Pick Your Poison

by Roxanne St Claire

  He laughed softly, rolling the bottle between their bodies. “You don’t cuss enough.”

  Closing her eyes, she shifted side to side, their hips as close as their chests, his arms folded around her. “Shit, it’s cold,” she whispered. “How about that?”

  He rubbed faster, side to side, body to body. “Getting there.” He kissed her cheek and worked his mouth to her ear, his lungs still producing blissfully warm breath.

  “My toes are frozen and yours must be frostbitten,” she said.

  “Not yet.” He rolled and rubbed and squeezed them closer. “We don’t have much time, honey, and I can’t do anything for your toes.”

  “My lips are icy.”

  “Now, those…” He lowered his head. “I can do something about.”

  Clinging to the rock solid torso that was somehow, miraculously, still generating heat, she kissed him again. Craving more, she lifted her leg and wrapped it around his thigh, greedy for his warmth, for the strength of those granite-like muscles, for the certainty he had that they would survive.

  He massaged her back, hard and fast, making more heat and then dragged his hands over her rear end, lifting her onto him just a bit. He wasn’t hard—it would be superhuman in this temperature—but he was warm and sexy and powerful and if the dang water didn’t melt, then Callie certainly would.

  “Think about heat,” he whispered, kissing her ear, breathing that luscious hot air on her neck. “Think about how hot we could get. In a bed, naked, me inside you… all the way inside you.”

  How could he do that? How could he make those frozen muscles twitch and warm her bitterly cold body enough to feel the stirrings of desire? It didn’t matter; he could.

  “When I lick you and kiss you, you’ll fry under my tongue.”

  A gasp caught in her throat, and her legs almost buckled. “Ben.”

  “You’ll scream when I’m in you, Callie, when I fill you up and…” The rest was lost in a kiss because she couldn’t stand to hear it. But the words were doing the job, firing every cell in her body, making her heart beat faster, producing friction and need.

  Finally, he broke the kiss and looked into her eyes.

  “That talking…” she said, trying to breathe. “That worked. I’m… hot.”

  “I’m not just talking.” The words were barely whispered, but loud enough to curl her frostbitten toes. “Let’s check the ice.”

  No surprise… it had melted.

  Chapter Seven

  Only sub-zero temperatures kept Ben from sporting wood hard enough to beat their way out the door. Callie turned him on, enough to keep his blood flowing and his brain working so he could get them the hell out of this icebox.

  He wanted her, hell, yeah. But first, he wanted to destroy that prick McManus and the chef who cooked up more than the governor’s food.

  On his knees, with Callie standing behind him holding his phone for light, Ben jimmied the nozzle of a bottle built for pouring ketchup not cracking locks. This had to work. They wouldn’t make it another twenty minutes in here.

  “How long will it take to re-freeze?” she asked, her chattering slower now. That wasn’t good. Her body functions were actually shutting down if she wasn’t shivering to generate heat.

  Next, she’d stop behaving rationally. Hell, any more kissing and she definitely wouldn’t have been behaving rationally.

  “Two tablespoons of water in a lock chamber of a freezer? Not long.” He stood slowly, setting the rest of the ice-filled bottle on the floor. “You’re going to make it.”

  It wasn’t a question. She could go either way, he sensed. Full-blown panic with stage-two hypothermia, or utter calm. He had to keep her calm.

  She swayed slightly, losing her balance. “I’m really woozy, Ben.”

  Damn it. He pulled her into him, chafing her back and arms, breathing on her again. Instinct and training told him sex wasn’t going to work anymore. She needed something else to fire her up… something strong enough to give her the will to fight.

  Not sex, not the governor, not her precious black roses. Something important.

  “Tell me about her,” he whispered into her ear.

  She managed to lift her head and look at him, her lips bloodless blue, tiny shards of ice forming on her lashes, her skin as white as, well, snow. “Who?”

  “Your great-grandmother,” he urged. “Tell me about her. Why does she want to go to Paris so bad?”

