And suddenly all those fears I’d had about the two of us ever being more than just work partners flooded my mind. I couldn’t deny how crazy I was about him, but I couldn’t lose him from my life if a romance went bad either. Alex meant too much to me to let that happen.
So even though I wanted nothing more at that moment than to feel his lips on mine kissing me again, I pulled away and pretended he hadn’t just made me the happiest person in all of Sunset Ridge.
“I better get inside. My father is expecting me to cook dinner for him, and I don’t want to let him down.”
The disappointment in Alex’s eyes was unmistakable, and for a moment I wanted to crawl into a hole and hide so I wouldn’t have to see him looking at me like that. I was crazy about him, and he had finally shown he cared about me too. I should have been inviting him in to have dinner instead of pushing him away, but I couldn’t.
The fear of losing him entirely from my life was stronger than the fear of never having him kiss me like that again.
“Oh, okay. Tell him I said hi. I’d planned on heading over to the bar tonight for a drink, so I’ll probably just see him later,” he said in a casual tone I knew was forced.
“His pipes broke, so you’ll have to get your scotch at another bar tonight. I don’t think McGuire’s will be open for a couple days, from what he said the plumber told him.”
“Oh, well. I’ll just have to go someplace else in the meantime.”
An awkwardness settled in between us that I knew was all my fault. In his eyes, I saw all I had to do was push that fear of losing him aside and take a chance and he’d be right there taking it with me.
I couldn’t, though. He meant too much to me to have none of him at all in my life, so I’d take the work partnership and try to be happy with that.
“See you tomorrow at The Grounds?” I asked like I always did at the end of the day.
He forced a smile and nodded. “Tomorrow at The Grounds. I’ll be the cop in the chair facing the door at the table in the back. Right now, I’m going to go get our killer and put this case to bed finally.”
For a second, I wanted to protest him going without me, but it was for the better. I’d had a pretty full day and didn’t need any more excitement. I moved to turn toward my house, and Alex’s hands slid from my face, leaving my skin feeling cold without his touch. This was for the best, though. If we were only partners, I didn’t have to worry about messing up and losing him.
Chapter Nineteen
I opened my kitchen door and stepped into the darkness of my house as I yelled, “Dad! You didn’t fall asleep on me already, did you?”
Tossing my purse on the table, I felt along the wall for the switch for the ceiling light. I turned it on and instantly understood why my father had sounded so strange on the phone just a few minutes earlier.
“Lock the door and walk into the living room,” Jack said in a low voice, punctuating his command with the awful click of the hammer being pulled back on his gun.
I did as he ordered and he followed me, the gun pressed into my back between my shoulder blades. Every tiny movement reminded me that at any moment he might shoot me like he had his brother and sister-in-law.
Two steps into the living room, and I saw a sight that made my heart ache. The dim light from the end table lamp showed my father lay unconscious on the floor near the very couch Jack and I had sat on together just a few nights earlier. The absence of blood made me hope he hadn’t shot him but merely knocked him out.
“Please tell me you didn’t kill him. He never did anything to you, Jack. Please tell me he’s okay.”
Spinning me around, Jack thrust the gun toward my face and shook his head. “I’m not a monster. Joe’s okay. I wouldn’t hurt someone who didn’t deserve it.”
His words hit me like a brick to my head. “And I deserve to be hurt? Is that what you mean, Jack?”
“I kept hoping you would settle on Cherise for the murder. You and that damn cop!”
I slowly lowered myself to the couch and looked down at my father on the floor. He would be okay, and it was probably better that he didn’t see his only child being held at gunpoint by the man he thought should be her next boyfriend.
Jack’s eyes flashed a wildness I wasn’t sure I could talk my way out of. Logic certainly wasn’t going to save me, so maybe its opposite would.
“You at least owe me some answers if you’re going to kill me.”
He thought about it for a moment and nodded. “Okay, I’ll answer your questions. It’s not like it’s going to matter in the end. I’m not going to let you drag this out for hours in the hopes that someone will come by and save you, though. That’s not going to happen.”
And then the horror of what would really happen to my father flashed through my mind. “Oh my God! You’re going to kill him after you kill me, aren’t you?”
My outburst made him recoil in disgust. “Christ, you’re an emotional one. He won’t know a thing. He’ll just never wake up.”
He said that like he was graciously giving my father a gift. My head began to spin as my emotions threatened to overwhelm me. I would never get to tell my father I loved him again. Never get married and be a mother to that little girl I’d always dreamed of. Never tell Alex how I truly felt about him.
Alex! If only I hadn’t basically shoved him away after he kissed me, none of this would be happening.
Well, if all I had was myself, I needed to start thinking and fast. Best to at least make an appeal for my life. No, it had never worked for even a single person on the planet in all of history, but there was a first time for everything and I had to at least try.
“Jack, you don’t have to do this. If you leave right now, you could probably be out of the country by the time the sun rises. I know Alex doesn’t plan to do anything until tomorrow. You can get away.”
My attempt only garnered a sinister grin and a head shake. “If this was only about me, I would have been gone a long time ago. I would have disappeared into thin air like I can do so well. But there’s someone I can’t leave behind again.”
