run it.” Her smile vanished, and her response was polite but reserved, her quick glance at Sullivan the only indication that some message had passed between them. “How can I help you?”

  Reaching into the depths of her purse, Maggie whipped out her notebook and pen. She didn’t have any specific questions for Alicia, but the woman was bright, observant and cautious. She’d be a good source of information. “Right now, Ms. Williams, I’m simply tagging along after Mr. Barnett. Could we talk later? If it’s convenient with your schedule?”

  Another lightning exchange of glances between Sullivan and Alicia. “Sure. Whenever. Let me herd this crew in for their snacks and settle them down for naps.” She waved and gave a whistle to the few kids still around the slide and swings. “Some of these kiddos have to stay until 6:30. Makes a mighty long day for them at this age.”

  She opened the door and stood to one side as the kids lined up. “Y’all go on in and Lala’ll give you your juice and cookies. Sullivan will read you a story when you’re done. Okay?” Pulling a tissue out of her skirt pocket, she stooped. “Don’t wipe your nose on your sleeve, Tommy Lee. Here.”

  Tommy Lee’s honk was formidable.

  Alicia’s blazing smile at the small terror made Maggie blink.

  Holding the tissue with a thumb and finger, Alicia nodded approvingly at the knee-high child. “Wow. I’m impressed, Tommy Lee.” She walked over to a wastebasket behind a potted palm and discarded the wadded-up scrap. “Go on, now, you hear?”

  A macho strut in his four-year-old stride, Tommy Lee went. He went—but he poked Skipper in the back.

  Maggie laughed. “Sorry.” It was the first truly spontaneous laugh she’d had in months, and Sullivan’s frowning glance made her feel awkward and selfconscious. Her chuckle stuck in her throat. She couldn’t decipher his expression.