Raintree

by Linda Howard

  “The uniform who made a pass. Did he touch you?”

  She sighed. “No. He just leered at my belly button and asked me what I was doing after my shift was over.”

  “Get his name?”

  Her eyes widened, and then she shook her head. “Oh no, Raintree. We’re not going there.”

  “Not going where?”

  “You know damn well where we’re not going.”

  “Enlighten me.”

  She leaned back against her own desk, which was much neater than his. Of course, she hadn’t been there long enough to mess it up. “Okay, fine. If we’re going to be…whatever, and I’m not sure yet that we are or we aren’t, but if we are, there will be boundaries.”

  “Boundaries,” Gideon repeated, half-sitting on his own desk.

  “I want to be your partner, and I think I can be. I understand and accept what you can do, and I can contribute. I can be a good partner for you, Raintree, but some things are going to have to be separate. There can be no chasing after crude men who make passes at me, no staking your claim like we’re cavemen and you’re marking your territory, no sex on the desk or stolen kisses by the water cooler. When I’m in your bed, if I’m ever in your bed again, things can be different. But here in this office, I have to be your partner and nothing else. Can we do that?” she asked, as if she wasn’t quite sure.

  “I don’t know,” he said honestly. “It would be easier if you worked with someone else.”

  She squirmed a little, though he was sure the thought must have crossed her mind at some point that day. “I don’t want to work with anyone else. I want to work homicide, and I know I can learn a lot from you. Maybe we should just write this morning off as a mistake and forget the whole thing.”

  Forget. Literally? A flash of anger rose up in Gideon, hot and electric. The lights overhead flickered but didn’t go out. “Go ahead and forget. I don’t know that I can.”

  Hope swallowed hard. Did she think he wouldn’t see that response? he wondered.

  “We’re almost done here. We can go to the motel and I’ll pick up the Challenger, and then I’ll go home and—”

  “No,” he said.

  “No?” Her eyebrows lifted slightly.

  “I can’t be sure you’re safe there.”

  “See?” She pointed a finger at him. “This is exactly the kind of macho posturing I was trying to avoid. Would you have treated Leon this way?”

  “I never fucked Leon.”

  Her face went red and then pale, and she pushed away from her desk and stalked out of the office. He wanted to chase her, catch her and drag her back in to the office to finish this, but others were watching. And he had to admit, it was a momentarily and insanely tempting thought, to have a partner who knew what he could do and wasn’t frightened by it. Someone he could count on to help with the investigation, even if they had to work it backward and upside down and inside out to get the bad guy.

  So much for his determination to scare her off.

  He did follow her, but at a distance. He stayed well behind Hope until they were in the parking lot, and then he easily caught up with her.

  “If you’re here to apologize…” she began tightly.

  “I’m not,” he said honestly.

  She glanced at him, surprised and angry.

  “I’m not apologizing for what happened, and I’m not apologizing for telling the truth just now. You’re not one of the guys, Hope, and you’ll never be the same kind of partner Leon was.” She stopped short when he opened the passenger door for her and waited for her to get into the car.

  Eventually she climbed into the passenger seat, still angry, but a little less so.

  Gideon got into the driver’s seat but didn’t crank the engine. “You can’t go home tonight because, like it or not, you’re in the circle. If Tabby can’t get to me, she might try to get to you. Your mother and your sister would be right there in the cross fire.”

  “That makes sense, I suppose,” she said tightly. “I’d still like to go by the apartment and pick up a few things.”

  “Sure,” he said, pulling out of the parking lot and heading toward The Silver Chalice. The Challenger could wait; he wasn’t about to let Hope out of his sight.

  As they turned off Red Cross Street, he said, “No sex on the desk, huh? Bummer.”

  Sunny Malory Stanton was the perfect daughter for Rainbow Malory. Her hair was a dark blond, like their father’s, but other than that, she was Rainbow made over. Big smile, bigger heart. Comfy sandals, long skirt, dangling earrings. No bra.

