“Well, shoot,” Lucy said, crossing her arms and smiling to hide the way his words made her pulse race. “Maybe if I play my cards right, we can make that wedding on Saturday a double ceremony.”
She was baiting him, watching to see if her words made him back off. “I said damn near anything,” Blue said, smiling at her expression—she thought she had him retreating. So he called her bluff. “I guess getting married falls into that description. Sure. But why wait till Saturday? We can fly out to Las Vegas and get hitched tonight. Right now.”
Lucy surrendered. “We both know you don’t have to marry me to get what you want—what I want, too.”
He stepped toward her. “Then what are we waiting for?”
She lifted her chin. “We’re waiting for you to go inside and make your excuses to Gerry and Jenny Lee.”
Blue smiled again—damn, he couldn’t remember the last time he’d smiled and laughed so much. But this was fun. Lucy Tait was able to hold her own against him. She was a worthy sparring opponent, and he liked that. He liked it a lot.
He’d moved close enough to her to put his arms around her waist, close enough to lean forward for another long, sensuous kiss. But Lucy reached out for him first, sweeping her hands along the lapels of his jacket, lightly tracing the ribbons and medals he wore on his chest with one finger.
“Look at all these,” she mused. “What are you, some kind of hero?”
“Just a SEAL,” Blue murmured, mesmerized by the elegant curve of her lips, by the spattering of freckles that ran across her cheekbones and the bridge of her nose, by the delicate shell-like curve of her ears.
She leaned forward so that her lips were only a whisper away from his. “Go find your brother,” she breathed.
He kissed her again—he couldn’t resist—drowning in her softness, marveling how one woman could be such a complete montage of sweetness and spice. When he finally pulled away, his voice didn’t sound like his own. “Don’t go anywhere.”
Lucy smiled. “I won’t.”
3
Blue searched the country-club dining room for any sign of Gerry. The band was still playing in the corner, and couples were still out on the dance floor, but most of the crowd were starting to get seated at the round banquet tables that dotted half the room.
His sharp eyes finally picked Gerry out of the crowd. He was in the corner, having what looked like a serious discussion with R. W. Fisher, the Tobacco King.
Fisher had sold his tobacco farms and cigarette factories in Virginia and moved his massive fortune to Hatboro Creek about the same time Blue had moved to town with his mother. It had been more than twenty-five years since Fisher had earned his wages from growing and selling tobacco, but he would no doubt be known as the Tobacco King until the day he died.
Gerry was forever trying to work his way into R. W. Fisher’s exclusive circle of friends and business acquaintances. Blue knew better than to disturb his stepbrother now.
On the other hand, Lucy was waiting for him out on the patio….
He could just as easily make his excuses for leaving to Jenny Lee, tell her that he’d talk to Gerry in the morning. Blue turned back to the table where he’d last seen his stepbrother’s bride-to-be talking with several of her friends.
He worked his way across the room, and Jenny Lee glanced up. She rose to her feet, smiling a welcome, her cheeks dimpling prettily. Her friends were noticeably quiet, watching them both.
“Carter,” Jenny said in her soft Southern accent. “We haven’t properly said hello yet, have we?”
She held out her hand to him, and he reached for it automatically. Jenny Lee Beaumont. There had once been a time when he’d wanted this girl more than life itself. Her blond hair and blue eyes, her diminutive yet well-rounded figure, her lacy, frilly clothes had all seemed the definition of femaleness. It was funny, but now she seemed overdone—a caricature of the Southern belle, all peaches and sugar and girlish charm.
Funny, but somewhere during the past twelve years he’d developed a definite preference for spice. And for full-grown women.
Jenny Lee’s fragrant scent enveloped him, cloyingly sweet and chokingly strong. Hell, he used to love the way she smelled. Now he had to fight a nearly overpowering urge to step back, away from her, to find some fresh air.
As she smiled up into his eyes, Blue felt nothing.
He had been afraid to see her again, he realized suddenly. He’d been scared that all the old wants and needs and hurts would come flooding back.
But he felt nothing.
Except an urge to get back out to that patio, where Lucy Tait was waiting for him.
