Deathtrap (Broslin Creek)

by Dana Marton

  The morning sunshine glinted off her hair. He watched her walk toward him in a green, long-sleeve top and a sexy pair of jeans, her red curls bouncing with every step, a little too aware of the dog, which showed in the stiffness of her right shoulder. She felt the fear but did what she had to anyway, the definition of courage. She was beautiful, compassionate, and brave. He swore under his breath, smart enough to know when he was in trouble.

  He pushed to his feet as they reached his front lawn. “You two are best buddies now?”

  She smiled. “I honestly don’t think he means to harm me.”

  “That’s a big leap of faith from you. I’m proud of you. I mean it.”

  She just about glowed under the praise.

  He wanted to kiss her again. He wasn’t sure if he should, if she would want him to. And things felt different here, in front of the house he’d shared with Stacy. Something held him back.

  There was an awkward moment, then, instead of pulling her to him as he wanted to, he spread his arms to gesture at the expanse of green. “Here it is. Feel free to work your magic.”

  She glanced around, not looking the least bit daunted. “Let’s start with measuring.”

  He raised an eyebrow. “I don’t think I have a tape measure this long.”

  “You can just step it out.” She brimmed with can-do attitude. “Your boot has to be around a foot long. I brought grid paper. We mark where everything is; then I’ll enter it all into the software at home. I can work up a blueprint. I can even do a 3D rendering so you can see what everything will look like when you’re done with it.”

  They started with the walkway.

  “Any more garden theft?” he asked as they went, even though he’d driven by her place each day after work and hadn’t seen anything missing.

  “So far, so good.”

  “Peeping Tom?”

  “Could have been just a shadow.”

  He hoped so. He didn’t like to think that she might be in any kind of danger. He knew what she’d say if she caught him feeling protective toward her, and he stifled a smile. He liked her independent streak.

  At the end of the walkway, they both turned at the same time, and the dog got between them, nudging Sophie off-balance. She tilted, bracing herself on his chest, glancing up with a startled look as he reached out to steady her, their lips inches from each other.

  * * *

  The moment was so ridiculously Hollywood romance, Sophie half expected a director to yell, “Cut!” from behind a bush any minute. But no interruptions came, and he kept holding her, searching her face as if looking for some kind of answer there.

  She told herself that enjoying a strong pair of male arms around her didn’t make her a weak woman.

  She wanted him to kiss her again. When she’d first walked up to him, she’d wondered if he would. He hadn’t. Which meant that first kiss had been just a fluke and was likely their last as well. So she pulled away.

  He pulled her back. He tilted his head as if he was weighing something. “I want to kiss you.”

  A thrill cut through her first, then alarm. She was not going to blurt out any kind of admission this time. She tried to play it cool. “I have issues.”

  “I noticed.”

  She bit her lip. “I don’t know why you want to kiss me. And if you do, I don’t know why you’re holding back. So I’m not sure how to act. People kiss all the time, no big deal. But the more we’re thinking about it, the bigger deal it seems. Is this a good idea? I thought it was, and then—”

  He shook his head with a wry grin, his lips tantalizingly close. He smelled like coffee and man, a potent combination. “Overcomplicating things much?”

  She blew out some air. “I can’t help it. I’m a woman.”

  “Thank God for that.” And then he dipped his head and brushed his lips against hers, pulling back just when her fingertips began to tingle. “I’m okay with complications.”

  She couldn’t hold back the smile that was spreading on her face.

  His lips dipped for another brush against hers. “I keep meaning to keep my distance, but somehow I never manage,” he said when he pulled back again; then he drew a deep breath, taking her hands, looking into her eyes with a somber expression. “I want you. I’m not going to deny that. But I don’t think it’s right for me to move on until I give Stacy what’s due to her.”

  He wanted her. Heat flooded her body. It took a lot not to just jump into his arms and embarrass herself completely. She tried to get her brain to work. “You mean justice?”

  He nodded.

