Neither said a word as he followed Quaid down the steps toward the dim light coming from below the bluff that marked the docks. Demar finally said, “What the hell’s this all about and I know it’s not a boat.”
Quaid slowed as they reached the gravel road that dropped to the river. “There’s no way of knowing if the house is bugged or not. If you got something going on with Jett and it includes finding Mimi, we need to keep it quiet, not tip our hand.”
“Your house is bugged?”
“They stole Bonnie from right under our roof. Anything’s possible.”
Demar stopped under a big maple at a bend and gazed out at the water, black as ink in the darkness. He could hear the gentle swells lapping the shore, the frogs having one hell of a party. “Jett’s not only giving me the rush act, she’s wanting to meet my new friends, especially the O’Fallon clan. Either she’s here to find out what I know, because the police figure I’m not leveling with them, or…”
“Or she’s working for someone else who wants to know what’s going on.”
“As a cop, Jett always played by the book in Nashville. I have no reason to think she’s changed, but I got a bad feeling like I’m being used. No matter who she’s working for, I can play her game and get information from her like she wants from me. We’re not even close to finding the bad guys and Mimi’s not coming out of hiding until we do. We wind this up soon or the case gets dropped. We’re desperate…but then so are the bad guys. It’s crunch time.”
Quaid leaned against the tree trunk and raked his hair. “So the deal is, you keep your connection with Jett till we figure out what she knows?”
“And somehow work it around Sally.” He gave Quaid a long look. “I don’t want to lose her, I know that now. And I sure as hell can’t tell gossip central what we’re up to. The girl’s great, and I love her, but keeping things to herself is not Sally’s strong suit.”
“Meaning you get to juggle two women at once,” Quaid chuckled. “I can’t even keep up with one female in my life. You’re going to need one hell of a lot of luck to pull this off.”
“More like a damn miracle. And there’s another wrinkle. Jett’s staying at Hastings House.” He paused, gauging Quaid’s reaction.
“Oh damn.”
“I see you’ve been talking to your dad. If there’s a slip up and Jett’s one of the bad guys, Mimi could be in real danger. I’ll pay Jett a visit tonight, see what I can find out. I’ve got an apartment over the old carriage house there, and can keep an eye on things.” He nodded at the road. “I’ll leave now, you follow later. We shouldn’t be seen together. If we suddenly get too chummy after our little altercation it’ll look suspicious. Since there are more strangers in town with the building going on, we don’t know who’s watching who.”
Demar headed up the road and got his car from the parking lot at Slim’s and drove to Hastings House. With luck, Thelma left him a few scones and a fresh pot of tea. He could do with some tea, ease some of his aches and pains. But first he had to connect with Jett.
He parked by the carriage house that he’d helped Thelma and Conrad renovate, then trudged across the back lawn and brick patio lined with planters overflowing with red and white flowers. He went inside the main house, the back halls empty at this hour, guests enjoying music and cards in the drawing room. Thelma had made cookies instead of the scones tonight, the scent of vanilla and cinnamon making his mouth water. He took the back steps to the second floor—if Rory was here tonight on a plumbing run, he and Bonnie would be on the third floor, which Thelma kept closed off.
Demar treaded softly and listened at Jett’s door before knocking. Voices…Jett’s. A phone call. Something about scones; guess Jett didn’t realize that tonight’s snack was cookies. Nothing but an innocent conversation. He knocked and heard the phone drop into the cradle. She opened the door. Eyes bright, hair shimmering, jeans two sizes too small showing off delicious curves.
“Why here you are,” she said as he came in. “I was getting ready to call the sheriff. I was worried, sweetheart.”
But not worried enough to hang around and see if I was okay.
She threw her arms around him and nudged the door shut with her bare toes complete with pink polish. She touched his eye. “Does that hurt?”
What hurt the most was that he nearly ruined things between him and Sally.
“Did you and Quaid come to some kind of understanding? I don’t want you to get enemies over me, especially the O’Fallons. You like them a lot.”
“You know guys overreact but we’re okay now. I told him you and I were friends and just hanging out on Slim’s back porch.”