“Jenny, I’m sorry,” he said, gently disengaging his hand from hers, “but I can’t stay for dinner. I’ve got to head out.”
“Oh, dear. I was hoping to get a chance to talk to you.”
As her smile faded, Blue could see lines of worry on Jenny’s usually smooth face. And when she smiled again, he could see that it was forced and unnatural.
Blue glanced at the tableful of women, all still listening, as if they were watching an episode of “As the World Turns.” Whatever Jenny had to say, she didn’t want to say it in front of an audience.
“Of course, I really can’t leave without at least one dance,” Blue said, knowing that whatever was bothering her, she could tell him on the privacy of the dance floor.
Relief flashed through Jenny’s eyes. “Of course,” she said, letting him lead her out into the middle of the room. The women at the table were still watching, but at least they wouldn’t be able to hear them.
“Is everything all right?” Blue asked. Dancing with Jenny was odd after he’d held Lucy in his arms. Lucy was nearly his own height, a perfect fit; Jenny was so much shorter. He felt awkward, as if he had to bend clear over to talk to her.
“I don’t know what’s going on,” Jenny said. “Gerry has been acting so strangely the past few days…so worried and upset. I can’t figure out why. Business has been better than ever. He just bought a new car, and the honeymoon plans he’s made are extravagant…. It’s not financial worries that have him down, that’s for sure.”
Her eyes were bright with tears, but Blue still felt nothing. Nothing more than brotherly concern for Gerry’s future wife. She looked as if she was going to say more, so he waited.
“I just wonder…”
If she were Lucy, she would have spit out whatever was bugging her the moment they’d begun to dance. Lucy was straightforward and to the point. She said what was on her mind. It was refreshing, Blue realized. He liked it much better than Jenny Lee’s approach, where every tiny piece of information had to be wheedled out of her.
“What is it, Jenny Lee?” he asked. “Just tell me.”
She couldn’t look him in the eye, embarrassment making her blush. “I just can’t help but wonder if I haven’t made a colossal mistake by inviting you here,” she whispered.
Ten minutes stretched into fifteen, and all Lucy’s doubts and reservations grew bigger and bigger.
What was she doing? Now that she was taking the time to think about it, the incredible power of the passion she felt from Blue’s kisses scared her to death.
What if she did something really stupid? What if she fell in love with this guy?
Fell in love? Lord help her, she was already halfway over the edge. Could she really have sex with Blue, keeping the physical and emotional totally separate? Or would the physical intimacy send her into a tailspin from which she could never pull free?
Where was he? What was taking him so long?
Lucy had no questions, no doubts, when she gazed into Blue’s eyes. She could move in no other direction but ahead. It was only when he wasn’t around that she started to back away.
She opened the French doors and went back into the country club. Blue had probably gotten into some deep discussion with Gerry and couldn’t get free. And she—she needed a drink, something with a kick to give her the courage to keep from running away.
; Halfway to the bar, she saw him.
Blue was out on the dance floor, with Jenny Lee Beaumont in his arms.
Didn’t it figure.
Lucy turned away, too disgusted with her own self to feel angry at Blue. Blue and Jenny Lee, ancient history? Lucy had almost believed it. That made her as big a fool as Blue.
She had to get away from here, fast, so she headed for the doors to the corridor. She was nearly there when the shouting started.
Lucy turned back, her police officer’s training not allowing her to run from sounds of trouble. What she saw made her heart sink.
Gerry, his face livid, was standing in the middle of the dance floor, between Blue and Jenny. And even though he’d lowered his voice, he pushed at Blue repeatedly, clearly upset and angry.
Lucy could see from Blue’s stance and from the way he held both hands in the air, palms out and facing his stepbrother, that he had no intention of letting this argument become violent. But Jenny was in tears, and Gerry pushed Blue harder and harder with every sentence he spoke. Lucy moved closer, wondering whether she should step in even though she wasn’t on duty. Not that she’d had much luck settling this afternoon’s disturbance….
