Ida came out onto the porch, hand to her forehead, shading her eyes. “Is that you, Quaid O’Fallon? What brings you here at this hour of the morning?”
“Making a delivery.”
Wobbling, she shooed him away. “I don’t rightly remember ordering anything but I do remember that you stole that blueberry pie right off Cook’s windowsill, and did you ever graduate from high school and aren’t you supposed to be in…” She hiccupped. “The Arctic?”
Quaid’s brow arched at the hiccup and a grin played at his mouth, his very nice mouth that Cynthis wished she’d stop thinking about. He said, “Got a diploma and everything, it just took a while.”
Ida harrumphed and Cynthia said, “Mother, that pie incident was twenty years ago.” Now why did she stick up for Quaid O’Fallon? He didn’t look the sort of man who needed her help on anything. Maybe because she knew what it was like to make mistakes and then get reminded of them. She said to Ida, “Why don’t you go back inside and pour us coffee, Mother? Lawrence, help your grandmother cook breakfast. I’ll be in in a minute to lend a hand.”
“Grandmother can cook? You can cook? Really?” Lawrence stared, till she gave him the look and added, “Go.”
Quaid held out his hand to Lawrence. “Is it a deal?”
Lawrence shook, his small hand dwarfed by Quaid’s much larger one, the very one he’d used to hold her legs as she’d dangled down his back. She prayed for amnesia and Lawrence said, “I’ll come over right after breakfast. Where do you live?”
“Your mom knows. There’s a good path through the woods that’s safer than the two-lane. But you have to watch out for Grant.”
“Grant? Ulysses S.? Mom said something about him last night.”
Quaid winked. “Quartered his troops right where we’re standing. Probably ran you off the road last night. He does things like that, especially in the rain and with Southerners coming down the road.”
“We have our own ghost? Oh, this is really good. There’s no scientific proof that ghosts exist…but there’s none to prove they don’t, either.” Lawrence beamed, skipped up the stairs and followed Ida into the house. Cynthia said in a low voice, “What the heck do you think you’re doing?”
“Returning your car?”
“Good Lord, why’d you tell him about Grant?”
“Sounds like you already did that. And I figure the Landing’s got to have something over New York, and kids love ghosts.”
And she’d thought that very same thing. Quaid looked as if he intended to leave but then didn’t. He folded his arms across his broad chest, the sunlight playing in his black hair as he leaned against the car, grinning. Damn, did he have to grin?
“What’s with Ida?”
“Hasn’t had her coffee yet and just out of curiosity, how’d you start my car? Bet they don’t teach that in the Coast Guard.”
“Something from my checkered past, like stealing pies.”
“And you’re offering my son and not some other kid in town this job because…? We’re not charity, you know.”
“Lawrence is the new kid. Taking care of Max will give him something to do and he’s got an instant friend.” Quaid’s eyes darkened a shade, not that anyone else would notice but being a designer, colors were her business. “I had a dog when I was his age, a mangy cur that roamed the docks—like me, except he was better looking.”
She bit back a laugh. Quaid O’Fallon was too smooth, much too easy to get along with…like Aaron at the beginning, and her attorney, and all the rest of the guys in her life, including her own father. They gained her trust then let her down. She and Ida shared a genetic flaw, poor male selection. Well, she wasn’t selecting now and she did still have her pride. “I intend to repay you.”
“Lawrence is working for me. I don’t know how you all do things in New York City but down here that means I get to pay him.”
“You pulled us off the riverbank last night and gave my son a job that makes him happy, and moving to nowhere USA was not on his list of things to do this summer.” Avoiding temptation by not looking at Quaid, she came down the steps and opened the car door. “I should warn you that Lawrence is rather cerebral and has the eye-hand coordination of a bat.”
She rummaged in the back seat till she found her sewing basket, the one her mother gave her when she went off to Parsons for fashion design, the one she snuck out of the loft along with an old sewing machine and a few bolts of material, before the bank auctioned the loft contents to pay off Aaron’s debts. She fished a tape measure from the top tray. To get his size she needed to look at him, touch him. Think…mannequin. She took in Quaid, toe to neck. Oh, crap! “Stand up straight and hold out your arms like a T.”
