As wondrous and demanding as the sensation was, Liz wanted more. She wanted this first time after so many years to be complete, with Tucker buried deep inside her. She wanted the two of them to come together, a uniting that was both sensual and symbolic.
Her breathing ragged, she backed away from his touch, smiling at his questioning look.
“Not just yet,” she told him as she reached for the hem of his shirt and began easing it up. Her mouth followed along behind, pressing kisses to heated flesh that rippled over hard, tensed muscles.
“You’re destroying me,” he murmured, even as he surrendered to the assault.
“Good. That’s the idea. I want you weak and under my spell,” she told him, then ran her tongue around his masculine nipples.
“Isn’t it enough that I’ve already admitted I’ve been under your spell despite the fact you’d left me?” he asked, groaning as she tweaked a crisp, dark hair on his chest.
She reached for his belt buckle, then slid her hand lower, inside denim and jockey shorts, stopping just short of making contact with his pulsing arousal. Her gaze locked with his, relishing the smoldering heat in his eyes.
“No, this is more what I had in mind,” she said, clasping him and watching his eyes drift shut, listening to his breath hitch and his moan of pleasure.
“How am I doing?” she murmured.
“Uncle,” he said, lifting her up and tumbling onto the bed with her. “I surrender.”
Her plan to taunt went up in flames as need rocketed through both of them. Clothes flew off, arms and legs tangled, their bodies came together in a rush of desperate urgency. Each thrust of his body deep inside her had her hips rising off the bed to meet him, seeking the exquisite release that was tantalizingly just out of reach.
Just when she thought she might scream out in frustration, he slowed, met her gaze. Amazingly, rather than diminishing, the tension escalated until every nerve in her body was coiled with anticipation. Their gazes held, communicating everything—their passion, the years of lonely separation, the love that had never died.
And then he plunged into her once more, deeper than before, and the tension shattered into a million brilliant, sparkling sensations.
Liz was still trembling when Tucker’s mouth covered hers in the sweetest, tenderest kiss they’d ever shared.
“I love you, Mary Elizabeth,” he said, looking deep into her eyes.
Shaken more than she wanted to admit by the admission, she merely touched a hand to his cheek. The dark, masculine end-of-the-day stubble stirred whole new sensations. “Oh, Tucker,” she whispered. “What did I ever do to deserve you?”
He grinned at that. “There are some who’d say I’m the lucky one. You’re out of my league.”
“Never,” she insisted fiercely. “I never believed that. Don’t you dare think it.”
“A perfect match, then?”
She nodded happily at that. “A perfect match.”
“We’re still going to bump up against a few problems,” he warned, his hand resting comfortably on the curve of her hip.
“They’ll all be a piece of cake compared to what we’ve already been through.”
He touched a finger to her lips. “I’m serious, darlin’. My family may have come around, but there’s still going to be talk. I have voters to answer to.”
“You’re the best sheriff this county has ever had. Just let anyone try to say otherwise,” she said heatedly.
“What are you going to do, punch them in the nose?”
“If necessary,” she vowed.
“Then I’d have to arrest you.”
She rolled to her knees and straddled him. “Would you use handcuffs?” she inquired curiously.
A laugh rumbled deep in Tucker’s throat. “Don’t even go there, please.”
Liz leaned down and kissed the base of his throat, where his pulse was ricocheting wildly once again. “Conjuring up an interesting image, am I?”
“Oh, yeah,” he said, flipping her and capturing her wrists and holding them above her head. “Something like this.” He bent and began an assault on her breasts that had her writhing.
“Uncle,” she whispered without much strength.
“Surrender’s a damn sweet thing, isn’t it?” he murmured, as he once again led her straight to the edge of a cliff and over in an explosion that left them both gasping for breath.
“It’s entirely possible I will never move again,” Liz said when she could finally speak.
“Then don’t,” Tucker answered readily. “I’ve finally got you back in my bed.”
“I was here not that long ago,” she reminded him.
“But I wasn’t beside you.” His gaze held hers. “As far as I’m concerned, there’s no reason you ever need to leave.”
It took the insistent ringing of the phone to finally jerk Tucker awake in the middle of the night. Mary Elizabeth was still curved tightly against him, her hand resting on his stomach. He was pretty sure he’d have been content to stay just like this for the rest of his life.
Unfortunately, whoever was calling at—he squinted at the clock and saw it was just after 3:00 a.m.—at this unholy hour had better have a damn good reason.
“What?” he growled into the receiver.
“You’d better haul your butt out of bed and get out to Swan Ridge,” Walker said unceremoniously.
Tucker shot up onto one elbow, disturbing Mary Elizabeth, who murmured a protest, then rolled over and snuggled back into the pillow. “What happened?”
“Somebody just tried to burn the place down.”
“How bad is it?”
“The fire department was fast. It hadn’t spread much beyond the library, but there’s a lot of smoke damage to the rest of the downstairs.”
“A cover-up?” Tucker asked. “You think the murderer was afraid we might find something more if we did another search of the place?”
“Either that or it was pure spite,” Walker said. He hesitated before adding, “There’s one other possibility.”
