by Ken Casper
He reached up and gathered her breasts in his hands. Head thrown back, mouth open, she closed her eyes. Her movements slowed, then sped up. He was helpless, a captive, the most unbelievably happy prisoner. She let out a cry and suddenly they were toppling, freefalling, plunging, crashing.
CATHERINE WOKE with a shiver. With nothing covering her, she instinctively curled up against the warm male body beside her. She was jolted awake when she realized it wasn’t, couldn’t be Jordan. A wave of loneliness washed over her, followed by the sharp stab of guilt.
Fully awake now, she studied the man sleeping beside her. Remorse poked around inside her, but not disappointment. Their lovemaking had been fabulous. He wasn’t her husband, yet she couldn’t accept shame for what they had shared. A playful grin twitched her lips.
You ‘re wrong, Tyrone. So very wrong.
Still smiling, she slipped off the bed and tiptoed to the closet where she retrieved a light blanket from the top shelf. Lying down beside Jeff, she covered them both, then snuggled once more against his warm body. Content, she dozed off.
A shake of the mattress brought her back to consciousness. She opened her eyes to see Jeff sitting up beside her. Pale sunrise glowed through the windows.
“Where are we?” he asked in a voice still muffled by sleep.
“In one of the spare bedrooms,” she replied.
“Spare bedroom,” he muttered, as if his brain was having trouble processing the information. Pensively he nodded. “Not your bedroom.”
She was tempted to say this one had been closer, which was true, but that wasn’t the reason she’d selected it. As much as she’d wanted Jeff Rowan last night, she couldn’t bring herself to make love to him in the bed she had shared with Jordan. Could Jeff understand that, or would he consider it a slap in the face, an indictment that he was a sex partner, not a lover? She bit her lip in anticipation of the verdict.
“I’d better get out of here.” His tone was brusque. “It wouldn’t do to have people see me leaving your house after spending the night.”
“Jeff,” she called out in a plea for understanding.
He abandoned the bed and strode naked to a door on the left, opened it, discovered it was a closet, closed it and stepped to the one next to it. Without casting her a glance or saying a word, he disappeared into the bathroom.
Minutes passed before she heard the shower. Leaving the snug refuge of the bed, she entered the steam-filled room. His tall, manly form was silhouetted on the shower stall’s frosted glass door.
He spun around when she opened it and slipped in beside him. The hesitation, the wariness in his eyes softened into hunger when she draped her hands on his broad shoulders, raised herself on tiptoe and planted a tender kiss on his lips.
“You look mighty appealing this morning,” she murmured in his ear, his unshaven cheek scratchy against hers.
His hands clasped her hips. He searched her eyes.
“Please don’t be upset with me,” she begged. “I—”
His smile was rueful. “I’m not upset,” he assured her, then added, “though I do find you disturbing.”
She scrutinized his growing erection. “Oh, dear. That’s all my fault, isn’t it?”
He grinned at her. “Every bit of it.”
“And I suppose it’s up to me to do something about it.”
His greenish eyes twinkled. “Up to you, definitely.” He sucked in a sharp breath when she cupped him. “I’m in your hands,” he slurred. “I’m all yours. Do with me what you will.”
The water was beginning to cool by the time they emerged from the foggy stall and toweled themselves dry. The sun was full up by then. So much for a discreet departure.
“Come on,” she said, when he was buttoning his tuxedo pants over his wrinkled white shirt. “I’ll fix you breakfast.”
“You don’t cook, remember?”
She chuckled. “English muffins or bagels, orange juice, and I can make coffee. But you already know that.”
“Good coffee.” He planted an affectionate kiss on her damp forehead.
“About the bedroom—” she started, then bit her lip.
“You don’t have to explain,” he told her. “I’m not offended, if that’s what’s worrying you. He was your husband, Cate. I’m not.” He took her hands, lifted them and touched his lips to her knuckles. Over their joined fingers, he said, “And for the record, he was a lucky man.”
She hadn’t expected a tear to spill down her cheek, but it did. He wiped it away with the coarse pad of his thumb, the contact gentle, caring. He held her eyes with his. “One very lucky man.”
“DETECTIVE TAYLOR IS HERE to see you,” Annette announced over the intercom.
“Send her in,” Catherine told her.
“I have the info you wanted, Chief,” she said on entering the office.
Following Derek’s determination that it was Tyrone who deleted Jordan’s last, unpublished editorial, Catherine speculated there might be a tie between him and Buster Rialto. After all, Rialto stood to gain by the yellowcake discrepancy not being disclosed. Since Risa was currently involved in an ongoing investigation of gambling and prostitution, and Rialto was believed to be up to his armpits in both, Catherine had asked for her help.
“We checked telephone records, as you suggested, and found a reasonable number of calls placed by Rialto’s staff to the Sentinel’s advertising department and a few calls from Rialto’s home to Tyrone’s, presumably to coordinate social appointments. We also discovered a remarkable number of cell phone calls going both ways at hours that seem out of whack with either business or evening events.”
“Telephone logs,” Catherine muttered. “How close are we to getting taps authorized?”
