Wedding Takedown

by Geri Krotow

  “You haven’t looked at me once all night.”

  Gloria. And it had to be Mickey with her. Kayla squatted and got underneath the full-length tablecloth. Under the table and behind the linen, she was virtually invisible to anyone who came in and out of the room. Crawling as close to the end of the table as possible, she sat still and forced her breathing to be quiet.

  “It’s not the time for us to be doing anything, Gloria. We can’t take a chance now. There are too many eyes around.”

  “What are you worried about? Tony’s not going to be charged with the murder, and you didn’t have anything to do with it. Right, Mickey? You weren’t lying to me, were you?”

  “No, I would never lie to you.” Silence and then smacking noises. Kayla had to work on not making a disgusted noise. Quite the demonstrative “secret” couple, they were.

  “Oh, Mickey, I just want to have our regular schedule back. It’s been hell with the wedding.”

  “It’ll all be over tomorrow, don’t worry. After that we’ll get back to what we both like best.” More stomach-churning noises of Gloria and Mickey’s kisses floated to Kayla. She wondered if she should get out from under the table while she could, when no one would see her here. She didn’t want to get stuck and risk someone seeing her crawl out from under the structure.

  As the sounds became more intense, she made her move to escape. Getting out from under the table was easy enough, and she had her hand up to push open the door to the small hallway when it opened and Cynthia came barreling into the room. They collided with one another and Kayla’s first thought was to reach for her weapon, which was securely strapped to her thigh. But Kayla didn’t want Cynthia to know about the gun, and as they stepped back from each other, Kayla realized she needn’t worry. Cynthia had a distracted look on her face.

  “What are you still doing here?” Flashing eyes and a furrowed brow reflected her ire.

  “I’m moving the flower arrangements for the inn. Then I’ll be on my way.” Kayla was very aware of Gloria and Mickey in the alcove. Did Cynthia know they were there, too?

  “I’m looking for my father. Have you seen him?”

  “At the bar with you, a couple of minutes ago. Maybe he’s in the restroom?” Cynthia acted as if she didn’t hear her as she looked around the room.

  “I don’t think so.”

  “Maybe he went out for some air. It was getting a little overheated in the bar.”

  Cynthia assessed her and Kayla saw a vision of the attorney she’d be in a short time. Hard. Intense. Unforgiving. Then the usual mask of supreme perfection was back and Cynthia nodded. “You’re right. He’s probably in his car, waiting for Gloria.”

  “She might be with him.” Kayla looked to see if Cynthia’s expression changed, but the girl was made of granite. “Maybe. I’ll go check.” Cynthia turned and left the room. Kayla followed but headed past the bar and into the larger event room instead of the exit.

  She thought of shouting a “you’re welcome” over her shoulder to Gloria and Mickey. She’d just saved them a nasty moment with Cynthia.

  When she took the remaining arrangements into the room, there were no more murmurs, and she purposefully placed the flowers at the end of the table, where she was in full view of anyone in the alcove. It was empty. Gloria and Mickey had left in the short time since she and Cynthia had been here.

  By the time she’d finished ten minutes later, only Cynthia and Mickey were at the bar. Charles had called it a night, she’d heard Cynthia telling him that she’d call him when she got in and for him to go on home “for your last night as a bachelor.” Kayla didn’t think a grieving widower truly classified as a bachelor and wondered if Charles would even have looked twice at Cynthia had he been in a clearer emotional state.

  Mickey and Cynthia seemed to be enjoying a last nightcap together as she walked out, with no sign of the mayor and his wife. She hoped she didn’t have to hear or see any more of Gloria and Mickey in the throes of their forbidden lust.

  She shook her head to herself as she headed out to her van. Those two were going to get caught sooner or later, and it wasn’t going to be pretty. Uncovering an affair between Gloria and Mickey had simply been collateral information gleaned during this case, however. She still had her sights on finding out who had killed Meredith Houseman and who had tried to kill her.

  A dark figure stood next to her van and she paused, reflexively reaching under her skirt for her weapon.

