Labeck drove at exactly the speed limit, slaloming around bumps and potholes as though I were seconds away from giving birth and he wanted to avoid getting baby-birthing gunk all over the seats. He zipped onto the southbound freeway, threaded through the labyrinthine Marquette Interchange, and headed west on I-94.
“Do you know where you’re going?” I asked.
“Yup.” He smiled.
Ten minutes later, he was pulling into the parking lot of the Pettit Ice Center.
“If you think I’m putting on skates you’re crazy.” I gazed up at the arena, which was the size of the Arctic ice cap and contained about as much ice. It boasted a four-hundred-meter Olympic speed skating track, a hockey rink, and a curling floor, but it seemed a bizarre place for a fugitive to go to ground. “Why are we here?”
“Because what we need is here.” Labeck got out, came around, and opened my door. “Hand me your purse.”
Before I could begin the painful business of extricating myself from the car, Labeck slid an arm under my butt, hoisted me into his arms, and began carrying me across the parking lot.
“Put me down, you oaf!”
Sheer sham; I was absolutely loving this. I forgave the fool-the-cop kiss. Being carried in Bonaparte Labeck’s arms was so far off the romance-o-meter it ought to be illegal. Snow drifted across my face like soft, icy kisses. My heart spun into pirouettes and grand jetés. Labeck’s own heart was thudding like an engine against my ear. I just hoped he didn’t rupture any vital manly organs.
Fishing a key out of his pocket, he somehow finessed opening a door while still holding me. Inside, we moved into a maze of concrete hallways.
“How come you have a key to this place?” I asked.
“Because I manage a hockey team and they were dumb enough to give me a key.”
Bonaparte Labeck, man of a thousand surprises. “What team?”
“The Milwaukee Snowplows.”
“That’s a terrible name.”
“All the good ones were taken. It was either that or the Alewives.”
We went down a flight of steps and Ben opened a door that led into a suite of rooms. Snapping on a light with his elbow, he carried me into an office that looked like a combination locker room and physical therapy center. It smelled like rubbing alcohol, adhesive tape, and wintergreen. Still starry-eyed over Labeck’s gallantry and sweetness, I heaved a sigh as he set me down.
Then, with his usual sensitivity, Labeck popped the bubble of bliss. “I may be crippled for life,” he moaned. “It was like hauling an ox.”
“I’d hit you, except it would hurt too much. Hurt me, I mean.”
Labeck eased me out of my coat with the skill of a man accustomed to unbuttoning women’s clothing.
“I can do that,” I protested.
“You need to limit your movement, Mazie. Think of me as your doctor. After all, I do have a degree in sports medicine.”
I gave a derisive snort.
“Okay, not quite a degree. Six credits and lots of hands-on experience.”
“I thought you were more into causing injuries than curing them.”
“Little of both. I try to stay balanced. Are you hungry?”
“I went beyond hunger hours ago.”
“I’ll see what I can scrounge out of the vending machines.”
He left and I checked out my surroundings. I didn’t trust leather tables like this, which looked like the exam tables in doctor’s offices and might contain stirrups ready to spring out unexpectedly. I discovered a lever that raised the back like a recliner chair and experimented with it until I had it angled exactly right.
Reflecting on tonight’s events, it occurred to me how lucky we’d been. One false step and we’d both be in jail cells right now. Had Trumbull or Olafson recognized me? Helping a felon escape was a felony, but helping a suspect was another gray area. The police must have tapes of Labeck and me talking, but how much guilt could they squeeze out of an illegally recorded conversation? I had no idea. But if I had to do it over again, I’d make the same choices. Rather than see Labeck behind bars, I’d go to jail myself.
He returned with cans of soda and vending machine sandwiches. “Ladies first,” he said, offering me a choice of ham and cheese on whole wheat or roast beef and horseradish on sourdough.
“Thank you.” I chose the ham and cheese because I knew he had his eye on the beef.
I was so starved I could have eaten the sandwich, wrappers and all. It wasn’t bad; a little on the stale side, but not putrid enough to harbor salmonella. After we’d polished off the sandwiches, Labeck dug into his pocket.
