Trick Me, Treat Me

by Leslie Kelly

  “Convenient. Given old man Marsden’s reputation, I’m sure Halloween weekend was the perfect time of year to open this inn.”

  She gulped. “You know about Mr. Marsden?”

  He glanced down at her. “Of course, we’ve been investigating this area. Anyone as colorful as Nathaniel Marsden would turn up.”

  “Yes, colorful,” she agreed, wondering if he knew exactly how “colorful” Nathaniel Marsden had been. Few did. Only those who’d known him in the old days knew the man had once been called Fat Lip Nathan. Not only because he’d had a prominent lower lip, but also because he’d frequently lost his temper and punched anyone who annoyed him back in his Chicago days.

  Aunt Hildy had told her about him after the lawyer had tracked her aunt down and told her Nathaniel Marsden had willed his house in Derryville to his only love. His partner in crime. His teenage girlfriend, Hildy Compton. Who’d apparently had a thing for guys with big, gooshy lower lips in her youth.

  “How do you like Derryville?”

  She couldn’t stop a wide smile. “It’s different from Boston. Homier. Which is funny since my homes have always been in cities. I should be conditioned to think of home as a high-rise with a million people, nightmarish traffic and lots of shops nearby.”

  He raised a brow. “Doesn’t exactly describe Derryville.”

  No, it didn’t. Which made it strange that she felt so comfortable here, like she’d finally found the place she was meant to be. She’d felt that from the first time she’d seen this wonderfully wicked-looking old house, when she’d arrived last winter. With Hildy’s help she’d been determined to make a fresh start, to rediscover herself and find the inner well of happiness and self-confidence Rick had so carelessly destroyed.

  Funny, for the first time since she’d arrived, she began to think about the possibility of being here and not being alone. She found herself wondering if the CIA or the Office of Homeland Security, or this Shop place, had a deep, dark, secret office in Derryville.

  One with permanent agents who stuck around for a while.

  AS GWEN CONTINUED her fictional account of how she and her Aunt Hildy had put so much work into getting the inn ready to open, Jared glanced around the kitchen. He’d never been inside this house, so he couldn’t say for sure, but there was a hint of fresh paint permeating the air. The place looked cleaner, brighter than he’d have expected for a long-vacant house.

  The kitchen’s condition gave him a moment’s pause, but he shrugged off the unease. His cousin Mick had never done things halfway. Mick could easily have called in a few favors and gotten somebody to work on the house before the party.

  After they’d talked for a while about the inn and the town, Gwen looked at the clock. “It’s late. I should say good-night.”

  She stood, pushing her chair away with the backs of her knees. Certainly it wasn’t by design that her legs were inches from his, that her waist and midriff were perfectly aligned with his appreciative stare. That with one small tilt of his head, he could savor a much closer glimpse of the deep vee of her neckline. The curves of her breasts held his attention, the long tangle of blond hair not concealing the dark tip of a taut nipple, so nicely outlined by the satiny white fabric.

  “You’re sure you want to…go?”

  Say no.

  “No.”

  He smiled.

  “But I have to,” she added.

  Silently admitting defeat, Jared pushed his own chair back. He needed to track down Mick, anyway, to find out where he was supposed to be staying in this house of games.

  He rose to his feet, his body brushing against hers as he made that long, sultry slide from seated to standing erect.

  Very erect, if truth be told.

  He didn’t step back, remaining beside her. Close enough that they shared the same space, breathed the same warm air…and likely thought the same wicked thoughts.

  “Good night, Gwen.” Then, unable to resist, he cupped her cheek. “Don’t worry. I won’t let anything happen to you.”

  Before she could slip away, he answered his body’s instinctive demand for one more taste, one more tiny sample of her lips. He lowered his mouth to hers, and this time heard her moan of acceptance as she parted her lips. Their tongues met, tangled in a slow, sultry dance of heat and pleasure that promised as much as it enticed. Aroused as much as it satisfied.

  Jared found himself wondering if he’d made a tactical error. No way was he going to be able to let her go, to walk away from her and go to bed alone. Not without a night filled with dreams of his blond seductress who tasted as sweet as she smelled.

