Long Time Gone: Konigsburg, Book 4

by Meg Benjamin

  Morgan leaned back against the seat, her eyes closed. Erik glimpsed her face in the reflected streetlights. Her eyelashes looked like smudged shadows on her cheeks. Her lips turned up slightly in that faint built-in v shape.

  Looking at her wasn’t doing anything for his honor, to say nothing of his willpower.

  “Have you had any dinner?” His voice sounded rusty, like his throat needed oiling. At least he hoped she’d think that was the problem.

  She opened her eyes, grimacing. “Sort of. I grabbed a hunk of cheese and a bag of chips before I took Arthur in to Cal’s.”

  He shook his head. “Sorry. That doesn’t qualify as dinner in my book.” He checked down Main. Brenner’s was closed, and the Silver Spur was likely to be packed with bikers.

  “Try the Coffee Corral,” she murmured.

  He narrowed his eyes. “You in the mood for a burger?”

  “They do sandwiches and salads along with burgers. That’s about all I’m up for right now anyway.”

  Erik parked the truck in front of the blinking neon coffeepot. Inside, a scattering of tables were spread across the floor in front of the counter. One wall was taken up with booths upholstered in red leatherette.

  Horace Rankin, Cal’s partner and the city council president, sat with his wife, Bethany, who was also one of the assistants at the clinic. His brownish walrus moustache contrasted sharply with his thinning gray hair.

  Horace’s age was a mystery. Originally, Erik had figured he was around sixty-five, but he didn’t act like a senior citizen. Horace and Bethany had gotten married soon after Cal and Docia, and now they sat hip to hip in one of the booths. Every once in a while, Bethany touched his hand and smiled. That kind of behavior gave a man hope.

  Horace wiped a napkin across his crumb-dusted moustache. “Evening, Chief, all quiet on the biker front?”

  “Far as I can tell.” Erik squinted at the menu posted over the counter. “Any recommendations besides burgers?”

  “Hell, son, this ain’t Brenner’s. Stuff tastes like you’d expect it to.” Horace took off his gold-rimmed glasses and polished them with an outsize pocket handkerchief. “Enchiladas are good, though.”

  Bethany grinned at him, then nodded at Morgan. “What’s the word on Arthur? Armando said he was staying overnight.”

  Morgan shrugged. “Motor oil. Cal’s giving him a bath and keeping him under observation.”

  Rankin shuddered. “Bathing the mountain lion. Better him than me. I knew I had a good reason for partnering up with your brother.”

  “Arthur will be okay, Morg. Cal’s the best.” Bethany grinned again, turning her bright blue gaze to Horace. “Present company excepted, that is.”

  Erik ordered a plate of cheese enchiladas and a tuna salad sandwich for Morgan from Al Brosius, the owner who also ran the kitchen. They took a table at the side.

  The wall opposite them was painted with a mural of cowboys gathered around a campfire. Cowboys and one very familiar-looking cowgirl.

  Erik squinted. Unless he’d lost his mind completely, the cowgirl looked a lot like Helen Kretschmer. He studied the mural more closely, examining the cowboys beside her. One was a dead ringer for Horace.

  He shook his head to clear it. Obviously, he’d been working too hard. “That mural’s new, isn’t it? I don’t remember seeing it before.”

  Morgan grinned, nodding toward Al, who was now flipping a burger on the grill. “He started putting it in last week. Al was an artist in Austin before he and Carol opened this place. He says he’ll add somebody new from time to time. Like that.” She gestured toward a distant corner of the mural where a pair of cowboys were inspecting a calf. The one checking its teeth bore an uncanny resemblance to Wonder Dentist, while Erik was pretty certain the one holding its rear end was his baby brother, Cal.

  He shook his head again. Definitely Konigsburg.

  Hilton Pittman was not a happy man, although he did his best to conceal it. He walked down Milam, his hand on Jonelle’s elbow, nodding to the citizens who recognized him and ignoring the ones who didn’t.

  Jonelle narrowed her eyes as they approached the Coffee Corral. “I thought you were taking me out to dinner.”

  “I am.” Hilton managed a smile, although it made the muscles of his jaw hurt. “This is an undiscovered gem, believe me.”

