by Leslie Kelly
“Are you telling me that now, having met him, you don’t think Nick Walker is just as sexy and hot as you did six years ago?”
“Answer the question.”
Rosemary sighed heavily. “Oh, all right. I tricked you into meeting him because I didn’t think you’d go if I told you the truth. In spite of how badly you need some cock, I know you think you’re not ready to have sex with somebody else.”
That startled a laugh out of her, then another sigh. Because the second part of Rosemary’s accusation was probably true. Mel was nowhere near ready to have any relationship—even an uncomplicated one-night stand—with a man. The thought of getting naked in front of someone made her fear she’d break out in hives.
Aside from Bill, the only man who’d seen her naked in the past six years was a creepy workman who’d spied on her through a skylight at their old house in Atlanta. Typical of her inconsiderate ex, he’d arranged for some roof repairs and hadn’t told her. She’d put on quite a show for the roofer while taking a bath. Thankfully, there had been lots of bubbles blocking most of his view—at least, after she’d gotten into the water.
The creep had been leering—one hand down his pants—when she’d spied him through the skylight and screamed. Whether he’d been jerking off or not, he’d definitely jerked when he’d gotten caught. Jerked so hard he fell off the roof. God, it had galled her to call an ambulance for him, especially since he got a free vacation courtesy of her home-owner’s insurance.
Apparently perverts weren’t excluded from filing claims.
“As for why I told him about the list?” Rosemary continued, distracting Melody from her trip down bad-memory lane. “Well…”
“I know. Nick told me you’d had a bit too much champagne.”
Rosemary didn’t reply at first. “That’s partly true.”
“What do you mean?”
“Well…I wasn’t tipsy. I kind of did it on purpose.”
Her head pounding now, Melody pulled the receiver away from her head so she could call her friend a bunch of foul names without actually calling her them.
Rosemary heard, anyway. When Mel was done, her friend said, “You finished, sugar?”
“Why did you show him my list?”
“Fate.” Rosemary said the word softly, and that got Melody’s attention like nothing else could have.
“What do you mean?”
“I mean, have you wondered why this whole thing happened? Why you picked him that night? Why he ended up here—where you are? Why I happened to meet him? It all seemed like…fate.”
Melody rolled her eyes. “If it was fated to happen, you didn’t need to tell him about my list, our grocery carts would have bumped into each other at the Piggly Wiggly or something.”
“Sometimes fate needs a swift kick in the ass.”
That was a Rosemary-ism for sure. “So you interfered.”
“I interfered. Now, tell me, having met him, do you really expect me to believe you don’t want him like mad?”
Nibbling her lip, Melody admitted, “I’m not saying that.”
“And,” Rosemary added, having the courtesy to not sound triumphant, “that any woman would love to end up in his bed?”
“Not denying that, either.”
“Then what’s the problem?”
“The problem is, I’m not any woman. I’m your best friend and I deserve better than to be ambushed by someone I trust.”
That shut Rosemary up. A lengthy silence followed. Mel didn’t say anything, knowing from experience that Rosemary never intended for her schemes or her interference to hurt anyone. But once she realized they had, she was usually very remorseful.
“I’m not sorry.”
So much for that theory.
“Don’t try to tell me that you’re fine and capable of making decisions about your romantic life, because I know you’re not. And if I had to help you for your own good, well, I’m not going to apologize for it.”
Melody didn’t even try to argue the point.
Rosemary’s tone softened. “Honey, I’ve known you for seventeen years. I know when you’re hurting and I know that if it’s left up to you, you will hide in your apartment, bury yourself in your photography and watch life through a lens instead of living it. The longer it goes on, the more you’ll let yourself dry up because of what that bastard did to you. I know you weren’t having sex with that pig you married for a couple of years, so how long has it been since you’ve had a man?”
“A man? More than six years. Bill’s a pig, remember?”