The room was silent. Even the band had stopped playing. Sheldon Bradley, the chief of police, moved quickly to Gerry’s side, and Lucy was glad. He had far more experience than she did, in addition to being one of Gerry’s friends.
“I want him out of here.” Gerry’s voice started to get louder again. “Who the hell gave him permission to dance with Jenny Lee anyway?”
Was his speech slurred? He sounded funny, as if he were…
“Gerry, you’re drunk,” Jenny Lee said.
“It was your idea to invite him,” Gerry shot back harshly, turning to berate his fiancée. “Stepbrother or not, I didn’t think it was right to invite one of your ex-lovers to my wedding. But maybe you had some other kind of reason to want him here…?”
“When you sober up, brother,” Blue drawled softly, “you’re going to feel like a real idiot.”
“Stay the hell out of my life,” Gerry said, his eyes wild. “You’re not my brother. I don’t want you hanging around. I didn’t when we were kids, and I sure as hell don’t now.”
The flash of pain that appeared in Blue’s eyes left so quickly that Lucy was sure she was the only one who’d seen it. But she had seen it. Gerry’s bitter words had hurt Blue deeply.
“Come on now, boys.” Chief Bradley tried to step between the two men.
“Besides, Jenny Lee is mine now.” Gerry glared past Bradley at Blue. “You had your chance. You can’t have her.”
“She’s not going to be yours too much longer if you keep this up,” Blue said evenly, quietly.
“Is that some kind of threat? Because if that was some kind of a threat, I’m gonna…” Gerry swung at Blue.
Blue caught his hand effortlessly, stopping his stepbrother’s punch midswing.
“Now, come on,” the police chief said, “is this any way for brothers to treat each other?”
“He’s not my brother.” Gerry pulled his hand free from Blue’s. “If my old man hadn’t felt guilty for picking up and bedding Blue’s white-trash mama—”
Blue reacted so quickly that Lucy didn’t even see his movement. One moment he was standing several feet away from Gerry, and the next he had backed his stepbrother up against a support pillar and was holding on to the taller man by the lapels of his expensive tuxedo.
Chief Bradley looked as if he were thinking twice about getting on the wrong side of Blue. Still, he stepped forward. “Here now, boys. Let’s not—”
Blue ignored Bradley, glaring into Gerry’s eyes. “That time you went too far,” he said softly. “I don’t give a damn what you say about me, but you keep my mother out of this.”
“Blue,” the police chief said. “Son, I’m going to have to ask you to leave.”
“You so much as breathe her name again,” Blue continued, “and there’ll be hell to pay, you understand me?”
Gerry nodded, finally silenced.
Chief Bradley wasn’t used to being ignored. “Blue McCoy, I’m going to have to ask you to unhand your brother.”
But Blue didn’t move. “You apologize to Jenny Lee, and then you go on home and sober up,” he said to Gerry, still in that same low, dangerous voice.
Gerry seemed to wilt, to sag, his arms going around Blue in an odd kind of embrace. He may have said something, whispered something in Blue’s ear, but he spoke so softly Lucy couldn’t hear it.
“As far as I can see, son, you’re the one who needs to be making apologies and clearing on out of here.” Chief Bradley looked around the room, searching for any kind of support. He spotted Lucy. “You on duty tonight, Tait?”
“No, sir. I’m here as—”
“Consider yourself on duty as of right now,” Bradley said grimly. “I’m ordering you to escort Lieutenant McCoy back to his motel. See that he gets there without any more trouble.”
“But…” Lucy glanced at Blue, who had let go of Gerry.
Blue turned to Jenny Lee. “I’m sorry,” he said.
“I am, too,” she said. She held her head high despite the tears that were in her eyes, and with a withering look at Gerry, she swept out of the room.
Blue turned and headed for the other door. Chief Bradley had pulled Gerry aside and was talking to him in a low voice. Lucy briefly considered waiting and voicing her arguments about being suddenly placed on duty during her night off, but she knew it wouldn’t make any difference. Sheldon Bradley ran the Hatboro Creek Police Department according to his own set of rules. With a sigh, Lucy turned and followed Blue. She had to run to catch up with him.
“McCoy—wait!”