Tucker knew exactly where Walker was heading. “You think the perp might have hoped to trap Mary Elizabeth inside, don’t you?”
“The thought crossed my mind,” Walker admitted.
“Where are Willis and the Miles woman?”
“Both accounted for,” Walker assured him. “Willis is safely tucked in at home. Cynthia Miles is at the motel. I’ve got men watching both of them.”
“Well, hell,” Tucker said, unhappy with the fact there the answer wasn’t going to be so obvious, “I’ll be there in ten minutes.”
“You going to bring Liz along?”
Tucker supposed the question wasn’t entirely unexpected, since everyone at Daisy’s had seen the two of them leave together the night before, but the underlying thread of amusement in Walker’s voice grated.
“I’ll see if I can locate her,” Tucker said wryly.
“Try rolling over,” Walker retorted, then wisely hung up before Tucker could tell him what he could do to himself.
Tucker slowly replaced the receiver in its cradle, then turned to meet Mary Elizabeth’s worried gaze. She was wide-awake and frowning.
“Something’s wrong, isn’t it?” she asked.
Tucker didn’t even attempt to cushion the blow. “Someone set a fire at Swan Ridge. It’s out now.”
She swallowed hard. “How bad…how bad is it?”
“The damage is confined mostly to your grandfather’s library, but we need to get over there.”
Even though she blinked back tears, she nodded at once and shot out of bed, reaching for her clothes. Tucker went after her. “Mary Elizabeth.”
“What?” she asked, shrugging away from his touch. “I’m okay.”
He turned her to face him and saw the tears tracking down her cheeks. “You are not okay. This is more than anyone could be expected to handle and be okay. That room was…”
“It was where my husband was killed,” she said vehemently. “It would never hav
e meant the same thing to me, anyway.”
He held her tight when she would have wriggled away. “But when you were a kid, all you talked about was how much you liked slipping in there while your grandfather was working, smoking his pipe.” He felt a shudder wash over her and knew that he was right. She was more shaken than she wanted him to know. “Talk to me, Mary Elizabeth. Let it out.”
For an instant, he thought she might remain stoically silent, but then she sighed and rested her head against his chest. The tears she’d fought to hold back were damp against his bare skin.
“The scent of his tobacco was still in the drapes,” she whispered, her voice quaking. “They were dark and dreary and awful, but I didn’t want to take them down because of that. Isn’t that crazy?”
“We all cling to something that helps us remember,” he told her. “After my mother died, I snuck into her room and found this scarf she used to wear. It smelled like her perfume. I kept it tucked under my pillow for months. Somehow, not one of the housekeepers King hired ever took it away when they changed the bed. It was always there until finally the scent faded and I put it away.”
She regarded him with luminous eyes. “Do you still have it?”
“In my dresser drawer,” he admitted. “I kept it with your picture.”
Suddenly she chuckled. “White silk with splashy pink roses on it,” she said, describing it perfectly.
“You’ve seen it?”
“When I was looking for a T-shirt to put on the night I came over here. I didn’t see the picture. I was afraid the scarf belonged to a new woman in your life.”
“No,” he told her, regarding her somberly. “To one I didn’t want to forget.” He tucked a finger under her chin. “But you know something? You don’t need things to remember the people you love. They’re in your heart forever.”
She sighed heavily. “You’re right. I guess I’d forgotten that because I never had anything at all to remind me of my parents, and eventually I started to forget what they’d looked like, how they sounded.”
“Because you were young when they died and your grandfather never did anything to help you keep them alive.”
“He refused to bring anything back from Europe. And he wouldn’t answer any of my questions. I think it hurt him too much to talk about them,” she said. “I didn’t see that then, but I understand it now.” She kissed his cheek. “Thank you for reminding me that memories are more important than objects.”
“Anytime.”
“Tucker, I didn’t say this last night because I didn’t want you to think I was saying it just because you did, but I do love you.”
“I know, Mary Elizabeth. In my heart, I always believed that you just got sidetracked for a while.”
She nodded. “That’s exactly right. I got sidetracked, but now I’m home.”
A half hour later, when they got to Swan Ridge, they found the library was, indeed, a smoldering ruin. Aside from the scent of smoke that was thick in some of the closest downstairs rooms, the rest of the stately old house had survived intact.
As Tucker and Mary Elizabeth returned from their survey of the interior, Walker met them on the back patio.
“I see you found her okay?” he said, his eyes twinkling.
“Go to hell,” Tucker retorted. “You find proof this is arson?”
“The fire chief has his suspicions, but can’t say conclusively, at least not yet. I’m inclined to get the state police in here to make a final determination. It looks to me as if the blaze started smack in the center of the room, right where we found Chandler’s body.” He regarded Mary Elizabeth apologetically. “Sorry.”
She nodded calmly, but she clutched Tucker’s hand a little tighter.
“How far has word spread about those fibers you found and where you found them?” Tucker asked.
“Beyond revealing the fact that we have some forensic evidence, I haven’t said a thing about them,” Walker replied, his expression turning thoughtful.
“Which means that only a limited number of people know, or should know, what you have and what conclusions we drew.”
“Didn’t you toss that information in Cynthia Miles’s face the other day?” Walker asked.
