The Southern Comfort Series Box Set

by Clark O'Neill, Lisa

  Obviously, he was sporting another erection.

  But the fact that he felt the need to hide it from her didn’t exactly bode well.

  “That’s probably not a good idea right now,” he said finally, still staring at the ceiling, the pain of restraint evident in his voice.

  Kathleen’s brows shot up, then snapped together. “What? Why not?”

  He sighed, then rolled his head around to look at her. “Because I don’t want to fuck this up by rushing it. I don’t want to fuck us up.”

  Justin wasn’t particularly given to swearing so baldly, which told her he was on edge. Coming down a little more from the sexual high she’d been riding, Kathleen got a grip. And realized that Justin was right. She’d done casual relationships for so long that she’d forgotten what it felt like when there was something more to it. Or maybe she’d never really known what that felt like. Not that she was into hook-ups or one-nighters. She had too much sense for that. She was more of a long-term, but nostrings, type. Even with Anthony…

  Ah, hell. Anthony.

  Kathleen closed her eyes, realizing that she’d barely given him a thought all day. And certainly not in the past thirty or so minutes. While it was true that their relationship was very much nostrings and that they hadn’t even seen all that much of each other lately, he deserved a heads-up if she was thinking about moving on.

  Which, given what had just happened against the wall of Justin’s garage, she clearly was. Or maybe already had. Either way, it was something she needed to take care of.

  When she opened her eyes, she discovered that Justin was watching her intently. No doubt waiting for her reaction to what he’d just said.

  Kathleen swallowed, another of those unexpected lumps in her throat. To say that this was unfamiliar ground would be an understatement. And she realized that she didn’t want to fuck this up, either.

  “Okay. So what now?”

  Justin’s shoulders eased, as if he’d let out a breath he’d been holding. “I don’t know.”

  Her lips twitched. “I’ve always admired a man with a plan.”

  “Hey, cut me a little slack here.” His lips twitched too. “My brain is operating on approximately ten percent of its normal blood flow.”

  Looking at the towel he gripped like a shield, Kathleen outright grinned. “I didn’t realize they’d started making chastity belts in terry cloth.”

  “Smartass.” His eyes were warm as he smiled back. “And speaking of belts, since when are you the type to wear a garter?”

  “This old thing?” She waved a careless hand, but her blood started to do the sizzle thing again. “Standard court attire.”

  “Maybe I’ll have to get myself arrested,” he murmured. “Providing the arresting officer shows up at my arraignment. In standard court attire, of course.”

  “Of course.”

  Kathleen started to move forward, drawn like a moth to the flickering heat of his gaze, just as the back door opened.

  “Oh, hey.” James stood in the open door, rain pelting the metal roof of the porch at his back, some sort of box clutched in his arms. His eyes darted back and forth between Kathleen and his brother, eventually settling on the towel Justin still clutched strategically.

  Clearly sensing that this wasn’t quite the conversation he’d expected to walk in on, he stuck his tongue in his cheek. Then he shut the door behind him.

  “You, uh, left this outside,” he told Justin. “On the ground. In the rain.”

  “Thanks,” Justin said casually, though he made no move to retrieve the box, for obvious reasons.

  “I’ll just sit it over here,” James said equally casually. “On the counter.”

  “Great.”

  “I could,” James suggested, leaning a hip against the counter after he’d set the box down “open it up. Give it a test whirl. Something…hot would be nice, given that it’s so cold and wet outside.”

  Kathleen had long ago perfected her poker face, it being an essential aspect of her job. Which was the only reason she was able to keep from laughing at Justin’s brother’s blatant bedevilment. The imp.

  Justin, however, seemed less than amused.

  “That won’t be necessary,” he said. Then, seeming to realize that introductions were in order – at least to his knowledge, anyway – he nodded toward Kathleen.

  “Kathleen, my brother James. James, Kathleen Murphy.”

