The Gazebo

by Kimberly Cates

  “I’m hopeless, Stone,” Deirdre confessed, sagging against the hard wall of his chest. “If I can’t…with you…when I want you so bad…then I’m hopeless.”

  Stone drew away from her, his hands curving about her upper arms. “I won’t believe that,” he said fiercely, looking into her eyes. “It was my fault we got snarled up. I didn’t know what you were dealing with. I mean, I knew it was something bad, but rape? Hell, you were just a kid. God, it kills me, thinking how damn alone you were. Pregnant, and not telling anyone what happened.”

  Deirdre grimaced. “About four months into the whole process words weren’t exactly necessary, if you know what I mean.”

  Stone sucked in a steadying breath. “It’s no wonder you reacted the way you did when I had you in my arms. We went from zero to overdrive way too fast, all things considered. It’s just…I’ve wanted you for so damned long. You’re the hottest woman I’ve ever seen, Deirdre McDaniel. Just thinking about you burns me up.”

  The heat in his eyes made her tingle all over, wish she could shed her past, step toward him, naked and new. But that was just one more dream that could never come true.

  “That woman you say is so hot—it’s not the real me, Jake. You want some fantasy you’ve dreamt up about who you think I am. The hard truth is that you don’t even know me.”

  “Don’t I?” He looked genuinely bewildered, uncertain, so different from the cocky Jake Stone she’d come to expect. “I know it sounds nutty, but sometimes I feel like I’ve known you forever. Trula had this friend, a crazy old bird who thought she was a psychic. Talked about past lives and past loves, so strong they wandered through time until they found each other again. That somehow, when they looked into each other’s eyes, their hearts remembered…”

  His voice trailed off, his cheeks darkening. “Sounds sort of hokey, huh?”

  “Sort of.” Sort of hokey. Sort of wonderful. Sort of romantic. And as unlike Jake Stone as anything that had ever come out of the man’s mouth before.

  Stone shrugged. “I guess when it comes right down to it maybe you’re right. Maybe if we take a little time to get to know each other better, if you learn to trust me, we can get past this mental block you have about making love.”

  And then what? a cynical voice inside her asked. The only way you know how to live is alone.

  “I don’t know if that’s such a good idea,” she hedged.

  “We’ll never know unless we try it.” Stone laced his fingers with hers. “How about this? I take you out on dates. We see some really bad movies. Eat dinner at some really good restaurants. I take you dancing at Amandine’s.”

  “Aman—what?”

  “Classiest nightclub in Chicago. I put on my tuxedo and take Trula dancing there a few times a year so she can strut her stuff and wow everyone in the joint.”

  Deirdre’s eyes burned at the image of Jake dressed to the nines, escorting his grandmother on a trip to Chicago, wining her and dining her and making Trula feel young.

  “She must love it,” Deirdre said softly.

  “It appeals to the devil in her. She makes sure everyone there thinks I’m her boy toy. When I sweep in there with you on my arm we’ll set the place on its ear.”

  Deirdre’s heart squeezed, picturing Jake and his grandmother, sharing their private joke, loving each other so much, no walls or angry words or ugly secrets between them. But then, Deirdre had seen with her own eyes how Trula and Jake handled confrontation. They raged at each other, laughed with each other, talked even when they wanted to shut each other out.

  If only the McDaniels could be like that…. If Deirdre could have gone to the Captain and Cade, inexorably reasonable. Explaining why she felt the need to find her birth father.

  You were the one who charged in like a wounded bear, she told herself. Who knows what might have happened if you’d given them a chance.

  But she’d blasted her family right out of the water with her outrage, her temper—

  Just like your father, Emmaline McDaniel would have said. Deirdre couldn’t help wondering now which one.

  “Come on, Deirdre,” Jake urged, drawing her back into the present, the dawn-kissed gazebo filled with his big, hard body, his soft, sexy mouth, his dangerous, persuasive eyes. “Trula browbeat me into all those lessons by promising that women can’t resist a man who can dance. She’d get really ticked if you proved her wrong.”

  “She’s not wrong, exactly. It’s just that her theory needs qualifying. As in most women can’t resist dancing men. I would be the exception. I was always singing onstage with the band while other girls got swept around the gym floor by some Prince Charming type with acne and an ugly carnation boutonniere.”