As Rosemary chuckled, Melody fell silent. Was her friend right? Sure, for much of the past year she’d been dealing with her divorce. But she’d been a free woman for a few months now and she’d had opportunities both in Atlanta, and here in Savannah, to reenter the world of the living. The world that included men.
She hadn’t. She’d clung to her old friends, to all that was familiar to her. She’d frozen off any man she met, hadn’t explored anything or anyone outside of her comfort zone. And today, she’d fled from a guy she’d been dying to have for years.
So maybe…just maybe…Rosemary had a point.
“You know,” she said, not ready to forgive Rosemary yet, “it takes two to do the deed. I can’t climb aboard a man and start going at it if he’s not interested. Aside from the physical limitations, it wouldn’t be very polite.”
Rosemary chuckled. “Oh, he was interested, all right.”
For some reason, that made her sit right up in the tub again. “He was? How do you know?”
“Well, he asked Dex to get your number.”
Part of her got excited at the thought. Another part was horrified. “Tell me you didn’t give it to Dex.”
A pause. “I didn’t.”
Liar.
As if hearing the accusation, Rosemary sighed. “Okay, I did. But I also told Dex you aren’t the type of woman to be pushed. That if you’re interested, you’ll make the next move.”
Ha. Make the next move? Melody wasn’t sure she even remembered how. Or that she wanted to!
Okay, now she was the liar.
“So say you’ll come Saturday night,” Rosemary urged. “Don’t let the dick with the drill rule your life across the state.”
Rosemary obviously knew her well enough to push the right buttons, because the idea that she was making decisions based on her past with her ex was entirely repugnant.
Melody still had to know one thing. “Rosemary, did you invite Nick Walker to this party?”
“No.”
Mel didn’t say a word.
“Oh, all right, yes. But that doesn’t mean for sure that he’ll come. He almost never comes over when I invite him. I think he thinks I’m a bad influence on Dex.”
She probably was. Rosemary sure wasn’t great in the whole truth-telling department.
“So please say you’ll be here. If he shows up, you can ignore him if you want. But if you do want another chance, he’ll be right here for you to work your magic on.”
Magic? Melody felt closer to a carny con man than to Houdini on the magic scale. Any magic she’d once had with men seemed to have dried up over the past six years.
“You’ll come, won’t you?”
She could use Nick as an excuse not to go. But there really wasn’t any reason to, was there? After all…“He’s off my list.”
It was Rosemary’s turn to drop the phone. When she came back on again, she was sputtering. “You mean you did it? You put me through all this torture and you already did him?”
“No,” she said with a helpless laugh. “I mean, I removed him from my list. Scratched him off…not checked him off.”
“I think that’s cheating,” Rosemary said matter-of-factly.
“I don’t think I care what you think.”
“Tell me why you did it and I’ll tell you if it’s allowed.”
Tell her why? Well, that was the question of the hour, wasn’t it? Because Melody wasn’t entirely sure she could explai
n why she’d decided Nick Walker was unsuitable for a wild, reckless, go-for-it fling. Not to Rosemary. Not even to herself.
But she had her suspicions and she could come up with several little reasons. She’d frozen him out for more than his teasing, more than his dislike of her best friend, which, to be honest, was pretty warranted today. More than the way he made her feel like a stammering twit instead of a grown woman.
When she really thought about it, she knew it came down to one thing. She’d taken him off her list because, somehow, even only knowing him a little while, she’d already realized that one time would not be enough. Not with a man like that. She couldn’t have an amazing, reckless, one-night stand and then walk away. With a man like Nick, there would be regrets. Longing. Hunger.
Repercussions.
None of which she could afford right now. Especially because if she went and did the unthinkable—if she actually fell for a man like him—she’d be setting herself up for another miserable failure of a relationship.
God Almighty, if she couldn’t hold the interest of bland, boring Dr. Bill Todd, what on earth could she possibly have to offer someone as sexy and powerful as Detective Nick Walker?
