The Quiet Storm

by RaeAnne Thayne

  Had he ever been that relentlessly idealistic? If he had, he sure couldn’t remember it. Maybe when he was five or six, before his parents’ death. “It’s not that easy. We’re not assigned to work this case, remember?”

  “So we take our evidence to the lieutenant and get assigned to it. How hard can it be?”

  A whole lot harder than you think. Beau sighed, wishing fiercely for Gracie. She had always been the one in their partnership who handled the political side of things. Gracie treated everyone with the same patience and respect, from the commissioner to the dirtiest street bum. She had a real knack for finding her way through sticky situations like this one.

  But Gracie wasn’t here. He was on his own. He was hopeless at diplomacy, but he was just going to have to do his best on this one.

  “Why don’t you go get the car?” He cut off his partner before he could push any harder. “Just come pick me up here.”

  Griff’s eyes widened. “You’re really going to let me drive? You sick or something?”

  “Just get the damn car.”

  The kid bounded away, reminding Beau forcefully of Maddie chasing her ball into the water.

  “Beau, tell me the truth,” Elizabeth said after he left. “Is there a problem with you helping me?”

  He thought of Charlie’s resistance to reopening the case. He would not be thrilled about this latest development. “Don’t worry about it, Elizabeth. I’ll deal with it.”

  “Are you sure?”

  He shrugged. “My lieutenant is not real crazy about me digging into a closed case when I have a backlog of open cases on my desk. And I’ll be honest, getting a conviction in the case Sheffield is hearing right now is important to me and to a little girl whose father made her short life hell on earth. I can’t do anything to jeopardize that right now, at least not until after I’ve had a chance to testify.”

  “What if I talk to Andrew? We…we’ve always been close. I can ask him about Tina. About Alex. At least that way we’d know for sure that he was the one who wrote the letter.”

  “You don’t know the right buttons to push, Elizabeth. And any answers he gave you would be hearsay. Not admissible in court.”

  “We could go together to talk to him.”

  “What difference would that make?”

  “What if we made it seem casual, if I just spoke with him at a social function or something where he would assume you were there just as my…my date. Not as a police officer.”

  He saw a million flaws in the idea. “I don’t exactly move in the same social circles as the judge.”

  “I do.” He watched with fascination as her face lit up a little, as her brow furrowed with concentration while she tried to come up with a plan. “It’s Andrew’s birthday Sunday. Leigh—his daughter—is throwing a big formal party. I’ve been invited—Andrew insisted on it, of course. I already sent my regrets but I can ring Leigh and tell her I’ve changed my mind and I’m bringing a…a date.”

  That was twice now she’d stumbled over that particular word. Did she really have such a hard time imagining him as her escort?

  He almost agreed just to be contrary but he couldn’t see what they would accomplish in the middle of a high-society affair. “I don’t think it’s such a good idea.”

  “I do.” She set her jaw with unexpected stubbornness. “I think it’s a wonderful idea. I want to talk to Andrew about this. I have to talk to him. If he really is the one who wrote that letter, I’m raising his son.”

  She paused, sending him a beseeching look. “Beau, I need to know if Alex is his child. And to…to be honest, I would be more comfortable talking to him if you were there.”

  Beau hissed an oath. How the hell was he supposed to resist her when she implored him with those blasted blue eyes of hers and asked him so sweetly? “And then what?” he muttered, grimly aware that once more he wasn’t going to be able to say no to her. “We accost the man at his own birthday party and throw his affair with Tina in his face?”

  “No. You can…coach me in the questions I should ask and how to ask them. I can take him aside sometime during the party or…or afterward and show him the letter. Ask him if he wrote it. If nothing else, we could possibly learn a few more details about why Tina asked him for the money and who else might have known about it.”

  She had a point there. “I suppose this is a formal party,” he said glumly.

  “Yes, I think so,” she answered just as Griff pulled up to the curb in the department-issue navy-blue sedan.