I sat there as his expression softened at the mention of this someone else. Only a woman could make a man look like Jack did at that moment, so I asked, “Which one are you in love with?”
“Which one? Isn’t it obvious?”
Confused, I shook my head. “No, but then again, I thought you liked me, so I might be the wrong person to try to figure this out. But I wouldn’t put it past you to shoot a woman you cared about.”
Jack sat down in front of me on the ottoman and leaned his elbows on his knees, still pointing the gun at my head but almost relaxed, as if he wanted to talk to me like a friend would. I didn’t care what he wanted to talk about as long as he talked. The longer he let me live, the better chance I had of getting my father and me out of that house alive.
“It’s not that I didn’t like you, Poppy. You’re sweet and funny, and the sex wasn’t bad.”
His tepid compliment brought out my snarky side. “Thanks. You were okay too.”
Waving the gun in front of my face, he said, “You know I had a feeling your heart wasn’t entirely in it. That’s why I said it wasn’t bad. It wasn’t meant as a reason for you to insult me.”
“Fine. You were better than okay, if we’re being honest,” I admitted, hating that I wasn’t lying. He had been pretty good. Bad men usually were good in bed.
He smiled broadly, brightening his face. “See? We had a good time, even if we both were thinking of other people. What’s the saying—if you can’t sleep with the one you love, love the one you sleep with? I didn’t love you, but a good time is sort of the same thing.”
I was pretty sure that saying didn’t exist other than in his crazy mind, but I didn’t think arguing over something like that was in my best interest. Better to get him to talk about his crime in the hope that if I kept him talking long enough maybe Alex would come by.
Not that he ever really dropped by and my brushing him off a
few minutes earlier likely meant the last thing he’d want to do that night would be stopping by to see me.
“So who is she?” I asked, hoping for one of the few times in my life that anyone, even one of the town busybodies, would feel the need to come knocking on my door.
His hands moved expressively while he talked, making the gun wave as he spoke about this woman he loved. “Have you ever met someone and instantly knew you belonged with them? That’s how it was for me. The first time I saw her I knew. Every time I looked into her eyes, I felt like I was home, like I finally had a place I belonged in the world.”
With each word, my curiosity grew. Who was this person he so desperately loved and why wasn’t he with her instead of sleeping with me for the past few days?
I opened my mouth to once again ask who she was, but a knock on my front door stopped me cold. I turned toward the sound as every muscle in my body ached to run in that direction. Jack leapt from the ottoman and grabbed my arm, pulling me to the door as he stood off to the side.
“Answer it and tell whoever it is to go away or I’ll make you watch me kill your father. Do you understand?” His threat was made more intense when he painfully squeezed my bicep, making me whimper in pain.
I nodded and slowly opened the door just a crack to see the one person I’d asked God to send to me that night. Alex stood on my porch in jeans and a grey long sleeve t-shirt with a look on his face that told me he wanted to talk and he didn’t plan to leave unless we did.
“Alex, I’m surprised to see you. I’m busy, but I’ll see you tomorrow at the Madison Diner like we planned, right?”
“I was hoping we could sit down and talk tonight, Poppy. I think we need to.”
He hadn’t picked up on my hint that something was wrong, probably because what he wanted to talk about—that kiss—was preoccupying his thoughts. If I wasn’t being held at gunpoint with the threat of my death and my father’s and how to prevent both of them taking up every square inch of my brain, I likely would have been thinking about our kiss too.
Jack whispered low in my ear, “Tell him you’re here with me and then shut the door.”
“I can’t right now. I’m here with Jack,” I told Alex as I worked to make my eyes project the truth I couldn’t say.
“Jack? You’re with Jack after what happened just a few minutes ago?” he asked in a voice full of hurt. He hadn’t picked up on the true meaning beneath my expression, unfortunately.
Behind me, Jack forced the gun into my back and squeezed harder on my upper arm. I wanted to cry, but I couldn’t without risking three lives now, so I stifled my tears and simply nodded. “I promise we can talk at the Madison tomorrow morning.”
Alex stared at me for a long moment before mouthing the words, “Step away from the door when I push on it.”
He had understood something was wrong!
“Okay, Poppy. I’ll see you in the morning.”
I felt the gun move away from my back, and then all at once I saw Alex launch at the door. I quickly moved out of the way as much as I could as the door slammed back into Jack’s face. He reacted by tightening his hold on my arm and yanking me back with him so that in just a matter of seconds, the three of us stood there in my foyer, Jack holding me to him as he pointed the gun at my head and Alex pointing his gun at Jack.
“Let her go and you might not get hurt,” Alex warned him.
Laughing, Jack shook his head. “Now neither one of you is getting out of this. Your gun will be used to kill her and then you. Murder-suicide. The crime solving buddies dying together on their last case.”
I suddenly feared Jack more than ever after hearing his plan and struggled against his hold to get away. Alex seemed far less flustered than I was, though.
“That’s not how it’s going to happen,” he calmly warned. “If you don’t let her go, the only person dying here tonight will be you.”
