Those adorable brown eyes looked up at him. “Are you sure? I invited you here. I should be the one preparing something for you to eat.”
“No biggie. I’m sure I can find my way around your kitchen, so go take your bath.”
She turned and quickly walked off toward her bedroom. Andrew rubbed a hand down his face. They were still playing by her rules, and although it was killing him, he’d do as she’d asked.
• • •
A leisurely soak in the tub worked wonders, Toni thought, slipping into her caftan. She had honestly expected Drew to join her at some point, but obviously he intended to play by the rules. He’d even said that he would be leaving after dinner. She was really starting to regret putting those rules in place...
As she made her way from her bedroom to the kitchen, she noticed that something certainly smelled good. That was one thing she always looked forward to whenever she visited Drew here in Alexandria. He liked cooking for her. Whenever he came to visit her in Miami, he’d get to experience all the take-out places in town. However, for the past few weekends, she’d surprised them both by making home-cooked meals.
“Umm, something smells good, Drew.”
He glanced over when she entered the kitchen. He’d certainly gotten comfortable, taking off his shirt and working in just his t-shirt. And he was in his bare feet. Did that mean he was staying a while? Maybe the entire night? She crossed her fingers behind her back.
“You had everything I needed to whip up a chicken pot pie,” he said. “And there was stuff for a salad.”
Dinner smelled incredible...although what really had her mouth watering was Drew himself. Trying not to stare, she went to the cabinets. “I’ll set the table. What would you like to drink?” Now that he was a regular visitor, she kept beer and wine coolers on hand. She had also stocked several bottles of scotch.
“A glass of wine would be nice.”
She nodded. “A glass of wine, it is.”
By the time she finished setting the table, he came out with dinner. After saying grace, they dug in, and before long, their plates were clean.
“I meant to tell you that Muraca questioned me about our relationship,” Drew told her. “He said he’d heard we were seeing each other.”
Toni knew Detectives Zinc and Muraca had been out of the office the past few weeks working on a sting operation. Evidently, now that Muraca was back, he had caught wind of the office gossip. “What did you say?”
“I told him he heard right and left it at that.”
She nodded, satisfied with how he’d handled it. “So...what do you have planned for us this weekend?”
The look he gave her was telling. Suddenly, the room got really warm. “Besides that, Drew.”
He smiled, not denying what she was thinking. “I figure a movie on Saturday and a picnic on Sunday would be nice. The last time I actually went out to a movie was last year when I visited the guys in Oregon.”
She knew what guys he was referring to. “You never told me how Locke, Shogun, and Macayle ended up in Oregon.”
He took a sip of wine and then placed his glass down. “Most of the guys were released from prison within a year or two of each other. Taking Shep’s advice, we all came to Virginia first, and worked with Reverend Luther Thomas, who helped us all find our footing on the outside. Then, we all returned home. Locke was from Atlanta, and Macayle had family in Indiana. Shogun is from Oregon. They all had bachelor’s degrees when they left Glenworth and attended law school in Oregon.”
She nodded. “I’m surprised you didn’t end up in Charlottesville with Striker, Quasar, and Stonewall.”
Drew took another sip of his wine. “I got out two years before they did because I was exonerated. Charlottesville was Stonewall’s hometown, and Striker and Quasar followed him there. By that time, I had already set up residence here in Alexandria.”
“I think it’s remarkable how all of you forged such longstanding friendships.”
“Trust me, it would not have been that way had it not been for Shep. What was so sad about it was that we all got out before he did—and he was innocent. I always said there was a reason Shep was sent to prison. A Higher Being knew he’d change the lives of several young men who’d lost their way. No one was happier when he was finally exonerated than all the guys he’d helped while confined.”
“Is it true that he got married the day after his release?”
Drew smiled. “It is. He had a huge wedding at Sutton Hills, the Grangers’ estate.”
They talked a bit more, then cleaned up the kitchen together. When she saw him putting his shirt back on, she knew he intended to leave her. She pasted a smile on her face. “Tomorrow we will be busy.”
He walked over to her. “Yes, it will be, but at least we have Friday night to look forward to.” Then, he leaned in and kissed her.
Needing more, she came close to begging, but caught herself. She groaned in protest when he released her lips. “I’m looking forward to Friday, baby,” he whispered. “And you don’t have to see me out. If you do, I might be tempted to stay.”
Toni was about to tell him that he didn’t have to leave, but he’d already grabbed his leather jacket off her sofa and was headed for the door. Was he not going to at least look back? She thought he wasn’t, but when he reached for the doorknob, he paused.
Her heart pounded in her chest when he glanced back at her and smiled. “I’ll see you tomorrow, baby.”
And then he was gone.
DREW PULLED INTO THE headquarters’ parking lot and glanced around for Toni’s car but did not see it. That was odd. Toni almost always arrived at work before he did.
After turning off the car’s ignition, he decided to wait in his car for her so they could walk in together. He had enjoyed dinner with her last night, and as tempted as he’d been to stay, he had managed to walk out of her apartment. When he had arrived at home, he’d had a cold shower, then had gone to bed, all the while calling himself every kind of fool for not sweeping her off her feet and carrying her into the bedroom.