“Friends?” She giggled and tossed her hair. It hung loose and free tonight, swirling around her shoulders, sexy as hell. “Friends don’t kiss the way we do, Demar.” She ground her soft mound against his dick, her eyes turned sultry and she kissed his chin.
Things were about to get sticky and he had to slow the relationship down. He needed information, not a roll in the hay. He took her arms from around his neck and stepped away. “I want to take it slower this time, Jett. I want us to get to know each other before we jump in the sack.”
“But, baby,” she sulked. “You are so good in the sack.” She pressed her chest to his, her lush breasts nearly pushing out of the vee-cut of her blouse. She walked her fingers up his front to his lips and traced the soft pad of her thumb across his bruised mouth. She gently kissed the split in his lip where Quaid’s fist did its work. “I want you, Demar,” she hummed. “I told you I was sorry for leaving you, and I so want us to be the way we were. We were happy, sugar. We had a lot of good times together. I want that for us again, and I want the good times to never end.”
He kissed her because if he didn’t she’d start to smell a rat, and at the moment that’s what he felt like. He was kissing one woman and in love with another. He was getting too old for this undercover crap.
“Okay,” he said, breaking the kiss, searching for a diversion. “Let’s go for a walk.”
“A walk? I don’t want to walk, I want to run my hands all over you.” She pushed him backwards. The bed caught him in the knees and he fell backwards, sprawling out across the top. Jett put her hands on her hips. “Oh, Demar, now that’s just the way I like you—all to myself for the whole night, me on top, you on the bottom, so I can do all kinds of delicious things to you.”
Holy crap! He started to get up but wasn’t moving as fast as usual and Jett dove on top of him, her face to his, every muscle in his body hurting.
She smiled wickedly. “I want to feel you getting hard just for me, sugar. I want to watch every inch of your big dick keep getting bigger. Then I want to lick you and suck you and—”
He rolled over, taking her with him and trapping her under him. Sweat beaded across his lip. His ribs ached, his head pounded. “I can’t do this, Jett.” Now he had to think of a reason other than I love Sally and I’m playing you and I’m not screwing you no matter what. “You hurt me really bad last time and I can’t go through that again. I want this to be the real thing between us.”
She slid her hand between them and cupped his erection. “Sure feels like the real thing to me and we don’t have to wait at all. You’re the one for me, Demar. I know that. It took me time and a lot of soul-searching to realize how much I love you. And I do, baby, I really do. Take me, Demar. Do it right now. It’ll feel so good, I promise.”
She looked into his eyes and he felt as if she were assessing the situation. “I can’t, Jett. Not yet.”
Something flashed in her eyes and it wasn’t hurt, but closer to anger. “I understand,” she managed in a convincing voice. “And if taking a walk is what you want, then that’s what we’ll do.” She kissed him gently, like kissing a rose. “Thelma has a plate of macaroons downstairs. The aroma’s been driving me crazy all evening. We can grab a handful and go outside and watch the moon and talk. You can tell me all about what you’ve been doing here.”
Not exactly. The pl
an was to wheedle information from Jett. He’d worked undercover; he knew the game, he knew how to get what he wanted. The big problem was, so did Jett.
Sally swept up the last of the broken bottles as “Goin’ Down Slow” filled the room, and Cynthia Landon swayed into the bar. This was not the Cynthia of twenty years ago. That Cynthia…pranced like she had a stick up her butt. “What brings you here?”
“Is it always this crowded on a Wednesday night? You have some business.”
“Only when we have a fight. Everyone wants a front row seat if another breaks out or at least rehash the last one over a few beers.” Cynthia claimed a stool and Sally dumped the last of the broken glass into the trash. “You just missed my main man and yours duking it out in the middle of this place. I am so pissed at those two idiots!”
She stashed the broom and dustpan behind the bar. “They could have totally wrecked everything, and I don’t even know why they were fighting in the first place. Scared folks in here half to death. What the heck were they thinking, going at each other like two tomcats?”
Cynthia’s eyes were huge. “Quaid? Demar? How? Why? Anybody hurt? And Quaid is not my man.”
“Oh, really.” Sally gave a sassy look. “You telling me you think of him as what—your brother?”