  “You’re kidding me, right?” Stone actually looked stunned. “The way you love music you’d be a natural dancer. You’d feel it all the way down in your soul.” He regarded her so earnestly she could almost see him at Emma’s age, charming the socks off any girl who caught his eye. “I know we’d be good together,” he insisted.

  “Oh, you do, do you?” Deirdre gave him her most skeptical look. “What’s with you, Stone? Are you a glutton for punishment?”

  But he just continued in that low, seductive voice, painting pictures in her head, making her want things that were out of her reach. “After we close the nightclub down, we can walk by Lake Michigan in the moonlight. I’ll hold your hand because it feels so damned good just to touch you. Then maybe I’ll steal a few kisses.”

  Deirdre’s mouth went dry. “Stone, I know you’re trying to be a nice guy, here, but you’d be putting yourself to a whole lot of trouble for what? A few less-than-stellar rolls in the hay before this case is over and we say goodbye?”

  A stubborn glint shone in Jake’s eyes. “You don’t know they’d be less than stellar. Maybe they’d be the best sex of your life.”

  “Oh, yeah, that would be a real stretch.” Deirdre gave a snort of laughter. “Reach for the stars, Stone.”

  “How about the best sex of my life, then?” Jake flashed her his irresistible grin. “That would give us something to shoot for. We’ll start slow, though. My old partner, Tank Rizzo, is having a picnic a week from Saturday.”

  “You still see your old partner?” Deirdre blurted out, surprised.

  “Yeah. Why?”

  “Isn’t it kind of awkward…after you shot that guy.” Great, she thought as Jake’s expression darkened. Deirdre McDaniel, the queen of tact. “Knowing you now, Stone, I’m sure he deserved it, or…or it was a big mistake.” She cringed inwardly. That made it sound so much better!

  “After all, cops are only human.”

  “Are they?” Stone’s mouth set, a little grim.

  Deirdre wanted to kick herself. When would she learn to keep her big mouth shut? “It’s not like it’s any of my business, I guess you just surprised me. When most people screw up big-time, they stay as far away from all the people who saw them crash and burn as possible. I know I sure did. That way it’s a lot easier to pretend it never happened.”

  Was it her confession that she tried to use to blot out her own mistake that made the tension in Stone ease? His eyes filled with a depth of character that surprised her, a quiet strength, unflinching honesty, a weary acceptance of flaws he understood all too well.

  “There was a time I thought about closing the door on our friendship. It might have been easier on me and on Tank not to have to see things that we’d just as soon forget. It still gets rough sometimes. But he’s the closest thing to family I’ve got besides Trula. Guess I figured that was worth fighting for.”

  “I never really had a lot of girlfriends as a kid. I hung around with Cade and his buddies, and then with different bands I’d try to put together—I was always the only girl. Until I met Finn I didn’t know how it felt to be able to share almost everything with someone. You’re right. True friendship is worth fighting for.”

  “Some things are.”

  A shiver of awareness prickled Deirdre’s nape, Stone’s gaze
suddenly solemn, holding hers. She pulled her gaze away, the contact too intense, confusing her, unnerving her.

  Stone touched her cheek. “Does that mean you’ll come with me to the picnic? Bring Emma?”

  Deirdre tried to put emotional space between them with a nervous laugh. “In case you missed the latest news-flash, Emma isn’t exactly crazy about you anymore. When that girl gets herself into a royal snit, even I don’t want to be in the same county.”

  “She’s got a whole week to cool off. It’ll be okay, Dee. I promise. Nobody can be around the Rizzos and stay mad.”

  “You don’t know my daughter. Sometimes she can even trump the Captain in stubbornness.” But somehow in the past I could always reach her…. Why is this time different?

  “Trust me. Emma will be crazy about Tank and Lucy and the boys. Besides, Trula’s invited. She’ll be a little miffed she won’t be my official date this time. But she’ll forgive me when she hears Emma’s going to be there. The two of them can talk theater until their ears fall off. I’ll even tell Trula to bring her dancing shoes.”

