Take Me Out (Crimson Romance)

by Elley Arden

  “That must have been Jeffrey,” she murmured.

  “I don’t need to know his name.”

  “Well, what you saw didn’t mean a thing. I tried to convince myself that I was all over you, but it didn’t work, so I broke it off with Jeffrey.”

  “You could have called me.”

  She sighed. “Hindsight is always good, isn’t it? I knew you came home for the holidays. When I didn’t hear from you, I thought you’d moved on. People do, you know.”

  Gearshift be damned, she was in his arms again. Finally, breathless, she drew away.

  “What about that pizza?”

  “If you’re hungry, we can go back to my place. I’ll whip up something.”

  “I want to take this slow. It’s been a long time. Maybe we’re both in love with a memory. Neither one of us is the same as we were back then. You might not even like me now.”

  He drew a deep breath.

  “Girl, you’re driving me nuts,” he said. “I’m in love with you. Five years or fifty, it’s always been you. I want you. I want to make love to you over and over to make up for the five years that we both let slip away.”

  The temptation was overwhelming. Just once, she thought, to reawaken the passions that lay dormant for so long. No. She pushed away from him.

  “I’m not ready,” she said. Liar, her body proclaimed, while her mind applauded her decision. She opened the car door and got out.

  “Don’t do this,” he pleaded.

  “Rob, I do love you, but … ” She didn’t even know what to add.

  “Okay,” he said. “I won’t push you. But I can’t wait forever, Trish.”

  • • •

  The next night, the trio once again gathered around the card table in the darkened concession stand. It was late at night, and the game had been over for hours.

  “Before we begin,” Rob said, “I want to bring you up to date. Here’s the story. I talked to my friend in Vegas. Whitman died in 1966. He was driving back from California and he lost control of his car and plunged into a ravine. He left an estate of close to a hundred thousand dollars — a helluva lot of money even now, let alone back then. His widow is suffering from Alzheimer’s, so there’s nothing to learn from her. But here’s the interesting part. He had bank accounts all over Florida and Nevada. I checked probate for five years prior to the time he was supposed to have inherited. There was no will that ever named him as the beneficiary, and there is no record of where all his money came from. No real estate sales, no stock transfers; Mr. Whitman just came into a fortune from thin air.”

  Trish and Peg were silent as they absorbed this latest information.

  Trish was the first to break the silence.

  “So the mob paid him off to set up Lefty and take the heat off them?”

  “Yes,” Peg answered. “If anyone back then had taken the time to investigate Whitman … ” she was silent for a heartbeat. “Well, let’s get on with it.” She lit the red candle, straightened her turban, and began muttering under her breath.

  “Join hands,” she intoned.

  Trish and Rob smiled. Their hands had been clasped under the table. Now they raised them up to the tabletop.

  “Lefty,” Peg said. “This is Rob. He’s going to read something to you.”

  Rob opened his laptop.

  “Today, nearly fifty years after it occurred, a grave injustice will be righted. In the late 1950s, the Sharks’ star pitcher was Paul “Lefty” Lefkowitz. While still in his early twenties, he threw a perfect no-hitter game: no runs, no walks, no hits. He was destined for greatness, a young man whose name would go down in the history books. And it did, but not in the way anyone could have expected. In 1962, Lefty allegedly committed suicide to avoid prosecution for corruption. He was suspected of disclosing insider information to the mob, skewing the gambling odds and betraying his team for fat payoffs. With little concrete evidence to go on, the baseball commission, the Attorney General’s office, the entire Sharks ball club, rushed to judgment. Now, through the efforts of a young reporter, new evidence has surfaced. Lefty Lefkowitz did not commit suicide; he was murdered to cover up the guilt of the real criminals. It is too late for his killer to be brought to justice in this world. One can only hope that justice will prevail in the next. But truth, like a body that won’t stay buried, will always win out. And the spirit of Lefty Lefkowitz can now rest easy, knowing that his name and stellar reputation will be restored. He was a fine young man whose spirit has longed for closure. This is it. Rest in peace, Lefty.” He looked up. “I’ve got a lot more information to compile before I write my book, but I wanted to share this with you ladies, and, uh, Lefty.”

