LIVE Ammo (Sunshine State Mystery Series Book 2)

by Lynda Fitzgerald

  The dynamics between Cord and Rand Arbutten remained a mystery to her, although from what she heard they were forging a relationship of sorts. Maybe anything stronger would take time and a gradual building of trust. Allie only hoped she lived long enough to see it.

  Marc had read about the grand finale in the newspaper and had called to ask her if she was ready to throw in the towel, although not in those words, of course. Her mother had read the same article and made the same type of are-you-ready-to-quit phone call. Allie told them both no. Even if they couldn’t see it, even if no one else understood it, she knew what she had done was important. It had made a difference in many lives. That was enough for her.

  Much to her delight, she had her Jeep back. Allie remembered how it looked the night of the accident. She was sure she’d seen the last of it when Sheryl drove her away from the bridge. When she questioned why it hadn’t been totaled, the mechanic told her it took more than a few dents and scratches to hurt a Jeep. Good as new, he told her, with four new tires. At this rate, her tires would never show any wear.

  She only had one more thing to accomplish before she called it a wrap. Not the article. She had written a full-length article about the death of Jean Arbutten. In it, she painted the sheriff’s wife as a troubled woman who eventually found life too difficult to bear. Allie played up Jean’s poor, fatherless background because she knew that would generate reader sympathy and understanding. She left Frenchie completely out of it.

  She made sure the sheriff came off sounding like a cross between God and Aristotle—fearsome, and yet, wise and kind. Rand she painted as a grieving son standing by his father as they both worked to overcome their loss. There was enough truth in it that she didn’t feel like too much of a hypocrite.

  Other than the principal players, only the governor knew the complete story, and Allie was certain he wouldn’t talk. He—or his office—issued a press release stating that their faith in the sheriff had never wavered, and they expected him to give them many more years of exemplary leadership in Brevard County.

  Now, she hoped to tie up the last loose end. She had called and asked Rand to come over. He’d agreed, but that was before her article had appeared in the Sun. She hoped he’d show, but he was already fifteen minutes late. Allie was beginning to fear that Rand Arbutten had seen all he ever wanted to of Allie Grainger.

  She paced the living room as she waited.

  “Have you thought any more about moving?”

  “No.”

  “No, you aren’t moving, or no, you haven’t thought?”

  “Don’t you know?”

  “He’ll be here, Allie. Relax.”

  “Easy for you to say.”

  “Look out your front window.”

  She did, just in time to see Cord pull into the driveway. She felt a sharp and completely unworthy pang of disappointment. Then, the passenger door opened, and Rand climbed out of the car.

  She got another shock when Cord walked to the back of the car and pulled a wheelchair out of the trunk. He and Rand helped Janet French out of the backseat. She was wearing what were obviously new clothes—one level less snug and flashy than her others—and she held herself with pride as she looked from Cord to Rand.

  Cord pushed the wheelchair up the drive, Rand beside him. The two men walking side by side were an impressive sight. Rand had a few inches on his father, but they were tall and broad-shouldered, stalwart-looking men. Allie felt a shiver of pleasure go through her just looking at them, and she realized that she was not only attracted to the junior Arbutten; she had a bit of a crush on the senior, too.

  She met them halfway down the walk. She reached up and hugged Cord, and it seemed the most natural thing in the world. Next, she stooped over and hugged Frenchie.

  She hesitated when she straightened, but Rand took the decision out of her hands. He put his arms around her and hugged her tightly. Allie almost fainted on the sidewalk, and not because of any residual sore muscles.

  Father and son lifted the wheelchair over the front threshold. All the while, Janet was saying, “I can walk, for God’s sake. I can’t walk far or well, but you don’t have to carry me around like a sack of potatoes.”

  One look at the wheelchair, and Spook fled the living room altogether. Allie wondered if he would ever come out again.

