“I care a lot for you, Shirley, and it’s deep.”
“I ... It’s mutual, Carson.”
Chapter Eight
Carson had never liked big parties at which people stood around drinking and making small talk. If he had to socialize with people not of his own choosing, he’d rather do it at a dinner for not more than eight. In that way, he could at least learn something about those guests he hadn’t previously met. He drove into a three-car garage attached to a big red-brick house surrounded by beautifully manicured lawn and shrubs and with tall trees near enough to give it summer shade.
He got out, walked around to Shirley, and rubbed her nose with his thumb. “Woman, you exasperate me sometimes. I wanted to open the door for you. I know you are capable of finding your way out of it, but it’s my pleasure to open it for you, and you’ve cheated me out of it.”
“How careless and thoughtless of me,” she said, slid back into the car, and closed the door. With her hands lying in her lap and her shoulders relaxed against the back of the seat, she looked at him, her face blooming in an innocent smile. He couldn’t shake her, as badly as he wanted to do something to her. With the long-ago demise of the caveman culture, he couldn’t do what he felt like doing, so he opened the door, held out his hand, and assisted her out of the car.
“I owe you one for that, Shirley.”
“I imagine you do, and I can’t wait to get it. You will make it pleasant, won’t you?” She dusted the side of his face with the back of her hand. “Don’t look so shocked. If I promised you something, you’d be dying to get it, wouldn’t you?”
“Quit while you’re ahead, Shirley. For two cents, I’d take you somewhere right now, and ... Look, this is childish. I’m not going to play smartass with something that’s important to me, to both of us.”
“You’re right. I shouldn’t have started that, but you were looking so serious that I couldn’t help teasing.”
“Teasing? You weren’t teasing; you were saying some things you wanted to get off your chest. I told you that I take seriously everything you say, including the things you say in jest. How do I introduce you?”
“My name is Shirley Farrell. You know that.”
“May I introduce you as my girl?”
“Oh! I see. But we’re not intimate.”
He grasped her hand and began walking toward the door. “Intimacy is not a criterion.” He didn’t like that frown on her face.
“It ought to be. But I like the idea, so why not? What’s the matter?” she asked when the air seemed to whoosh out of him.
He wondered if he should believe his ears. “You take some getting used to. I haven’t met many women who’re as candid as you are, and as I recall, I encountered those in connection with business matters. Do you realize what you said to me?”
She squeezed his fingers and stars twinkled in her eyes. “Sure I do, and I trust you to be sensible with that information.”
“You trust me to ... I try to be sensible all the time, Shirley. But with these challenges you’re throwing at me, it isn’t easy.” He rang the doorbell.
“Carson! My man, this is great. I was beginning to think you wouldn’t get here.” The man’s gaze shifted to Shirley, and both of his eyebrows shot up. “Mmm. I see there’ve been some changes made.”
“Lester Coleman, this is my girl, Shirley Farrell.”
“And what a girl! I’m glad to meet you, Shirley. You two come in and meet folks.”
“Hello, Lester. It’s nice to meet you.”
Carson glanced at her from his peripheral vision. Surely she didn’t have a reason for that frosty tone of voice. If Lester noticed it, he didn’t make it obvious.
“Where’s Alma?” Carson asked the man about his wife.
“She’s somewhere around. With all these people, I can’t keep up with her.” Lester introduced them to people who would forever be a blur to Carson, for he didn’t attempt to remember their names or their faces. He heard Shirley ask a woman if she knew where the bathroom was.
“There’s one down here and another in the basement, but if you’re in a hurry, I suggest you go upstairs and turn left.” Shirley thanked the woman and turned to Carson.
“Excuse me for a couple of minutes, and please don’t move from here, because I’d never find you.”
She returned a few minutes later wearing a strange facial expression. “Do you know a woman who’s very fair, has reddish hair, light brown eyes, about my height, a heavy bosom, and real full lips?”
“Yeah. That would be Alma, Lester’s wife.” Someone slapped him on the back, and he whirled around to find a close friend smiling at him.
