by Lisa Jackson
“Hush! Kaiser! You stop that!” Lois yelled as she scooted her chair back. “What in the Sam Hill?” She was on her feet and heading to the back door. “Oh . . . my.” Her hand flew over her chest as she looked through the glass.
Alvarez followed her gaze and spied a bedraggled cat seated on the back patio’s covered table, its luminous eyes unblinking as it stared into the apartment through the slider.
“Dear God in heaven, that poor thing is Jocelyn’s. Oh, for the love of . . . I can’t let her in because of Kaiser. He’d tear her limb from limb ... but she’s freezing.”
“I’ll take her.”
“Oh, no! I won’t let you take her to a shelter! We’ll find her a home.” Lois was horrified as she bent down and picked up her quivering, anxious dog.
“I meant I’d take her home.”
“Oh, well ... good!”
Still barking as if he’d seen the face of Satan, Kaiser wiggled and scrambled as Lois carried him out of the living room. “His kennel is in my bedroom,” she called over her shoulder, then reprimanded the dog. “You know better, Mr. Kaiser. . . .” Her voice became muffled, and the cat, frost in its whiskers, looked up at Alvarez.
Alvarez unlocked the door and slid it open. Without a second’s hesitation the cat, black with white toes and a spot under her throat, strolled inside to rub up against Alvarez’s jean-clad leg. “Hey.” She leaned down, petted the cat’s arched back, and melted when the animal started doing figure eights between her ankles.
Somewhere a door shut.
“I swear he hates cats!” Lois said, returning to the living area. “Oh, I see you’ve already made friends. Poor little thing! She must be starving.”
“I’ll feed her.”
“Good! Good!” Lois tried to pet the cat, but it ran and hid beneath the sofa. “Uh-oh. So now she’s shy. You know, I’ve got an extra pet carrier. I used it when Kaiser was a puppy. We could put her in that.”
“If we can catch her.”
“You try and I’ll find the crate.”
To Alvarez’s surprise, the cat didn’t put up much of a fight. Within ten minutes, she was in the car, driving back to her own apartment, the animal yowling piteously from its carrier in the backseat.
She wondered, as she hauled Jane Doe, the name she’d settled on for the moment, toward her front door, if she would have the heart to take the cat to the shelter, or if as of now Jocelyn Wallis’s cat was hers. In her mind’s eye she saw Lois Emmerson and her dog in matching sweaters and couldn’t help but fast-forward to her own life. Would she suffer the same fate as the older lady? End up living alone with an animal who was a surrogate child, a cat with her own set of clothes?
“Never,” she breathed, unlocking her door and stepping into the sterile studio she called home. She fed the cat from a can she’d gone back and swiped from Jocelyn Wallis’s apartment, folded a towel for a kitty bed, and let the cat explore. While Jane Doe was nosing around, Alvarez poured some of the kitty litter she’d also taken from the dead woman’s home into a box with short sides. She placed the cat into the box. “Remember this, okay, Jane?” she asked, and the cat promptly ran out of the bathroom. “Great.”
Alvarez hurried through the shower, toweled off quickly, and changed into black slacks and a rust-colored turtleneck. She added big hoop earrings, and for once, let her long black hair fall free.
Back in her small kitchen area, she found a dusty bottle of Cabernet in the pantry and swiped it clean while the cat dared jump onto the counters. “You’re pushing it,” she warned, and Jane responded by yawning and showing off needle-sharp teeth. “Be good.”
Not on your life, she imagined the cat saying as she grabbed her coat and scarf, threw them on, and, before she could talk herself out of it, snagged the bottle and her purse and walked out the door.
Snow was softly falling, millions of tiny flakes glistening in the lamplight.
Telling herself she was six kinds of a fool, she made her way through the coming blizzard to her Jeep, where, once inside, she paused.
Was she really going to do this?
Take up Dan Grayson on his offer?
With a stray cat locked in her apartment?
Keys poised over the lock, she closed her eyes and counted to ten. “Oh, hell,” she muttered. What was the worst that could happen? She’d embarrass herself? She’d find him alone with some other woman? He’d be home alone, not expecting anyone and surprised to find her outside his door?
