The Tough Guy and the Toddler

by Diane Pershing

  Again, he’d closed down abruptly, which, for some reason, hurt more deeply than it should have. She stared at his back as he nursed his drink and checked out some more family pictures on the wall. She rubbed her arms. There it was, that chill in the room again.

  All right, Detective, she wanted to say. I get the message. Do not probe, he was telling her. Do not talk about my wife.

  And, after all, she asked herself, why should he? She’d made her business his, but he hadn’t invited her to do the same.

  She walked over to the couch, recovering her poise as she did. “To answer your question,” she said dispassionately, “my marriage was not a very happy one. Sometimes I’m guilty that I don’t mourn Reynolds more, but I’m afraid the truth is, the loss of my son overwhelms anything else I may be feeling.” She downed the rest of her Scotch in one gulp. She was not much of a drinker, but she wanted the warm feeling back.

  Her glance fell on the open letter sitting on the coffee table. She reached down and plucked it up. “So,” she said as the smooth liquid worked its magic, soothing, buffeting. “Where were we?”

  He stood facing her, the two floor-to-ceiling windows that opened to the terrace behind him. He had his drink in one hand. The other was in his pants pocket, jiggling his keys. “Tell me about the day of the accident.”

  “Oh, yes.” Perching on the arm of the couch, she said, “Reynolds came up to me and announced that he was taking Michael for a drive—alone. I remember being surprised. He never did that, you know, father and son kind of thing. And I remember Michael didn’t really want to go, not without me. He was in that real mommy phase—I was the beginning and end of his existence.” She chuckled a little, but Dom’s expression remained impersonal, watchful, which made her feel foolish.

  Looking down, she picked at a piece of lint on her pants. “Anyhow, that day, Reynolds was adamant, he was taking his son for a drive, out for ice cream, maybe, or to the zoo. So I waved goodbye to them. Michael was in his car seat in the back, and he turned around to look at me the whole time the car moved down the driveway.”

  Her voice cracked on that last word. but she was determined not to cry again. Enough tears, she told herself firmly, way too many. She would tell the story and be done with it.

  “It was after lunch, one or so. I got word by late afternoon that the car had been found over an embankment off Mulholland Highway in the hills above Malibu. It had gone over, some nearby brush caught fire, and by the time the fire fighters and police got there, everything—the car, the bodies—was pretty well burned.”

  “Then how did they know whose car it was? How were they able to contact you so fast?”

  “Apparently, part of the license plate hadn’t burned. And...oh!” The sob rose out of nowhere. Damn it! She’d been doing so well. Her hand flew to her mouth to muffle the sound.

  After a moment, she made herself continue. “The puppy, the stuffed puppy had been thrown clear. It was found on the hillside nearby. It had a real dog collar with a tag on it. ‘My name is Pup-Pup,’ it said, followed by my phone number. That’s how they found me so quickly.” She bit her lip, hard. She would not break down.

  Leaving his post by the window, Dom walked toward her and stopped, the coffee table between them. He still had his drink in one hand, but the thumb of the other was looped over his belt, which had a pager and a badge clipped to it. He had a gun, she assumed, and wondered idly where he wore it.

  For a time, he seemed to be checking her out, almost clinically, for any further signs of emotional distress. Then he asked, “What caused the accident? Had he been drinking? Had he blown a tire?”

  Meeting his gaze, Jordan shrugged. “They never found out. There were skid marks on the highway, as though he’d tried to put on the brakes. No alcohol. And it was impossible to tell anything about tires or anything else. The car was just about totaled.”

  “Were they sure it was an accident? Could it have been suicide?”

  It was too much of an effort to continue to make eye contact, so Jordan looked down as she played with her rings. “There was some talk about that, for a little while, anyway. I was pretty sure it wasn’t suicide.”

  “That’s natural.”

  She shook her head. “No. You don’t understand. Reynolds wasn’t like that. He was too—” She sought the words. “He was a vain man, narcissistic. If he were going to kill himself—and I don’t think the thought would enter his mind—he would do it more cleanly. Pills, maybe, or gas.” She looked up, met his gaze. “So he wouldn’t appear...flawed in death.”