“You old son-of-a-gun. If I’d known I’d see you, I wouldn’t have given my wife such a hard time about coming here. Carson Montgomery, this is my wife, Francine.”
Carson accepted the greeting, put an arm around Shirley’s waist, and urged her closer to him. “Richard and Francine Spaldwood Peterson, this is my girl, Shirley Farrell. Shirley, Richard has been everything from an ambassador to the secretary-general of an international organization with headquarters in Geneva, Switzerland. Francine and I are in the same profession.”
Shirley’s eyes lit up with eager sparkles. “You’re a detective? How exciting! Are you a cop, too?”
Francine laughed and nodded. “I know. People say I look too tender to be either, but if they mess with me, they have it confirmed that you can’t judge a book by its cover.”
“Excuse me,” Carson said, mainly to Shirley. “I’m going up the stairs. Do I turn left or right?”
“You’d better go down to the basement,” Shirley said.
Strange, he thought. But she’d just been up there, so he’d do as she suggested. It pleased him that Shirley remained with his friends, Richard and Francine Peterson. He had worked with Francine on several high-risk jobs during which they became good friends. He’d often wondered if he could work with a partner he didn’t like, since his life could depend on that person’s loyalty. He had discovered that, as a detective, Francine was as sharp as any man and better than most.
Richard put a hand on Carson’s shoulder. “We’d love for you and Shirley to visit us over on the shore. We live in Ocean Pines right on the ocean, not far from Ocean City. It’s idyllic. We wouldn’t live anyplace else.”
“And we have a big house that we built with the intention of having guests,” Francine added.
“Thanks for the thought,” he said. “We both love the water. Shirley is public relations director for the Paradise Cruise Line, and she’s away most weekends, but if she’s willing, we’ll work something out.”
“Please come,” Francine said to Shirley. “I promise you’ll want to come back.” Shirley thanked her, and it pleased Carson that they seemed to like each other. They talked for a while, but the smell of liquor and cigarette smoke got to him. He hated to disturb Shirley, who seemed engrossed in her conversation with Francine, but he longed for fresh air. Finally he caught Shirley’s eye and, as if she’d read his thoughts, she said to Francine, “Carson can take just so much of scenes like this, so I suppose we’ll be leaving.” She smiled at him. “Am I right?”
“As usual, you’re on the button.”
They told their friends and the host good night, and it surprised Shirley that he didn’t appear to be concerned that they were about to leave and hadn’t greeted their hostess. A few blocks from Route 29, which would take them to Ellicott City, he turned into the parking lot of a small café and parked.
“Let’s go in here. I’d like some coffee.”
“Fine. I’d like some, too, and maybe some lemon custard ice cream.”
He ordered coffee and the ice cream for both of them, leaned back in the booth, and asked the question that had plagued him all evening. “Why were you so cool to Lester when we arrived?”
“Because I don’t like men who flirt with their friend’s date.”
He stared at her for a second and then laughter rumbled out of him. “Sorry,�
� he said when he’d brought the laughter under control. “I’d forgotten that Lester is a compulsive womanizer. He’ll go after any woman who isn’t a blood relative. You certainly cooled him off.”
She pulled air through her front teeth, surprising him, because he hadn’t previously known her to do that. “He should have been upstairs cooling off his wife.”
“What? What do you ... That’s right. You described her to me. Where did you see her?”
“On top of a man who wasn’t Lester. And since her husband didn’t seem worried about her absence, I suspect they have an open marriage. I met three couples there who I’d like to see again, but not those two.”
“Different strokes for different folks. If what you suspect is true, I’m surprised at Lester. It’s been only eight years since he was a certified country bumpkin lured by the sight of every pretty bosom he saw. I’m ready when you are.”
