Comprehension dawned slowly in Jake’s eyes. “No, they weren’t!”
I nodded.
“You sure about that?”
I just looked at him.
“No way. Damn! Well, who knew? I guess getting old won’t be so bad after all.”
“Jake, shut up!”
I peered out into the street, looking for the limousine. With the exception of Aunt Lucy’s neighbor Mrs. Talluchi’s ancient black Plymouth, there were no black sedans in sight.
“He must have told the driver to leave,” Jake said, anticipating my next question. “We wait him out.”
The way he said it, the way he moved up behind me left no doubt as to how Jake Carpenter thought we’d pass the time. His breath, hot on my neck, tingled, sending shivers of anticipation surging to every raw, hungry nerve ending in my body. When his hands slid around my waist and pulled me back against his body, I fought the urge to give in and turned on him.
“Jake, not now! Honestly! Is that all you think about?”
Jake’s grin was infectious, and any other time I might have given in, but I’d just heard Aunt Lucy in the throes of passion and it didn’t exactly do a whole lot for my libido.
“Come on, Stel, lighten up!”
Lighten up. Wasn’t that just like a man. I pushed the sleeve up on my parka and stared at my watch. It was only 11:30. I tugged the plaid curtains apart on the back side window and looked out through the darkly tinted glass at my aunt’s tiny row house. It looked so normal, so peaceful, so…Jake’s thumb stroked the spot he knew all too well behind my ear, breaking my concentration and sending shivers down the side of my neck. A tiny flame caught and held deep inside my body. I was in trouble.
When his tongue followed his thumb, knowingly tracing the fire line along my neck, I couldn’t help myself. A sigh escaped my lips and I turned, letting my body mold into his as we kissed. When would I ever learn? I am putty in Jake’s hands, willing, soft, mushy putty. Oh, well, if you can’t beat ’em, you might as well join ’em.
“I love conversion vans, don’t you, Jake?” I breathed the words in a whisper as he slowly moved me to the thickly padded day bed that hugged the back of the cavernous vehicle.
“Mmm-hmm,” he said, and unzipped my parka.
A moment later, before I could feel the cold, I discovered the pile of quilts and blankets conveniently placed at one end of the well-stocked van.
“Hey, who’d you borrow this from, anyway?”
Jake opened up a thick, multi-colored quilt and smiled. “Buddy of mine.”
“You knew this would happen, didn’t you?” Suspicion dawned in my gullible brain. He was not nearly as interested in tracking down Aunt Lucy’s mysterious visitor as I was.
“Now, Stella, you know that wasn’t it. I just like to be prepared, that’s all.”
I felt my spine stiffen. “Prepared, my ass!” Wasn’t that just like a man? I’d left Florida and a promising career in law enforcement to get away from a no-good, cheating scoundrel only to wind up back in my old home town with the very first con artist to break my heart. What was it with me, anyway? When was I going to learn?
Jake leaned down and kissed me so thoroughly I began to appreciate the beauty of thoughtful preparation. So what if he was prepared? So what if he didn’t care about Aunt Lucy’s boyfriend as much as—Oh, please keep touching me there!
I reached for Jake, grabbing the waistband of his jeans and pulling him closer. My fingers found the top button and I knew there was about to be no turning back.
“What if the limo comes?” I murmured, my lips never leaving his.
“We’ll hear it,” he assured me. “I’ll listen out for it. I have unbelievable ears.”
Jake’s fingers slipped under my bra and began softly stroking and tugging at my nipples.
“You have unbelievable fingers,” I whispered, and sighed as my body gave itself over to his slow seduction.
“You’re no slouch yourself,” he answered.
I smiled and pushed his jeans down over his hips. Another moment and we were naked beneath a pile of warm afghans and quilts. Outside, the street was silent. With the exception of the old people, like Aunt Lucy and her best friend, crazy Sylvia Talluchi, all the other inhabitants on the block were at work.
