Hot Mail

by Maynard, Janice

  But no one ever died from a broken heart. And maybe she was wrong. Maybe there was another man out there for her. Someone who would take one look at her and fall madly, deeply in love. It was a nice fantasy.

  But no matter how hard she tried, she couldn’t picture a life somewhere else. She was the kind of person who put down roots, deep roots. This town was full of childhood memories, rife with the rhythms of her life. She felt a connection to the place, the people.

  And at the center of it all was Ethan. Always Ethan. As she pushed her buggy down one aisle and up the next, tossing food items into the basket, all of the emotional memories she had ignored during the day came flooding back.

  Ethan hovering over her, his rigid, hot sex ready to enter her. Ethan muttering words of praise and passion. Ethan slumped exhausted in her arms, his heart beating in sync with hers.

  She dropped a jar of tomato sauce from nerveless fingers. Thankfully, it was plastic and not glass. It bounced once and rolled underneath the nearby shelf.

  As she bent to retrieve it, she glanced at her watch. Ethan would be home in an hour and a half.

  And then, God only knew what would happen. . . .

  Eleven

  Randy stood on Sherry’s doorstep and bolstered his courage. As he jingled his keys in his hands, he glanced around him. Last Monday night he had been too preoccupied with the evening ahead to notice the yard.

  Now he saw that it was immaculate. The grass in the lawn was pale and brittle, but the winter foliage at the base of the porch and the low evergreen shrubbery along the driveway looked healthy and recently trimmed. Like everything else about Sherry, her plant life was neat and under control. Did the woman ever rest?

  When he rang the bell, no one answered. Sherry’s car was in the driveway, but her brother said she hadn’t answered either of her phones. Randy wouldn’t assume the worst, but he was definitely concerned. After a loud knock still produced no results, he used the key.

  Inside, he hovered in the foyer. “Sherry?”

  The house was quiet as a tomb. Slowly, feeling like an intruder, he moved forward. “Sherry?”

  This time he was almost certain he heard a noise. He followed the hallway, pausing to check at each open door. The left-hand side of the house was clearly the living area: kitchen, den, etc. The small bedrooms were opposite. The first one was a guest room. And the second one, judging from the artwork on the walls, belonged to Sherry’s daughter. He had to grin when he saw the heavy-metal posters. Sherry must love that.

  He found his quarry at the back of the house. If Sherry at one time shared a large bed with her husband, it had long since been replaced by a small double mattress and frame. And lying in the middle of a tempest of tumbled covers was the woman he was falling for, hard and fast. She barely made a discernable mound under the bedding.

  “My God.” Even at his shocked exclamation, she never stirred. For a split second he thought she might be dead, but then he saw her chest rise and fall, and his heart started beating again.

  He went down on his knees beside the bed. She was wearing a sleeveless cotton gown, and her exposed arms and legs were burning hot to the touch. Her face held not a drop of color, and her breathing was ragged and harsh.

  It didn’t take a genius to deduce that she had the flu. He found a thermometer on the nightstand and eased it under her tongue. She stirred restlessly, but didn’t try to spit it out. When he pulled it from her mouth and read the number, he scowled. 105.4. Jesus.

  He considered bundling her up right then and there to take her to the emergency room, but he knew how long that could take, and he was worried about any delay in getting her temp down. Instead, he dialed his doctor’s weekend answering service and waited impatiently for the minute and a half it took for someone to call him back.

  The instructions were simple and familiar. Grim-faced, Randy hung up the phone and contemplated calling Sherry’s brother. But Ethan had sent him here, and he knew the boss wouldn’t have done that if he didn’t trust him.

  Hell, Sherry might be furious with him, but she could bloody well live with it. He was trained to deal with emergencies, and this sure as heck qualified. And in the end, even if she was royally pissed, he’d be no worse off than when she begged him to take her home last Monday night. That had come close to crippling him.

  He wasted no more time brooding over his failed date. Instead, he scooped Sherry up in his arms and carried her into the bathroom. He sat down on the closed lid of the commode and reached to turn on the bathwater, all the while keeping a tight hold on his precious cargo. She seemed as light as a child.

