The Southern Comfort Series Box Set

by Clark O'Neill, Lisa

  “No problem. You take care.”

  Pushing in his chair, Justin ignored the daggers Mandy’s friends visually thrust into his back as he walked out the door.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  “GIVE me that.” Kathleen pulled the buffalo chicken dip back toward her before Sadie ate it all. “Good grief. Are you sure you’re not carrying a baby goat or something? Because you’re eating everything that’s not nailed down.”

  “I know,” Sadie agreed, not the least bit chagrinned. “Everything just seems to taste better when you’re pregnant. Well, at least it does to me. Maureen and Tate were really put off certain things, especially in the first trimester.” She leaned over, scooped a celery stick through the rapidly disappearing dip. “I haven’t found anything that doesn’t sound appealing.”

  Kathleen narrowed her eyes across the expanse of her kitchen counter. “You’re having a boy.”

  “Why do you say that?”

  “Because Maureen and Tate had remarkably similar experiences, and they had, or are having, girls.”

  Sadie waved a hand. “That doesn’t mean anything.”

  “It’s a boy,” Kathleen sighed in resignation. “I can feel it. On the bright side,” she said as she picked up a celery stick. “At least you’re not having twins.”

  Sadie’s hand paused midair.

  “Oh my God.” Kathleen dropped the celery stick in the dip. “You’re having twins.”

  When she saw the look in her best friend’s blue eyes, Kathleen straightened. “Sadie?”

  “I had my checkup today. There are two heartbeats.”

  “I…” Momentarily speechless, Kathleen opened her mouth, closed it. Then simply enfolded Sadie in her arms.

  “You’re not… upset?”

  “Upset?” Kathleen gave her a squeeze before releasing her. “I’m elated. You’re having twins. Twins.” She did a little dance. “Which means the karma train will soon be pulling into Declan’s station.”

  Sadie’s laugh was a bit wobbly. “We don’t know the gender, remember?”

  “Oh, they’re boys.” Feeling surprisingly satisfied by this turn of events, Kathleen opened the fridge, pulled out some sparkling grape juice. “This calls for a toast.” She filled two glasses. “To the health and wellbeing of my nephews and their beautiful mother. And may they visit upon their father all of the torments for which he himself was responsible as a child.”

  “Thanks.” Sadie took a sip of bubbly. “I think.”

  Kathleen settled onto the stool beside her sister-in-law. “I had sex with Justin.”

  Sadie choked. “You…” she made a fist, pounded herself on the chest. “I swear, you do that on purpose. How was it?”

  Kathleen smiled, remembering. “Hot. Fun. He’s very creative in small spaces.”

  “Hmmm.” Sadie eyed her over the rim of her glass. “Sounds like shower sex.”

  But the mention of the shower had the smile fading from Kathleen’s face. She hadn’t told Sadie about the cameras, because that seemed like a further invasion of Justin’s privacy, but her friend knew the basics of his situation. “I’m having a tough time,” she admitted “not butting in on this whole psycho ex-girlfriend thing. There’s a fine line between being supportive, as a friend, and being a cop. I’m trying to put the friendship first, because, you know, there’s a male ego involved, but let me tell you, the cop in me is itching to get involved. And quite frankly, to bust that bitch’s ass.”

  “Doesn’t the Isle of Palms police department have enough evidence to arrest her?”

  “I don’t know.” Kathleen circled a finger around the rim of her glass. “I could probably use my connections to find out, but that smacks of going behind Justin’s back. I suggested, a while ago, that he needed to bring the police in. He wasn’t happy about it, but he did it. And now I need to let him handle it.”

  “Tough for you,” Sadie said around a mouthful of chicken. “Seeing as how you’re so fond of sticking your nose in the middle of whatever is going on.”

  “Hey, I’m a detective. Sticking my nose in is my job. But in this case, I’m afraid that it will seem like I don’t trust him. What?” she said when Sadie smiled.

  “I find it telling that you’re putting his needs ahead of your own.”

