Living in Monroe had been hard for him, and Sunshine was hard for Hannah. There was no one to date, certainly no one to fall in love with and marry, no one to merely be friends with. There was not much chance of a future different from her immediate past, just a lifetime of hard work, little money and no one but her ill mother and old people who desperately needed her.
Where would she have gone? What would she have done? He doubted that she knew, just so long as it was different. But if she’d been able to live her dreams, he would have missed meeting her. He would have missed the best night of sex he’d ever experienced. Then he would have had regrets.
As a trickle of sweat slid down his back, he realized that it had grown uncomfortably warm in the truck. Pulling the flashlight from under the seat, he got out. By the time he reached the end of the flagstone path that led to the steps, Hannah was beside him. She retrieved the key from under the doormat and handed it to him. In spite of the heat, her fingers were cool and clammy.
He opened the door and was reaching for the light switch when she stopped him. “Brad said he can see the place from the house he rented. If he’s there and he sees lights over here...”
“He’s probably still in Oklahoma City.”
“But we don’t know that for sure.” She left his side and disappeared into the darkness, leaving only a trail of small sounds for him to track her movement. Soon he heard the metallic stirring of venetian blinds, followed by the rustle of drawn curtains. Then she reappeared. “That should help hide the flashlight.”
He flashed the powerful beam around the room. This was the living room, dining room and kitchen all in one, and it filled half the house. The other half was bedrooms, three of them, with a single bathroom to share.
Dust floated on the air and collected on every flat surface the light skimmed across, including the wood floor. The room was warm and stuffy, as if it’d been shut up too long. Out of curiosity he went to the kitchen sink and turned a handle. No water came out. He turned a burner on the gas stove. No pilot light, no flame, no smell of gas. He turned the switch on a lamp. No light.
“He’s had everything shut off since I was here,” Hannah whispered.
“Yeah.” He flashed the light on the refrigerator. It was pulled out from the wall and unplugged, with the door propped open. It looked as if it’d been that way for a long long time. The trash can in the kitchen corner was empty and coated with dust. “Which bedroom did you use?”
She led the way to the back room, the one with a view of the lake. The bed was stripped bare, and the dust was heavy. The room looked exactly like the two bedrooms that had gone unused. So did the bathroom.
Without a word, Hannah turned and walked out of the cabin. Mick returned the curtains and blinds to their former positions, locked up and put the key back, then sat down on the steps beside her.
“As long as I cooperate with Brad,” she said softly, “his friend in Tulsa will support my alibi. But if he decides he can’t trust me, the alibi’s blown. And if I try to tell the sheriff the truth, well, that’s blown, too. He’ll take one look at this place and believe that no one’s been here in months. He’ll think that I was supposed to be your alibi and you were supposed to be mine, but in fact, we killed Sandra together. And Brad will help him reach that conclusion by telling him that we’d been having an affair, that I was pressuring you to get rid of Sandra without letting her take all your money.”
Mick didn’t say anything.
“So what do we do?”
“We find proof that Brad killed her and set the fire.”
“And how do we do that?”
“I don’t know. It would help if he had a motive for killing Sandra, other than simply getting rid of me. Look at him. He comes from a powerful, highly respected family. He’s charming, intelligent, likable. He’s never been in any trouble, never even had a speeding ticket. No one’s going to believe that he would cold-bloodedly murder an innocent woman just so he could force her husband out of a business partnership.”
In the silence that followed, lightning split the western sky. This time a low rumble of thunder accompanied it. Maybe they would get that storm, after all. He wished it would come right now, wished he could stand out in it and get washed away with all its force and fury. He wished it would sweep him up like a tornado and take him away to someplace where his problems couldn’t follow.
Where Hannah could.
“Why were you getting a divorce?”
He glanced at her. Once again she was staring into the woods at images he couldn’t see. “You mean the fact that she hated the sight of me wasn’t enough?”
“Did you hate her?”
“I resented her. I didn’t like her. I didn’t want to be married to her any longer, but no, I didn’t hate her.” After a long moment, he went on, “My parents have been married for more than forty years. Both sets of my grandparents have been married over sixty years. I just assumed that when I got married, it would be like that.”
“But?”
“She changed. I don’t know, maybe it was my fault. I worked such long hours. I was never around. Maybe she got lonely or bored. Whatever the reason, she had an affair. And another. And another. It got to the point that the only thing she wanted from me was money—not my companionship, certainly not sex. Just cash, and lots of it.”
“Maybe she had an affair with Brad, only she intended to make it much more. Maybe that was why he killed her. Maybe the fact that he could blame it on you was just icing on the cake.”
Mick looked at her. The idea that Brad could have been another of Sandra’s men had never occurred to him. Maybe because he’d expected better of her than to seduce his best friend and partner. Maybe because he’d expected better of that friend and partner—though only God knew why he thought either of them would set limits on their betrayals. She’d bedded every other man she’d wanted; why should Brad be off-limits because of their business association? If Brad was willing to frame him for murder and see him in prison or dead, why in hell would he be squeamish about having an affair with his wife?
