Beneath the Skin

by Melissa James

  You bloody moron. This is Elly!

  But almost any man would react to the lush breasts pressed against him, and the soft perfume of baby powder and warm sunshine in the feathery curls tickling his nose. Just the normal reaction to the touch of an attractive woman—and the most basic of needs submerged way too long, resurrecting to sudden life.

  But this was Elly. He had no right to desire her—not now, not ever. And yet, it wasn’t a conscious choice; it was as natural as breathing. Like the myriad times she’d climbed up to his window to taunt him into joining her in her next adventure, her cheeky little face a challenge he could never resist. Coming, Claudius?

  Little Elly, the best friend he’d never had before her, or since he’d left her life.

  How the hell had he ever left her behind? Half a lifetime …

  He looked up, still holding her. Every man in the station watched him with half-wistful and knowing grins—except for Rick. The man who’d come to Macks Lake a few months after Adam, and who’d become his best mate soon after, seemed far from happy. His eyes were narrowed in acute assessment and a suspicion that was too damn accurate for Adam’s comfort. And something else, almost like resentment.

  When he glanced over again the look was gone, leaving only shadows of doubt behind.

  He tried to put Elly at arm’s length, but she pulled him right back to her. ‘No, you don’t get off that easy. I haven’t seen you in thirteen years, Detective Sergeant Jepson.’ Full lips, warm and moist, brushed the side of his mouth. ‘Howdy, Claudius.’ The mock-hillbilly accent was spiced and softened by her natural velvet huskiness. ‘How’re y’all?’

  Adam’s throat was dry, the rest of him in pain. He conjured a smile from the humiliated depths. ‘Howdy, Elly-May. Still collectin’ the critters?’

  ‘Still a-s-stutterin’ with the purty w-w-womenfolk?’ she shot back.

  ‘Ah-ah-ah … yep.’ He laughed with the memory of where he’d got his nickname. ‘Right. Everyone, meet my—’

  ‘He’s no relation to me, anyway,’ Elly interjected, laughing.

  ‘You would deny it, even if we were family.’ He grinned at her. ‘Then what are we?’

  ‘Foster aunt and nephew?’ Elly suggested.

  He rolled his eyes. ‘Yeah, that works, seeing that you’re almost five years younger. Okay. Everyone, meet my, um, I suppose my—’

  ‘And after that pathetic non-explanation by my non-related and no longer furious childhood friend, you still have no idea who I am. I’m Elly Lavender.’ She held out a hand to Baz, with that big, friendly smile of hers. ‘How do you do, Constable South? I believe we’ve met, but I was … um … tied up at the time.’

  The members of the station crowded around her, laughing. Under the cover she’d provided, Adam’s mind raced. Yeah, she was good. Quick and smooth, that interruption, with a laughing reference to her ‘arrest’ to distract them. And the ruse worked—except on him. For he alone knew Elly wasn’t her real name. Neither was Lavender.

  And yet Simon and Baz, who must have demanded her licence, weren’t arguing.

  Rick was standing slightly apart. Adam saw the same frowning doubt on his face. Rick knew she was lying, too, but though his friend was an excellent cop, he couldn’t know that Elly had always refused to answer anyone else who’d tried to use her nickname, as he’d done with Claudius. The names were theirs alone during their time at his grandparents’ farm.

  Now she was using it in public. Worse, she must have made the name legal. The boys would have looked her licence up on the database, so it couldn’t be a fake.

  Elly Lavender.

  Although they’d been apart almost half a lifetime, and she’d gone from child to woman, he knew her too well to believe in this game of charades and shadows. They’d been inseparable during almost four years of holiday time, and spent hours on the phone and emailing every day when he’d had to go home. They’d been so close they could read each other’s thoughts half the time. He’d always known when she was hurt or upset, as she’d done with him. An email had always come when he was going through a hard time: Want to talk about it?

  He ought to have listened to the deep-honed instinct that had been screaming at him since she’d come in, but the personality she was projecting had no correlation with the girl he’d known, and she looked almost nothing like her, either.

  You haven’t seen her in years; what would you know?

  But it nagged at him. Surely, she couldn’t have changed this much?

  Unless something happened to her to force the change. He watched her closely, but she wasn’t looking at him, her back almost turned to him now. The same way she’d done when they were kids, and she wanted to hide something from him.

