Truly, Madly, Dangerously

by Linda Winstead Jones

  Home. Family. Love. Truman.

  She felt more than heard him behind her, and when he lowered himself carefully to sit beside her she scooted over to give him plenty of room. His arm around her shoulder felt so right, she was tempted to bolt.

  “Good coffee,” he said, sipping at the cup he’d poured himself.

  She just hummed an answer, resting her head against his arm and staring at the lake. Like her, he’d pulled on a warm shirt and a pair of those drawstring pants. Sitting here, silent and just barely touching, was as intimate as making love in his bed, but in a different way. A scarier way.

  “Are you okay?” he asked softly, after a few quiet moments had passed.

  “Yeah. What’s not to be okay about?”

  “I woke up and you were gone, and I just wondered…”

  “You thought I’d left,” she finished for him.

  “It crossed my mind.”

  She turned her face to him, and at her silent command—at her wish—he leaned down and kissed her.

  “I’m too old to run away,” she said, when he took his mouth from hers.

  “Good.” He kissed her again, deeper this time. It was a kiss that could very easily lead to more. Truman’s mouth on hers was stirring and exciting, and it made her forget almost everything but the physical. She had butterflies in her stomach, and just a kiss made her tremble in all the wrong places. No, all the right places.

  If she were younger, more reckless, just a little bit less in control, she’d make love to Truman here and now, with the autumn wind on their skin and the lake lapping just a few feet away.

  But unless he had a condom in his pocket, that couldn’t happen. The Benning Agency didn’t exactly have a maternity plan.

  Still, things quickly spun out of control. The kiss deepened, Truman’s hands cradled her instead of a coffee cup, and she set aside her own empty cup to touch this man who made her question everything she wanted.

  “I think I’m supposed to work today,” she said between kisses.

  “Didn’t you hire someone to help?”

  “I did.” Kathy could handle it. Kathy and Jennifer, Mary Beth and Bowie and Aunt Lillian. Just for today, they could get along without her.

  Truman grabbed her and hauled her onto his lap, and she laughed and squealed at the same time.

  “Don’t you dare let me fall into the water!”

  “Afraid of the cold?”

  “No.”

  He touched his nose to hers. “Afraid of the ghosts of Miranda and Sam?” he teased.

  She held on tight. “No, I’m not afraid of the cold or of ghosts. I just…don’t know how to swim.” It was an embarrassing admission, but he really did need to know about her failing before he decided it would be cute to toss her in.

  “You can’t swim?” He backed away slightly to look her in the eye, and she could see his surprise.

  Holding on to Truman while he held her made her feel secure—even here so close to the edge, with the deep water waiting a few feet away. “My mother refused to let me learn. My father drowned. Did you know that? We were living in Florida at the time, and he swam out into the Gulf to save a kid who had swum out too far. I was very young, so I don’t remember my father, but when I was older Mom told me what happened. He managed to get the kid to safety, and then he went under and didn’t come up. He drowned, so she was afraid to let me near the water even to learn how to swim.”

  “It never occurred to her that you’d be less likely to drown if you knew how to swim?”

  She had to smile. “Logic and my mother rarely crossed paths.”

  He tightened his hold on her. “I guess we’d better go inside, then, and get you away from this nasty water.”

  “Good idea.” She didn’t rush to get out of his lap. “I have plans for you today, Truman McCain.”

  “Plans,” he repeated.

  She nodded and laid her lips on his throat, tasting and teasing. If all she could take away from Garth were memories, she might as well make the best memories possible.

  Truman was heat and vitality and pleasure. He was an anchor in a world where Sadie had been adrift for so long she didn’t know any other way.

  Already she didn’t want to leave.

  Truman helped her to her feet then rose smoothly, with just the smallest hint of favoring his right leg. They walked toward the cabin arm in arm, but Sadie soon realized that her plans for the morning would have to wait. Before they reached the end of the pier she heard the car. Truman heard it, too. His head turned in that direction. It was too late to reach the house before whoever was approaching on the long driveway arrived, and besides…they were both too old to run and hide. At this point, she might as well give the town something else to talk about.

