Murder Makes it Mine (Masters & McLain Mystery Book 1)

by Christina Strong

  “What’s with all the lights?”

  “Yowl, yap, yap, Grrrr. Rrrrr!” Rags was still at the French doors, but now his head was cocked and his growl less ferocious.

  “I turned on the outside s-spots because my dog s-says that somebody’s out there.” She hated having stuttered, hated the way her voice sounded. There was no helping it. She had no breath to put under it. She couldn’t seem to get any. Irritated, she continued firmly in the thread of voice that her fright had left her. “I hope the lights will scare them off.”

  “Yeah.”

  “Who is this?”

  “McLain. I’m on my way.”

  “You don’t . . .” But she was talking to a dead line. “. . . have to come,” she finished weakly. She dropped the receiver into its cradle, stared at it a moment, then started for the door nearest McLain’s, pitifully grateful that he was coming.

  Rags sent a last defiant “Yap!” toward the French doors and ran after her, his toenails clicking on the spaces of hardwood floor between the area rugs. Samantha scooped him up into her arms. “Oh, Rags, I’m so glad I have you!” She hugged his tiny body to her, taking comfort from his brave little presence.

  Throwing his head back, the tiny terrier licked her chin. Samantha was so distraught she didn’t even turn her face out of his reach.

  McLain was there before Samantha’s hand touched the door knob. He pushed into the kitchen the instant she unlocked the door, slipped around it like a shadow and closed it instantly. “Nothing. Nobody’s there,” he reported.

  Samantha closed her eyes in relief.

  “Tough about that pretty tree in your side yard, though.”

  “Oh!” Samantha was distressed. The pretty tree in the side yard was her tulip tree—the last thing she and Andrew had planted together.

  “Yeah. Somebody’s broken a lot of the branches off it.”

  Samantha wanted to cry.

  Rags caught her mood, whined once, and then did that thing that Laura Fulton called percolating.

  McLain scowled down at him, then told Samantha, “Look. I’ll go get some of my old field gear and camp out there on your patio if it will make you feel safer.”

  Samantha could feel another wave of relief wash over her. Gratitude to this man, however, was not an obligation she cared to be under. She straightened her shoulders and looked him in the eye. “Thank you, but that won’t be necessary. I’m fine.”

  He raked her with an assessing look. “Yeah. Sure you are.” He was gone before she could answer.

  It would be wonderful to have a guardian on the patio, and she knew she was grateful to the Colonel, but there was another side of her—definitely the largest side—that just couldn’t let her admit it.

  So, “Oh, great,” Samantha said aloud. “Great, Rags. Now I’m going to have to explain a man sleeping in my yard!”

  Now that her heart wasn’t pounding so hard that it shook the fierce little dog she held in her arms, she clasped him tight one more time and told him in a forlorn voice, “I wish they hadn’t hurt the tulip tree.”

  Rags licked her chin again in an effort to offer comfort, but Samantha put him down and asked him with forced brightness, “Would you like some hot chocolate?”

  “Yip!”

  Samantha smiled. Chocolate was awful for dogs, she knew. Four ounces of solid chocolate could kill a puppy. But Rags loved it, so whenever she made hot chocolate, she’d fix him his own saucerful, extra light on the chocolate and heavy on the milk. He thought he was in heaven.

  She was setting his saucer on the floor when something scratched the kitchen door. It opened immediately, and a scowling McLain walked in. “Great Scott, woman. Why the hell isn’t this door locked? Don’t you have sense enough to lock your damn doors?”

  Charm, Samantha decided, was not one of this man’s strong points. In fact, she was beginning to suspect that profanity might be. “I thought you would be returning. I’ve made you some hot chocolate.”

  “Chocolate?” He said it as if she’d offered him a cup of drain cleaner.

  “It’s good. Try it. You’ll like it.” She held a mug out to him. “Trust me.”

  He sat at the kitchen table staring down at the chocolate. “Hope it tastes better than that stuff we used to get in our rations.”

  Samantha chuckled. “From what I’ve heard, it would have to, wouldn’t it?”