“Ta-da!” He flourished a Kit Kat like a magician who’d conjured an elephant out of thin air.
I experienced a surge of gratitude that felt a lot like love. Not that my affection can be bought with milk chocolate—it has to be dark chocolate. Splitting the bar into two equal parts—don’t think that wasn’t a sacrifice—I handed Ben his half. “Tell me about your hockey team.”
“The Snowplows? Just a tavern league. Guys like me who played in college but didn’t make the majors. An excuse to go out for drinks afterward. I told you that’s how I got on Vince Trumbull’s shit list.”
“Because you beat his team?”
Labeck nodded. “Trumbull was playing goalie for a police-league team. It got kind of personal after I scored three goals on him.”
I was surprised to hear that Trumbull could get a helmet on over that big wad of sprayed hair, much less that he possessed the athletic ability to skate and wield a stick at the same time.
“Let’s just say Trumbull was not a good loser. Both teams went out to a bar after the game. He got drunk, picked a fight with me, claimed I’d cheated, and generally made a fool out of himself. His buddies took him home before he got kicked out of the bar.”
“You don’t really think Trumbull is trying to pin Rhonda’s murder on you just because he’s nursing a grudge?”
“Sure he is. This is get-even time for Vince Trumbull. Even though he’s got virtually zip linking me to the crime.”
“What about your fingerprints?”
“I’ve been thinking about that. My lawyer could probably shoot that evidence to shreds.”
“What about your skin fragments under Rhonda’s nails?”
“Doesn’t look good, I admit. And I’ve still got her scratch marks on my back.”
“Speaking of lawyers, shouldn’t you be—”
“Eisenberg is stuck in Denver, tied down at the airport by a blizzard that’s heading our way. He gave me the same advice Josie did—keep my head down until he’s here to represent me.”
“You aren’t thinking of staying here tonight, are you?” I asked.
“Why not? Showers, cots, snacks, and I’ve got the key to the beer locker. This is guy heaven. I’m tempted to give up my apartment and move in here permanently. No one comes down to these rooms at night, and the cleaning staff doesn’t arrive until morning.”
“Someone’s going to turn you in, Ben. I know how this fugitive thing works. You can’t trust anyone—”
“I trust you.” He smoothed my hair back from my forehead and kissed me on the hairline. “I want to show you something.” He fumbled in his jacket pocket, took out a packet of dog-eared postcards fastened with a rubber band, and handed them to me.
“What’s this?” I picked up the card on top. It had a photo of a buffalo on the front, and a Glendive, Montana postmark. It was addressed to me at Labeck’s Farwell Avenue apartment. It read: I miss you. Please call me. B.
Puzzled, I turned to him. He wasn’t looking at me. He was leaning against a cabinet, gazing intently at a poster depicting a series of stretching exercises, postures that looked so crippling that only a cat could have achieved them. “When you wouldn’t go to Montana with me I was really pissed off,” Labeck said, still not meeting my eyes. “I went storming off with our conversation raging in my head—all the reasons you were wrong and I was right. But, funny thing, by the time I
’d reached the Minnesota border I realized I’d acted like a jerk. I tried to call you, but I didn’t have the number of your new phone.”
I picked up the second postcard.
Mazie—I miss you insanely. I need your number. Call me. B.
“Did you ever try to call me?” Ben asked.
His casual tone didn’t fool me. This was important to him. “Dozens of times. I kept getting a message saying you were out of the service area.”
He nodded. “They don’t have a lot of cell towers in the back country, and there’s a couple of mountain ranges that block signals. I borrowed someone’s laptop, but then it occurred to me that you didn’t have an email account set up yet, either. Finally I thought of snail mail. I bought a bunch of postcards and stamps and wrote to you. At least once a day, twice if I got the chance. We were filming out in the middle of nowhere and the nearest postal pickup was sixty miles away. I’d drive over to Glendive and mail the cards whenever I could. The project finally wrapped up and I drove back home. Nonstop. I couldn’t wait to see you. That’s when I discovered you’d moved out and every one of my cards was jammed in my mailbox.”
