Morning. The time of regrets and recriminations. The time of awkward silences and uncomfortable conversations. Like some broken spell, the magic of the night before always shriveled and died in the morning light.
A night of sex was understood by all to be nothing more than a good time. But when breakfast was added to the equation, that night of sex became something else entirely. It became a relationship. It became a possibility, an expectation, a future commitment. Blue had long since learned to clear out of a lady’s bedroom well before dawn.
This time he hadn’t. This time the spell he’d been under had held him in its power and he’d slept the dreamless sleep of the enchanted. But now he eased himself up and off the bed. There was still time to make his escape.
Lucy remained asleep. But as he looked at her lying there, his eyes followed the exposed curve of her derriere, the gentle swell of her breast as she lay on her stomach, her arms tucked up underneath the pillow. He felt an unexpected surge of desire.
The few times he’d stayed with a woman until the morning, he’d awoken with his lust abated, his sexual attraction fading fast. Aided by the harsh morning light, his lover’s slept-in and smudged makeup, disheveled hair and usually bloodshot eyes left him wanting nothing more than to leave, and leave quickly.
But Lucy looked like some kind of angel in the early-morning light. Her skin seemed to glow, it was so smooth and perfect. He wanted to reach out and touch her. He wanted to feel her softness beneath his fingers again. Her hair was messed, but on her it looked sexy. And her face…
She was impossibly beautiful. Her lashes were long and dark and they lay against cheeks that had been kissed by the sun. Her mouth was open very slightly, and her lips looked so moist…
Lucy stirred slightly and Blue ran, noiselessly leaving her room before her eyes opened. He ran because he’d always run away before.
“’Morning,” Blue said, clearly ill at ease, not quite meeting Lucy’s eyes as he opened the refrigerator and took out the pitcher of orange juice.
Lucy had been down in the kitchen for nearly an hour before he’d appeared. As she watched, he helped himself to a glass from the cabinet and poured the juice, still not looking at her.
The last of Lucy’s hopes shattered into a million tiny pieces.
She was a fool. She knew when she’d awakened to see Blue making his clandestine escape from her room that he was most likely regretting their lovemaking. Of course, he might have been leaving to replenish his supply of condoms. But when he didn’t return even after she’d stepped out of the shower, even after she’d taken her time getting dressed, even after she’d opened her door and stood staring at the quite obviously closed door to his room, she knew.
Still, she’d hoped that he wasn’t having true regrets. Maybe he was having only mild doubts, second thoughts. But looking at him standing there in her kitchen, poised as if ready to turn and run, she knew for sure.
For him, last night had been nothing but a big, fat, giant mistake. She was a fool for hoping he’d feel otherwise. She was a fool for hoping that somehow, someway, he’d fall in love with her. A very small, very foolish part of her had actually dreamed that Blue McCoy would make love to her—to no-frills, white-cotton Lucy Tait—and the earth would shake and the skies would open and he would realize that she was his life, his future, his reason for living.
Oh, yeah, she was a fool.
But at least she was a sensible fool. Her fantasies crushed and useless, she swept them away, out of sight, at least for now. She’d have plenty of time to feel badly later.
“Do you want breakfast?” she asked, her voice remarkably even as she busied herself with washing up her own breakfast dishes.
“I’ll just fix myself some toast.”
“That’s good,” she said. “You can bring it with you.”
She could feel his surprise, even though her back was to him.
“We going someplace?”
Lucy wrung out the dish sponge and set it on the edge of the sink before she turned to face him. “I called Jenny Lee and asked if she would mind if we stopped by. She said yes, we should come around nine-thirty, and that that would also be a convenient time for us to take a look at Gerry’s home office and—”
“Wait a minute, you lost me somewhere back around bringing my toast along to Jenny Lee’s. I don’t understand. Why are we going to her place?”
Lucy turned and stared at him. He truly didn’t understand. For the first time since he’d come downstairs, he was looking at her, really looking at her, instead of through her or over her or under her or around her.