  Before he could even draw his mouth away, however, to ask her if she wanted to make those dreams a reality, she jerked away. He saw her eyes widen and her mouth part in a half shriek just before something crashed into the back of his head with a painful thud.

  Then everything went black.

  5

  “OH, MY GOD, Aunt Hildy, you knocked him out!”

  Gwen crouched beside the secret agent sprawled on the faded linoleum floor of her kitchen. His eyes were closed, his lashes resting on his cheeks. As he’d fallen, he’d struck the table, tipping over his bottle, spilling water everywhere. So now he was both unconscious and lying in a sizable puddle.

  Through his parted lips, he drew in a ragged breath. He was alive, at least. But his body remained limp. She shivered, both from concern, and because the room had suddenly become terribly chilly. Looking at Hildy, she asked, “What were you thinking?”

  “I was saving you, dear. I got that bad man with this.”

  Gwen gaped as Hildy held up one leg from a pair of thick, old-lady support hose. The triple-strength nylon was bulging and misshapen, obviously filled with something heavy. Though her aunt held it high in her hand, the toe nearly touched the floor. “Rolled pennies. I keep this sucker in my bedside table. Learned that trick years ago. You’ll never guess who taught me.”

  No, and she wasn’t going to try. Especially not now, when there was an unconscious federal agent on her kitchen floor, and possibly an international arms dealer sleeping two floors above.

  “Didn’t have time to dig in my hope chest for my bean shooter,” the woman continued. “But this did all right.”

  Bean shooter. Gwen groaned, knowing enough of Hildy’s slang to know she was referring to her antique gun. Gwen had hoped she’d lost the thing. “Why would you do such a thing?”

  “Moe told me there was a bad man here in the kitchen.”

  Moe. Six Fingers Moe. One of the ghosts her aunt considered her best friends, living or dead. Good lord. “Aunt Hildy…”

  Suddenly, her aunt cocked a head sideways and frowned ferociously. “I do not need a hearing aid!”

  “What?”

  “Moe says I need a hearing aid, and now he’s laughing.”

  Laughing ghosts. Unconscious spies. A crazy Halloween night at a haunted inn. Her life had turned into a bad B-movie.

  Gwen closed her eyes, willing herself to open them and see only the ceiling of her room. This wasn’t real. She had to have fallen asleep and was now in the middle of an incredibly intense dream. But when she opened her eyes she recognized the kitchen.

  Aunt Hildy was shaking a bony fist in the air and glaring at the air above her head. “It’s not funny. This is your fault.”

  On the floor, Miles Stone continued to lie in silence. Gorgeous, mysterious, dark and handsome. As still as a rock. And armed. And likely to be very ticked off when he woke up.

  No, not a dream. This was a pure, undiluted nightmare. Not quite Freddy Krueger level, but pretty darn close.

  Thinking back to the CPR classes she’d taken during her Girl Scout days, she scrambled to remember what one did to help an unconscious person. She touched Miles’s neck, feeling a strong, steady pulse. Breathing a sigh of relief, she gently tilted his head. She bit her lip when her fingers brushed against a sizable lump on the back of his skull. “You could have killed him.”

  “Oh, my goodnes
s,” Hildy said, drawing her shaking hand up to her lips. “Moe swears he didn’t say bad man. He said G-man. He woke me up to tell me there was a G-man in the kitchen.”

  Gwen carefully placed the man’s head back on the floor then hurried to the refrigerator, still shivering in the chilly air of the kitchen. She grabbed a handful of ice, wrapped it in a towel and returned to Miles’s side.

  “That’s why Moe’s laughing. I pasted a G-man. Haven’t done that since I was a girl.” Hildy didn’t sound too dismayed. In fact, an amused grin played about her lips.

  “I should call for help.” Gwen held the ice against the lump, thinking how fortunate it was that Miles had such thick brown hair. Perhaps it was sufficient cushion to prevent serious injury when struck by little old ladies armed with pennies.

  Then again, her great-aunt was pretty strong. She’d once escaped a Chicago cop with a sharp elbow to the throat.