  Sunny smiled when Hope and Gideon walked through the door. She didn’t even notice that her little sister’s attire was totally out of character.

  If Sunny showed up wearing a suit, Hope would certainly notice.

  Her mother and sister were rearranging the display of new jewelry. They were having fun, chatting away about the grandchildren, who had been left at home with their father. It would do Rainbow a world of good to spend some time with her eldest daughter.

  Now to explain away spending the next few days at Gideon’s beach house. Hope had been trying to come up with a good explanation since leaving the station, though she knew her mother would require no explanation at all. She would just figure that her youngest daughter had finally decided to embrace the old free love concept, and since Rainbow already liked Gideon…

  No explanation was called for. Rainbow Malory looked Hope up and down, quickly took in Gideon’s casual attire, and whispered, “Undercover?” as if there were a dozen people around to hear.

  When Gideon opened his mouth, probably to say, “No,” Hope stepped in front of him and said, “Yes,” loudly enough to cover his answer. “I just need to pack a few things, and then we have to go.” She didn’t like to think that her family might be in danger simply because she was near, so the faster she got out of there, the better off they all would be.

  She hated leaving Gideon alone with her family, but she couldn’t very well ask him to come upstairs and help her pack. So she left him perusing the merchandise while she ran to the apartment above, intent on packing as quickly as she could.

  Not that she could possibly be quick enough, of course. She gathered clothes, underwear, toothbrush, toothpaste, makeup. All the things she would need to make herself at home in Gideon’s house.

  Hope walked downstairs to find the three of them with their heads together, laughing as if someone had an old baby picture of her naked and was showing it off. Laughing as if Sunny had just told one of her embarrassing “Remember when?” stories about her little sister.

  “We can go now,” Hope said, her voice almost harsh.

  They all three turned to look at her, and she got the feeling they knew something she didn’t. She’d felt that way all her life, as if she were living on the outside looking in, as if she were missing out on some universal truth that was hidden from her and no one else.

  “Yeah, okay,” Gideon said, walking toward her, his eyes raking over her hungrily.

  She was twenty-nine years old. She’d been involved with men before. Romantically, sexually, emotionally. And none of them had ever looked at her this way. None of them had ever looked into her with eyes that made her knees wobble.

  None of them had been Gideon Raintree.

  “I’m cooking Saturday night,” Sunny called. “If y’all are finished with your undercover thingie, come by after the shop closes. I make a mean peach cobbler.”

  They said goodbye and left the shop just as three tourists—mother and daughters, judging by their similar round faces—entered, drawn there by a colorful display of wrapped stones in the window.

  Hope tossed her bag into the back seat of Gideon’s Mustang. She couldn’t help but remember driving him home last night. He’d been so out of it that she’d been sure he would be in bed for days. She’d been certain he needed to be in the hospital. And here he was, looking as if nothing out of the ordinary had happened.

  “Are they safe there?” she asked befor
e Gideon had a chance to fire up the engine. She had seen what Tabby could do, and while she wasn’t afraid for herself, the idea of a woman like that going near her family made her stomach and her heart turn.

  “If I didn’t think so, they wouldn’t be there,” Gideon answered. “They’re under constant surveillance, just in case.”

  “How did you manage that without telling the chief everything you know?” And how did he know that was just what she needed to hear to maintain her peace of mind? Rainbow and Sunny might be flakes, but they were her flakes.

  “I didn’t tell the chief anything.” He pointed to the storefront across the street, not to the busy café but to the upstairs window. “I hired a private team to keep an eye on your family, at least until Tabby is caught. Though I don’t believe it’s necessary,” he added crisply. “Tabby wants me, and she might want you. I don’t think your family’s even a blip on her radar.”

  Twenty-four-hour surveillance didn’t come cheap; she knew that. She could complain because her new partner had taken such a move without discussing it with her first, and she could offer to pay, since this was, after all, her family they were talking about. But instead she just said, “Thank you.” And she meant it.

