by Delynn Royer
“Yeah. Now do you get it?”
Trixie had to scramble to regroup. “It doesn’t matter! We can fix it. I’ll call your chief first thing tomorrow and tell him I was with you the whole time and that you couldn’t possibly have—”
Sean’s expression darkened. “No, you won’t. That time may come, but it’s not tomorrow. You just went from being an observer in this case to being the only credible witness who can testify to my innocence. There’s someone out there who went to some real trouble to frame me for this, and they’re not gonna want you around to mess that up. You get what that means?”
“Yes.” She heard a firmness in her voice that surprised even herself. “It means that now I’m twice as determined to stick to you like glue.”
A spark of anger flashed in his eyes that startled her. Before she could even breathe, he crossed the distance between them and grabbed her hard by the shoulders. “No! It means that you’re now a liability, a loose end, just like Danny, and someone out there who didn’t think twice about blowing away one of their own will be out to eliminate you.”
His grip on her was so firm, it almost hurt, but she didn’t flinch. She lifted her chin. “If what you’re saying is true, then I’m not safe anywhere, am I?”
“You’ll be safe in Philadelphia with a detective to watch over you.”
“Maybe for a while, but what then? When do I get to come back? When do I get my life back? My job?”
“After I figure this thing out.”
“After we figure this out,” she corrected, daring to anger him further. “As you’ve just made clear, I have a stake in this too, and I can help you if you’ll let me.”
Sean held Trixie’s stare for so long, her brief show of bravura threatened to flee like the proverbial rat, but before it could vanish, his gaze dropped lower, to her throat, to her breasts, then slowly trailed back up again. Trixie felt a flare of something else ignite between them, something that might have caused her knees to buckle if he didn’t still have such a firm hold on her.
“You shouldn’t have come here,” he said.
She could barely breathe past the wild beating of her own heart. “Says you.”
“What do you want?” His voice had dropped to barely above a whisper.
“Same as you.” She was quaking now inside.
“You think you know what’s on my mind?”
“Sure. We’re not all that different.”
“Yeah?” His lips curved faintly in a cynical smile. “We’re worlds different, kid. Look where you come from. You’re a nice girl. Went to private schools, college, led a life most people only dream about. The last thing you need is a guy like me. I got only today, no tomorrows. Someday soon another guy will come along, one with all the right credentials. He’ll pop the question, and—”
“What do you know about it, Sean? People have affairs all the time, even nice girls and guys with the right credentials. Why, some of the parties around here in the summer—” She stopped. “Well, I know that for a fact.”
His smile faded. “Do you?”
“Yes, and you know something else?”
“What?”
“You’re a snob. You think you know all about me because I was born with a silver spoon in my mouth and you weren’t. You had to come up the hard way and I haven’t, but people are all the same. I’m no different than any other girl you’ve ever known.”
“You’re about as different as they get,” he said, but his gaze dropped again to linger on her mouth.
It was instinctive that she tilted her face up toward his.
He leaned closer and Trixie felt them both slide crazily toward the edge, but he stopped, his breath warm, his mouth barely an inch from hers. “Tell me you’re not a virgin.”
“No—” She closed her eyes. She could think only of the raw, hot memory of the kisses she’d already tasted from him. She wanted more than just kisses now. She wanted his hands on her. “I—I was engaged once.”
“Yeah? Me too. How did that go for you?”
“Not so good.”
“Me neither.”
And that was all. The rest of whatever might have been said to end what was about to happen was lost when he pulled her against him and kissed her.
Their lips met and fused perfectly in a long, slow, forever-soul-stealing kiss that was wholly unlike those they’d shared before. It taunted her rather than sated her. It heated her blood and turned her bones to jelly and made her want to crawl all over him.
There was no more thinking after that.
Sean released his grip on her shoulders to cup her breasts through the material of her blouse, thoroughly arousing her with his thumbs before moving down to unhook the back of her skirt. Trixie explored him just as eagerly, tearing loose the tie to his robe and sliding open palms up over taut muscle and broad shoulders.
