He saw painted porcelain sinks and gleaming fixtures. And in the far corner, next to a wall of glass brick, an enormous, unabashedly decadent tub big enough for two.
Soap, wet bodies, skin sliding over slippery skin.
That was it, Roberto thought. He gave in. A man could only take so much temptation, no matter how adult he was, and if he didn’t get outside quick, his brain was going to go on overload. Forget the wastebasket, he’d file the strike plate in the garage. Better yet, he’d take it back to his place. He wheeled around abruptly.
It was his third mistake.
Because she was there, just behind him. They collided, and in the confusion he reached out to clutch her arms to keep her from falling.
Too bad he already had.
And with a low curse, he dragged her to him, crushed her lips to his and plunged them both into a hot madness.
It was nothing like their previous kiss. This time, there was no quiet exploration, no gentleness. This kiss was about heat and urgency. It was about the accumulated frustration of the past days, the need that pounded through him until it became all he was about. Her mouth was hot and avid against his and he drove her lips apart to taste her. Her body was lithe and he learned it anew with his hands. It was urgent, it was heedless and she matched him demand for demand. When he slid his hand up over her breast, the low moan in her throat very nearly drove him over the edge.
He was like a junkie getting his first taste after being on the wagon. He could feel the rush of her buzzing through his veins, intoxicating him, making him almost dizzy with it.
And like a junkie mainlining again, all he wanted was more.
The bed was there, mere feet away. All he had to do was walk over to it and lay her down. It was meant to happen. Why else would they have wound up together in this room if not for this? They were adults, they were both free. With all they had gone through, didn’t they deserve it? Didn’t they deserve the pleasure that they could give each other?
He heard her moan again and his body tightened. He felt her fingers slide up into his hair and he dragged them both deeper. He savored her mouth, let his lips press a tortured line down the smooth column of her throat, inhaled her scent. It had gone beyond want, now, beyond need, beyond choice and into the realm of compulsion.
Frannie couldn’t catch a breath, didn’t care. For that moment, she let the rush of sensation sweep her away into the heat and thunder, flash and fire. Twenty years before, she’d given him a playful kiss one afternoon at the end of a game of tag. It had sent little fizzes of excitement bubbling through her, but nothing compared to the way she’d felt days later when they’d finally made love. And now, history was repeating itself. That first brushing kiss at his place had ignited a slow burn in her that she couldn’t ignore. But this, this was like gasoline thrown on fire.
She could feel the urgency, taste it even as she tasted him. His hands ran down her back, molding them together. Their mouths fused and she reveled in his touch, his scent, his taste, gloried in the pleasure that he drew forth from her with hands and lips and tongue. For years, she’d been deadened, but now under his touch she’d come alive.
It wasn’t enough, Roberto knew it. It wasn’t enough and yet he couldn’t let himself take more. He heard Frannie’s soft sigh of surrender, knew the exact moment that he could have taken her further, slipping off her dress, pressing her back on the bed. And maybe, caught up in the moment, she wouldn’t have blamed him.
But he would have blamed himself.
So he stayed put, fought to pull back, fought to regain control. Fought finally to release her.
And watched as her eyes cleared.
They stared at each other, wordless.
She dragged her hands through her hair. “I must be out of my mind.”
“Try to tell me that’s just a complication,” he challenged.
Frannie tried to slow her breath. “Try to tell me it’s not.”
“Don’t pretend you haven’t been thinking about it, because I don’t buy it.”
“Of course I’ve been thinking about it. But that doesn’t mean I’m ready for it.” She stepped away and whirled around to him. “What do you want from me, Roberto? I’m still trying to figure out how the pieces all fit together. I keep telling you I can’t deal with this right now, and you won’t listen.”
“Yeah? That’s because I didn’t exactly notice you fighting me off just now.” He clasped his hands together on top of his head, squeezed his eyes closed briefly and let out a long breath. “I shouldn’t have said that. I’m sorry. I didn’t intend for this to happen any more than you did. But there’s something there between us or it wouldn’t have.”