  James waved, clearly not willing to go into the whole we’ve already met story right now, given the circumstances. “Hi,” he said cheekily instead, which drew a frown from his older brother. No doubt Justin was wondering what had happened to his sibling’s manners.

  Then Justin gave a subtle – at least Kathleen guessed it was meant to be subtle – jerk of his head.

  The dimple with which she’d become familiar over the past hour or so flickered in James’ left cheek. “Are you sure you don’t want me to open this?” He patted the box. “I don’t mind.”

  “I’m sure.” Then, just in case his little brother hadn’t fully understood the message. “Maybe you’d like to take a hot shower instead.”

  “A shower.” James nodded, as if considering that a novel idea. “Good call.”

  Pushing off against the counter, he sauntered toward the doorway to the hall. “Say,” he paused in front of Justin. “I’m all out of clean towels. Mind if I borrow that one?”

  This time the look on Justin’s face had Kathleen snorting back a laugh.

  “Yes,” he said through gritted teeth. “I mind.”

  Kathleen dug deep and pulled her poker face back out when his dirty look veered her direction.

  “See ya,” James said, chuckling as he disappeared through the doorway.

  Kathleen watched him go, a sigh easing past her lips. James’s untimely –or timely, depending on how you looked at it – interruption reminded her of the reason she’d come back here after the two of them had finished their impromptu, but enlightening, dinner date.

  She looked at the box on the counter, recognizing the significance of the contents. Amusement fled as her gaze turned hard.

  When Justin looked her way, his brow arched at her expression. “What?”

  Kathleen pulled out the chair he kept stumbling over. “Sit down. We need to talk.”

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  KATHLEEN flicked her wipers on as she turned from Justin’s street onto Palm Boulevard. The rain had mostly let up, but puddles were thick on the lowlying streets, every one she hit sending a muddy wave of water to coat her windshield. The grayish sludge seemed a perfect accompaniment to her less-than-sunny mood.

  She was annoyed with Justin. And not because he’d gotten her all stirred up and then left her high and… well, not dry, certainly. But unsatisfied, to say the least.

  No, she was annoyed because he refused to take the potential threat to himself seriously.

  Kathleen had spent an hour with Justin’s brother over shrimp and beer. And had gotten the scoop on just how off the rails the situation had become.

  But when she’d advised Justin to file a report, to lay the groundwork should legal steps need to be taken, he’d basically scoffed and told her he could handle it. Because the possession of a penis apparently made one immune to the machinations of crazy women. Just ask John Bobbitt.

  But what did Kathleen know? She was just a homicide detective, after all.

  Sure, she hadn’t been too happy when Justin had gone all doctor on her over her elbow, but she’d worn the sling, hadn’t she? She’d done the damn exercises and taken his little pills. And, she added to her mental tally of The Ways in Which Justin Wasn’t as Reasonable as Kathleen, she was a big enough person to admit that he’d been right.

  The wipers swished, and Kathleen blinked at the sudden glare of headlights in her rearview mirror, following her a little more closely than was strictly safe. She scowled. This wasn’t her jurisdiction, but given her present mood that driver was lucky she didn’t tend to get het up over minor traffic vi
olations, which always struck Kathleen more as… revenue generation rather than an actual effective method of discouraging drivers from being assholes. In her experience, assholes tended to behave as expected no matter how many fines you slapped them with.

  Just to be perverse, she slowed down. The car behind her – some kind of smallish SUV, from what she could make out – dropped back to a more acceptable distance.

  That irritant tackled, Kathleen shifted her focus back to the six foot three inch irritant which had sent her mood south in the first place.

  Not that she was surprised. She understood men well enough to know that running to the cops because an ex-girlfriend was a level ten clinger was the macho equivalent of wearing a “Kick me, I’m a pussy” T-shirt while rocking in the corner and sucking your thumb. Especially for a man like Justin, who for all his humble, laid back amiability was at his core an alpha male. You couldn’t be a trauma surgeon, with the entailed near constant life and death decisions, and lack confidence in your own capabilities.