  That meant he was going to have to dig out the tuxedo he bought for Gracie’s wedding two years ago and hadn’t taken out of the dry cleaning bag since. He sighed. He really hated wearing a tuxedo. “Where and what time is this little soiree?” he asked.

  “They live on Mercer. I’ll have to check the invitation but if I remember correctly, the party begins at eight.”

  “I’ll pick you up around six-thirty, then.”

  “That would be silly for you to come all the way to Bainbridge on the ferry and then have to drive back to the city. It would make more sense for me to use the car service. We’ll pick you up.”

  If he needed any more reminders that kissing her earlier had been a major mistake, she’d just handed him a big fat juicy one. She used a car service and he drove a beat-up pickup truck with a kick-butt stereo system. How much more different could they be?

  “Right. Then I’ll see you Sunday evening.”

  “Wait,” she said just before he climbed into the sedan.

  He stopped, his arm resting on the door. “Yeah?”

  “What about…about helping me figure out the kinds of questions to ask Andrew? Do you want to meet beforehand?”

  He considered his schedule for the week. Between the trial he was testifying in now, the one next week, his regular caseload and the work he was doing in his off hours on this investigation, he was swamped. Just about the only free day he had was Saturday, which he’d planned to spend on his sadly neglected boat.

  Guess he’d have to kiss those plans goodbye. Unless…

  He shut the door on his partner’s all-too-obvious interest in their conversation. “I don’t suppose you like boating, do you?”

  “Wh-what?” She looked disoriented, as if he’d asked her if she favored snacking on garden snakes.

  He was already wishing he’d just kept his big mouth shut, but it was too late to turn back. “I was going to take my cabin cruiser out Saturday morning. I just had it in for service and I need to check it out. Make sure everything’s in working order before storing it for the winter. If I took you and Alex with me, I’m sure we could find a minute to talk out on the water.”

  Another complex mix of emotions flitted across her features. “Oh. Alex would love that,” she finally said.

  What about you? he wondered, but didn’t ask. “Just don’t expect anything fancy,” he muttered, positive he would spend the rest of the week calling himself a dozen kinds of fool.

  Elizabeth wasn’t sure which of them was more excited about their outing with Beau—Alex or her. Saturday morning they sat at her favorite bench near the water waiting for him to collect them for their boating expedition.

  All week she had been uncomfortably aware of the low thrum of anticipation beating through her on butterfly wings whenever she thought about spending an entire day with him.

  Anticipation was a sweet and powerful thing, she had discovered, like that last, endless moment before diving into a cool swimming pool on a hot summer’s day. She hadn’t realized how constant and overwhelming her grief over Tina’s death had become until Beau had given her the promise of something else to distract her from it.

  If she was excited, Alex was positively giddy. He couldn’t sit still for longer than ten seconds and bounced around the lawn like a hyperactive kangaroo, Maddie bounding at his heels.

  When will Beau get here? he signed for at least the twentieth time.

  I’m not sure, she replied. He said around ten. Look at my watch. We
still have fifteen minutes before then.

  He held out her arm and peered at the face of her watch. I want to go now, he signed.

  We can’t go anywhere without a boat, silly. You’re not a fish, you’re a boy, remember?

  He giggled and made a fish face, smacking his puckered lips together. She laughed at him and kissed the fish lips, then yanked down the bill of the baseball cap she’d insisted he wear for sun protection.

  Just a little longer then Beau will be here, she signed, and handed him the set of binoculars she’d purchased for him the day before. Pretend you’re a sea captain looking for… Pirate. How did she say pirate? She remembered it suddenly and finished the sign with the fingers of her right hand covering her eye like an eyepatch. Watch for pirates.

  Alex snatched the binoculars from her and climbed onto the adjacent bench for a better view, leaving Elizabeth to her anticipation once more. Anticipation mingled with no small amount of apprehension.

  Despite her excitement, she had no doubt going out on the water with Beau would likely prove to be a disastrous mistake. How could it be anything else? She was fiercely attracted to him already. Each moment she spent with him only increased that awareness. If she possessed a smidgen of sense, she would stay as far as possible from the man who could evoke such a powerful, compelling response from her.