Risa shrugged. “We’ve asked the D.A. a couple of times but always get shot down. He claims there’s nothing suspicious about friends talking to each other at odd hours. We don’t have a smoking gun to justify invading the privacy of a prominent citizen.”
The D.A. was running scared.
“I want a copy of the telephone records you have so far,” Catherine told her.
Risa smiled. “I figured you would.” She reached into her tote-sized handbag, removed a brown business envelope and handed it across the desk. “It’s all there. Dates, times, numbers.”
After Risa left, Catherine placed it in her attache case. Using her cell phone she dialed Jeff’s number.
“We need to meet. The three of us. But I won’t be able to get away until late, after nine at the earliest.” She was scheduled to speak at a dinner hosted by a local association of small business owners.
“I’ll contact Derek,” Jeff said. “Rather than camp out at your place or wait for you to call us, why don’t we meet at mine, say around eleven? You know where I live?”
“Yes,” she said. “I’ll be there.”
CATHERINE HAD PLANNED to review the telephone records Risa had given her before the meeting with Jeff and Derek, but it was already after ten by the time she reached home. Feeling clammy, she decided on a quick shower and change of clothes before going to Jeff’s house.
As tepid water sluiced down her sweaty skin, she recalled how she and Jeff had washed each other in the shower down the hall. A giggle bubbled through her as she reached for the soap. Better to think other thoughts, she decided, and tried to imagine what Jeff’s house might be like. The typical pad of a confirmed bachelor? Something about him suggested otherwise. His office, for one. Neat. Uncluttered. And the way he’d handled himself in her kitchen. Methodical. Organized. No wasted motion. He hadn’t dirtied every pan and bowl just to cook a few eggs. No, not typical.
It surprised her that they fit so well together, given their circumstances. He was still a young man, while she . . . was middle-aged, yet she couldn’t imagine a more compatible match, not just in bed, but intellectually and emotionally.
How would she have reacted if a man had made love to her in a guest room of his house instead of in his own bed? Was his acceptance
an indication that he didn’t take their lovemaking seriously? That for him it had been a pleasant interlude but nothing that required commitment? His initial reaction had been to take offense. She’d seen that. He’d accepted her decision only after thinking about it. But wasn’t that the point, that he had been willing to mull it over and consider her feelings?
What about her? Jordan was the only other man she’d ever made love with. She couldn’t deny the purely sexual hunger that made Jeff attractive, but that alone wouldn’t have caused her to invite him to sleep with her. Other factors made her want to be with him, qualities beyond the physical. The security she felt in his company, for example.
Derek was already at Jeff’s place when she arrived ten minutes after eleven. She handed Jeff the envelope with the stack of papers Risa had given her and explained what they were. “I’m sorry I didn’t get a chance to run off copies.”
“Not a problem. I have a copier here.” He turned to Derek. “Would you mind getting the chief whatever she wants to drink?”
While Jeff crossed to a bedroom that served as his office, Derek rattled off a variety of beverage options and went to the kitchen.
She did a quick assessment of Jeff’s living room and was impressed. The furniture was lean and clean. The graphics on the walls were numbered and signed originals. The bronze sculptures not exactly traditional in style, but there was an honesty about them that delighted her. His tastes were complex and sophisticated, something that pleased her more than she could explain.
She was sipping a can of diet cola and studying a framed black-and-white lithograph of an old man and woman holding hands when Jeff reappeared with three stacks of papers. He kept one and distributed the others.
“I did a quick review of what you have here,” he said to Catherine. “A lot of telephone calls between Tyrone Tanner and Buster Rialto.”
Derek’s brows narrowed as he flipped though his copy. “What does it mean?”
“That Tyrone may be involved in Rialto’s gambling and prostitution businesses,” Catherine said. “I doubt as a partner, more likely a paying customer.”
Derek whistled. Catherine had never heard him express an opinion about Kelsey’s uncle, but she had picked up enough vibes to know he didn’t particularly like the man. Derek was inexperienced as a cop, but he could size up people quickly and accurately, an instinct that would serve him well on the force—if he chose to stay.
“That would give Rialto leverage over him,” Jeff added. “It also explains why the Sentinel backed off on the missing yellowcake story.”
She held up the thick sheaf of papers. “We don’t know what was said in those conversations, so this is all speculation.”
“Do you think Tyrone is being blackmailed?” Derek asked.
Catherine pinched the bridge of her nose to ward off the fatigue that was beginning to swamp her. “His father paid off a mountain of gambling debts several years ago. Tyrone swore he was finished, but—”
“Did he undergo formal counseling?” Jeff asked.
She snorted. “Ty? Does he strike you as the kind of man who would take advice from a shrink? Counseling is for sissies.”
“Then I doubt he’s stopped. Gambling is as much an addiction as alcohol, drugs . . . or sex,” Jeff said. “You don’t get up one morning and decide you’re not going to do it anymore. Just saying no is a great philosophy, and some people actually do it, but it takes willpower—”
“Something my brother-in-law is not famous for.”
“A phone tap would answer our questions,” Jeff said.
