After Darke

by Heather MacAllister

  Jaron moaned.

  “We know,” Quigg told her, and gathered the binders and files. “And unfortunately, so does McDormand. You say he was sitting at the table in the restaurant when you two left?”

  “Yes!” Flinging up his arms, Jaron pushed himself out of the chair. “Yes, he was still there. Yes, we waited for my car right in front of the window, where he no doubt saw us. And he probably saw as I played hero and flung myself at Bonnie—which I will point out for the record she has yet to thank me for—and then, if he’d bothered to hang around, he saw Bonnie run toward the body...oh, God.” Jaron ran out of steam and slumped back onto the chair.

  Bonnie gasped. “You don’t think he’d come after us, do you?”

  Jaron made an elaborate show of checking his watch. “Look at that. She’s finally connected all the dots and it’s only taken her three hours.”

  “She is from out of town,” Quigg said.

  “And I have had enough of New York, thank you very much.” Bonnie had had enough of everything at this point. She stood and picked up her purse—which had been searched earlier. “Goodbye.”

  As she walked toward the door, she half expected Jaron or Quigg to stop her, but they didn’t.

  That could have been because the door was locked. “The door is locked,” she said without turning around.

  “She’s from very far out of town,” Jaron said.

  Bonnie marched back to the table. “Why are we being treated like prisoners? We have cooperated fully. You have everything you need to know and I want to go home—or back to my aunt’s apartment, then home. And I want to go now.”

  “No can do.” Quigg didn’t look sorry, either.

  What was it with men ignoring her requests all of a sudden?

  “You’re going to be guests of the city of New York tonight. Maybe several nights.”

  Oh, no, she wasn’t. “Nice try, but just call me a cab and I’ll consider us even.”

  Quigg laughed.

  Jaron looked at her pityingly.

  The door opened and one of the detective duo stuck his head in. “One bed or two?”

  Quigg glanced at them. “Two. Did you really have to ask?”

  The detective held up two fingers to someone, then nodded at the captain. “All set.”

  “Good work.” Quigg was once more all business. “Okay, listen up.”

  Bonnie listened, but she didn’t like what she heard. “You’ve got to be kidding.” She’d said it before and she’d probably say it again. Captain Quigg actually wanted to keep them in protective custody.

  “For how long?” she asked. “I’ve got a renovation I’m due to start on Monday.”

  “As long as it takes.”

  “You’ve got to be kidding.”

  “No, Bonnie, he’s not kidding, so you can stop saying that.”

  Bonnie ignored Jaron. He’d done nothing but glare at her and make derisive remarks for hours. Well, she was glad she’d seen this side of him. Yes, Jaron had now revealed himself in all his sarcastic glory. Her first impression of him had been right on the money. Oh, for a time there during dinner she’d thought he wasn’t so bad. Rub away that cool exterior and there was a gleam of an attractive man beneath. Actually, the man on the outside wasn’t too bad, but she was going to ignore that. She would have even been willing to tolerate another date if Aunt Cokie had insisted on it, but not now. Uh-uh. No way. The sooner she got away from him, the better.

  And then the Cooper’s Corner blind-date queen was going to turn in her crown.

  “So how long do you think it’ll be until we’re free to go?” Jaron asked.

  “We’ll need a positive ID on Sonny O’Brien. But first we’ve got to find him. And until then, we’re going to keep you two under lock and key.”

  “We are not the criminals here!” Bonnie couldn’t believe this was happening. “You can’t do that.”

  “I can and I will.” Quigg laced his fingers together and leaned forward, looking up from under those bushy brows. His voice was deadly earnest. “We have been after McDormand for years—even before we knew who he was. Before we knew he existed. You’ve seen our only picture. The man is like a ghost. And now he’s slipped up, and you two are the best chance we’ve ever had of getting to the guy. If you think I will jeopardize that chance, then you are very much mistaken.”

  “No good deed goes unpunished, eh, Quigg?” Jaron patted Bonnie’s chair. “Sit down, Bonnie.”

