Murder Mayhem and Mama

by Christie Craig

  Still, he was here strictly for work-related reasons.

  “Right,” an internal voice echoed from deep in his gut. He was attracted to her, had already spent too much time envisioning her naked.

  Leaning against the wall, he rubbed his shoulder and chose to ignore all the voices. With as little sleep as he’d had, it was amazing the voices made any sense at all. Maybe if he hadn’t been so exhausted, he’d not have let Humphrey get the upper hand.

  He should have been more alert than that. He glanced at his hands. Ten minutes scrubbing in the shower and he still had soot under his nails.

  Closing his eyes for a second, he thought about how Keith would have laughed his ass off at the sight of him, covered in charcoal and smelling like grilled meat and dog shit. Brit remembered the few jokes Quarles had tossed out last night. Brit smiled, then an unexplainable stab of guilt hit his gut. Somehow it felt like a betrayal to Keith.

  The tap of high heels echoing down the hall brought him to attention. He waited to see if it was Cali who made the corner. A frown tightened his lips when a brunette wearing an orange sweater over a jean skirt came into view.

  She clicked past him, a stack of books balanced on her hip. Brit’s gaze, moving on its own accord, zeroed in on her backside. She swung around.

  He raised his eyes, nodded, and offered her half a smile. It was, after all, the polite thing to do after being caught checking out a woman’s ass. Not that he was even interested.

  She frowned.

  Brit’s smile faded. Yup, the Lowell charm had vanished.

  “You’re looking for Cali, aren’t you?” She shifted her armload of books.

  “As a matter of fact, I am. I’m—”

  “I know who you are. Little…er, Detective Lowell, right?” Her cutting tone could have etched glass. Deep etching.

  He nodded and gave her a quick once over. “Have we met?”

  “No.” Her frown pulled at her brows. “Cali is my friend.”

  “She mentioned me, huh?” Maybe a little of the ol’ charm still lived.

  “Yeah, and if you’re rude to her again, I’m gonna make sure she files charges against you.” The books on her hip slipped and scattered on the floor. She leaned over, stopped, and pressed a hand to her head. “Damn.”

  Brit knelt and collected the books. When he stood, he said, “I...didn’t know her mother had died. I was doing my job, but if I’d known about her loss, I probably would have been easier on her.” He handed her the books.

  She took them, and her gaze cut over his shoulder. “You were still an ass.”

  He gritted his teeth. “I plan on apologizing.”

  “You do that.” She pivoted on her three-inch orange heels and entered a nearby room.

  Her door slammed, then, he heard someone behind him. “What are you doing here?”

  Chapter Eleven

  He turned and faced Cali. She had two coffees in her hands. But his gaze didn’t linger on the coffees. He couldn’t take his eyes off the dress. Actually, it wasn’t the dress. The neckline wasn’t low, the hem wasn’t short, it wasn’t tight, but it did fit, and it didn’t leave a curve to the imagination. Steam billowed from the cups she held in her hands. But the coffees weren’t the only things hot. Damn, she looked good.

  “Hi,” he said, hoping to rescue some of the Lowell charm.

  “What do you want?” she asked.

  Four hours with you in bed. He chased that little thought away. But when she moved and the pink fabric shifted across her breasts, the thought zipped right back, only this time it insisted on five hours.

  She shifted ever so slightly drawing his attention back to her hourglass figure. Maybe six hours.

  “I need to talk to you about the case.” He tucked his dirty nails into his pockets.

  “Did you find Stan?” She lowered her voice as someone walked by.

  “Can we go in your room?” he asked.

  She took a step, then stopped. “Yes. But…I’ll be right back.”

  Stacking her coffees, as she walked, she pushed open the door where the brunette had disappeared. Brit watched her go and the sway of her hips made his mouth go dry.

  Seven hours.

  Work-related reasons, he reminded himself.

  “Yeah, right,” echoed that damn internal voice again.

  ~

  Cali heard a thud as she hit Tanya in the head. Her friend had obviously been listening at the crack. “Sorry,” Cali said and handed her a cup.

