“Nah.” Jerry padded over to the couch and sat down beside her. The cushions sagged beneath his weight. He was fifty-one, a retired Biloxi police officer who had been divorced for ten years. He wasn’t handsome—he had a bald head and a beer belly, and he wasn’t much over five foot nine—but he was kind. Marla had met him when she had first arrived in Biloxi, desperate, and had been forced to resort to standing on a street corner to turn a few quick tricks to feed her kid. He had almost arrested her, but instead had taken pity on her, lent her fifty dollars, and driven her back to the car where she was living with Lissy. He’d helped her get on her feet, and she had repaid him with sex, gratis, whenever he’d wanted it. When he’d left Biloxi almost two years before, neither had ever expected to see the other again. Yet there they were.
She’d told him the whole story, from the moment she had driven Susan and Claire to the Biloxi Yacht Club to how it came about that she ended up on his doorstep. He’d been skeptical when she had claimed that everybody who knew that Susan and Claire got on that boat seemed to have disappeared, or died. He’d even been skeptical that a man was out there who wanted to kill her.
But he had promised to check it out. In the meantime, if she was scared to go back to Biloxi, she and Lissy could stay with him. Sooner or later they would get the whole thing sorted out. That had been almost three weeks earlier.
Marla had taken him up on his offer because she trusted him. She trusted him to use his police contacts to track down the man who had killed Susan, probably Claire, and the Lord only knew who else, and who was now after her. She trusted him to keep her and Lissy safe while he did it. And she trusted him to keep his mouth shut about her doubtful custody of Lissy.
“You want something to eat?” Marla uncurled her legs preparatory to standing up.
Jerry glanced at her. A faint smile curved his lips, from one of Letterman’s lame jokes, Marla thought.
“After that supper you cooked tonight? I’m still stuffed full as a tick on a dog,” he said, patting his ample belly.
“I’ll get you a beer if you want.” She was still poised to rise.
Jerry frowned. “You don’t have to wait on me.”
“I don’t mind.”
“Look, Marla.” Jerry was focused completely on her now, rather than splitting his attention between her and the TV. “I’m not gonna kick you and the kid out no matter what. You don’t have to jump every time I break wind.”
“I don’t—” Marla stopped, because that was just what she had been doing since he had taken them in. If he wouldn’t help them, they had no one else to turn to, and she was acutely aware of that.
“You do,” Jerry said quietly. “I’m helping you as a friend, Marla, not so you’ll cook and clean and do laundry and wait on me hand and foot when I’m in the house.”
Marla was quiet for a moment, just looking at him. When she spoke, it was around the lump in her throat.
“You’re a good man, Jerry Fineman,” she said softly, and smiled at him. Then she slid off the couch onto her knees facing him and reached for the zipper on his pants.
She meant to thank him in the one way she knew he wouldn’t turn down.
Chapter
32
WHEN RONNIE FINALLY OPENED HER EYES, Tom was lying on top of her, sated, and heavier than she had thought it was possible for him to be. His arms were around her, his face buried in the curve between her shoulder and her neck, his body still joined to hers.
Turning her head, she kissed his bristly cheek.
“Tom,” she said. “I’m freezing. Let’s move.”
He stirred then, and lifted his head to look down at her. His eyes gleamed at her for a moment, and then he smiled.
“You,” he said, “are the most beautiful thing I have ever seen in my life, and the sexiest, and the sweetest-smelling. I could make love to you all night long. How can you possibly be cold at a time like this?”
She could feel him stirring inside her. Far from being spent, his entire body seemed to be regrouping. Beneath her hands, she could feel the bunching of his shoulder muscles. His thighs stretched and then tensed between hers. He took a deep breath, and she could feel him waking up, and hardening, everywhere.
“I’m not cold, I’m freezing.” She shivered to prove it. “We’re lying in a puddle. The air conditioner’s blasting.”
“You weren’t cold a few minutes ago.”
“I can’t believe you aren’t cold.”