  It scared him spitless that she was dead to the world in his arms. Her hair was a tangled mess, and he brushed it from her face with an unsteady hand as he waited for the tub to fill up. At the doctor’s orders, the water was deliberately chilly.

  Randy took off his shirt, first one arm, then the other. After a moment’s consideration, he removed his watch as well. Eventually, Sherry’s gown would have to come off, but in the meantime, he would preserve her modesty.

  As he lowered her into the uncomfortably cool water, he expected her to fight him. She opened her eyes and tried to flail in his grasp, but she was too weak. Her lack of protest left a sick feeling in the pit of his stomach.

  People died from the flu.

  Carefully, he wet her hair and sponged her face. Every time she tried to lift herself away from the deliberate torture of the water, he gently pressed her down. After fifteen minutes, her lips were blue.

  He couldn’t bear it anymore. He lifted her from the tub and tried to stand her on her feet, but her legs collapsed like soft rubber.

  Cursing and struggling, he stripped her wet nightclothes off her chilled body and wrapped her in a towel. Later he would pause to appreciate her beauty. Not now.

  In the bedroom, he tucked her beneath the covers. She curled instantly into a fetal position, and he smoothed the blankets around her. When he checked her temp again, it had come down to 103.8. It was a start, but it wasn’t enough to suit him.

  He left her only long enough to retrieve a glass of orange juice from the kitchen. He’d already spotted the bottle of ibuprofen on the nightstand. When he got back to the bedroom, Sherry was deeply asleep. It seemed cruel to wake her, but he had no choice. He pulled her into a seated position, supported her back, and shook her gently.

  Her head lolled like a broken flower. “Sherry, wake up, baby. You have to take some medicine.”

  She made a tiny noise and tried to bury her face in his shoulder. He held her chin in one hand. “Sherry, open your mouth.” He made his voice harsh and authoritative. Somewhere beneath the layers of fevered sleep, her subconscious responded to his demands.

  He forced three tablets between her lips and put the glass to her mouth. At first nothing happened, and he damn near spilled the juice down her chest. But finally she got the message and drank slowly, swallowing the pills and moaning as the cool, wet liquid slid down her throat. He made her finish all eight ounces, and then lowered her once again beneath the covers.

  When he was convinced she was sleeping normally, he went into the other room to call Ethan and report in. Randy managed to convince a worried brother that he had things under control and, at the same time, ask for two vacation days.

  After that, he collapsed into a chair and sighed. He was pretty sure he wasn’t going to win any brownie points for his Clara Barton routine. At least not from Sherry. Ethan might approve, but that was irrelevant. Randy didn’t need to kiss up to his superior officer.

  Ethan had mentioned coming by, but Randy persuaded him not to. It wouldn’t help matters if the boss came down with the flu as well.

  Randy turned on the TV and lowered the sound. He wouldn’t be sleeping much tonight. His plan was to alternate acetaminophen every two hours with the ibuprofen. If it became necessary, he’d repeat the cold bath. But he hoped it wouldn’t come to that.

  It actually hurt him to cause Sherry distress, a giant ache in his
chest that still sat like a stone. God knew if she would allow him to help her when she woke up. But he’d be damned if he was going to leave her to fend for herself. As far as he could tell, Sherry had devoted her life to being a perfect mom.

  It was high time someone took care of her.

  Ethan made it home by six thirty, which was something of a miracle. He’d pulled a killer ten-hour shift, not even stopping for lunch. The candy bar he’d crammed into his mouth midafternoon had long since vanished in a poof of empty calories.

  So when he opened his front door and smelled the aroma of home-cooked food, he was ready to drop to his knees and whimper in gratitude. But even his ravenous stomach couldn’t quite edge out his hungry cock.

  All day he’d kept an image of Jane in the back of his head. Jane smiling at him. Jane laughing. Jane sighing and stretching in the aftermath of orgasm. Jane, bare-assed naked, ready to make love to him. He couldn’t erase the vivid memories of last night. Nor did he want to.

