Her Fifth Husband?

by Dixie Browning

  On his way up the beach a short while later, Jake made three stops; two to check out problematic systems and one to pick up a large coffee and a cheese, turkey and apple sandwich. Next he called Sasha, only to be told everything was just fine, and she was getting ready to put the baby down for a nap. “While she’s sleeping, I’ll catch up on a few things, but you do know how often she eats, don’t you? Every three hours. Are you sure you’re ready for that?”

  He wasn’t sure of anything at this point.

  Well, for one thing, he was hungry. He could eat while he was on stakeout, not that he expected to catch the guy in action.

  Renters had already arrived at the cottage where he usually took up a position. Three cars filled the parking area, one carrying a kayak on top, two others with surfboard racks. Jake cruised slowly along the narrow blacktop, looking for an unobtrusive place to park.

  “Well, hell,” he muttered, spotting a car pulled up beside Driftwinds. He recognized it as belonging to the rental agent only because he’d had Hack run her plates the first day Jake had staked out the place. He’d seen her around, an attractive brunette, probably under thirty. “Lady, you’re in my way,” he muttered, wondering whether to wait for her to leave or to give up now.

  On the other hand, if he was waiting for the coast to clear, maybe Jamison was waiting, too. Odds were about one in ten thousand, but what the devil, until Hack could come up with another lead—and as long as he was here with a sandwich and a cup of coffee that was growing cold—he might as well stick around a few more minutes. The agent was probably checking to make sure Sasha had finished the job. That shouldn’t take long.

  He bit into his sandwich as he crept along the street in search of an out-of-the-way parking place, thinking about all that had happened since he’d shot a bunch of pictures of a luscious redhead only a few days ago, under the illusion that she was Jamison’s girlfriend. The setting sun had turned her hair to flame while a light breeze had blown her flimsy blouse against her breasts. And those crazy pink shoes, he thought, grinning at the memory.

  Oh, hell. Those shoes….

  The one he’d taken off her foot was still on his dresser. Thank God the painters had finished his bedroom first; he’d hate to get the reputation of having a foot fetish.

  Spotting an empty driveway near the end of the cul-de-sac where he would have a clear view of the Jamison place, he backed in and shut off the engine. His chances of catching Custer at his last stand were about the same as his chance of winning the lottery, but it wouldn’t hurt to hang around for a few more minutes while he waited for Hack to come up with another lead.

  According to the facts on file, the Jamisons had a small place in Colington over on the soundside, but with neighbors on either side, he would hardly show up there with another woman.

  Jake flipped down the visor to cut the sun’s glare. He’d just finished his sandwich and reached for his cell phone when he saw the rental agent come outside and head toward her car. “Okay, maybe now we’ll see some action,” he murmured, waiting for her to get in and drive off. Chances were slim to nothing, but he needed to be doing something, and until he got another lead, this was it.

  He finished his coffee and was about to punch in the quick-dial number for the office when a familiar-looking guy in Bermuda shorts and yellow T-shirt emerged from the cottage, glanced around, and hurried across the gritty pavement toward the agent’s car.

  Jake’s memory was good, but not perfect. He’d definitely seen the guy somewhere recently…but where? From one end of the Outer Banks to the other and occasionally into lower Virginia, he covered a lot of territory.

  Where was this guy’s car? And what had he been doing inside the cottage? Looking the place over with an eye to booking it later in the season?

  The attractive brunette was still standing beside her car when yellow-shirt joined her there. They talked for a few minutes while Jake slouched in his seat and watched through a pair of aviator sunglasses, wishing he could read lips. About half his mind was on what he was seeing, the other half on the woman he’d left sleeping a few hours ago.

  He shifted uncomfortably as his body reacted to the memory. The crazy thing was that if anyone had asked him to describe his ideal woman, Sasha Lasiter wouldn’t have come to mind. So why was it that after only a few days he couldn’t stop thinking about her?