  “Look, Mrs. Carlisle—”

  “Jordan.”

  “Oh, yeah.” He drew his brows together, as though puzzled. “Is that your real name or one of those made-up ones?”

  The change of subject surprised her, but it also lightened the atmosphere in the room, so she welcomed it with a small smile. “It’s real. For the River Jordan. My brother is named Galilee. Bodies of water in the Holy Land. You see, where we grew up, well, it was pretty parched in that section of Wyoming.”

  He nodded, finished his drink, set the glass next to hers on the coffee table. As he checked his watch again, she knew he was preparing to leave.

  “Would you like me to pull the file,” he asked, “see if there’s anything there? Not that it’ll do much good, if there was a positive identification of the bodies.”

  “There was. Reynolds’s dental records, the puppy, the child’s bones were the right age. No, there was no doubt in anyone’s mind, not even mine, that Reynolds and Michael both died in that car crash.”

  Her breath caught in her throat again, unexpectedly, and she felt another sob threatening. She tried to contain it by holding her fisted hands to her solar plexus. “I’m sorry. You think you’re through crying, and then it all comes up again.”

  “Yeah.”

  “You know all about mourning, don’t you? Because of your wife.”

  His mouth tensed again and he seemed to hesitate, then nodded once. She knew that he wanted out of here, away from her and her stupid tears.

  She snatched the picture from the coffee table and looked at it. “I’m a fool aren’t I?” she said angrily. “I allowed myself to hope again. I wanted it to be real.” She glanced at Dom. “Michael,” she said brokenly, “was the one good thing I ever did in my life. And my life ended a year ago.”

  She lost it then, totally and thoroughly. Her hands crumpled the photo as she raised them to her eyes. Long, choking sobs of unfettered grief racked her body. “Go,” she tried to tell Dom. “I don’t want you to see me like this.”

  She didn’t observe but felt the moment when he took two quick steps toward her. There was a brief hesitation, but only for a second. Then she felt his hands covering her clenched ones, easing them away from her eyes and pulling her to a standing position. He brought her arms around his waist and pulled her close to him, wrapping her body in a broad, muscular embrace.

  She sagged against him, and, oh lord, it felt natural and right, as though Dom was an everyday, available source of comfort As she hugged him tightly, she cried onto his shirt, soaking the front with salty tears.

  While her cheek rubbed against the wool of his jacket, he stroked her hair awkwardly, murmured soothing words in his gruff voice. It was such a huge relief to be able to do this. And after a while, when the sobs diminished, she was aware of the smell of him—wool and male sweat and that faint hint of wintergreen. What had happened to his gum? she wondered suddenly, not at all sure where that thought had come from.

  His strong heartbeat throbbed against her cheek, a little rapidly, she noticed, the same as his breathing. In a single moment, his hand stilled on her neck and the atmosphere changed, from warmth and comfort to something more sensual—and a lot less comforting. It was disconcerting to be so aware of Dom with every pore of her skin. Still holding tightly to him, Jordan drew her head away from his chest and gazed at him, a question forming on her lips.

  But then she saw his eyes. It was there aga
in, that fierce hunger. And just like that, her own hunger rose to the surface.

  She just had time to close her eyes before she heard his muttered “Damn,” and his mouth descended to hers.

  Chapter 4

  Dom knew what he was doing. Hell, he always knew what he was doing. Not only did this come from having to watch his back growing up on the streets of Brooklyn, it came from that sixth sense cops developed after years on the job, so that you were never caught unawares, so that there was always a part of you on the lookout—observing, assessing potential danger.

  So, yeah, he knew what he was doing—he was giving in to an overpowering, totally irresistible impulse to make contact, flesh to flesh, with Jordan Carlisle. To sample that inviting mouth of hers, to taste her as he’d been wanting to do all evening.