  Nodding, he let her have that one. With cautious reluctance, he sipped the steaming brew. His eyebrows shot up. “Hey, not bad.” The eyebrows returned to scowl-ready position. “Now tell me what’s going on.”

  Samantha explained about the garden vandal. “ . . . and he seems to be picking on women who are alone.”

  McLain shifted back in his chair. When she said ‘women alone,’ a wary look came over his face. “Hmmm.” His eyes narrowed thoughtfully, but the wariness lingered in their depths. “That’s interesting.”

  Samantha wondered what ailed the man. She gave a mental shrug. No matter, she had to thank him for his efforts on her behalf whether he looked strange or not. “I want to thank you for coming to my rescue, Colonel McLain.”

  He looked decidedly uncomfortable.

  “I mean,” Samantha went on, “it was nice of you to come over to check things out.” What was his problem?

  He rose and took his cup to the sink. “Yeah, well. It was no trouble.”

  This time Samantha’s eyebrows shot up. “It was trouble for you to offer to camp out in my yard and trouble for you to go get your things to do so.” She tried to smile at him, even though at this point she wished he’d just go mind his own blasted business. “Especially when you could sleep in a nice warm bed.”

  Her last sentence galvanized him like a shot. “Listen.” He reached the door in a single stride and threw her a harried look. “I need to go set up, okay? Thanks for the hot chocolate.”

  He left, Samantha thought, like a scalded cat. “Now what in the world was the matter with him?” she asked Rags.

  Rags cocked his head and blinked.

  Samantha picked up her cup and added it to the Colonel’s in the sink. She twisted the faucet with more force than usual.

  While the water was running it hit her. Oh dear! Of course! He thought she was coming on to him. His behavior was obviously motivated by the same thing that made married men, in the second sentence of their conversation with a single woman, mention that they had a wife. It was fear. Fear. Pure unadulterated masculine fear. The Colonel was scared to death that she was after him!

  She stood thinking that over for a minute. What could have transpired to make the poor man all but run from her? Then she recalled her statement that he could be sleeping in a warm bed and her eyes went wide with shocked realization. Hot blood flooded her cheeks. Dear Lord! He’d thought she’d meant her bed!

  For an instant, she was outraged. Then the humor of the situation hit her. She burst into peals of laughter.

  McLain roared from the terrace, “You all right in there?”

  “Yes.” Samantha actually giggled. Oh, if he only knew! “Everything’s fine.”

  With that, she switched off the kitchen light and, followed closely by Rags, went, chuckling, to bed.

  The little Yorkshire scratched at the bed-skirt to be lifted onto the high four-poster, and waited for her to pick him up and join him. Usually he waited until she was asleep so he could sneak up by jumping first onto the bench at the foot of her bed, then to the bed itself.

  For once, Samantha didn’t scold him to go to his own well-cushioned, beribboned basket. After all, the courageous little darling was upset, she told herself.

  ***

  The next morning, Samantha awakened and stretched like a contented cat. With a Marine Colonel on guard outside all night, she’d slept like a rock.

  Pulling on her robe, she padded barefoot to the window that overlooked the patio. The Colonel and his sleeping bag had disappeared, thank heaven. She got a big picture of herself trying to explain to her neighbors the presence o
f a sleeping Marine on her terrace.

  That problem behind her, she had but one in view. That was the Colonel. Now that she knew what his trouble was. Thinking about it brought a smug smile. She knew what she had to do. Surely it wouldn’t count against her if she happened to enjoy her planned solution.

  After all, didn’t simple Christian kindness dictate that she relieve the Colonel’s mind? Didn’t that same Christian charity demand that she dispose of the problem? To leave the poor man frightened to death that she was on the hunt for him was hardly kind. She knew in her heart of hearts that it was her duty to put his mind at ease. It was the right thing to do.

  Was it her fault that she simply didn’t have time just now to put the poor man out of his misery?

  Chapter Seven

  The next afternoon, when Samantha picked up the phone there was determination in every line of her body, and a terrible smile on her face.