  Hildy walked over and looked down at Miles, squinting to make out his features since she wasn’t wearing her glasses. She hunkered down beside him, taking stock of his dark clothes, his long, lean body. “Nice.” She looked up and obviously noticed Gwen’s disapproval. “Come on, admit it. You think he’s a hottie, too. Otherwise you wouldn’t have been kissing him.”

  Gwen had hoped Aunt Hildy hadn’t noticed that part, since she’d approached Miles from behind. She should have known better. Hildy was like a bloodhound when it came to sniffing out anything that hinted at romance. Particularly where Gwen was concerned. Hildy’s skills apparently hadn’t grown rusty with disuse. “Well, maybe so, but it’s not nice to ogle an unconscious, helpless man.”

  “That’s the best way to ogle them,” Hildy replied with an unrepentant shrug. “Specially when they’re naked.” She reached for Miles’s sleeve.

  “You’re not taking his clothes off!”

  “Of course I’m not. Though he is getting wet.” She pointed to the puddle and gave Gwen a hopeful glance.

  “No.”

  Hildy shrugged. “Never mind. I only wanted to check out this scar.” She peered at Miles’s hand, raising it toward the light so Gwen could also look at the curved, puckered flesh. “Bet he got shot. Or maybe he was in a knife fight. Or maybe he was tortured. Burned with cigarettes while tied down and forced to listen to William Shatner singing ‘Mr. Tambourine Man.’”

  Before Gwen could reply, or so much as chuckle at her aunt’s typical twisting train of thought, Hildy continued. “Hmm…not bad.” She lowered his hand and took a closer look at his face. “He is good-looking for a G-man. Big. Looks more like a bruno.”

  “His name is Miles. Miles Stone.” Gwen said.

  “I didn’t mean Bruno was his name. I meant he looks more like an enforcer than a copper.”

  “A copper?”

  “Yeah. Moe says he’s not completely sure this guy is a G-man…you know, an FBI agent. But he’s got something to do with the law. He could be a bull, a john, a private dick.” When Gwen just stared at the old woman, Hildy put a hand on her hip, a picture of impatience. “Hammer and saw? A peeper?”

  Speaking slowly, to cut through her great-aunt’s obvious delight in whipping out the vocabulary of her youth, Gwen explained, “Aunt Hildy, this man is a federal agent. He’s pursuing a very dangerous suspect. And you’ve just knocked him unconscious with a stocking full of pennies.”

  Her aunt pursed her lower lip and scrunched her nose. “Guess this isn’t going to be good for business, huh?”

  “It’s not exactly legal, either.” Not that being on the wrong side of the law had stopped Aunt Hildy in her younger days.

  Hildy shrugged and rose to her feet, rubbing her back. “Not Moe’s fault he didn’t know what to call the guy. He don’t know about the CIA cause he was dead before they got started up.”

  “He knows about Madonna,” Gwen couldn’t help muttering as she gently tapped on Miles’s cheek to try to get him to wake up.

  Either Hildy didn’t hear her or she chose to ignore the comment. “If Moe had known about the CIA, he would have said there was a spook in here, and I wouldn’t have worried. Spook doesn’t sound anything like bad man.”

  No, but it does sound like kook. She instantly regretted the unkind thought. Her Aunt Hildy was not a kook. She was a darling, loveable, eccentric, funny old former gangster’s moll who liked to talk to ghosts.

  “G doesn’t sound like bad, either,” she replied. “Moe was right, you do need a hearing aid.” When she heard the words come out of her own mouth, she couldn’t believe she’d said them. She was agreeing with a ghost. Gwen Compton had officially lost it.

  She returned her attention to their unconscious guest. “He’s not coming to. We should call 9–1-1.”

  “Are you sure he’s who he says he is?”

  “I saw his ID. And he has a picture of the suspect.” Gwen cast a glance toward the unconscious man’s briefcase.

  Hildy reacted with typical curiosity, grabbing the case and tugging it closer. “Let’s make sure.”

  “Aunt Hildy, you leave that alone.”

  “No harm checking.”

  “No. No checking. We can’t get involved with this. We just need to get him some medical attention.” Quickly running over several options, she ruled out the most obvious one. There was too much at stake to pick up the phone and dial 9–1–1. An arriving ambulance, with sirens and lights, would wake up the house. Including the potentially dangerous man sleeping upstairs.