  “No, I’m not.” Was she? “And anyway, that doesn’t mean anything. That’s what friends do.”

  “If you say so.” Sadie’s phone beeped, and she opened her text message. “Declan’s ready to leave. He wants to get home before the snow starts.”

  “Snow? You’re kidding, right.”

  “Haven’t you been watching the weather? There’s a forty percent chance.”

  Kathleen snorted. “Which means the odds are against it. I swear, just the threat of a flurry and everyone in this city loses their minds.”

  “You have to admit it’s kind of exciting, though. I never thought I’d miss anything about living in Colorado, least of all the winters, but there’s something… magical about the world after a snowfall.”

  Magical. Kathleen shook her head. “Well, don’t get your hopes up.”

  “Killjoy.” Her phone beeped again. “I better get down there before he comes up and insists upon carrying me down the stairs. It was bad enough before, but now that we found out we’re having twins, he’s completely unbearable. I keep trying to tell him I’m pregnant, not an invalid.”

  Muttering something about overbearing husbands under her breath, Sadie took one more sip of grape juice before she hopped down from the stool. “Thanks for the snacks.”

  “Snacks?” Kathleen followed her to the door. “That was dinner.”

  “Not if you’re eating for three.”

  She pulled open the door, stifling a screech when she saw Justin standing on the other side of it, his hand poised to knock.

  “Sorry,” he said, smiling down at Sadie. “Didn’t mean to startle you.”

  “Oh, no worries.” Sadie waved that away, then stretched up to give him a quick hug. “That looks painful,” she said about his black eye. “Kathleen playing rough again?”

  “Ahhh…”

  “Don’t mind Sadie. She was just leaving.”

  “I was just leaving. Y’all have… fun.”

  Justin watched her sail past him and down the stairs. “How is it,” he asked philosophically “that one little pause can carry such an enormous amount of innuendo?”

  “Well, they don’t call it a pregnant pause for nothing.”

  “Literally, in this case.”

  “She’s having twins. Boys.”

  Justin scratched the back of his neck. “Should I offer congratulations or condolences?”

  Grinning, because he knew her so well, and was too damned cute to boot, Kathleen pulled him inside and closed the door.

  Then pushed him against it.

  His eyes flashed with surprise a moment before she brought her mouth to his, hot and hungry. An inarticulate sound vibrated in his throat, and then his hands slid around to grip her butt. He squeezed, lifting her against him, and she nipped his bottom lip.

  “Hi,” she said when they finally came up for breath.

  Justin blinked, his eyes slightly unfocused. “What?”

  Laughing – how adorable was he? – she pushed against his chest until he released her. If she let this go any further, they’d wind up in the bedroom without passing GO or collecting two hundred dollars.

  “You said you needed to talk to me.”

  “I did?” he said as he watched her walk back toward the kitchen, his blurry gaze refocusing with laser-like intensity on her rear end.

  “You did,” she reminded him, then she gestured him to a stool. “I even bought some buffalo chicken dip on my way home so that I could feed you while we conversed, but I’m afraid Sadie ate most of it. I can offer you a drink, though. I’ve got sparkling grape juice, water and beer. Or I could brew a pot of coffee.”

  “Ah, water’s fine.” Justin finally managed to pull himself away from th
e door. The look he gave her was rueful. “It’s a little hot in here.”

  “That darn furnace.” Kathleen slid a glass toward him. “Always acting up.”

  Their gazes locked as he lifted the glass. “Hi.”

  Kathleen’s toes curled in her slippers. “So.” Feeling a little overwarm herself, she picked up the flute of grape juice. “What’s up?”

  “I’m going to avoid the obvious double entendre, and assume you’re asking about my earlier text.”

  “Well, if it were a question of anatomy, I think we answered that at the door.”

  “I’m not sure I remember. Maybe you could pin me against it again.”

  “Be happy to. I’ll even pat you down. After,” she clarified, when his eyes narrowed with hot intent “you tell me what you wanted to discuss. It sounded important.”