  But it wasn’t Justin’s capabilities she was concerned with. Kathleen was more worried about what this stalker – because recent events certainly seemed to justify that moniker – was capable of.

  It was probably a safe bet to suspect Mandy. The criteria were all there. Jilted ex, access to Justin’s keys, knowledge of his house, his vehicle, his likes, his basic schedule… it fit. There was a reason investigations of this sort so often focused on someone close to the victim – not that Justin would appreciate that term. But in cases of simple obsession, the ex-lover was generally the culprit.

  However, there was an old saying about assumption.

  Kathleen drummed her fingers on the wheel as she drove, the steady swish of the windshield wipers adding an extra beat. The thing that troubled her about all of this was the…covert nature, for lack of a better term. Why the secrecy? If Mandy was really hoping to win Justin back, why wasn’t she trying to speak with him outright? Giving gifts was not only a way to ingratiate oneself, but Kathleen thought that most stalkers of this sort also used it as a launching pad for conversation. Hey babe, did you like the flowers I sent? I know they’re your favorite. It struck her as odd that, according to what she’d been able to wheedle out of Justin, Mandy hadn’t done anything resembling an open attempt at reconciliation. In fact, she’d essentially rebuffed him after he’d confronted her. At least that was Justin’s take. Of course, she could just be attempting to save face in light of his rejection, but if that were the case, Kathleen would expect some sort of display of hostility, not making him a cup of coffee to greet him after his run.

  The timing of which led to the inescapable conclusion that Mandy – or someone – was somehow monitoring Justin’s activities. In this day and age, that could mean almost anything, from standard voyeurism to tracking devices to hidden cameras to…

  Private detectives.

  Kathleen sighed. She really needed to talk to Anthony.

  “What the hell?”

  The glare of headlights in her rear view mirror drew Kathleen back into the moment. She’d been lost in thought as she left the island, turned onto the familiar road which would take her to her childhood home – now home to Declan and Sadie. She’d promised Sadie she’d stop by tonight, as Declan was working the closing shift at Murphy’s, to help plan a surprise party for his thirtieth birthday next month. Kathleen squinted, adjusting the mirror to cut down the blinding light. It was difficult to tell for certain, but she thought, based on the position and shape of the headlights, it might be the same SUV as before. If so, it had been behind her the whole way, and was once again objecting to her observation of the speed limit.

  Irked, Kathleen eased off the gas, dropping her speed again. The other vehicle had had the opportunity to pass her when she’d been on the multi-lane highway a little ways back. The fact that the driver hadn’t, and now chose to ride her bumper again, suggested that she might have one of the aforementioned assholes on her hands.

  Regretting that she was in her personal car, which, being a compact, lacked something as far as muscle – not to mention sirens and lights – she nonetheless wasn’t about to let some jerk get away with aggressive driving.

  The jerk closed the gap a little further.

  She slowed down even more.

  “Okay buddy,” she murmured. “We can play this game for the next few miles or you can stop being a dick.” She really didn’t want to get involved in a pissing match and end up having to deal with the paperwork involved.

  After maybe a quarter mile, the vehicle finally dropped back. Satisfied, Kathleen pressed lightly on the gas pedal as she approached a bend in the road. Muddy water erupted like geysers on either side of the car when she hit a particularly large puddle.

  And caused her tires to lose traction when the SUV rammed her from behind.

  “Shit!” Heart leaping into her throat, Kathleen momentarily froze. Then training took over and she loosened her grip on the wheel, turning into the skid.

  The car fishtailed wildly, but Kathleen fortunately managed to keep all four tires on the pavement.

  Unfortunately, the tires were on the wrong side of the road.

  “You bastard.” Kathleen’s breath whooshed out in a relieved rush, making room for the anger which swept in to take its place, inflating her in much the same way that helium fills a balloon. She practically levitated off the seat under its power.

  The vehicle – a small SUV, maybe black, maybe dark gray – sped past, and she jerked around to try to see the license plate.