“Darlin’, you make me so hot I may never feel cold again.”
Ronnie eyed him. “ ‘Darlin’,’ huh? I like the way you say that, all soft and drawling: ‘da-arlin.’ ”
His smile widened. “Let’s hear you say it, if you think you can do it better.”
“Darling.”
“Too cold and clipped, real northern-sounding, almost hostile. Try saying Tom first.”
“Tom, darling.”
“Better.” He was starting to move inside her again. “That softens it up some. Try one more time.”
“Tom, darling.”
“Keep practicing, you’ll get it.” Fully aroused now, he was pressing her hips down into the mat, supporting the weight of his upper body on his elbows, watching her face as he went deep, then pulled slowly out.
“Tom, darling.” It was almost a gasp.
“You’re getting real good.”
Bending his head, he caught her nipple in his mouth and suckled it as his body moved slowly in and out. Clutching at his shoulders, Ronnie lost the thread of the conversation.
When she resurfaced a second time, still pinned by his body to the mat, the temperature in the room was the same as it had been before: freezing.
“Tom,” she said plaintively in his ear. “There’s a bed in the other room. With covers.”
He turned his head to nibble at her neck. “Are you still complaining? All right then, let’s move.”
With more energy than she expected to feel ever again in her life, he got lithely to his feet, catching her hand and pulling her up with him. For a moment they stood facing each other, both naked, bathed in the moonlight that poured through the door. Their eyes met, and he smiled at her. Ronnie leaned into him, resting against the broad strength of his chest, her arms wrapping around his waist.
This is Tom, she thought, savoring the knowledge. All the daydreams, the night dreams, the fantasies she’d had about him were coming true.
His arms came around her, hugging her tight. They were warm, and strong, and welcome for both reasons. She was sure she had goose bumps on every inch of her body from the air-conditioning, and her bones felt about as solid as instant pudding.
“You have got the most incredible ass,” he said, his hands sliding down to cup the portion of her anatomy he praised, “by the way.”
A faint, shrill beeping startled them both. Tom’s hands left her rump. It took only a second to identify the sound as coming from his watch. He pressed a button on it, and it was silent.
“Must be waterproof,” Ronnie said with a touch of humor.
“Looks like it.”
“What time is it?”
He lifted his arm to the light. “Three a.m. What time you figure you need to be back before they send somebody looking for you?”
“I don’t know. Dawn?” She pushed away from him and started walking toward the bedroom. “What time is that?”
“About five-thirty,” he said, his voice crisper than it had been all night. “Better say a little earlier, to be safe.”
The bedroom opened directly off the exercise room. To reach the bed that occupied the far wall took just a minute. It was a daybed, a single, made up with an antique quilt that reached the floor, and piled high with decorative pillows. For as long as Ronnie had been making use of the pool house, no one had ever slept in it. Nevertheless it was kept ready.
“Can you turn the air-conditioning off? The thermostat’s over there on the wall,” she said over her shoulder, sweeping the decorative pillows onto the floor.
“I see it.”
She glanced at him. He had found the thermostat on the wall between the bedroom and exercise room with the aid of the tiny red light that announced its presence, and was turning the air-conditioning off. By mutual if unspoken agreement, neither of them even considered turning on a light. Not that they really needed one. Between the sliding glass door and the small, uncurtained casement window over the bed, they could see well enough.
“So this particular Cinderella turns into a pumpkin at dawn, not midnight,” he said, his voice still crisper than she liked, as he walked toward her.
“It was the coach that turned into a pumpkin, not Cinderella,” Ronnie corrected, hoping that if she ignored the crisp tone it would go away. She climbed into the bed and pulled the covers up around her neck.
“Same thing.”
Ronnie’s gaze ran over him as he reached the bed, and a small smile curved her lips. Just the sight of him naked was enough to curl her toes.
She had a sudden thought, and tossed the covers back so that she could slide out of bed.
“What?” He frowned down at her.