He turned and waited, his face impassive, his eyes expressionless. Together, they walked in silence out to Lucy’s truck.
It wasn’t until Lucy was pulling out of the country-club driveway that Blue spoke.
“I’m sorry about that,” he murmured.
She glanced at him. He was watching her in the dim light from the dashboard. “You can’t help the way you feel,” she said quietly.
He shifted in his seat, turning so that he was facing her. “You don’t think I was…” He stopped and started over. “Do you really think I would make a move on Jenny Lee at the rehearsal dinner for her wedding to my stepbrother?”
Lucy pulled carefully up to the stop sign at the corner of Main Street and Seaside Road. “Everyone at that party was waiting for something to happen between you and Jenny Lee,” she said, taking a left onto Main Street. “Everyone at that party saw you dancing with her and came to the same conclusion—that you’re here to stir up trouble, that you want to win Jenny Lee back.”
Blue’s face was in the shadows, but she knew that he was watching her.
“Everyone at the party. Including you?”
She had to be honest. “Yes.”
“And if I told you everyone at the party was wrong? That I feel nothing for Jenny Lee…?”
“I’d have to assume you were only saying that in a last-ditch effort to get me to spend the night with you,” Lucy said bluntly, pulling her truck into the motel parking lot and rolling to a stop.
“That’s not true,” Blue said quietly. “Yes, I want you in my bed, but I wouldn’t lie to get you there. Come on, Yankee, let’s just leave the past in the past.” He reached out across the cab of the truck, gently touching her hair.
Lucy shifted away from him. “Don’t.”
“Lucy—”
She closed her eyes, trying to shut him out. “I can’t do this,” she said. “I thought I could, but I can’t.” She opened her eyes and looked at Blue. “I can’t be a substitute for Jenny Lee.”
Blue laughed, a flare of impatience in his eyes. “You’re not—”
“Look, McCoy, I’ve got to go—”
“Why don’t we go get a beer and talk about this?” he suggested. “Is that roadhouse—what’s it called? The Rebel Yell. Is i
t still around? Why don’t we go there?”
“No. Believe it or not, I’m actually on duty now. I’ve got to go back to the station and file a report.”
“You know damn well you could do that in the morning.”
“Yeah,” Lucy said. “But I want to do it now.”
Silence. Lucy stared out the front windshield, hoping and wishing that Blue would just open the door and climb out of the truck’s cab. She heard him sigh.
“Damn Gerry to hell,” he said tiredly. “I should have wrung his neck while I had the chance.”
He opened the door and climbed out of the truck. “It was a genuine pleasure seeing you again, Lucy Tait,” he said in his soft drawl. “I’ve got to tell you—I wish it could have been an even bigger pleasure. If you’re ever in California, give me a call.”
She turned to look at him—she couldn’t help it. “Are you leaving town?”
His blond hair glistened in the cab’s overhead light as he nodded. “I’m heading out on the next bus. I don’t care where it goes, as long as it’s a city big enough to have an airport.”
He was leaving as soon as he could. Lucy looked away from him, afraid that he’d see the disappointment that surely crossed her face.
“Bye, Lucy,” Blue whispered. He closed the cab door and was gone.
Lucy’s phone rang well before dawn, waking her from a restless sleep.
It was Annabella Sawyer, the police dispatcher. “You better get down to the station,” she said in her raspy voice, without any words of greeting. “All hell has broken loose. The chief is calling in all available manpower.”
Lucy rolled over and looked at her clock. It was a few minutes after 4 a.m. “What’s going on?”
“It started as a 10-65,” Annabella said. “Jenny Beaumont called in at 2:11 a.m., reporting Gerry McCoy missing. He hadn’t come home. Fifteen minutes ago, Tom Harper came across Gerry’s motor vehicle by the side of Gate’s Hill Road. Shortly after that, the 10-65 became a 10-54. At 3:56, Doc Harrington verified it. We’ve got ourselves a 187.”
Lucy tiredly closed her eyes. “You mind translating that for me, Annabella?”
Tall, Dark and Dangerous Part 1 Page 31