  More to the point, why did his body react with outrageous desire toward her? Hell, he was a grandfather, not some horny kid. He had a granddaughter to think about now, not to mention a job that at the moment was stalled in its tracks. So how come he was wasting time on a stakeout that obviously wasn’t going to lead anywhere, thinking about a woman who had nothing at all to do with the case he was working, other than peripherally?

  But instead of clearing his mind, he kept picturing the way she tried to stare him down with her multicolored eyes. Talk about attitude, she was a regular Ms. Napoleon. And the way she bragged about all her artifices—and the way she dressed….

  It didn’t take any special training to know that when people went to such lengths to disguise themselves there was usually a reason for it. The trouble was, he didn’t know her well enough to figure it out. He knew she was sexier than any woman he’d ever met, and that included his late wife. He knew she was flat-out gorgeous, with or without her disguise. He’d seen her with her makeup smeared and with her face scrubbed clean of all but her freckles, and it hadn’t made a speck of difference. She was who she was, and it was who she was that attracted him in a way that no other woman ever had.

  Jake reminded himself again that she’d had four husbands and not a one of them had suited her well enough to keep. He’d had one wife, who had suited him very well during the few years they’d been together.

  Bottom line—what could a glamorous, successful woman possibly see in a dull, middle-aged businessman, a mediocre detective who couldn’t even manage a simple surveillance, who didn’t know a damn thing about interior decoration, much less care about it—who didn’t think one way or another about fashion as long as what he had on was comfortable?

  Answer? Not a whole lot.

  What did he see in her? A lot more than met the eye. That was the problem. Those colored contacts did a good job of disguising the shadows, but he’d heard that wistful note in her voice when she forgot to be Sasha the Outrageous. Somewhere under all that paint and polish there was a real woman who made him want to explore more than her body.

  That is, if he ever got tired of exploring her body.

  “What the hell?” he muttered suddenly. Sitting up, he removed his sunglasses in time to see yellow-shirt and the agent come together in a clinch that sent heat weaves shimmering off the tarmac.

  “Well, now…” he mused, stroking his jaw. Maybe he wasn’t such a lousy P.I., after all. His brain might not be up to speed, but evidently his instincts were still on the job. Jamison looked older than his campaign posters, but there was no mistaking that face.

  Time to find out more about the attractive brunette who, unless he was mistaken, worked for Southern Dunes Property Management. And who better to tell him than the decorator who’d been commissioned to update one of her rentals?

  “Don’t be so stingy, Faylene, let me hold her,” Marty reached for the baby only to have Faylene turn away with her.

  “You got you a husband now. Go home and make one o’ your own, this one belongs to me and Sasha, don’t you, sugar dumplin’?” The housekeeper beamed at the infant in her arms. “Lawhepus, if I weren’t too old, I’d have me one of these in a minute.”

  “That’d be one for the records,” Sasha observed dryly. “Last I heard it took nine months.” Her feet were propped on a cushion on the coffee table that was littered with sample books and baby paraphernalia. She had managed to squeeze in a shower between feeding and bathing the baby before her friends had showed up, but she’d spent more time rocking Peaches and trying to remember the words to the song about the looking glass and the mockingbird.

&nbs
p; With those dark blue eyes gazing up at her so solemnly, she had choked up more than once. Watching now as her friends exclaimed over her, Sasha told herself that what she was feeling was protectiveness, not possessiveness. A few more minutes and she would put an end to it. Too much stimulation wasn’t good for an infant who wasn’t yet two months old.

  “Did I tell you I’ve got us another bachelor? Kell has this carpenter friend—actually, he’s more of a contractor. He’s recently divorced, no kids, no noticeably bad habits.” Marty leaned over the housekeeper to cup a tiny foot in her hand.

  “What does he look like? Anyone a tall, gorgeous blonde with a degree in accounting might be interested in?” Sasha continued to buff her short, newly exposed fingernails. She felt naked without the acrylic versions, but long nails and babies didn’t go together.

  Faylene glanced up. “I thought we’d already picked out this security fellow for Lily.”

  “Jake has other priorities now,” Sasha reminded her friends.