  She grew very still for a moment, all the shivering finished, nothing but surrender in her limp body. He gripped harder, his feet numb, his arms aching, but sheer determination held him in place.

  He would not let this beautiful, dear, one-of-a-kind flower die because of him. He would not.

  “C’mon, Daisy Duke,” he urged, trying for a tease and barely finding it as the cold slowly began to win the war. “Tell me about your great-grandmother.”

  “She’s dead.”

  Oh, not what he expected. “Sorry. I thought you said you wanted to take her to Paris.”

  “I do.” Her voice cracked and he clutched a little tighter, putting his hand on her cheek, hoping it transferred some warmth. “Her ashes.”

  “I see.” But what he could see was a woman losing a fight, eyes drifting close, pulse slowing to a dangerous rhythm. She had to talk. She had to think. She had to feel.

  “Why Paris?”

  “She… met… him there.”

  “Who?”

  “A man she… loved.”

  “Your great-grandfather?”

  “Well, yes… and no.”

  She was confused, of course. Complex thinking would be hard for her. Hell, it was about to get hard for him, but he was ten minutes behind her and eighty pounds heavier.

  “Tell me,” he insisted. “Who was this man?”

  “That’s just it. I don’t know.”

  “Come on, Callie. You’re giving into the symptoms.” He squeezed her. “Fight it. Talk it out. Think. Feel.” Live.

  “We really don’t know who he was,” she said. “And I was kind of hoping…” Her voice trailed off.

  “Hoping what?”

  “Never mind. His name was… Jeremiah. He was American… spy. During World War II. Occupied France.”

  He tangled his fingers into her hair, holding her head as it bobbed. “Stay with me now, Callie. Stay with me. Tell me more.”

  She fought for strength and air, an admirable dig to her own personal China. Finally, her eyes cleared. “She met him on the Pont au Change.”

  She pronounced the well-known Parisian bridge with a perfect French accent, as if she’d heard the words a million times and wouldn’t ever Anglicize something so reverent.

  “Was your great-grandmother French?”

  “Belle Dumond? So very French.” She tried to smile, but the effort was too much. “Let me sit down, Ben. Please.”

  “No.” If she sat, she’d never get up again. He slid a glance to the lock, willing the water to freeze, willing his desperate plan to work. “Tell me about Belle and Jeremiah. Were they lovers?”

  “Mmm.” She did smile. “For one night. It was love at first sight, across the bridge.” She closed her eyes. “The Germans… the Nazis… were everywhere. She wanted to die. Wanted to end the misery of war. She stood on the bridge, about to jump, when he found her…”

  He rubbed his cheek against hers, breathing on the flakes of ice in her hair. “He saved her?” he guessed.

  “He did. He walked right up to Granny Belle…” She let out a soft groan, like the memory was hers, not her great-grandmother’s.

  “What did he say, this spy named Jeremiah?”

  “He said she was too beautiful to die and he promised her… absolutely promised her that things would change soon.” She finally opened her eyes. “It was June fourth, 1944.”

  Two days before the invasion of Normandy. “What happened?”

  “They spent the night together and he disappeared the next day, but… he left part of himself behind. My grandfa
ther.”

  “He knew about the invasion,” Ben said. “Because he was a spy.”

  “And he saved her life with hope.”

  “Just like I’m going to do right now.”

  Her eyes grew dead, her next breath labored, her body nearly limp in his arms. “I can’t… go… on…”

  “You can,” he insisted, kissing her face, her frozen lashes, her mouth. “You have to, Callie. For Belle. For Jeremiah.”

  She hardly had the energy to shake her head.

  “I work for a woman…” he whispered into a kiss. “Who could get you and your grandmother’s ashes to Paris on a private plane.”

  She whimpered and slipped a little.

  “You could be there by tomorrow night.” That still wasn’t enough to breathe life back into her. He needed something no one else could possibly give her. He needed… Jeremiah. “And I’d bet six thousand more dollars, she can get you the identity of that spy.”