  She’d wasted a lot of energy lately wondering what people here might think about her. Right now…she didn’t care. It was a nice feeling.

  When the car finally came into view she recognized it almost immediately, and so did Truman. The ABI investigator drove a two-year-old dark-green Impala that had been sitting in the parking lot of the Yellow Rose Motel for much of the past four days. What on earth did he want at this time of the morning? Surely any other questions he’d thought of could wait for a decent hour.

  So much for starting the day in Truman’s bed and staying there.

  Evans’s gaze went immediately to Sadie. “I thought I might find you here.”

  “Brilliant detective work,” she said dryly. “What do you want?”

  He turned his attention to Truman. “Has she been here all night?”

  “Yeah.”

  Evans leaned against the fender and nodded, tired and weary and a little angry. “Could she have left during the night without your knowledge?”

  Truman didn’t answer right away, and when he finally did speak he said, “Unlikely. What happened?”

  Evans didn’t beat around the bush, and he didn’t play cat and mouse. Straight to the point, that was his way. His eyes shifted to Sadie again, and he looked her in the eye.

  “Jason Davenport was murdered early this morning.”

  Chapter 8

  After a moment of stunned silence, Sadie responded with a hot, “If this is your idea of a joke…”

  “I assure you, Miss Harlow, I don’t joke about murder.”

  She went pale, but in true Sadie fashion there was no other display of emotion. “I saw Jason just last night.”

  “That’s what I hear.” The way Evans was looking at Sadie…even if he didn’t think she murdered Davenport, he was definitely considering the possibility.

  Truman took Sadie’s arm. “Let’s go inside and have some coffee. I’m sure you want to know what was said last night. I was there myself.”

  “I heard that, too.” Evans pushed away from the car. The promise of coffee spurred him onward.

  Truman was torn. He liked Sadie. Last night had been great, but it hadn’t been nearly enough. There were moments when he thought they’d never get enough of each other. He even, in his weaker moments, felt a glimmer of something more. A connection. A sense of belonging as strong as the one he’d felt when he’d found this place.

  But Sadie had been in town less than a week, and two men had ended up murdered. How far did she take her need for control? Did he know her at all? The girl, yes. The lover? Absolutely. But the woman? No. She’d been back in his life for a few days, and like everyone else she had secrets.

  “You’re not under arrest,” Evans said to Sadie as he took the cup of coffee Truman offered him. “But I would be grateful if you’d answer some questions for me. If you feel like you need an attorney…”

  “I don’t,” she snapped. “Ask away.”

  Evans leaned against the kitchen counter much the same way he had leaned against his car. It was a deceptively lazy pose. “Why don’t you tell me what you and Jason Davenport argued about last night?”

  Sadie’s pose was much like the investigator’s. She leaned against the counter in a casual stance, look
ing very much as if she belonged in this kitchen, in Truman’s clothes. It was hard for her to look tough wearing clothes that were several sizes too large, but she managed. She didn’t quite pull off the cool, though. She was wound so tight she looked as though she was about to pop.

  “Jason thought he was going to get lucky because he gave me a discount on a wooden fish and drove me to a ratty bar in his clown car, where we shared wings and beer. I didn’t agree.”

  “I see.” Evans nodded. “This was at the Shamrock?”

  “Yes, as you obviously already know.”

  The investigator wasn’t bothered by Sadie’s open hostility. “And later?”

  “Later?”

  “When you called him early this morning.”

  Sadie pushed away from the counter, all pretense of serenity gone. “I did not call him.”

  “That’s not what I hear.”

  Sadie stepped toward Evans, and for a moment Truman wondered if he was going to have to throw himself between them to keep her from going to jail for assault. She stopped well short of swinging out.

  “I left the Shamrock with Truman and I’ve been here all night. I didn’t call anyone.”