“I thought you were taken off the investigation,” Blue said. “You said you quit. You’re not even on the police force anymore.”
Lucy nodded. “That’s right.”
“You don’t need to do this,” he said.
She nodded again. “Yeah, I know. But I want to do this. We’re the only ones who want to find out who really killed Gerry. Travis Southeby is going to mess around until he finds enough circumstantial evidence to haul you in. If we don’t try to discover who might’ve had a motive for wanting Gerry dead, the real killer is going to run free while you go directly to jail.” She shrugged. “I currently seem to be between jobs and I have some free time on my hands, so…”
Blue was silent. He’d looked away from her again, and was studying the wide antique boards of the kitchen floor.
“You don’t intend to just roll over and die, do you?” Lucy asked.
He glanced up. “No, but—”
“Neither do I,” she said, well aware that her words had a deeper, hidden meaning.
“Why do you want to help me?” His question was point-blank, and it came with no warning. He was watching her again, his eyes almost piercing in intensity.
Because I love you. But she couldn’t tell him that. Not so long as a small portion of her pride was still intact. “Because I know you didn’t kill Gerry,” she said, instead. “Because right now you’ve got no one else. And because I’m your friend.”
He was silent again, still watching her, and she knew exactly what he was thinking. He was thinking about last night, about how their lovemaking had permanently altered their so-called friendship. What they were to each other wasn’t as simple as being friends anymore. But it was clear that Blue didn’t want them to continue on as lovers, so where, exactly, did that leave them?
He so obviously wanted to pack his bag and walk away from her. But where would he go? What would he do?
Blue needed her right now, whether he knew it or not. Lucy believed that. She had to believe that. It was all she had left.
“I am your friend,” she told him quietly. “Last night we were lovers, but today I’m your friend again, McCoy. I expect nothing from you. I didn’t last night, and I certainly don’t this morning—nothing, that is, but friendship. So you can stop tiptoeing around me as if I’m going to act all hurt and upset because last night wasn’t the start of happily ever after. I know nothing has changed, except that now I know exactly where to touch you to really turn you on.”
He laughed, his voice tinged with a mixture of disbelief and respect. “Hell, you’re not afraid to get right to the heart of the matter, are you?”
Lucy raised her eyebrows, crossing her arms in front of her. “Was I supposed to pretend I didn’t notice you having some kind of morning-after anxiety attack?”
“Well, I don’t know. Yeah. Most women would…”
“I was just supposed to let you walk away because suddenly you’re uncomfortable with the fact that last night we got naked and had sex—great sex, I might add.” Lucy glared at him. “You honestly expected me to just throw away your friendship? Forget it, McCoy. I can deal with your thinking that I might overreact. It’s probably been your poor, pathetic experience that ‘most women’ do. But thinking I would just ditch your friendship…that hurts.”
“I’m sorry,” he said, and he actually looked as if he was. “It’s just…I’ve never slept with
a…a friend before. This is a new one for me. I’m not sure what to say to you…or what to do.”
“You could say, ‘Good morning, Lucy. Gee, you really rocked my world last night,’” she told him. She took the loaf of bread from the bread box on the counter and tossed it to him with a touch more force than necessary. “And then you could make your damned toast so we could get to work finding out who killed Gerry.”
Blue sat in Lucy’s truck and watched her drive. Going to Jenny Lee’s hadn’t given them any more answers.
No, Gerry didn’t seem to have any enemies. Yes, his behavior had been odd over the past several days, but Jenny had believed it was due to Blue’s impending arrival. Business had been picking up for his construction company over the past year. Gerry had had a number of projects in development and several in progress. Money was coming in and going out on a regular basis. His staff were all steadily employed; in fact, he’d had to hire carpenters and construction workers from an employment agency for a recent job.
A search of Gerry’s office had provided no additional information. Nothing was unusual about any of his current projects. His files were all in order, his desk free from any mention or warning of any threats. His date book had no appointments circled in red saying “lunch with killers.”