Jake’s knowing hand moved slowly down across my stomach, teasing me with its leisurely approach. I heard someone moan and knew it was me. Here we were, naked in a van, about to make wild crazy love while also trying not to make enough noise to rouse the curiosity of any inadvertent passersby. It was illicit, steamy and a complete turn-on. Jake, I realized, was a brilliant man. He knew what this unexpected opportunity would do to me, and he was totally prepared to take full advantage of it. You just had to love a man like that.
Or did you?
In the past few months our relationship had kindled into far more than the adolescent fumbling that had been our high school romance. We’d gotten past, kind of, Jake jilting me at the altar in a failed, underage elopement. We’d survived my uncle Benny’s murder investigation in which Jake had been one of the prime suspects. We’d even gone into business as private investigators and resumed our personal relationship with the wisdom that only age and experience can bring. But in the past few months, the chemistry between us had exploded into an all-consuming fire that frankly scared the hell out of me.
I’d tried to play it cool. I’d forced myself to spend time away from him. He’d let me down before, and while we’re on the subject, so had every other man I’d every had a personal relationship with, even my father. He and Mom had had the nerve to take a second honeymoon to Ireland, without me, and had managed to die in a fiery plane crash. I just had to be sure about Jake before I got so hopelessly entangled in the relationship that I couldn’t survive the loss of it.
“Oh, Jake!” His tongue was following his fingers. I felt my body explode into a bonfire of need and without thinking I reached for him, pulling and positioning my body beneath him. What was wrong with me? How could I not trust someone who made me feel like this? This was so incredibly good! This was better than anything I’d ever felt in my entire…
Outside, the van walls began violently shaking as someone beat the door with their fists. Maybe more than one someone was beating on the van. The loud noise seemed to come from everywhere, surrounding us.
“What the—” Jake jumped to his feet, completely naked except for his unbuttoned, plaid flannel shirt. I had a full frontal flash of what I was about to miss before I, too, jumped up and joined him in the frantic dash to reclothe ourselves.
“Who in the—” I gasped, struggling into my jeans.
“They’re in there. I saw them!”
“No, no, no!” I moaned softly. Sylvia Talluchi, the world’s most active busybody and self-appointed watchdog for the entire neighborhood, had seen us and pulled the alarm.
“Stella, are you in there?”
Oh, we were dead. Aunt Lucy was banging on the other side of the van. There was going to be total hell to pay.
Jake looked at me, wide-eyed, as the same realization hit him.
“Let me handle this.” I pushed my way past him, pulling on and zipping my parka as I went. I didn’t even wait for Jake to answer me. It was my aunt and my execution.
I flung open the door and was momentarily blinded by the brilliant winter sunlight.
“Stella! Marone! What are you doing in there?”
“Lucia, you don’t know?” Mrs. Talluchi’s querulous tone grated like fingernails on a chalkboard. “They were doing the nasty if you ask me!”
My eyes adjusted in time to see my aunt shoot her best friend a dark look before she leveled the same gaze at me.
“Well?”
I forced a broad smile and stepped down the two metal stairs onto the sidewalk where Sylvia Talluchi and Aunt Lucy stood waiting. Jake stood framed in the doorway behind me and I prayed he had the sense to smile as well.
“No, of course we weren’t ‘doing the nasty’ as
you so succinctly put it, Mrs. Talluchi. Jake and I were about to stop back by the house before we went out on surveillance. You see, we were on our way to Lancaster to see Max when we got this call and…”
I stopped in midsentence. At the far end of the street, a limousine slowly crept past on Johnston Avenue.
“Who is that?” I demanded, pointing so there’d be no doubt about the vehicle in question.
Aunt Lucy and Sylvia Talluchi spun on their heels just as the long black sedan’s tail lights vanished from view.
“Who was what?” my aunt asked, turning back to face me. “Never mind that! What were you doing out here? Have you no sense of common decency? In the van, for all the world to witness? Have you no shame?”
Jake stepped down out of the van to join me on the sidewalk. “Mrs. Valocchi, we noticed you had company and I said we shouldn’t disturb you, so we were just waiting.”
I wanted to slap him. How could he think my aunt, a former CIA chemist, could possibly be so stupid? But it was too late. Jake had wandered into the minefield.
“You noticed I had company? How did you notice that, Jake?”