  Thursday—8:37 p.m.

  He wasn’t surprised that Hope’s bathing suit was a modest black one-piece. She looked great in it, but what he wouldn’t give to see her in a skimpy bikini like the ones Echo wore when she was here. Something tiny and insubstantial, and maybe red. Beneath the conservative suits she wore to work, Hope Malory had a great body.

  They’d studied the files over sandwiches and soda, but eventually they’d both started to lose what energy they had left, after last night. Words began to blur. They started making mistakes. Gideon’s response to that kind of weariness was always the water.

  The waves were ferocious, and night was coming, so they didn’t go far from the shore. Churning salt water pummeled them both. They didn’t stay close together. There was no holding hands or laughing in the surf. How could there be? He didn’t yet know what they were. Partners yes, but probably not for long. Friends? No, Hope Malory was many things, but she was not his friend. Lovers? Maybe. It was too soon to say. One tryst did not a lover make.

  As darkness crept up on them, they left the ocean and walked toward the house, a few feet of sand and an air of uncertainty separating them.

  “Hi, Gideon!”

  Honey, his blond next-door neighbor, leaned over her balcony and waved. He’d never once seen her in the ocean. He’d asked her about it once, and she’d said she didn’t want to mess up her hair. With her hair slicked back and water dripping off her nose, Hope looked more beautiful than any other woman he’d ever seen. It was a realization he could have done without.

  “Hi,” he answered, his voice decidedly less enthusiastic than hers.

  “Don’t forget about the party Saturday night.” Her eyes flitted quickly to Hope. “Are you going to be around?”

  He shook his head. “Sorry, no.”

  “How about supper tomorrow night? We can cook out.”

  “I have to go out of town for the day. I’m not sure when I’ll get back.”

  Hope glanced back at him and raised her eyebrows slightly. She was probably wondering if he was running out on her or telling Honey an out-and-out lie.

  “Well, if you do get a chance on Saturday, stop by.”

  “Sure,” he said, noncommittal and less than enthusiastic in his response.

  He and Hope both reached the spigot at the foot of the stairway that led to his bedroom at the same time. They rinsed the sand off their feet.

  “So where are you going tomorrow?”

  “Hale County. The Cordell murder scene.”

  Her foot brushed against his, and she instinctively drew back. “Think it’ll do any good?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe the ghost will still be there and can help in some way.”

  “After all this time?” Her question reminded her that she knew next to nothing about what he did.

  “Some ghosts hang around for hundreds of years, stuck where they don’t belong because they were so traumatized by life or their deaths that they can’t move on. Four months is nothing.”

  “Do you do what you do to catch the killers, or do you try to send the ghosts of the victims to wherever it is they’re supposed to be?”

  “Both,” he confessed.

  He turned off the water, and they climbed the stairs, Hope in front, him lagging a few feet behind. What next? He wanted her, but he knew he shouldn’t have her. Not couldn’t, shouldn’t.

  In the end, she made the first move. At the top of the stairs she waited, and when he got there, she laid her hand on his arm, rose up on her toes and kissed him. It wasn’t a sexual kiss—at least, not blatantly. It was a simple touch of her mouth to his, a hesitant, stirring kiss.

  “You’re a good man, Gideon. I’m sorry I suspected you of being crooked.”

  “That’s all right,” he muttered.

  “No, it’s not. You hide so much of yourself, and there’s no way you can tell people what it is that you do. And yet you do it anyway, never taking credit, never asking for money or fame or even thanks.”

  “I’m a little surprised you’re accepting this so easily,” he said, leaning down for another kiss, because she was there and he could.

  “Yeah,” she whispered just before his lips touched hers again. “So am I.”