  What took him by surprise was her response. It was immediate and breath-robbingly intense. The moment his mouth met hers, it was like they’d slammed into each other. It was as though a blowtorch of passion had fused them together. She made a guttural sound in the back of her throat, then her lips parted in invitation, and he shoved his tongue through. She tasted of Scotch and tears, and she met his tongue with her own. As he drank deeply from her mouth’s moisture, he brought his hands around to frame her face, angling it for a better, even deeper connection.

  There was nothing tender going on here—none of that first, tentative, exploratory merging of mouths, no holding back to give each other time to adjust. No, what this was, Dom knew, was instant heat, combustible enough to set off a sizable flame. His hands moved again to the back of her head. His fingers plowed through her silky soft hair to dig into her scalp. Reaching under his jacket, she splayed her hands across his back, pressing her body to his chest. He groaned as the points of her nipples dug into his shirt front, setting up a trembling along his thighs, making heat pool between his legs and giving him an instant, unmistakable erection.

  If his ferocity took him by surprise, hers made him feel downright primitive. Animal responding to animal, both in heat. His instinct was to open his mouth even wider, to take her, all of her, inside him and devour her. Pushing his arousal against her stomach, he deepened the kiss. His teeth scored her lower lip. His heart pounded loudly in his ears.

  Too loudly.

  It was not his heart. Someone was knocking on the door.

  Dom and Jordan broke apart immediately, stared briefly at each other. Her face registered the same shock he was feeling, then she shook her head as though she had just awakened. Quickly, she averted her gaze.

  “Jordan?” a voice called, followed by another knock on the door.

  Hastily brushing her fingers through her hair, she responded, “Come in, Cynthia,” then leaned over the coffee table to gather the photo albums into her arms.

  Dom tensed as the door opened. Mrs. Carlisle, Senior, entered the room to see her daughter-in-law clutching the family albums to her chest. Even with her pale skin uncharacteristically flushed, Jordan had managed to school her face into a look of pleasant inquiry. “Yes?” she said evenly.

  “I...thought I heard someone crying.”

  Dom angled his body away from the two women. His arousal had been swift. His and Jordan’s mouths had met and, pow, his male equipment had been ready to give service. The abrupt ending to their kiss had taken its toll—his nerve endings trembled with small aftershocks.

  “Yes, I was crying,” he heard Jordan say. “I...well, it was nothing to worry about. I’m fine now.”

  What he needed, Dom figured, was a couple of moments to get back to normal. Downtime, the guys on the force said. While he waited for his shallow, rapid breathing to get regular again, he ambled over to a bookshelf and pretended to study some of the volumes. Were there still traces of Jordan’s pale peach lipstick on his mouth? he wondered, and ran his tongue over his lips to see if he could taste any. No, he decided, even as the thought of Jordan’s luscious mouth reversed some of his cooling-off effort.

  Sliding his hands into his back pockets, he continued to turn away from Cynthia Carlisle. The back of his neck felt flushed with an emotion that took him a moment to ID. Then he got it.

  Guilt.

  Son of a bitch, but that knock on the door had made him feel guilty. It was like he’d been caught necking in the back row during choir practice. The thought made him smile briefly.

  “I didn’t mean to interrupt anything important,” he heard the mother-in-law say.

  “You didn’t,” Jordan replied easily. “I was just showing Dom—” She caught herself. “—Detective D’Annunzio some pictures, and I’m afraid I reacted a little strongly.”

  “Oh.”

  He heard the older woman sniff loudly. Typical, he thought with irritation, that sniff of disapproval, not just of him, but of all cops, probably, creatures who had their uses but who should be let in by the back door and told to wipe their feet. On the other hand, he made himself consider with a little more generosity, the lady had lost her son and grandson last year, so maybe he could give her a little slack.

  Whatever. It wasn’t important. It was time to bail.

  He adjusted his tie, smoothed his jacket and turned to face the two women. “I was just leaving, Mrs. Carlisle,” he said. “Your daughter-in-law has been most helpful.” Keeping his face impassive, he nodded to Jordan. “Thanks for your time.”

  Their gazes met for an instant. He could have sworn he saw a brief flash of amusement in hers before she said, in a lady-of-the-manor fashion, “Let me just put these albums back and I’ll walk you out.” With that perfect poise of hers, she crossed to the small, book-lined alcove and returned the thick volumes to their shelves.