“Ben, I left you a note. On your kitchen table.”
“I couldn’t deal with it. I ripped it up, crashed into bed, and slept for two days. Then I went back to work.”
“And met Aspen,” I said.
“She was new at the station. We went out for drinks a couple of times. She asked me out, which was a big boost to my ego after you’d dumped me.”
“I didn’t dump you. You dumped me.” My voice was cracking and I had to force back tears, because once I started crying I might not be able to stop.
Turning to me, he at last met my gaze, his eyes so intense I nearly had to look away. Running his hands up my arms, he said in a low voice that sent tremors of lust sizzling along my nerve pathways, “Are we making up?”
“I think so.”
“So is it time for make-up sex yet?”
“Ben!”
“Just kidding—you’ve got a bad back and all.” He added, under his breath, “But not really kidding.”
“We need to concentrate on ways to keep you out of jail.”
“No, we need to concentrate on your treatment.”
“What treatment?”
“The reason we’re here in a therapy room, instead of holed up in some hotel with champagne and room service.” He went to the sink and made a big show of washing his hands. “See? Just like a real sports doctor.”
“Uh-huh.”
Returning, Labeck swung my legs up onto the table. My heart started booming, way too fast.
“Just lie back and relax,” he said, his voice deep and gravelly. He had a golden-brown voice, an oak barrel of Kentucky bourbon voice, an aural aphrodisiac voice. If he kept talking, I was going to need earmuffs for birth control.
“I don’t think I can relax.”
“Mazie,” he said. “Trust me.”
We looked into each other’s eyes. We considered the idea. We formed mental images. Then we both cracked up.
“All right, settle down, young lady,” Labeck said. “Think of me as your physician, completely professional and detached. And we always follow doctor’s orders, don’t we?” Working the lever, he lowered the table until it was flat. Then he eased me down on my back.
“Ow,” I said, not joking. “Ouch.”
“Okay, now we’re going to turn over on our stomach.”
He rolled me over. It was accomplished before the pain could even register.
“We’re going to move our sweater out of the way,” Labeck said, still using that oily pseudo-doctor voice. “Let’s just slide it right off.”
I was skating on the very thin ice of my self-control here. “Nuh-uh.”
“You’re insulting my integrity here, Mazie. As a professional, I simply regard breasts as mounds of mammary tissue.”
“That’s so reassuring, Doctor Bullshit.”
Gently he eased my sweater up to armpit level. I felt his hands unhooking my bra, felt a pang of embarrassment because one strap was held up with a safety pin, and then forgot to worry because his hands felt so fabulous.
“You didn’t used to wear bras,” Labeck said disapprovingly.
“That’s not a very professional thing to say.”
“What am I supposed to say?”
“Ask if I have insurance.”
“I don’t think that will be necessary.” He squirted something on his hands. “Deep Heat,” he explained.
I didn’t need Deep Heat. I was already feeling deep heat all over my body. This was like my fantasy come to life—the one where a handsome young doctor is giving me a physical and orders me to take off all my clothes and then tells me he’s going to have to use his stethoscope to—
Stop it! This was not a doctor fantasy. Even if I was interested in hanky-panky, which of course I was not, my wretched back wouldn’t permit the contortions necessary for sexual shenanigans.
Labeck moved around to the front of the table, leaned over, and set his hands on my back.
“Mmmmmm,” I murmured. Why had I never realized that part of my body could actually be orgasmic?
He kneaded, he thumbed, he palmed. He made large butterfly circles and small, stroking goldfish movements. He gently chopped with the sides of his hands. He walked his fingers up and down my vertebrae. He rubbed more ointment on his hands. The stuff smelled like Christmas trees and lavender.
I moaned.
“Am I hurting you?”
“No. Don’t stop.”