“Excuse me?”
I am a professional; I can do this; I will not salivate over the customer nor tackle him to the grass and fornicate on the front lawn. “I’ll make you a sport coat.”
“You can do that?”
“They don’t fall off the sports coat tree, O’Fallon.” She put the tape to his wrist—warm, sturdy, lightly sprinkled with black curls of hair that continued up his arm. Maybe she should just make him a cake. Could she sew a cake, because she sure couldn’t bake one.
The scent of musky soap and something fresh and male filled her head. She stretched the tape from wrist to broad shoulder, the one she knew intimately, the one covered in soft cotton now, the one she wanted to touch. Swallowing a carnivorous whine she said, “Thirty-seven.”
“You don’t have to sew me a coat.”
“It makes us even. You can go your way and I go mine. You’ve heard of wireless, well I’m going manless. I don’t want them in my life and that includes you.” She could feel the heat from his skin under her fingertips. Every inch of Quaid firm, tight, totally hunky.
“Is this what you did in New York?”
“Huh?” She nearly dropped the tape measure. “Do what?”
“Make men’s clothes? Is that why you don’t like them? Got tired of dressing them?”
“Got tired of them messing up my life. It doesn’t start out that way but that’s what happens so I’m through with men.” She took the tape across his back, his very broad back that tapered to his waist and lean hips. Think of something else. “I had a loft, Creations by Cynthia. I designed business chic for the larger woman. So much of what’s out there in the bigger sizes has a masculine tone that makes women look like Donald Trump with better hair and earrings.”
“So what happened?”
What happened was that she darn near melted into a blob being so close to Quaid. “Aaron, my dear husband, borrowed money against my business for his favorite pastime, Texas Hold’em, and I’m not from Texas and he sure wasn’t holding me. The bank foreclosed on my loft and I foreclosed on Aaron.”
She walked around to Quaid’s front, keeping her eyes from his, looking at her flip-flops. If he realized how turned on he made her it would be embarrassing. He was young and she wasn’t and that made her even more uncomfortable. What would he think? “I’m starting over at the ripe old age of forty.”
She held the white cloth tape against his chest; his muscles flexed. Sweat prickled at her neck, her hands now at his belt, his breath in her hair, her forehead grazing his shirt. “Mother and I are opening Ivy Acres as a bed and breakfast and—”
“Cynthia?”
“And we should have customers and—”
“Cynthia!”
“What!” She snapped her head up, looking straight into his eyes, now the color of antique Chinese jade. He took her chin on his forefinger, his touch gentle and caring, making her go all…soft. Soft and this man was not the way to start the day. She stood, her face to his.
This time he swallowed. “I have to get going. Now…right now.” His voice was strained and low. “Rory’s expecting me at the docks to help out. There’s no need for you to make me anything. You don’t owe me.”
He backed up but she grabbed the front of his shirt, holding him still, then kissed him full on his
warm, very receptive and incredibly yummy lips. God, he had great lips.
She stepped back, her eyes wide and mouth open. She snapped it shut. “Oh, crap! I don’t want anything to do with you, Quaid O’Fallon. Nothing at all, I swear it. Stay away from me. Stay out of my business. Try and be…a little ugly.” She turned and raced up the steps like an embarrassed teenager and slammed the door shut behind her, leaning against it as if to keep what was on the outside from coming in—except it was the nutty woman inside causing all the trouble.
She peeked though the sidelight, catching a glimpse of Quaid walking down the drive. He rounded the bend by the sugar maple that had been there as long as she could remember. Then he was gone.
Like heck he was gone. Quaid O’Fallon’s presence was like the scent of a dead skunk. Not that he smelled like a carcass…she wished…but he was around even when she couldn’t see him and wasn’t likely to go away no matter how darn much she wanted him to. And she really, really wanted him gone.
Quaid could feel Cynthia watching him as he ambled down the Landon’s driveway. He hadn’t ambled in a long time, maybe his whole damn life, and the only reason he did the slow walk now was thanks to his dick being hard as a chunk of three-day-old bread.