  She tried to process that. “You have your own complications.” She thought for another second or two. “If you’re willing to work with mine, I’m willing to work with yours.”

  “Okay.”

  The sudden heat in his eyes took her breath away. Okay? Just like that? That easy? They were going to try to work out a relationship? She knew she had to be grinning like a lunatic but couldn’t stop herself.

  Then Peaches saw a bird and lurched, yanking on the leash, yanking her away from him. She didn’t mind the break. She needed to gather her scrambled brain. “I guess he’s trying to tell us we should get to work.”

  They measured everything out, front and back. Everything went well until they stepped inside for a drink. The cat took one look at her and her dog, hissed, and ran off. Bing held Peaches’s leash, as a precaution, but Peaches behaved like a gentleman, going where he was told, sitting when asked. She was so proud of him.

  Even as her world started spinning.

  The feeling that she’d been inside the house before was overwhelming. She could swear she knew where the bathroom would be, and when she asked to use it, she was proven right.

  He must have caught the bewilderment on her face when she came out, because he asked her if she was all right.

  “Just some really strange déjà vu. I could swear I’ve been in this house before.” She shook her head to clear it.

  He lifted an eyebrow.

  “When I moved out of the city, I was looking for a townhome in Kennett Square. I didn’t even mean to move to Broslin. But I got turned around on my way to a showing. I drove by your house.” The pull had been so strong she had to turn around at the end of the street and come back to look at it again. “I had this weird feeling.”

  She’d driven around the block several times. “Then I saw the cottage with the for-sale sign down the road. A single home for the price of a townhouse. That’s how I ended up living in Broslin. If your house didn’t stop me, I would never have seen my cottage. I’d be living in Kennett now.” They would probably never have met.

  The look on his face was patiently skeptical. “Are you thinking previous lives here? This house is not that old.”

  “Never mind.” She didn’t want to discuss body memories with him. She refused to accept the stories, for the most part. She didn’t want to think that her newfound love for peanut butter came from the stranger whose heart beat inside her. She wanted her tastes, her dreams, and her memories to be her own.

  She’d been “sick girl” for most of her life. She refused to go straight to “weird girl.” All she’d ever wanted was to be normal.

  She set her empty glass on the kitchen table and stood. “All right. Let’s finish this. I can give you a list of things you can do while I work up a blueprint for new planting.”

  He pulled her into his arms—“Yes, ma’am.”—and gave her a quick kiss.

  Okay, she thought. I could get used to this.

  They started with the backyard, which needed basic cleanup and removal of some boxwood bushes that were old and dead on one side. “Plus the shed could use a paint job,” she told him. “Green, to match the house’s trim.”

  He nodded.

  Her gaze kept catching on the azalea bush in the middle of the yard, an odd place. It didn’t match anything back here. If anyone wanted to put in a pool or a vegetable garden, it’d be in the way. And a pain to drive around with the mower, probably.<
br />
  “You need to take that out,” she told him. “You could move it to one side of the front door, then buy a matching one for the other side and save some money—”

  His posture stiffened, his good mood disappearing in an instant.

  She blinked. “Okay, what did I say?”

  * * *

  Planting that bush had been the last thing Stacy had done on this earth. Bing swallowed the bitterness rising in his throat. The bush stood out in the middle of the yard, a dark blob on the bright green spring grass. Some days he thought it looked like a gravestone. He had no right taking it away.

  He probably had no right starting something with Sophie. But he wanted to anyway. He wanted too much, too fast. Maybe he needed to slow things down a little.

  “The azalea will have to stay.”

  Sophie glanced at him with a puzzled expression. But then she shrugged. “Okay. I’ll figure out a way to make it better. Maybe we could add a birdbath and some other things.”

  From his pocket, he pulled a bag of treats he’d gotten for Peaches and tossed him one. “Why don’t I play with him a little while you sketch? I think it’s safe to let him off leash back here.”

