Pushed to the Limit (Quid Pro Quo 1)

by Patricia Rosemoor

SYDNEY AWOKE to the brilliance of morning and the sharp smells of freshly brewed coffee and frying bacon.

  But who...?

  Benno. Hazily, she remembered the man tucking the covers under her chin and then... nothing.

  She gazed over the side of the bed at the floor next to the night stand. The broken glass was gone as was the spilled milk. Benno must have cleaned up quietly so as not to awaken her.

  Her empty stomach prompted her to dress in record time. Running a brush through her short hair, she realized her head was achy, her mouth dry. The hangover feeling stayed with her as she quietly descended to find an incongruous sight in the kitchen.

  “Morning,” he said without turning around. “I was about to wake you. Sleep well?”

  “No more bad dreams, if that’s what you mean.” Though she was still feeling hazy and moving in slow motion.

  In full daylight, her dark knight seemed even more masculine and wild-looking than she’d remembered. His chin scar was more vivid in his beard-stubbled face, his tied back hair more slick, his rugged features more formidable. But how dangerous could a man with a frying pan in one hand, spatula in the other, be?

  Smothering a grin in the guise of a yawn, she approached and asked, “What can I do to help?”

  “Set the table out there.” He crooked his dark head toward the deck off the kitchen.

  Plates, cups and silverware were already stacked on the counter. Gathering the items to her, she used her hip to pop open the screen door. Benno was close behind with a coffee pot and platter of bacon, eggs and toast.

  Once she got a few bites of food in her stomach, Sydney felt physically better though she couldn’t say the same for her heart. Her head cleared and she was able to appreciate the beauty of the crisp morning. The sun shone strongly, brightening the landscaped grounds for the first time since she’d arrived in Stone Beach. As always, she could hear the ocean stir in the distance and was aware of its distinctive salt scent.

  Benno, however, wasn’t focusing on their surroundings. His light brown eyes were stuck on her.

  “What are you staring at?” she asked, fascinated by the way the diamond stud in his ear winked when he cocked his head.

  “You. You look like a different person this morning.”

  “Must be the good night’s sleep you made sure I got,” she stated, putting a fork full of eggs in her mouth.

  “Don’t go all gooey on me again, okay?”

  Gooey obviously made the man uncomfortable. “All right. Be modest. You already know how I feel.”

  His brow furrowed as he asked, “This is probably none of my business, but I was wondering what you were on last night.”

  Sydney washed the food down with a mouthful of coffee. “What do you mean – on?”

  “I wondered what you took to fall asleep.”

  She furrowed her brow. “Milk, remember?” At his disbelieving expression she added, “A great tonic for stress.”

  Benno threw his fork down to his plate. “Come on, Sydney, you had more than milk in your system. Admit it.”

  “Right. Ameiuridae. You’re the one who poured the stuff in my mug,” she said, a little irritated by the third degree.

  “Neither that small shot I gave you nor any number of glasses of warm milk would make you disoriented. And you were out of it when I caught up to you, Sydney, badly so.”

  “I wake up and I think I hear and see my dead husband – of course I was confused.”

  “I’m not accusing you of anything, and I’m not trying to judge you, so don’t get your back up,” Benno said calmly. “It’s just that doctors are sometimes too generous helping out grieving patients with sedatives.”

  “No doctor gave me anything of the kind,” she snapped, even as she once more wondered why she should have felt hung over.

  Sydney realized he still wasn’t convinced. Getting more aggravated by the moment, she was about to tell him she didn’t even know a doctor in the area when she heard a vehicle approach.

  “Hm, a visitor,” Benno stated. “Expecting anyone?”

  “No. Maybe they found Kenneth.”

  Breakfast and disagreement forgotten, Sydney was through the house in a flash. Indeed, when she opened the front door, the police car was the first thing she saw. The white Porsche behind it the second. A sleek young woman in a fire-engine silk red sundress swung her long legs out of the sportscar and set her strappy red-sandaled feet on the pavement. Officer Mick Brickman almost tripped over his own feet to help her alight.

  “Well, well, at last,” Benno murmured from behind Sydney. “The hen has come home to roost.”

  Sydney stared at Martha Lord. The young woman’s cloud of curly dark brown hair formed her only connection to her older brother. Where Kenneth’s features were chiseled and beautiful in a masculine way, Martha’s were merely sharp. She clung to Brickman’s arm and stared. Her deep set dark brown eyes narrowed unattractively as they flicked over Sydney’s black spandex knee length pants, black T and loose black and fluorescent green striped top that exposed one shoulder and most of the other.

