by Sharon Sala
“I didn’t notice a damn thing,” Cat muttered, then pointed to the stove. “Your noodles are about to boil over.”
Wilson turned abruptly and slid the pan from the burner.
“Good call,” he said, as he stirred down the boil and adjusted the flame. “Won’t be long now,” he said, as he set the pan of green beans on the burner and added some salt and pepper.
“It smells good,” Cat said.
He decided not to push his luck with her and just accepted the compliment without any more teasing.
“So what’s the verdict on all the stuff I sent you? Have you come up with anything interesting?”
“Maybe.”
“Let me see,” he said as he turned the fire off under the cooked pasta; then he dumped the cooked and deboned chicken back into the noodles and broth. He gave the mixture a quick stir, then set it aside before joining her at the table.
“Show me,” he said.
She pushed some papers in front of him.
“Marsha went missing on the fifteenth.”
“Yeah?”
“So I made three lists. One of everything he did on the day before, one on the day she disappeared and one on the day after.”
“Did you find something?”
“Maybe.”
Wilson measured the food on the stove against his hungry belly.
“What say we eat first, since everything’s ready? Then you can fill me in on details as we eat.”
“Works for me,” Cat said, and got up to get glasses and silverware as he got down some plates.
Wilson pretended not to notice that her hands were shaking, or that there were tears in her eyes when she set matching Santa and Mrs. Santa salt and pepper shakers on the table. He didn’t know that Mimi had given them to Cat years ago, and that, despite the fact that the holes were so small in Santa’s head that the pepper would never shake out, they still used them every year.
By the time they sat down, Cat had her emotions back under control.
“This is really good,” she said. “Thank you for cooking.”
Wilson saw the tears in her eyes and tried to make light of the situation.
“Seeing as how I invited myself here with the full knowledge that I was probably going to be stranded, I considered it the least I could do.”
“Yeah…well…thanks anyway.”
“You’re welcome.”
The meal passed without much conversation. Cat didn’t have any fond memories to reminisce about, and Wilson didn’t think it was a good idea to offer any of his own, so they kept the talk geared toward the weather and the Dallas Cowboys football team.
By the time they’d gone through the chicken and noodles and the green beans, Cat was satisfied. Still, she couldn’t bring herself to refuse the peaches, since Wilson had gone to all the trouble of opening the can.
“Um, these are really tasty,” she said, as she swallowed the first bite.
He arched an eyebrow. “Not exactly pecan pie, though.”
“Is that what you like?” she asked.
He nodded. “Mom always makes at least four, to make sure we all get enough.”
Cat’s expression stilled.
Wilson could have kicked himself the moment the words had come out of his mouth, but it was too late to take back.
“So…why aren’t you with your family having dinner?”
He pointed out the window. “Well, Sleeping Beauty, I don’t know where you’ve been the last few days, but I’ve been stuck in my damned apartment because of all this sleet and ice.”
“You got here,” she said accusingly.
“They’re outside of Austin, which, as you know, is nowhere close. It would have meant hours driving on dangerous roads. I talked to my parents this morning. Mom would have had a fit if she’d thought I was trying to drive home today.”
“Oh.”
There was a long moment of silence; then Wilson reached across the table and laid his hand on top of Cat’s.
“You’re right. The peaches are really good.”
She rolled her eyes, then slid her hand out from under his.
“Oh, for Pete’s sake, you don’t have to baby me. I’m a big girl, remember? I’m sorry about the weather.”
“And I’m sorry about your friend,” he shot back. “Now can we stop this aimless conversation and get back to the damned peaches?”
“Fine by me,” she said, and ate until her bowl was empty.
They both stacked dishes in the sink, put up the leftovers and, as if by a prior agreement, sat right back down at the table and began to go through the papers again. This time, though, Wilson began to really read what she’d done.
At first nothing jumped out at him. An hour passed, then half of another, as they went through the pages together—offering comments about one thing, then vetoing it for another. Despite how badly Cat wanted to find the so-called smoking gun, she hadn’t been able to sort much out except names of restaurants or purchases that were most likely Christmas gifts.
“East,” Wilson said, suddenly.
Cat looked up.
“East what?”
“There’s a credit card bill for a meal he ate at a barbecue place in East Texas.”
“So?”
Wilson shoved a paper toward her, then pointed at a print-out line about halfway down the page. There was a large listing of oil and gas leases that belonged to the Presley drilling company, and some of them were in the eastern part of the state. Then Wilson pointed to another list and an expenditure made on the day Marsha went missing. Wilson found it difficult to believe that a man as smart as Presley would charge anything that might link him to a place and time that could get him in trouble. However, it could be something as simple as habit. A man like Presley would file an itemized tax return and wouldn’t think twice about saving receipts—even the ones he should have thrown away. A habit was a hard thing to break.
“Okay. I see the lease list. But what about The Fire Pit?” Cat asked. “It’s just a restaurant, right?”
