“He knew?”
“Querida, at this point, I’d say anyone who looks at us together for long will have a pretty good idea something’s going on.”
Like Lily, she thought. “Lily already warned me about being seen with you.”
“Really?” His gaze sharpened. “When?”
Frannie led Daisy into the railed, U-shaped enclosure of the cross ties and turned the mare to face the front. “Last week, when I met her for lunch. Your name slipped out.” She concentrated on swapping Daisy’s bridle for her halter and clipping the lead lines onto either side.
“And she said stay away from that awful Mendoza boy?” His voice held not humor, but flickers of irritation.
“Lily isn’t Cindy, Roberto. It’s not about you as a person, it’s the situation. My husband’s dead, we’ve both been in jail for his murder, and now the two of us are involved? If that seems fast to me, how do you think it’s going to look to everyone else?”
He ducked out of Barnabus’ adjacent cross tie to face her. “If it was too fast, why did you come to the Double Crown?”
“I didn’t know I’d find you here.”
“But you rode out knowing I’d follow.”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
She turned to unfasten Daisy’s cinch. “I’d think that would be obvious.”
“Nothing’s obvious here, Frannie, and nothing’s simple. Are you getting cold feet about what we just did?”
“Yes. No. I don’t know,” she burst out. “How can I when all I want is for you to touch me again?”
His gaze heated. Electricity snapped between the two of them as he pulled her into his arms to fuse his mouth to hers. Desire and frustration, longing and hope. And fear. The emotions swirled around in the kiss, overlaying that always-present flare of arousal.
He released her. “Wheeler and McCaskill stopped by to see me today.”
“What?” Head still spinning from the kiss, Frannie stared at him.
“It’s all right. It wasn’t about bringing either of us in. But it’s gotten back to them that I’m asking questions and they don’t like it.”
Daisy shifted impatiently. Focus on the details, Frannie reminded herself. She needed to focus on getting Daisy untacked and groomed and bedded down, not on things she couldn’t change. She moved away from Roberto to pull off the saddle and set it on the rail. “I don’t know why they care. It’s not like they’re coming up with any answers.”
“No, but they take a dim view of people they think are interfering with their investigation.” Roberto walked back to where Barnabus was crosstied.
“You’re not interfering with anything.”
“That’s not how they see it.”
Frannie picked up the dandy brush and began sweeping the dirt out of Daisy’s coat in long strokes. “You talked to a few people, that’s all.” She stopped. “Isn’t it?”
“Yes, and I told them that. I also told them that you weren’t a part of any of it.”
Her stomach tightened with anxiety. “Me? How did I come into it?”
“Either they’re watching us or your mother told them. Or both.”
“Cindy? I don’t understand.”
He let out a breath. “She stopped by when I was at your house, working on the garage door.”
“She stopped by? When?” Irritation pricked her. “And when, exactly, were you planning to tell me about it?”
“I didn’t think I had to. She told Josh to tell you—I assumed he had.”
“He didn’t.” And there was too much going on all together. “What did she want?”
“I don’t know. But she wasn’t thrilled to see me. She apparently went to the cops and told them I was asking questions and got them all riled up.”
Focus on the details. Frannie went back to brushing Daisy. “What did the detectives say?”
“They tried to threaten me with arrest, but they don’t have any cause.” Roberto hesitated. “When that didn’t work, they made noises about bringing you in for violating the conditions of your release by talking to people involved in the case.”
The brush dropped out of her suddenly nerveless fingers. “But I—”
“You haven’t talked to anybody, Frannie, I know.” He bent down to retrieve it. “And they know, too. It’s an empty threat. They’re just trying to scare us.”
“They’re doing a good job.” It was starting again, that sense that everything was coming down at once, and she couldn’t control any of it.
Swiftly, Roberto moved to her, put a hand to her cheek. “It’s okay. They don’t have anything on either of us or we’d be back in jail already.”
“But that could change at any moment.”
“Until they solve the murder, yes. The problem is, they also don’t have anything on the case that we haven’t given to them.”
“What does that mean, we just wait?”
“We could. I can stop what I’m doing if you say so and leave it to your brother Ross. Or he and I could both stay out of it, which is what the cops want. I don’t know that that’s going to help us, though. The other possibility is that I keep asking questions and see if something bubbles up. It’s your call—what do you want?”
“I want this done,” she burst out, grabbing the saddle and bridle. “I want to stop worrying. I want to stop thinking about Josh and you and me being in trouble. I want to get on with my life.” She strode toward the barn and the tack room.
He grabbed Barnabus’ tack and followed. “That’s the same thing I want.”
“And do you really think what you’re doing is likely to make that happen?”
“I don’t know, to be honest. I’m not an investigator, I don’t have experience to go by. But I do know people, and sometimes putting pressure in the right place can break something loose. To me, it’s a chance worth taking. It’s not just about me, though. I’m not going to do anything that might put you at risk unless you say it’s okay.”
It was too much, Frannie thought. It made her want to clap her hands over her ears, to run, to get far, far away from everyone and everything. And yet she knew that wasn’t possible. Defiance stirred. “They could come get me at any time—I’ve known that from the day I got out. And I want it to stop. We’ve got to end this.” She slapped on the barn lights and turned to him. “If you think there’s even a chance that what you’re doing will help, then keep at it.”