“We seem to be at an impasse, except I have the bargaining chip and you have nothing,” Jack threatened as he dragged me in front of him and repositioned the gun next to my head. “The way I see it, I’m the one who’s going to be calling the shots here.”
I waited for Alex to return with his own clever threat, but he simply looked from Jack to me and then back at him again. I guess there was no point in claiming he could do something to help me when it was more than obvious he couldn’t, but I had to believe a little more manly bluster in my defense would have been nice.
“Was that how it was with you and Lee, Jack? You never got what you wanted as long as he was around so you left to see the world, a world where he wasn’t always there?” Alex finally asked, surprising me since I had no idea what he meant.
Jack knew, though. I felt him tense up next to me when Alex mentioned Lee by name and even more when he talked about him not getting what he wanted.
“Don’t talk about him to me! You don’t know what it was like. He came first in life and then in everything after. Whatever he wanted, he got. I swear he was charmed. Even he began to think he could do no wrong, but that wasn’t true. He had feet of clay just like everyone else.”
Alex nodded like he understood what he was talking about. “When did you realize you loved her, Jack?”
I turned to look up at him and saw that dreamy look he’d had earlier when he talked about the woman he loved. A tiny smile tugged the corners of his mouth up, and I finally heard her name.
“The first time I met her. My brother introduced me to Jessica and I knew from the moment I looked into her eyes that I loved her. She was everything I’d ever dreamed of, and she was marrying my brother. Once again, he got whatever he wanted.”
“He loved her. I’ve found no evidence he wasn’t the best husband he could be for her,” Alex said calmly as he took a step further into the living room and quickly looked around to see my father still lying unconscious on the floor.
“He was too old for her, too calm. He didn’t know how to have fun. Jessica’s a woman who needs excitement in her life,” Jack said to counter the kind things Alex had said about Lee.
Alex stared at me as he spoke to him, and I knew what he was trying to do. If he could lull Jack into distraction, I could take a chance and try to get away. If that was going to happen, though, Alex had to get him far more relaxed because he still had his gun pointed at my head.
“Why not just tell her how you felt? She may have secretly loved you.”
“I did. Right before they married, I told her how I felt—how she was all I ever thought about. How I would have done anything to have her in my life. I told her everything in my heart, and she told me she wished things could be different because she cared for me too. We’d never even kissed, and we loved each other. But Lee had the kind of money she needed to feel safe and secure, so she couldn’t walk away from him. She’d always dreamed of living the life of her dreams, and I couldn’t deny her that. So I walked away and devoted my time to my career so one day I’d have enough money and prestige to give her the life she wanted. I never stopped loving her, though. Never.”
His words struck me dumbfounded. I had no inkling Jack Reynolds had any feelings like he talked about for anyone. He’d been the glib world traveler, usually bragging about something he’d done or someplace he’d traveled to. I’d never seen any hint of the man who stood next to me professing his love for the only woman he couldn’t have.
Alex looked surprised by what he said too. Studying him like he was someone he hadn’t seen before, he took a minute or so to let his words sink in and then asked, “So you planned his murder for years?”
“Every day I spent away from her I waited for the moment when I could return to her and say I could finally give her what she wanted. But I didn’t plan on killing my brother. If only he would have just seen he didn’t belong with her.”
For the first time, I saw my chance to appeal to this new side of Jack. Quietly, I said, “If you didn’t intend for him to die and were just defending yourself, then you really can’t be blamed for his
death. You and Jessica can still be together if you let me go right now. It’s not too late, Jack.”
He smiled like something I’d said amused him and chuckled. “You’re definitely the naïve one, Poppy. No, I didn’t plan to kill him, but I wasn’t defending myself either. Your partner can tell you that.”
I knew by where he’d shot Lee that he hadn’t been defending himself when his brother died, but it was worth a try. His feelings for Jessica might still help us, though, so I had to try to manipulate him with them.
“Don’t you want to finally have a chance to be with the woman you love?”
He got a wistful look in his eyes and said, “More than you can ever know. When I finally knew I had enough to give Jessica the life she deserved, I told her. I never expected her to tell me she loved me back and wanted the two of us to run away together. I don’t think I ever heard sweeter words than that day when she told me she loved me.”
Jack stopped for a moment but still he didn’t loosen his hold on me as he talked about finally being with Jessica. “We began meeting and talked it over each time she came to see me. After a while, I decided I would approach my brother and tell him the truth. That I loved Jessica and wanted him to give her up. But then I was sent on assignment for six months. The whole time I was gone, I missed her so much, but after two months she told me she found a way to speed things up so we could be together.”
Alex said, “She began poisoning Lee with eye drops, but all that did to him was make his stomach upset.”
Jack sighed. “Jessica never wanted to kill him. She isn’t the smartest woman in the world, but that’s not why I love her. Don’t drag her into this.”
Alex nodded and pretended to agree to Jack’s first term. “Fine. Jessica will stay out of this. Just let Poppy go and we can talk about what happened.”
I looked up at Jack hoping he might go for Alex’s offer, but it was as if Jack didn’t even hear him. He began talking about when he returned from being on assignment and they continued their relationship once more.
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