“Well, we saw the limousine pull up and…”
“Saw the limousine, did you?” she echoed dangerously.
Jake nodded. A slight smile tugged at the corners of Sylvia Talluchi’s lips as my aunt let Jake swallow the bait.
“So you’ve been waiting outside my house for almost an hour, have you?”
Jake, former Special Forces operative, suddenly realized now how badly he’d underestimated my aunt.
“Yes, ma’am.” It was a weak tone for such a big man.
“Right out here in the van, were you?”
He nodded.
“Both of you?” she murmured, her eyes boring into my soul.
“Aunt Lucy, you’ve been disappearing for hours at a time without any explanation ever since we got back from the beach. We were worried. There were those flowers that kept arriving mysteriously and then the notes. You gotta admit, you were worried, too. We were only trying to protect you!”
Damn. Too late for Stella Valocchi the Brilliant Former Cop, too.
“So, I suppose it didn’t occur to you that if I was no longer worried and if I chose not to say where I’d been that I might no longer feel concerned about my secret admirer? Furthermore,” she said, her voice rising just enough to let me know the depth of emotion that lay behind the words, “did it ever occur to you that perhaps my private life is none of your business?”
“And what if this man was conning you? What if he…”
My aunt cut me off with a look. “So, now I’m not capable of discerning danger for myself? Now I’m suddenly feeble-minded and incompetent? What next, we have a hearing and I get placed in one of those homes?”
“Sweet mother in heaven!” Sylvia Talluchi cried. “Betrayed, by your own family!” She crossed herself and looked up at the sky above our heads. “Father, forgive them,” she whispered.
“No, nothing like that!”
“Humph! I think it’s exactly like that.”
Okay, not withstanding the fact that Aunt Lucy thought Lloyd was Uncle Benny reincarnated, she was one of the sanest women I knew. And I had hurt her beyond all comprehension. I saw it in her eyes.
“Aunt Lucy, I was just worried. I’m sorry. I should’ve know better.”
Aunt Lucy slowly shook her head, looking at me with a mournful gaze that completely broke my heart.
“Yes, cara mia, you should have known better, but you didn’t.”
She let her gaze shift to Jake, the man I knew she loved almost more than she loved me, the man more like a son to her than a family friend. Slowly her eyes traveled the length of his body, down to his feet and back up again.
“And you,” she said. “Stunade! You have broken my heart.”
“Aunt Lucy, I…”
“You lied to me! Both of you lied to me!” Her eyes glittered with anger and pain.
“We only wanted what was best for you. We didn’t want to see you get hurt!” I cried.
Aunt Lucy sniffed imperiously.
“I don’t need that kind of help,” she said softly. “I need love and I need family, but I don’t need to be treated like a child. If I want privacy, you should respect my wishes.”
Now my back was up. I had acted out of love. I wanted to protect my aunt.
“Well, I was only trying to look out for you,” I said, stung. “I didn’t realize you needed so much privacy. I thought we were closer than that. Maybe you need more privacy than I thought.” Jake dug his elbow into my ribs in a warning but I was too far gone to stop. “Maybe I’ve overstayed my welcome.”
“Maybe you have,” Aunt Lucy said quietly. Without another word, she turned and walked back across the empty street, up the steps to her row house and inside, closing the door firmly. In the echoing silence that followed I heard the solid click of the dead bolt as it shot home.
Mrs. Talluchi, not to be outdone, glared at me. “Put-tan!” she spat. Turning to Jake, she narrowed her eyes and stared hard at his chest. “Ha! I was right!”
She stomped off down the street and up the spotless marble steps to her row house. I turned to Jake, puzzled until I caught sight of his chest. He’d buttoned his shirt wrong, making his shirttails uneven and leaving no doubt as to what we’d been doing in the van. To further seal the verdict, his fly was undone and he was only wearing one sock.
“Great!” I said. “Look at you.”
Jake looked down and shrugged. “Well, it’s not like you gave me an option,” he grumbled. “You threw open the door and I did the best I could.”
I looked across the street at my aunt’s front door. “What are we going to do now?”