  Tone hostile, she said, “So you’re the little tramp who claims to have married my brother. What did you do to him?”

  Appalled, Sydney had no response. That didn’t daunt the woman who went on castigating her.

  “You must have plotted to get at Kenneth’s money. Don’t think you’re going to get away.”

  ”Martha,” Benno cut in smoothly as he set a protective hand on Sydney’s shoulder. “You’re in top viper form this morning.”

  The young woman gazed up at the officer and demanded, “Brick, what the hell is he doing here?”

  “I don’t know,” the policeman answered, straightening his pants under his paunch. “What are you doing here, DeMartino? Consoling the widow so soon?”

  Flushing at the inference, Sydney was about to tell him off when she felt Benno’s fingers tense on her flesh.

  “Mr. DeMartino is here at my invitation, Officer Brickman. Do you find that a problem?”

  “Maybe.” Brickman’s brows furrowed, deepening the puffy bags under his small gray-blue eyes. “You oughta be careful about who you associate with.”

  She assured him, “I do choose my friends carefully.”

  “And your husbands? Uh, supposed husbands?” Martha corrected herself. Dragging Brickman by the arm, she pushed her way past Sydney and Benno and through the front door. “Come on. I want to look around to see if anything is missing.”

  “How dare you!” Sydney cried, following.

  Martha whirled and looked up at the officer as if for protection. “Brick?”

  “Martha was your late husband’s sister, Mrs. Lord.”

  “Assuming she had a husband,” the younger woman continued. “We don’t know that for sure.”

  Brickman gave her an annoyed look but didn’t say anything.

  Sydney, however, was not so complacent. “What makes you doubt Kenneth was my husband?”

  Arms crossed over her chest, Martha glared at her. “He wouldn’t have gotten married without letting me know.”

  “Surprise. He did.”

  “Prove it.”

  “Martha, you’re being particularly obnoxious, even for you,” Benno stated as he drew alongside Sydney. The dark-haired woman gave him a furious look that didn’t stop him. “Kenneth is dead and his widow is in mourning. I would think you might feel some remorse for your own brother’s death.”

  Her expression changed from confrontive to crushed so quickly that Sydney wondered if Martha weren’t only doing what was expected of her.

  “I can’t believe Kenneth is dead,” she said softly. “I can’t believe any of this. He never even mentioned being involved with a woman when I spoke to him last Monday.”

  Sydney shook her head. “You couldn’t have seen your brother. He was with me.”

  “I spoke to him on the phone. I was visiting friends in Seattle. He said he was calling from the Portland offi
ce.”

  “Impossible.” While Sydney knew Kenneth split his time and business between Portland and the coast, he hadn’t been away from her long enough to make the round trip, no less conduct business from his office. Besides which, she remembered Monday vividly. “That’s the day Kenneth asked me to marry him in Lincoln City.”

  “Kenneth wasn’t a liar,” Martha insisted. “You’re not even wearing a wedding ring and I’m still waiting for you to prove that you and Kenneth were married.”

  Sydney wasn’t about to explain the matter of the ring, not after what had happened the night before. Martha was grief-stricken, she told herself, giving the other woman the benefit of the doubt. Kenneth’s sister had her days confused. Grief made people say and do odd things. She had to be more understanding.

  As for giving the skeptical woman proof...

  “Will a marriage license satisfy you?”

  “It’ll do for a start.”

  “Fine. I’ll be right back.”

  Dignity keeping her spine rigid, Sydney strode to the stairs and climbed them to her room, all the while trying to mentally place the document. She seemed to remember folding the licence and slipping the paper into her purse after the justice of the peace signed it. They hadn’t had time to register the marriage that day... and then there had seemed no use for it.

  When she didn’t find the license in her purse, Sydney methodically searched her suitcases and the drawers in the gilded dresser that she’d filled with clothing and other personal items. She was in the midst of her lingerie, scattering lace underpants and bras about when she sensed she wasn’t alone. She spun around to find Benno silently watching her from the doorway.

  “Need some help?”

  Her first instinct was to say no. But she’d gone through her own possessions. Only her late husband’s were left, Sydney realized, and she wasn’t yet ready to go through them.

  She nodded. “My brother Dakota took Kenneth’s luggage to the master bedroom. Maybe the license is with his things.”

