Trying very hard to keep Malloy emotionally at arm’s length, to keep him from getting through the last plate of her swiftly cracking armor, she said, “They said you were good.”
“‘Good’ has nothing to do with it,” Malloy told her, pressing kisses first to one shoulder, then the other, before moving on to the hollow of her throat where the very touch of his lips created tidal waves in the core of her body.
She could feel herself throbbing, wanting him.
If she had an ounce of integrity left, she would have said something flippant, pushed him away and then called it a night, sending him on his way. She knew, knew deep in her bones that this was just a fling for Malloy.
But rather than terminate the evening on her own terms, she wanted to absorb as much of what was happening as she could so that she could store it and, months from now, comfort herself with the thought that she had at least had this one perfect evening in her life—even if she’d never admit it to him. Because until now, she hadn’t realized that she was capable of this level of feeling, this level of joy and ecstasy. Malloy had brought her not just to the threshold of a world she hadn’t known existed, he’d made her realize that there was such a thing as paradise.
With the right man.
Or the wrong one, depending on a person’s view of Malloy Cavanaugh, she thought, her mouth curving despite herself.
He felt her mouth curving beneath his and drew his head back to look at her. “Something you’d like to share with the class, Kristin?”
She looked at him uncertainly. “What?”
“You were just smiling,” Malloy told her. “And I was just wondering why.”
“I’m not about to flatter you, Malloy.”
“I’m not asking you to flatter me,” he told her simply. “I just wanted to know what I did to make you smile.”
Suspicion flickered in her eyes. She wanted him, but trust was a completely different issue. He was up to something. “Why?”
“So I could do it again.” He touched her face, brushing his fingers along her cheek. “Make you smile like that again.”
“Shut up and kiss me,” she all but ordered.
It was his turn to smile—and he did. Teasingly. “Is that all it takes?”
Her eyes were dancing, and she had no idea what prompted her to say what she did, all but giving him carte blanche. “You can make it up as you go along.”
“Whatever you want.” He shifted and pressed a kiss to her temple. “Your wish is my command.”
That kiss, small as it was, vibrated all through her. The man had a gift all right, there was no denying that.
“For now,” she murmured.
Malloy pulled her to him, about to kiss her. But he stopped for a second, his eyes meeting hers as he said, in all seriousness, “That’s all we have, Kristin. All we have is ‘now.’”
He was right. There was no way to guess at what tomorrow held. Those young women whose bodies they had unearthed at the nursery had never thought their lives would be so brief or end so abruptly.
Every second of life was precious and shouldn’t be wasted.
She wasn’t going to waste another second of “now” because “later” most likely wouldn’t work out.
With that thought echoing in her brain, Kristin passionately sealed her mouth to his and lost herself in Malloy’s embrace.
Chapter 17
Malloy stayed the night.
Part of Kristin felt that she should have called it a night and sent him home at some point, but that part was at war with the one that just wanted to hang on to the moment, the interlude that had been created and had, in all likelihood, the life expectancy of a large, glistening soap bubble. All too soon it would burst, and then it would be as if it had never existed at all. All too soon.
So Malloy stayed.
In her house.
In her bed.
Stayed until first light crept into the darkened room, lightening it with tiny, delicate, baby steps until darkness was just a memory.
Kristin woke up first.
He seemed to be so soundly asleep that, although she knew she should take advantage of the moment and quickly slip away, she allowed herself to linger for a moment, just looking at him.
Asleep, his hair unruly, Malloy appeared almost innocent. She knew better, of course, but if she hadn’t, if she had no idea who he was, if his reputation hadn’t preceded him, she would have said that he looked almost boyish and adorable, rather than roguishly sexy and possessing an utterly lethal mouth.
And if he were the former rather than the latter, she definitely could have—
Could have nothing, Kris, she upbraided herself, mentally pulling back. She couldn’t give in to the temptation, to the things that she was feeling—that she shouldn’t be feeling, she warned herself fiercely. Not even for a moment. This was Malloy Cavanaugh, playboy nonpareil. Proceed at your own risk and prepare to have your heart ripped out of your chest if you let your guard down again, she silently warned.
Taking a breath, Kristin began to slowly ease out of her bed. And as she did so, she never took her eyes off Malloy in case her movements, careful as they were, began to wake him.
She could have saved herself the trouble.
No sooner had she put her bare feet on the floor than she heard Malloy ask—in a voice that was definitely not sleepy, “So, do I look better in the dark, or in morning’s first light?”
Startled, she froze. “You’re awake?”
The second the words were out of her mouth, she realized it was a stupid question, but he had caught her completely by surprise.
There it was again, that sexy grin. “No, I’m talking in my sleep.”
Annoyed, Kristin curbed the very strong urge to punch him. Thank God she hadn’t said anything that she was thinking out loud. She knew he’d never let her live it down.
“How long have you been awake?” she asked.