Feeling foolish, resentful and just a little more betrayed, Mick asked, “Much more in what way?”
“When Brad presented his plan to me, he said that if I slept with you, Sandra would get a better settlement—presumably at least a portion of your half of the company—and he would get control of the company. I assumed they had an agreement in which she would sell whatever percentage of Blue Water she got to him. But maybe she changed her mind. Maybe she intended to use her share to manipulate him into marriage.”
“She wasn’t his type. She grew up poor, and Brad knew it. He commented a time or two that no one would ever guess it, but he never would have forgotten.”
“So she was like me. Not his type for a serious relationship. I could accept that,” Hannah said evenly, and he knew by looking at her that she could. She had. “But Sandra doesn’t seem the accepting sort.”
“No. She had remade herself from a poor, no-account nobody into a beautiful, sophisticated, elegant woman, and she had come to believe the illusion.”
Hannah yawned, and he slipped his arm around her waist and pulled her against him as he stood up. “Come on, let’s get you home and to bed.” The feel of her against him, the faint scent of her and the mere mention of the word “bed” were enough to stir his desire. He forced himself to ignore it, though, lest she sense it and pull away. Right now touching her was enough. Just barely, but enough.
Chapter 5
On Wednesday afternoon Hannah was going over the budget, wondering how much bleaker things could get, when Mick pulled into the parking lot. She watched him climb out of his truck and walk, head down, to his room, and knew that was the answer to her question. He was as bleak a sight as anything she could imagine.
It hadn’t been a nice day for a funeral. Last night’s storm had brought little rain and left a steam bath in its wake. Though there were chores she could be doing outside, she’d stayed in all day, seeking
the slight comfort of the air conditioners, wishing for a break in the weather, in her troubles, in her life. Now she felt guilty for her silent whining, because things could have been worse. They had been for Mick.
She hesitated over the books, her concentration broken, her attention eight doors away. Finally, not stopping to question the wisdom of her actions, she left the desk, made a stop in the kitchen, then knocked at Mick’s door.
He swung the door open, then walked away without a greeting, stopping at the dresser where he’d been pouring himself a drink. When he finished, he faced her, still standing outside the open door. “You can’t afford to aircondition all of Sunshine.”
Wishing she’d stayed at her desk, she stepped inside and closed the door. Once her eyes adjusted to the dimmer lighting, she took a long look at him. In his charcoal gray suit with plain white shirt and tie in stripes of burgundy, gray and white, for the first time, he looked the part of highly successful businessman. He looked incredibly handsome, incredibly distant and even less her type than Brad.
“Want to keep me company while I drink?”
She looked down at the tall glass of iced tea she held. “I brought this for you.”
“Thanks, but I brought my own.” He scooped up the liquor bottle, let it dangle by its neck, then set it down again. “You come for all the gory details of the funeral?”
Stung by the mockery in his voice, Hannah turned and opened the door. Before she could walk out, though, he spoke again, this time without the mocking, this time with quiet need. “Please don’t go.”
She hesitated, then closed the door once more.
He took a long drink, then set the glass down and removed his jacket, hanging it on the back of the chair. His tie came off next, a splash of rich color against the dark gray. In spite of the day’s heat, the shirt was long-sleeved. He removed the cuff links, rolled back the sleeves, unfastened the top few buttons, then sprawled in the chair and picked up his drink once again. “I hate funerals.”
She set the tea on the dresser, then took the only other seat available—the bed.
“Sandra and I never set foot in a church together—we didn’t even get married in a church—so I settled on a graveside service. It was hot, and these mounds and mounds of flowers were wilting, and everyone was staring at me, except her parents, who were too busy crying. Today was the first time I’d met them. I’d been married to their daughter for eleven years, and I’d never met them. And Brad...” Shaking his head, he took another long drink.
“Why hadn’t you met her parents before?”
“Because she was ashamed of them. They knew that, but they loved her, anyway, and they mourned her. No one else did. Not the people she’d considered friends, not Brad, not me. Everyone else was there to see the suspected murderer bury his poor murdered bitch of a wife.”
Hannah clasped her hands together. “Did you talk to Brad?”
“He sat beside me through the service. He rode with me from the house to the cemetery.” He scowled at her. “Of course I talked to him. I treated him just like I always have. If I hadn’t, he would have suspected that I knew. He would have suspected that I’d connected you to Elizabeth.”
How hard had it been to treat the man who’d murdered his wife and framed him for it as an old friend? And yet he’d done it, in part to protect her.
“He asked about you—if I’d met you. He said he knew you.”
Hannah’s smile was bitter. So Brad admitted to knowing her. Not to being friends with her. Never to being her partner in crime. No, he merely knew her.
“He also asked about Elizabeth. I told him that I’d seen you around, that I’d talked to you but you were no help. I said I didn’t have a clue who or where Elizabeth is. He said to give you his best.” Mick’s smile was thin. “Of course he already did that, didn’t he?”
She ignored that last sly remark. “Was your family there?”
“No. My parents offered to come, but I told them no. The marriage was already over, and they never liked Sandra, anyway.” He fixed his dark, weary gaze on her. “They would like you.”
