The Sweetheart Game

by Cheryl Ann Smith

  “I’m sorry.”

  “I wore baggy clothes and did everything I could to be invisible, but it was too late. He destroyed me.” Her heart ached. Those months had been brutal and she’d hated feeling vulnerable. It had taken years to get her confidence restored.

  “What happened?”

  “I tested out of school and never went back.”

  Slowly, Jason turned her around. He leaned in to wipe the tears off her face. She looked so fragile. He wanted to kiss away the anguish on her face. Instead, he lifted her chin and met her gaze head on. “You didn’t deserve that. The bastard.”

  Summer stepped into his arms. He held her tight. They fit. “Lane married him,” she continued and shook her head. “He’s in prison for five years for breaking into the house of a single mother late one night. She shot him with her Glock.”

  “Too bad her aim wasn’t better.”

  Summer twitched. It took him a second to realize she was laughing. Fragile was gone and steel was back.

  “I thought so, too.” She sobered. “Three years ago, Lane had the balls to send me a letter apologizing for not believing me. I burned it with Tammy’s old Zippo lighter.”

  “Revenge is sweet.” He rubbed her back. She tipped her head up. Her face was blotchy from crying and her eyes were red. The woman could still rev up his heart.

  Wanting to distract her from painful memories, he grinned and glanced down at her chest. He knew that would fire her up. “I think we should go into the stall behind you. I think I left my watch in your bra.”

  Her laugher echoed off the tile. With the confession behind her, a weight lifted and she felt free. Bruce had lost his hold on her. Finally. “You are an ass, Jason Parker. If I had any sense, I’d put my house up for sale and flee to Outer Mongolia where you can’t find me.”

  “If you had sense, you’d let me look for my watch.” He brushed a brief kiss on her soft lips before she broke loose and headed for the door. He loved the way her hips swayed back and forth. He was halfway to a hard-on.

  She glanced down at his zipper and he was busted. Mischief lit her eyes. “I need to get out of here before you get us arrested for contributing to the delinquency of senior citizens.”

  Chapter 23

  Several people whispered as they walked down the hall to room 418. Summer suspected that the building gossips had worked overtime. Filled with confidence and with Jason beside her, she ignored the stares and let it go. These people didn’t know her and wouldn’t hurt her. She was no longer a helpless teen girl. Who cared if during the ten minutes between the elevator, bathroom, and the thirty-second-long walk to reach Mr. Nealy’s room, everyone down to the nurse’s aides had been informed of their little indiscretion in the elevator.

  “I feel eyes following us,” Summer whispered with a laugh. If her reputation with the elders had to take a hit, she was glad it was with the handsome guy beside her.

  “Eat your hearts out, girls,” she said to Jason alone.

  “I could grab your butt if it helps.”

  She lifted her eyes. “Don’t push it.”

  An elderly woman with bright purple hair winked at Jason and struck a hand-on-her-hip pose from an open door. He winced and hurried Summer along. “Ouch.”

  They made a turn. He knocked on room 418, and entered when bidden. The apartment was small but tidy and painted in warm beige with cream, blue, and brown curtains at the windows. From where they stood, the living room had a couch, chair, and coffee table, shelves, and a large TV on one wall. Personal touches gave the room character, including a stuffed raccoon standing in one corner that brought a smile to Summer’s lips.

  Off to the right was a tiny kitchen, and the left a hallway that led to what Summer assumed was a bathroom and a bedroom. In the center of the living room sat Mr. Nealy.

  “There’s my boy,” he said as Jason walked to the couch and bent to hug his grandpa. Summer’s heart hitched. The graying senior looked robust for a man who needed full-time care. “Who do you have with you, son?”

  Jason stepped aside. “You remember Summer from next door?”

  “Of course I remember Summer. I’m not senile. Or blind.” He reached out. She stepped close and took his hand. He patted her wrist with a liver-spotted hand that was very warm. “This beauty kept my old heart beating for many months.”

  Summer fought back a smile. “You’re still a big flirt. I bet the women in this place are lining up outside your door to bring you casseroles.”