“Mel?” Rosemary prodded.
“Don’t ask me any more questions,” she said with a sigh, wondering how she’d become such an emotional mess. And how long it might take before she began feeling anything like herself again. The strong Mel. The secure Mel. The confident Mel.
“Okay, no more questions. Say you’ll come.” Rosemary quickly added, “That wasn’t a question, it was an order.”
Unable to help it, Melody laughed. Rosemary was a pain in the ass…but oh, how she’d missed her. “Be good and don’t try any more tricks and maybe, just maybe…I’ll show up Saturday night.”
CHAPTER FIVE
“SHE’S NOT GOING TO show up,” Nick mumbled to Dex as they stood in Rosemary’s lush walled garden Saturday night. He’d arrived an hour ago, on edge, his pulse already revved up as he anticipated another verbal game of one-on-one with Melody. A good prelude to the physical game of one-on-one they’d be playing sooner or later, if he had his way.
But she wasn’t here.
He cast another thorough look around the yard, trying to spot her familiar auburn hair. A wasted effort—no woman at the party was quite as tall as Melody. And not one woman here made his heart pound a little harder in his chest.
He couldn’t believe he’d been thinking about her almost nonstop for days. It had been a long time—maybe forever—since he’d been as instantly attracted, as immediately intrigued, as he was by Melody Tanner. Thankfully, he’d managed to control his interest well enough to keep doing his job. He and Dex had even come up with a good lead on the tourist murder case, which had kept him busy and focused at work during the day.
His nights? Well, they were a different story. Because all he’d been able to think about for the past few nights when he’d gone to bed were the images he’d put in both of their heads the other morning. Images of sweaty, late-night lovemaking. Of the heady fragrance of the air and her skin, wrapping together to fill his head. The way her lips would taste and the way she’d look wearing nothing but moonlight as she lay in his bed.
It had been damned frustrating. And incredibly arousing.
“Rosemary swears she’ll be here, because Melody is the guest of honor.” Dex’s eyes were twinkling. He was unsuccessful at hiding a smile as he lifted his glass, adding, “And I’m sure she wouldn’t miss seeing you again, getting to sample that famous Walker charm.”
“‘F’ you,” Nick said before sipping his beer. He hadn’t gone out of his way to charm Melody. In fact, he’d done nearly everything he could to tease and taunt her. She just brought out the devil in him…a devil he thought he’d long since shaken off.
Maybe back during his teenage years he’d been more of a charming, flirting kind of guy. He wasn’t that guy anymore…in fact, most people thought of him as pretty serious these days. Intense. That was the word most often associated with him.
So how on earth had one sassy female managed to make him unsure whether to laugh or groan; to tease his way past her defenses or just grab her and kiss the taste out of her mouth?
“Your girlfriend sure goes all out, doesn’t she?” Nick muttered, needing to change the subject.
“That she does.” Dex glanced around, a frown furrowing his brow. Nick knew the look. Dex was troubled. With reason. It couldn’t be easy to be in love with a woman like Rosemary.
“I don’t particularly like this crowd, but I have to say there’s something special about this place,” Nick said.
“Special…and expensive.”
There was that note of tension again, which Nick had heard more and more frequently in his friend’s voice lately.
Dex fell silent, keeping his quiet counsel, as always. But his eyes were constantly shifting over the party. As, of course, were Nick’s. Cop instinct. It was ingrained.
The broad expanse of lawn between the mansion, where Rosemary lived, and the carriage-house-turned garage, was filled with people. Small groups stood chatting on stone patios, in shadowy corners, beside gurgling fountains or beds profuse with flowers. Lanterns provided soft atmospheric lighting throughout the yard. Huge oaks shaded much of the lawn from the starry night sky and long loops of Spanish moss provided effective curtains from any curious passers-by who might try to peer through the side gate. If not for the modern-day clothes, this could have been a garden party from a previous century.