“Except we don’t have enough evidence to get one from a judge, nor do we have the manpower for an illegal tap, which would be inadmissible in court and could poison a good case, if it were uncovered. No. A tap is out.”
“So where do we go from here?” Derek asked.
“This only covers the last six months, and it’s inconclusive.”
Jeff picked up on where she was headed. “But it’s enough to justify delving deeper.” He turned to Derek. “Can you get the complete records of both Tyrone’s and Buster’s calls over, say, the past two years?”
“Sure,” the cop replied. “There’ll be a lot of them.”
“Analysis will be easier if they’re in an electronic format. We can sort for individual numbers, times of day, length of calls, that kind of thing.”
“You got it,” Derek said.
The rookie left a few minutes later, taking his copies of the logs with him.
“Where did you park your car?” Jeff asked Catherine.
“I brought Jordan’s pickup. I use it when I don’t want to be recognized.”
“Can you stay the night?”
She smiled. “Is that an invitation?”
“I have only one bed . . . if you’d care to share it with me. It comes with breakfast in the morning.”
Her response was a wide grin, then a chuckle. “Bed and breakfast. Sounds like an offer I can’t refuse.”
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
* * *
“YOU WERE MARRIED ONCE.” Catherine’s head lay in the crook of Jeff’s arm, her hair flaring on his shoulder. “What happened?”
He had never tasted the warm afterglow of lovemaking he was experiencing with this woman, never comprehended that the pleasure didn’t end when the last orgasm was complete. He wouldn’t allow her question to alter that euphoria, though the subject wasn’t one he liked to talk about.
“It was ten years ago.”
She rested her hand on his chest. “How long did it last?”
“Less than twelve months.” He shifted the hand he had on her back, enjoying the feel of her soft skin. “We met at a rock concert.”
She raised her head and gazed at him, her lips bunched in a smile of amusement. “Rock and opera. You certainly have a broad range of musical tastes.”
He laughed. “I was on duty in plain clothes. Sandy was a fan. We hit it off immediately.” Had sex that same night, which should have been a clue that things were moving too fast. “Six months later we tied the knot.”
“A whirlwind affair.” Catherine was mocking him with humor. No matter. He deserved it. As for the humor, it had taken him a long time to laugh at himself for being so stupid.
“Unfortunately, we weren’t compatible.” He stroked her arm. He couldn’t seem to get enough of touching her.
Her head was on his chest. “In what way?”
“We enjoyed being together, and we agreed on what we considered the basic essentials—music, food, cars, clothes, where we wanted to live. Externals.”
“Sex.”
He couldn’t see her face, but he could feel her smiling. Why not? It was true. “Sex, too,” he said. “We were in our twenties, immortal, hormone-crazed and impatient.”
“I remember the feeling,” she muttered and snuggled closer.
Their hormones had certainly been in an uproar a few minutes ago. That much hadn’t changed. But neither of them were in their twenties anymore, and they both knew all too well they weren’t immortal. Maybe that was why he could take so much pleasure in just lying here with her in his arms, preposterously happy with this little slice of time.
“So what went wrong?”
He stared up at the dark ceiling. “A few small details didn’t become apparent until we returned from our honeymoon.” He still caught himself resenting the way his wife had held back until after they were married, thinking she could change him once she had his ring on her finger.
“Sandy didn’t like having guns in the house. I offered to teach her how to handle them, but she refused. She’d seen me wearing a sidearm often enough, but I’d always kept them discreetly concealed when we went out on dates.” It hadn’t occurred to him that she might be afraid of it.
“Then there was my erratic work schedule,” he continued. “My hours had been predictable enough when I was on patrol, but I was promoted to detective shortly after we were married. Not exactly a nine-to-five job.”
“Didn�
��t she work?” Catherine asked.
He toyed with the ends of her hair, while he watched the curve of her breast rise and subside with each breath. He remembered the thrill he’d felt with Sandy, but he had no recollection of this sense of contentment. Maybe it was his maturity, but he thought it had more to do with the woman.
“She was an insurance adjuster,” he said.
Catherine stretched luxuriantly against him, then brought her leg up across his thigh, seriously threatening his contented repose. “She must have put in long hours, too.”
He took a deep breath. “She argued that her hours were by appointment, and she didn’t get called out in the middle of the night or during dinner in a restaurant.”
Catherine’s chuckle vibrated against his ribs, further accelerating his blood flow. “Right on both counts.”
“Then there was the danger element,” he went on. “She complained that when I went to work she never knew if she would see me alive or in one piece again.”
“It is a risky job. So are a lot of others.”
He felt the old arguments rising. “I tried to explain that to her, but I didn’t help my case by pointing out that there was more chance of her getting breast cancer than me getting shot.”
Catherine raised her head and gazed at him with a jaundiced eye. “That probably wasn’t the most diplomatic comparison you could have made.”
“I figured that out too late.” He sighed. “What I didn’t realize was how wide the gulf was between us, until she complained that my only friends were other cops. She associated with a variety of businesspeople, builders, bankers, lawyers . . . ” He peered down at the woman nestled against him. “I didn’t tell her what I thought of some of them.”
