Carolina Blues

by Virginia Kantra

  “For getting him to give himself up.”

  “Well, that,” Lauren said. “But mostly I think for the money.”

  Jack went very still, a black granite garden sculpture. “What money?”

  Crap. “It doesn’t matter. Don’t you have to go? I thought you had to take a report.”

  “It can wait.” Jack stuck his thumbs into his pockets, watching her. “Do you send that guy money, Lauren?”

  “Not him. Well, only a little. If it weren’t for Ben . . . Okay, that’s a little weird. But if it weren’t for what happened, I wouldn’t have any money. Did you know in prison they don’t even supply you with a full-size bar of soap?”

  Jack was silent.

  Lauren swallowed. “Mostly, I send it to Ben’s mother,” she offered.

  All around them the night pulsed with life, cicadas and tree frogs merrily getting it on in the dark.

  Lauren drew a shaky breath. This evening was so not going as planned. “What are you thinking?” she whispered.

  He shot her a dark look. “As a cop? Or as the guy who took you to bed?”

  “Are you ever not a cop?”

  “I wasn’t a cop last night,” he said, and she deflated, her frustration leaking away.

  “I’m sorry.” She hung her head. “I just . . .” Want you. I don’t want to fight.

  Jack wrapped his arms around her, his legs bracketing hers, his body solid and warm and right against her. With a sigh, she laid her head on his chest. Gradually, her tension drained away from her muscles and the back of her neck.

  “Let’s try this again.” His voice rumbled under her ear. “Hello, Lauren.”

  She smiled against his shirt, everything in her softening. Relaxing. “Hello, Jack.”

  He caught a strand of her hair between two fingers and pulled it carefully out of her face, stroking it back to blend with the rest of her hair. His hand lingered, cradling her skull against him. “Sorry I have to go.”

  She swallowed an unexpected lump in her throat. “Me, too.”

  “So, I’ll see you.”

  “Okay,” she whispered.

  “Tomorrow.”

  She nodded, pushing down her disappointment. Obviously, he couldn’t see her in the dark. But he could feel her head moving against his chest. And she could feel him, his hard man’s body, the muscles of his abdomen. “That would be good.”

  “Hell.” He exhaled against her hair. “Tomorrow’s Friday.”

  She raised her head. “Is that a problem?”

  “Weekend in a resort town, that’s all. It’s a full day. I probably can’t get away until late.”

  If I ever take a chance on another guy, Jane had said, it won’t be somebody who always puts his job ahead of me.

  That guy wasn’t Jack. That would never be Jack.

  But Lauren wasn’t Jane, either. She wasn’t struggling to balance her needs with the demands of a six-year-old child. She wasn’t living with her father. She didn’t need Jack to save her or to take care of her or to put her first.

  She was his rebound relationship, that’s all. Sure, he was a terrific guy. Yes, he’d come through for her last night. But she knew better than to put long-term expectations on a short-term relationship. They’d only known each other a week.

  He was simply a very pleasant detour on her way to someplace else.

  The thought was vaguely depressing.

  “Lauren?”

  She pulled herself together. “Late works for me,” she said. “I’ve got to work tomorrow anyway.”

  He raised an eyebrow. “Long bakery hours.”

  “Actually”—she lifted her chin—“I’m writing.”

  He smiled that little half smile that caused a warm, liquid rush in her knees. “Good for you.”

  She swallowed. “I don’t know if it’s good or not,” she confessed. “But at least I’m not standing around waiting for inspiration to strike.”

  He tilted his head to one side, considering her.

  All her doubts flamed into her face in one giant blush. She moistened her lips. “What?”

  He took her by the arms, his hands hard and just the right amount of rough, hauled her up onto her toes, and took her mouth with his.

  Her brain melted. Her heart pounded, shaking her from the inside. He was hot and hard and solid against her, and her body, already primed, fused against him like wax. Her nails dug into him as he gave and took and took some more.

  And then he let her go.