  She couldn’t risk it. Not while Miles was unconscious, unable to defend himself. Then she remembered…one of their guests was a doctor. But, for all she knew, the woman could very well be the mysterious Miss Jones that Miles had been talking about. She might be every bit as dangerous to Miles as the arms dealer.

  Gwen closed her eyes, trying to remember every detail about the doctor. Thankfully, she immediately recalled how much she’d admired the lady’s emerald necklace during the cocktail party. The dark-haired woman had been wearing it with a low-cut, square-necked dress. And most important…she’d seen no star-shaped birthmark.

  “Aunt Hildy, can you please go up to the Lady in Red room and ask Dr. Wilson if she’ll come down and help?”

  “Lady in Red room,” Hildy muttered, sounding almost as disgruntled as she did whenever her heel spurs started bothering her. “I hate that name. She was a stoolie.”

  “You’re the one who insisted on the gangster theme.”

  Aunt Hildy didn’t argue the point. They’d been over it too many times. Gwen had tried to talk her out of this gangster bed-and-breakfast idea, knowing how much the old woman’s former associations had affected her life. Gwen had spent a lot of time trying to protect her only living relative from her scandalous past. But Hildy had been adamant, and she’d gotten her way. After all, though the money to improve it had been Gwen’s, the house belonged to Aunt Hildy. She’d inherited it from Fat Lip Nathan, who had to have led a pretty lonely life if he’d willed his house to a woman he hadn’t seen in over sixty years.

  “All right, I’ll go get the doctor,” Hildy said, padding toward the door in her slippered feet, her long cotton nightgown swirling around her thin legs.

  “And please, be careful. Don’t wake up anyone else.”

  “I won’t.” Hildy smiled, as if she enjoyed the idea of being clandestine. “The only room on that side of the hall is Dillinger’s Den. Is anybody in there?”

  Gwen checked Miles’s breathing again and gave a distracted nod. “Yes, so do be quiet. That Realtor is staying in there.”

  “Realtor?”

  “The one who had this house listed for sale before the lawyer realized there was a living heir and tracked you down.”

  Miles stirred slightly, and she smoothed his hair off his brow in a comforting gesture. Then she glanced up at Aunt Hildy, who waited for clarification. “Remember? You know who I mean, your boyfriend Samuel’s grandson. Mick Winchester.”

  AS HE SLOWLY regained consciousness, he became aware of an incredible softness against his cheek.
And the smell of apples. Sweet, cinnamon apples. He tried to open his eyes, wanting to know the source of the delicious aroma, but even that tiny movement sent a shard of pain rushing through his skill.

  “Are you awake?”

  A soft voice. A husky voice. A feminine voice. A voice almost as intriguing as that smell. His mind crawled toward it, one mental step at a time, trying to climb out of the haze clouding his brain and making lead weights of his limbs.

  “Ummm…” was the best he could do in response.

  “Miles, I’m so sorry, I can’t believe my aunt hit you.”

  The sweet-smelling woman’s aunt had hit him? Didn’t sound very dramatic, unless the aunt doubled as a heavyweight.

  “She’s old and protective. I don’t imagine she realized a bag of pennies would be that heavy.”

  An old lady had caused this pain? With pennies? Not only sadly undramatic, it was beginning to sound downright pathetic.

  “She thought you were someone else. And I can’t imagine what she must have thought, walking in here and seeing us…kissing.”

  This time, his eyes flew open in spite of the pain. Kissing? He’d been kissing this delightful-sounding, delicious-smelling person? That was the type of thing he ought to know, right?

  Unfortunately, he couldn’t grab hold of a single thought, couldn’t remember a damn thing because of the jackhammer pounding in his head. Something he regretted when his eyes cleared enough to let him take in the vision of a woman kneeling next to him.

  Beautiful. Blond. Half-naked. With long, shining hair that lay tangled on his own chest because she was leaning over him. And perfect, magnificent breasts almost spilling out of a shimmery white gown, mere inches from his face.

  He swallowed, hard, as all the blood not involved in making his temples pound descended due south. Funny how he could suddenly throb in two spots. His head. And his groin. Fortunately, she didn’t appear to notice.