  Jonelle snorted.

  Hilton paid her little attention—his mind was elsewhere. The biker rally had been one of his best ideas, a surefire moneymaker and an easy sell. The bikers came to town, stayed in the area hotels and B and Bs, ate in the area restaurants, and drank in the area bars. Everybody had a stake in keeping them happy and keeping them in Konigsburg. Brody had understood that.

  Toleffson apparently didn’t.

  All weekend long, Hilton had listened to whining bikers. Or rather, one whining biker—Mel Hefner. Mel was a royal pain in the ass. Toleffson had threatened him, he told Hilton, actually threatened him with arrest. Toleffson had told him to keep the other bikers in line. Toleffson had warned he’d haul people to jail.

  Hilton had assured Hefner he was shocked—shocked—that the chief of police would take it upon himself to threaten the town’s honored guests. He promised he’d look into it directly and finally managed to pry Hefner out of his office.

  Hefner was an idiot, but he seemed to be telling the truth. Toleffson had actually arrested five of the bikers for public drunkenness. Hilton had had to do some fast talking with Hefner and some equally idiotic biker lawyer who’d threatened to take the city to court.

  He doubted that they’d have much of a case, given that the five bikers had been found puking in the city park, but that wasn’t the point. The point was Toleffson didn’t understand the importance of keeping the bikers happy. The man was moving from being a nuisance to being a liability. And dealing with the problems he’d caused had cut into time Hilton had reserved for the pursuit of Ms. Jonelle Montevista, who worked for the local beer distributor. For that alone, Hilton had decided to make Erik Toleffson pay.

  He pushed open the door of the Coffee Corral, smiling his best trust-me-with-your-daughters smile.

  Jonelle ran her gaze around the room. She still seemed unimpressed.

  Hilton turned the smile in her direction. “A gem, trust me, a gem.”

  The sound Jonelle made didn’t bode well for the rest of the evening.

  Behind him Erik heard a brief flurry of voices as more people came in. He turned to see a woman with hair the color of sun-bleached hay checking the menu. Hilton Pittman stood beside her, furtively studying her breasts. They were worth studying, if only to figure out how she managed to walk upright with that much weight in front of her.

  Morgan’s lips thinned. “Unless that’s Hilton’s long-lost niece, he’s stepping out on his wife again.”

  Erik watched Pittman scan the customers, stopping to stare at Horace Rankin and then at him. He wondered which of them Pittman would approach first.

  Rankin, of course. Good indication of where Erik came in the political pecking order.

  Horace looked like he was suffering from a sudden case of dyspepsia. He nodded a quick greeting at Pittman and then returned to his enchiladas. Pittman worked his way toward Erik’s table, shaking a few hands along the way, but his smile seemed to lose some brilliance as he came closer. “Toleffson.” He nodded toward Morgan. “Ms. Barrett. Quiet night.”

  Erik allowed himself a half-smile. “Looks like it, Mr. Mayor.”

  Pittman’s eyes narrowed. “Heard you picked up some of our guests yesterday.”

  “Yes sir.” Erik leaned back in his chair. “Some of our guests were drunk as skunks. Turning them loose on the streets with eight hundred pounds of motorcycle didn’t seem like a great idea.”

  “Throwing people in jail won’t make them or their friends want to come back here any time soon. Brody was always able to handle the problem without arrests.”

  “Brody also left most of the drunks wandering around the streets on their own,” Horac
e growled from his table behind them. “Or ralphing in the parking lots. That wasn’t much of a solution, Pittman. Anyway, the rest of us never thought so.”

  Erik studied Pittman. He wasn’t sure how far the news had spread about how Brody had “handled the problem”, but it might be interesting to find out. “Brody had some unique law enforcement methods. Do you know how he handled the bikers, Mr. Mayor?”

  Pittman’s tan turned a nasty shade of magenta.

  Erik waited.

  A smart man would stay quiet. Pittman, however, didn’t. “Just because Brody was on the wrong side of the law doesn’t mean he didn’t do some things effectively.”

  “What things would those be?” Erik kept his expression blank.

