Whiskey Beach

by Nora Roberts

  “Right now I feel like I could do handsprings across a tightrope.”

  She laughed into her wine. “Sex is the best invention.”

  “No argument here.”

  “Maybe you should write some sex into your book, unless you think it’s too female and flowery.”

  “I sense a challenge.”

  “Wouldn’t you like your hero to find his balance in the end?” She leaned over, brushed her lips lightly to his. “I’d love to help you with your research.”

  “I’d be a fool to say no.” Eyes on hers, he slid his hand up her thigh. “The kitchen floor still looks good.”

  “We should see how it feels.”

  As she angled toward him, the doorbell chimed.

  “Damn it. Hold that thought.”

  He found Vinnie at the door, and realized he hadn’t hit balance when the sight of a cop, even an old friend, still made his heart lurch.

  “Hey, Vinnie.”

  “Eli. I had a call out this way, and was heading back in since my shift’s up. I wanted to stop by to . . . Oh, hi, Abs.”

  “Hi, Vinnie.” She stepped up beside Eli. “Come in out of the cold.”

  “Oh, well . . . bad timing. I can talk to you tomorrow, Eli.”

  “Come on in, Vinnie. We were just having some soup Abra made.”

  “Do you want a bowl?” she asked him.

  “No. Thanks. No. Ah, I had a dinner break a couple hours ago, and . . .”

  “I’ve got Eli on twice-weekly massages,” Abra said easily. “And I’m making sure he eats, which is something he’s been neglecting. And we’re having sex. That’s a new development.”

  “Okay. Jesus, Abra. Man.”

  “Why don’t you go in and sit down with Eli? I’ll get you some coffee.”

  “I don’t want to get in the way.”

  “Too late,” Abra said as she walked off.

  Eli just grinned after her. “She’s amazing.”

  “Yeah, well. Look, Eli, I like you. At least I liked you back in the day, and I’m inclined to like you now. Just don’t mess up with her.”

  “I’ll be working hard not to. We might as well go in and sit down.” He turned toward the parlor, stopped when Vinnie studied the massage table. “She won’t take no.”

  “Not on much.” Vinnie hooked his thumbs in his uniform belt. “Anyway, Eli, I know Detectives Corbett and Wolfe came to see you.”

  “Yeah, we had an interesting chat earlier.”

  “Corbett’s straight and smart—and thorough. I don’t know Wolfe, but it’s pretty clear he’s got his teeth in this bone, and he’s not giving it up.”

  “He’s had his teeth in me for a year.” Eli dropped down on the sofa. “I’ve got the scars.”

  “He’s going to chomp them into Abra now, and into me.”

  “I’m sorry, Vinnie.”

  Vinnie shook his head, lowered to a chair. “I’m not looking for sorry. But I figured you should know he’s going to do what he can to discredit Abra as your alibi, and take a swing at me as I play into it.”

  “He’s a bully.” Abra walked in with a mug of coffee. “A dangerous one, I think.”

  Vinnie took the coffee, stared into it. “He’s a hard-nosed, experienced cop with a pretty solid rep. My take? Coming up against you, Eli, when his gut and the circumstantial says you’re guilty as black-eyed sin, then not being able to prove it’s got him pissed.”

  “I can’t be guilty of murder just to keep his record clear.”

  “He knew Duncan.”

  “I got that.”

  “I haven’t looked deep, but my sense is they knew each other pretty well. So now he’s got more motivation to break you down. And this time, you’ve got an alibi.”

  “Which would be me.”

  “And you,” Vinnie said to Abra, “he’s going to see as a liar, protecting your . . .”

  “The word these days is ‘lover,’” Abra put in. “He can try to discredit me. He’s doomed to failure. And I can see on your face you’re thinking it was easier, clearer when I wasn’t sleeping with Eli. I’ve— We’ve complicated things. But the truth’s still the truth, Vinnie.”

  “I just want you to know he’s going to stir things up. He’ll dig. He’s already dug as far as can be dug with Eli, so you need to expect him to do the same on you, Abs.”

  “It doesn’t worry me. Eli knows about Derrick, Vinnie.”

  “Okay.” With a nod, Vinnie drank some coffee. “I don’t want you worried. Just prepared.”

  “I appreciate it.”

  “Have they run ballistics?” Eli asked him.