  The flame in the candle flared brightly. There was a faint whisper in the air, something between a sigh and a breathy voice, the sound traveling as though from a great distance.

  “Did you hear that?” Peg asked. “He said thank you.” She smiled. “Rest in peace, Lefty. Rest in peace.”

  • • •

  They lingered outside the stadium, not wanting the feeling of euphoria to end. Trish regretted her scornful dismissal of Gran’s spiritual voyage. She held Rob’s hand, realizing that on their voyage to clear an innocent man’s name, she had once again found her true love. Her heart swelled with the joy of it. Tonight would be theirs, when all the pent-up passion and longing would find release. She and Rob, just the way it was meant to be. She was acutely conscious of him standing beside her, of his firm, athlete’s body, the strength of his hand gripping hers. A picture flashed through her mind — she and Rob, naked, flesh to flesh, his touch gentle but demanding. A shiver passed over her. Rob seemed to sense her thoughts, for his eyes widened as he looked down at her. And they knew, both of them, that tonight — soon — their lonely voyages would end. They trembled at the thought of the evening still to come.

  • • •

  With a hint of sadness, Peg thought back over the lost years. She found solace in the thought that at last her memories of Lefty would be returned to her unsullied. It was getting late, and it was time to move on.

  “Young man,” Peg said, “why don’t you stop dilly-dallying and ask this pretty girl out for a drink?”

  Rob leaned over and kissed Peg on the cheek. “You’re right. I’ve dilly-dallied for five years now.” He turned to Trish. “I wish I could go back and take you to the prom, but unless Peg can come up with a time machine, I guess that’s out.”

  Peg laughed. “If I could come up with a time machine, you’d better believe I’d be young and beautiful with my whole life left to play out.”

  She got into her car and just sat for a moment, watching Rob and Trish run off hand-in-hand like two teenagers. She smiled. She wouldn’t leave the outside light on. Not tonight. “Good night, Lefty,” she whispered.

  About the Author

  I was born, raised and educated in Vermont. Moved to Connecticut, got married to an artist, moved to Florida, moved to Las Vegas, moved back to Florida, and here I am, tired of moving. I’m a widow, have two grown children, one an actor/musician/teacher, the other a writer/teacher/TV producer. I also have three grandchildren, who apparently haven’t taken a lesson from the history of their forebears and are pursuing careers in music, art, and drama. Long sigh …

  I’ve placed twice in short-story writing competitions, ran a tiny sci-fi publishing house with my daughter, did a stint as a columnist in a small town weekly paper, had a novel Dire Straits published, now unfortunately out of print.

  It’s hard to sum up nearly eighty-one years of life in a short paragraph. Years ago, I wrote short poem:

  I lived

  I laughed

  I loved

  I cried

  But what the hell

  I finally died.

  Kinda says it all, I guess.

  Want more Bea Moon? Be sure to check the end of this book for a sneak peek from another Crimson Romance by this author!

  A Sneak Peek from Crimson Romance

  (From Change My Mind
by Elley Arden)

  Nel slammed the brakes and strangled the steering wheel, fighting the urge to close her eyes, praying at least one dog cleared her Volvo’s front end. Miraculously, both animals escaped disaster, dodging her car and scrambling across the empty lanes of traffic. They disappeared behind the big red sign that still made Nel’s heart skip a beat more than a year after its first appearance.

  Parker Properties, Inc. — as in Penelope Parker. The satisfaction of owning a real estate agency never faded.

  Smoothing her right hand beneath the navy blue lapel of her wool suit coat, Nel welcomed the vibration of her heart against her hand. Of course, this bout of breathlessness was more than likely related to the kamikaze dogs … a skinny Rottweiler and a mangy golden retriever who were now eye-deep in the office’s trash.

  Apparently the mess-maker of the last couple weeks wasn’t a raccoon.