  Again Evans shifted his focus to Truman. “Did you sleep?”

  “Yeah,” he answered honestly.

  “Were you sleeping between two-thirty and five?”

  Sadie turned to him, and he wondered what she expected him to say. Did she want him to lie for her? “Yes,” he finally answered. “I was.”

  He looked into Sadie’s eyes, which had gone dark, deep, and angry. After no more than two seconds, she took a step back. “You really think I’m capable of slipping out of here in the middle of the night and murdering someone, and then sneaking back into bed and pretending nothing happened.”

  “I didn’t say…”

  “You didn’t have to.” She spun and stalked toward the bedroom. “The look on your face and your lack of outrage at the suggestion that I kill any man who crosses me is enough.”

  “Sadie…”

  “Don’t you dare follow me,” she snapped. “Haven’t you already decided that pissing me off is dangerous?”

  “I never said…”

  She spun at the entrance to the hallway and glared at him. “No, you never said anything, did you?”

  Sadie disappeared into the hallway. After a few seconds Evans muttered, in a weary voice, “Women.”

  Truman returned to the kitchen and poured himself another cup of coffee, his gaze on the dark brew as his mind spun this way and that. He’d known this thing with Sadie wouldn’t last, but he sure as hell hadn’t expected it to end this way. Suddenly and with more than a small dose of anger on her part.

  Damn it, he wasn’t anywhere near finished with her. There were so many questions he hadn’t asked; so many things they hadn’t done. He found he wasn’t thinking only of the sex…good as it had been…but of other things. What made her laugh; what made her cry. Were her feet ticklish? Was she really a good shot or was that pistol mostly for show?

  Had last night been as momentous for her as it had been for him, or was it just another one-night stand?

  “You do know she didn’t kill anybody,” he said, as he and Evans waited for Sadie to return.

  “At this point, all I know is two men she had public disagreements with have ended up dead.”

  “Sadie’s too smart for this.”

  “She can be a freakin’ genius, for all I care,” Evans snapped. “We’ve had two murders in a week, in a county where it’s been six years since the last homicide. And that was a man who caught his wife cheating, shot her, and then turned himself in. Am I supposed to believe that it’s coincidence the murders began on Sadie Harlow’s first night in town?”

  Everything Evans had was circumstantial, but from what Truman had read, murders were usually cut and dried. People weren’t framed. Serial killers were rare. Victims knew their killers and there was always, always a reason, especially when the murder was unnecessarily violent, as Hearn’s had been.

  “How was Davenport killed?”

  Evans snorted. “Beaten to death with a big stick.”

  “Ouch.”

  “The coroner’s report will read blunt trauma, I imagine, but beaten to death with a big stick is more accurate.”

  “Where?”

  Evans pointed toward Truman’s front door. “Two miles or so thataway, in a parking lot by the lake.”

  Very close to where he and Sadie had spent Tuesday night, sleeping in his truck.

  “Where did the call come from?”

  “Don’t know yet. People are on it. Davenport didn’t have caller-ID, so we have to go through the phone company.”

  Sadie stormed out of the hallway, wearing her own rumpled clothes and a fiery expression. She didn’t look at him, but kept her eyes on Evans.

  “Am I under arrest?”

  “No.”

  “Can I have a ride to town anyway?”

  “Sadie, I’ll…” Truman began.

  She spun on him, and looked him square in the eye. “Don’t think that I’ll ever get in that truck with you again, McCain. Evans I understand. He’s doing his job. If I was him I’d suspect me too, I guess. But you… Last night you slept with me, and this morning you can actually stand there and look at me as if you’re seriously considering the possibility that I came home to Garth and killed two men in five days.” She spun around and glared at Evans. “If I was going to kill anyone it would be Truman McCain, so if he doesn’t turn up dead real soon you can take me off your list of suspects because it proves that I have an abundance of restraint.”

  “I’m afraid it doesn’t work that way,” the ABI investigator said.