By the time they tumbled back onto the bed, Sean’s robe was gone, her shoes and stockings lay on the floor, her skirt had been kicked across the room, and her blouse dangled from the corner of a lampshade. Trixie’s only thought as Sean kissed a hot line down the curve of her neck was that she had wanted this from the first instant that she’d locked eyes with him in the elevator. Was this love? Or merely lust?
She didn’t know. All she knew was that it felt nothing like what she’d known with Nick Welles. She’d loved Nick since she was a child. She’d grown up with that slowly evolving, yearning puppy dog adoration. The sex had come much later.
This was different. Vastly different. This thing, whatever it was that drew her so urgently to Sean Costigan, felt unstoppable.
Sean stripped away her brassiere. He kissed her breasts and Trixie’s breath jammed in her throat. She would have abandoned herself altogether if it weren’t for an unbidden image that flashed in her mind. It was the photograph Finn had taken of Sean and Nell at the funeral church, that striking image of the two of them, together again after so many years.
Trixie tried to push it away, but this image gave rise to another—the expression she’d seen on Sean’s face that night at the wake when he’d looked at Nell, that fleeting bittersweet reflection in his eyes that told her with such certainty that he was still in love with her.
Trixie couldn’t help it. She let out a moan of dismay, stiffened ever so slightly. Sean paused and lifted his head, one hand coming to rest on the soft curve of her hip.
No. She kept her eyes shut. She was not the provincial old-fashioned girl he’d accused her of being. She was Trixie Frank—girl reporter, modern woman, flaming youth. How could it possibly be, then, that she was unable to indulge in just one brief, exhilarating sexual adventure without her sappy heart mucking it all up?
Sean’s kiss was deep, lingering, and tantalizingly thorough, but when he ended it, it was with such finality that Trixie felt cheated. “Trix, if this is too fast—”
“No.” She refused to open her eyes. “Keep going. It’s okay. I know you still love her, but I don’t care, see? It doesn’t matter.”
His tone cooled. “Love who?”
“Nell. It’s okay. It has nothing to do with—”
“Ah, hell.” A moment passed before Sean again pressed his mouth to hers, but he didn’t kiss her. He spoke against her parted lips. “This is crazy.” Then he did kiss her, but it was much softer this time, slow and sweet and full of something that felt sadly like regret.
When he pulled away, it was with a long and heavy sigh to roll over onto his back. She heard him mumble something under his breath.
Trixie opened her eyes to stare blankly at the ceiling, listening to the soft hiss of a hot water radiator as it worked in one corner of the room, counting the beats of her heart as it gradually began to slow.
Oh, dear, here she was, lying in nothing but her knickers in Sean’s bed, her body still aching for more but
not doing a thing about it, absolutely nothing at all, when it was she who had come to him in the first place. It all made her feel so...stupid.
Beside her, Sean moved, flipped the switch on the bedside lamp to plunge them into darkness. Only a sliver of moonlight was left to illuminate the room as it shined in through the curtains of a window that overlooked the bed. Was he sore? She couldn’t tell. She wouldn’t blame him if he was.
“Nuts,” she whispered and started to sit up. She needed to get out of here before she embarrassed herself any further. “I gotta go.”
“No.” His hand closed firmly on her arm. “You don’t.”
She frowned. He didn’t sound sore. Not even a little. Slowly, she sank back down, suddenly feeling so drained that she could barely move. She didn’t resist when he pulled her snugly up against him from behind.
“It’s okay,” he whispered warm against her ear, sounding as spent and exhausted as Trixie felt.
Okay...? Well. Maybe for now it was. Maybe tomorrow would be different.
All she knew was that it felt right to be lying here in his arms. On this night. She closed her eyes, let out a long sigh and drifted toward sleep.