  Having seen McLain flinch when she waved at him this morning on her way to the grocery store would have irked her immensely if she hadn’t a plan in mind.

  Besides, Benny Stoddard was expected home any day now. She didn’t want to have to worry about loose ends right now, and the dear Colonel’s irrational fear of her was definitely a loose end. It was time to clear things up.

  “Colonel McLain’s residence.” The masculine voice on the other end of the phone line was smooth as velvet—a far cry from McLain’s rasp—and it took Samantha by surprise.

  “Oh. Ah . . . I’d like to speak to Colonel McLain, please. This is Samantha Masters.”

  “One moment, please.”

  There was a lengthy pause, then, “Yo!”

  Samantha ignored McLain’s lack of telephone manners and got right to the point. “This is Samantha Masters. I should like to invite you over for coffee, dinner or dessert, Colonel McLain. You may choose the date and the time, and the occasion. I am perfectly free for the rest of this week and well into the next.”

  There was an explosion of breath on the other end of the wire. “You don’t leave a guy much of a loophole, do you, Mrs. Masters?”

  “Not in this case, Colonel. I have a definite need to talk to you, and, as I have a pretty good idea that you’ve an aversion to being invited to the home of an attractive widow,” Samantha ignored his snort and went on, “I don’t intend to give you an excuse to say that you are otherwise engaged.”

  “Well, I’ll be damned!”

  “Very most probably. The subject, however, is not your eternal reward. The subject is when and for what you are coming to my house.”

  “Mrs. Masters, I don’t really know what to say.”

  “Well that makes a nice change, doesn’t it?” Samantha said with malicious sweetness.

  She was determined to straighten out this man’s thinking, even if doing so did put his mind at ease. If she had to drag him to neutral ground, she was willing to do that, too. With that in mind, she said, “Perhaps you’d prefer to go to a restaurant?”

  “Oh, to hell with it. I don’t know what the devil you’re up to, but I have a feeling I’d just as well give in and get it over with.”

  Samantha let out the breath she’d been holding. “You’ll feel so much better if you do,” she assured him in the voice she used to soothe naughty children.

  Chuckling he said, “All right. When do you want me?”

  “As I said, the choice is yours.” She was relaxed, now. “If you care to get it over with quickly, you can run over right now for a cup of coffee.”

  “Chocolate.”

  “I thought you didn’t like chocolate.”

  “You changed my mind.”

  “All right, chocolate.”

  “Ten minutes.”

  “Very well.”

  Samantha hung up and wiped her hands down the side of her jeans. Heavens! She must have been nervous, her palms were damp.

  Well, the beginning of the job was done, at any rate. Now, as soon as she put his mind at ease, she’d be all ready to enlist some emergency muscle power for her vandal-trapping plans. Colonel John Francis McLain, with his Marine training and his ugly attitude would suit her purpose exactly.

  That thought put her more in charity with her intention to relieve his mind. Evidently, she admitted, she wasn’t a very good Christian to enjoy the poor man’s discomfort as much as she so obviously did.

  “I’m sorry, Lord,” she whispered as she took down the chocolate pot. Striving hard to mean that sincerely, Samantha went about preparing the beverage McLain had requested.

  ***

  “Colonel McLain,” Samantha began firmly as soon as she had him settled at the table in the breakfast nook. “Though I have never made it a habit to discuss my personal feelings with any but those of my most intimate friends,” she paused as she poured him a cup of chocolate. Was he squirming? She hoped so. She went on, “I feel it necessary to do so now, with you.”

  “Now, see here, Mrs. Masters, I never . . .”

  “Please, Colonel. Do not interrupt.” She gave him her sternest school teacher look and commanded, “Put your mind at ease. You are not, nor will you ever be, someone I could consider an intimate friend.”

  She enjoyed watching his face. She was finding it difficult not to smirk. It was so easy to see relief warring with outrage at her last remark.