  Maybe that would be a good thing, if Trula and the prospect of dancing lessons could distract Emma from her obsession with Drew at least for a little while. Restore Emma’s sanity so that maybe, just maybe, Deirdre could find a way to break through this wall of hurt and resentment cutting her off from her daughter.

  And yet, Deirdre couldn’t deny the gnawing anxiety in the pit of her stomach. She caught her lower lip between her teeth. She was being ridiculous, feeling so shy and awkward at the thought of meeting Jake’s friends.

  “I don’t know if this is such a good idea,” Deirdre admitted. “I don’t…well, I’m not real big on—”

  Meeting new people, going into new social situations. I’ve got more than enough people to love and care about and worry over. I’m big on personal space….

  “Stone, I really kind of like to keep to myself. I’m used to it. I have to deal with my family and the guests at March Winds, but that about uses up what few social skills I have. My mouth tends to get me in trouble when I’m edgy or bored.”

  Stone crossed his arms across his bare chest. “You’re so sure my friends are boring, huh?”

  “No offense intended, Stone. It’s just—”

  “Lucy looks like a Botticelli Madonna and writes romance novels so steamy smoke comes out your ears when you read ’em. And Tank spent three years in the army as a spy.”

  Deirdre rolled her eyes. “Sure he did.”

  “He opted out because he was scared some subversives from a third-world country might kidnap the boys while Lucy was on deadline. Of course, Tank says the kidnapping would probably end up like that short story he read in high school—‘The Ransom of Red Chief.’ The terrorists would be begging Tank and Lucy to take the kids back.”

  Deirdre actually managed to chuckle. “Stone, you are so full of it.”

  He arched one brow, looking unbelievably sexy and—damn, this was downright dangerous—sweet. “You don’t believe me?” Stone challenged. “Why don’t you come to the picnic and ask them? Besides, Trula’s giving me no peace, wanting to start Emma’s dance lessons. She hasn’t been this excited since the day she decided to paint that damn house of hers pink.”

  “Well…”

  “You know, this romance novelist, spy stuff is going to drive you crazy if you don’t verify it for yourself. Besides, what better place to get a new perspective on this whole illicit sex deal than at the Rizzos, with Emma and Trula and the five pint-size monsters running around. We’ll have to watch Lucy and Tank, see if we can get any pointers. They’re experts at stealing kisses—and, from what Tank says, a whole lot more than that right under the kids’ noses. Come on, it’s just one little picnic. What have you got to lose?”

  For a fleeting instant the word plenty rose in Deirdre’s mind. But she shoved it aside, and stopped to consider. What did she have to lose, besides seventeen years of inhibitions? Too much time to hear the deafening silence where Emma’s eager chatter used to be? And the crowding of self-doubt every time she happened to glimpse Cade’s cabin on the opposite end of the garden?

  The best thing about this relationship with Stone was that it had finite limits. Once Jake found Jimmy Rivermont, Deirdre’s partnership with the private eye would die a natural death. No expectations of more.

  Maybe that’s what made her willing to take a few risks. She could have a fling with the sexiest man she’d ever known, then go back to her real life, the life she felt safe in, the life she understood.

  Deirdre shook off a niggling sense of loss. No sense being melodramatic. Neither she nor Stone were dewy-eyed romantics. They both preferred to look the truth coldly in the eye. And yet, as she thought of Jake Stone, there was nothing cold about it. He was heat and fire, the way he’d devoured her with his gaze, his big, hard hands hungry, as if he could never get enough of her.

  Stone frowned. “You’re thinking mighty hard considering the question just needs a simple yes or no.”

  “Fine. Okay. I’ll go.” She was probably going to regret it, but he’d managed to pique her curiosity. Besides, he was right. It had been quiet with the other McDaniels in the wilds of Montana and Emma so preoccupied with Drew Lawson and the play. Sadness tugged at Deirdre’s bravado.

  Truth to tell, it had been too quiet even before Cade had loaded everyone up in his SUV and hit the road, since the fateful day Deirdre had stormed into the cabin, Emmaline McDaniel’s letter clutched in her hand.

  Deirdre shoved back the hurt and loss, grabbed on to sharper emotions far more comfortable and familiar. “But you can just quit being ridiculous and deep-six the whole stolen-kisses idea, Stone. You can’t ignore the fact that we’ve already done everything except—” Full-out, burying-to-the-hilt penetration.