Chapter Twenty-One
Trixie awoke with a start, her eyelids flying open to a burst of daylight and the disorienting sensation that she didn’t know where she was. Save for her knickers, she was naked, and the muscular arm that encircled her so intimately from behind meant that she wasn’t alone.
Trixie squeezed her eyes shut and opened them again, focusing on the familiar floral pattern of the wallpaper. She was in a guest room in the east wing of her father’s Huntington Bay house.
And the man?
It was Sean Costigan, of course, and she recalled now with mortifying clarity that it was she who had so boldly presented herself at his door last night, after which they’d—
Oh.
Had they...?
No.
Nuts.
Should she sneak out?
Her heart jumped when a knock came at the door. It was a crisp, no nonsense knock that she recognized with horror. This was not the first knock. It was the second, and it was the first one that had shocked her awake.
Oh jeepers. It was Applegate.
“Miss Beatrix!”
The butler’s quavering nasal enunciation rang strong, travelling through the closed door like the sleek arrow of guilt that it was, and Trixie bolted upright. “Ah!”
“Miss Beatrix!”
“Oh!” Trixie felt like she might hyperventilate as Sean stirred beside her.
“What time is it?” he mumbled.
“Shh!” Trixie tried to cover her breasts and leap from the bed at the same time.
She discovered too late that her legs were entangled in a web of sheets that ensnared her as surely as if she’d been sleeping in a bed of seaweed. Instead of landing on her feet, she toppled off the side. “Ooof.”
Another crisp knock rattled the door. “Mr. Merryweather is on the line. Shall I tell him that you’re...indisposed?”
* * *
Sean opened his eyes and yawned. He pushed up on his elbows to see that the alarm clock on the night table read six-twenty-two. Then he heard Trixie’s voice coming from somewhere...under the bed?
“Ow...my toe.”
Sean leaned over the edge to see Trixie sprawled face down on the Turkish rug in frilly pinkish-colored knickers and nothing else. She appeared defeated but unharmed, and he thought that it was a troubling testament to how far gone he was on this dame that he found this skewed view of her incredibly arousing.
“Miss Beatrix!”
“You want me to get that?” he asked.
“Yes.”
Sean put on his robe and stepped over Trixie’s trussed ankle to get to the door. He cracked it open only to be greeted by the elderly butler’s stiff raised eyebrow and overall unamused visage.
“Good morning,” Sean said.
“Is it?
“She’s busy. She’ll have to call him back.”
“Indeed.” Applegate didn’t move. He just stood there, head lifted like an eagle, nostrils flared, eyeing Sean like a rotting potato.
“Nothing happened.” Sean tried a half-hearted smile to show good faith.
“Do I look as if I were born yesterday, sir?”
It was the second time in as many days that Sean had been asked this question. Was he taking on the look of a man who despoiled young maidens? He lost the smile. “No.”
“I’ll have your garments pressed momentarily, sir. I’m sure you’re eager to be on your way.” Applegate gifted Sean with one last burning look before moving briskly back down the hall.
Sean closed the door and turned to see Trixie hadn’t moved.
“I think I broke my toe.” She turned her head to rest her cheek on the plush Turkish carpet.
Sean went to her and hunkered down. He lifted her free foot and examined it. “I don’t think so.”
“Oh, I’ll never live this down. I’ll have to change my name and move to Venice. Wait until he passes on.”
Sean admired the perfect porcelain curve of her bare shoulder. “Do you speak Italian?”
“French. I’ll get by.”
“Come on, kid, he’s just the butler.”
“He’s more than just the butler.”
Oh, yes. Mr. Applegate did seem to be a bit more than just that. Sean reached over to unwind the bed sheet from her other ankle. “Up.”
Trixie moved slowly at first, pushing up. She reached for a free corner of the sheet to cover herself before turning over to look at him. Her copper and gold curls were a rich mass of confusion, but her sky blue gaze was clear and determined.