  Tanya rubbed her forehead. “I was just making sure he wasn’t being a jerk again.”

  Cali smiled. “Did I hear you call him an ass?”

  “Yeah.” Tanya made a face. “Do you think he’s going to arrest me for it?”

  “I don’t think so.” Cali pulled the tab back on her cup and sipped the hot coffee. “You’ve got to teach me to be a bitch.”

  “He leave?” Tanya frowned back at the door.

  Cali shook her head and remembered her headache thanks to the painful messages the movement brought on. “No.” She pressed a hand to her forehead. “I’m practicing being a bitch and making him wait.”

  “You go, girl.” Tanya grinned and sipped her coffee. Cali sipped hers. They both sighed as the caffeine seeped into their hung-over bodies.

  That’s when Cali remembered her mom telling her to wear the pink dress because she was going to see Brit. That she was going to help Brit. Her headache pounded a bit stronger.

  “Why do you suppose he’s here?” she wondered aloud.

  Tanya did the hung-over shuffle to her desk where she dropped into her chair. “He said he was going to apologize.”

  “Really? Well, I better go collect my apology.” Cali took one step. “Or should I let him wait a while longer?”

  “Go. I’m cheering for you.” Tanya winced at the sound of her own voice. “Quietly, of course.”

  Cali bit into the edge of her cup, making teeth prints. “He’s messing up my plans.”

  “What plans?” Tanya asked.

  “I was going to forget about him.”

  Tanya grinned. “He’s too hot to forget. You got a plan B?”

  “No plan B.”

  “Then come up with one. Fast.” Tanya’s eyes twinkled with mischief, even in their hung-over glaze. “He’s really hot.”

  Cali sighed and went to face the detective. She found Mr. Hottie pacing in the hall. Meeting his gaze, she almost flinched and her stomach sent the hot coffee gurgling. She hadn’t realized she went for the Burt Reynolds type. But the flip in her stomach said otherwise—definitely the “you’re attracted to this man” flip.

  “This way.” She walked into her classroom.

  Cali looked at her watch as she placed her coffee on her desk. She tried not to notice how wide his shoulders were, or how long his legs looked encased in those form-fitting jeans. Glancing away, she reached up to loosen the clip in her hair, hoping to relieve some of the tight pounding behind her eyes.

  “I have exactly seven minutes before the bell rings.” When she looked at him, she could swear the man was staring at her breasts.

  She cleared her throat, forgetting that the throat clearing muscles were connected to the headache muscles. She winced.

  He jerked his gaze up, looked a bit guilty, then, he frowned. “I’m definitely going to need more than seven minutes.”

  “Why more time?” Cali shifted and knocked over her cup of pencils. Seeing him in her classroom, in this part of her world, felt odd—as if the craziness in her outside life had followed her to school. Her headache throbbed as she collected the lead #2s. Right now even her false sense of control was slipping.

  He tucked his fingers into his jeans’ pockets, winced, pulled his hands out, and rubbed his shoulder.

  “I tried to find you last night. It’s about the bracelet you had on.” He looked at her wrist.

  “Why do you care about that?” She remembered him helping her unlatch the bracelet. Then, she remembered the couple of smiles he’d offe
red her yesterday at the police station. The man was a mixed bag of emotions. And he wasn’t smiling now. She noticed his shoulders again. Not that she was actually taking Tanya’s advice and coming up with Plan B.

  She simply had a shoulder fetish and his looked good in his navy windbreaker. The thought of his leather jacket popped into her head. She’d left it in her car.

  “Your jacket. I…it’s in my car.” She suddenly remembered the condom in his pocket and felt her face heat up.

  “Where’s the bracelet?” he insisted. “Do you have it on you?” He edged closer and those shoulders shifted making him look even more masculine.

  She hesitated, completely at a loss as to why he cared about…She pushed a finger against her temple and tried to remember his question. Oh yeah, the bracelet. “I threw it away.”