Cynthia blushed and Sally laughed as she handed a tray of longnecks to Slim. Nothing like a big ornery man who tipped the scales at about two-fifty to make folks behave. “To set your mind at ease, both of the town idiots got a little bloody but they left under their own steam. Could have gotten ugly if Dad didn’t break things up. They were well matched, with Demar being a cop and everybody knows Quaid’s been fighting all his life.”
Cynthia nibbled a pretzel, trying to look not all that interested but failing miserably. “Not everybody.”
Sally refilled baskets with pretzels and chips and put them on the bar. “I keep forgetting you were off to college when Rory adopted Quaid.”
“Hey, don’t rub it in. I’m starting to get a forty complex.”
“No rubbing intended,” Sally said, amazed she and Cynthia Landon James were sitting here discussing men and bar fights, as if they’d done it their whole lives.
Cynthia leaned closer. “Well, are you going to tell me or not?”
“About…?”
“Quaid,” she ground out. “You just had to make me say his name, didn’t you?”
Sally gave a devil grin and put a beer in front of Cynthia. “He used to always be in trouble, stealing, fighting, you name it, getting picked up by the sheriff. One time he came across Keefe and Ryan. They were about ten, and getting beat up because Keefe was more interested in school plays than pitching knothole. The three of them kicked some major butt and were friends from then on. Quaid’s grandfather raised him and used to come home drunk and knock him around regularly. Quaid would run away, always looked like hell, came here sometimes, but then Pete would promise to change, and the sheriff would drag Quaid home. The talk is, Rory found Quaid shivering and cold and a bloody mess, hiding out on one of his tugs. He got fed up, paid off Pete and adopted Quaid.”
“Rory bought Quaid!”
“More or less. School was never Quaid’s thing and Rory put him to work on the tows. Youngest captain on the Mississippi, had his pick of any girl in town. When he turned twenty-two Rory made him join the Coast Guard to get a fresh start.”
“And now Rory’s got a problem.”
“And Quaid’s back—bigger, better and more handsome than ever, in case you didn’t notice—which I’m sure you have.” Sally handed off another tray of beers to Slim.
“There is nothing with me and Quaid.” Cynthia took a swig of beer, pinky extended as if in Le Cirque. New York wasn’t that far away after all.
“So what brings you into town tonight?”
“Quaid.”
Sally laughed outright and Cynthia gave a sheepish grin. “I just wanted to thank him for persuading Mother to come home, and really thank him for sending us Preston-the-cook.” She let out a blissful sigh. “He made scones…I have a real thing for scones, and so do Mother and our new boarder. Preston whipped up a spinach omelet and I nearly had an orgasm.”
“I think that’s where Quaid comes in.”
“So, how are things with you and Demar?”
“Changing the subject will not save you from my prying questions, but as for Demar…ever since Boobs came to town he’s…distracted.”
“I thought you were un-distracting him. Making a play for him.”
“We played in the closet, but now what? What do I do for an encore? I’m not exactly into boy and girl fun and games, I’m a business major. If he wanted advice on his 401K I could wow his socks off.”
Cynthia propped her chin in her hand and twirled a pretzel around in circles on the bar top. “Let’s see, you want the wow factor. There’s Carmen Electra’s Aerobic Striptease DVD, you can learn a lot from that, and Satori Oil of Love potion that gets warm, and it’s edible, more like lickable. There’s a Prisoner-of-Love Kit, that’s a real hoot, and Daring Dice, it has body parts and…” Cynthia’s gaze came back to Sally’s. She knew her eyes were huge. She couldn’t have stopped them from bulging if she’d wanted to.
Cynthia said, “What?”
“Okay, a minute ago you were sipping beer with your pinky out and now you’re rattling off sex games? What exactly did you design in New York, girl?”
“My loft was above an adult toy store, very refined and tasteful. Two gay guys ran it, Eddy and Freddy, and they were totally darling and great friends. Don’t tell anyone, but I asked their opinions on more than one design I created. They had marvelous taste. They ran Simple Pleasures. We met every morning for coffee.”
“I was on Wall Street, dealt with obnoxious over-testosteroned men in ugly suits with gross ties, who hated women, and you got Eddy and Freddy. I totally chose the wrong profession.”