  The dog followed orders pretty well, and he’d come running back to him at the sight of that treat in a second.

  So he tossed some branches for him while Sophie designed. He tried to teach the dog to roll over, and even tried to put a treat on his nose and make him wait for his “okay.” Well, that didn’t work. But, after a while, Peaches mastered the rollover trick.

  “Hey, look—” He started to call out to Sophie, then stopped and stared.

  She stood by the back flower bed, forsythia blooming a cheerful yellow behind her. Birds chirped in the dogwoods that flanked the yard to the side. Sunshine played on her face, her eyes bright and lively as she planned, a half smile on her lips.

  She was full of life. Way too cheerful for him. And way too young. He was an old, jaded cop. Yet here was the truth: he wanted that light, her light, in his life.

  Soon. But not yet.

  She shoved her papers into the folder before turning to him. “That’s it. I think we’re done for today.”

  He wanted to take her inside. Upstairs. He pushed the need away.

  “I appreciate the help. How about we walk Peaches home and then I take you somewhere for an early lunch to thank you for spending your morning here?”

  “You don’t have to. You don’t owe me anything. Any work I do here has already been prepaid.” She smiled. “You dug in my trees.”

  “I didn’t mean lunch as payment. I meant it as I want to have lunch with you because I enjoy your company.”

  Her green eyes went wide. Then narrowed. Her head tilted.

  Was he really going to say it? Oh hell. He plowed ahead. “Like a date.”

  Dating was okay. They could start dating and slowly get to know each other.

  She bit her bottom lip. “I’m not very good at dating.”

  “I doubt that.”

  “I haven’t dated a lot.”

  He hadn’t either. He’d had too many superficial hookups before he’d gotten married; then he was faithful in his marriage, and he’d focused solely on his job since Stacy’s death.

  “The most stressful part for a guy is whether or not the girl is going to let him kiss her at the end. For a woman, it’s probably whether or not the guy will want to kiss her. We already kissed. It wasn’t that bad, was it?” he teased.

  She gave him an uncertain look. “It makes me feel out of control.”

  He put Peaches back on his leash and stepped closer to her. Slow. “That’s a good thing. You’re supposed to let go of control and just enjoy it.”

  He stopped right in front of her and bent his head, just dragging his lips over hers. He put his arms around her, Peaches’s long leash tangled around his leg. She smelled like vanilla, pure and sweet. He nibbled on her bottom lip as desire shot through him.

  Another moment and he would stop, he thought as his tongue swept inside her mouth to fully taste her. Then he lost control for a second and kissed her as if he was the last man on earth and she was the last woman, and, heaven help him, he wanted more. His hands snuck up her sides, on her rib cage, and stopped just under her breasts. Every cell of his body ached.

  He was fully aroused and plotting the nearest route to the sofa inside. And that was when the last remaining vestige of sanity pulled him back at last.

  “I’m sorry. We don’t have to rush this.” He drew a slow breath, unable to let her go fully, holding himself in iron control so he wouldn’t push for more right now. “I feel like there’s a connection between us.” He gave a strained smile. “You’re damn hard to resist.”

  She’d been smiling too, but her face turned sober the next instant, her eyes going wide and horror-stricken, and she jumped back as if she couldn’t get away from him fast enough.

  Her hands flew to her mouth. “Oh my God. There is a connection. I kept feeling it from the beginning. To your house and to you.” Tears gathered in her eyes.

  He stared at her, not sure where she was going with this.

  “Have you ever heard of body memories?” she asked weakly, reaching for Peaches’s leash.

  He raised an eyebrow as he handed it to her.

  “It’s when transplant patients get the memories of the donor.” A tear escaped. “They might remember faces or places or favorite foods or favorite music. You said last Saturday was the two-year anniversary of your wife’s death.” She took another step back, her face pale, a hollow look in her eyes. “I got my new heart two years ago on the same day.”

  Cold spread through his stomach. His brain came to a screeching halt, even as she kept on speaking.

