Third Time Lucky: Volume 1 (The Coxwells)

by Deborah Cooke

  He looked skeptical. “Women take these fashion magazines too seriously. Phil, it’s healthy for a woman to have some meat on her bones, not to mention that it’s sexy for a woman to have curves...”

  I lost it.

  “My curves have curves! And I can’t just eat whatever I want. My God, Nick, if I learned to cook, I’d be nibbling all the time and would be as huge as a house.” I was shouting and I didn’t care. “I have the slowest metabolism on the planet! Do you think it’s easy to watch every bite, to count every calorie, to pass on everything I love just to make sure I’m never Fat Philippa again? Do you think it’s easy for me to sit here and not inhale five thousand calories of goodies?”

  He sat down and looked at me hard, his foray apparently forgotten. I ran out of gas and stared at my plate, embarrassed that I had admitted so much so publicly.

  So loudly.

  “I’m sorry, Phil. I had no idea that you were doing it on purpose.” I felt him studying me but I avoided his gaze. “I guess I put my foot back into it again.”

  I pushed a bit of chicken around my plate and sneaked a peek. He looked contrite but that old wound was oozing one more time.

  “Hey, Phil.”

  Oh, danger danger, there was that black velvet voice again.

  “Talk to me.”

  “I’ve said plenty.”

  Nick leaned across the table and caught my hand in his. “You look terrific, don’t imagine otherwise. I always thought you were as cute as hell.”

  “Liar.”

  He shook his head. “No, you’ve got this little smile that used to make me nuts.” I looked up, ever hopeful, and he smiled. “Yep, that’s the one. It’s as though you know something good but you’re not going to tell. I used to think of it as your Mona Lisa smile.”

  Okay, so I was charmed. Maybe I’m easily charmed.

  Maybe I still found Nick pretty irresistible.

  And it was definitely getting warmer in Chandra’s, though that wasn’t because of the curry. His admiration made me get all hot and bothered.

  “I thought you were going back to the buffet.” Not a smooth segue, but it would do.

  “I was going to.” He watched me, earnesty personified. “Do you mind?”

  “Why?”

  “Well, it’s rude for me to play the human vacuum while you’re exercising such self control.”

  That was it. Asking whether I minded was the sweetest thing any man had ever done.

  I was officially all his. “No, I don’t mind. I might be pea green with envy, but I don’t mind. I’ll live vicariously.”

  We shared a smile.

  “I just got lucky, Phil. I was born with a fast metabolism.” He shrugged and stood up, lingering a moment, his expression deadpan. “Either that, or it’s Freddie.”

  “Freddie? Who’s Freddie?”

  “My pet tapeworm.”

  I just about snorted my allotted teaspoon of mango chutney over that.

  “I figure I picked him somewhere near La Paz, en route to the Inca Trail and Machu Picchu. It was bad trip, between the altitude sickness and Freddie settling in. Now, though, he keeps me lean and mean.”

  Nick winked and returned to the buffet.

  Freddie the tapeworm. It was sick, but kind of funny. I was still shaking my head when he came back.

  “So.” He set another steaming and heaping plate on the table and I didn’t even care. “Does your mother often fix you up with types like Jeffrey?”

  “I think she’s getting desperate.”

  “For?”

  “Grandchildren, maybe. For me to enter the blessed state of holy matrimony, certainly.”

  “You sound less than thrilled.”

  I shrugged. “So, maybe I’m a romantic. Don’t shoot.”

  He chuckled but before he could launch another personal question, I changed the subject. “What do you think happened with Lucia?”

  He sobered immediately. “I don’t know. She was there yesterday, murdered in broad daylight.” His gaze searched mine. “You’re sure there was nothing?”

  “No corpse, no blood, no Lucia. It’s not the kind of thing you miss.”

  Nick didn’t smile. “What did it smell like?”

  I thought about that for a moment. “Like a greenhouse. Lush and humid, you know.” I shook a finger at him as I recalled. “The plumeria was in bloom—the place was filled with perfume.”