  The look he gave her was sympathetic—for him. Bonnie sat just as the door opened and a very large, florid-faced man in street clothes entered.

  Quigg nodded to him. “Officer Sorenson. How’s the diet going?”

  “Not so good.” Sorenson clutched his belly. “Millie’s got me eating cabbage. Tonight it was cabbage rolls with ground turkey. Whoever heard of such a thing? It’s unnatural.”

  “But that’s what it’s going to take to get you back out on the street. In the meantime, I understand you’d like to get out from behind the desk.”

  “Yes, Captain.” He jerked a thumb toward Bonnie and Jaron. “Are these the two I gotta baby-sit?”

  “They are.”

  Jaron leaned toward her. “Hey, Bonnie, think we can outrun him?”

  “I wouldn’t advise you to try,” Quigg said.

  “What’s he going to do if we try to escape—shoot us?”

  “He’ll aim for your leg. Sorenson, how’d you do on your last firearms proficiency test?”

  Sorenson shrugged.

  Quigg turned back to Jaron. “So he might miss your leg.”

  Bonnie stared at Quigg. “I don’t believe this conversation.”

  “Then believe this—if we don’t shoot you, one of McDormand’s men will.”

  “But...Jaron’s a celebrity.” That ought to give his ego a lift. “I can understand hiding him, but they don’t know who I am.”

  “They can find out.”

  “Bonnie, your esprit de corps touches me deeply,” Jaron drawled.

  Oh, that was it. That was just it. “You’re right, Jaron. What was I thinking? I should stick by you night and day for goodness knows how long.”

  They stared at each other and then Jaron actually smiled. “Thank God you’re not boring.”

  “Did you two used to be married or something?” Sorenson asked.

  “No,” Bonnie answered.

  “God, no,” Jaron said, which Bonnie thought was totally unnecessary.

  She had a horrible thought. “Is my aunt in danger, then? And I have to call her and tell her what’s going on.”

  Quigg stood. “We’ll prepare a statement for you.”

  “Like I’m a hostage? That’s what we are, isn’t it? Hostages.”

  “What kind of statement?” Jaron asked. “Her aunt and my mother are friends, so anything Bonnie says to her aunt will be repeated.”

  “We need to kept this quiet for now, so we want Bonnie to just say that she’s staying with you tonight. Stick to the truth whenever possible.”

  Bonnie felt her face drain of color, then her cheeks grew warm. “I don’t— We just met!”

  “Contrary to what you may think, I don’t on short acquaintance, either,” Jaron said.

  “So this time you two hit it off,” Quigg said.

  “No!” They both spoke at the same time.

  “She’d never believe it,” Bonnie added.

  Jaron made a disgusted sound. “Yes, she would.”

  Bonnie gaped at him. “What?”

  “Cokie and my mother would love it. You know they would.”

  They would love it, Bonnie knew. In fact, Cokie and Nora would be pricing caterers by tomorrow morning.

  “You don’t want them to worry, do you?” Quigg asked.

&
nbsp; Bonnie shook her head.

  “Then we’ll retrieve Jaron’s cell phone and you can make the call.” With that, Quigg headed for the door, gesturing for them to follow.

  “Just shoot me now,” Jaron muttered.

  Bonnie glared at him. “Before this is all over, I just might.”

  CHAPTER FIVE

  JARON HAD NEVER REALIZED that hell was in New Jersey, but here he was, in New Jersey, and he was definitely in hell.

  Hell consisted of a tiny World War II vintage hotel room, one bed, one too-short-to-sleep-on love seat, and a two-hundred-fifty-pound policeman with a bad case of gas.

  Oh, yes. And Bonnie Cooper. Bonnie “By Gum I’m Going To Do My Civic Duty If It Kills Me” Cooper. And it just might.

  If Jaron didn’t get to her first.

  “We’re both supposed to stay here?” she exclaimed from the doorway, pretty much echoing his thoughts.

  The odor of rancid burritos and sweaty fear hung in the air, though if their experience in the car was anything to go by, Sorenson would clear that up pretty quick.