Who knew?
Nothing ventured, nothing gained. Or Nada aventurado, nada adquirido, as she used to say as a teen, an expression that made her grandmother shake her head at her.
Jabbing the key into the lock, she twisted on the ignition. Seconds later, she was driving out of the lot, through the falling snow, and wondering what the hell she would say to her boss once she landed on his doorstep.
CHAPTER 14
“ We’ve been over this before.” In Santana’s large bed, with firelight flickering through the open doorway to the living area of the cabin, Pescoli levered up on one elbow. Sighing, exasperated with her own conflicted emotions, she stared down at the man she hated to admit she loved. God, she was a fool.
Especially for him.
The lingering scent of chili—turkey chili, he’d informed her—mingled with the smell of burning wood. Their Thanksgiving dinner had been less than traditional, and she loved him for it. Most of the hours together had been spent right here, in his massive bed, his dog, a husky named Nikita, curled on the floor near the door. Outside the windows, snow fell softly, and for a few peaceful hours it was as if they were totally alone in the world.
Santana, too, was naked, his skin tanned against the white sheets, his black hair mussed and falling over his forehead, his eyes still dark with passion, and she found him incredibly sexy. Still. After over a year of being together.
The bastard had the audacity to grin, his teeth a slash of white in the shadowy room. “And I have the feeling we’ll go over it again and again and again before you can face the fact that you need me.”
“Need you?”
“Yep. That’s what it is. Deal with it.”
“I don’t need—”
“Anyone,” he finished for her. “Yeah, I know. I’ve heard it enough.”
“So why are you pressuring me?” He’d asked her to move in with him. Again. A year ago, while she’d been recovering from the mental and physical wounds from dealing with a madman, she’d agreed that living together would be a good idea. It had sounded safe. Smart. Been so tempting. But now ...
“Come on, Regan. Would it be so bad?” He was reaching up, his warm, calloused hands scaling her ribs. Her skin tingled where he touched her, her blood warming. “We could have a lot of fun.” He raised himself upward and touched the tip of one of her nipples with his tongue. His breath was warm against her wet skin. “Think about it. Making love every day, late at night, and in the morning . . .”
She felt that familiar yearning deep within. As if he sensed her response, he reached lower and fanned his fingers between her legs, fingertips skimming the most sensitive of areas. “Think about it,” he whispered against her breast.
“You know, cowboy, you can be a real bastard when you want to be.”
“Years of practice.” Again with the tongue. A quick little flick that caused her insides to melt.
Her damned nipple tightened and she moaned.
She wanted him. Damn, but she wanted him. It was as if she couldn’t get enough of the man.
As if he could read her mind, Santana laughed, white teeth a slash of irreverent mirth.
“I’m being serious.”
“So am I.” Quick as a cat, he rolled atop her, pinning her to the mattress, his eyes gleaming a dark, intense fire. “We’ve talked about moving in together for a long time now.”
“I know, but I still have kids at home—”
“Who could use a strong father figure.”
“Oh . . . ,” she said, but just hi
s weight, pressing against her in all the right places, was making it difficult to think straight. What the hell was wrong with her? All of a sudden, when she was pushing forty, she was as randy as a teenager. At least she was with damned Santana, and the worst thing was, the son of a bitch knew it!
“We have a good thing going just as it is,” she said.
“But it might be better.”
“Or worse,” she argued.
“Come on, Regan, take a chance.” His eyes were dark with the night. He captured her mouth with his, kissed her hard, then nipped at her lower lip.
“If you think you can convince me by . . . oooh.” His hand was between her legs again, and she couldn’t help but arch upward, her blood racing, her heart beating a wild tattoo. Her fingers curled in the sheets, and finally, she let go, closed her eyes, and groaned as he entered her, feeling that familiar, yet exciting flush that started in the small of her back and worked its way upward as he moved, his breathing suddenly out of control, his skin dewy with sweat.
Would it be so bad to think of the future?
To spend the rest of her life with him?