  How could there ever be anything between them? Beau was vibrant, forceful, intense. And she was boring, tongue-tied Elizabeth Quinn. The ice princess.

  She didn’t feel very cold when she thought about Beau Riley, about those incredible moments in his arms. Her stomach spun, and a slow, seductive heat wound sinuously through her.

  What would it be like to be normal, without the crushing onus of her speech difficulties? To be able to play and laugh and be able to relax around him. If only she could be free to be funny and glib and flirtatious. Would he like her then?

  He was physically attracted to her. He’d made that clear, both the day he had come down to the water to play with Alex and Maddie and the other day in the bank vault. Maybe she should just let that be enough, just go on trying to hide her stammering inadequacies as best she could.

  No. It was too draining on her to have to concentrate so fiercely around him when he made her so flustered. Eventually she would slip and he would figure it out.

  She couldn’t bear to watch the desire she’d seen in those green eyes change to disgust.

  Stupid cow. Stupid, tongue-tied cow.

  A cool gust of wind blew off the Sound, rattling the leaves of the Japanese maples next to the bench, and she shivered just as a watercraft approached Harbor View’s private deep-water dock.

  Alex leaped to his feet suddenly, his dark eyes snapping with elation. Beau’s here! Beau’s here! Beau’s here! he signed, his hands moving furiously, then he whipped off his cap and tossed it into the air.

  She laughed at his joy even as her heart began to race. I see him, she signed back, then plopped the hat back on the boy’s head with a kiss on his nose.

  She grabbed his hand and walked down the dock to greet Beau. She and Alex waited while he moored the boat then climbed out, wearing cotton Dockers and a pine-green golf shirt.

  The first thing he did was bend to Alex’s level and make the sign for hello. He followed by asking in ASL if Alex was ready to go.

  The boy giggled and started into a series of complicated signs about how excited he was to go on the boat and could he catch a fish and would they see a whale?

  Beau laughed with a slightly bemused look on his dark features. “Whoa, partner,” he said aloud. “Slow down. I’m still learning.”

  Elizabeth stepped forward, her stomach twitching, and set a hand on Alex’s shoulder. She quietly translated what the boy signed, then told Alex he needed to remember Beau didn’t know sign language.

  “Thanks,” Beau murmured to her. “I bought an ASL dictionary and a video but I’m still working on the alphabet and a few basic signs.”

  Her heart jerked and fluttered as she gazed at that rueful grin. This big, tough cop who spent his days in the dark, ugly world of crime fighting had purchased an American Sign Language dictionary so he could communicate with a little boy he barely knew.

  It was just about the sweetest thing she’d ever heard.

  She was moved beyond words and couldn’t think of a single thing to say in response. They stood in silence for a moment, then Beau finally spoke. “So are you two ready to go?”

  No. She was suddenly scared to death to spend even another moment with the man. Panic fluttered through her like an angry bird. She couldn’t do this. She wasn’t strong enough to stop these growing feelings inside her. Unless she did, she knew she was in for nothing but heartache and grief.

  But how could she tell him she’d changed her mind when he’d gone to all the trouble to come out to Bainbridge Island for them?

  She drew in a sharp breath then let it out again with a grim sense of inevitability. “Just a moment, please. I need to tell Luisa we’re leaving.”

  He smiled. “Okay. That will give me time to show Alex around.”

  It took every ounce of hard-earned poise she possessed not to wring her hands and bolt back to the house like the scared little rabbit she was. She forced herself to walk slowly, with studied casualness, and by the time she reached the kitchen, she could at least breathe again. Still, she didn’t know how she would survive the afternoon with him.

  In the kitchen she found Luisa closing the lid to a large wicker basket. “I fix you a lunch,” the housekeeper murmured in her musical voice.

  Elizabeth made a strangled sound and hurried to the sink for a glass of water.

  “Is everything okay?” Luisa asked.