  Once Frenchie was settled, Allie excused herself and went into the kitchen. To get sodas for everyone, she told them, but what she really wanted to do was catch her breath because the last loose end had tied itself up neatly with no help from her. She had intended to drag Rand over to see his grandmother, kicking and screaming, if necessary. She knew just one more visit from Rand would mean everything to Frenchie, and surely the woman deserved at least that. But here they were. Not only the two of them, but Cord as well. Could anything be more perfect?

  She got her answer a minute later when Rand came into the kitchen, to help her, she heard him tell the others. As he entered the room, his body brushed up against hers, and Allie felt a current of electricity shoot through her. She looked up at Rand in alarm, but he was grinning, and she realized he had done it intentionally.

  “What are you two doing in there?” Frenchie called from the living room.

  Then, Cord’s voice, “Now, Frenchie.”

  Allie blushed, and Rand’s grin widened. “Nothing, Frenchie,” he said.

  “What did you call me, boy?”

  Allie saw him color. “Sorry, Grandma,” he called into the other room. “Takes a little getting used to. We’ll be out in just a minute.”

  Allie felt the burn of tears in her eyes before she could control it. Rand watched her closely. He cupped her face in his hands and tilted it upward. He wiped away the tears with his thumbs. After a minute, he leaned down to brush his lips against hers. Allie stopped breathing, and her arms tentatively went around his waist. Then, as the kiss deepened, she clutched him more tightly until he was all that supported her.

  Too soon, much too soon, she heard Frenchie yell, “You kids stop necking and get out here. Who knows how long I have left to live? I don’t want to miss a minute of that time with my grandbaby.”

  Ignoring his grandmother, Rand brushed another kiss across her lips before releasing her and stepping back. “We’re not done with this,” he said as he picked up the soda cans, his voice vibrating with intensity. “Not by a long shot.”

  Allie stared after him wide-eyed as she tried to bring her breathing back to normal. What the hell just happened? She wasn’t an innocent. She’d had affairs, casual and serious, before her marriage. And after, she thought with a pang of guilt as Marc flashed into her mind. But never, in her nearly thirty years of life, had she felt like this. She was electrified. She wanted to run into that living room and yank Rand back into the kitchen to finish what he had so casually started. How was she supposed to follow him into the other room, sit, and converse with his father and grandmother like a normal person? Like nothing earth shattering had happened?

  She gulped deep breaths, eventually slowing them to some semblance of normalcy. Her face was still flaming, and her lips tingled, but she could do nothing about that. She reached up and brushed the hair back from her face. After a few more minutes of deep breathing, she thought she might be ready to join the others. As she stepped out of the kitchen, the front door slammed open. Sheryl stood framed in the doorway. At least she hadn’t drawn her gun.

  A bubble of hysteria welled up in Allie. “Problem, Sheryl?” she asked, grinning like an idiot. Actually, she was glad for the diversion. Maybe everyone would think her face was red with embarrassment.

  “Uh—I—” Sheryl looked horrified as she took in the occupants of the room. “Sheriff,” she said nodding. “Ma’am. Rand.” She looked like a little kid who’d blundered into her parents’ bedroom at the wrong time. Finally, she looked at Allie. “I didn’t recognize the car. I mean, I’ve never seen it. It didn’t have government tags on it or anything.”

  “It’s my car,” Rand said, smiling
at Sheryl. “Get you a soda?”

  Allie was relieved he wasn’t angry that Sheryl had just scared ten years off his life. She didn’t know what she’d do if they didn’t get along.

  “Uh—no. I mean, I’d like to stay, but I’m working.” Nodding at them, she backed out of the doorway and pulled it closed.

  When the laughter died down, Rand asked, “Does she do that often?”

  “All the time.”

  “Maybe you should lock it.”

  Allie shook her head. “Wouldn’t do any good. She has a key.”

  Rand gave her a look that caused her blood to sizzle. “You might want to think about getting it back from her. You know, for the future.”

  Frenchie talked nonstop for half an hour. Allie only caught bits and pieces. Rand had talked Cord into keeping the house and had talked his grandmother into moving in with Cord. Allie looked at Cord for confirmation, but he was looking at his mother-in-law with amused tolerance. Frenchie said it would be perfect if her grandson would move back, and Allie would stop by now and again with a little present.