“Doesn’t matter,” he told her, this time opening his eyes. The moment he did, she felt as if she was the only person in the immediate world. His eyes held her prisoner. “So, do I pass inspection?” he asked teasingly.
She didn’t know what he was waiting to hear. She felt awkward and was, at this moment, desperately searching for some sort of footing. Last night had set fire to the rule book she’d been trying to abide by, and she was back to square one.
She’d let her guard down and allowed him into her world. For the whole night. There was no way she could erase that.
“This doesn’t change anything,” she informed him, trying to sound indifferent.
“If you say so.” His expression was completely straight—except for the telltale curve in the left corner of his mouth. “Of course,” he added loftily, “you might sound a bit more convincing if you weren’t standing there, nude, as you were saying it.”
“I’m not nude,” she retorted. “I’ve got a blanket against me.” A blanket she was clutching so hard, her fingers felt as if they were in danger of breaking off.
Malloy playfully tugged at the blanket’s edge. “We’ve got a little while before we need to be in. Why don’t you drop that thing—” he tugged on it again “—and we’ll make the most of the time we have.”
She wanted to. More than anything, she wanted to. But then he would see just how entrenched he’d become in her world after just one night. She couldn’t allow him to know that. She needed to maintain some shred, however small, of dignity. Otherwise, he’d think of her as needy, and that had never been her.
Besides, men ran from needy women unless they were insecure and abusive, and whatever else he might be, Malloy was neither insecure nor abusive.
He was unattainable, and she had known that right from the start.
Kristin raised her chin, entering self-preservation
mode.
“I plan to make the most of it—by taking a shower and getting ready for work. You’re welcome to take one, too,” she said as matter-of-factly as she could manage as she walked away. “There’s a shower in the guest bathroom down the hall.”
With that, she went into the adjacent bathroom, closed the door and flipped the lock. Only when the door was locked did she drop the blanket to the floor and step into the shower stall.
Her heart was pounding as she started the water. She’d just barely managed to walk away from Malloy. He’d looked so damn desirable, lying there. The temptation to leap into bed and join him, make love with him all over again, had been almost overwhelming, but somehow, she’d been able to resist.
Kristin had barely had time to congratulate herself for her superhuman efforts when she felt a slight breeze directly at her back. Before she could turn to see if the shower door had opened for some reason, Malloy was slipping into the shower with her.
Stunned, Kristin stared up at him. “I flipped the lock,” she cried.
“And I unflipped it,” he told her.
“You picked the lock,” she accused in disbelief.
“Maybe.” Malloy shrugged casually. “I pick things up along the way. Pass the soap.”
“I told you that you could use the guest shower,” Kristin cried helplessly, doing her best to fight the very strong urges that were spinning and twisting throughout her entire body.
He was unfazed by her protest. “I thought this was more efficient. Despite the occasional surprise cloudburst, we are in the middle of a prolonged drought, and we all need to do our part in conserving water. This is my part,” he told her, a mischievous smile playing on his lips.
His hand extending beyond her, Malloy reached for the soap that was resting in the dish on the shelf just above her head. In doing so, he was forced to move forward. His body brushed, then pressed, against hers.
“There is something to be said for close quarters,” he told her, his eyes smiling into hers.
The next thing she knew, the soap, the shower and everything else was forgotten. Malloy was kissing her again, and her entire body was on fire.
Just before he took her into his arms, Malloy shut off the water.
“Conservation,” he murmured against her mouth a second before he kissed her again.
Kristin forgot about getting into work on time.
* * *
The last time she could recall feeling this exhausted walking into work, she had pulled back-to-back all-nighters interning at University Hospital.
It completely mystified Kristin how she could feel this charged and this worn out at the same time. Malloy was turning her inside out.
The problem was, she liked it. Liked the way he made her feel, liked being with him.
And she was setting herself up for a huge fall.
You’re a big girl, Kris. You’ll bounce back.
Forcing her mind back on her work, Kristin quickly checked in at the morgue, making sure that there were no new cases, no new bodies that had been brought in overnight needing to be autopsied. That left her free to accompany Malloy when he went to question the detective who had investigated Abby Sullivan’s disappearance.
To her surprise, Malloy had actually remembered that he’d agreed to that, to take her with him when he went to talk to the investigator who had handled the missing person case.
“I’ve got a name,” Malloy announced, calling her on her cell five minutes after she had walked into the morgue. “We’re in luck,” he went on. “The guy’s retired, but he’s alive—which is definitely a plus—and he’s in our part of the state, which makes him accessible, although it means a road trip. I’m driving out to his place in twenty minutes.”
Habit had her glancing at her watch. “I’ll be in the parking lot in ten,” she told him. “I just have to sign out on the board so they know where to find me in case something comes up and they need me.”
He didn’t want to put her out, although the idea of a road trip with her was really appealing. Rather than slipping into a holding zone after having spent the night and morning with her, he found himself wanting her again. Wanting her even more than he had before. This was a new wrinkle in his life.