  He grinned and his eyes crinkled at the corners. His grandson had the same eye color. “You know my heart is taken. I’d marry you tomorrow if you’d just say yes.”

  Jason snorted. “You wouldn’t last a day.”

  Mr. Nealy shot him a look that clearly meant that he wouldn’t mind a bit. She shook her head. “Now I know were Jason gets his charm with the ladies.” From Jason’s expression, he knew she was messing with him.

  “Jason wouldn’t know charm if it bit him on the ass.” Mr. Nealy clicked off his TV and patted the space beside him. She sat. “Those youngsters don’t know how to treat women. All they want is sex, sex, and more sex. And no conversation.”

  Summer coughed behind her closed fist and Jason rolled his eyes. Mr. Nealy chuckled and patted her knee. “They get a woman alone in an elevator and their raging hormones start flying.”

  Good grief. Summer prayed for the couch to swallow her up, but the overstuffed cushions held firm. She couldn’t look at either man for fear she’d drop over dead from embarrassment. There was no way she’d take half the blame when Jason had been the one who kissed her first. What would Mr. Nealy think if he knew she’d been all over his grandson . . . more than once!

  Courage, Summer. She was here for a case and not to discuss the mutual desire between her and Jason. “You’re right. He is a little untamed.”

  She lifted her eyes. Jason was giving her the stink-eye and Mr. Nealy smiled even more broadly. Instinct told her that her and Jason’s situation met with his approval, as if he’d planned the match himself. That was something to think about. Later.

  “He needs a good woman to teach him table manners and he’ll be okay. At least he no longer leaves the toilet seat up—”

  “All right, that’s enough,” Jason interjected, smiling. “We came here to talk about Mel and Mary Crosby. Not me.”

  Summer nodded. “Mary has gone missing and we hoped you could share some information on their relationship.”

  “Mary is missing?” Mr. Nealy sat back on the couch. “She’s always been a sweet gal, though I never trusted Mel. He’s too slick, like he’d shake your hand with one hand and lift your wallet with the other.”

  Interesting. “Did you ever see signs of trouble in their relationship?” she said.

  “Nothing outward but I did sense tension there.” He scratched his chin. “Not at first. When they moved in back in ’06, they were happy little clams. After a few years, I think Mel had an affair. A woman would come over late at night when Mary was out of town. I saw her pull up a couple of times when I couldn’t sleep. Mel let her in.”

  “Did you know who she was?” Summer smelled a lead.

  “No, but she drove a Caddy. A silver one.”

  Hmmm. That wouldn’t help. A lot of people owned cars like that. “How long did this go on? Did Mary find out?”

  “About a year, but I don’t know for sure. Mary was not one to gossip to me about her troubles, and the woman was never over during the day when anyone could see her. After a while, she stopped coming and the Crosbys continued on as before.”

  “If Mel was a cheater,” Jason said, “there might be more than one affair in his past.

  “Like the woman we saw the other day.” She puzzled over the clue for a minute. “If we see her again, we’ll follow her. If Mel killed Mary, she might know something.”

  Mr. Nealy watched their exchange and didn’t interject until they’d wrapped up the conversation. When Jason caught his grandfather’s stare, he said, “What?
”

  The senior leaned back and crossed his legs. “Before you run off, I think we should talk about you two. There’s a lot of chemistry here. Have you asked her out yet?”

  Jason flinched. “We don’t have that kind of relationship. We’re just friends.” He glanced at Summer for confirmation and his eyes begged her to go along.

  She nodded. “Yes, just friends.”

  “Nonsense.” Mr. Nealy rubbed his cheek. “Mabel Jablonski said that the heat you two were putting off in the elevator melted her girdle, and Felix said you two were walking Viagra.”

  “Pops,” Jason warned.

  “Don’t give me that Pops business. You need a sweetheart like Summer who’ll run you around and make you crazy. And you, young lady, need to get out from behind your computer and live a little. The two of you are about as exciting as a visit to the proctologist.”

  * * *

  “Don’t pay attention to him,” Jason said after they left the room. “He’s senile.”