  He took a deep breath. “Lucy, I’m home.” His Cuban accent was atrocious, but when he entered the kitchen, Jane was smiling. A pot of spaghetti sauce bubbled on the stove, the source of the fabulous smells, and a pan of rolls sat on the counter, ready to be warmed.

  She wiped her hands on a dish towel. “Don’t get used to it, mi amigo. My culinary repertoire is narrow at best. I need to learn some stuff from Sherry.” He’d told Jane about the catered lunches and invited her to drop by the station one day and eat with them.

  Ethan’s gut urge was to grab her and bend her over the kitchen table. He resisted. Barely. Clamping down on his jittery lust, he waved a hand at the stove. “Will this keep if I take a quick shower?”

  Jane was hovering in front of the oven door, barricading herself behind the kitchen table. She nodded. “We can put the noodles in whenever we want.”

  He escaped, feeling dangerously on edge. He wanted her again. To hell with supper. To hell with etiquette. He had a boner the size of the Empire State Building, and he realized with dumfounded amazement that he’d completely lost his appetite for dinner.

  How could he sit down and eat, pretending that everything was the same?

  When he stepped out of the shower, dried off, and went into his bedroom to get clean clothes, he stopped dead in his tracks. Jane was in his bed . . . nude. Smiling bravely with a seductive gleam in her eyes. She was on her back, resting on her elbows, one leg out in front of her, the other bent at the knee. She licked her lips, nerves visible despite her provocative pose. “I thought we might wait on the spaghetti. If you don’t mind.” She held a condom packet in her hand.

  His throat—hell, his whole entire body—felt like he’d been given one of those drugs that paralyze the muscular system. Shouldn’t they talk about last night before they dove into round two? Wasn’t it important to clarify exactly what they were doing?

  Jane’s smile faltered. “Have I goofed?”

  Trust dear Jane to be direct and to the point. He glanced down at his cock. Couldn’t she tell? He inhaled roughly. “God, no. You’re right on the money.”

  He stumbled to the bed and came down on top of her, burying his face in her hair and shivering from the feel of her bare skin touching his. His hips molded to hers. His painfully erect dick pushed into her soft belly. He kissed the side of her neck, smelling the light, sweet scent of her perfume. “I’ve thought about this all day long.”

  He felt her chuckle. “Me, too.”

  He’d told himself he would be the best lover she had ever known. Lots of slow, practiced, erotic foreplay. Plenty of soft words and romance.

  He took her like an animal, shoving roughly between her legs and mounting her as if he hadn’t been with a woman in a lifetime. Over and over he plunged into her tight, wet passage.

  Jane didn’t seem to mind. Her fingernails scored his back, and she wrapped her legs around his waist. She nipped his lips with her teeth, kissing him over and over, practically smothering him with her enthusiasm.

  Halfway through, he rolled their bodies and put her on top. Now he could play with her breasts and see her face go all soft and rosy with embarrassment when he found her clit and teased it. He grasped her curvy, firm ass. “Ride me, honey.”

  She was eager. She was good. And those fabulous long legs enabled her to rise above him and then sink down for a million agonizing seconds until their bodies were fully joined.

  She learned a wicked rhythm. Ethan panted, trying to stay with her. God, he wanted to come. The stab of fire in his gut ripped at him, offering sweet release. Ethan beat it back, his body damp with sweat, his fingers locking in a bruising grasp on her hips.

  He concentrated on her face, watched every flutter of pleasure that painted her feminine features with a glow of eroticism. She was an earth goddess, natural and stunningly lovely.

  She squeezed him with her inner muscles, caressing his cock so that he bit back a curse. He smiled tightly. “You don’t play fair.”

  She leaned forward and lowered her mouth to his. “Fair is for sissies.” Then she reached behind her, caressed his balls, and ground her hips down on his as he shouted and climaxed with enough force to rattle his eyeballs. The wave of searing pleasure seemed endless.

  He was embarrassingly weak in the aftermath. His breath still came in great, shaky gasps, and his heart rate might never be the same.