It was a rhetorical question. I moved past Jake and climbed back into the van, this time settling myself in the passenger seat where I waited for him to slide behind the wheel.
“Where to, boss?” he asked as we pulled away from the curb.
I shrugged. I was already going to hell, what did it matter where we went in the interim? And then I remembered Bitsy Blankenship.
“The office. If I’m going to need to rent an apartment, I’d better start making enough money to pay for it. Let’s do a little background work before Bitsy comes at two.”
Jake nodded. Neither one of us was as enthusiastic as we would’ve usually been about the prospect of new business, not with Aunt Lucy feeling as she did. How had our good intentions suddenly turned to shit?
I reached into my jacket pocket, retrieved my cell phone and punched in my younger cousin, Nina’s, number. I needed to share the misery.
She answered on the first ring. “Peace, baby!” she cried. She sounded so happy I almost hated to burst her bubble with my worries, but the hesitation was overridden by the need to find a soft shoulder to cry on.
“Oh, no, you didn’t.” Nina sounded horrified.
So much for sympathy.
This was followed by more questions, muffled relays of information to her girlfriend, Spike, the former assistant D.A. turned performance artist, and more cries of disbelief. Apparently, Nina “resonated” with my aunt’s “cosmic energy” and was as appalled as Aunt Lucy had been.
“I don’t know, Stel,” she said finally. “I’ve gotta look up your chart again. I think your sun is in some serious retrograde.”
“Let me talk to Spike,” I said, disgusted.
“Where are you?” Spike said without preamble.
“Heading into the office. We’ve got a new client in about an hour and a half.”
“We’ll meet you there,” she said and severed the connection.
That was Spike for you. Sensible. Level-headed. The polar opposite of my cousin, Nina. How the two ever fell in love was a complete mystery to me, but love it was. They’d been seeing each other for almost two years and they never seemed to hit a bump in the road. Their love just grew with every passing day. Why couldn’t I be certain that a man could love me like Spike loved N
ina?
“They’re going to meet us at the office,” I told Jake.
He nodded, lost in his own thoughts. He looked as miserable as I felt.
Neither of us spoke on the short drive across town. Glenn Ford, Pennsylvania, is idyllic in many ways. It sits an hour outside of Philadelphia, close to Amish country, and is lush with verdant farmland and historic fieldstone houses. It was a wonderful small-town environment to grow up in and a great place to return to when my life fell apart in Florida, but today it was just a bit too small for my liking. There was nowhere to hide from the reminders of the importance of Aunt Lucy in my life.
She was everywhere; in the park behind the elementary school where she’d spent hours with me after my parents’ deaths, consoling, talking and, more often than not, just sitting silently, a witness to the tears of loss and longing. I remembered countless shopping expeditions to Guinta’s Grocery Store or Reeder’s Newsstand, or any number of small shops that lined Lancaster Avenue. By the time we’d reached the offices of Valocchi Investigations, it was all I could do to hold back the tears.
Jake avoided looking at me as he unlocked the front door to the entryway that led to our office and climbed the flight of steps to the second floor. I knew he felt my misery and was giving me time to pull myself together.
Once inside, I went immediately to the computer, determined to throw myself into busywork until Bitsy Blankenship arrived for her two-o’clock appointment.
I Googled Bitsy’s name, her maiden as well as her married name, Margolies, and began searching for anything that would tell me about her life since high school. It was just better to know a bit about potential clients before they came strolling in to give you a story that usually had gaps or outright fabrications included. Knowing Bitsy from high school precluded the matter of aliases, so catching up, I figured, would be easy.
Not so. Bitsy, deceptively brilliant for a blond, cheerleader, girly-girl type, had attended Virginia Tech after high school, majoring in electrical engineering of all things. The next fifty or so articles detailed Bitsy’s engagement and subsequent marriage to David Margolies, whom she apparently met sometime during her college career. Margolies was a junior diplomat, an attaché with the U.S. mission in Slovenia. He was also apparently a shining star because he and Bitsy had been moved around frequently as David gained more authority and climbed the diplomatic ladder.
What Stella Wants Page 2