  Parking in her usual spot to the right of the front door, Nel left her briefcase and Monday’s bag of bagels on the passenger seat to launch from the car with three sharp claps.

  “Get outta there!” she yelled, second-guessing the brazen scare tactic when her voice hit the ice-cold air.

  First the golden turned lackluster eyes on her, then the rottie. They looked sad, sick, and painfully thin. Their ribs lined the sparse fur of their bellies, and their tails hung between their legs.

  “Poor babies.” Nel exhaled, careful not to make any sudden movements. Hungry dogs could become mean dogs in the blink of an eye, something she should’ve thought about before she brought their full, agitated attention on her.

  Fortunately there was no attempt to run her off, no growling or lips curling. Instead, a pitiful, phantom whine arose from one of the dogs as they both returned their noses to the garbage pile. Too bad there wasn’t much edible in the black bags — a few pieces of crust from Friday’s impromptu pizza lunch if they were lucky, certainly not enough to satisfy two starving dogs.

  Nel turned back to the car, leaned across the front seat, and snagged the bag of bagels. Removing the carton of cream cheese, napkins, and plastic knives, she ripped a bagel in three pieces and tossed the chunks toward the animals, who jerked when the bagels thumped against the pavement.

  They spied her, widening their stances, a type of standoff between foes. When Nel was sure her efforts were futile, the golden moved closer, nose to the ground, as if the bagel could be sucked through his flaring nostrils.

  “Thatta girl,” Nel whispered, having no idea whether or not the endearment fit. She tilted her head, looking for signs of manhood, only to roll her eyes at the awkward search.

  And then the rottie moved. Five seconds later, the bagel pieces were devoured, and Nel had two new friends — friends who were desperate for more food, some water, and a good hot bath.

  “What the heck is going on out here?” Rena poked her rounded face and large green eyes around the front door. “That better not be my asiago.”

  Nel looked at the last piece of asiago bagel in her hand and then back to Rena. “I’ll buy you more.”

  The dogs bolted for the open door, dashing past Rena and into the office.

  “Are you kidding me?” Rena yelled. “Get them out.”

  “They’re cold.” Nel picked up her pace and reached for the door, holding it open as they followed the dogs inside.

  “They can’t be here.”

  “They’re strays.”

  The rottie tipped over a small trash can with his tail while the golden stuck her nose into an open filing cabinet.

  Rena groaned. “They can’t stay.”

  “Of course they can’t stay, but I can’t let them loose to get hit by a car. Come here, guys.” Nel hunched over and patted palms to her knees.

  To her surprise, the dogs obeyed. And as she smoothed hands over their course fur, she noticed collars and tags.

  “Can you get a look at their tags?” Nel asked, holding the dogs’ attention with soft, steady strokes to their bony heads.

  “They’re dirty, they smell; I’m sure they have fleas. I’m not touching them.”

  “Rena, I’m not asking you to hug them. Just bend over and peek at the tags.” Some days Nel regretted hiring her best friend. The familiarity led to more than a few moments of dissonance. But hiring Rena was sort of a mercy mission. Nobody aspired to be thirty, working part-time at a pretzel stand in the mall. And Nel couldn’t let Rena think that was all she was good for.

  Rena rattled off a telephone number. “Remember 5293,” she said, scrambling to her desk, digging through her top drawer. “Damn it! I need more pens.”

  “Do you eat them?” Nel teased, still rubbing the tired-looking dogs behind the ears.

  “Funny. What was the number I told you to remember?”

  “5293.” Nel looked around the reception area. “Do we have something I can use to give them water?”

  “The bucket the cleaners use for mopping,” Rena said, holding the desk phone to her ear.

  “I’m not going to let them drink out of something with chemical residue.”

  “They were eating out of the garbage. I hardly think it matters.”

  It mattered. They didn’t deserve to be subjected to more harm. By the looks of them, they’d been through so much already. Nel stared into their sad eyes and smiled while she made a mental tour of the office, settling on a plastic bowl full of blank nametags in the supply closet.

