Ride a Painted Pony (Superromance)

by McSparren, Carolyn

  She let go and slid behind the second chariot.

  The music was loud above the whirring of the mechanism. The carousel spun faster and faster.

  She could feel the centrifugal force thrusting her out towards the edge of the slippery floor. She lay flat, pressed her face against the wood, held on to the edge of the chariot, and prayed. Her stomach heaved.

  A spurt of shots hit the wheelhouse. A mirror exploded into shards. Taylor cowered under the chariot seat.

  She raised her head a moment later to try to spot a silhouette... the flash of a rifle barrel...anything. If Nick had been hit, she’d ride until she died or spun off onto the concrete.

  Nick must live. She couldn’t lose him now.

  At first she wasn’t certain whether the carousel slowed or whether she was too dizzy to care. Then she realized the strains of the “Tennessee Waltz” were becoming identifiable. The ponies moved up and down in an easy rhythm.

  Finally the carousel jerked to a halt and rocked gently like an ocean liner moored at dockside. Edges of moonlight filtered through the enclosure windows. Had the thing run out of gas or had Nick stopped it? How did he know they were safe?

  She heard shouts and running feet.

  A moment later six guards with drawn pistols erupted into the enclosure.

  “Please, don’t shoot!” Taylor said, but she stayed prone just in case.

  The door to the engine room opened. Nick stepped onto the platform.

  “What the hell, Nick?” one of the guards shouted.

  “Someone was shooting at us.”

  The guards hesitated a moment, then ran into the darkness.

  Nick dropped beside Taylor. She threw her arms around his neck and buried her face against his shoulder.

  “Oh, God, Nick, you’re all right.”

  “I couldn’t tell whether he’d hit you.” He began to check her all over.

  She clung to him.

  “Come on,” he said, and pulled her to her feet. “They won’t catch him now.”

  “Whoa! I’m dizzy.”

  “I’ve got you, baby, I’ve got you. Hold on to me.”

  A large guard came into the enclosure and bolstered his sidearm. “Whoever it was is long gone. What the hell happened?”

  “Damned if I know, Jack.”

  “What I don’t know is how anybody could miss.” Jack snorted. “Must be one hell of a lousy shot.”

  “Not necessarily.” Jack’s partner, five feet ten and whipcord thin, leaned on the edge of the door frame. “You lock the gate behind you, Nick?”

  Nick nodded.

  “Must have been trying to hit you from the delivery lot.”

  “The angle of that first shot was down. Hit the platform.” Nick pointed to a V-shaped groove in the wood.

  Jack shrugged. “Stood on the hood of his car, maybe. Man, what you been up to?”

  “Pissing somebody off big time,” the smaller man said as he moved into the enclosure. “We’re supposed to call the cops if anybody shoots off a firearm in the city.”

  “Yeah, yeah,” Nick said.

  “Ask for Detective Danny Vollmer,” Taylor said.

  VOLLMER DIDN’T SHOW UP to take statements, and by the time the police released Nick and Taylor, the clock on the tower of the amusement park had tolled twelve.

  Nick suggested that they spend the night at Rounders. “I’ve got a sofa bed too,” he said.

  “You don’t have Elmo,” Taylor answered. “He’s never going to speak to me again if he’s run out of cat food. Besides, I don’t intend to let anyone scare me out of my home.”

  “I was afraid you’d say that,” Nick told her. He pointed to a gym bag on the backseat of the truck. “I came prepared this time.” Wearily, he considered the misery of another night on that sofa bed, his body tormented not only by the springs under the thin mattress by but the vision of Taylor so close and yet so far above him.

  “Eugene’s probably through for the night,” Taylor said, “but we can’t count on that.”

  “We can’t be sure it’s Eugene.”

  Oh, yes we can, Taylor thought, shuddering at her memory. But I can’t tell you how I know.

  “Leave your truck at Veda’s. We’ll pick it up in the morning,” Nick continued.

  “Is that a good idea? Won’t Veda worry when she finds it in the morning?”

  “She’ll just think we spent the night together.”

  Taylor closed her eyes. “Oh, great.” I wish.