She nodded slowly. “Then maybe we should stay away from each other so it doesn’t happen again.”
“Do you really think that’s possible?”
It was her turn to be frustrated. “I don’t know. Right now, I’m making this up as I go along. I do want you, Roberto, I admit it. I want you so much sometimes that I can’t breathe. And it scares the hell out of me.”
He didn’t reply right away. “Querida,” he said finally. “I can only imagine what you went through with that man. I’m not ignoring you. I get that you don’t want to be involved right now after everything you’ve been through, but like I said before, I’m not Lloyd. At some point you’re going to have to trust that. At some point you’re going to have to trust yourself and listen to your heart.”
“How am I supposed to listen to my heart if all I can hear is you telling me what you want me to do?” she fired back. “Give me—”
There was the sound of the door and giggling at the front of the house. “Anybody home?”
Frannie jerked away as though she’d been electrified. “Josh and Lyndsey,” she hissed. “Be right out, honey,” she said more loudly, smoothing down her dress and moving toward the door.
“Frannie.” He waited until she turned. “You can hold back all you want, but we both know that’s not going to make it go away. It’s still there between us. Sooner or later you’re going to have to deal with it.”
“I know,” she whispered.
And she walked out the door.
Chapter Nine
Roberto put a coin into the self-serve car wash. In Denver, he had a car wash at his company’s facility to serve their fleet, as well as a gas pump. At least last time he’d checked. A man couldn’t run a business for long when he was a thousand miles away. So far, between the Internet, his cell phone and his job-site managers pitching in, he’d done okay, but that wasn’t likely to last too much longer. Especially with the economy, he needed to be there in person.
But how could he leave Red Rock now with everything that was going on with his family, Lloyd’s murder, the fires and Frannie?
Above all, with Frannie.
He hadn’t come so close to winning her back only to walk away, especially when she was still in peril. Until things settled down with her, he wasn’t going anywhere.
He twisted the knob on the dial to wash and squeezed the trigger on the wand. Instantly, a jet of soap sprayed out over the dusty side of his truck, dripping onto the wet concrete below. It didn’t seem to matter where in Texas he was, the dust just naturally found him. He moved around in a slow circle, from back to front, until soap was running down the paint.
And suddenly the water turned off.
“What the…” He looked behind him to see McCaskill with his hand on the control box and Wheeler just standing there, studying him with those washed-out blue eyes.
“Now you’re going to tell me I’m not allowed to wash my car?” Roberto asked.
McCaskill propped one hand on the cinder block wall. “Nope, we just saw you here as we were driving by—thought you looked lonely.”
“Feel free to grab a rag and pitch in.”
“Pitch in. Hey, that’s a good one, huh, Len?”
Wheeler didn’t look amused. “I hear you been asking questions.”
“No law against th
at.”
“When it comes to police work, yeah, actually, there is. It’s called obstructing an investigation.”
“I’m not obstructing anything. I’m just having conversations with people.”
“Oh, yeah? Cindy Fortune didn’t seem to think so. I believe she used the word interrogation.”
Roberto closed his eyes and gave a mental curse. “And you and I both know just how trustworthy Cindy Fortune’s word about anything is.”
“In this case, I’m inclined to believe her,” Wheeler drawled. “We’re in the middle of an investigation here, Mendoza. We don’t need you interfering and getting citizens all riled up.”
Roberto leaned the wand up against the cinder block wall. “And here I thought you were worried about finding out who killed Lloyd Fredericks, not keeping the citizens calm.”
“Actually, Mr. Mendoza, we worry about both.”
“I’ll keep that in mind.”
“Good. Because if you keep on having any more of those conversations, we might just wind up having a conversation with you—in a jail cell.”
McCaskill leaned forward and smiled. “Right next to your girlfriend.”
Roberto felt a flare of anxiety go through him. “My girlfriend?”