  “Relax, it’s me.” Rio emerged to stand under the parking-lot light, his hand light on her arm. “You okay?”

  “I was fine until you just scared me half to death. But I’m good, really. How long have you been here?”

  She saw a flash of white as he smiled. “Since dark. We have a couple of plainclothesmen in the restaurant and they let me know when dinner was almost over. I caught a ride with the car that’s taking them back to SVPD headquarters.”

  “If I’d known you were here I could have left sooner.”

  “No, you couldn’t. Let’s talk in the van.”

  * * *

  She drove while Rio took notes on her observations. It was intimate in the darkness as they talked. Whenever she was near him, she was hyperaware of her surroundings. It was her defense mechanism to keep from thinking about what they’d done on her stairs, what she wanted to do again with him.

  “Hiding under that table was smart, but I hate to think of how long you could have been stuck there if you didn’t get out when you did.”

  “Or what else I would have heard. Yuck.” She glanced over at him for a brief moment. “I had already decided I’d pretend I’d lost an earring and was looking under the table for it.”

  “And you would have gotten away with it. Me, I don’t have any piercings.”

  “You never would have fit under the table. You’re too big.” Desire settled between her legs as she verbalized what she’d fought to keep her mind off the entire time she’d been staying with Rio. Him. His body. Their bodies together.

  “You’re doing an incredible job, Kayla.” The rough edge to his voice made her flush, and when he started to knead her neck with his fingers, she had to work to stay focused on the road. “Rio, don’t. We’ve done well so far.”

  “Except for the stairs.”

  She blew out a breath. “Yeah, well, we’re only human. It’s been very unsettling this past week or so, for sure. It’s not like I ever thought I’d be involved with a murder case.”

  “You’re a strong woman. It’s why you’re so independent.” His right hand massaged her neck as she drove and she didn’t complain. She was getting tired of fighting her attraction to Rio.

  It’s not just the attraction. You care about him.

  She’d never stopped caring about him.

  “Have you reconsidered your vow to stay single for as long as possible?” His voice wasn’t mocking or cajoling. Honest and filled with hope, perhaps?

  “I’ll admit that after seeing the shenanigans between Gloria and Mickey, I should be more skeptical of marriage and happily-ever-after. And to see Cynthia wrap Charles in her Machiavellian web is frightening. It’s highlighted for me that maybe it’s okay to make a lifetime commitment—but only if it’s the right person and not one minute sooner.” She’d never spoken words like this before but they didn’t surprise her. It was a thought that had been rolling around in her head a lot, more since she and Rio had been forced to be together each day.

  “You’re scaring me, Kayla. You sound like you’ve talked yourself out of one of the reasons we broke up.”

  “There was nothing to break up. We were barely dating.”

  “We were more than friends with benefits. We are more than that, and now you’re finally admitting it.” Rio’s conviction rattled her to her toes. It wasn’t what scared her, though. What frightened her was that she wasn’t afraid.

  Being with Rio day in and day out felt natural. Normal. Right.

  “What are you thinking?”

  “That
I need to go over my notes on the flower plan for the house and gazebo, and then review what we know so far about the case.”

  “We’ve done all of that, Kayla. The night before a big op is time to rest and sleep as much as possible. You don’t know when you’ll get rest again.”

  “Why are you so sure we’ll get the murderer tomorrow?”

  “Because Tony Charbonneau may suspect that the information Meredith had was copied. Meredith was a perfectionist and threatened him that she was going to the police unless he came clean. Someone that smart wouldn’t not make a copy. He has no idea that we have it, but it’s enough to make him act out. He’ll want to deal with whomever he thinks has the information.”

  “Or have one of his thugs do it for him.”

  “Right.”

  They were at her shop where she maneuvered the van up the alley and to the back of it. “How will we get to your place?”

  “My car is around the corner.”

  “You think of everything, Rio.”