  He poked at his food. “How hot was it in there?”

  “Actually, it was a bit cooler than I would have expected. Some of those plants, not the orchids so much but the nepenthes and anthurium, like it hot and humid. I was surprised that someone who would bother to have them wouldn’t have turned up the heat—but then, they were blooming, so they must be happy. Maybe whoever discovered Lucia turned the heat down because they didn’t know better.”

  “Or opened the windows to get rid of the smell.”

  I was confused. “Of the flowers?”

  “No. Of death.”

  I didn’t think I needed to know that. “What do you think happened?”

  “Well, obviously someone killed Lucia. Maybe they were still there when I got there. At any rate, it seems as though this person wanted to make it look as though I had done the deed.”

  “The knife.”

  “And the timing.” He frowned.

  “I thought you heard a police siren?”

  “I did. I was thinking that someone called the police to ensure I was caught red-handed, so to speak, but then that would mean that the police had found Lucia.”

  “Maybe they did.”

  “Um. But it’s pretty weird that there was no one there this morning. Did you see any signs that they’d been there?”

  I shook my head. “Everything was pristine. Maybe too pristine. Maybe they were watching the house.”

  “Waiting for me to come back? Maybe.” He turned his attention to his meal. “Or maybe they just relied on Mrs. Donnelly to keep them posted.”

  “Which is funny, since she and Lucia evidently just had a big fight.”

  He looked up in surprise and I told him what my mother had said.

  “That’s interesting.” He grimaced. “Sounds like Lucia though.”

  “You don’t think she had anything to do with the cat dying, do you?”

  Nick shrugged. “I’d like to say no way, but I don’t know. Depends how angry she was. She might have put a little can of salmon out in the garden, one that had been embellished a bit.”

  I shivered. “That’s not nice.”

  “Those two have always at it, ever since the cats found a way into the greenhouse.”

  “What difference did that make?”

  “Mrs. Donnelly didn’t let them out to play, Phil. She doesn’t like cleaning litter boxes, but the cats were never excited about Rosemount winters. The greenhouse must have felt like the lap of luxury.”

  I pushed the rest of my lunch away. “Oh.”

  “Yeah, oh. The smell was out of this world. Lucia went ballistic. The only thing that stopped her from making cat stew was that I found the hole and blocked it. But war was declared.”

  “Do you think sometimes that people just don’t have enough to do?”

  He smiled. “Definitely.”

  “I guess it’s a good thing you stayed in the Beast.”

  “Why’s that?”

  “Well, she certainly let my mother know in a hurry that I’d been there.”

  Nick looked up suddenly. “No kidding?”

  “No kidding.”

  He pushed his own plate away impatiently. “I don’t like this.”

  “I don’t like it either, but that’s not going to change my mother calling me.” My joke fell flat.

  “Not that, Phil.” He pushed one hand through his hair and sat back to watch me. “I should never have looked you up again.”

  If he was looking for a way to ruin the mood, that was a good choice.

  “Well, it’s a bit too late for that” My tone was a
bit snippy. “What are you going to do?”

  He folded his arms across his chest. “It doesn’t matter.”

  “What?”

  “No more, Phil. You shouldn’t have been involved as much as you were. I came back today to apologize. I’m sorry I got you involved, then and now. From here on out, this is my problem.”

  “Well then, don’t let me keep you.”

  He leaned forward, his eyes dark. “You’re ticked off at me.”

  I blushed, though I should have expected him to call a spade a spade. “So, what if I am? Doesn’t sound as though you’d care.”

  “Well, you’re wrong. I do.” He lifted one eyebrow. “This is supposed to be a reconciliation lunch.”

  “So you can wander off into the sunset, guilt-free?”

  His features set determinedly, revealing nothing of his thoughts. “Nothing but a footprint, Phil. It’s my motto.”

  “And the name of your business.”

  He looked up with sudden interest and I knew I had slipped. “How did you know that?”