“Frannie Fredericks,” Wheeler clarified. “The woman still officially charged with the murder of Lloyd Fredericks. You two been spending a lot of time together, haven’t you? For a couple of people who just knew one another casually twenty years ago, I mean.”
“She hired me to repair her house.”
“From what I can see, you been fixing an awful lot for her. Garage doors, roof, walls, finding the murder weapon dropped by some mysterious figure no one else seems to have seen…” Those pale blue eyes studied him. “You help her fix anything else, Mendoza? Like her husband?”
It felt like ice going down his spine. Ignore it, Roberto told himself. They were fishing, nothing more. “Give me a break, Wheeler. You took my fingerprints and my blood when I was in for questioning. If that had matched up with any other forensic evidence, you’d have slapped me in a cell in a heartbeat. Same thing with Frannie. You don’t have anything and we both know it.”
“Until we do, we’re happy to go with obstructing an investigation,” McCaskill put in.
“Only if you can prove I was obstructing.”
“I’m not going to dance around with you anymore on this, Mendoza,” Wheeler interrupted. “Stay out of this investigation or we’ll have both you and Frannie Fredericks back in.”
“Based on what? She hasn’t been asking questions, I have.”
Wheeler’s eyes chilled. “Stay out of it. And if you’re smart, you’ll keep your distance from her, too. I don’t like having an open homicide in my town. I want this cleaned up, and the quicker you get out of it, the quicker it will be.”
McCaskill swiped a finger down the side of the truck. “You’d better get to rinsing,” he said over his shoulder as they walked away. “You let the soap dry on your paint, it’ll wreck the finish.”
Frannie had always loved weddings. Maybe it was irrational, given how miserably her own marriage had turned out, but there was something about the optimism of two people pledging their lives to each other that had always made it easier for her to get through the day. And the next day. And the next.
White satin, lily of the valley, flower girls meandering down the aisle. Even watching the bride and groom wandering around the reception never failed to make her smile.
At least most days.
“Congratulations, you two,” she told her cousin Nicholas Fortune and his bride as they stopped at her table. “Or congratulations to you, Nick. The bride’s supposed to get best wishes.”
“Forget that.” Charlene Fortune, née London, threaded her arm through her husband’s. “I deserve congratulations for bagging the confirmed bachelor.”
“Hey, who proposed to who?” Nick countered. “Give me some credit for knowing a good thing when I see it. Or see her.” He grinned.
“You do look kind of like you won the lottery,” Frannie observed. “Both of you.”
Clad in a flowing white gown with a garland of flowers in her auburn hair, Charlene had a glow that could have lit Manhattan. Around them, guests began tapping knives against their water glasses to create an ever-louder chorus of clinking.
“Listen to your guests and kiss the bride, Nicholas,” Frannie told him.
“My pleasure,” he replied, taking Charlene in his arms and dipping her back with a flourish to kiss her until everyone whooped.
Charlene was laughing as she came back up. “You loon,” she said.
“You’d better get used to it,” Nick told her. “You’re stuck with me now.”
“I think I can handle that. Kiss me again, just so I can make sure.” When he did, she beamed. “Oh, I wish I could bottle this feeling and give some to everyone I know.”
Maybe that was the allure of weddings, Frannie thought as they walked off, the hope that some of that giddy magic would rub off. Then again, what would she do if it did? Would she really have the courage to step out and take it?
Sooner or later you’re going to have to deal with it.
Roberto made it sound so simple. He was so certain of what he wanted. That didn’t mean that she was ready for it. It felt so right with him, but what if that was just sentiment talking, a mix of the excitement of their reunion and feelings from long ago?
Worse, what if it wasn’t? What if it was real and she ruined it by diving in before she was emotionally ready to be a partner to anyone? Frannie sighed. When she sat down and thought about it, there were a whole host of good reasons to stay away from Roberto Mendoza.