  Smiling instead, she settled to the job at hand. “To start at the beginning, I was happily teaching at Northside Junior High when my husband came into my life. He was warm and witty and kind, and we found we had a great deal in common. Oh, he was a handsome and dashing and brave young naval officer, too, but I had never thought to marry. There were too many worlds to explore, as they say, to tie myself down.

  When I found, however, that life was simply not as enjoyable when Andrew was not around, and realized that the only way I could keep him permanently in my life was to marry him, I consented to be his bride.” She shot him a glance. “I didn’t want to go through life missing him, you see.”

  McLain was lost in fierce concentration. He was not only confused, he was more than a little irritated. He’d heard of lots of reasons for marriage, but never using it like a blasted bookmark.

  Samantha tried to keep it simple enough for him to follow. “I did all the things expected of a wife. But I didn’t really like marriage. I found the role I was committed to play not only tedious, but confining. But I did it, and I did it well, because I loved Andrew with all my heart.”

  She peered at him closely and decided that he wasn’t getting the point. “Do you understand, Colonel McLain? I did not like the confining nature of marriage. Did not like having to make every decision about my actions in light of how they affected another person’s life—a husband’s, no matter how dear, his career, or even our children.

  “Life then was not as it is now. Married women did not have careers, they stayed at home and raised the children and took care of the house. I found, as I’d always suspected, that such a life did not suit me, alas, but I did it, and as I said, I did it very well, because I loved Andrew.”

  She placed her cup carefully in its saucer and looked at him expectantly as she told him, “And there you have it.”

  McLain shook his head like a boxer coming off the ropes. He glared at her from under his brows. “There I have what?”

  “Why, your guarantee of safety, of course.” She frowned at him. Glory, the man was dense! Hopelessly dense. “I thought I’d just made it perfectly clear. I disliked being married; therefore I certainly have no designs on you. Indeed, I was so busy running from you that it took me a while to realize that you thought I did have.”

  His face turned beet red. “Why, I never thought . . .”

  “Nonsense, Colonel. In spite of the fact that I gave you absolutely no reason to feel pursued, you showed every pitiful symptom of the hunted American male.” Her eyes dared him to deny it. “Now just admit it to yourself and be done with it. There’s no need to make me feel uncomfortable because you insist on entertaining your adolescent fanta
sy.”

  “Adolescent fantasy! Now look here, woman. I’ve been chased by the best, and I . . .”

  “Forgive me for the interruption, Colonel McLain, but if you have avoided ‘the best’ as you have just named the poor benighted females who may have run after you, then why on earth were you so frightened of me?”

  “F-frightened!” It was an explosive splutter.

  Samantha held up a peremptory hand. “Not another word! We’ve spent too much time on this tiresome subject as it is. We have something of greater import to discuss, and I for one, intend to begin now.”

  “You . . .”

  “I said now, Colonel!”

  ***

  On his way home from Samantha Masters’s, Colonel John McLain was in an expansive mood even if he had spent the whole damned afternoon there. He felt as if a troop-carrying helicopter had been lifted off his shoulders.

  Amazing how simple things were when people just came right out and said what they thought, McLain mused as he made his way through Samantha Masters’s side yard toward his own wall. Remarkably simple.

  Of course, he was a little annoyed that he hadn’t been the one to put things right, but then, under the circumstances, that would hardly have been gentlemanly.

  Gentlemanly. Huh. There’d been a bad moment when he’d thought Samantha Masters was being less than gentlemanly. She’d come on too much like a drill sergeant for his comfort.

  Too bad she hadn’t told him before that she hadn’t liked the bonds of matrimony. Too bad that she hadn’t said that she’d loved her husband and was glad to have her children, but hadn’t liked being a stay-at-home housewife.

  She’d said that ‘She hadn’t liked having her life being no more than an annex of someone else’s—hadn’t liked merely being ‘Andrew’s wife’ or ‘‘David’s mother.’ Well, hell, he could understand that. Any woman worth her salt would prefer being a person in her own right, free and clear.

  It sure had been a strange sort of conversation. And it had sure as blazes been one way. The dratted female hadn’t let him get a word in edgewise.