He’d been around a lot of women, kissed most of them and never had this damn embarrassing problem. Then again, being stationed on Kodiak Island for the last three months had kept female contact to nonexistent and a kiss like the one just planted on him was enough to give a saint a hard-on. Quaid O’Fallon was nowhere near sainthood.
Like Rory said, Cynthia was not a woman for him. She was one uptown gal, and he was one down-home boy. The good part was she didn’t want men in her life, so that ended anything brewing between them and he could turn all his attention to finding Mimi…except his attention kept focusing on that kiss. Why would a prissy woman who didn’t want men in her life, especially the local badass, kiss him like that anyway? And man could she kiss!
Quaid headed up the road, past the O’Fallon house, a light breeze off the river swaying the treetops. He turned for town. How many sodas and candy bars had he snitched from the market? A ton. He hoped that sending Betty Lindel flowers and a check on her birthday for the last ten years sort of made up for it.
A thin curl of smoke drifted from the back porch of Slim’s. A hint of the best barbecue on earth hung in the air. The porch floorboards still sagged and the door stood open, letting the odor of beer out and fresh air and sunlight in. In an hour the Landing would go to sizzle, the door close and the AC back on full tilt. But now it was a summer morning in the South and not to be missed.
Sally Donaldson sat on a stool, head bent, poring over papers strewn across the bar. John Lee Hooker’s “One Bourbon, One Scotch, One Beer” purred in the background from the green and yellow jukebox in the corner, that some antique dealer in the city would shed blood to own. Same worn oak chairs, same paint-chipped tables dotted the room. An upright by the wall with a guitar propped against it waited for someone to get an urge and bring them to life.
Quaid pulled up behind Sally and yanked her chestnut hair. She yelped, bolted straight up, spun around, fire in her big brown eyes and a hint of pink across her perfect mahogany cheeks. She grinned. “Well, I’ll be damned. Lock up your daughters and get out the shotguns, Quaid O’Fallon’s back in town.”
He nodded at the papers. “’Bout time you put that highfaluting Harvard education of yours to use.”
“Hush, boy. Snobby places like that give this fine establishment a bad name.” She slid from the stool, flung her arms around his neck and kissed him full on the mouth. A friendly kiss, not like the one he’d gotten from Cynthia. Sally’s eyes danced and he felt as if he were exactly where he was supposed to be.
“What brings you here in the middle of the summer?”
“A pretty girl and a kiss like that would bring any man crawling home.”
“You are so full of baloney. You’re here for Dad’s barbecue and you know it.”
“There is that. I’ve eaten so much damn fish I think I have gills. I need some serious cholesterol-inducing meat on a hot grill.”
She laughed as she stepped to the back of the bar and pulled a frosted glass pitcher of tea from the fridge, condensation dripping down the sides, lemon slices floating on top. Quaid smacked his lips. “Well there you go, sweet tea. Only in the South can you get the good stuff.”
“And that’s me you’re talking about, big boy?” She twitched her hips and laughed then filled two glasses. “Besides being a rabid carnivore, I’m guessing the reason you’re home is a certain baby sister and her missing mama.”
“Do you have any idea what’s going on? I asked Rory about Mimi and he just changed the subject.”
Sally hitched herself back onto the stool and Quaid claimed the one beside her as she said, “Maybe it’s just too painful to have Bonnie and not her mother around.”
Sally leaned back against the bar, legs crossed at the knee, showing off long brown legs. Every guy on the Landing had a crush on Sally Donaldson at one time or another…including him and his brothers, thank God at different times. O’Fallon men always did have great taste in women and right now he couldn’t get his mind off Cynthia. Dang!
“No one knows where Mimi is and everyone in town’s watching out for Bonnie and the Martians just abducted her in their spaceship and are heading for Pluto.”
“Huh?”
She set her tea on the bar. “What are you thinking about, Quaid O’Fallon, because with that faraway look in your eyes it sure isn’t me or what I’m saying. It’s a woman. You got that woman look about you. And I’m betting Cynthia Landon is in the mix somewhere.”
“I just got into town.”