“I’m going to Montauk with you. If you say no, I’ll follow you, and if I fail in that, I’ll go on my own. Remember, I know about John Murphy’s properties and I know where he went the day before he was killed. I also know about the boat. It can’t be that hard to find.”
“I explained why that’s a very bad idea,” he said patiently.
“Yeah, too dangerous, but I’ve got a stake in this too. I’m the only witness who can prove you’re not guilty of murder. How long do you think our friends will let that loose end go untied? And I can help you, Detective. It just so happens I know my way around this island. Do you?”
“I can manage.”
“I can do a lot more than that. I know the South Fork. It’s wilderness. My sister and I used to go there with Daddy and Applegate in the summer to fish.”
Try as he might, Sean couldn’t imagine either Trixie or Applegate hooking bait. He smiled softly. “You’ll have to tell me about that sometime.”
“Maybe I will.”
Sean kept his counsel, noting the defiant set of her chin, wishing idly that the sheet that covered her breasts would slip, knowing that it was best for them both that it did not.
He knew she meant what she said. If he left her behind, she would go off on her own half-baked mission to chase down her story. She was leaving him with a Hobson’s Choice.
“Okay, kid. What’s our quickest way to Montauk?”
* * *
Of all the many material things Trixie had left behind when she’d departed from her father’s grand estate to pursue her journey of independence, she missed her sporty red Buick Roadster the most.
In the summer, she could put down the top and thrill to the salty Long Island breezes as she motored gaily along lonely country roads at sixty miles per hour. Now, in the crisp late autumn weather, with the top up and the side curtains pulled, she listened to the familiar rumble of its powerful four-liter six-cylinder engine and couldn’t repress a tiny sigh of regret. She thought it had been especially gracious of her to allow Sean to take the wheel, even thoug
h, so far, he was having a pretty rough morning.
After gaining Sean’s permission to accompany him, she’d wasted no time in rushing back to her room to get bathed and dressed. Wanting to be ready for anything, she chose a lumberjack-style blouse and tweed sport pants from her closet. Once downstairs, she’d returned Julius’s call and got an earful. “You see the front page of the Daily News yet?”
Trixie hadn’t liked the urgency in his tone. “No, Daddy doesn’t subscribe.”
“What about the Times? Does he get the Times?”
“Yes. Why?”
Applegate, who was never far away and who seemed to possess a sixth sense for anticipating her father’s every need, had appeared in the library door archway brandishing a silver tray containing a steaming cup of tea and the New York Times strategically folded to reveal the front-page headline on Owen Carter’s murder.
The photo of Carter that smiled out at Trixie featured him in full dress uniform, looking as confident and handsome as she remembered. It was a stark contrast to the grainy photo of his deserted automobile surrounded by uniformed officers and police vehicles at the scene of his murder.
“Uh oh.” Applegate had left the tray in front of her on the desk and smoothly exited the room, his point, as always, neatly made and all but tied with a bow.
“Uh oh is right,” Julius said. “Third paragraph.”
Quickly, Trixie skimmed down and there it was. New York City Police Detective Sean Costigan, one of Carter’s key investigators on the John Murphy case, is now being sought for questioning.
Trixie had felt sick. She’d suspected that the wording was mild by design. Their reporter had not yet been able to confirm that Sean was a suspect. The Daily News wouldn’t be so concerned with such fine lines of distinction. By later today, every evening edition in the city would have photographs of Sean from their archives. As for the Examiner, they wouldn’t need to dig very deep. They had Finn’s photograph of Sean from Murphy’s wake.
“Tell me why I shouldn’t run his picture on the front page.” Julius echoed her thoughts.
“Because I’ve been with him every minute since yesterday afternoon.” Trixie had said, feeling a prick of anger even though Julius wasn’t the enemy. “I was with him when Carter was killed and I’ll testify to that in court. Don’t believe what’s coming out of Centre Street. He’s being framed.”