“I also got Aaron.” She chomped the pretzel hard. “He had a mean, vicious side I never knew about until it was too late. I should have come in here years ago. I probably wouldn’t have wound up with Aaron the ass.” She studied Sally. “Don’t wait too long to make your move with Demar. He’s a keeper and Jett is on the prowl.”
“You know, you are absolutely right, time’s a-wastin’. I’ve been thinking about it all day and I need to do something now.”
Chapter 7
Sally took off her apron and slid it over Cynthia’s head.
“I’m going after my main squeeze. Something calm, because Demar just got beaten up…unless…unless I can think of some way to make him feel better, and we all know what makes men feel better.”
Cynthia held up the apron. “I can’t tend bar.”
“I’ll play nurse. Nurse Sally.” She giggled. If I had time I’d get you to make me a uniform.”
“No wonder you worked on Wall Street, you’re steamrolling right over me.”
“I’ll check Demar out, top to bottom and everything in between.” She handed Cynthia a towel. “Open a beer, serve a beer. Slim will help. Piece of cake. Besides, this was your idea.”
“Remind me to have my tongue removed,” she yelled after Sally, who headed for the back stairs.
Sally ran upstairs to the quaint apartment—quaint except for Slim’s wide-screen TV in the living room, which her mother would have had a stroke over, God rest her soul. She pulled white short-shorts and a halter top from the dresser in her bedroom, and drew red crosses on them with a Sharpie pen. She folded a hat out of paper, added another cross, and found an old pair of white heels. Nurse Sally needed heels! She grabbed a bottle of Rémy Martin Louis XIII from Slim’s private stash and the rest of the mocha almond fudge Häagen Dazs she’d been saving for a special occasion. Ta-da, special occasion on the way!
She dressed, applied double eyeliner, cherry-red lipstick and squirts of Obsession, then headed for the truck out back and made for Hastings House. Through the breaks in the trees along the river, she caught sight of moonlight on the Mississipp
i. The thought of Demar naked in that same moonlight made her hit the accelerator harder than usual, until a flash of something darted across the road.
Oh, damn! On reflex, she stomped the brakes, the truck fishtailing then taking a nosedive into a ditch, the airbag deploying. “Grant!” she grumbled as the bag deflated. “Damn that man!” Hadn’t he harassed the South enough already?
She smacked the steering wheel and yelled out the window. “It is not raining and I am not a new Southerner. It’s me, you stupid Yankee. Why don’t you go back where you came from.”
She closed her eyes. “Dear God, I’m yelling at a ghost.” She snapped her eyes open. “And I’m talking to myself.” She considered cutting her losses and walking home—except she was dressed like a hooker. The gossips would love it.
She stepped from the truck, teetering on her heels in the dirt. She snagged the bag of brandy and ice cream from the front seat and crossed the road, fading into the woods leading up to Hastings House so as not to be seen in this getup. Enough moonlight broke through the trees, letting her find the path that she hadn’t used since she was little. All the kids played in the woods around Hastings House…until it got dark. Then the woods belonged to Grant, and she’d already had that encounter.
Mosquitoes bit in obscene places, no sense of decency in the insect world. She swatted at one crawling up her right butt cheek, tripped over a rock, fell with a hard thud and twisted her ankle. She lay flat on the dirt catching her breath. This kind of stuff never happened to those girls in Sex and the City. They always looked great, met terrific guys and never gained an ounce, no matter how many times they went out to eat, and they always ate out.
She sniffled, feeling a pity party coming on. This was so not fair. Sitting, she glimpsed the silhouette of Hastings House just beyond the tree line, except the only way she’d get there was to crawl. What happened to her night of seduction, her inspecting Demar head to toe, him slurping seventy-year-old brandy from her navel? Ruined! She pried the lid off the Häagen Dazs, dug her finger into the starting-to-melt goodness and scooped it into her mouth. Normally it would be about two-hundred calories per finger full and Fat Fighters would flip out…except everyone knew ice cream eaten in the woods at night when you tripped and fell didn’t have calories.
I’ll Be Seeing U Page 9