  At her cabin, Nick reconnoitered before he let Taylor out of the truck. She realized she’d left the Glock in the console of a truck that sat twenty-five miles away. Should they be attacked, they were unarmed. “Great,” she whispered.

  Elmo’s fury evaporated at the sight of a can of his favorite cat food. “If I ate the way Elmo does,” Taylor said as she dumped the can into his dish, “I’d be the size of one of those chariots.”

  Nick watched her taut rear end as she bent over the dish. She was more like Elmo than she realized. Sleek and tight-muscled. He’d never found muscles sexy before. In fact, a woman like Taylor shouldn’t be able to stir his blood, but she did. She’d done nothing but mess him up since the moment she walked into Rounders. He should kick her intrusive sleek rear end out of his life, out of his troubles, and out of danger.

  Unfortunately, the best way to assure her safety was to keep her right by his side.

  There was a moment tonight—after he’d turned on the carousel lights—when he’d thought she’d looked at him as a man rather than as a client.

  He was fooling himself. What could a high-class, college-educated woman see in a guy like him? He wasn’t much except a halfway decent wood carver with sawdust in his hair on his way to bankruptcy and, possibly, prison.

  “You think they’ll pick up Eugene for questioning?” he asked, to keep the conversation going. “I’d like to know for sure whether he’s the shooter.”

  Taylor shrugged. “Who? Mississippi state police? Tennessee state police? Shelby County sheriff? Memphis police? Or even, for that matter, the police in Oxford? The way bureaucracies work he’s probably safe until he dies of old age, or unless he wanders into some station house and demands to be locked up.”

  “He’s going to keep trying to get us.”

  Taylor dropped onto the sofa. “I know. And sooner or later the law of averages will kick in.” She leaned forward and looked at Nick, who leaned once more against the sink. “You weren’t the only target tonight. He was after both of us.”

  “Yeah. You gonna call Borman?”

  Taylor shook her head. “Not tonight. Should we sleep in shifts the way they used to do in Comanche country?”

  Nick shook his head. “Unless Eugene has scored a rocket launcher I’d say we’re safe enough.”

  “Good.” Taylor stood. “Then I, for one, am going to bed. This day feels as if it started in September.”

  Nick couldn’t sleep, and not because of the mattress, or even because of Taylor. He dreaded the coming of morning as much as if he were facing the gallows at dawn. Morning meant confrontation with Max.

  He’d never known who had fathered him. His grandfather wasn’t even a halfway decent role model, much less a friend. Max had needed a son, Nick had needed a father. They’d been a perfect fit.

  Now, it seemed as though he’d never known Max at all. Had he projected his own needs onto Max so completely that he’d never recognized the weakness in the man? The viciousness he’d shown tonight with Josh Chessman couldn’t be excused simply because Max was drunk. And Max seemed to be drunk often lately.

  Could Max be trying to drown his guilt?

  Max was a supreme pragmatist. If he needed money, he’d steal the animals and assume the thefts would never be discovered. Nick could carve more, couldn’t he? Nick would never find out; therefore Nick would never be hurt.

  But Nick had found out. And Helmut Eberhardt had died. Suddenly a simple business transaction had exploded into murder and arson.

 
Had Clara Eberhardt tried to blackmail Max? Tried to threaten him about her husband’s death? Tried to get him to steal again?

  Clara Eberhardt would have come to Rounders with Max without a qualm.

  Would Clara have come with Josh? Maybe.

  She’d have come with Veda. And Veda was an expert with chisels and she knew where a blow would be the most devastating.

  Rico? Clara might be flattered by his attentions. He was not above seducing any woman he wanted.

  Suddenly Nick sat up. He remembered the underwear in Clara’s luggage. Had Clara been coming to meet a lover and had that lover been Rico? He realized they’d never checked to see whether there was a reservation at The Peabody in her name. Maybe Rico was the one registered.

  Finally, there was Marcus Cato. Nick couldn’t see Clara agreeing to join Cato in a darkened warehouse alone at night.

  Unless Eugene Lewis came with her.