“If you don’t want to have to get back into a sopping-wet tux, it needs to go into the dryer.”
“I’ll do it. Get back under the covers. I told you, I’m not cold.” He turned and left the room, affording Ronnie an excellent view of a wide back and a small, tight rear. The red marks her nails had made on his back showed up faintly through the dark. Remembering how she had come to put them there, she gave a little shiver of pleasure, and scooted back under the covers. She was bundled up in bed again when he called, “Where’s the dryer?”
“In the bathroom.”
A few minutes later she heard the thud of the dryer door and then the steady hum of the machine.
“I hope it doesn’t shrink,” he said, coming back into the room.
“I don’t think it will,” Ronnie answered with a flickering grin. “However, depending on what it’s made out of, it might melt.”
“Great.” Tom slid into bed beside her, the mattress depressing under his weight. Ronnie moved over to make room for him, then as he got settled, snuggled close against his side. He lay on his back, his head on their single pillow. His body radiated welcome heat, and it was big and hard. His long, solidly muscled legs and arms and the center of his chest were rough with hair. Before they were comfortable his arm was around her, and her head rested on his shoulder. One of her arms curved across his chest. Her fingers stroked idly through his chest hair.
“Oh, my!” With a start, Ronnie thought of something else. “Do you suppose your girlfriend is still here?”
“I sent Diane home in a taxi before I ever headed up to the house.” Tom’s voice was dry. “I told her something urgent had come up at work and I had to head for the airport immediately.”
“Oh.” Ronnie glanced up at him. “Quite the creative liar, aren’t we?”
“When I have to be.”
“Are you going to see her again anytime soon?”
“Not as soon as you’re going to see your husband, believe me.”
Ronnie sighed, her fingers stilling on his chest. “You’re regretting this, aren’t you?”
“Regretting what? That you’re lying here naked in my arms?” He shook his head, and slanted a crooked smile down at her. “Darlin’, making love to you is as close as I ever expect to get to heaven in my life. How could I regret it?”
“You do. I can tell.”
“I don’t regret anything.” He shifted so that they were lying facing each other. Her head rested on his upper arm now, rather than his shoulder. Her hands were splayed against his chest. She tested the resilience of the muscle there, lightly kneading his skin without even being aware that she was doing so. Her hair had long since fallen; it fanned across his arm and the pillow in a ripple of silken waves. He picked up a strand, rubbing it between his thumb and forefinger as though to weigh the texture. “You remember when we were talking about the other woman? Well, I’m just not sure I’m cut out to be the other man.”
“Tom …,” Ronnie began, frowning.
“Hush,” he said, and kissed her.
By the time five o’clock came around, they were both sated and drowsy.
“Time to get up,” Tom said, sliding a hand down her back to squeeze her bottom. She was stretched on top of him, her head pillowed on his chest, her legs curled around his. Tilting her head, she looked up at him, sleepy-eyed.
“I’m too exhausted to move,” she muttered.
His lips curved in a wry smile. “I’m glad to hear it. It’s what you deserve, for keeping me up all night.”
“I kept you up?” Ronnie was too tired to sound properly indignant at the charge.
“All right. It was mutual. So we both get to pay for it by spending a cranky Sunday with no sleep.”
Ronnie groaned. “I have a tennis game at noon.”
“With Michael?” His voice was crisp again.
Ronnie wriggled up his body just far enough to be able to plop a quick kiss on his mouth. “You know how I can tell when you don’t like something? You lose your drawl,” she told him. “Your voice goes all cold and clipped, kind of northern-sounding. Almost hostile.” With a teasing grin she paraphrased the words he had used to describe her speech earlier.
“I feel hostile,” he said, the humor that laced her voice completely absent from his. “So are you playing tennis with that Michael guy?”
“Michael is the husband of a really close friend of mine, Kathy Blount.” One look at his face persuaded Ronnie that this was not a good moment for kidding him about jealousy. “She and her brother—they were junior tennis champions in high school or something—play mixed doubles against Michael and me. They always beat us—well, nine times out of ten. And that is the only playing I do with Michael. When he walked down to the pool house to get me that day, Kathy was waiting outside in the car.”