  Evans and Sadie headed for the doorway, Evans dragging, Sadie on fire. When Sadie opened the door Truman took a move in that direction. One step. She didn’t look back, but somehow she knew he had made a move to follow and she spoke.

  “Stay where you are, McCain. It’s over.”

  Saturdays were always busy, and for once Sadie was happy to work at the café. She needed to stay busy, to get her mind off what had happened last night. And this morning. Of course, people had begun to talk, and she was the recipient of more than a few suspicious and curious stares. None of them bothered her the way Truman’s questioning eyes had.

  Kathy was a very good waitress, and had very quickly fallen into a routine with Bowie and Aunt Lillian and Mary Beth. Aunt Lillian had found her a uniform that actually fit, and her name was neatly embroidered over the right breast. The customers seemed to like her well enough. She was sweet. Sweet and innocent and undeserving of whatever some worthless man had done to send her running. And even now, when Sadie’s mind was spinning, there was something naggingly familiar about that pretty girl.

  It was probably something simple. She was related to someone Sadie had gone to school with, or she looked like a regular café customer, or she just had one of those familiar faces.

  It was fifteen minutes to closing time, and there were just a few customers left in the café. Two fishermen in a booth by the window, and a single older woman at a table in the center of the room. Mary Beth and Aunt Lillian were long gone, and Bowie was cleaning the kitchen.

  Kathy and Sadie cleaned the booths and the counter, and Kathy had already started refilling the sugar canisters to prepare for Monday morning.

  “Are you all right?” the girl asked as Sadie moved near, her voice low so that none of the remaining customers would hear.

  “Fine and dandy,” Sadie said in a voice that made it clear nothing was fine or dandy.

  Kathy cast her eyes down. “I didn’t mean to pry. I just thought if you wanted to talk…I’m not going anywhere.”

  Sadie Harlow didn’t cry on anyone’s shoulder. Not ever. It was pathetically girlie and needy, and that’s not who she was. Not any more. But oh—if she didn’t get some of this out of her system she was going to lose it, and given that she was suspected of two violent killings that probabl
y wouldn’t be wise.

  “You’ve heard the rumors, I suppose,” she said reluctantly.

  “About that guy who was murdered in 119? Please. I’m sure everyone knows that you didn’t kill anyone. How ridiculous.”

  Sadie turned away as hot tears sprung to her eyes. How ridiculous. That’s all she’d wanted from Truman, this morning when Evans had shown up and spouted his accusations. Instead he’d told the investigator that he’d been asleep during the time in question, and then he’d looked at her as if he were actually considering the possibility that he’d made love to a murderer last night.

  She was as angry at herself for expecting more as she was at Truman for not defending her like the knight in shining armor that she did not want.

  “Have you ever not been disappointed by a man?” Sadie asked softly. “Have you ever gotten involved with a man who didn’t eventually make you regret the day you met him?”

  Kathy sighed. “No. Not really. Bowie is very nice,” she added brightly.

  “Yeah, well, talk to his ex-girlfriends and see how nice they think he is.” Sadie wiped down her booth with extra energy. “I know there are people out there who meet and fall head over heels and get married and everything is just hunky dory all the time. I know it happens. Maybe some of us are just not supposed to…to…”

  “Fall in love?” Kathy supplied when Sadie faltered.

  Sadie almost swallowed her tongue trying to answer. “No! Not love. Not…that.” She couldn’t possibly love Truman McCain. “It just seems like men are always overly eager to disappoint, know what I mean?”

  “Yeah,” Kathy said softly.

  The two fishermen sitting by the window finally left. Bowie had just finished in the kitchen, and he took their money at the cash register and made change. The men left and Bowie, with a quick wave and a “See you Monday,” was right behind them. That left just the two pink-clad waitresses and one old woman who continued to sip at her coffee.

  “Some man disappointed you, right?” Sadie kept her voice low, and for a moment she wondered if Kathy even heard her. The girl kept cleaning, and she didn’t look up. “You can talk to me, if you’d like. Maybe I can help.”