Still, he didn’t want her facing a backlog when she returned. “You don’t have to come if you have work,” he reminded her. “I can tell you if I find anything out when I get back.”
Was he trying to extricate himself out of her life so quickly? “Sorry, Malloy. You’re not weaseling out of this,” she said flatly.
“Why would I want to?” he asked. “I was just trying to make things easy for you.”
“Easy doesn’t interest me,” she informed him.
“I am beginning to realize that.” His laugh washed over her, warming her. “Okay, then. See you in the parking lot.”
“Count on it,” she told him.
“I am.”
Kristin smiled to herself as she terminated the phone call.
Ten minutes later had them meeting in the parking lot. “We’re driving to wine country,” Malloy told her as they got into his car. “Mahoney retired six years ago to Sonoma. His wife came into an inheritance, and they bought themselves a little vineyard. What do you plan on doing when you retire, Kristin?”
“Being dead,” she answered.
“Come again?”
“I plan to work until I die,” she said simply. “I like my work, like finding pieces of the puzzle and putting them together to solve mysteries, or at least answer questions. If I can’t do that, there’s not that much point in going on. How about you? What are your big plans?”
“I don’t plan,” he told her. “I just go on, and life just happens around me, surprising me.”
She could well believe that.
* * *
Retired Detective Dan Mahoney was a man who had worked in several different departments at the police station before he retired. It was only then, after he retired, he liked to tell people that he finally found his true element.
After years of conducting diligent police investigations, working cases that, for more than half of them, remained opened and unsolved, the still powerful-looking man with the round, beach-ball face looked to be at peace with the world he had chosen for himself.
“Put every last dime my wife and I had into buying this little gem of a vineyard,” Mahoney was saying in a voice that over the years had been coated with a liquid that was stronger than the one Mahoney was now in charge of producing.
He looked around with marked pride at the land he was giving them a tour of. “We don’t put out anything earthshaking that’ll put us on anyone’s map, but it’s a respectable little chardonnay, and we make a fairly decent living at it. Our needs are modest at this point,” he added.
Mahoney grinned, the lines about his mouth and cheeks deepening considerably.
“And the best part is, the bottles don’t shoot at me. So,” he said expansively, glancing from Malloy to the woman with him, “what is it you and the little lady here drove all this way out to talk to me about?”
Malloy got right down to it. He had a feeling that Mahoney could probably go on for hours about the vineyard if he was even the slightest bit encouraged.
“You worked a missing person case twenty years ago. A college student by the name of Abby Sullivan went missing when she came back to UCA her sophomore year. I’ve got the flyer for you to look at right here,” Malloy offered, reaching into his pocket. After all this time, he didn’t doubt that the detective’s memory might need some help.
Mahoney waved the offer away. “Don’t need it. I remember the case,” he told Malloy. “Remember the parents mostly,” the man went on, shaking his head. “The pain in their eyes when they talked about that girl, it was enough to make a rock bleed. I gave my best t
o each case I worked, but I worked harder than I’d ever worked before on that case, trying to get some kind of lead to find that girl,” he admitted. “But it just wasn’t good enough.” He was talking to the past now, more than he was talking to them. “Finally had to just chalk it up to another runaway case.”
“Why runaway?” Kristin asked. She’d kept quiet up until now, only giving the retired detective her name when they were exchanging introductions. But he had made her curious. “What made you think she just took off?”
The wide, slightly slumped shoulders shrugged haplessly. “I didn’t find any evidence of foul play, not in her dorm, not in any of the usual student haunts at the time.” He stopped walking and sat down in the shade. Despite the somewhat cool weather, he took off his wide-brimmed straw hat and fanned himself. “I remember some of the other students saying that she was a really friendly, outgoing girl. Only child, first time away from home. Trying her wings. That kind of thing,” he said, looking at the faces of his visitors for acknowledgment. “You know the type.”
“Do you remember if she had any boyfriends, any guys hanging around her?” Malloy asked.
The vineyard owner shook his head. “Not that I recall.” And then something nudged at his memory. “Oh, wait, there was this one guy. I talked to him during the investigation. Seemed real concerned about her.” He nodded his head as he spoke, as if confirming his own memory of the time in question. “He wasn’t her boyfriend but said she had talked to him about wanting to get away from her parents because they were so strict. Asked him if he knew of any place she could go.”
Mahoney looked at Malloy as he spoke. It was obvious that he considered the younger man the investigator. The woman he’d brought with him was window dressing. Excellent window dressing.
“Do you remember his name?” Malloy pressed.
“No,” Mahoney admitted, but then his face became more animated. “But I know I wrote it down. I wrote everything down those days,” he confided. “Memory wasn’t worth a damn,” he was forced to admit. “Just too many details to keep straight.” Turning from the field, he gestured for them to follow him to his house in the distance. “Come with me.”
Cavanaugh Cold Case Page 17