  “These feelings have nothing to do with us. They’re not mine.” She wiped the tear angrily on her sleeve. “Your wife was an organ donor, wasn’t she? I got her heart. I know I did. It’s the only thing that makes sense.” She sounded absolutely stricken.

  He tried to reach for her, but Peaches, seeing her distress, stepped between them, the hair standing up on his back as he growled, defending her.

  Bing was smart enough to stay where he was. “Stacy wasn’t an organ donor.”

  “Maybe the hospital made a mistake. I know I’m right about this. None of this is real.” She wrapped the leash around her wrist and ran.

  He watched her leave, unable to believe what was happening. How had they gone from spending a great morning together and sharing the hottest kiss of his life to this?

  * * *

  He was calling after her, saying something, but Sophie couldn’t hear the words over the sound of blood rushing in her ears. She kept running, down the street and away from Bing, away from the terrible realization that not a thing she felt for him was real.

  She’d been an idiot not to have figured this out before now, with all the stupid déjà vu she’d been experiencing.

  She didn’t stop until she turned down her street and was sure Bing could no longer see her if he was looking. Then she collapsed onto the grass, her eyes burning. When Peaches licked her face, she threw her arms around him.

  “We’ll be fine without Bing,” she whispered into the dog’s fur. “Better to find this out now than after I’ve fallen in love with him.” Although, just now, she wasn’t sure if it wasn’t already too late, because it sure felt like her heart was breaking.

  The dog buried his big head into the crook of her neck.

  She held him a little tighter. “Wonderful things are on their way.” It was important to say the words even if, at the moment, she didn’t believe them.

  But as she sat, clinging to the dog, the sea of sadness inside her churned into waves of anger.

  None of this was fair.

  She reached once again for the positive but came up empty.

  Dark despair washed over her. She was a freak. Maybe she was an unnatural thing. Maybe taking the heart had been a sin, and now she was being punished. Maybe her mother was r
ight about everything.

  * * *

  It wasn’t Stacy’s heart. He knew that for a fact.

  Bing let Sophie go. She was upset. If she needed time before she could be rational about this, he could give her a little time. But they would have a talk.

  Okay.

  He rubbed the back of his neck as he looked at the turn in the road where she’d disappeared. He was going to have to figure something out here, because she was hurting and he couldn’t stand the thought, frankly. And he couldn’t stand the thought of them not seeing each other again.

  He’d been thinking that it was too soon for him to move on, but somehow, when he hadn’t been looking, part of him already had, whether he deserved a second chance or not.

  He wasn’t stupid. He knew a woman like Sophie didn’t show up in a man’s life every day. He wanted a new life, he registered with surprise. And he wanted Sophie Curtis, specifically.

  He was going to find Stacy’s killer. And he was going to sell the house. But he didn’t need to wait on those things to move forward with his life. He was going to start over, now, and he was somehow going to convince Sophie to be part of that.

  He walked to the back and stared at the azalea bush. It was in the wrong place. Keeping it there wasn’t going to change anything about the past, wasn’t going to bring Stacy back.

  The garage was open behind him. He went in, grabbed a shovel, strode to the azalea, and started digging.

  The physical exercise was a good way to work off his frustration while giving him time to think. He would give Sophie time to calm down, then call tonight to talk to her. She was wrong about the heart. She needed to hear him out on that. The tenuous links forming between them….

  People fell in love. He had been in love before. It happened. Hell, it’d happened to Jack Sullivan, his top detective, and he’d been as morose a bastard as Bing had ever seen before love had clobbered him.

  He got the bush out, but something caught his eye at the bottom of the hole. He poked at it with the shovel and pulled up some weird contraption. He shook the dirt off, then stared as he realized what it was—a holster.

  Not standard police issue; he registered the fact immediately. This was an inexpensive starter holster, the kind gun manufacturers sometimes even gave out free with a new handgun purchase if they were running a promotion. What was it doing here?