  Allie’s eyes were drawn repeatedly to Rand. He looked like a different man than the one who had come to Cocoa to bury his mother. Not just the tan and the clear eyes, the same eyes that had been red-rimmed and haunted when she’d first met him. No, there was a confidence in him that she’d never seen. The closest was when he hosted the advertisers’ breakfast at the Sun, but that had been business. Many men were confident in business situations. This was social, family, and his confidence was intact, maybe stronger. Even more than that, she sensed in him contentment that wasn’t there before.

  “Well, you’re just going to have to start sleeping with him, girl, because it looks like that’s the only way I’m gonna get him back home.”

  “Now, Frenchie,” Cord said again, but he was fighting a smile.

  Allie blinked. “Excuse me.”

  “Don’t give me no excuse me,” Janet said. “Orlando’s too damn far away. I want him around a lot, and the only way I can see to keep him coming around is if you start sleeping with him. And don’t pretend you don’t want to. Either one of you. I’ve been around the block a few times, and I know a case of the hots when I see one. You’d both be a lot more relaxed if you’d just fall in the rack and get it over with. I’m telling you, it’s the only way to get him back here on a regular basis.”

  Allie was mortified, but then she heard Rand laugh, and she realized she had never heard him laugh. Carefree. She took a chance and looked up at him. He was watching her reaction, his smile smug.

  As it should be, Allie thought. With effort, she pulled her gaze from his face and looked at Janet. “He’s only fifty miles away. You’ll see him a lot.”

  “You all will,” Rand said. “After all,” he said, his eyes boring into Allie, “what’s fifty miles of good road?”

  As they rose to leave, Allie picked up the manila envelope that held the framed photo of her aunt and pressed it into Cord’s hands. “I can’t think of anyone more deserving,” she whispered.

  After they were gone, she sat down on the couch, hugging a pillow against her.

  “Now, see, honey. I told you he’d be here.”

  “Is he the one, Aunt Lou? I feel like he might be the one.”

  “We’ll just have to wait and see about that, won’t we?”

  Allie buried her grinning face in the pillow. “I guess we will. I can wait. I’m a patient woman.” She lowered the pillow. “Pretty patient. But you can tell me, can’t you? What would it hurt to tell me now? Hey, are you out there?”

  Coming Soon…

  LIVE in Person

  Read on…

  Chapter 1

  The Promise

  Some people were born to heal, some to lead. He was born to strike fear in those who crossed him. He knew how to terrorize; it was what he did best. He’d studied the art in childhood and perfected it during his years as a cop. Now, he was a cop in jail, but not for long.

  Allie Grainger. The name tasted sour on his tongue, but his thoughts of revenge rendered it almost sweet. Because of her, he’d lost everything. But he was coming after her. Nothing could stop him; and now, Allie Grainger would lose her wealth, her sanity, and when he was through playing with her, even her life.

  ***

  Allie felt like a schoolgirl going to her first dance—except she was thirty years old, divorced, and she did not intend to dance with this man, at least not vertically. Her cheeks burned at the thought, but not from embarrassment. Rand Arbutten was hot.

  For months, they’d tried to get together. From that first kiss in her kitchen last August, they knew they’d end up in bed. Even Rand’s seventy-year-old grandmother Frenchie knew they’d end up in bed, but so far, it was no-go. Something or someone—his schedule, her schedule, her friends, his family—always intervened. Then, his law firm sent him to New York for eight weeks, something about multiple depositions and interviews in some big case he was working. They’d had a number of steamy conversations during his absence, but that’s as far as it had gone.

  Rand lived and worked fifty miles west in Orlando, which didn’t make it any easier, but as he said, “What’s fifty miles of good road?” He spent two days a month as a figurehead at the newspaper where Allie worked, but that only complicated things. Everyone at the paper seemed to know what they had in mind and, intentionally or unintentionally, managed to thwart them. Even Myrna, her friend and acting editor, wasn’t cooperating this time.