  “I can’t give you details of the investigation.” Vinnie shrugged, drank more coffee. “Your grandmother’s got a nice antique gun collection upstairs. She let me see it once. I don’t recall any .32 calibers up there.”

  “No,” Eli said just as casually. “Nothing like that in the collection, or in the house.”

  “Well . . . I’d better get going. Thanks for the coffee, Abra.”

  “Anytime.”

  Eli rose to walk him to the door. “I appreciate you coming by like this, Vinnie. I won’t forget it.”

  “You look out for her. She knows just how vicious people can be, but she’s still inclined to think they won’t be. Stay out of trouble.”

  I thought I was, Eli mused. But trouble had a way of wiggling its way through the smallest opening.

  When he stepped back into the parlor, she straightened from adding a log to the fire. Then she turned, flames licking and rising behind her back.

  “However it happened,” he began, “whoever’s to blame, you being here, being with me, puts you in the crosshairs. Your personal life, what happened to you, choices you’ve made, your work, your family, your friends—all of everything is going to be turned over, dug into, examined, talked about. You’ve been through something like this once, and you put it behind you. But staying here will put it in front of you again.”

  “That’s true. And?”

  “You should take some time to think about that, to decide if you really want to put yourself under that kind of scrutiny.”

  Her gaze stayed calm and quiet on his. “Which means you don’t think I have thought about it, and doesn’t say much for your opinion of my sense of self or my ability to reason out consequences for actions.”

  “That’s not what I meant.”

  “You’re not going to save me from myself, Eli. I do fine in that area. I’m not opposed to you looking out for me because I believe, strongly, people should look out for each other, but Vinnie’s wrong. Voices carry in empty houses, and I have excellent hearing,” she pointed out. “I do know how vicious people can be, but I’m not inclined to think they won’t be. I’m inclined to hope they won’t be, and that’s very different.”

  “They usually are, given half a chance.”

  “It’s a shame you feel that way, but given what’s happened, what’s happening now, it’s hard to blame you. Still, we could have an interesting debate on that subject sometime. But right now, do you want to know what I think?”

  “Yeah, I do.”

  “I think while the kitchen floor looks good, that couch looks even better. Want to try it out and see?”

  “Yeah.” He walked toward her. “I do.”

  She stayed. When they finally made it back to bed, finally exhausted themselves, she learned he wasn’t a snuggler. But he earned half a point rather than a full one in her score book by not objecting to snuggling.

  She woke in light like a gray pearl, when he shifted to ease away from her. “Mmm. You getting up?”

  “Yeah. Sorry I woke you.”

  “It’s okay.” But she curled around him again. “What time is it?”

  “About six. You should go back to sleep.”

  “I have an eight-o’clock class.” She nuzzled at his throat. “What’s on your plate?”

  “Usually coffee and work.” But he could adjust that, he thought, and ran a hand down her long, bare back.<
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  “Then you have time to join me for a short morning stretch and I’ll fix you breakfast as a reward before I go.”

  “We can stretch right here.”

  She didn’t object when he rolled over, slipped inside her. Instead, she sighed deep, smiled into his eyes. “A wonderful way to salute the sun.”

  Slow and easy, like floating on a quiet sea. The lazy counterpoint to the night’s rush and thunder slid through her like the sunrise, like that promise of the fresh and the new and the hopeful.

  She could see him now, the lines of his face, the clarity of his eyes with the dark trouble still shadowed in them.

  Her nature urged her to banish shadows, to bring the light. So she gave herself to him for his pleasure, for her own. She took that gentle ride up the crest, down again, and watched for a moment, for their moment, that light burn through.

  She lay with him, wrapped around him, and basked in that moment.

  “You should think about me today.”

  He turned his head to brush his lips against her throat. “I think the odds are pretty good on that.”

  “Deliberately think of me today,” she amended. “Say around noon. And I’ll deliberately think of you. We’ll send strong, positive, sexy thoughts into the universe.”

  He lifted his head. “Sexy thoughts into the universe.”

  “It couldn’t hurt. Where do writers and artists and inventors and all the creative people get their ideas?” She lifted her hands, circled her index fingers in the air.

  “Is that where they come from?”

  “They’re out there.” Lowering her hands, she ran her fingers in a firm line down his spine, up again. “People have to open up, reach for them. Positive or negative thoughts, it’s up to you. One of the ways to grab the good ones is to start the day opening up.”

  “I think we accomplished that.”