  “So?” Marty gave up trying to steal the infant away from the housekeeper and began leafing through a catalog of accessories.

  “So he has enough on his mind without getting involved in a new relationship. Besides, his son’s headed overseas and Jake’s in the middle of repainting his house and, like I said, now he’s got this baby to think about.”

  “Well, pardon me, but it looks like Jake’s baby has all the caregivers she needs. So why can’t he take a few hours off and go to our darned fund-raiser?” Marty shot her a pointed look. “Unless you have other plans for him?”

  “Don’t be silly!” Sasha snapped. Feeling her face grow warm, she said, “I hardly even know the man.”

  Faylene glanced up from the baby on her lap. “I told you about them letters Lily’s been getting, didn’t I? The ones with the numbers on the front like a secret code or something? I asked her about it the other day when I saw her looking all weepy-eyed over one. She’s been getting ’em, one a week, for as long as I’ve been working for her.”

  “Faye, for heaven’s sake, you know better than to gossip about things like that,” Marty scolded. “What’d she say?”

  “Pretended like she didn’t hear me.”

  “It’s probably a service person—someone in the military.”

  “I ’spect so,” murmured the older woman, her attention on the infant gazing up at her so intently. “Did I tell you they’re written in pencil on lined paper? First I thought it was a street number on front, but that was on the next line. A San Pedro Street—something like that.”

  “There’s nothing like that around here,” Sasha said thoughtfully. “Florida? Maybe St. Augustine?”

  “Nope, California.”

  “Well, whatever it is, it’s none of our business,” Marty said self-righteously, and then spoiled the effect by suggesting it might be a tax number. “She is a CPA, after all. Maybe you misread the CA for CPA.” Faylene’s reading skills were on a par with her cooking.

  “Not that it matters, but if you’re that curious, ask her about it,” Sasha said, closing the matter.

  “Back to the fund-raiser, you don’t mind missing it, do you, Sash? You can baby-sit for a few hours while we get your guy together with Lily, can’t you?”

  Sasha had an idea her friend was playing with her. She buffed harder. Before she could come up with a reason to take Jake out of the race, she heard a car pull up out in front.

  Marty peered through the window. “Speak of the devil,” she said, a wide grin spreading over her face.

  Ten

  Jake came to a full stop just inside the doorway. The expression on his face was priceless. Amused, Sasha watched his reaction to finding himself outnumbered by females.

  Faylene looked up and broke into a broad smile, rearranging scores of wrinkles on her heavily made-up face. “Hey there. I gotcha baby here. She don’t look much like you, I’ll say that for her.”

  Marty said, “Well, hi there.”

  “Uh…ladies,” he murmured cautiously.

  Sasha said, “Now I know what Daniel must have looked like standing in the door of the lion’s den. Come on in, Jake, we were just talking about you. You’ve met my friends, haven’t you?”

  He nodded and then his gaze returned to the baby in Faylene’s lap. Waving tiny pink fists, Tuesday Smith, aka Peaches, was making noises that Sasha recognized as meaning, “Enough with this hands-on stuff, I need a nap.”

  Evidently, Jake had forgotten how to interpret baby language. “Is she—?”

  “Hurting? Don’t think so. Starving? No way, she was fed less than half an hour ago. Wet? Probably. Mostly, she’s just ready for a nap, aren’t you, sugar? We’re still working on a mutually convenient schedule.”

  Sasha scooped the baby from Faylene’s lap and moved closer so that Jake could see her tiny face. Inhaling the warm soap-and-outdoorsy scent of his skin, she told herself with a sense of mystic certainty that blindfolded, and with nothing more than that, she could have picked him out of any lineup. It had to be pheromones, she thought wistfully. She couldn’t afford for it to be anything more complicated than chemistry. Even that was almost more than she could handle. “Thank you for sending my car home,” she murmured.

  Jake nodded. “No problem.”

  While he concentrated on the baby, Sasha happened to glance at Marty, who was looking him over with undisguised interest.