  Take me…

  Her cheeks burned at the memory of his passion-rough voice, urging her on.

  She tried not to wonder what would have happened if she’d steeled her courage, forced herself to lower herself onto him, inch by inch; accustomed herself to the feel of all that maleness; let Stone bracket her hips with his hands as he thrust up, into her.

  Just the fact that he’d drawn her that far into a sensual haze proved he was right about one thing. He was a damned good lover. If she’d forced her way through her fears would she have been able to just feel? Would she have been able to let go?

  She tried to blot out the image of Stone glistening with sweat, his muscles straining, his heart thundering, his eyes burning beneath her. She fought to focus instead on what she needed to say right now.

  “You know, Jake, our whole rolling-around-naked-onthe-ground thing may not have ended in fireworks tonight, but we zoomed way past the stealing-kisses stage of the relationship and headed straight to naked body parts and your tongue in my mouth.”

  “Yeah, well, I won’t be making that mistake next time.” His gaze dipped to her lips, held there a long moment.“In spite of how good it felt to put my tongue in your mouth.”

  Deirdre fought back a shiver of need. Oh, perfect, she thought with grim humor. Her libido was working just fine, at least where Jake Stone was concerned. It was just her follow-through that stunk. Still, she couldn’t keep from asking, “Is there going to be a next time?”

  “Oh, yeah.” Stone feathered the pad of his thumb over her bottom lip. “You’re a woman worth waiting for, Deirdre McDaniel. And you’re gonna find that I can be a very patient man.”

  CHAPTER 14

  JAKE STARED AT THE WHITEBOARD he’d used to trace Deirdre’s case, notes from the leads Norma Davenport had given them, employment records reconstructed from the fuzzy brain of the old man who’d once owned the town music store where Emmaline McDaniel’s lover had worked.

  Stone was close—damned close to finding Deirdre McDaniel’s birth father—and if he proved to be the man Jake was starting to suspect he might be, he could imagine Deirdre’s reaction.

  Stone shoved back his desk chair, Ellie May moaning in in
dignation as one of the wooden legs bumped her shoulder. The bloodhound had a complete aversion to any fast moves. She thumped her tail twice to let Stone know she forgave him, gazing up at him with adoring eyes.

  “Yeah, yeah, I know. I’m supposed to be glad, like you are, when I’m hot on the scent. The end of a case is a good thing. We get paid. Right? Trula’s pink house is safe for another few months…”

  Ellie May nosed at his hand, pleading for him to pet her. Pulling a wry face, Stone hunkered down, scratching the dog’s sweet spot behind her droopy right ear. “Okay, I’m exaggerating. I admit it. The agency’s doing great. The pink house will be paid off next June. You and me are on Easy Street, babe. We can have all the wild parties we want. Invite all your doggie friends and the cat next door. Trouble is, there’s only one person I want to have over here, and she’s made it pretty clear that the minute I hook her up with this Jimmy Rivermont guy, she and I are history.”

  Ellie May whined. Stone was sure it was in empathy and not just because he’d gotten distracted and quit scratching her ear.

  “What would you say if I told you I love her, Ellie May?”

  The dog crumpled onto the floor and rolled onto her back, legs up in the air, tongue lolling out ridiculously from the corner of her mouth. He’d always called it her “dead dog” trick.

  “That’s real encouraging, Ellie. Either you’ve died from shock or you think I’m dead in the water. And to think I rescued you from certain death. You’re supposed to be man’s best friend.”

  Ellie wiggled her wrinkly body into an impossible curve so she could lick his hand. “I know. That’s what I thought, too. You and me, kid. A couple of washouts from the force, living on the edge. Cold pizza for breakfast, watching old gangster movies all night. Nobody to nag when we went to play a pickup game of basketball at the gym. I didn’t know I was lonely, Ellie. Then she walked through that door.”

  Ellie rolled to one side and heaved a wrinkle-shaking sigh. “No, she did not deliberately miss and whack me over the head with that statue instead of hitting the con. She just…trusted me. You know? Out there in that gazebo. The things she told me…”