  “What?” A cop edge sharpened his words. “You did what?”

  His tone vibrated in her aching ears. She held her spine straight, reminding herself that this was her turf. At least in this room, she ruled the roost. “I threw it in the garbage.”

  His dominating gaze cut into her, and she didn’t feel so in charge of her roost anymore.

  “You threw a diamond bracelet away?”

  She set her coffee down. “It was Zirconium. Not real.”

  He studied her for a second, then pulled something from his pocket and held it out. “Is this the bracelet?”

  She stared at the photograph. “It looks like it. But why would you—”

  “Where did you get it?”

  “Stan gave it to me.” She took the picture, flipped it over, and saw a price. “No. He couldn’t have afforded to buy—”

  “He didn’t buy it. He stole it.”

  Her nervous chuckle loosened the jackhammers in her head again. “No. Stan wouldn’t...” She closed her mouth before she choked on her size-seven pink pumps. She didn’t know Stan. Good shoulders, nice-guy Stan had beatten up his other girlfriends, and he’d shot at her. Cali vaguely remembered Stan saying he wasn’t the one who had shot….

  “Oh my.” She fell into her chair.

  “Look, I need your help here.”

  Well, in about ten minutes, he’ll be discovering he needs you. In the dream her mother had said he—

  “Has your garbage been taken out since that night?” He stepped closer to the desk, crowding her space and thoughts.

  She stared at her coffee as if she could visually soak up some of the caffeine and clear the muddle from her brain.

  “No. It should still be there.” The dream meant nothing. Just a coincidence. The fact that she had a stolen forty-eight thousand dollar bracelet in her garbage, well, that piece of info meant something.

  “Good. Can you come with me to your place to find it?”

  She looked at the clock on her wall. “I can’t leave.” Okay, having stolen merchandise was like illegal. “I mean, I need to get someone in here to watch the class.”

  “Okay. Get someone.”

  She didn’t move. She just stared at him, thinking she’d love to just go home and paint her toenails right now.

  “Sometime today, maybe?” He waved a hand to the door.

  She stood up. “Do you always have to be rude?”

  A shade of guilt colored his eyes. “You’re right. I’m sorry.” The bell rang, and he ran a hand over his face. “Really sorry.” His apology sounded sincere and made him sound less like a big bad cop.

  Oddly, she wanted the cop back. Big bad cop’s shoulders were less noticeable. “Wait here. When the kids come in, tell them to start on their art journals.”

  “Do what?” His eyes filled with panic, but she left as her students crowded into the room.

  When she returned a few minutes later, she found Anthony and Chris arguing over a girl, paper airplanes zipping across the room, and someone’s CD player blaring Dido music.

  Beside her desk stood Detective Lowell, feet slightly apart and arms hanging limply. He wore a wide-eyed perplexed expression.

  “Class!” Cali snapped. The detective jumped. She might have smiled if the rise of her voice hadn’t brought the headache dancing in the forefront again.

  The music clicked off. Anthony and Chris grew quiet. The last paper airplane nose-dived against the detective’s chest. Silence filled the room.

  “Start on your art journals, please,” she said.

  Papers ruffled, seats were taken, order replaced chaos. She walked over to Lowell. “You can handle criminals, but you can’t handle a few teenagers?”

  He leaned close. “Criminals I can shoot.”

  She smiled this time. A small one.

  “Can we go?” he asked.

  She glanced over at her desk. “I have to wait until a substitute comes.”

  “How long?”

  “Thirty, forty minutes.”

  He stared at her as if she’d condemned him to years.

  “You can wait in the office if you’d like,” she offered.

  He edged closer, his shoulder brushing against hers. Close enough she could smell him. And it was a nice scent, too. “And abandon you to the wolves?” His grin came on slow, sexy.

  She almost smiled again, then remembered that she didn’t like this man. “Have a seat.”

  “With them?” He leaned close to her, too close again.

  She took a step back. “They don’t bite.”

  “Promise?” he asked and moved to an empty desk at the back of the class.