  His chest moved up and down. Her breathing was loud in the stillness.

  “What was that?” she asked when she could speak.

  His mouth quirked. “Inspiration?”

  She laughed shakily. His teasing felt warm and intimate as a kiss. She had the impression he didn’t joke very often. “Am I supposed to thank you now?”

  “Thank me tomorrow.”

  Anticipation swelled, a big, shiny soap bubble in her chest. “All right, I will.”

  She was still smiling as she went into the house.

  * * *

  THE NEXT DAY, Jack worked from an hour before sunrise until damn near sunset. Nothing like the job to put things in perspective.

  Four commercial alarms in the past five days had spooked the normally stolid islanders. His biggest challenge, as the new police chief, was to convince the residents to reach for the phone instead of a shotgun at the threat of an intruder. He spent several hours checking locks, doing drive-bys, and reassuring older residents like Dora Abrams that, yes, they were safe in their homes.

  Small-town police work was mostly a matter of learning patterns and routines, putting together a picture of the community that would tip you off when a piece was out of place or missing. So today he took his coffee breaks with the guys at Evans Tackle Store, chatting with the watermen in the predawn as they prepared to go out with their boats.

  “How’s that new dispatcher working out for you?” old Walt Rogers on the town board wanted to know.

  “Good, thanks.”

  “Marta? She sure is a looker,” Evans said.

  One of the other fishermen standing around the coffeepot chuckled knowingly. “I hear old Carl was sorry to see her go.”

  At ten o’clock, the retirees moved in to talk about the weather and their neighbors, who had money or needed some, whose kids were in trouble, who had a grudge or a wandering eye. Jack sipped his coffee, listened, volunteered the occasional comment or reassurance.

  He wasn’t avoiding Lauren, he told himself as he said his good-byes and headed back to his marked SUV.

  But maybe the interruption last night had been a good thing.

  He drove back to the station house. The coffee in his to-go cup left a bitter taste in his mouth.

  In the heat of the moment—Lauren, hot and slippery under him, wet and tight, gasping his name—a guy could be forgiven for losing his head. Especially when he hadn’t gotten laid in . . . He calculated the months. Way too long.

  Being married to another cop, he’d tried to preserve some semblance of a regular personal life, to compartmentalize work and home, to separate sex and the job. And on the island, he was never off the job.

  Jack knew cops who turned every call into a fucking opportunity. Badge bunnies, hot for anybody packing, druggies desperate to escape a charge, bored stay-at-homes who answered the door in nighties or nothing at all . . . There were guys who sampled whatever was on offer and bragged about it after.

  Not Jack. He was traditional, like his pop. Old-fashioned, Renee had called him, first affectionately and finally . . . Well, there hadn’t been much affection there at the end.

  So this thing with Lauren, this, what had she called it, rebound relationship, this singeing hot, rock-his-fucking-world sex with a woman he’d met a week ago, wasn’t him.

  But, Jesus, when he
was with her, when he was in her, when she looked up at him with those dark, perceptive eyes and yielded and trembled and came, again and again, it sure felt like him.

  He shook his head. Shook himself. So, yeah. Time to take a step back. Slow things down.

  The rest of his day was taken up with the usual end-of-week hassles, fender benders, lost dogs, lost keys, an altercation at the water park, a complaint about parked cars blocking a beach access.

  Marta, the new dispatcher, logged the complaints, soothed the callers, handled permits for parties and fires on the beach. He was glad he’d hired her, despite the fact that she and Hank had taken to bickering in the office like an old married couple.

  By the time Jack hunt-and-pecked his way through the last report, set calls to go to his cell phone, and got back to his boat, the sky over the water was turning pink.

  He needed a long hot shower and a tall cold beer to rinse away the stink of the day. Then maybe he’d have the distance he needed to deal with Lauren. Job here, sex there, everything in place, everything under control.

  Or almost under control.

  He opened the cabin door. The gray tabby cat shot from the galley counter, claws scrambling on the laminate, and dived under the table.