  “Step two.” She nudged him aside, made a dash toward the bathroom. “See if you can hunt me up a pair of sweatpants or shorts. Drawstrings would work. I’m using one of the spare toothbrushes stocked in the cabinet in here.”

  “Okay.” She’d know more about the amenities than he did, he figured, as she’d probably put them in there.

  He found a pair of shorts with a drawstring and dragged on a pair of sweats himself.

  “They’re going to be too big,” he told her when she came out.

  “I’ll make do.” She pulled them on, began adjusting them. “You can meet me in the gym.”

  “Oh. I really—”

  “We’ve spent considerable time naked and intimate, Eli.”

  Hard to argue when she stood there in his shorts, naked from the waist up.

  “I think breathing and stretching comes pretty low on the list of embarrassments.” She grabbed her white tank, wiggled into it. “I need a hair tie—got one in my bag. In the gym,” she repeated, and left him.

  Maybe he stalled a little. It wasn’t embarrassment, he told himself. He just preferred starting the day with coffee, like normal people.

  But he found her in the gym, sitting cross-legged on one of the two yoga mats she’d laid out, her hands on her knees, her eyes closed.

  She should’ve looked ridiculous in his shorts. So why did she look sexy, and peaceful, and just exactly right?

  Eyes still closed, she reached over and patted the second mat. “Sit down, be comfortable. Take a couple minutes to breathe.”

  “I usually breathe all day. At night, too.”

  Her lips curved a little. “Conscious breathing now. In through the nose—expanding the belly like blowing up a balloon, out through the nose, deflating the balloon. Long, deep, even breaths. Belly rises and falls. Relax your mind.”

  He didn’t think he was very good at relaxing his mind, unless he was writing. And that wasn’t relaxing it but using it. He’d get coffee quicker if he breathed, though.

  “Now, inhale your arms up till your palms touch, exhale them down. Inhale up”—she continued in that quiet, soothing voice—“exhale down.”

  She had him stretch over his crossed legs, from side to side. Over one extended leg, the other, over both. He relaxed into it, a little. Until she told him to stand at the front of his mat.

  Then she smiled at him, the day dawning behind the window at her back. If she’d asked him to twist his body into a pretzel, he’d have given it a shot.

  Instead she had him repeat vertically what they’d done on the floor. Just breathing, reaching, bending, with a few variations of lunges, all as slow and easy as their morning lovemaking.

  In the end she had him lie on his back, palms up, eyes closed. She spoke of letting go, of inhaling light, exhaling dark, while she rubbed his temples with her fingertips.

  By the time she brought him back, had him sitting again, bending forward to—as she called it—seal his practice, he felt like he’d had a little nap, in a warm sea.

  “Nice.” She gave him a pat on the knee. “Ready for breakfast?”

  He looked into her eyes. “They don’t pay you enough.”

  “Who?”

  “Whoever comes to your classes.”

  “You don’t know what I charge for my classes.”

  “It isn’t enough.”

  “I charge more for private lessons.” Grinning, she walked her fingers up his arm. “Interested?”

  “Well . . .”

  “Think about it,” she said as she rose. “And for now, do those neck stretches I showed you every couple hours when you’re at the keyboard. Those and the shoulder rolls for now,” she continued as they started downstairs. “Since I’m smelling spring, I’m thinking spring omelet. You can make the coffee.”

  “You don’t have to go to the trouble. You have a class.”

  “I’ve got time, especially if I can come back for my massage equipment when I bring the groceries and do the house.”

  “It feels—I feel—a little weird having you take care of the house, and cook, and everything when we’re sleeping together.”

  She opened the refrigerator, began taking out what she wanted. “Are you firing me?”

  “No! I just think it feels like taking advantage.”

  She got a cutting board, a knife. “Who initiated sex?”

  “Technically you did, but only because you beat me to it.”

  “That’s nice to hear.” After washing the asparagus and mushrooms, she brought them to the board to slice. “I like working here. I love the house. I love cooking, and I get a lot of satisfaction seeing my cooking work for you. You’ve put on a little healthy weight since you’ve been eating it. I like sex with you. Why don’t we say if any of those things change, I’ll let you know, and we’ll deal with it. If you decide you don’t like how I take care of the house, or cook, or don’t want to have sex with me, you let me know, and we’ll deal with it. Fair enough?”

  “More than.”

  “Good.” She got out a frying pan, olive oil. Smiled. “How about that coffee?”

  Fourteen