  “Hey, everyone.” She rubbed her hands together to stop the tingling in her palms. “I’ve got a substitute coming—”

  “I thought he was the substitute.” Tony pointed to Lowell.

  “No. This is…a friend.” The last thing she wanted was to start a rumor mill about her being involved with a crime.

  “Boyfriend?” Anthony asked. “You’re breaking my heart, Miss McKay. I told you I was going to grow up and marry you.”

  Laughter erupted.

  “He’s not my boyfriend.” She met the detective’s smiling eyes. The man seemed more relaxed in the back of the class than up front. She had a quick vision of how he might have been as a high school student—tough, bad boy, with a string of girls holding their breaths to be noticed. And she would have been part of that string, not that he’d have given her a second look; he wouldn’t have been interested in the sweet, good girl of the class. Hadn’t she been named “the girl most likely to graduate a virgin” in her junior year? And they were right, too.

  “Come on, Miss McKay. Don’t lie to us,” Jamie said. “I mean, look at him. He’s kind of hot if you like old dudes.”

  Cali couldn’t help but chuckle when Lowell looked appalled.

  “And you’re hot,” Jamie said. “You two match.”

  “I don’t think so,” Cali said.

  “Are you her boyfriend?” Tony swiveled around in his chair to speak to the man in question.

  The detective’s expression now twinkled with humor as if he might say something to embarrass her. Or even worse, tell them he was cop.

  “We’re just friends,” he said.

  The knot in her stomach lessened when he hadn’t told the truth. “Get to work.” She wrote the assignment on the board. After five minutes, she decided to let Tanya know she’d be leaving. She started out, but Lowell caught her hand as she passed. And if the giggling she heard was any indication, at least a dozen of her students noticed.

  His touch caused her pulse to sing again and she pulled her fingers from his warm palm.

  He leaned closer. “You’re not leaving me alone with them, are you?”

  “I’m just going to tell Tanya where I’ll be.”

  “What if they go crazy again?” he asked.

  “Then control them,” she whispered. She remembered the question Tanya had asked last night. Her gaze cut to his hand. No ring. “You...you’re a cop, for goodness sakes.”

  “So I’m allowed to fire a few warning shots, huh?” He grinned.

  “You don’t really have a gun. Do y
ou?” she asked.

  His brow wrinkled. “Of course, I do.”

  She frowned. Maybe she was a little sensitive where guns were concerned, but after seeing her lamp mortally wounded, her feelings were justified. Plus, if anyone spotted his weapon, then they might guess he was here on police business.

  “I think you should wait outside,” she said.

  He frowned. “I was teasing.”

  “I don’t care. I’ll meet you in front of the school when the substitute gets here.”

  ~

  Thirty minutes later, she stepped out of the school and into the crisp fall air. The sun caused her to squint, and the slight muscle reflex did nothing to help her hangover headache. She saw him standing beside the flagpole and started toward him. Something like anticipation bubbled in her chest.

  He spotted her and she felt his gaze on her as he headed her way. She watched the way his body moved, even but quick steps that exuded power and confidence. Male confidence—the kind that had her body responding in a purely impure want-that-man kind of manner.

  She remembered the condom again and without warning, her gaze lowered to his zipper.

  Oh, gracious! Was she really thinking about the size of his penis? It’s the hangover. Had to be the hangover. Her life was a wreck, she so shouldn’t be thinking about sex right now.

  “That wasn’t necessary,” he said, probably referring to her asking him to leave the classroom.

  “I don’t like guns.” The wind picked up, the flag popped in the air. “I especially don’t like them in my class.”

  “I’m a cop, Cali. Nothing was going to happen.” He pressed a hand to her waist. “Come on. I’m parked over here.”

  She walked faster to escape his touch. When had he started calling her by her first name? Probably about the same time you started thinking about his penis.

  “I’ll follow you in my car.” She took a sharp left.

  He caught her arm, gently, his touch soft. “Ride with me.”

  “But...” His touch caused her heart to do another somersault.