He had tried to sleep but couldn’t—he’d become accustomed to hearing her voice every night before dozing off. When he had glanced at the clock on his nightstand, he saw it wasn’t quite midnight, so he’d called her, hoping she wasn’t asleep. She had answered on the second ring. And so the nightly routine continued. They talked as if they hadn’t already spent most of the entire day and evening together.
His cell phone rang, intruding into his thoughts of last night. He checked his caller ID and saw the call was from Duan. He clicked on. “Hello?”
“Your investigator report is ready. A courier will deliver it to you today at five. Will you be home?”
“I’ll make it my business to be there. That didn’t take you long to wrap things up.”
“Since I knew it involved your woman, I jumped right on it.”
Andrew liked the sound of that. His woman. He would definitely claim Toni as that. “I appreciate that. Did you find anything?”
“You took action and that’s good. Call me if you have any questions.”
“Will do.” The moment he clicked off the call, he saw Toni pull up. While she was parking her car, he got out of his to wait on her.
“Andrew?”
He heard someone call out to him. Glancing around, he cursed under his breath. The last person he wanted to deal with today was Natalie. “Yes, Natalie?” he asked, when she came to stand in front of him with a huge smile on her face.
“I haven’t seen you in a while.”
“I’ve been busy.”
He saw something flash in her eyes. “So I understand,” she said a little snidely. But the smile was back when she asked, “What can you tell me about that car accident yesterday? I heard it was somehow connected to the Maria Tindal homicide.”
Out of the corner of Andrew’s eye, he saw Toni. She had gotten out of her car and was about to walk past them. “Wait up, Toni. I need to talk to you about something.”
He turned back to Natalie. “I’m afraid I can’t tell you anything more than you already know, Natalie.”
She frowned and then glanced over at Toni. “What about you, Detective Oliver? Do you have anything else to add?”
Toni smiled. “Drew’s my partner. I’ll backup whatever he says.”
“I understand the two of you are more than just partners these days.”
Before Andrew could tell Natalie that their relationship wasn’t any of her business, Toni surprised him by saying. “That’s right.”
He looked back at Natalie. “And just in case you need me to backup what my partner just said, the answer is she’s right, we are. Now you have it from both of us. See you around.”
Andrew and Toni walked toward the police building without saying anything. She glanced over at him. “You wanted to talk to me about something?”
He shook his head, deciding not to mention anything about Duan’s report until he’d had a chance to read it himself. “How did you sleep last night?”
She smiled at him. “Good. Thanks for giving me a chance to relax.”
“Don’t mention it, baby.”
An hour or so later, after meeting with the lieutenant and bringing him up to speed on their suspicions about both the Tindal and Nettles’ cases, Andrew and Toni went downstairs to the room where the cold cases were stored. They pulled out everything there was on the murder that had claimed the lives of Maria’s parents. Spreading the files out on the table, they reviewed them, made notes and discussed things of interest. The necklace had been listed as one of the items that had been stolen during the home invasion.
They had been reviewing the files for a couple of hours when the two detectives who’d worked the case six years ago joined them, giving Andrew and Toni the chance to ask questions.
Eric Flowers and Luther Rollins were seasoned detectives who had been in the criminal unit for more than twenty years. They verified that Constance Evans was not supposed to have been in town that night, but had returned home when the girls’ trip she had planned to the Bahamas with a friend named Myrtis Gunther had gotten canceled at the last minute. They had gotten word while in Miami to catch their connecting flight to the Bahamas that Myrtis Gunther’s husband had had a sudden heart attack. The man subsequently died a few days later.
“Unless Constance Evans could have somehow arranged the man’s heart attack, there was no way she would have planned to come back until she’d had her vacation,” Rollins said.
“Did you explain that to Jennifer Evans?” Toni asked the two detectives.
Rollins rubbed his hand down his face. “Yes, but she refused to believe her stepmother didn’t plan the entire thing. When she rushed home from college and discovered her father had been killed, she got hysterical. There was no reasoning with her. We decided to let her believe whatever she wanted, since there was no convincing her otherwise. It wasn’t as if it mattered, really. There wasn’t any kind of proof to support her allegations. We just figured she’d get tired eventually.”
“A couple of days later she had calmed down somewhat, but then she started throwing her weight around. She sure treated her stepsister, Maria Tindal, pretty awful. I understand Ms. Evans immediately cut off Ms. Tindal’s funds, and she had to borrow money just to get home,” Flowers tacked on.
“And then she demanded separate funerals. Jennifer Evans released Constance Evans’s body to Ms. Tindal and refused to let them be buried anywhere near each other. Her father was buried next to her mother, the man’s first wife.”
Toni nodded. “Since Myrtis Gunther was such a good friend of Constance Evans’s, I would think that she would be close to her daughter, too. I wonder if anyone notified her of Maria’s death.”
• • •
Toni called Pamela Larkins, who’d indicated that, yes, Myrtis Gunther, who was now living in California, had been notified. When she heard of Maria’s death, she and her new husband were vacationing in the Netherlands and hadn’t been able to get back for the funeral.