And deep down inside, she knew it didn’t matter. Over a week had passed since they’d kissed in her bedroom, over a week since she’d seen him. And every moment of every hour of every day in between, she’d wanted him. She’d tried to keep him at a distance, she’d tried to keep him out of her head. She should’ve realized at the start that it was impossible. And now, she didn’t know what to do.
To distract herself, she brought out her camera and began to snap pictures: a little girl standing on her grandfather’s feet, giggling as he sidestepped her around the dance floor, Nick’s three black-haired goddaughters solemnly trading different-colored Jordan almonds from the favors, William Fortune sending Lily out for a twirl as they danced to Glenn Miller.
Frannie turned to frame up another shot and felt someone tap her on the shoulder.
“You’re Frannie Fredericks, aren’t you?” asked a stocky woman in heavy face makeup and a lime-green silk dress.
In the two weeks since her release from jail, Frannie had become an expert at recognizing the varying reactions of strangers to Lloyd’s murder. There were the sympathetic ones, the ones who looked at her with pity, the curious, the sincere. And the ones like this woman, the emotional vultures who just wanted a story to tell.
“It must have been horrible to have your husband murdered like that.” The woman eyed her avidly. “And for it to be one of those Mendozas. After everything your family has done for them.”
Frannie felt a stir of anger at the presumption. “If you’re talking about Roberto Mendoza, he hasn’t even been charged.” She rose. “Excuse me.”
As much as she was thrilled to see Nick and Charlene so happy, she was sick to death of the stares, the comments, the hissing whispers that cut off when she approached. She didn’t feel like a guest so much as a target. The good thing about the camera was that it gave her both a shield and a reason to leave.
She snapped a picture of Ricky Faraday holding hands with his girlfriend while a couple of younger boys wrinkled their noses. Nearer by, Josh and Lyndsey worked their way through the tables. He was introducing her to the relatives, Frannie saw. And Lyndsey was taking pains to shake hands and talk with each and every one of them. First Josh’s clothes, now his family.
“It’s so nice to meet you,” Frannie heard her say to Emmett Jamison,
who with his wife, Linda, ran the Fortune Foundation. “Everyone speaks so highly of the work the Foundation does. I hope that someday I might be able to come to work there.” She paused expectantly.
“Uh, yes, well, stop in sometime.” Emmett cleared his throat. “See what we’re doing.”
Lyndsey blushed becomingly. “Oh, could I?”
Maybe she was just being an overprotective mother, Frannie thought resignedly. Maybe it came from having only one child. Everyone else seemed to like Lyndsey; Josh thought he loved her. Frannie focused and squeezed off a sequence of shots of Josh leading Lyndsey onto the dance floor. It would make a good gift for the girl. A peace offering, perhaps. It was looking more and more like Lyndsey was going to be around for the long term. And Frannie supposed as she skirted a table at the edge of the room, it was past time for her to get used to it.
“She had blood all over her, I heard,” someone said nearby, sotto voce. Frannie glanced over to see an older woman with short, gray hair leaning over to her companion. “And that Roberto Mendoza just walking the streets as big as life.”
Frannie felt the flare of anger.
“You know, everything was fine until he came back,” the woman’s friend said. “Now we’ve got fires and murder and all sorts of things.”
“I heard he left in the first place because he had to,” the gray-haired woman replied.
Her friend nodded sagely. “Trouble with the law, someone said. I just hope they hurry up with the trial and put that murderer away for good.”
Lies, complete fabrications, character assassination, Frannie thought as she walked past. An image of Roberto filled her mind—his strength, his unquestioning acceptance—and she stopped and spun back to the pair.
“Well, since I’m the only one who’s been charged with the murder so far, I’m personally hoping the trial doesn’t happen for a long, long time. Of course, maybe you have evidence the police don’t. Smile.” The pair gaped at her and she snapped a picture of them. “What a lovely photo of your fillings. Thank you,” she sang, and turned away.
A Fortune Wedding Page 10