  Maybe Eugene was a party to the murder. Maybe they’d been wrong about Eugene not having the brains to work a scam like this. Maybe he’d killed Clara himself. He knew his way around Rounders. He’d been there to help the Eberhardts steal the animals.

  But he didn’t have a key.

  Or did he?

  Nick’s brain felt infested by a hundred white rats lost in a maze. He heard Taylor moving around in the loft above his head. Great. He’d never get to sleep at this rate.

  He had two additional problems—maybe even more immediate than the murders and the recovery of the animals. First, he had to either get Taylor Hunt into his bed or out of his heart. Second, he had to keep them both alive.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  “MS. HUNT? This is Estelle Grierson. I hope I didn’t call too early.”

  Taylor rubbed her eyes and glanced at the clock on the sofa beside Nick’s sleeping form. Seven-thirty in the morning. She’d gotten up to go to the bathroom and had planned to go straight back to bed. She’d caught the phone on the first ring. Nick lay with his back to her and the sheet pulled up to his shoulders. “Of course I remember you, Estelle,” she said. “You hanging in there?”

  “As well as can be expected. The police released the body yesterday. We’re having a small memorial service this afternoon.”

  Nick rolled over on his back and opened his eyes sleepily. He stretched, and the sheet slipped down to his waist. His naked chest rippled with muscles delineated by a thick mat of dark hair. Taylor turned away before he could see her flush.

  “You know you said you’d be willing to help me go through some of Clara’s things?” Estelle continued. “I was wondering if you’d have time this morning. I found another lockbox key with a tag to a different bank. A bank officer has to be with me when I open the box, but I’d kind of like to have somebody—you know—on my side.”

  Taylor snapped to attention. “Of course, Estelle.” She turned around and nodded vigorously to Nick. She spoke as much for his benefit as for Estelle’s.

  “It’ll take me—” she mouthed “us” silently at Nick “—a couple of hours to get down there to help you open Clara’s lockbox.” She glanced at the clock again. “Say ten o’clock? Then maybe we could go by the house and the store afterwards. What time’s the service?”

  “Four this afternoon.” Estelle sighed. “I’ll pay you for your time, of course.”

  “That won’t be necessary. I’ll be glad to help.” She hung up and turned to Nick. “Yes!”

  He grinned at her.

  “Come on,” she said. “Up and at ’em. We’ll pick up some breakfast on the way.”

  “Me too?”

  “I’ll tell her you’re an expert in antiques. You are, aren’t you?”

  Nick grimaced. “I can fake it.”

  “Great.” Taylor turned towards the bathroom. “Do me a favor? Call Josh Chessman and tell him I can’t see him this morning, but for heaven’s sake don’t tell him why.” She smiled. “You mind making a pot of coffee while I shower? I’ll be dressed in ten minutes.”

  Nick watched her pad to the bathroom. She wore an oversize black T-shirt that ended just below her crotch and barely covered her bottom. He glimpsed a flash of white cotton panties and was suddenly fully awake and fully aroused. She didn’t even realize how sexy she looked.

  She treated him as casually as though he’d been one of her sorority sisters. He must have imagined the sparks between them last night.

  He’d finally fallen into a deep sleep sometime in the early hours of the morning—so deep that he hadn’t heard Taylor climb down the ladder from the loft. Only the ringing of the telephone had dragged him to consciousness. Sighing, he shoved Elmo off the sofa bed, straightened the bedclothes, closed up the sofa and slid the pillows back into place. He called Josh, but got Margery instead. With ill grace she promised to pass along the message.

  Elmo jumped up on the kitchen counter and protested loudly that he was starving. Nick filled his dish and water bowl, took coffee beans out of the freezer, ground them, and made coffee. Two days and he was as integrated into Taylor’s routine as into his own.

  But not into her life. Damn. He found the gym bag with his change of clothes and razor under the dining-room table and sat down to wait for the coffee and the shower. He wondered what Taylor would do or say if he were to open the shower door and join her. She’d probably deck him.

  A dozen feet away, Taylor stood under the shower with her nipples at full salute. Okay, so she’d experienced truly flagrant desire for Nick at the carousel. No way could she act on it. Still, this morning when he’d rolled over and smiled up at her with those big brown eyes, it was all she could do not to leap on him and ravish him right then and there.