Not if they knew what she’d done to their son. That was enough to make her dislike herself.
He emptied the glass, refilled it and half emptied it again, then blurted out in a sorrowful voice, “She didn’t deserve this. Damn it, neither do I.”
But she deserved everything that had happened, Hannah knew. She had been willing to do almost anything for money—anything, it seemed, except murder. That made her little better than Brad.
Rising from the bed, she turned down the covers, then took the glass from his hand and set it aside. “Drinking isn’t going to help anything. Why don’t you get some sleep?”
“I don’t want to sleep,” he protested, but it was obvious that the emotional strain of the morning had worn him out. He reached for the glass again but, when she moved it out of reach, settled for her hand, instead. “Why don’t you come to bed with me? I need that a lot more than I need sleep.”
That. Sex. She might have felt insulted if she hadn’t been suddenly so incredibly sad. “Get some rest. Then you can find someone to give you ‘that.’”
“I don’t want someone. I want you.” He held her hand tighter when she pulled. “I don’t understand, Hannah. We’ve done it before. It was good then, and you know it would be good again. Why are you so resistant?”
“I’ve already sold myself once, and I didn’t like the way it made me feel. I don’t want to do it again.”
He gave her a charming grin. “I wasn’t thinking of offering you money.”
She crouched beside the chair, putting herself more on his level. “You weren’t thinking of offering anything else, either,” she said softly. “Just sex.”
“And pleasure. Incredible pleasure.” With his free hand, he stroked her cheek. “And passion. And need. And—”
“And that’s not enough.” She pulled loose, took his glass and the liquor bottle and left the room. Outside, with the door firmly closed behind her, she lifted the glass and took a gulp, then spit out what she was able to stop herself from swallowing. Drinking wouldn’t help anything. It would only make her sick, and she’d been feeling ill for about five days now. She didn’t need to add to it.
She stowed both the bottle and the glass in the utility room, then returned to the desk and the books. She had no sooner sat down than the phone rang. At the caller’s greeting, an icy chill crept over her.
“Hello, Hannah.”
Her fingers tightened painfully around the receiver. “Brad.”
“Is Mick back yet?”
Her first impulse was to lie. Before giving in to it, though, she swiveled her chair to look at his truck, then swept her gaze from one end of the road to the other. She wanted to believe that Brad was two hours away in Oklahoma City, but he could easily be somewhere nearby. He could know that Mick was already in his room, that she’d been in there with him. He could be testing her. “Yes, he is.”
“Have you spoken to him?”
“I took him a glass of tea.”
“The Last Resort doesn’t offer room service.”
“To a guest who pays double our rates, we do.”
“Of course, you’ve already serviced him, haven’t you?”
Her fingers clenched harder. “What do you want, Brad?”
“I just wanted to touch base with you. Didn’t want you to think that I’d forgotten you.” His voice took on a sinister tone. “Didn’t want you to forget me.”
“Under the circumstances, that would be impossible.”
“So what does Mick think about Elizabeth?”
“I don’t know.”
“Don’t you? Hasn’t he asked you about her?”
“He’s asked everyone. No one knows a thing. No one suspects anything.”
“Keep it that way.”
“Or?”
He ignored her question. “I’ll be back over there as soon as everything is settled here. I’ll say hello.”
She kept busy the rest of the afternoon and through the dinner rush. Sometimes she hated waiting tables, greeting the same people day after day, pretending interest in their lives and forcing friendliness into her manner. Sometimes she just wanted to walk away and never look back. Tonight, though, she was grateful for the distraction. She was glad to see every table filled, emptied and refilled. The Last Resort might not do much business as a motel, but thanks to Earlene and Sylvie, the restaurant had a reputation for the best home-cooked meals for miles around. People who would never spend a night in their rooms—both locals and tourists—were more than happy to eat in the restaurant, and some of them even left halfway-decent tips.
She was down to only one table of customers when Mick walked in. He wore jeans and a white T-shirt, his hair looked as if he’d combed it with his fingers, and he looked sleepy. He looked sexy. He chose a table near the windows, away from everyone else. When she took him a menu, he waved it off but accepted the iced tea she also carried. “Just give me the special.”
Two days at the motel, and he’d already learned what all the locals knew: no matter what was on the menu, Earlene’s special was the best. Tonight it was tender fried chicken, mashed potatoes and gravy, home-canned green beans and thick slices of early tomatoes from Earlene’s garden.
Hannah wrote the order on her pad and started to walk away, but his hand on her arm stopped her. When she turned back, he looked uncomfortable. Embarrassed.
“If I said or did anything inappropriate this afternoon, I apologize.”
“You didn’t.” He had only asked her to go to bed with him, offered her sex and passion and nothing else. No affection. No future. No nothing but lust.
“I was so...” Tired. Worn-out. Overwhelmed. Instead of choosing, he simply shrugged.
She gripped the menu more tightly. “It’s okay. I’ll get your order in.”
She escaped into the kitchen, where she waited while Sylvie dished up his meal, then handed the plate to her. “There are your desserts for table 3,” her grandmother said with a nod.
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