Gerry had had a normal amount of business meetings listed in his date book. Lucy had gone painstakingly through all the different names, matching them to his current projects. Some of them were clients he was wooing. And some of them were social appointments. He’d had lunch with Jenny Lee frequently, and he’d also apparently recently joined the Hatboro Creek Men’s Club, R. W. Fisher’s invitation-only elite organization that took on community projects. According to Gerry’s notes, they were currently raising money to repair the roof of the county hospital.
No, this trip to the house that Gerry had shared with Jenny Lee hadn’t provided any answers. However, it had raised some new questions for Blue.
Such as, why exactly was Lucy Tait going to all this trouble for him? Why had she slept with him last night? What did she really want? If there was one thing Blue had learned in life, it was that most people had motives for every little thing they did. What was Lucy’s motive here?
She’d said she was helping him out of friendship, that she’d slept with him because she’d wanted to, no strings attached. But Blue found that hard to believe. Of course, he was suspicious by nature. Since he was small he’d had only himself to rely on. Trusting other people meant risking pain, so he’d learned to trust no one.
But then he’d become a SEAL, and he’d literally had to put his life in his teammates’ hands. He’d learned to trust the men in his squad and unit, and that trust had grown deep and strong, bonded by friendship and loyalty.
SEALs had no ulterior motives, at least not beyond unit integrity. Sure, they had career drives and personal goals, but in the heat of battle, in the midst of an operation, getting the job done and getting everyone out alive and in one piece became the single motivating force.
Lucy Tait wasn’t a SEAL, but she said she was his friend.
He had to smile when he remembered her direct confrontation in the kitchen this morning. He had to hand it to her; she was tough. He himself would jump into a fistfight without a moment’s hesitation, but if the battle was an emotional one, he’d do all that he could to beat a retreat. Lucy, instead, had attacked.
Blue was glad that she had. Even though they’d gotten nowhere with their investigation by talking to Jenny Lee, he was glad Lucy hadn’t let him walk away, glad he was sitting here next to her in her truck.
He liked having Lucy for a friend. It was odd—she was a woman, yet she was his friend. Even odder was the fact that they’d had incredibly intense sex last night, and this morning Lucy, somehow, was still his friend.
Blue couldn’t remember ever having had a sexual experience as powerful. She had rocked his world last night. So why the hell had he backed away this morning? Why had he allowed the night to end? Why hadn’t he stayed in her bed? They could have been there still, up in her bedroom, making love all day long. He could have been holding her, kissing her, gazing into her beautiful eyes, commanding her complete and total attention as he told her stories of the operations he’d been on, the high-risk missions he’d completed.
Why had he backed away?
Because he always backed away. He hadn’t even considered the possibility of sticking around, of turning their one-night stand into a longer affair. He hadn’t known that Lucy could still be his friend after becoming his lover. He simply hadn’t known.
But could they honestly be friends during the day and lovers at night? Could that really work?
Something about it didn’t sit right with him. Now that he’d had time to think about it, he felt as if he were taking advantage of her. It seemed as if he were using her. And he wouldn’t—couldn’t—do that to a friend.
It would probably be best if they kept sex out of their friendship. It wouldn’t be easy, not with the memories of last night crashing into him every time he looked in Lucy’s direction. No, it wouldn’t be easy, but it would be the right thing to do.
Maybe Lucy was telling the truth and she was helping him find Gerry’s killer purely out of friendship. If that was so, the least he could do was treat her with an equal respect.
Blue watched Lucy as she drove. She handled her big truck with the same air of calm confidence that she handled damn near everything. She wasn’t wearing her uniform—she couldn’t now that she’d resigned from the police force. Instead, she had on her worn-out blue jeans and cowboy boots and a plain T-shirt—white, cotton, no frills. Damn, but she looked good.
She glanced over, as if she felt him watching her. “What do you say we go over and talk to Matt Parker before lunch?”