“I think that’s the right choice.”
“There’s a bigger issue here, though,” she continued, “and that’s the two of us. Lily was right, you and me being involved right now is a bad move. How do you think it’s going to look to people if we start showing up around town together with Lloyd dead?”
“The police asked me about that, too,” Roberto said. “The problem is, we are involved.”
Frannie stepped into the tack room without responding and hung up the bridle.
He followed her inside. “Or are you talking about more than just staying out of the public eye?” he said.
“I think we need to keep our distance.”
“This isn’t about how it looks, is it?” Roberto asked, eyes steady on her. “It’s about you backing away.”
Temper flared. “I wanted what happened tonight. I still do—but it’s not just about me, it’s about this whole situation. We’re not kids anymore. We have to do what’s smart, Roberto. We have to be grown-ups. And right now, that means keeping this under wraps.”
His jaw tightened. “And after?”
She took two swift steps toward him and pressed her mouth to his. The seconds went by and he felt the saddle slipping out of his hands.
She stepped back. “After, we’ll see what happens.”
Chapter Eleven
“What can I get for you?” Roberto asked, tossing down a couple of bar mats before the blonde in the red dress. Appropriate, he supposed, since she was here at Red.
She tossed her hair back. “My friends are going to have a margarita and a blueberry peach cobbler ma
rtini, and I’m going to try your PB&J martini.”
A peanut butter and jelly martini. Roberto resisted the urge to roll his eyes as he reached for bottles and started mixing. Why people sucked down syrupy-sweet stuff and called it a cocktail was beyond him. If they didn’t like the taste of alcohol, then why the hell drink it? And why try to pretend one of these concoctions was a martini when the only thing it had in common with the classic vodka and vermouth version was the shape of the glass?
But he didn’t figure he had any business saying that to a customer, especially not one buying ten-dollar cocktails. It wasn’t her fault he’d been a cranky SOB for the past week. To compensate, he dredged up a smile.
“Are you good?” purred the blonde.
“What?” Roberto blinked, his hands freezing in the midst of pouring the contents of the shaker into the martini glass.
“Are you good? At mixing drinks,” the blonde added with a throaty laugh.
It took him a minute to realize she was coming on to him. Of course. And meanwhile, the one woman he wanted, the woman who made it impossible for him to think, to sleep, he couldn’t get near.
“I don’t know, you tell me.” Roberto set the martini on the bar mat before the blonde.
“It sounds like an invitation,” she said, lifting up the glass to take a drink. “Mmm. Well, if you’re this good at cocktails, I can hardly wait to see more.”
The door from the outside opened. “—just have one drink and go,” said a female voice. He glanced up out of habit to see two or three women walking in. And then everything seemed to stop for a moment.
Because with them was Frannie.
Adrenaline surged through his veins. Seven days had passed since they’d been together, seven days during which he hadn’t touched her, hadn’t seen her, hadn’t even talked to her. Seven days during which all he’d done was want. And now, she was here, just across the room from him, so close and yet achingly far away.
“—you think?” The blonde was staring at him, obviously looking for an answer.
Roberto brought himself back. “What?”
She slid her fingers down the stem of her glass. “I said, maybe I ought to come back near closing time and order myself another martini.”
He put the other two drinks up on the bar and cashed out her tab. “Yeah, sure, there will be someone tending bar until eleven. Excuse me.”
He moved to fill orders for one of the waitresses, but he was really only watching Frannie and her friends walk across the bar to cluster around a small table. Mechanically, he mixed drinks, grateful for the practice he’d gotten over the previous three months. It allowed his hands to keep moving while every bit of his attention was bent on her.
She slid onto one of the high bar chairs, shrugging off her purse and catching the strap as it hit her wrist so that she could hook it over the chair back. There was something unconsciously graceful and innately feminine about the gesture. Roberto snorted at himself as he opened a beer. This was how bad he’d gotten—even watching her take off her purse knocked him over.
And then she glanced up and caught his eye and it took him a second or two to remember how to breathe.
Fate’s timing sucked. It had taken years, but they’d finally found each other again. They’d reconnected, slowly, but surely. For one incredible night, Frannie had overcome her fears and they’d glimpsed what they could be together.
Then the specter of Lloyd’s murder had arisen and now the only thing more impossible than staying away from her was going to her. Silently, he damned Lloyd Fredericks. But damning him wasn’t going to help anything. What was going to help was finding the murderer and putting this whole mess to rest.
Roberto caught Frannie’s eye again. Putting a shot glass on the counter, he poured in some tequila then cut his gaze and focused on the glass.
He didn’t have to do it twice. “I’ll get the drinks,” he heard her tell her friends.
Then she was walking over to him and all he could do was watch and imagine for just that moment how it would be if she were coming to him for real. She wore a dress that swirled around her calves and left her arms bare, a dress the exact blue of her eyes. Her sunbeam hair gleamed.