  “As senile as I am,” she said then remembered all the mishaps of the last couple of weeks. “Scratch that. But he’s right about one thing. My life has gotten pretty routine over the last year or two; all computers all the time. If not for this case, I’d be vitamin D deficient from too much cave dwelling. That’s what Jess tells me.”

  “We could make out in the elevator again. That was exciting. Say the word and I’m in.”

  Her lids narrowed. “I’d rather take up skydiving.”

  “Uh-huh.” He led her into the elevator. Several people stopped to check them out as the doors closed. “Keep telling yourself that. You know you want me. Just admit that you’re thinking about my muscular pecs right now.”

  Saliva caught in her throat and she coughed. “Don’t be ridiculous.” She coughed again. “Unless you’re in front of me, I don’t think about you at all, not ever.”

  “Is that so?”

  “It is so.” Lies. Lies. Big fat lies.

  “Well, I think of you all the time. In my bed. In my shower. In my truck. When I think of your sweet ass, you are my own personal little blue pill.”

  She choked again on her laughter and tried to cover it up, making the cough worse. He patted her back. Her face burned. He was both the most aggravating and desirable man she’d ever met!

  He bent sideways. “You’re thinking about my rock-hard pecs now aren’t you?”

  Summer wheezed, “Stop it!”

  * * *

  The ride home was quiet. Jason had stopped teasing her, and to keep from dragging him into the back seat for a romp, she sat as far from him as possible, hoping her seatbelt would hold if the door popped open. The man drove her crazy, and not in a bad way. What to do?

  They swung through a drive-thru for burgers and fries. Heather was sitting on Summer’s porch with someone when they drove up his driveway. A man leapt over the rail and vanished around the house.

  “Are you kidding?” Summer launched herself out of the truck before Jason put it in Park and gave chase. She found squirrel-man cowering behind the gnome village in the corner. He’d managed to get over the low fence, but caught his hoodie on the wire points. Tugging tore the fabric further, and the zipper appeared stuck. He was trapped.

  She leaned over the fence and gave him the death glare. “I know Heather has passed the age of consent in Michigan by one year, but she is still my baby sister and you are what? Forty?”

  “Thirty-six.” He moved as far away from her as his hooked hoodie could get him. He was still within striking distance.

  “Really. Come on. What’s wrong with you? At your age you should be employed and not trying to get into the panties of a seventeen-year-old girl. And why are you still in college and living with eighteen-year-olds?”

  “My mom works for U of M,” he said, tugged the jacket, and peered up like a trapped rabbit at Summer. “I go for free.”

  This guy had more problems than sniffing around Heather. That beard for one thing. A lack of maturity for another. And the list went on.

  However, she wasn’t his therapist. She had to shake him loose. “Look, buddy. I’m Heather’s guardian and I carry a gun. If I see you around here again, I’ll shoot and bury you where you’ll never be found. Got it?”

  He gulped and jerked the jacket free with a loud rip. “Got it.” Jumping to his feet, he dashed through the maze of figurines and vanished onto the next street over.

  Satisfied, she turned to find Jason and Heather standing a few feet away. Heather flexing and closing her fists. “You are so embarrassing! I’d never date that guy so you didn’t need to scare him off. Give me some credit for good taste.”

  “It’s my job to watch out for you,” Summer said. She wouldn’t apologize for caring.

  Heather flipped her ponytail over her shoulder. “I’m almost eighteen. I’ve taken care of myself for years. Same as you. I don’t do drugs or have sex; not ever on the first and not yet on that second one, and never with an unemployed perpetual college student. So please don’t treat me like a child.” She stalked off to the house.

  The slam of the front door echoed in her ears and ruined the whole I’m not a child lecture. Still, her sister was right. Both O’Keefe girls had grown up too fast, despite their grandparents’ best efforts. Neither had a father and their mother was a mess. They’d learned to be independent early.

  “That went well,” Summer said rubbing her arms. “I think I failed my first stab at parenthood.”

  Jason shrugged. “I liked you getting all threatening on that guy. It was hot.”