Pamela also remembered Maria meeting Myrtis, the month before she had been killed for lunch. The older woman had been in the area visiting her sister in Baltimore. Pamela didn’t know what the two had talked about, though. The only thing Maria had said was that it had been good to see her mom’s friend again.
Back at their desks, Toni glanced over Drew. “I think we should talk to Myrtis Gunter. Perhaps Maria confided in her.” She glanced at her watch. “She’s on the West Coast and that’s Pacific time. It’s before noon there.”
She tried calling Myrtis Gunther, but the call went to voicemail. Myrtis Gunter called back within the hour. It just so happened she was in Baltimore visiting her sister again, and not in California. Toni made arrangements to meet with Ms. Gunther tomorrow at her sister’s home at eleven.
Drew glanced at his watch. “I’m leaving a little early today. I’m expecting a package and want to be there when it arrives.”
“Okay. Enjoy the rest of your evening.”
“You, too. Don’t work too late.”
She watched him leave, loving the swag in his walk. He paused before rounding the corner to glance back at her and smile. That smile made a deep, sexual hunger stir to life in the pit of her stomach.
It was getting harder and harder to remember why she’d insisted on those rules. Why was she denying what she wanted? What he wanted? Were those rules making it easier for them to cope during the day? Or had things suddenly become much more difficult?
Toni had not missed the way Drew had looked at her this afternoon, when they’d grabbed a sandwich and fries at Brewster’s Café. The sexual vibes swirled around them while they ate.
She glanced out the window, knowing he’d had enough time to get to his car. As if he had known she would be standing there watching him, he paused before opening his car door and glanced up where he knew she would be. Even with the distance between him, she read the look in his eyes. Waiting for Friday was killing him as much as it was killing her.
When she had put her rules in place, they had seemed to make a lot of sense. Now, they made no sense at all. Not when she lay in bed each night wanting him, loving him, needing him.
Life was too short to waste. Tomorrow was promised to no one. If anything, Maria Tindal’s death had made her realize that. When you loved someone, you wanted to be with them all the time. Not just on the weekends.
It didn’t matter if Drew hadn’t yet told her he loved her. Nor did it matter that she was doing the same thing her mother had done. Loving a man who might not love her back. But then, she now knew her father had loved her mother, just not enough. He had done what Toni was doing now—sticking to the rules he had established. Her father had admitted it was a mistake he would regret for the rest of his life.
Drew finally released her gaze and got inside his car. She drew in a deep breath. She knew Drew would follow her rules until she relented. And it was time that she did. She loved him and wanted to spend every moment she could with him… Starting now.
ANDREW FINISHED READING THE investigator’s report Duan had sent him and had to take several deep breaths to control his rage. No wonder Thomas Gilmore had worked so hard to shift the blame for his son’s actions—killing his wife and two small boys. If the truth got out, there would be hell to pay.
A part of him had a mind to call Duan and tell him to leak it to the press. Then they’d all see what people thought of the man they held in such high esteem. But he could not do that. The decision to handle this—or not—was Toni’s to make.
He would give her time to get home, and then he would call and ask if he could come over, telling her he had an important matter to discuss with her. There was a chance she might think he was using any excuse to see her again and, in a way, she would be right. It didn’t matter that he would be breaking her rules again tonight. This report was something she needed to know about. Sure, he could wait until tomorrow and tell her on the way to Baltimore, where they would interview Myrtis Gunth
er, but he thought this might be something she’d want time to think about.
Andrew placed the report on the kitchen counter. He would go upstairs and get cleaned up so he could head over to Toni’s place. He wouldn’t even call first, just in case she tried discouraging him from coming.
He had just placed his foot on the first step to go upstairs when his doorbell sounded. He hoped like hell it wasn’t Ryker. His friend was known to drop in unexpectedly if he was in the area. And if it was Ryker, his timing was lousy. Because Drew really needed to go see Toni.
“Who is it?” he asked.
“Toni.”
Andrew lifted a brow. Toni? She was here? Glancing out the peephole, he saw that she was standing on his doorstep. As if she knew he was looking at her, she looked back. He could not get the door open fast enough, and the moment it was clear, she all but threw herself into his arms.
He caught her, and when she wrapped her arms around his neck and her legs around his waist, he used his hands to support her bottom. That’s when she leaned in and took his mouth.
Somehow, he managed to kick the door shut with the heel of his shoe as she continued to devour his mouth, rendering him weak in the knees. His heart was pounding like crazy, and he could actually feel the hardness of her nipples pressing against his chest through the material of his shirt.
They had kissed a lot of times, but never like this. Maybe he just hadn’t been prepared for it, but he had no complaints. She was staking a claim, in a way she had never done before. There was an urgency about her actions, and a need that was being made more obvious with every lap of her tongue. A hollow beat of awareness fired his blood.
She broke off the kiss and he saw naked desire in her dark eyes. Sexual excitement curled in his stomach when she whispered, “Make love to me, Drew.”
Holding her firmly in his arms, he headed upstairs to his bedroom.
• • •
ENTANGLED PURSUITS (MEN OF ACTION Book 1) Page 21