  * * *

  Two hours later she sat at Rio’s kitchen table sipping herbal tea and going through the notes Rio had on the case. She considered it a small victory that he’d let her look at his private notes. Talking the case over was one thing but sharing his personal theories and hunches meant more to her than a dinner out on the town. She giggled.

  “I didn’t realize the Charbonneaus were amusing.” He drank a big mug of warm milk as he leaned against the granite counter. A grey T-shirt stretched across his chest and pajama bottoms with Spider-Man printed on them somehow looked sexy on him.

  “Where did you get the Spidey pj’s?”

  He glanced down. “My sisters. They’re always getting me silly stuff at Christmas.”

  “Do you ever go back to Texas for the holidays?”

  He shook his head. “No. My family’s all here now. We moved after my grandfather died. My uncle was already in central Pennsylvania, so it was an easy thing for my mother to do. My abuelita had passed by then...” He took another gulp of his milk before he leveled his brown eyes on her. “No distractions. Focus. What were you laughing at?”

  “I was thinking about what a big deal it is for you to share your case notes with anyone, especially me. And for me, it’s a huge gift. Thank you. This is more meaningful to me than if you took me out for a lobster dinner with champagne.” She’d almost said romantic dinner. Not where her mind, or Rio’s, needed to go tonight.

  “I understand.” He was perfectly still and she wanted to get up from the table and wrap her arms around his waist, get him to open up more about his childhood, his teenage years, what led him to be a cop. But they had work to do and she had to keep her head on straight. Figuring out what she wanted to do with her feelings for Rio couldn’t be done while working on her first case for Trail Hikers.

  “We need to rest, Kayla. Let’s call it a night.” He eased off the counter, turned and rinsed his mug. Kayla stood up and closed his laptop. “Thanks, Rio. I’ll see you in the morning. Good night.”

  “Good night, Kayla.”

  She went to the guest room, her body aching with need and desire for him. There were so many reasons to quell her longing for Rio, from the fact that they didn’t need the distraction, as he’d said, to the reality that Rio wasn’t a man to mess with. If she gave herself to him again, it had to come with something more permanent. A commitment.

  That word didn’t elicit thoughts of a nightmarish life stifled by boredom, or a vanilla life in a small town in the middle of nowhere. Instead, a small thrill ran through her and made her think that maybe, just maybe, she and Rio could make a go of it.

  After they solved the case.

  CHAPTER 17

  Rio woke to the sound of dripping rain the morning of the wedding. As he lay in his bed he couldn’t help but want Kayla here, next to him. There were times he hated being so damn professional. Except for the total lapse of sanity on Kayla’s stairs, which he was grateful as hell for, he’d steered away from too much physical connection.

  The woman already has your heart.

  He sat up, almost hitting his knees against the nightstand as he swung his legs around. Where the hell had that thought come from?

  From the same place as the uncontrollable urge to tear off her clothes in her foyer had. Last night had been rough. He’d fought his primal urge to make love to her on his maple kitchen table. She’d looked so damn hot as she’d studied his notes.

  He was losing it. Since when did anyone look sexy working on a laptop? And when she’d commented on his Spider-Man bottoms, he’d wanted to invite her to take them off and let him show her what a superhero he could be.

  He stumbled into the bathroom and took his usual four-minute shower, shaved and was in the kitchen with coffee perking by five. Kayla needed to be at the Charbonneaus’ by eight, so he’d probably have a couple of hours to himself until she woke up. He’d been surprised by how quickly she got ready in the mornings. As if she’d been born into law enforcement.

  He opened his laptop and prepared to sink himself into the case, searching as always for the missed clue, the overlooked detail that could yield pay dirt. The murderer.

  “Rio. Good morning.” She stood at the counter in her pajamas, her hair mussed but her eyes bright and an anticipatory expression on her face. “It’s takedown or bust today, isn’t it?”

  Ignoring her reference to the case, he shut his laptop. “There’s fresh coffee for you. Creamer is...you know where the creamer is.” He couldn’t stand up and pour her a cup of the fresh brew, not without her noticing what he wanted at the moment. His erection strained against his cargo pants and he wondered how soft her mouth would feel against his.