  She stiffened and sucked in a breath. Oh, yes, his gut instinct was right on that one. “You… she… could?”

  “Would you like to know that, Callie?”

  “Yes.”

  “Then hold me, just—”

  The snap of metal against metal cut him off and they both turned to the door. There it was again, a crack of… hope.

  “I think the lock broke,” he said, taking a chance on letting her go. She stayed standing. Barely.

  “Don’t move. Less than a minute now.” He pushed the plastic panels away, reached for the handle and shook hard. The door popped with a smack of suction then opened to a darkened—and warm—pantry.

  After a quick check of the room, he went back into the freezer just as Callie’s legs buckled. He caught her before she hit the floor, lifting her with strength he didn’t know he had left. “You’re too beautiful to die,” he whispered. “Much too beautiful to die.”

  ~*~

  He could tell her. Benjamin Youngblood could tell Callie the answer to a question that plagued her since Granny had unburdened her heavy conscience and shared her secret the morning that she died. He could answer a question that haunted her great-grandmother to her grave, long after she moved to America, met another man, and finally settled on a farm in rural Florida.

  The possibility—however remote— kept Callie breathing. It kept her calm and centered and determined to live as Ben pulled her out of the freezer into blessed, holy, insanely wonderful warmth.

  “You need air,” he said, gulping some of his own. “Oxygen. We both do. Come on.”

  “Okay, okay.” The relief was almost instantaneous.

  She gave him his shirt back, as clarity poured over her, as welcome as the warmth, each of her cells thawing back to normal with every passing minute.

  “Let’s go,” he urged, taking her out to the hall.

  She managed to stay upright, walking with him, warmer with each step up two flights of stairs. Back in the banquet room, the tables and chairs were being dismantled by a crew of hotel workers. Ben paused, surveying the room, getting his own clarity back.

  “We can find her,” he said. “We have to find her.”

  “The chef?”

  “Angela McManus. That is, if she’s still alive.”

  He set off, his arm still around Callie, letting her cling to the man who saved her life, practically tripping as they ran past the partially bussed tables. The tables…

  “Wait a second.” She brought them both to a halt near the back of the room. “Just one. I need one.”

  She plucked a Black Cherry bloom from a centerpiece and stuffed it into her pocket. One would be enough to start next year’s crop.

  He didn’t argue, but took her hand again and led her out, up the escalator, to the lobby doors.

  “Oh thank God!” she exclaimed when they stepped outside and sunshine poured over them. “I will never complain about the Florida heat again.”

  “C’mon, Callie, run.” He didn’t give her a chance to soak up the glorious sun, dragging her across the street, into the parking garage, and all the way up the stairs to the top level where they’d parked.

  With every step, her head throbbed, still bruised from the butt of Monica Stone’s gun. The pain just reminded her that the woman was a killer and if they didn’t move fast, God only knew what fate Mrs. McManus might meet.

  Ben peeled his car out of the garage, driving with one hand and punching a number into his cell phone with the other. He threw the phone on the console in speaker mode so Callie could hear it ring.

  “I told you no resources,” a woman’s voice came through the speaker, throaty and low and oozing cool confidence.

  “Lucy, the governor and his head chef are trying to kill Mrs. McManus and make it look like an assassination gone awry.”

  The statement was met with dead silence as Callie and Ben shared a look.

  “You’re basing this on your gut?” the woman asked.

  “I’m basing it on unequivocal facts, including poison on her plate, a positive ID from a credible witness, and an hour in a freezer where I was locked with the credible witness who got an admission of guilt right before the chef tried to put a bullet in her.” He paused for a moment. “And, just so you know, Lucy, I’m on speaker with Callie Parrish, a… foreign substance expert I’ve brought on the case.” He threw her a look. “Callie, this is my boss, Lucy Sharpe.”

  Lucy coughed softly.

  “Former boss,” Ben corrected. “And future boss.”

  After a beat, Lucy said, “Let me double check the governor’s schedule.”