“Yes, but it’s in East Texas—close to this listing of oil and gas leases. That part of the country is pretty heavily wooded. It appears from these records that when he goes up there, he usually travels by helicopter, and he seems to always eat at the same place.”
Cat grabbed the paper. “The date. What’s the date on the credit slip?”
Wilson pointed again.
Cat grunted as if she’d just been punched in the gut. It was the fifteenth of December, the day of Marsha’s disappearance.
Cat was so tense she was shaking. “Dinner? He killed her, then went and ate barbecue?”
Wilson frowned. “You’re jumping the gun again. You still don’t know that Presley killed her. You just think it. Remember what the man does for a living. He could have any number of reasons for being in that area.”
“But we know her cell phone was in a helicopter. I’m saying it was on her when the call was made. And if he was in a helicopter that same day, flying over the leases, and ate at his usual place, that says to me that she was with him. Did he stay in a motel out there that night?” she asked.
Wilson quickly scanned the credit card receipts.
“If he did, he didn’t pay with a credit card.”
“Does he have a pilot’s license?” Cat asked.
“He has plenty of people he could hire to fly it for him,” Wilson said.
Cat frowned. “If you had killed someone and were trying to hide the body, would you let another person in on the secret?”
“No.”
“So we need to know if he can fly his own planes,” Cat said.
Wilson took out his cell phone and made a quick call. His voice was terse as he requested the information. Despite the fact that it was a holiday, the man he called had a quick answer. It took less than two minutes for him to get an affirmative.
“He does,” Wilson said, as he dropped his cell phone back in his pocket.
Cat’s eyes widened with adm
iration. She didn’t know how he did it, but she was going to have to learn some of the tricks.
“Okay, say he flew out to East Texas, which is hundreds of thousands of acres. So let’s assume it was to go to his land, where the wells are being pumped.”
“That’s a real big assumption that might put you on a false trail,” Wilson said, then went back to the credit card listings. “Look and see if he rented a car while he was there.”
Cat scanned the list. “No. No rental. Nothing like that.” She moaned in frustration, then covered her face with her hands. “What if we’re missing the point? What if—”
“We’re just following clues. You and I both know how deceptive that can be, especially if you’re trying to make information fit a specific time or event.”
Cat stood up, then paced a few moments. “Okay. You’re right. I’m getting ahead of myself.”
“Okay, there’s no rental car,” Wilson said. “So what? He has a pilot’s license, remember?”
“Are there any landing strips on his oil leases?”
Wilson shuffled through the list.
“None that are apparent,” he said, then added, “However, you don’t need a landing strip when you’re in a chopper, and we think Marsha’s call was made from inside a chopper.”
“You’re right,” Cat said, as she reached for another list. “He owns a property just shy of seven hundred acres in the Tyler, Texas, area. Looks like there are a dozen or so wells pumping on that land.”
She got up from the table and strode to the windows. The weather was no better than it had been when she’d looked out hours earlier.
“I think I need to go there,” she said.
Wilson shook his head as he stood up and followed her.
“Catherine…do you hear yourself? We’re talking about seven hundred acres, some of it swampland. I don’t know what the weather’s like in East Texas, but something has to change here first before you can make a move. Besides that, you can’t just drive up to Presley’s land and expect to find your friend’s body—and that’s if she’s really dead, and if Presley really did it, and if he really hid her there. God, with his money and connections, she could be anywhere.”
Cat turned, her expression stern, her chin up as if bracing herself for a fight.
“She’s lost, damn it. If the situation was reversed, she would be looking for me.”
Wilson took her by the shoulders. The tension in her body was strong as she tried to withdraw. He tightened his grip.
“You’re running wild on this, which means you’re not thinking things through. What you’re doing could get you hurt.” Then he sighed. “I don’t want this to be the last thing you ever do.”
Cat tried to get free, but he wouldn’t let go.
“Damn it, Wilson, let me be. I don’t need anyone’s concern. I take care of myself.”
He frowned as he ran his thumb across the curve of her chin.
“Don’t ask me why, Dupree, because you sure haven’t given me any green lights, but you’re beginning to grow on me. I can’t explain the attraction, but I’d damn sure like to take you to bed.”
Cat felt as if she’d been sucker-punched.
Wilson loosened his hands from her shoulders, and slid them beneath her hair and up the back of her neck. Her pulse was pounding beneath the pads of his thumbs as he encircled her neck with his hands, then gently pulled her closer.
“I know you’re a woman who doesn’t like surprises,” he said softly. “So I thought I’d better let you know that I’m going to kiss you now. And if that pleases you as much as it pleases me, there’s a real good chance that we’re going to make love.”
Cat shivered at the promise in his voice, then surprised herself as well as him when she locked her hands around his neck and lifted her lips for his kiss.
Nine
Cat’s heart was in her throat. Life and her job had made her tough, but right now she was as vulnerable as a woman could be. She wasn’t naive, and she’d long ago lost her virginity, but she also wasn’t in the habit of crawling in and out of the sack with just anybody.