  The dragon lady shifted her gaze to him. Again she sniffed. Maybe, Dom thought, she had sinus problems. Jordan turned to her mother-in-law and raised an eyebrow. “Was there something you needed, Cynthia?” she asked coolly, and he had to admire the way she did it. If their little physical encounter had aroused any guilt in her, she was a champ at covering it up.

  “Not really,” the elder Mrs. Carlisle said, continuing to glare at him, then shifting her gaze to Jordan and to him again. Her brow wrinkled with puzzlement. It was as if she could sense some undercurrent in the room but couldn’t put her finger on just what it was.

  Yeah, well, in her wildest dreams, Dom thought sardonically, she couldn’t have imagined that steamy kiss he’d shared with her daughter-in-law. In her wildest dreams.

  “I’m getting ready for bed,” Cynthia said, “and just wanted to say good-night.”

  “I’ll be back in a moment,” Jordan said, sweeping past her, “and I’ll say good-night then. I’m just going to see our guest out.”

  “No need,” Dom said, following her to the door of the room.

  “The fresh air sounds good.”

  As they left Cynthia Carlisle staring after them, Dom felt like chuckling. He got it now—the older woman reminded him of none other than Sister Mary Magdalena, the head nun at his boys’ Catholic school, the one who always managed to nab him and his friends at their small, youthful misdeeds. A grown man of thirty-six no longer had to account for his actions to anyone, but that old childhood training went deep.

  “Where did you park?” Jordan asked as he opened the front door for her.

  “Out on the street.”

  They walked down the long driveway in silence. The night was quiet, as it usually was in this area of prime real estate, the north of Sunset section of Beverly Hills that was nestled against the mountains. The harsh whirling of helicopters or kids gunning their motors or blasting rap music out of their car speakers—there was none of that here. Loud, jarring, peace-shattering noise was for the rest of the city, which seemed far, far away but was, in actuality, only a few miles to the south and east.

  Dom glanced at the woman by his side, wondering what she was thinking. Her long legs easily matched his stride. Her profile, as she looked straight ahead, revealed nothing.

  Dom was used to making snap judgments and quick decision
s, usually knew what the next two or three moves in any situation should be. But not with her. She threw him off. Strange. The whole thing was strange. Just moments before, the two of them had been on the verge of—what? A quickie roll in the hay? Doubtful. Not there, at that time, in that house.

  And probably never, he figured. Their kiss had been one of those spontaneous acts that happened once and that was it. A sudden, out-of-time moment and then adios. He muttered a low curse under his breath. He didn’t want it to be just one time, damn it. He wanted to taste more of her, all of her.

  “What?” Jordan said, stopping. “Did you say something?”

  “No.”

  “Oh.”

  They walked on, Jordan’s heels making a slight clicking sound on the flagstone path. Muted ground-level lights illuminated their way. Damp patches on the stone indicated recent watering. That special smell of freshly mown and watered grass rose to his nostrils. It was a sweet smell, one that signaled early spring, that sense of new life forming and unfolding. Funny, not since Theresa’s death had he been as aware of the change of seasons as he was at this moment.

  Theresa. A small twinge of uneasiness hit him at the thought of his late wife. He didn’t want to be with Jordan and thinking about Theresa—didn’t like the confusion it created in his head—but that seemed to be the case whether he liked it or not

  As he breathed in the smell once again, he found himself yawning and covered his mouth.

  “You’re tired, aren’t you?” Jordan said.

  “Yeah, I’m pretty wasted.” What he was was overworked, stretched way too thin. It was by choice—he preferred longer hours to lonely time at home—but still... He really needed to hit the sack.

  Alone, he guessed.

  They stopped at the gate. Through the wrought-iron fence, he could see his car, which was parked under a street lamp. American, six years old, ninety thousand hard miles on it. There was a long gash across the passenger door where some gangbanger in his neighborhood had scraped a key, a dent in the right rear fender. And dusty—who had time to wash a car?