  “Yes. Fine,” she replied, though it was about as blatant a lie as she’d ever uttered. “Thank you for fixing a basket for us.”

  “I would not let you starve out on that boat.”

  Despite her emotional trauma, Elizabeth had to smile. Luisa might disapprove of Beau and the investigation he was conducting into Tina’s death. But she would rather have her hair yanked out strand by strand than let someone under her care go hungry.

  “Here. Take it.” Luisa handed her the basket, then surprised her by pressing a hand to her cheek. “Be careful, hija.”

  Somehow Elizabeth didn’t think Luisa was referring to the basics of water safety. She nodded and looked away for fear Luisa’s sharp eyes would discover the warning came far too late.

  When she returned to the dock, Beau and Alex were both standing on the deck of the cabin cruiser and Beau was putting a life jacket on the little boy. She hadn’t paid much attention to the boat when Beau first arrived but now she saw it was a good-size blue-and-white cabin cruiser with the name the Mari on the side in curling script.

  Who was Mari? she wondered. Probably someone glib and funny and flirtatious, she thought bitterly, then was ashamed of herself for the hot jealousy spearing through her. It wasn’t any of her business what Beau named his boat—or whom he named it after. She’d do well to remember that.

  Beau snapped the last buckle on Alex’s bright-orange life jacket, then hurried to the gangway and reached for the basket so she could board. “Here. Let me take that. What have you got here?”

  “Lunch. Luisa packed a basket for us.”

  His masculine features lit up in a devastating smile, and she could swear the anchored dock just shook under her feet. “If Luisa fixed it, I can’t wait to eat it. That woman is one seriously good cook.”

  Elizabeth still felt wobbly as he reached out a hand to help her board but somehow she found the courage to place her hand in his. His fingers were warm and solid around hers, and as he pulled her toward him and onto the boat, she smelled sunscreen and hot, sexy male.

  Oh, she was in trouble.

  “I was just showing Alex around. Why don’t you come with me to put lunch down in the galley and you can take the grand tour?”

  She nodded and followed him below deck.

  T
he boat was well maintained with a small salon-galley and two staterooms below deck and an efficient, enclosed pilothouse up top.

  He was right, it wasn’t luxurious—certainly not in the same league as the succession of yachts her father had owned—but it looked comfortable and well maintained.

  “She’s beautiful,” Elizabeth said when they returned to the pilothouse. “Do you spend much time on her?”

  “Not as much as I’d like. Unfortunately, the bad guys are pretty inconsiderate that way—the job doesn’t give me much free time for things like fishing on my boat.”

  He settled them into deck chairs, then powered up the cruiser and prepared to cast off from the dock. Alex’s eyes were huge at the deep throb of the twin engines, and Elizabeth smiled at his enthusiasm.

  “With a nice deep-water dock like that, you probably have spent plenty of time out on the water yourself.” Beau raised his voice over the sound of the engines.

  She gazed out at the water. “My father had several sailing yachts in his lifetime.”

  “Then you must be an old salty-dog sailor.”

  His comment poked at old, half-scabbed wounds. If he only knew how desperately she had always longed to go with her father on one of those damn boats, but he never once took her aboard.

  Her bedroom had always overlooked the water. On the mornings when Jonathan would take his yacht out, she would wait in vain for him to just once come for her and ask her to go along.

  With a sick, hollow feeling in her stomach she would watch his preparations as his crew arrived and he readied the yacht, then lifted anchor and sailed out of sight. She could remember sitting at her window all day—and sometimes long into the night—waiting for his return.

  Wishing with all her might that her father loved her.

  Hating him for always, always leaving her behind.

  “No. My father didn’t take me with him.” She tried to make her voice terse, matter-of-fact, with no trace of the self-pity she so abhorred.

  She must not have been completely successful because Beau frowned and sent her a searching look. He opened his mouth as if to probe. No, she thought. Don’t ask me. Hot relief flowed through her when he closed it again and let the matter drop, and returned to piloting the boat through the busy channel.