He drove through the winding roads and along the beautiful waters in Patapsco Park, lit by a frosty-looking late-autumn moon. “I wonder why I never paid attention to nature,” he said as he drove beneath low-hanging evergreen branches through which the moonlight made intricate and beautiful patterns. “When you get right down to it, nature offers the best sedative, the best de-stressing medicine a person needs. And if this environment doesn’t seduce a woman, a man had better admit that he doesn’t have a damned thing going for him.”
“Did you think you had to bring me here in order to seduce me?”
“Why would I do that?” he said, his tone suddenly frosty. “You’ve already told me you can’t wait to get what I owe you.”
“Oh, Carson. That sounds terrible. I was being flippant. When it comes to sophistication, you’re far ahead of me.”
“I know that, and it’s one reason why I don’t want to engage in one-upmanship with you. It isn’t natural, and it can be hurtful.”
“But I have a habit of jostling with people I care about.”
“And you care about me?”
“Yes, I do.”
Straight from the shoulder. He hoped she was as honest a lover as she was in respect to other things. “Don’t you care about me?” she asked, her voice a little shaky. His antenna went up. Could it be that her bravado masked insecurity? He hoped not, for it was a part of her that he liked a great deal. Her cell phone rang.
“Go on and answer your cell phone,” he said when it continued to ring. A rueful smile slid over his face. “I won’t feel neglected.”
She fished around in her pocketbook and found the phone. “Edgar! Hi. Where are you?”
“At the Breakers Harbor Hotel. I’m about to go on. When are you going back to Fort Lauderdale? Gunther’s getting so highfalutin that I can’t talk to ... What the devil? Hey, I smell smoke. That’s an alarm. I gotta get out of here.”
“What? Where are you in that hotel?” She heard a dial tone. “Carson. Please. We ... I have to go to the Breakers Harbor Hotel in the Inner Harbor. Edgar said it’s a ... that he smelled smoke.” She repeated what her brother told her. “Suppose he doesn’t get out.”
“He will get out, sweetheart. Don’t worry. Damn these bucket seats. Move closer to me.”
She didn’t remember biting her nails since she flunked her eighth-grade cooking class. Every nerve in her body seemed torched. Her legs and thighs perspired profusely, and when she tried to answer Carson, her teeth chattered so badly that she couldn’t get out a word.
“Lord, p-please d-don’t let anything h-happen to Edgar. L-let him g-get out of th-there,” she finally stammered. Carson switched from Route 29 that led to Ellicott City, took the transfer to Route 95, and headed for Baltimore.
“Those are ambulance sirens,” she said. “What are we going to do?”
“Easy, sweetheart. We don’t know that he’s in trouble. Let’s send out positive vibes and hope for the best.” He parked a block from the hotel, because the police wouldn’t let him drive into the block. They jumped out of the car, and he grabbed her hand and raced with her to the middle of the block in which the hotel stood. There, two policemen stopped them.
“My brother’s in that hotel,” she screamed, and immediately Carson’s arm eased around her and brought her closer to him. Still holding Shirley firmly to his body, he handed the policeman his ID card.
“It’s a mess up there, sir,” the policeman said. “I think you ought to leave the lady here.”
“D-did they get everybody out?” she asked the policeman.
“I don’t know, ma’am. That’s an awfully big building.”
She groped for the lamppost and leaned against it, fearing that her liquid limbs would give way. Holding a facial tissue to her nose, she blew as hard as she could in an effort to get rid of the acrid smoke and the odor of assorted burning objects.
“Sit on this, ma’am,” a fireman said, and turned a bucket upside down.
She sank to it gladly. “Thank you so much.”
Closer to the fire-ravaged hotel, EMS workers wheeled someone up to an ambulance, and she jumped up. But she couldn’t determine whether the person was alive. She worried her bottom lip. Why hadn’t Carson come back?
A third-floor window belched thick black smoke, and Shirley sprang up and raced toward the hotel and into the steel-like body of Carson Montgomery.
“You can’t go there. It’s too dangerous,” he told her. “You’ll be in the way, and you could cost someone’s life.” He pulled her aside as a man staggered out of the building and collapsed on the sidewalk.