  It was mostly covered with mud, but she was pretty sure it was a South Carolina plate. She recognized the color scheme. And the first letter looked like a P, or maybe a B, followed by an X.

  The SUV’s taillights disappeared around the curve, and Kathleen eased her foot off the brake, shaken when she realized her leg was trembling. Both her legs. As were her hands. Not an uncommon side effect of an adrenaline rush, but one, given her profession, that she’d mostly learned to deal with. In this instance, however, the physiological reaction seemed beyond her control.

  “Get a grip,” she told herself. But her mind’s eye flashed back to the only other time she’d been involved in a car accident – if one could call this an accident. Just over a year ago. When Anthony had sustained his injuries. She recalled vividly the impact of the crash, the sound of rending metal, the punch of the airbag as it smacked her with the force of a mule-kick. Cradling Anthony’s bloodied head on her lap. Willing him not to die.

  Breathing deeply, Kathleen pushed the images aside, forced her jellied limbs to move. She had to get her car back on the side it belonged.

  Turning the wheel, she shifted her foot to the gas pedal.

  Just as she saw the headlights barreling toward her around the curve.

  “I’M fine,” Kathleen repeated as Sadie placed a steaming mug of tea in front of her. The aroma of chamomile hit her nostrils, more soothing than she cared to admit.

  Sadie snorted. “Yeah, you look it.”

  Her best friend plopped down in the chair across from her, in the kitchen of Kathleen’s childhood. Not that it looked all that much like it had when Kathleen had been growing up. The oak cabinets were now a washed-looking white, the counters gray-veined marble and Sadie – an art teacher and artist – had painted brightly colored images of vintage kitchen items which decorated the beaded board walls. Declan had built the sturdy pine table at which they sat. The simple, homey domesticity of it made Kathleen wonder at the fact that this was the same brother who’d once had GO AWAY printed on his welcome mat.

  Sadie’s hand reached out to cover the one Kathleen hadn’t wrapped around the handle of the mug, making Kathleen realize she’d been just sitting there for several moments, staring into space.

  Kathleen rolled her eyes at herself, before giving Sadie’s hand a brief squeeze. “Really. I’m fine. Just shaken up a little.”

  “I’d be shaken up too if someone tried to run me off the road, and then I had to
drive into a ditch to avoid a head-on collision. But then, that’s me, and I’m basically a wimp. Not that I don’t think you have the right to be upset, of course. But your usual reaction to this sort of thing is more of the kick ass and take names variety.”

  “Oh believe me, I’m pissed. I filed a report with the locals, and you can bet I’ll be kicking some ass if I find the idiot who’s responsible. And you’re not a wimp.” Sadie had managed to outwit the two men who’d kidnapped and terrorized her and Declan last year – she and Anthony had been working that case, in fact, when one of the kidnappers slammed into the police car Anthony was driving. He’d managed to jerk the wheel at the last moment so that the driver’s side took the brunt of the impact, an action which protected Kathleen from major injury.

  And ended up costing Anthony his career with the very department she’d just filed the report with.

  “Okay, spill it,” Sadie said, taking a bite out of one of the carrot-bran-flax – AKA sawdust – muffins she’d placed on a plate between herself and Kathleen.

  Sighing, Kathleen leaned back in her chair. She wasn’t used to being this… wishy-washy. Whenever she had a problem, she tended to break it down like a puzzle, taking the logical steps to do what it took to fix it.

  “I think the accident just kicked up some feelings I’ve yet to fully deal with. About Anthony. I have this… sense of lingering indebtedness.”

  “Are you saying you’re involved in a long term relationship with a man… out of guilt?”

  “No.” Kathleen huffed out a breath, shook her head. “It’s not that. Or not just that, anyway. There’s enough attraction to keep it interesting and not enough emotion to make it uncomfortable. We’re both clear on the fact that we aren’t looking for strings, so it works. It’s functional.”

  “Functional,” Sadie said, making it sound about as appealing as the muffin she was biting into. “Okay. So what’s the problem?”