  “Thanks.” She helped herself and he took advantage of the view of her ass in her short pajama bottoms. Tight and curvy. “You working on the case?” She shot the question over her shoulder, oblivious to his morning sexual fantasies.

  Morning sex. They hadn’t had that since they’d dated. And it was hard to classify it as morning or nighttime sex then, as when they’d been together it had been a constant need they’d both been eager to fulfill during the wee hours.

  “I was going over some of my notes.”

  “You’re always on a case, aren’t you?” She pulled out the chair across from him and sat down, but not before he had a full view of her hard nipples pressed against her knit tank top. Maybe she was thinking about morning sex, too.

  “It’s my job. I can’t leave it at the office.”

  She sipped the hot liquid, her full lips on his heavy-duty ceramic mug. At her silence he met her gaze and realized she knew exactly what he was thinking about as he stared at her mouth on the cup. She licked her lips. He could see that her pupils were dilated despite the bright kitchen light.

  “Kayla, this is a tense time. It’s natural to feel, um...”

  She laughed.

  “Why, Detective Ortega, is that a blush on your face? I don’t think I’ve ever seen you speechless before.”

  He leaned back and reassessed. Kayla knew exactly what was passing between them across the table. It was a hell of a lot more than the stress of the case. It was the hope that they’d be successful and take down not just a murderer, but the entire posse of losers who were posing as upright citizens. Starting with Mickey and Tony Charbonneau.

  “We have a lot on our plate. I’ve found one bite at a time is usually the best way to handle cases like this, but with what’s happened so far we should expect the unexpected.”

  “We’ve gone over every possible angle with Claudia umpteen times, Rio. We’re ready.”

  “Almost.”

  It was Kayla’s turn to blush.

  * * *

  The jolt of caffeine from the coffee only fueled her arousal. Rio Ortega was the sexiest man she’d ever known, and living under his roof the past week had become both familiar and excruciating.

  “Don’t tease and flirt now, Rio. We have a job to do.” He’d been the one to make sure they didn
’t cross the invisible boundaries they’d erected. She couldn’t call it a mistake anymore, what they’d done last week. And she didn’t regret it. But now she understood better than she had before her Trail Hikers training that they needed their space to prepare. To stay safe.

  “I’m not teasing, Kayla. I’ve been doing all I can to keep my hands off you for the better part of a week, and the thought of having to wire you without being able to touch you the way I want to is driving me crazy.”

  “How crazy do you feel?” She purposefully let her voice remain low and gravelly. She could flirt back. Let him feel how hot and bothered she was, living under his roof, sharing his kitchen, his space. As if the time in between when they’d stopped seeing one another and now didn’t exist.

  Except they’d stayed away from the bedroom. A laugh erupted from her and she had to put down her mug before she spilled coffee on the polished wood table. “I’m sorry but I was thinking about how careful we’ve been to stay away from each other, especially at night and in the morning.”

  “When we’re coming from or going to bed.” His face was set in grim lines as if he was enduring torture and she leaned over and ran her fingers down his smooth cheek. He’d already shaved.

  “Yes, yet when we lost control, we...”

  “Weren’t even in the bedroom.” His hand came up and clasped hers, tugging, pulling her up and around the table, where he pulled her down onto his lap.

  Kayla meant to simply sit down on his lap, but she saw his erection through his pants and without hesitation straddled him. The heavy wooden kitchen chair easily took both their weight and she exclaimed at the sheer pleasure the close contact jolted through her.

  Rio drove his hands through her hair and grasped the back of her neck as if she was drowning and he had to give her resuscitation. Instead of air, he pressed his tongue into her mouth and Kayla lost all hope of using the extra hours of wakefulness to prepare for the wedding.

  They were preparing in a different way.

  Her need matched his kiss for kiss, squeeze for squeeze. Rio rocked his pelvis under hers and she shuddered at the near release it brought, as if they were teens experimenting through their clothing.