There was a catch in his breathing, and he did stop for a few seconds, breathed hard, and seemed to struggle to get himself under control. “You should be careful what you say,” Labeck said in a hoarse voice. “There’s a limit to my self-restraint.” He knuckled my spine, he did a fanning-out motion he called a windshield wiper, he massaged my neck. Then his hands moved lower, kneading, stroking, sliding under the top of my underpants.
“I didn’t sprain my ass,” I said.
“Who’s the doctor here? I’ll decide what needs massaging.” But his hands did return to the north of the border zone.
“You have tight muscles,” Labeck said.
But they were all coming unbound under his skillful hands. I could feel them loosening, one by one, surrendering to his touch.
“That’s heavenly,” I muttered.
Then I felt guilty. Ben was the fugitive here; Ben was the one who ought to be resting. And I should be leaving, going home to my bed and my bag of frozen peas. But I couldn’t make my body obey my brain. I was so relaxed, drowsy, drifting … I felt him kiss the top of my head.
“Mazie,” he murmured, “you will never comprehend the torture I just endured.”
Or maybe I just dreamed he said it.
I slipped down into true sleep, feeling as warm and secure as when I’d been a kid in my own bedroom, knowing that the people I loved were looking out for me.
I awoke hours later. The lights were off, but the room was illuminated by a night-light. A blanket-sized heating pad was spread over my back. I twisted around, looking for Labeck, which of course was a mistake; I waited for the pang of pain. Astonishingly, it didn’t come. Labeck lay nearby, sleeping on the other massage table, softly snoring.
When I awoke again, it was morning. Labeck was shaved, showered, and had his hair slicked down, a state that would endure about thirty seconds before it sprang back into its usual snarled chaos.
“How’s Sleeping Beauty?” he asked.
I sat up, pulling my sweater down, Labeck’s eyes following with avid interest. “She has to go to the bathroom. Right. Now.”
He helped me down off the table. Not a twinge. I looked up at him, marveling.
“How did you do it?”
He waggled his fingers, smiling. “Magic. There’s a bathroom through that doorway, and the shower is right next to it. I kept the stall warm for you. Want me to be your scrub boy?”
“I can manage on my
own, Mr. Magic.” This man had me in his power and he knew it. All he had to do was raise a single eyebrow and I would fling away my inhibitions and set to work demonstrating exactly how an exam table ought to be used.
The water heater must have had a “lava” setting, because water needled out of the shower like hot medicine. I turned my back to let the spray burn off any demons that might still be lingering in the nerve pathways. Blissfully clean and fresh, I dried off.
Then climbed back into yesterday’s grungy top and jeans.
Labeck noticed this when I emerged. “Walk of shame, babe,” he said, grinning.
“What time is it?”
“Almost six.” He handed me a cup of coffee. “From the Café au Vendomatique.”
“I have to run home, change, and go to work.”
He studied me over the top of his cup. “You told me Rhonda fired you. Where are you working?”
I got very busy, putting on my coat and gloves. “Hottie Latte,” I mumbled.
Ben’s coffee went down the wrong way and he coughed until his eyes watered. His voice came out raw and squeaky. “You’re working at the place with the naked waitresses?”
“They are not naked.”
“Pretty damn near.”
“Oh, so now you’re an expert. How often have you been there?”
He had the grace to look embarrassed. “Once or twice. All right, busted—I like looking at women in skimpy outfits. I just don’t want other guys looking at you in a skimpy outfit.”
“Maybe you’d like me to wear a burka?” Last night’s lovey-doveyness was rapidly dissolving as Labeck’s compulsion to run my life resurfaced. He scowled. “Couldn’t you just work at a Starbucks?”
“I applied at a Starbucks. There were ninety-one applicants for a minimum wage job. I’m making good money at Hottie Latte. And I earn every penny, because it’s hard work.”
“And because you’re dressed like a—”
“Like what?” I snapped. “Like a stripper? For your information, I’m more covered up than if I were wearing a bikini at the beach.”
“But you’re not at the beach. You’re wearing sexy nighties that make guys think about—well, about beds. And the things you do in beds.”
Crazy for You: Life and Love on the Lam (A Loveswept Contemporary Romance) Page 12