“Oh.”
“Yes, oh.”
“You deliberately tried to make me think different at the time.”
“At the time you deserved what you got.”
“Oh, yeah?”
“Yeah.”
They eyed each other, and then his expression softened into a reluctant grin.
“I probably did,” he admitted. His arms tightened around her, and he rolled so that she was under him. Then he kissed her.
By the time they got out of bed, it was closer to six than five. They dressed hurriedly, Ronnie in the bicycle shorts and T-shirt she kept at the pool house to exercise in and Tom in his dry but wrinkled tux, with the tie and cumberbund rolled up and stuck in one pocket. Ronnie then went out to collect the clothes she had worn the night before from beside the pool. She would leave the things in the closet in the pool house, to be smuggled up to the big house later on. It would be safer, she had decided, to go inside in her exercise clothes, so that if anyone saw her, she could simply claim to have been working out. Either very early, or very late, depending on whether or not anyone knew she had not come in the night before.
Sneaking around was a new experience for her, and she didn’t particularly like it. Not a word of her feelings did she mention to Tom, however. She knew how he felt on the subject, and she had no desire to reawaken the issue with him again.
“Come on, I’ll walk you up to the house.” Tom was standing behind her in the bedroom doorway as she turned from stowing her dress in the closet. His shirt was buttoned only halfway up, and he needed a shave. He looked so sexy that she felt her insides warming up all over again from just looking at him. His mouth quirked up at her in a wry smile. “Partway anyway.”
Without even thinking about it, their fingers intertwined as they followed the shrubbery-lined brick path to the house. It was growing light, though the sun was not yet up. Dew was brushed from the vine-laden bushes onto their clothes with their passage. The sweet scent of honeysuckle was released with the dew. The air was very still, as though Sedgely had not yet awakened.
They stopped just before they reached the driveway, under a huge old oak dripping with gray festoons of Spanish moss. Ronnie looked at the big white mansion before her, at the trees and shrubs and flower beds that surrounded it in cared-for profusion, at the partly visible tents, at the darkened Japanese lanterns and smoky-topped, burned-out torches and other reminders of the party so recently over. Everything she saw spoke silently of wealth, and gentility, and a life of luxurious ease.
Then she turned to look at Tom.
“I’ve got to go in,” she said.
“I know.”
“Will you come by later?”
His hand tightened on hers. “I have to catch a plane at two.”
“Oh, no!” Ronnie felt as if the air had suddenly been sucked from her lungs. “Where are you going?”
“To Nevada, and then California, and then Tennessee. I only flew home for the party.”
The idea of parting from him was suddenly almost unbearable. “How long are you going to be gone?”
“A week probably.”
“A week!” The way she said it, it might as well have been a year.
“Think you’re going to miss me?”
“Oh, Tom!” The way she said it could have left him in no doubt. Turning toward him, she went up on tiptoe to wrap her arms around his neck.
He kissed her, briefly but thoroughly, and lifted his head. Then, as their gazes met, he kissed her again.
Finally he put her away from him. “Go on in,” he said. “I’ll call you. I’m going to be traveling around too much for you to call me.”
“Tom …”
“Go on. It’s getting light.”
It was. The sun was coming up now, painting the eastern sky in ever-brightening layers of pink and lavender. There was nothing else to do. She had to go in. But leaving him there in the shadow of the big oak was one of the hardest things Ronnie had ever done in her life.
Chapter
33
RONNIE WAS BUSY OVER THE NEXT FEW DAYS. She had campaign appearances and board meetings and luncheons and dinners to attend. They would be moving back to Washington on the Friday after Labor Day, so she had to prepare for that as well. For the first time ever, the thought of leaving Sedgely for the more cosmopolitan pleasures of the Capitol brought with it a twinge of regret. Always before, she had eagerly counted the days.
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