A fireman raced to the fallen man. “How are you? Can you breathe?” When the man gasped for breath, the fireman covered his nose and mouth with an oxygen mask. Shirley clung to Carson, unable to control her trembling. If Edgar had gotten out of the hotel, wouldn’t he call? As if he’d read her mind, Carson asked her for Edgar’s cell phone number and dialed it.
“Hello.”
“Edgar? Where are you, man? Shirley’s going crazy thinking that you might have perished in this hotel fire.”
“No way. Tell Shirley not to worry. I accidentally found the back way out. Unfortunately, a few people didn’t make it.”
“Why didn’t you call her, man? She’s on her way out of her mind. Can I tell her you’re all right?” He listened to Edgar’s lame explanation, balling his left fist in frustration. He didn’t countenance violent behavior, but he’d love to slam that self-centered guy against a brick wall.
“Me? I’m cool,” Edgar said. “I’m almost home. I was going to call you in the morning. Is around nine okay?”
“Yeah. Sure.” He hung up and stared at Shirley.
“I know what you’re thinking, Carson, but it’s no surprise to me. I love my brother, but I don’t think I know anybody who’s as selfish and as self-centered as he is. I don’t know why he’s like that.”
A sharp explosion drew their attention to the building as a third-floor frontispiece fell to the street, barely missing an ambulance. “I need to see if there’s anything I can do to help,” Carson said. “Can you drive my car to Gunther’s place? I’ll get it later.”
She looked into his determined gaze and saw that the need to help was intrinsic to his being as a man. Yet, knowing that he might risk his life decelerated the pace of her heartbeat and she had to gasp for breath.
He looked her in the eye. “I could save someone’s life.”
She stiffened her back and smiled. “Give me the keys. I’ll have coffee ready when you get there. Please be careful.”
He handed her the car keys, brushed a kiss over her mouth, and raced to the hotel, where people tried to find their way around the chunks of concrete that nearly blocked the front exit. She stood as he’d left her and watched him bend down and begin to clear the debris from the doorway.
There’s a reason why I love that man, she said to herself. If he can do that, I can certainly do this.
She got into his car, started to drive off, and stopped. She’d just told herself that she loved Carson Montgomery, but she had never even imagined
that she loved a man, any man. She moved away from the curb and headed for Ellicott City.
“Where’s Carson?” Gunther asked when she walked into his apartment. “Did you two have a spat?”
She walked past Gunther to the living room, sat down, took a deep breath, and let the air swoosh out of her. “It’s a long story.” After telling him about Edgar and the hotel fire, she asked him, “Did Edgar call you?”
“Not since last week. Thank God he got out of that hotel safely. Where’d you park Carson’s BMW?”
“Half a block from the front door.”
“I hope he doesn’t attempt any heroics at that fire scene. You care a lot for him, don’t you?”
She looked at her brother with what she knew was an appeal for understanding and acceptance. “A lot. An awful lot.”
Gunther shoved his hands into his trouser pockets, looked into the distance, and said, “I don’t doubt that he’s a good man and that you’d have a hard time finding a better one, but ... how does he feel about you?”
“It was mutual from the second we saw each other, and it’s developed into something deeper. He shows me that he cares. I know he’s his own man, and I accept that.”
“You’d better. A man his age rarely, if ever, changes. Incidentally, Frieda called. I think she’d like to come back, but there aren’t any sick people here.” His white teeth glistened against his smooth brown skin. “And thank God for that. She’s really a wonderful nurse.”
“So you said. I hope she gets a good job. I’ve been thinking that we need another nurse on my ship, the Mercury, but she’s not an RN. Oh, well.”
“Can’t you find a way around that?”
“That would be up to the supervisor of our clinics, but I’ll put it to them. Write me a letter of recommendation, okay? How’s her mother? Did she say?”
“Yeah. The doctor thinks her mother may be able to return to work in about a month. Frieda’s not without a job; the hospital is anxious to have her back. She said she needs a better-paying job.”
When the Sun Goes Down Page 15