  Allie had spent the past Christmas with Rand, his father Cord Arbutten, and Grandmother Frenchie, but that was in a family setting not conducive to grabbing him by the hand and dragging him to bed, tempted though she was. Although Frenchie would have applauded them. Cord, too, probably.

  She stepped out of the shower and wrapped herself in a bath sheet. Nothing would ruin today. Rand was in town for twenty-four hours, and she planned to spend twenty-three of them with him in bed. That would give them an hour to eat so they could keep up their strength.

  Silky pink undies, a semitransparent pink peasant blouse. Deep burgundy Capris and matching toenails. No shoes. She didn’t plan to be on her feet for long. She laughed aloud. Could it really be happening? Could today be the day?

  She had it all orchestrated: a slow walk on the beach, a bottle of Chablis on ice for when they returned. Music—something sexy with plenty of saxophone. Maybe a little Sade. Fresh, scented sheets on the bed. She’d even fed and walked Spook hours early so he wouldn’t be needy once Rand arrived. Her cowardly Lhasa Apso would probably disappear to his favorite hiding spot behind the living room sofa when Rand got there and not emerge until after he left, but it didn’t pay to leave these things to chance.

  A spritz of Jo Malone 154, a splurge on her last visit home to Atlanta where her mother dragged her to Nordstrom. Allie had paled when she learned the price, but her mother told her it was time to ratchet up her self-esteem, and for once, Allie agreed. Besides, with all the money her aunt had left her, she could afford it.

  Rand told her the scent made his knees weak. She smiled. All the better.

  Her best friend Sheryl probably wouldn’t barge in. Her hours were erratic as a sheriff’s deputy, and Allie hadn’t seen her in more than a week. No, today and tonight belonged to Rand and her.

  As she walked into the living room, she heard tires crunch to a stop in her oyster-shell driveway, and the breath whooshed out of her lungs. What was wrong with her? It wasn’t as if she were a sixteen-year-old virgin, although at the moment, that’s exactly how she felt.

  She restrained herself from racing to the door and flinging it wide, but it was a near thing. When she saw Rand’s outline through the frosted jalousies, her heart hiccupped. Even though it was January, sweat broke out on various parts of her body. God, she was a mess! Frenchie was right. It was high time they got this over with so they could begin to behave like normal human beings again.

  She counted five after he knocked before opening the door. They stood, r
egarding each other, Rand big, dark, and tall on her puny front stoop, Allie drinking in everything about him, from his tight jeans to his narrow waist and broad chest to the stunned look on his face.

  “Jesus,” he whispered. “You look sexy as hell.”

  “So do you,” Allie managed before he stepped through the door and closed it with his foot. She heard the deadbolt click as he reached for her with the other arm. Then, it was a tangle of clothed limbs, murmured words, and pure sensation. She heard “God, I’ve wanted to…” and “waited so long…” and half-heard many other phrases, but she didn’t care what he said at the moment. It was all about the doing.

  His lips came down on hers. His hand slipped under the back of her loose blouse—the primary reason she’d worn it—and caressed her skin. She ran her hands over his face, his neck, and pulled him closer.

  After what seemed seconds or hours, he said, “Whoa. Wait.” His breathing was ragged. “Give me a minute here.”

  Allie didn’t even have enough breath to gasp. She stared up at him. He ran his hands up and down her arms and gulped in several breaths. “Not yet. Not this way.”

  Allie looked up at him in confusion. When she could form words, she said, “Then when? And how?”

  That brought a strained laugh from him. “Soon. Today, I mean, but this isn’t how I want our first time to be. Flying clothes and groping hands. I want it to be—Oh, hell, forget it.” He crushed her against him again, and his lips came down on hers.

  This time, Allie pulled back. “Wait.” She put her hands against his chest. “Wait,” she gasped. “You’re right. It should be memorable.”

  He pulled her to him again, his embrace looser. “It’ll be memorable. I can promise you that.”

  Allie felt her blood pressure soar into the stratosphere. She managed to bite back the “No, now,” that sprang to her lips, but he was right. She, too, wanted this to be the ultimate romantic experience.