  A few minutes later, Sydney watched Benno do what she couldn’t. While he kneeled among the suitcases and searched, she inspected the room. The clean lines of Scandinavian teak furniture contrasted with the fussy guest bedroom.

  “Nothing,” Benno finally said, sitting back on his haunches.

  She connected with him, pleading with her eyes as well as with her words. “Are you sure? Maybe you overlooked one of those inner pockets or something.”

  “Why don’t you just admit you’re a phony,” Martha said from behind her. “Brick, arrest this woman immediately.”

  Sydney turned to stare at Kenneth’s sister who wasn’t even willing to give her the benefit of the doubt.

  Brickman asked, “Uh, on what grounds?”

  “I don’t know. Impersonation of someone who doesn’t exist. Suspicion of foul play. You’re the police, make something up.”

  Sydney’s sense of unreality was growing. This wasn’t happening to her. Married and widowed in the same day... imagining Kenneth was still alive... and now this, not being able to prove her link to the man she’d married and having her arrest ordered by his sister. She could see Kenneth so clearly, just as if she had a picture in her mind.

  A picture...

  “That’s it.” Sydney raised her chin and told herself to hang in there a while longer. “The photographs.”

  “What?” Martha demanded. “Another ploy?”

  Sydney thought she understood why Kenneth hadn’t told his sister about their plans. Perhaps he’d been afraid she’d spoil their wedding and would make them both miserable. Martha had been Kenneth’s responsibility, but she wasn’t Sydney’s.

  And Sydney wouldn’t put up with the younger woman’s spiteful nature much longer. She’d thought she might make peace with her past and herself here in Kenneth’s home, but she wouldn’t succeed with Martha around to needle her. Right now, the thing Sydney desired most was to be out of Stone Beach.

  “I shot a roll of film on our wedding day,” she informed them all calmly. “I took several photographs of Kenneth – and we even posed together with the justice of the peace.”

  Martha was visibly disturbed by the information. Dark eyes wide, she took a step back. “Pictures? Where?”

  “They’re still in the camera.” The tragedy had made Sydney forget not only about the film, but the camera as well. “I, uh, dropped it when Kenneth...”

  The scene of his falling, limbs flailing, flashed in her mind and she had to take a deep breath.

  “The camera should still be there where you left it, right?” Benno asked.

  Sydney nodded. “On the rise, where I was taking the photos.”

  “Likely story.” Martha sneered. “I’d predict that either you conveniently won’t be able to find the camera – or the pictures will be ruined from exposure to the elements.”

  “There’s one way to find out.” Benno placed a palm square in the middle of Sydney’s back, and with gentle pressure, moved her out of the room toward the stairs.

  “Count me out,” Martha stated. “I’m not traipsing around out on those rocks in high heels and a designer dress.”

  Sick of the woman’s histrionics, Sydney couldn’t help saying, “No one invited you.”

  “Brick, do something.”

  The woman continued to rant to the policeman as Sydney and Benno left the house. Her raised voice followed them down toward the cliff, but Sydney shut it out.

  Retracing her steps brought back memories of her wedding day. Benno’s presence kept her calm and focused on her mission. And she would have broken down under Martha’s onslaught if it hadn’t been for his strength. He was so much more complex a human being than she had guessed. Other than starting that ridiculous argument earlier, Benno seemed capable of giving her exactly what she needed at exactly the right moment.

  As if he sensed Sydney’s thoughts, Benno drew alongside and attempted to reassure her. “Don’t let Martha get to you. She can be controlled.”

  “By you, maybe.”

  “By anyone who has starch enough to stand up to her.” He swept a hand up her spine and gave her a friendly pat on the back. “You have a good backbone yourself. You just happen to be in a vulnerable position and she’s taking advantage.”

  Sydney shook her head. “I can’t imagine siblings being less alike. Kenneth was so sweet, so charming, so gallant.”

  “Kenneth?” Benno sounded surprised. “Hm, that doesn’t sound like him, either, but I guess you and I see him from different perspectives, being of the opposite sex. But you’re right about Martha – a changeling if I ever met one.”

  He kept her distracted until they arrived at the scene of the accident. Within minutes, Sydney found the camera which was barely dented. Thank goodness the housing was dry and the rewind mechanism was working properly. She opened the camera back and popped out the roll.

  Greatly relieved, she held up her proof to show Benno. “Let Martha try to have me arrested after she sees these.”