  “I guess it is.” Justin sat down his glass, his expression growing more serious. “I had an… interesting conversation today. With Natasha Griffin. The waitress from Jugs?”

  “The one who OD’d.”

  “Yeah. About that. She believes someone tried to kill her.”

  “Really.” Interest piqued, Kathleen leaned on the counter. “Well. That’s a convenient way to sidestep a narcotics charge.”

  “Which is what I thought, also. But I looked over her medical record, at her suggestion. There’s no indication she’s ever abused drugs, prescription or otherwise. It’s not uncommon for individuals who’ve been through the sort of trauma she has to develop an addiction to pain meds, but usually there’s a pattern of them attempting to acquire them through the easiest channel first – which would be getting their physician to renew their prescription. Her record indicates that she expressed her dissatisfaction with the side effects of oxycodone to her doctor. And I can verify that her sister was researching natural alternatives, because I bumped into her a few weeks back. She asked me about it, as they both appear to have been concerned. It seems that Natasha had a fairly rough childhood, health-wise, and is leery of medication in general. Then there’s the fact that Natasha’s roommate is a recovering addict. What?”

  Kathleen realized she must have made a face at the mention of the roommate. She tapped her fingers on the counter as she moved around the puzzle pieces in her head.

  “Last night,” she told him. “When I had Anthony run the tags of that car in the parking lot? They came back registered to LaShelle Kinson. Shelley. Natasha’s roommate.”

  Justin leaned back against the stool, his face hardening. “You think Shelley ran you off the road?”

  “I don’t know. I can’t know if it was her car that hit me until Anthony gets the lab report back regarding the paint. And even then, it will only give the make of the car and probably the year it was manufactured, which may indicate that it was a car like mine, but doesn’t prove it was my car, specifically. Unfortunately, there was no paint transfer on my car to offer further comparison. But I’m trying to figure out why she would want to run me off the road in the first place.”

  “I’m probably the last guy to ask why a woman would do anything, but for what it’s worth, I talked to Sam Harding the other day, because she knows her pretty well. She said that she found it unlikely Shelley was using again, and as her counselor, she almost certainly would have picked up on the signs. However, I’ve recently gotten a conflicting report from Natasha’s sister. She believes Shelley is, and I quote, dangerous. If Shelley were using, anger and rage aren’t uncommon side effects with opiates. She did get a little heated when Anne – that’s the sister – implicated her in Natasha’s overdose. There seems to be a great deal of antagonism between the two. Shelley and Anne, that is. And I don’t think Shelley was very happy with me for not immediately leaping to her defense.”

  Which would possibly explain why she hadn’t wanted to wait on Justin at Murphy’s. Her feelings had been hurt.

  “She admires you,” Kathleen said.

  “Ah.” A hint of embarrassment colored his tone. “I don’t know. I guess. Natasha seems to believe that her attempted murder, as she called it, stems from the fact that she can identify several members of the gang involved in the shooting,” Justin added, clearly eager to change the subject.

  Kathleen considered. “I’ve never known those guys to be cagey in their methods. If they wanted her dead, she’d be dead, either by bullet or blade. Poison – and an overdose certainly falls into that category – tends to be a woman’s weapon, statistically speaking.”

  “I had the same thought, earlier. Not about the poison, but about the modis operandi of the gangs. I’ve seen enough bodily trauma inflicted by their members to know that subtlety is not their forte.” He searched her eyes. “Do you think Natasha is lying? Or that Shelley slipped her the drugs and accidentally overdosed her?”

  “That’s the question. I just find it odd that her name keeps coming up.” Kathleen tapped her fingers on the counter. “I saw her that night – Shelley, I mean – when she brought her friend in. She was beside herself. Of course, if she’d given her friend the drugs, and inadvertently caused the overdose, that would make sense.”

  “But Natasha insists that she didn’t take any drugs willingly.”