Everyone was having a wonderful time eating the catered food, drinking from the open bar—where a uniformed bartender served nearly any drink ordered. Always precise to the last detail, Rosemary had even hired a three-piece band to provide light classical music in the background.
A typical Rosemary party. Elegant, rich, and leaving Nick wondering what the hell Dex was doing here…much less him!
But he knew the answer to his own question. He was here for her. Here to see if Melody would show up tonight when she had to have figured Rosemary would invite him.
“So she’s really something, this friend of Rosemary’s?”
Sensing that Dex was simply curious and not setting him up, Nick nodded. “Yeah.” I’m just not sure what.
Was she the witty, open, easygoing woman he’d chatted with the other morning? The one who’d had no problem flipping him off, but who’d probably also had a most adorable blush on her face while doing it? Or was she a horny woman on the prowl, ready to dive into bed the moment she met the right man?
He took another swallow of beer.
“I guess she has to be beautiful, given her background.”
That got him curious. “Background?”
“Didn’t she tell you? She used to be a child model.”
Nick absorbed that bit of information, surprised, though he shouldn’t have been, given her height and her looks. He thought about it, trying to place her name—or her face. But he couldn’t.
“She apparently did TV shows, commercials and photo ads when she was a kid, and as a teenager,” Dex explained. “I haven’t actually seen it, but Rosemary swears there’s a shot of her in a famous swimsuit edition from about ten years back.”
A swimsuit model? Lord knows the woman had the figure for it, but it didn’t seem to fit the Melody he’d begun to know.
“And,” Dex added, pausing for a moment to make sure he had Nick’s attention, “she was the Peacock Feather Girl.”
Nick’s jaw dropped open in shock and his slippery beer bottle nearly fell out of his hand. “You are shitting me.”
“Nope. Rosemary swears it’s true.”
“The Peacock Feather Girl,” he mumbled, having a really hard time wrapping his mind around that. Melody was the Peacock Feather Girl? The lingerie model whose picture had nearly set records for how fast it had spread across the Internet, before such things became almost hourly occurrences? Hell, Nick had been overseas in the service and he’d still seen that picture.
/> The model had been blond, but when he thought about it, he realized she indeed could have been Melody before a hair-color change. Frankly, her face and hair hadn’t been what he and most of the guys in his unit had been looking at.
A brilliant sapphire-blue, the bra and panties set being modeled had been skimpy to the point of nothingness. The bra, he recalled, had pretended to cover the essentials and had actually been pretty, as well as incredibly sexy. Its vivid, satiny fabric had been accented by soft-looking blue-green feathers, which had curled up from beneath each breast to curve into two carefully placed peacock “eyes.” Dead center.
They were supposed to cover the wearer’s breasts. But the brownish, provocative swirls had instead made the bra look wickedly salacious, as if the model had been wearing one with the front cut out to expose her nipples.
As for the panties? Well, hell, they might as well not have existed at all. A tiny ropy string of sapphire material and a long, slim feather had curved over each of the model’s hips before dipping down in the front. Way down. And again there were those pretty, feathery swirls—the peacock eyes—all running together and overlapping. They formed a small triangle, right below the vulnerable hollow beneath the model’s pelvis.
There’d been no denying what that gorgeous, feathery little beige triangle had looked like at first glance, either.
“Damn, it’s hot out here,” he said, tugging at his collar.
“Very,” someone murmured.
Not just someone. Her. The woman had sneaked up on him and caught him unawares, distracted, turned-on and shifting in his pants. How had she managed to get the better of him already?
Pasting on a lazy smile, Nick slowly turned around to face her. Then the smile faded. Because she looked incredible.
No simple ponytail for Melody Tanner this night. Her dark auburn hair was swept back off her face, with a few soft curls dropping onto her shoulders. That amazing face, which didn’t seem to even need makeup the other day, had been shadowed and powdered until she almost glittered with sophistication.