She had never had a long-term relationship. She didn’t want a long-term relationship. Having sex with Wilson McKay wouldn’t bind her to anything, yet she had a feeling that if they did this, her life was never going to be the same. Still, she could no more have turned away from this moment than she could have stopped breathing.
Wilson knew this was going to change his life. He was already more than interested in Catherine Dupree. Taking her to bed seemed an appropriate step in the right direction. He wasn’t leery. He was excited.
When she kissed him back, his excitement peaked. He deepened the kiss, feeling her lips part automatically as his mouth centered on hers.
There was a brief moment of discovery before every ounce of control he had took flight.
Cat moaned as Wilson arms tightened around her waist; then, when his hands slid lower and pulled her close against his groin, she shuddered.
Wilson felt the tremors in her body as he swept her up into his arms and carried her to the bedroom. A short time earlier, he’d watched her sleep in this bed, and now sleep was the last thing on their minds.
Cat began to undress. He stopped her with a look and a touch, then finished the job for her. By the time he was pulling off her panties, she was shaking all over. He tossed the tiny scrap of pale blue silk aside, then laid his hand in the middle of her belly and pushed her backward onto the mattress.
She felt a jolt of electricity, which only increased her need. She had made love many times before, but she was taken aback by how badly she wanted this to happen.
His dark eyes were unreadable as he quickly shed his own clothes. When she saw the powerful jut of his erection, she automatically reached down and touched herself, trying to ease the ache between her legs.
“Oh no,” Wilson whispered, as he crawled onto the bed and slid between her legs. “Save that for me, darlin’.”
Cat reached for him eagerly, locking her legs around his waist as he settled between her thighs.
Wilson momentarily braced himself above her with a hand on either side of her head. He was only vaguely aware of a faucet dripping in the adjoining bathroom, and never heard the squeals and laughter of the kids playing in the parking lot outside. All he could feel was the heat coming off her body and a growing ache to be inside her.
There was a brief moment of lucidity when Cat thought about how selfish she was to be letting her personal wants and needs supersede finding Mimi, and then a tiny part of her mind could almost hear Mimi laughing and telling her to go for it.
So she did.
From the first kiss to the shock of Wilson McKay sliding into her, she felt as if she were being washed in fire. Her heart was pounding, her breath coming in short, anxious gasps. The rhythm of their bodies was in perfect sync, as if they’d done this a thousand times before. She felt the thunder of his heartbeat beneath the palms of her hands, and could tell from the growing tension in his muscles that, whether he knew it or not, he was already out of control.
Wilson had lost all cognizance of anything but Catherine. He was caught up in the power of being one with this woman. Cat was a drug he couldn’t quit. He kept going back for it time and time again, until the inevitable happened.
Overdose.
One second they were still in motion, and the next, Cat’s fingernails were digging into his shoulders and she was moaning in his ear. He came so fast that he lost his breath. In the moment when he was spilling himself into her, he was convinced he was dying. Even more surprising was the fact that he wasn’t willing to stop to save his life.
Cat stretched.
Wilson murmured beneath his breath, slid his fingers around her waist and then pulled her closer against his belly. She went willingly as he spooned himself against her back. When he straightened the covers up over her shoulders, every muscle in her body went limp.
Cat was no novice, but the term “sexual satisfaction
” didn’t even come close to what Wilson McKay had done to her.
It was magnificent.
It was mind-bending.
It was addictive.
Wilson was almost blind with exhaustion, but he’d never felt better in his life. Just at the point of falling asleep, he felt Cat’s backside snuggling closer into his lap.
“Uh…Wilson?”
“Hmmm?”
“Could we do that again?”
He laughed out loud.
It started like a rumble down deep in his belly and came up his throat in husky ripples, until the sound, like a blowout, burst behind Cat’s head.
His laughter was infectious.
A little embarrassed, she frowned, but when he buried his face against the back of her neck and kept laughing, she rolled out from beneath his grasp and punched him on the shoulder.
Wilson had never, in his entire life as an adult, experienced this much passion and fun at the same time. He laughed until his belly hurt, and when he tried to pull her back down to him, she wouldn’t relent.
“It wasn’t that funny,” Cat muttered.
“On the contrary,” Wilson said. “You just weren’t looking at the request from my point of view. I was just lying there thinking that I’d never felt so used up and satisfied in my life, and then you’re asking about a repeat performance.”
Cat lifted her chin in the air, then arched an eyebrow.
“If the request was beyond your abilities, all you had to do was say so.”
Wilson reached up and pulled her back down in his arms, then rolled until she was beneath him. When she looked up, her breath caught in the back of her throat.
A bit of light was reflecting off the gold hoop in his ear, and there was a sheen of moisture on his lips, as if he’d just licked them. Without thinking, she ran the tip of her tongue along her bottom lip, and as she did, Wilson kissed her, hard and fast.
Cat groaned.
Wilson paused, then looked down at her.
“Still interested?” he drawled.
Cat’s nostrils flared as she locked her legs around his waist.
Wilson’s eyes widened, then closed in disbelief.