Matt Parker. The “witness” who had “seen” Blue arguing with Gerry in the woods off Gate’s Hill Road moments before Gerry’s death. He had also been one of the joyriding dirt bikers who had obscured the tire tracks Blue had found. Blue nodded and smiled tightly. He definitely wanted to have a little talk with Parker. “Yeah.”
Lucy looked at him again, concern darkening her eyes. “Just a talk, McCoy,” she said. “Do you understand what I’m saying?”
He met her gaze evenly. “He’s not going to tell us anything new unless we use a new approach. Like scaring the devil out of him.”
“And if he turns around and calls Chief Bradley with an assault complaint, there’s nothing I could do to keep you out of jail,” Lucy countered. “And you know as well as I do that Travis Southeby is itching for a reason to lock you up.”
Lucy could see real frustration in Blue’s eyes.
“Why bother talking to Parker at all?” he asked.
“Because somebody is paying him to say what he’s saying,” she said, “and I’m betting no matter how much money he’s making, he’s feeling lousy about having to lie. I’m betting he won’t be able to look you in the eye, because deep down he’s probably a decent man, and he knows his story is a solid part of the case they’re building against you.”
“And you think he’s going to take one look at me and confess?” Blue’s voice dripped with skepticism.
“No,” Lucy said calmly. “I think we’re going to go over there, and he’s going to stick to his story, and we’re going to leave. And then he’s not going to be able to sleep tonight, because he’s going to be thinking about his words sending an innocent man to prison.”
Blue laughed. “Get real, Pollyanna,” he said. “He’s gonna spend the evening counting his blood money and drinking himself into a stupor. The fate of my sorry ass won’t even drift across his soggy mind.”
“He may not even let us in the door,” Lucy admitted. “But we have to try.” She pulled her truck to a stop outside the Parkers’ little bungalow. “After lunch, I want to go up to Gate’s Hill Road and start canvassing the neighborhood. Somebody had to see or hear something unusual that night.”
“And if nobody did?
”
She met his gaze evenly. “Then we’re going to check motor-vehicle registration records, find a list of all the owners of trucks with oversize tires. We’ll go check ’em all out, find out whose tires still have new treads. And if that doesn’t give us a lead, we’ll get a copy of the guest list for that country-club party and go and talk to every single person on it. I still want to find out if Gerry was only pretending to be drunk at the party. Someone somewhere knows something.”
Blue’s face softened as he smiled at her. “You’re not going to give up on this, are you, Yankee?”
Lucy shook her head. “No.” He should know that she wasn’t going to give up on this case—or on him. If she could endure that visit with Jenny Lee Beaumont, she could handle just about anything. Shoot, watching Blue put his arms around Jenny in a comforting embrace had been deadly. And sitting there like that in Jenny Lee’s picture-perfect living room had been awkward—Blue together with both his high-school sweetheart and his lover from last night. Of course, Jenny probably hadn’t known that Lucy and Blue were lovers. But Lucy had, and it was weird.
Lucy had expended a great deal of energy trying not to watch for signs of Blue’s old chemistry with Jenny. Still, she couldn’t help but wonder if Blue had closed his eyes and pictured himself making love to Jenny Lee last night. Lucy had had temporary possession of Blue’s body, but Jenny probably still owned Blue’s heart.
Lucy would have given just about anything to have even a short-term lease on Blue’s heart. But that wasn’t going to happen. He’d made that more than clear this morning.
The silence in the truck dragged on much longer than it should have as Lucy lost herself in the hot depths of Blue’s eyes. He still wanted her. She could see desire swirling in among the blue. She could see it in the set of his jaw, in the tension in his lips. What had transpired between them last night hadn’t been enough. He wanted more.
But he turned away, clearly intent on denying himself even the warm pleasure of the memory of their lovemaking. Was it seeing Jenny Lee again? Lucy wondered. Could Blue’s former girlfriend still have that much power over him? Lucy’s stomach hurt. She’d told Blue just this morning that she was his friend. But she was his lover now, too. She knew that if he came to her room again tonight, she wouldn’t be able to refuse him anything he wanted or needed. She loved him that much.
Alpha Squad Page 42