  “Someone told me,” I lied and flushed the color of the table linens. Time to redirect traffic. “You’re not going to take the blame for what Sean did this time, are you?”

  Nick picked up his fork again. He began to clean off his plate, but he looked grim and there was no enjoyment of the food in his manner.

  And he wasn’t answering me.

  “Tell me, do you always play the grand inquisitor?”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “You ask all the questions. You pry all sorts of information out of me, yet you won’t tell me anything at all.”

  “It’s better that way.”

  “For who?”

  He cast the fork on the clean plate and pushed it away. “Why are you angry with me?”

  “Who says I am?”

  He studied me for a long moment and I tried not to fidget. There he went again, assessing, analyzing, replaying the conversation. I wasn’t surprised when he nailed it in one. “You’re mad that I said I shouldn’t have looked you up.”

  He was right and he knew it, so I saw no reason to admit the truth.

  Nick leaned forward and traced one fingertip on the tablecloth around my own fingers. He didn’t touch me but still made me very aware of his proximity. I figured that pulling my hand back would make me look skittish, so I left it there. But I stared at the rhythmic movement of his tanned fingers as he traced around my hand and around and around.

  “Maybe I should clarify,” he said quietly. “I shouldn’t have looked you up and gotten you involved in this. I regret that, because I don’t know how this is going to shake out, and I don’t want you to feel any repercussions. You were right—I wasn’t thinking straight last night.” He gave me a sharp glance. “But I don’t regret seeing you again, Phil. You’re the first change I’ve seen in a long, long time that was for the good.”

  “And what does that mean?”

  He studied me. “That you’re still you, you’re still the same person I remember, but you’ve made yourself into who you want to be. It’s a change that’s both honest and courageous, and I’m glad I got to see it.”

  His thumb moved across my knuckle and we said nothing. I tried to figure out the last time anyone said something so nice to me.

  The thing was that I wasn’t quite ready to let Nick Sullivan sail out of my life again, whether he said those kind of things or not. “So, what are you going to do next?” I tried to ask casually, but it didn’t work.

  “Let it go, Phil.” Nick pulled his hand back and watched me carefully. He was establishing distance between us and I knew what that meant.

  But I wasn’t going to make it that easy for him to check out and leave the keys on the TV. You see, there comes a point when you know what you want, or at least you’re curious enough about it to take a chance. You can’t just sit around and wait for wishes to come true. Sometimes you have to reach out and snag that star, maybe stuff it forcibly in your pocket.

  He’d said a lot of nice things to me, he’d come to me for advice and he’d come back to make sure we didn’t part badly. He might very well be just erasing a footprint, but he was pretty worried about ensuring the job was done right.

  I took that as encouragement.

  “Speak, oh inscrutable one. I’m just curious.”

  “Why?”

  I shook my head. “There you go again.”

  He leaned forward, bracing his elbows on the table. “I’m going to visit Sean.” He was watching me very carefully again, looking for all the world like a wily and unpredictable dragon, one desperately trying to look innocent.

  One who you might make the mistake of thinking was asleep—right before he pounced and gobbled you up, breathing a little fire in the process.

  Maybe he was looking for a little encouragement of his own.

  “Want a ride?” I offered before I lost my nerve.

  His eyes glittered. “Missing my little brother?”

  I laughed. “Hardly.”

  Nick didn’t laugh with me. “But you were always sweet on him,” he said with a caution the words didn’t deserve. “It would only be natural for you to want to see him again.”

  “Right. I gave up wanting to see Sean gelded a long time ago.”

  Nick was suddenly leaning across the table. “I don’t understand. You were nuts about him.”

  “‘Were’ is the operative word, Nick. It didn’t last long. He treated me like garbage and that was the end of that.”

  I started to get up but Nick wasn’t ready to let this drop. He stood so that I could not get out between the tables, an effective roadblock if ever there had been one. “But you cried your way through a whole dispenser of napkins that night.”

  He smelled really good and it made me tingle to be so close.

  All the same, I pretended my heart wasn’t galloping for the finish line. A woman’s got to have some pride.