  There wasn’t a nickel’s worth of difference between her and CeCe Washburn.

  She turned the shower gradually colder and colder until she began to shiver. Goose bumps covered her arms and shoulders. Her nipples shriveled, her groin tightened. Her teeth began to chatter.

  Suddenly she revolted. No man was worth this kind of torture. She turned the shower back to hot, stood under it for another minute, then shut it off.

  As she dressed, she began to wish she’d spent more time shopping at Victoria’s Secret and less at K-Mart. Not that she and Nick would ever get to the point of stripping, but if—just if—they did, she’d prefer to show off something black and lacy rather than white cotton panties and a sports bra. She blew her hair dry and wondered if maybe she needed a little eye shadow and a softer pink lipstick.

  One more day with Nick and she’d check in to the nearest spa for a fashion makeover and a body wrap. She gave her hair a vicious brush and curled her lip at her reflection. Then she pulled on the bulkiest black sweater she possessed, grabbed a pair of tube socks and went to find her shoes.

  NICK LEFT HIS SPARE SET of Rounders keys inside Veda’s storm door with a note that said they’d be gone all day and that she could open Rounders if she wanted to. Estelle Grierson might be suspicious of the Rounders truck.

  A rime of frost lay heavy on Taylor’s windshield. Nick scraped it while Taylor waited in the warm cab. On the one hand, she felt grumpy that he’d appropriated the job simply because he was the guy. On the other hand, she loved watching the muscles in his big shoulders and arms work across the windshield. If only she could appreciate him aesthetically, the way she would a Greek statue... Greek statues, however, did not have big brown eyes or gentle grins. And marble fingers would be cold, whereas Nick’s...

  Drat! She closed her eyes to shut out the sight of him.

  On the drive down, Taylor called Mel and gave him a much-edited version of yesterday’s encounter with the person they assumed was Eugene on the carousel. She also left a message at Rico’s office about lunch, and managed to catch Marcus Cato on his way to surgery.

  They picked up breakfast at a fast-food place, and Nick drove one-handed while he ate. The day shone with the pale gold clarity of a fine Chablis. There was no sign of Eugene. If he was still stalking them, he was being cleverer than usual about concealing himse
lf.

  “Dr. Cato will see me at four this afternoon at home,” she said with an exaggerated British accent.

  Nick sipped his orange juice and set it back into the holder on the console. “Tell me what you think of the house.”

  “Why?”

  Nick chuckled. “You’ll find out.”

  “Won’t you be with me? Mel wants us to stick together.”

  “Eugene doesn’t strike during daylight hours. I’ve got to see Max.”

  “Now wait a minute,” Taylor said and set her coffee down so hard it spattered. “Don’t you go bopping in alone.”

  Nick took his eyes off the road long enough to give her a long look. “I will tell Max first off that several other people know what I know.”

  “Oh, great. He picks you off and then he comes looking for me and Mel.”

  “He’s not crazy.” He pulled out to pass a silver four-horse trailer. “This morning I’m not even sure he’s guilty.”

  Taylor snorted.

  “Maybe Eugene killed Eberhardt and set the place on fire. No finesse required.”

  “I’ll grant you that,” Taylor said.

  “Maybe Clara Eberhardt’s death was accidental.”

  “Nick.” Taylor said quietly. “With a chisel?”

  Nick shook off her words. “Maybe he went into the front room for something, picked it up—”

  “Nonsense.”

  For a moment Nick concentrated on his driving. Then he said, “If he’s guilty, I’ll persuade Max to turn himself in, get Rico to plead him down to voluntary manslaughter or something. I’ll stand by him, whatever happens.”

  “You are crazy! He’s a murderer, he sicced his damn junkyard dog Eugene on us, he’s stolen from you, compromised your reputation, even stolen a valuable horse from a public carousel, for God’s sake. What does it take to make you see reason?”

  Nick shook his head stubbornly. “I don’t abandon my friends.”

  Taylor made a sound halfway between a snarl and a groan.