“I skirted around it,” Tucker told him. “Besides, you’re certain she was accounted for last night.”
“Unless she slipped past my deputy, and if she did, he’s not admitting it,” Walker said. “I’ve checked with him to confirm that she stayed put. Ditto with the man I’ve got on Willis. He said the only person who left the house at all last night was Willis’s wife.”
Even as the words left Walker’s mouth, Tucker muttered a curse. “Arlene Willis left home? What time was that? Did he see her come back?”
Walker had apparently leapt to the same conclusion. He was already punching a number into his cell phone. As soon as he had the deputy on the line, he bit out a string of terse questions, followed by a string of expletives that had Liz staring at him in shock and Tucker regarding him with commiseration.
“Mrs. Willis left the house at midnight. She’s still not back,” he told them. He called the station and told Michele to issue an all-points bulletin.
“If she’s still in the area, we’ll find her,” he said, his expression grim.
Tucker turned to Mary Elizabeth. “Do you think Larry and Arlene knew each other?”
“She was beautiful. Her husband was politically ambitious,” she said dryly. “Of course he knew her.”
“Had he been having an affair with her?” Walker asked more bluntly than Tucker could have brought himself to.
Mary Elizabeth started to shake her head, then sighed. “I don’t know. I thought down here he would be more discreet, but I was probably deluding myself.”
“While everyone’s out looking for Arlene, why don’t you haul Willis back in for questioning?” Tucker suggested. “Maybe we’ve been asking all the wrong questions. We thought he might want Chandler dead because he wanted his job. Maybe it wasn’t that at all.”
He regarded Mary Elizabeth with sympathy, then said, “Maybe he wanted him dead because Chandler was involved with his wife.”
23
Frances had been keeping King dangling for days now. He’d finally managed to pop the question the night they’d had dinner at the marina. He’d taken her for a walk along the water, kissed her thoroughly, and then, with the full moon shining down on them, he’d asked her once again to marry him. He’d been pretty pleased with himself at having the right romantic setting and mood for his declaration this time, but Frances had merely gazed at him thoughtfully and said she’d like more time to think about it. If anyone in his family learned about that, King would never hear the end of it. He was happier than ever that he’d kept his mouth shut about his intentions to propose.
“What the devil is there to think about?” he’d snapped, then retracted the question at once. He had to keep his eye on the prize and not get all caught up with having his pride hurt. “I’m sorry, Frances. You take all the time you want.”
She’d regarded him with approval then, and suggested that perhaps in the meantime, he’d like to come home with her.
“Well, of course I’ll take you home. I brought you, didn’t I?”
To his astonishment, a little smile had tugged at her lips.
“I’m not sure you’re grasping my meaning,” she’d told him.
King was still reeling over that one, and over the fact that he’d turned her down. He thought it had been damned noble of him, telling her that she deserved more than a casual fling, especially since at one time he’d suggested the precise same thing himself. Since she still hadn’t told him she wanted more than that, he was beginning to wonder if he’d gotten it all wrong yet again. Damn, but women were confusing!
At least Tucker and Mary Elizabeth seemed to be on the right track. And the talk around town about the two of them was dying down. King didn’t have many worries left where they were concerned. He expected to have all of his children ha
ppily settled down before the year was out. Maybe this grandbaby project of his could finally get underway.
“What’s on your mind, old man?” Pete Dexter inquired, sliding into the booth opposite him at Earlene’s. “You look as if all those wheels in your head are spinning a hundred miles an hour.”
“Just thinking about how life throws you a curve when you’re least expecting it,” King said, thinking of Frances again.
“Has that boy of yours gone and done something foolish?” Pete asked.
“If you’re referring to Tucker, he doesn’t do foolish things,” King said crankily.
“That’s not what you were saying when Liz Chandler first got back to town and dragged him into that mess,” Pete reminded him.
“You all talking about the murder again?” Frank Davis asked as he joined them. “I hear they’re about to make an arrest this morning. There was a fire over at Swan Ridge last night, and they’re pretty sure they know who did that and how it’s connected to the murder.”
Alarmed by the announcement, King promptly pushed past his friend. “I’ve got to go.”
“Where?” the two men demanded. “The fire’s out.”
“Not the one I’m concerned about,” King said, knowing that Tucker and Mary Elizabeth were going to be caught up in whatever the heck was going on. No matter how things were shaping up, they were going to need people to stand by ’em, and he intended to be first in line.
“I thought you were meeting Frances here,” Pete said.
“Did I say that?” King demanded irritably.
“No, but isn’t that the way it’s been lately?” Pete asked. “We haven’t finished a conversation in weeks before you go slinking off to sit with her.”
“Then today will be no different,” King retorted, then hesitated. It was true he had been meeting Frances here most mornings. It wasn’t like they had plans. It had just worked out that way. She might wonder where he’d gone off to. “If Frances comes in, tell her I’ve gone to Swan Ridge. Explain it’s an emergency.”
Pete and Frank shook their heads.
“When are you going to marry that woman and get it over with?” Frank asked. “Then you could have these conversations over your own breakfast table and leave us out of it.”
Along Came Trouble Page 29