  “You’d think me scrubbing a toilet was hot.” He sent her that sexy grin as she approached. Her walls were chipping away under that darn grin. Her heart had already let him in.

  “True. But only if you wear your old cheerleading uniform while waving around the scrub brush.”

  She grimaced. “Ick. You are disturbed.” Despite his mental incapacities, he was sexy. Testosterone oozed out of his pores in an invisible cloud of manliness to keep her brain in a state of mental intoxication.

  Jason touched her hair. “You’re right. Ever since you flopped around on my grass like a trout, whining about your bruised ankle, you’ve been in my head.”

  “I wasn’t flopping or whining.”

  “Yes, you were.” He brushed his thumb along her jaw. “I’m convinced that you faked the whole thing to get in my jeans.”

  Summer playfully slapped his hand away. “You’re crazy.” “We already covered that.” He leaned in she put her hand out. His heart beat beneath her fingertips. “Tell me that you didn’t fake the injury and almost kill that kid to meet me.”

  Trapped, she backed into the fence. A multitude of lies raced through her brain but none would make sense to anyone over five. She was a terrible liar. “Okay, fine. I wanted to meet the neighborhood serial killer and didn’t know how to do it without you getting the wrong idea.”

  “Usually a tuna casserole works.”

  The man was an annoyance. “If I showed up at your door bearing baked goods, what would you have thought?”

  “That you wanted to play with Mr. Happy.”

  “Exactly.” Mr. Happy? “I just wanted to see if you were a serial killer. Not seduce you.”

  A blank stare followed the pronouncement. “So you don’t want to get naked with me?”

  “I never said that.” She couldn’t think with him so close. Her fingertips were now twisted in his shirt. “Wait, that didn’t come out right. Of course, I don’t want to sleep with you.”

  “Is that so?”

  “It is so.” She steeled herself against his seductive powers. The man was the Zen-master of seduction. If they were alone she’d already be out of her panties.

  A smile appeared as he leaned to nip her ear. “Your mouth is saying no but your nipples are saying hell yes.”

  Her eyes snapped downward. Sure enough, the pair was flashing an OPEN FOR BUSINESS sign through her shirt.

  Drat.

  She bolted for cover. />
  Chapter 24

  After yesterday’s failures of good judgment, Summer decided to do her very best not to end up in a lip-lock with her sexy neighbor. She had her job and Heather to think of. She just couldn’t go around kissing Jason when Mary was missing and a killer might be living across the street.

  With a new resolve, she rapped on Jason’s door with a newly organized file of the Crosby case in her laptop. Although it was early, she expected him to be up. What she didn’t expect was six-foot of dripping male standing of front of her wrapped in a peach-and-white floral beach towel.

  Her knees went wobbly and her mouth dried up. His tribal tattoos brought thoughts of a Hawaiian beach, fruity drinks, and Jason loving all over her body on the sand. Of course, as with any deliciously sexy romp on the beach fantasy, the sand did not stray where it shouldn’t.

  “I ran out of bath towels.” He leaned against the door frame with one arm, an I’m-so-friggin-hot-that-you-can’t-resist-me grin on his face.

  All resolve vanished in a poof. Her hand went out to touch the rippling stomach muscles—because they were indeed rippling—all wet, warm, and fat free. His skin twitched under her exploring hand and his breathing turned shallow.

  “Wow.” She gaped and her laptop case hit the floor.

  “I was thinking the same thing.” He dragged the laptop over his threshold with one foot as he took her hand, pulled her inside, and closed the door.

  Summer offered zero resistance. Heck, she met him halfway when he pushed her back against the door and went in for a soul-sizzling kiss.

  His exploring tongue slid into her mouth, eager and searching, and she melted against his damp body while his hand twisted into her hair. How her legs got locked around his waist was a mystery along the lines of Stonehenge, and how she got into his bed without breaking the kiss would never be solved. Her brain was spinning so wildly that everything outside of his mouth and the erection pressed between her legs was out of focus. She was grinding against his body and begging in little whisper-gasps for more.

  “I want you so much it hurts!” Her.