  Jack sighed. At least it hadn’t peed everywhere. The shelter volunteer had explained that the kitten would use the litter box instinctively to hide its scent from other predators. She hadn’t warned him about the climbing. Or told him that his new boat companion would scuttle under the furniture like a cockroach every time Jack walked into a room.

  Ignoring the cat, he stripped off his shirt and secured his weapon and utility belt in the onboard locker.

  The water beating on his neck relaxed him. It didn’t take much imagination to summon Lauren into the shower with him, her dark hair wet around her shoulders, her pretty breasts pebbled with drops, that intriguing sparkle against her bare belly . . .

  By the time he strode naked out of the shower and found his phone lit up like a Christmas tree, he was ready for her. Smiling, he picked up his cell phone, prepared to call her back.

  CALLER UNKNOWN, read the screen.

  And the area code was familiar. He frowned. Very familiar. He pressed to return the call, a funny feeling in the pit of his stomach. His cop’s instincts kicking in.

  “Jack?” said Renee’s voice.

  Too late.

  “How’d you get this number?” Jack said and then kicked himself for asking. Renee was a high-ranking police officer on a special security task force. She could get any number she wanted.

  “Your mother gave it to my mother.”

  That was worse. Ma had vehemently taken her son’s side over that cheating puttana he’d married. But their families had grown up together. Their mothers had served together on the parish altar guild for twenty years. If Renee’s mother had asked his mother . . . Yeah, Ma would have a hard time saying no. But it still stung.

  “What do you want?”

  “Jesus, Jack. I have to want something to give you a call?”

  “That’s usually how it works,” he said.

  She laughed. “How well you know me.” Her voice softened. “Maybe I just want to hear how you’re doing.”

  He waited for the familiar rush of anger. She had betrayed him. With his partner. And then used her connections to encourage him to resign. But the anger, once so dark and hot, felt pale and cold. Mostly he felt tired. Tired and very, very cautious.

  “Fine.”

  “Come on, Jack. I know you, too. I know that nothing-bothers-me voice. Tell me about the new job.”

  “It’s fine.”

  “That’s all? ‘Fine’? You used to be a little more enthusiastic about your work, Jack.”

  He used to be more enthusiastic about a lot of adrenaline-charged, high-risk behaviors. SWAT team. Detective squad. Marriage to Renee.

  “It suits me.”

  “Writing traffic tickets and busting underage parties in Mayberry? I find that hard to believe.”

  “Believe what you want,” he said. “I gotta go.”

  “Hot date?” she teased. Because, yeah, she did know him.

  “Yeah.”

  “Oh.” For the first time, she sounded uncertain.

  In the twelve years they were together, he’d never made a big deal out of Friday night. Dinner out on her birthday and their anniversary, weekends with her family or his . . . He’d assumed that was enough. Before the fights over dishes, laundry, having kids, before Frank, maybe that had been the problem—him assuming things.

  The thought made him uncomfortable.

  “You take care of yourself,” he said gently, and got off the phone.

  Maybe he should take Lauren out to dinner, he thought.

  On a Friday night? Good luck with that, pal. The local restaurants would all be slammed with vacationers out for one more seafood dinner before their rentals ended tomorrow. Even the pricey Brunswick wasn’t likely to have a table on such short notice.

  Though they’d probably make room for the chief of police. He could call.

  Jack paused with his shirt half over his head. What did it mean, that after one time with Lauren he was thinking of taking her to a candles-and-white-tablecloths kind of place?

  Nothing, he decided, and yanked the shirt on.

  He was hungry, that’s all.

  He stuffed his phone into his pocket, snagged a beer from the galley. The gray kitten crept from under the table and crouched by the door.

  Jack lowered the bottle. “I’m supposed to keep you in an enclosed space,” he told it. “Until you get used to me.”

  The cat fixed him with huge green-blue eyes and emitted a piercing mew.

  “You want to go outside, I have to hold you,” he warned. “You hate that.”