Right now, she couldn’t think about it, didn’t want to try. For the moment, she would just let the night bring what it may.
Kacey glanced out the broad back windows of Rolling Hills and decided she was long past her pull date on this Thanksgiving meal with her mother. The snow was coming down, fluffy flakes being caught in the beams of outdoor lighting strategically placed around the grounds. A gazebo, decorated with strings of white lights, glowed in the distance, and one of the conifers had been decorated as well.
Several of the other patrons had finished their meals and, on their way out of the dining area, waved to Maribelle or stopped by to wish her a Happy Thanksgiving. Maribelle introduced them to Kacey and wished them all a wonderful holiday season.
Kacey was about to stand up when a tall, stately man with a shaved head, military bearing, and easy smile paused by their table.
“Is this your daughter?” he asked, and Maribelle quickly introduced Kacey to David Spencer, who pronounced that he was “charmed.” As if they were on the set of some movie out of the 1950s. “You’re as beautiful as your mother,” he said with a wink at Maribelle, who actually blushed. “Best bridge partner in the place, well, probably the whole damned town. Nice to meet you, Acacia.” Fondly he patted her mother’s shoulder before striding out the double doors to the grand foyer.
“See why I like it here?” her mother said, her gaze following Spencer’s stiff back.
“I do. And I see why you were so dead set that I come here. You wanted me to meet him, didn’t you?”
Her mother started to deny it, then shrugged. “You found me out.”
“Are you and he serious?”
“Oh, no!” Maribelle laughed then, a tinkling happy sound that Kacey hadn’t heard in years. “I call him the Commander,” she confided, almost giddy.
“But you’re in love?”
“Well, I don’t know about that.”
“Mom. Don’t lie to me. I can see it plain as day. Why haven’t I heard a word about him before now?”
“There was really nothing to tell.” But the sparkle in her eyes belied her words. “What do you think?”
“About him? Or you?”
“About us.”
“I just want you to be happy,” Kacey heard herself saying, but beneath her good wishes there were questions, one of which was, why, in all the years she had been married, had her mother never once showed this youthful, giddily happy side to her daughter or husband? Why had Kacey felt the strain of her parents’ marriage for almost as long as she could remember? She’d come to think that her mother had never loved her father, that she’d thought she’d married beneath herself, becoming the wife of a laborer when she had an education, a career ... and, probably, aspirations to something more, something she saw now in David Spencer.
Kacey wondered how well she knew her mother. How well she’d ever known her. Maribelle was full of secrets and obfuscation. The truth was a thing to hide.
“How about that? You actually showed up.”
Dan Grayson’s smile stretched across his face as he stood in the doorway and swung the door open to allow Alvarez to step inside.
She’d almost turned around when she’d spied the unfamiliar car parked near the garage, snow piled four inches over it, so that it was impossible to tell what make or model it was. A small compact, it looked like.
“Hey, Hattie! We’ve got company,” he called over his shoulder, and Alvarez’s stomach dropped an inch or two. “Come in, come in. Cold as the devil out there!” Stepping out of the doorway, he waved her inside, and she forced a smile she didn’t feel.
What a mistake! He’d suggested she come over just to be polite, that was all. But now there was no turning back; she’d just have to make her excuses early and leave. She stepped into the entryway of the cabin and heard the thunder of footsteps.
Two girls who looked to be around seven, identical twins, rounded the corner. One was dressed in pink, and her hair was pinned back behind her ears with a matching headband. The other, in green, wore a ponytail that was slipping out of its band, and when she smiled, she showed a missing front tooth.
“Girls, this is Detective, er, Ms. Alvarez.” Then to Alvarez, “Selena, meet McKenzie and Mallory.”
“Hi,” the girl in pink, McKenzie, said. Her sister’s eyebrows pulled together, and she glared at Alvarez as steady footsteps clipped from behind and a woman who could have been a twin for June Cleaver appeared. Tall, slim, in heels and a sheath, she smiled brightly as she spied Alvarez.