  “The taxpayers, they don’t like puttin’ folks up at the Waldorf.” Sorenson prowled the tiny room, presumably checking for any mobsters who’d managed to follow them, guess their room number and race ahead to lurk in the shadows.

  He clicked on the lights and pressed the button on an ancient clock radio. “...have Jennifer, who is in a hotel room with the best man. Her wedding’s in twenty-four hours. Should she call it off? You’re listening to radio 780 WTKX, the voice of Extreme talk radio in the Big Apple. This is your host, Emma Hart. It’s 2:37 a.m.” Sorenson checked his watch and shrugged, then clicked the radio off. The clock part said 1:45.

  “There’s only one bed. We’ll need another room.” Bonnie still hadn’t crossed the doorway.

  “There’s only one of me,” Sorenson said.

  But there’s enough of you for two. Jaron happened to catch Bonnie’s eye and knew she was thinking the same thing. It was a little bonding moment that caught him off guard. He didn’t want bonding—he wanted unbonding.

  Bonnie dragged her gaze away. “Connecting rooms, then?” She was sounding desperate.

  “This is all they’ve got tonight. Come in and shut the door.” Satisfied that they were alone, Sorenson manually locked the door, pulled the desk chair over in front of it, belched and sat heavily. “I got your standard-issue prison toiletry kit right here.” He zipped open a duffel bag and tossed them little bags with toothbrushes, toothpaste, soap, a disposable razor and deodorant.

  Bonnie looked from her bag to Jaron. Then they both looked at the bed. It was a double—not even a queen.

  “You know what? I just don’t care anymore.” Bonnie sat on the bed and untied the shoes that Jaron and her aunt had disparaged. She pulled them off, then stood and ripped off the spread and got into the bed on the side closest to the wall, which she faced. “Sleep where you like—here, there, anywhere. It’s two-thirty in the morning and I’m just too darn tired to care.”

  Jaron looked from Bonnie’s back—she wasn’t even taking up half the bed—to Sorenson.

  Sorenson leaned over to the table that had the TV remote control device bolted to it, and punched the channels until he found one he liked. The image on the screen started to waver, so he lurched out of the chair, went over to the TV and banged the top. The wavering stopped. He grunted and audibly released another cloud of sulfurous gas. Clutching his belly, he shook his head. “Millie’s cabbage rolls. Don’t ever eat ‘em.”

  “Thanks for the tip,” Jaron said.

  Sorenson heaved himself onto the chair and turned the sound down on the TV. “You can sleep easy. I’ll be guarding you all night.”

  Oh, joy. Jaron considered his choices. There was the love seat by Sorenson, there was the floor and there was the bed with Bonnie.

  Fumes from Sorenson’s latest emission wafted over, making his decision for him.

  Slipping off his shoes and jacket, Jaron, fully clothed as Bonnie was, got into the bed, careful to hug the side as she was doing. He didn’t know how long it would last, since the mattress dipped in the middle, but he wanted her to see that he was making a good-faith effort.

  He pulled the sheet over his shoulder.

  Bonnie pulled back. The edge barely covered him, so he tugged. So did she. He held on to his edge until the sheet stretched tautly between them.

  “I need more sheet,” he said in a deliberately pleasant tone. “Shall I move closer?”

  The fabric immediately went slack and he smiled, then drifted off to sleep.

  Roaring woke him before dawn, and he roused enough to realize that Sorenson had fallen asleep, head tilted back against the door, and was snoring. The sound even drowned out the television.

  Momentarily forgetting where he was, Jaron pulled on the sheet and felt a warm body roll into him.

  Lifting himself on an elbow, he saw a sleeping Bonnie on her back, clutching her edge of the sheet. He started to roll her over, then stopped.

  The night was cool and the heating hadn’t been turned on yet. She was warm and she felt good. Surprisingly good, actually.

  Jaron eased back down. She felt very different from Sydney, the last woman he’d had a serious relationship with. Sydney was fashionably thin and clothes looked great on her. In other words, his usual type. He’d liked the way Sydney looked, and if her naked body lacked a certain lushness, he’d gladly accepted the trade-off.