  The ocean had washed away Hope’s worries, at least for a while, and once she’d let everything go she couldn’t stop thinking about Gideon and what had happened that morning. Together they stripped off their wet bathing suits and stepped toward the master bathroom. She was sandy and salty, and she tasted Gideon on her mouth. Work was done, at least for a while, and for the moment she wasn’t worried about anything but getting into the bed and staying there for a while. She felt almost wanton, which was unlike her.

  Hope Malory was cautious where men were concerned, and though she’d always tried to be just like the males in her profession, she had never been aggressive in the bedroom. It was the one place where she was truly shy, where she sometimes felt reserved to the point of prim. She didn’t feel at all prim now, as she gently pushed Gideon into the shower and followed him inside, stepping under the warm spray and letting it wash the last of the salt water from her skin and her hair.

  “Do you ever get tired of living here?” she asked.

  He ran a hand over her wet breast, almost casual and definitely familiar. There was such warmth in that hand, and she wanted more. She had a feeling she could never get enough of this man.

  “Only when I get too much company,” he answered. “When that happens, I just toss a few grains of sand into the bed each night, and eventually they go home.”

  She moved her body closer to his, unable to stop herself, not wanting to stop. “If I overstay my welcome, are you going to toss sand in my bed?” she teased.

  “Not likely,” he said, his voice soft and uncertain.

  She wanted to ask him, What are we, Raintree? A couple? Coworkers who have sex on the side? Friends? But she didn’t want to ask questions she knew he didn’t have answers for. He kissed her under the shower’s spray, and his hands wandered. So did hers. She wanted him here and now, but there was no condom nearby, and she wasn’t about to let go of him, not yet. This felt too good, the spray of the water, Gideon’s mouth and his hands, and the way her body responded to both. It didn’t matter what they called themselves, not yet. Maybe one day it would matter, but for now, this was enough.

  She closed her eyes while Gideon spread her legs and touched her intimately. She could have sworn a spark entered her body, teasing her, arousing her, fluttering through her like a little bolt of lightning. Maybe it did. At this point, nothing seemed impossible.

  Her body began to quiver, she wanted Gideon so much.

  Instead of leading her from the shower, he pressed his palm against her belly, low, where she felt empty and shuddery. />
  “I’m gonna cheat,” he whispered into her ear.

  “Okay,” Hope whispered breathlessly, eyes closed as everything she had was focused on touch, and touch alone.

  She cried out as the orgasm washed through her with an unexpected intensity, and if Gideon hadn’t been holding her up, she probably would have fallen to the shower floor. But he did hold her up. He held her wet, slick body against his, as release whipped through her like lightning.

  As the orgasm faded, Gideon whispered, “Open your eyes.”

  She did so, slowly. There was an odd glow in the shower, and it didn’t come from Gideon. It came from her. Her aura, a literal afterglow, danced along her skin with little sparks of electricity. Gideon’s eyes shone with a touch of green light, just a touch. The rest of the glow came from her.

  He smiled. “Water is a great conductor.”

  He had been tempted to take Hope in the shower, condom or no condom, but Emma’s frequent appearances and promises of coming soon had made him opt for another method, at least for now.

  Besides, it wasn’t as if they were finished.

  They dried one another with a fat gray towel, then walked toward the bedroom and the bed that awaited. Hope’s skin still glowed, but the luminescence was quickly fading. She didn’t have the power to keep the electricity fed, as he did.

  He tossed her onto the bed, and she laughed as he crawled onto the mattress to join her. She stretched beneath him, naked and damp and touched with magic.

  “So,” she said, reaching out to caress his face with gentle fingers. “What do girls normally say when you turn them into your own personal flashlights?”

  He stroked her throat with the back of his hand. “I don’t know. I’ve never done it before.”

  Her smile faded.

  “I usually have to hide everything, remember?” He didn’t tell her that the glow was special, that she was different, that she was so unlike other women she stunned him.

  Hope shifted her body, making herself more comfortable against him. There was something most definitely different about the way his naked flesh and hers came together, something he didn’t want to think about. He didn’t want to think with her. He wanted sex. A few laughs, maybe.