  “Which begs the question: how did the drugs get into her system? What motivation would Shelley have to drug her without her being aware? Attention? What’s that syndrome…” she tapped her fingers as she tried to think of the name.

  “Munchausen Syndrome By Proxy,” Justin said. “Usually that applies to parents, specifically a mother, who purposefully makes her child sick. I don’t know that it doesn’t happen in other relationship types, though. I could look through some medical journals, research it a little further.”

  Kathleen had Anthony running tags for her, and now Justin was offering to research. She was essentially running her own ad hoc investigation.

  “This puts you in a bind,” Justin concluded after a moment. “I’m sorry.”

  “No.” Kathleen stilled her fingers. “Don’t be. Even assuming that it was Shelley’s car that ran me off the road, I can’t make a connection between her and the incident with the doll. Not without more evidence, anyway. So until Anthony gets back to me with the lab report, this is all based on weird coincidence and an itch between my shoulder blades. I’m not discounting the itch, because I’ve learned to respect it, but…” She sighed. “I should tell Gage Rutledge. About Natasha’s claim. We have some overlap, since Mac and I have the lead on the murder of the other witness, but technically, she’s his witness and this is his case.”

  “She won’t like that,” Justin said “as I don’t think she’s too fond of Rutledge, but you do what you feel you have to.”

  Kathleen felt like she was trying to find her way through a maze, blindfolded.

  But then, that’s what she’d always loved about detective work. The challenge.

  It just wasn’t quite so appealing when she or the people she loved were personally involved.

  “Hey.” Justin leaned over the counter, tipped her chin up with his finger.

  And kissed her.

  “I don’t like that I put that look on your face.”

  “You didn’t put it there,” she assured him. “It’s just the situation. A lot of stuff seems to be circling overhead right now, like someone took my life and shook it up like it was a snow globe. I’m just trying to dodge the pieces as they fall.”

  “I know that feeling.”

  “I know you do.” His aggrieved tone reminded her how badly his life had been shaken up recently, too. She tilted her head, studied him. His eyes were such an understated shade of gray. Steady eyes, she’d always thought.

  “The changes, though,” she finally said. “Some of them are pretty nice.”

  “Oh yeah?”

  “Yeah.”

  “If you come join me on this side of the counter,” he told her “we’ll see if I can do better than nice.”

  She smiled. “That wasn’t a challenge.”

  “Well, I took it as o
ne all the same. You know how competitive we physicians are.”

  With her hand trapped in his, he pulled her around the edge of the counter until she stood between his spread legs. She slid her hands into his hair, the short locks thick and surprisingly soft around her fingers.

  She smiled, ready to make another crack about bonus points and scorecards, but the look in those steady gray eyes stopped her.

  Shook her.

  It wasn’t just lust – or even playfulness – that she saw there.

  Where that morning had been all haste and hunger – the flash of leaping flames – here was warmth. A quiet simmer.

  And it pulled from her an aching tenderness.

  Kathleen loved. She was capable of great and enduring affection – you couldn’t grow up in the family she had, and survive as a stoic. Murphys not only wore their hearts on their sleeves, but pretty much all over their whole wardrobe.

  But never, in her romantic dealings, had she met anyone who could coax that affection out of her with so little effort. With no effort. It seemed to simply… swell in her whenever she was with him. For years, she had mistaken it as the affection for a dear friend.

  But it wasn’t that – or wasn’t merely that.

  The ache told her it was so much more.

  “Justin.” Because her voice shook, ever so slightly, she closed her mouth. Was tempted to take a step back.

  But his hands – big and strong and capable of intricate heroics – slid along her hips. Around her back, pulling her closer. His fingers stroked the skin he exposed as he gently lifted her sweatshirt away from her body.

  Kathleen shivered.

  “Cold?” His lips followed the trail blazed by his fingers, brushing softly, causing her blood to pulse under her skin. When they reached her breast, closed warm and wet, suckling her through the lace, her head dropped back on her neck, boneless with pleasure.

  “No,” she finally managed to say, although the word sounded strangled. “God, no.”