“I’m Hattie,” she said with a warm smile. She was actually wearing a strand of pearls and one of those flimsy, useless aprons that wrapped around her wasp-thin waist. Her hair was pulled to the back and pinned with a fancy comb of some sort. She looked as if she’d just stepped off of a 1950s television soundstage.
“Selena,” Alvarez said, feeling awkward as she handed the woman, obviously the hostess, the bottle of wine.
“So glad you could make it. And just in time!” To Grayson, she said, “You could offer to take her coat. Geez, Dan, sometimes I wonder!” She glanced at the wine. “Cabernet! My favorite!”
Save me, Alvarez thought and mentally kicked her way into the dining area, where the old beat-up table had been covered with a pressed cloth, and fresh greens and a sprig of cranberry surrounded fat white candles as a centerpiece. Four place settings, chipped china on faded place mats, screamed that she hadn’t been expected.
“Dan, can you open this?” Hattie asked and actually winked at him as she handed him the bottle, then hurried through a doorway to what was obviously the kitchen.
“You got it.” To Alvarez he said, “Hattie is . . . was ... my sister-in-law. The girls are my nieces.”
“Oh.”
That didn’t explain a lot, and as if he could read the confusion in her eyes, he added, “Hattie’s my ex-wife’s sister.”
Oh, God, this was getting more and more complicated.
They walked into the kitchen, where Hattie was pulling another plate from a cupboard and a turkey, roasted to perfection, was cooling, waiting to be carved, an open bottle of Chablis standing next to two mismatched wineglasses.
Inwardly, Alvarez groaned as Hattie rattled in the cutlery drawer and came up with a place setting.
Make the best of it, she told herself. Just get through the next couple of hours and smile. Even though this is your own private nightmare, you can handle it. How difficult is small talk compared to searching for clues to Jocelyn Wallis’s death or studying the crime scene left by a sadistic, brutal killer? It’s only a meal, for God’s sake!
“Dan, why don’t you start carving?” Hattie asked as Grayson uncorked the bottle of red.
“Good idea.”
Alvarez buried her nose in the glass he offered her. This was a side of Grayson she’d never seen. The relaxed family guy. Dear God, what had she been t
hinking?
Hattie glazed the sweet potatoes to perfection, then whipped up gravy for the white potatoes as well. There was cranberry sauce and a pumpkin pie cooling on the counter ... just too damned Martha Stewart for Alvarez. Why the hell had she decided to come ... no, make that intrude?
They were all crammed around the table, Alvarez seated opposite the twins, Grayson at one end of the table, Hattie at the other, and Alvarez thought of all kinds of ways to escape. Hattie insisted the girls say some kind of grace. Mallory clammed up, but McKenzie said a sweet prayer that Alvarez thought she’d memorized in anticipation of the request.
The meal was tasty, the turkey succulent, the sweet potatoes a concoction that melted in her mouth, and yet Alvarez couldn’t enjoy it at all.
As Hattie served dessert and was literally beaming at Grayson, Alvarez found her cell phone and managed to hit a button that would make an alarm. When the phone beeped, she grabbed it and said, “Alvarez.” She managed to appear concerned, held up a finger, and pushed her chair back. “Yeah? Okay, go . . .” She walked to the entry hall and made all the appropriate noises into the phone, then, after three minutes, clicked off and returned to the dining area. “Sorry, I’ve got to run,” she said. “Don’t get up. I’ll find my coat.”
“Trouble?” Grayson was already on his feet.
“Nothing serious.” At least that wasn’t a lie.
“Then, please, stay for pie and coffee.” Hattie’s perfectly arched eyebrows had drawn together in concern, little lines of worry evident between her brows. McKenzie imitated her mother’s expression, while Mallory was dipping an experimental finger into the dollop of whipped cream that was melting on the pumpkin filling of her pie.
“Sorry, I can’t. Thanks for the dinner. It was spectacular.” Alvarez avoided Grayson’s eyes because she hated trying to fabricate excuses and had always prided herself as a straight shooter. Lying didn’t come easily.
Grayson followed her into the hallway and found her coat on a peg near the door. “Whatever it is can wait.”