  The bookseller caught her eye, winked and blushed. “We were just talking about the fund-raiser planned for tomorrow night, Jake. Did Sasha tell you about it?”

  “What fund-raiser?”

  “It’s just a local project,” Sasha dismissed. “I doubt if you’d be interested.” Turning away, she sank down onto the sofa and lifted the baby to her shoulder, patting her on the back.

  As the two most comfortable chairs were taken, Jake settled beside her, his weight tilting the cushion so that she found herself leaning on his shoulder. “What kind of local project?” he asked.

  Their voices overlapping, Marty and Faylene described the summer camp that featured fishing, kayaking, camping and even fly-tying. “It costs two hundred bucks for a two-week session,” said Marty.

  “I got a good friend, Bob Ed Cutrell, down at the marina,” Faylene said. “You might know him—he outfits ’em so the gear don’t cost nothing extra, but—”

  Marty picked up. “But a lot of them still can’t afford it. This is not exactly a high-income district, in case you hadn’t noticed. Commercial fishing barely makes expenses these days, and the storm flooded so many fields, it’ll take at least another year to recover.”

  To Sasha, seated beside him on the sofa, it seemed the most natural thing in the world to lean against Jake Smith while holding his baby in her arms. Gazing down at the small bundle sleeping so peacefully on her shoulder, she murmured, “What about it, sweety pie, you want to go to summer camp?”

  Marty looked from Sasha to Jake, as if trying to measure the degree of involvement. “So what about it, Jake—shall we count you in?”

  If Jake felt pressured, he was tactful enough not to show it. “Can I get back to you?” When he reached for the infant, his hands brushed against Sasha’s breast. “Here you go, baby, come to Granddad.”

  As if his touch weren’t enough to melt any residual resistance she might feel, his voice finished her off. Fighting against the urge to trade places with the baby in his arms, Sasha tugged the pink flannel square from her shoulder and spread it over his.

  “I’d forgotten about that part,” Jake said, obviously not really bothered by the risk of a damp shoulder. They traded lingering smiles until the other two women stood and collected their purses.

  “Guess we’d better be going,” said Marty, a gleam of amusement in her eyes. “I brought you a few more books. Since you’re temporarily house-bound, you might even get caught up on your reading.” She indicated the stack of paperbacks on the floor beside the cluttered escritoire.

  Faylene said, “I turned the fridge back on after I wipe
d it out, so don’t open the door till it has a chance to catch up.”

  “Don’t bother to see us out,” Marty said dryly as the two women exchanged unmistakable smirks.

  “Did I miss something?” Jake asked when the front door closed behind them.

  “I hope so. They mean well, but—” Sasha shook her head. She wasn’t about to tell him about the matchmaking she and her friends occasionally did—especially after the way Marty had looked at the two of them together, as if measuring them for a double harness.

  “Here, I’ll take her now—she’s yawning.”

  How could any man be so darned tempting with a baby in his arms, spit-up on his shirt and a goofy grin on his face? All she had to do was look at him to remember last night and what had probably been the biggest mistake of her life.

  Which, considering her track record, was saying a lot.

  “Give me another few minutes. Look, the reason I came by—we need to talk.”

  Uh-oh. Crunch time. She’d known it was coming, she just hadn’t wanted to think about it. Once he took the baby home with him, he’d have no reason to return to Muddy Landing.

  Feeling as if she were dragging an anchor, she stood and reached for the baby to take her upstairs. Jake sighed and reluctantly handed her over.

  When she came downstairs a few minutes later, he said, “Without breaking any confidences, what can you tell me about the agent handling the Jamison rental?”

  “Katie McIver?” Puzzled, Sasha wondered what the rental agent had to do with their baby. “I’ve known her several years, but only in a business capacity. I did their offices—Southern Dunes Property Management? Since then she’s called me several times for makeovers and quick patch-up jobs. Mostly the owners take care of that sort of thing themselves, but now and then they leave it to the agency.” She settled down, this time in the armchair instead of the sofa. “I know she’s well respected. I know she handles several of their top rentals. Other than that, I don’t really know much about her.”