  Pittman leaned forward, resting his palms on the table. “He knew how to get along with people, that’s what. Tourists are our lifeblood here, Toleffson.”

  Erik nodded. “Yes sir, they are. But drunk ones are likely to make the non-drunk ones unhappy. And if they drive around, they may make the non-drunk ones dead.”

  Pittman stood up again, his hands fisting at his sides. “You don’t keep anybody happy by roughing them up, drunk or not.”

  Erik kept his bland expression in place. He’d dealt with better bullies than Pittman—compared to his commander in the MPs, the man was an amateur. “True enough. That’s why we didn’t rough them up. Unless you count Helen’s comments concerning their manhood.” Behind him, he heard Rankin snicker.

  Pittman’s color didn’t improve. His voice came in a hiss. “You just keep in mind you’re on probation, Toleffson. And if you keep screwing up when you handle the tourists, you’ll be out on your ass before your two months are up.”

  Morgan’s voice was soft. “Mr. Mayor, I think your lady friend is getting impatient.”

  Miss Straw Hair was looking at Pittman as if he’d crawled out from under a rock and could crawl right back as far as she was concerned.

  “Miss Montevista is a business associate,” Pittman snapped. “She is not a lady…er…friend.”

  Morgan looked like it was killing her not to say anything, and Erik had to admit it was hard not to grab a nice fat straight line like that. But she smiled sweetly.

  “Better hurry, Mr. Mayor, she’s waiting.”

  Pittman gave Erik one more narrow-eyed scowl, which he broadened to include Morgan and Horace, then walked back to join his business associate at the counter.

  Al Brosius arrived at their table a few moments later, carrying some large platters on his arm. “Here you go, Chief, enchiladas, tuna salad, chips and salsa.”

  Erik frowned. “I didn’t order the chips.”

  Brosius’s mouth spread in a thin smile. “Had some extra lying around in the kitchen. They’d just go to waste. Enjoy.” He glanced toward Pittman, then sauntered back slowly as Ms. Montevista expressed her general annoyance in a voice that sounded a lot like fingernails on a blackboard.

  Morgan grinned at him. “You really do like jerking authority figures around, don’t you? Of course, in Hilton’s case it’s totally justified.”

  “Hell, Pittman’s too easy. He’s already a walking politician joke.” Erik glanced around the room. Morgan wasn’t the only one grinning as Miss Straw Hair gave Pittman her opinion of his general competence. “If everybody thinks he’s a jerk, why exactly is he mayor?”

  Morgan peppered her tuna. “Mostly because nobody else wants to do it. The people who’d be good don’t have time, and the people who have time are all as bad as Hilton.” She sighed. “Maybe we’ll get lucky next election.”

  Ten minutes later, the mayor left with a couple of bags of food and a clearly disgruntled date. Erik would be very surprised if Pittman got any action out of his adventure with Miss Straw Hair.

  He wondered if he’d have any better luck himself. Not with Miss Straw Hair, of course.

  Morgan chased a bit of ketchup around her plate with a French fry, careful not to look up at him. Erik had a feeling she wondered something similar.

  He took a deep breath and pushed back from the table. Show time.

  Morgan told herself she wasn’t nervous. Several times. It didn’t work. Her stomach was tied in knots. Maybe they weren’t going to have sex. Maybe they were just going back to his apartment to sleep.

  Maybe she’d be the next American Idol.

  She tried to remember how long ago it had been since she’d last gone to bed with someone. Probably Christopher, who qualified as her last boyfriend. Nobody since she’d moved to Konigsburg, that was for sure.

  But then again, Erik Toleffson wasn’t like anyone she’d ever known before, so what made her think that being with him would be like being with someone else?

  Erik parked near the side door to his apartment, around the block from the bookstore. Docia had lived there for the first three years she’d owned the shop, until she’d moved in with Cal. Morgan had been to Docia’s apartment lots of times, and she told herself that going there now wouldn’t be that different.

  Right, Morgan.

  She climbed the stairs behind Erik, carefully keeping her eyes away from his really great-looking butt, and watched him unlock the apartment door. Then she stepped through while he held the door for her.

  The rooms seemed oddly bare without Docia’s furniture. A slightly battered couch sat in front of the limestone fireplace, a faded rag rug on the floor beside it.