She stopped before him and rested her hands on the polished wood of the bar. He found himself fascinated by the beat of her pulse in her throat. “How are you?” he asked.
“I’m good. How about you?”
“Just now? Perfect.” A wisp of her scent reached him and that quickly he was catapulted back to those moments under the red oaks when he’d held her in his arms. He could taste her lips, feel her soft skin, hear the whisper of the grass in the breeze.
Her fingers were right there, inches from his as he tossed down the bar napkins. His mouth went dry with want. What was the harm in touching her? It would take so little to reach out, lay his hand over hers just for a second. Instead, he rested it on the edge of the wood and looked his fill.
“You’re beautiful,” he said.
She flushed. “I want to order drinks.”
“I want you.”
The quiet words vibrated in the air. For a beat, neither moved. Desire surged between them like a physical thing.
Frannie moistened her lips. “You should be careful. Someone could hear you.”
There was a burst of laughter from a group farther down the bar. “Unlikely, but never mind. What can I get you?”
“I’ll have a mojito, plus a Dos Equis and two frozen margaritas for my friends.”
“Salt?”
“One with, one without.”
“Coming up.” He added margarita mix, tequila and ice to a blender and flipped it on.
“Have you found anything out?” she asked.
“Nothing noteworthy so far. I’m going to go see Lyndsey tomorrow.” He poured the margaritas into glasses. “She might know something about what Josh did at the Spring Fling. I’ll let you know what I find out.”
“Good luck.”
“I need it. It’s driving me crazy that I can’t find someone else, anyone else, who saw that guy who tossed away the crowbar. I need a way to convince the cops he’s real. If I only had—” He stopped, staring down at the mint leaves he was muddling for Frannie’s mojito. Like he’d been muddled, he realized suddenly. “We’ve been missing a bet.”
“What do you mean?”
“Your camera. You always take it with you places. Did you have it with you at the Spring Fling?”
“Of course. I took three or four rolls of film before everything happened.”
“Have you gone through them?”
“No.” She smiled faintly. “I’ve been busy. I did get them developed, though.”
“Good. We should go through them, see if we notice anything unusual. Maybe we’ll find a picture of the guy, or catch Lloyd talking to someone.”
“It’s kind of a long shot.”
“True. Then again, what have we got to lose? Let’s at least go through them.” He placed her mojito before her and set the other drinks beside it. “I could come over to your house.”
“Do you think that’s smart?”
“Do you care?”
Her eyes darkened. “No.”
“Good. Then when?”
“Tomorrow night after it gets dark, maybe nine or ten. Josh is going to the ball game with Lyndsey. His curfew isn’t until midnight. We should have plenty of time.”
“To having plenty of time.” Roberto picked up the shot of tequila, clicked it unobtrusively on her mojito glass and downed it.
“I’ll see you there.” She filled her hands with drinks.
“I’ll see you in my dreams.”
Lyndsey Pollack lived with her mother on the north side of town in a tired-looking neighborhood that had probably been old already when Eisenhower was president. There was no guard shack here, just sidewalks cracked by tree roots and lawns sporting foreclosure signs.
The Pollackses’ small ranch could have used a few gallons of paint, Roberto thought as he
studied the flaking stucco around the doorbell. There was no response when he pressed the button.
The red car he’d seen his first day at Frannie’s was in the drive, but the shades on the house were still drawn. He checked his watch. Ten-thirty. He rang the bell again and waited. He’d hoped to stop by early enough to catch Lyndsey before she lit out for the day, but maybe he’d missed her. Or maybe she was just a late sleeper.
He was reaching out for the bell one last time when he heard the noise of a dead bolt being drawn and the door opened a few inches.
“Jeez, chill out, already. There are people sleeping.” Lyndsey peered out at him. “Who are you?”
“Roberto Mendoza. I was the guy working on the doors over at Josh Fredericks’ house last week.”
“Oh, yeah.” She hesitated. “What do you want?”
“I was hoping we could talk for a couple minutes.”
“About what?”
“About Josh and the Spring Fling.”
She was already shaking her head before he even finished. “No thank—”
He put out his hand to block the closing door. “Wait.”
Something in her eyes hardened. “Look, mister, I don’t know you. You keep up like this, I’m going to call the cops.” She reached in her pocket and pulled out a cell phone.
“The cops are precisely what I’m trying to avoid. Hear me out for five minutes. For Josh’s sake.”
It stopped her, as he’d intended. “What are you talking about?”
“Let me in and I’ll tell you.”
She studied him a minute, chewing on her lip. Even though she was seventeen, her face still held some of the unformed roundness of childhood. “Okay,” she said finally, “but we’ll have to keep it down. My mom’s sleeping. She works the night shift.”
“Whatever you say.”
The house was smaller than it looked from the outside. Over the fireplace directly opposite the door hung a convex mirror with metallic rays coming off it. The sunlight streaming in through the back windows showed the worn spots on the carpet.
“Let’s go into the kitchen,” Lyndsey said, turning through a swinging door. “We’ll make less noise there.”
If the neighborhood looked like it was from the fifties, the kitchen was more a relic of the seventies with avocado appliances and maple veneer cabinets.
A Fortune Wedding Page 12