  Callie stole a look at Ben, who drove with his attention riveted on the road ahead, his jaw clenched. He looked strong. Amazing. Confident. And, of course, gorgeous.

  Her heart was definitely… thawing.

  Granny Belle would love him and, funny thing, so could—

  “They’ve gone to a tri-county tea party at the West Villages retirement community just outside Tallahassee,” Lucy said. “Mrs. McManus is the featured speaker.”

  Ben shot the car into the right lane of traffic, barreling toward the interstate, barely glancing in the rear view mirror.

  “I’ll send the exact address to your phone and you can program directions.”

  “Does the itinerary say if Chef Monica Stone is with him at the event?” he asked.

  Lucy didn’t answer, but Callie could hear the soft click of a keyboard in the background. “She’s there, coordinating the menu, which brings me to something else.”

  “Yeah?” He cut off a truck and ran a yellow light to get to the I-10 entrance ramp.

  “The report from the lab came in on the poetry book you found at the rope-line with the black roses and pepper jelly.”

  Callie sat up straight at the mention of the roses, leaning closer to the phone.

  “Turns out they aren’t poems at all. One of our former NSA guys broke a simple code and in every poem is a formula for creating a poison from ordinary household items, different foods, and many flowering plants.”

  Callie gasped softly and Ben slammed on the accelerator, flying through another—no, that one was actually red.

  “I’m on my way to the tea party,” he said simply. “Back up would be nice.”

  “I understand. And, Callie, I hope you know how grateful we are to have your foreign-substance expertise.”

  “You want to thank her?” Ben asked. “Then you can do a little historical research on her behalf.”

  “Just let me know what you need, Ben.”

  Callie looked at him, a smile pulling. He could really do this? This Lucy woman could really find out Jeremiah’s real identity… the man who was Callie’s great-grandfather by birth?

  She reached over and touched Ben’s hand, curling her fingers through his.

  “I’ll check in, Luce,” he said, smiling at Callie. “When you give me my next assignment as a Bullet Catcher.”

  “How do you know I will?” she countered.

  “Something in my… gut.”

&nbs
p; She laughed softly. “Good luck, Ben. Do what needs to be done.”

  “I always do.” He ended the call and inhaled slowly, clearly satisfied with how that went. “She won’t let me back on staff until we finish this job.”

  “Then, let’s do it.”

  He smiled at her. “Damn, I like you more every minute, farm girl.”

  She grinned back. “Darn, I like you, too.”

  Chapter Eight

  Ben parked the car in the main lot of a sprawling complex called West Villages, taking a minute to study his passenger.

  “I know this is more than you counted on this morning, Callie. You wanted money and didn’t plan to risk your life to get it.”

  She shrugged, all the color back in her cheeks again and plenty of light in her big blue eyes. “Beats farming.”

  “Yeah? You interested in a job?”

  “As the foreign substance expert?” She laughed softly. “Heck, yeah, if I could sell the farm, finally go to college, and earn a degree. I could be a… what is the company called again?”

  “The Bullet Catchers.”

  “That has a nice, dangerous ring to it.”

  “So I guess you’re not going to opt to stay in the car for this job.”

  She gave him an elbow. “You guess right, pal. You need me.”

  “I sure do.” He reached a hand around her neck, pulling her closer. “I need you,” he repeated, kissing her hard on the lips, then relaxing and letting the connection turn hotter, slower, and much more meaningful.

  Under the kiss, she smiled. “You really are the devil.”

  He pulled away, wiping a stray caramel-colored strand from her face and letting himself get lost in blue eyes about the same color as the sky behind her. “It’s my only flaw.”

  “I noticed.”

  One more kiss and they were out, holding hands as they walked to the front entrance.

  “Shit,” he mumbled, glancing at the few retirement community employees and seeing a complete lack of security professionals. “Totally lax security.”

  “But now you know why,” Callie said. “The less security, the easier for him to do the deed and pop off his wife.”