  Erik shrugged. “Pretty barren, I know. I haven’t bothered to buy much furniture, but there’s an extra bed in the spare bedroom. I’ll take that. You can take the main one.”

  Morgan felt a quick stab of disappointment. What did she expect? That he’d ravish her on the planked pine floor? Interesting idea. “Okay.”

  Erik leaned back against the fireplace, propping his elbows on the mantle. “Tired? Hungry? Thirsty?”

  “You’re offering to take care of all my needs?” Her cheeks blazed. She should learn to think before talking around him. Of course, thinking around him seemed to take her in a lot of interesting directions.

  The corners of his mouth inched up. “Whatever I can.”

  “Oh, hell.” She sank down on the couch. “You know, I really don’t make an idiot of myself around anybody else. You have the most amazing effect on me.”

  Erik straightened, then moved to sit beside her on the couch. “What’s up, Morgan?”

  “Why did you ask me to stay here?” She turned slightly so that she could watch his face. “Why not just send me back to Cedar Creek?”

  “You mean besides my tremendous concern for Arthur’s health?” He shrugged, gazing back toward the fireplace. “Why do you think?”

  “I asked you first.”

  “Because I wanted some time alone with you.” He turned back to look at her. “With no distractions.”

  She swallowed. “Time to do what?”

  Erik watched her for a long moment, his eyes the color of dark coffee. Coffee too hot to drink, but too good not to. He slid his arm behind her shoulders, coaxing her closer. “What do you think?”

  “I asked you first,” she whispered as his mouth came down upon hers.

  He tasted her for a moment, running his tongue along her lips, the edge of her teeth. Faint spirals of heat seemed to dance across her skin, and she lifted her hands to his shoulders and higher, running her fingers through his cropped hair, surprisingly soft against her fingertips.

  Erik’s hands rested at her waist, moving slowly across the small of her back. Then he lifted her into his lap, settling her bottom between his legs. She could feel the swell of his erection against her hip. Her hands tightened against the back of his neck.

  Morgan tried to pull her reeling mind back into focus again. Did she remember how to do this? Maybe she needed a quick review.

  His fingers brushed across her temple, pushing back the curls spilling across her forehead. “Are you scared, Bambi?” he whispered.

  Bambi. She hadn’t a clue what he meant by that. “No, I’m not afraid of you. I’m just… It’s
been a while for me.”

  He nodded. “Me, too. We can take it slow.”

  She took a breath, then began pulling open the buttons of his uniform shirt, slowly, one by one. She slid her hand across the hard muscles of his chest, feeling the slight rasp of hair against her palm. He caught his breath with a sharp hiss.

  Morgan raised her gaze and gave him a half-smile, the mirror image of his own. “What makes you think I want it slow, Chief?” she murmured.

  Erik stared at her. All of a sudden she looked less like Bambi and more like the kind of predator that ate deer for breakfast. Her fingertips felt cool upon his chest, but they left trails of heat as they brushed across his skin.

  He wanted her naked. Hell, he wanted them both naked. Immediately.

  He tugged her T-shirt up to her shoulders, and she pulled it off in a swirl of brown ringlets. He stared down at a bra that was designed more for display than coverage—flame-colored lace and satin, pushing her breasts together in deeply shadowed cleavage. Her nipples were dusky circles enhanced by the lace.

  Bambi had left the building. Tempest Storm was on the case.

  He moved his fingers to the catch at the center of her bra, willing them not to tremble as he opened it. Her breasts spilled out, full and perfect, like ripe peaches. He filled his hands, rubbing his palms against the hard buttons of her nipples, feeling them peak.

  Her breath came faster. She reached for his shoulders, pushing his shirt down his arms, then smoothed her hands across his pecs, in a movement that mirrored his own.

  “Jesus,” he breathed, dropping his hands.

  She came to her knees, straddling his lap. Her breasts brushed against his chest. Draping her arms around his neck, she leaned forward, running the tip of her tongue along the edge of his collarbone, sending wetness and heat in a thin seam across his skin. The whispering touch of her lips, like rose petals, brushed over the hollow at the base of his throat.