  Jane was slumped on his chest, her lips dangerously near his nipple. If she touched him again on anything remotely approaching an erogenous zone, he might have a heart attack. He brushed her soft, silky hair from his chin and put a hand on the back of her head.

  She didn’t move, so he ran his fingers gently from the top of her spine to the base of her skull, caressing the baby soft skin at her nape. She murmured and shifted her legs against his. He figured this was as good a time as any to discuss their new situation.

  He whispered her name. “Jane?”

  She still didn’t open her eyes, but she yawned delicately, her soft puff of breath tickling his chest. He liked the feel of her slender, relaxed body on top of him. A lot.

  When she didn’t answer, he tried again. “Jane . . . honey. Are you awake behind those pretty eyelids?”

  She sighed and pushed up, supporting herself with a hand on his chest. “You ready for some spaghetti?”

  Ethan chewed and swallowed in a state of shock. He and Jane had just had incredible, hotter-than-hell sex, and she was acting like nothing out of the ordinary had happened. It made no sense.

  In his experience, women loved postmortems. They wanted to talk about relationships and the future and whether or not their partner had achieved nirvana.

  Jane, being Jane, did none of that. Instead, she served up a steaming plate of spaghetti with meat sauce, offered him a garlic roll, and proceeded to eat her own dinner with enthusiasm.

  He was mildly insulted. And strongly indignant. And seriously confused.

  She quizzed him as they ate about his day at work. He suddenly realized he hadn’t told her the latest about her two break-ins.

  He wiped his mouth on his napkin and took a swig of sweet tea. “One of the men first on the scene the night of the fire recovered the imprint of a shoe in the soft dirt beneath the window. He’s processed it, and the good news is, it matches a high-end athletic shoe popular with adolescents.”

  “And the bad news?”

  “That brand is sold in at least three locations here in town, not to mention in Knoxville and on the Internet. But the fact that the shoe is expensive may mean we’re dealing with drug money. Or perhaps even a gang initiation.” Statlerville had managed to stay exempt from a lot of organized activity, but Ethan wasn’t naive enough to believe the status quo would last forever.

  Jane frowned as she studied his face. “But it still seems odd that nothing was stolen either time. And what motive could there possibly be for setting off the smoke bombs?”

  “We’re still looking at possible scenarios.” It pissed him off that they had so few leads. He wanted to prove
to Jane that the Statlerville Police Department was hard at work keeping her safe at night.

  But so far, they were coming up empty-handed.

  He decided to test the waters in light of the recent carnal activity. “It occurred to me that you would be a lot safer staying with me for a while.”

  She didn’t blink an eye, but her body language grew still. “Surely that’s a bit extreme.”

  He’d never asked another woman to move in with him, not even his ex-fiancée. So Jane’s reluctance hit a nerve. “What if whoever is doing this decides to up the ante? A real fire, maybe. Or even an explosive device.”

  She cocked her head, a faint smile crossing her lips. “Somebody has been watching too many episodes of Law and Order.”

  His temper flared. “This is nothing to joke about. You don’t know who this jerk is. Be sensible, Jane.”

  Her eyes narrowed. “ ‘Sensible’ is my middle name. But I’m also smart enough to know that both attacks happened on a weekend. Obviously, the cleaning crew is working around the clock this weekend, so I’d say if anything is going to happen at all, it will be next Friday or Saturday night. So in the meantime, I’m relatively safe.”

  “You assume too much,” he said, his words stiff with frustration.

  She took a bite of spaghetti, chewed it, and swallowed, as if she hadn’t a care in the world. “I appreciate your concern, Ethan. Really I do. But I have a cell phone, and I keep it right beside my bed.”

  “Cell phones only give the illusion of safety.”

  She put down her fork and leaned her elbows on the table, her hands clasped below her chin. “Let’s assume for a moment that I might take you up on your offer. Are there any women in your life who might be unhappy with that arrangement? Anyone at all?”

  It was the perfect opening. Jane offered it to him deliberately, praying he would take the bait. But Ethan said nothing. Not one damn thing. He merely shook his head and muttered a negative.