  A blink.

  “Yeah, that’s what you say now. Let’s see what you do when I try it.”

  He put down his beer. Crossed the salon. The little cat froze at the sound of his footsteps, cringed from the approach of his hand. He scooped it up anyway. It twisted—one second of clawing panic—and then, much to his surprise, collapsed bonelessly against him. Like a lapdog.

  Or a baby.

  He rubbed its chin with his thumb, undeniably flattered when a rusty purr vibrated from its throat. Jesus, he was pathetic. If he wasn’t careful, he was going to end up like one of those old ladies, living alone with thirty or forty cats for company.

  Maybe he should move back north, like his ma wanted him to do, take a job in security somewhere, let one of his sisters-in-law fix him up with one of her single friends, a nice Catholic girl from the neighborhood.

  He wasn’t looking for true love. Just somebody to share the loneliness and maybe raise a family with. He was thirty-eight years old, for Christ’s sake. He didn’t want to turn into one of those doddering dads on the sidelines, too old to teach his kids to throw a ball or ride a bike. Too out of it to know when they were screwing up.

  He grabbed his beer and carried the cat out on deck.

  Somebody was biking along the wharf on one of the heavy tourist bikes. A woman. Lauren, wobbling along on big fat tires with a bright pink basket, her skirt working its way up her thighs as she pumped along.

  She had great legs, firm and smooth and lightly golden, and her dark hair lifted in the breeze from the sea, and everything inside him lifted, too.

  She skidded to a halt at the edge of the dock, bracing herself with both feet, trying to balance the weight of her basket. What the hell did she have in there?

  She tilted her head, studying his face, like she wasn’t sure of her welcome. “Hi.”

  He was so glad to see her that his throat constricted. He unglued his tongue from the roof of his mouth. “Hi.”

  Those wide, dark eyes narrowed a fraction. “Everything all right?”

&nb
sp; My ex-wife called, he thought of saying, but that seemed like a lousy opening to an evening that suddenly looked much better. Especially when Lauren had biked all the way out here to see him. Why ruin the mood? “Fine.”

  Her look said she wasn’t buying his answer, not completely, but instead of challenging him, she smiled. “I brought dinner. Mind if I come aboard?”

  He set down his beer. “Let me give you a hand.”

  “I’ve got it.” Her gaze dropped to where he cradled the cat with one hand against his chest. Her face got all soft. “Aw. You still have the kitty.”

  He nodded.

  She unstraddled the bike—her skirt hiked up even more, very nice—and kicked at the stand. “I thought you were giving it to someone to take to the shelter.”

  He shrugged, embarrassed. “Yeah, well, the volunteer was busy, so . . .”

  “So you had no choice. You had to adopt it.” Her tone was teasing, but her eyes were warm. “What a—”

  “Sucker?” he suggested.

  “I was going to say nice guy, but I know you don’t like that word.”

  He looked away, a smile tugging the corners of his mouth.

  She hauled two bags from the bike basket and approached the boat. The plastic handles fluttered in the wind, startling the kitten, who squirmed.

  Jack adjusted his hold. “Easy, tiger.”

  Lauren smiled. “That’s her name? Tiger?”

  He hesitated. Glanced down at the stripes, gray on gray. Sure, why not? “His name.” He’d checked. “Yeah.”

  She arched a brow. “Big name for a little cat.”

  “A guy’s gotta dream.”

  He took the bags from her with one hand, setting them on deck, and then helped her aboard. Her hand was warm and firm in his. She smelled good, sun-warmed and sexy. There was a moment when he held her hand and her gaze met his, when he could have kissed her.

  And then she bent to fuss with the bags at her feet, and the moment was lost. When she straightened, her face was pink and she didn’t quite meet his eyes. Damn.

  “Let me put Tiger here in the cabin,” he said. “What can I get you to drink?”

  “I brought wine.” She glanced at the Carolina Lager on the table. “But if you’d rather have beer—”