  “Because I had been such a dope, Nick. Not because my heart was breaking or anything melodramatic like that. It’s not as though I really knew anything about him—we’d never even talked before he asked me out. I guess that should have been a big clue.” I rolled my eyes. “Honestly, Nick, I’m not that stupid about men, despite what my mother thinks.”

  He thought about that, and I wondered why this was so interesting to him. “When did you last see Sean?”

  “I don’t know. Probably around the same time I last saw you. Why do you care?”

  A twinkle lit his eyes. “Just curious.”

  Trust him to dig out my secrets and keep his own. I decided that he’d had enough amnesty on that one. “You think I’m still sweet on him.” I patted his hand. “God, it’s cute when you’re protective.”

  I’d bet good money that no one had ever called Nick Sullivan cute before and his expression told me I’d rolled snake-eyes. “Cute?” He practically spat the word out on the table. “I don’t think any such thing...”

  “That’s right, you’re not thinking.” I scooped up my purse and waved to Chandra for the bill. “I wouldn’t want to be Sean when you show up to talk to him.”

  His features darkened. “If he hurt Lucia...”

  “And he probably did. So, here’s my free bit of legal advice. It would be in your best interests to have a witness of this little interview, Nick.” I gave him a knowing look. “We both know what a lying snake Sean is and you’ll want a third party to confirm what was said and not said.”

  He sat back, his eyes narrowed. “Just how well do you know my brother?”

  “As well as I need to.” He looked unconvinced so I leaned closer. “Nick, he would never have let you do what you did if he had a scrap of decency in his soul.”

  “He’d learned to expect as much.” He shrugged. “I taught him to.”

  “Ha. Some people take and some people give, Nick. It’s wired right in. If it hadn’t been you, he would have expected a gimme from someone else. It’s just the way Sean is.”
/>
  “Phil, you don’t need to go with me.”

  Ah, the lone wolf, hunting his prey alone, regardless of what price he might have to pay. “You’re right. He might not even be there.”

  “He’ll be there.”

  “He might have a job.”

  Nick shook his head. “No. The woman works. He watches television.”

  I knew my curiosity showed. “How do you know?”

  “I dropped by already, but relax, counselor. He doesn’t know it.”

  He didn’t say anything more, which I figured was my cue to exit stage left. I’d made an offer that I thought he couldn’t refuse, but I was wrong.

  Live and learn.

  “Well, I’ve got to get back for Elaine.”

  “I know.” Nick laid claim to the bill before it hit the table, conjuring a fifty so fresh it might have been printed in Lucia’s basement yesterday. I had a fleeting glimpse of the inside of his wallet and it was fat with more crispy new bills.

  “I’ll get this.” He looked me dead in the eye, as though he’d dare me to ask. “It’s not nearly the thanks I owe you, Phil, but it will have to do.”

  So, I had the thank-you I’d waited so long to collect. It didn’t feel nearly as good as I’d thought it would, but there you go. I’d been pretty blunt about my interest, but whatever interest he might have had had gone AWOL.

  The reconciliation lunch was over.

  “Well, take care.” I started to cross the restaurant, knowing damn well I shouldn’t have expected better but disappointed all the same. I was not going to look back.

  “When do you think you’ll be cleared up?”

  I spun to find Nick right behind me and nearly lost my balance. He caught my elbow and steered me toward the door. “What?”

  “To drop in on Sean. I’d like to get that recipe from Chandra first and you probably have some things to tie up.” Nick frowned at his watch. “Would three be too early for you?”

  I gaped at him and he smiled slowly, raising a fingertip to my lips. “Speak, inscrutable one. Yes or no?”

  “Why are you changing your mind?”

  He smiled and I had the distinct sense that dragon was preparing to have a little dessert. “Does it matter?”

  “Yes.”

  His smile broadened, and his gaze dropped to my lips. I could feel the warmth of his hand on the back of my waist again and I like it just fine. “You’re very persuasive, Ms. Coxwell.”