  Sydney was always cold and liked to spoon herself next to him. And while he hadn’t minded, it wasn’t a particularly sensual experience. Not the way it would be with Bonnie, which was not a thought he should be having.

  And why was he having that thought? It wasn’t the only one, either. He’d had a lot of thoughts about Bonnie. He’d never known a woman to take up so much of his mental energy. Sydney certainly hadn’t; even at the end, he’d expended all his negative emotions in his gallery-skewering columns and that had been the end of it.

  He didn’t even remember what had provoked him—

  aside from Sydney’s infatuation with the work of an artist with execrable taste—and even then Jaron hadn’t been roused to the point Bonnie had managed on just a few hours acquaintance.

  In other words, she got to him.

  Jaron didn’t want her getting to him. So she wouldn’t.

  He consciously relaxed the muscles he’d held taut against her, and her warmth seeped into him. She was soft and round and...

  Lush.

  The word popped into his mind and, once there, refused to go. He did not want to think of Bonnie Cooper in terms of lushness. Warmth was okay. Soft was okay. But lush, no. Not okay. Because all he really had to go on was the feel of her molded against him, the way the curve of her hip fit into the small of his back. Perfectly. Soft and warm. He didn’t need to see anything to know this.

  But lush. To be absolutely certain of her lushableness—

  lushability?—he’d have to see her body. And since he couldn’t see it, he’d have to imagine it, and that way led to disaster.

  Because sooner or later he’d have to know whether or not reality matched imagination, and by then it would be too late, because reality would be the two of them in bed together under very different circumstances. Which wasn’t going to happen. Never. Ever.

  So for now, since he couldn’t ignore them, Jaron was going to concentrate on soft and warm.

  He eased about a centimeter closer to her, and because he wanted to make sure the sheet was properly covering her, he stretched his arm behind him and smoothed it into place, in the process learning that her curves did indeed indicate a very lush body.... No!

  He liked sleek, sculpted, straight lines in his world and on his women. Very aesthetic. Lush was...too much. It too easily became overblown. Blowsy. Rubenesque.<
br />
  That was it. He’d think of art. Fat pink cherubs floating in an aqua sky. Women who looked as though they’d bathed in fettuccine Alfredo.

  Her elbow was poking his back. How was he supposed to sleep with her elbow poking him in the back? He reached behind him again and nudged her, hoping she’d roll onto her side.

  She barely moved. Jaron pushed—harder this time. Bonnie made an annoyed sound in her sleep and rolled.

  Toward him.

  She still held the edges of the sheet—stubborn woman.

  Jaron sat up, pried her fingers off the sheet, tucked it around her shoulders and tried to reclaim as much of his half of the bed as he could. Since Bonnie was now plastered up against him, he abandoned any hope of actually sleeping.

  He could feel her warm breath through his shirt. Felt even more of her softness against him.

  He decided to take off his shirt because he couldn’t stand the thought of having a great big drool spot on his back.

  Sitting up, he began unbuttoning his shirt. As he did so, he gazed down at Bonnie in the flickering gray glow of the television set. The light sculpted her cheekbones and lips, especially the full lower one, which thrust out even more in her sleep.

  Desire pierced him swiftly, but not altogether unexpectedly. Jaron swallowed, fighting the urge to bend down and take that lower lip into his mouth. He didn’t know which bothered him more—the urge, or that he had to fight it.

  Ripping off his shirt, he flung it on the floor beside the bed—something he’d never done in his life—and punched the pillow. If she woke up, good.

  She didn’t, because she was ever contrary, even in her sleep. Jaron sank onto the bed and yanked the sheet. Two seconds later, unable to overcome his innate courtesy, he gently spread part of the sheet over Bonnie.

  She sighed in her sleep and settled against him.

  Taking off his shirt had been a mistake, because he now felt Bonnie’s soft, warm body even better than before. Her warm, soft, lush body.

  And, so help him, it felt good.

  * * *

  BONNIE WAS NOT accustomed to awakening with her face pressed against a bare male back.