“And Cynthia just got into town at the same time, least that’s what the chit-chat is this morning. Sounds like destiny’s working overtime down on the two-lane.”
“Only if destiny comes in the form of a Yankee ghost prowling in a rainstorm just like he’s been doing for over a hundred years now. More coincidence than karma.”
“Maybe, but I doubt that Grant has anything to do with Cynthia planting a lip-lock on you that singed your eyebrows?”
Quaid did a double take. “How’d you know?”
She flashed a sassy grin. “I didn’t…till now. You best watch your step with that one.”
“She just got here. I just got here.”
“I know. That’s what worries me. What the heck’s going to happen next?”
A big guy in an apron came in through the back door. His dark eyes went from Sally to Quaid as he put his hand on his hip and shook his head. “I’m out back sweating my butt off over an open fire, girl, and here you are two-timing me with the locals.”
Sally got up and kissed the guy full on the lips, adding some tongue and sexy attitude—kind of like the kiss Cynthia slipped him. Did he have to keep thinking about her? Why did she kiss him like there was no tomorrow? And why in the hell did he let Sally trip him up?
Because Cynthia Landon had turned his brain to fish bait.
Sally pulled the man over. “Demar Thacker, cop with the attorney general’s office, meet Quaid O’Fallon, search and rescue, U.S. Coast Guard.”
Quaid shook Demar’s hand. “Formerly Coast Guard. Now mostly unemployed river rat.”
“I’m on vacation and cooking barbecue. That makes us about even.”
“I understand what got you here in the first place was Mimi. Any leads?”
Demar let out a deep breath. “I know time’s running out. The three guys who headed up River Environs, the company Mimi worked for, are hunting for her and her disks. The guys escaped when the DA went after them. Their assets are frozen, but without Mimi’s testimony the DA really has no evidence that will stick and they’ll have to drop the case. We need to find the bad guys before they get to Mimi, and we have to lock them up or she’ll stay hidden forever. She fears for her life, that’s why she ran.”
“Do we know what these guys look like?”
“Two of them. They were in the papers a lot. But the third was the accounting honcho, very low-key, kept out of the limelight, no family, from Pennsylvania. No pictures of him anywhere except driver’s license—it’s so nondescript it doesn’t help at all. Brown eyes, brown hair, average height, average weight, has a thing for good food and saddle shoes. He’s probably using a disguise. But make no mistake, these guys are ruthless. If they pull this off they’ll get away with millions.”
“Hello,” came a voice from the doorway, as a short middle-aged man in shorts and a blue Hawaiian shirt strolled in. He held out his card. “Hope I’m not interrupting anything. Preston Wright here, private investigator from Memphis. Well, I’m really from Milwaukee and moved to Memphis for the weather…and the folks. More friendly in the South. I think it’s because of the good food. I got a thing for good eating. Anyway, Rory O’Fallon hired me to find the mother of his little girl and I thought the local watering hole was a good place to start.”
Sally took the card, and Preston ran his hand through his thinning curly hair. “You all wouldn’t know anything about that, would you? I don’t have a picture of the lady but she used to work for Mr. O’Fallon. About thirty-eight, auburn hair, brown eyes.”
Demar craned his neck forward as if examining a bug. “Rory hired you?”
Preston beamed. “You bet your boots. This is my second case, my first was in Rockton, but I can’t tell you what it was about because that’s privileged information for us private investigators. I used to be a high school history teacher and now I’m retired. Been watching detective shows all my life. Magnum’s my favorite.”
Preston jabbed himself in the chest. “Now I know what you’re thinking…” His grin grew. “That’s what Magnum always says on TV…Now I know what you’re thinking…where’d I get this great shirt.” He held up the collar for inspection. “Bought it on eBay, the real thing, had it shipped all the way from Hawaii. Got myself a red Beetle, couldn’t afford a Ferrari on a retired teacher’s salary. Even grew a mustache.” He twitched the fuzz under his nose.
Quaid resisted the urge to shake his head to figure out what the hell was going on. Why would Rory hire Preston Wright to find Mimi? The guy was nice enough but…a wannabe TV character?
I’ll Be Seeing U Page 3