  “No answer, and the mailbox is full. Now what?” Rena perched on the edge of her desk.

  “Get me the plastic bowl from the supply closet filled with water, and then we’ll think of something.”

  Nel hated to call the shelter … actually, she refused. There were plenty of rescues around town who would ensure the dogs were rehabbed and given good homes. Before she reached out to one of them, she would do whatever she could to find the animals’ owner.

  The rottie slumped to the hardwood floor, leaving Nel petting the golden. With a tiny movement, Nel moved her hand lower on the golden’s neck, combing her nails through the fur, inching closer to the buckle. If she could just get a good look at the tags …

  “Where do you want it?” Rena walked toward them with the bowl.

  “Right here.” Nel gestured to the floor at her feet and stepped back while unlatching the collar in one fluid movement. She glanced at the tags in her hand. “The golden’s name is Blackjack.” The telephone number Rena called was etched below the name. Beneath that tag nestled a county-issued tag. “I wonder if they can trace the dogs by this number.”

  It was worth a phone call.

  While the dogs drank, Nel made the call, and sure enough, the ID number on Blackjack’s tag led to the address used to license the dog — an address that wasn’t far away. Nel glanced at the dogs, resting on the drenched floor, noses centimeters from the water bowl, and satisfaction squared her shoulders. She was going to get these boys home, and home was … she Googled the address, nearly dropping the phone when she looked at the satellite map.

  “Oh. My. God.” She pointed to her cell phone screen. “Rena, these dogs belong at Castle Chaos.”

  Castle Chaos was the single greatest piece of residential architecture in the South Hills. The kind of property that could put a small, struggling real estate agency on the radar of every other agency in Pittsburgh.

  “I suppose that’s fitting,” Rena sneered. “Decrepit animals belong in a decrepit house.”

  Nel waved off the cynicism. “That house is worth millions.”

  “To a vampire in Transylvania.”

  “I love that house.”

  “You also love slasher movies. Your taste is questionable.”

  Nel stuck out her tongue rather than defend her cinematic choices once again. “I’m going to drive the dogs over there.”

  “In your car?”

  “No, in yours.” She cast Rena a sarcastic grin and clapped to get the dogs’ attention.

  Everything happened for a reason. These dogs, coming from that house, now being in h
er office, had business opportunity written all over it. Maybe the old, rich guy who owned the place would be so thankful to see his dogs returned safely, he’d admit he couldn’t keep up with the house anymore, and he’d agree to let Nel be the listing agent. She smiled as she slid behind the wheel of her car with the dogs safely in the backseat.

  One of these days, Nel Parker was going to look back on this moment and remember it as the moment when everything changed.

  • • •

  Elevator music on the other end of the cell phone threatened to drive Grey insane. If his teeth weren’t being ground to bits out of frustration, they’d be chattering, shaking along with the rest of his chilled body. How hard was it to get a boiler fixed in the dead of winter?

  “We can have the technician there tomorrow morning, tomorrow afternoon at the latest.”

  Apparently pretty damn hard.

  “That’s the best you can do?” Grey growled.

  “I’m afraid so, sir. Looking at past maintenance records I can tell you … that particular boiler is a special case.”

  Of course it was, because Grey’s father never did anything reasonable.

  With a grunt of concession he ended the call, sliding the cell phone across the marble counter, careful not to touch the ice-cold stone and add to his misery. He knew returning this house to some semblance of glory was going to be backbreaking work, but he never expected to freeze to death before he drove a single nail.

  Scrubbing his palms together, Grey tried to generate some heat; thankful for the beard he left growing long after the Argonauts were eliminated from the postseason. Anonymity was the initial reason for the thick black facial hair, but now there was a practical purpose for not packing a razor or shaving cream. He needed warmth, but he needed more than the beard and the six-burner gas stove were supplying.

  A limestone fireplace loomed over the great room, offering an easy solution now that the boiler wasn’t going to be fixed until tomorrow. Grey didn’t like the idea of using a fireplace that hadn’t been serviced in God-only-knew how long, but he’d have to take his chances.