  Homing into the instincts he never used except during arrests or interviews, he glanced around the room, feeling it. Yeah, something else was wrong. It didn’t take long to find the source—Rick was watching Elly with far more intensity than a stranger should.

  Damn it. He hadn’t seen that kind of look—almost possession—in his mate’s face since his cheating girlfriend had skipped town seven months ago.

  The screen door opened with a shuddering squeak, reminiscent of the effect the voice that followed it always had on him, with its deliberate girlishness and helpless high pitch. ‘Adam, I need to see you—alone. I’ve been molested in broad daylight!’

  He turned to the woman leaning over the counter, showing a hint of cleavage. There was little sign of distress in her smile, or in her lithe, slender body—but then, there never was. Jennifer Collins was a woman on a mission: to get him into bed. Feeling the usual mix of distaste and unwilling half-arousal; it was another of those times he hated being a man. ‘I’m too busy for this today, Mrs Collins. If you have a genuine complaint, make it to Senior Constable Mendham. He’ll check it out.’

  ‘But Adam …’ the woman purred—and then, seeing Elly, she frowned. ‘Who’s she?’

  ‘None of your concern,’ he snapped, and turned back to Elly. ‘Come into my office.’

  CHAPTER

  2

  ‘So are you going to tell me what’s really going on? What are you doing here, Elly?’ Adam asked as soon as he’d established their privacy.

  She shrugged, reaching over the neat stack of paperwork that had to be on the regional inspector’s desk tomorrow to take his hand in hers. ‘It’s been a long time, Claudius, with no see at all—almost half a lifetime. Can’t I come to the back of beyond to visit my long-lost childhood mate without getting the Spanish Inquisition about it?’

  His gaze roamed her face. Her transition from a short, scrawny Little Orphan Annie with wild, waist-length black hair to a tall, curvaceous woman with short, loose chestnut curls—and a face like that—still stunned him. His tree-kitten had always made him smile. From the day they’d met, she’d invited him to come and run in her own private jungle, but now, as a woman, just meeting her again had shifted something in him. Something fundamental he couldn’t name.

  He released her hands and sat back to try to gain some rational perspective. ‘Maybe. If you’d introduced yourself as Jane Larkins out there.’

  Silence answered him.

  He lifted a brow. ‘I can find out all about you in seconds on the COPS database.’

  ‘You got me there, Claudius.’ She grinned, then looked around, mouth turning down. ‘Your office is very—plain. Sterile, even. All grey and white and files, and a dark desk. Aren’t you allowed to have anything personal?’

  He stared at her. ‘It’s my work space. It doesn’t need to be aesthetically pleasing.’

  ‘I’ve always thought a work space says a lot about how a person feels about their job.’ A frown at him—assessing, weighing him on unseen scales. ‘Yet all you ever wanted was to be a cop.’

  And yeah, he’d been found wanting. In all their history, she’d never criticised him. It was so unexpected a hit he felt his whole body stiffen. ‘Yes.’ He unlocked his jaw after the word. ‘And since I am a cop, I know when s
omeone’s avoiding my questions. So why did you introduce yourself as Elly Lavender?’

  She must have known she’d pushed him too far, for she pulled a rueful face. ‘Maybe I got a yen to change my name? It’s all legal, I promise.’ She handed him her driver’s licence. The legend above her unsmiling face—the only time he’d seen her without a smile since she’d re-entered his life—read Elliana Angelina Lavender.

  He handed the plastic card back. ‘How many times have you felt that “yen” before?’

  The flush creeping up her rich skin came out the dusky rose of the outback sky at sunset. ‘So I don’t like keeping to one name,’ was all she said; but he sensed something—some dark ugliness—lying hidden beneath her words. Emotion not quite buried, but not in the open.

  Perhaps he’d already hit close to the truth? Given their history, he knew he’d have to dig to get her to talk. ‘Once upon a time you hated the name Elly, too.’

  She laughed, but the sweetness of it rang false. ‘No, I just hated anyone but you using it. And you have to admit, Elly-May suits me. You know, the hillbilly kid with the critters. I never did like Janie. Bad connotations, Claudius. You know, plain Jane and all that.’

  She really means that. It was so ridiculous he couldn’t believe she didn’t know. Okay, so she’d never win any beauty contests; she wouldn’t be every man’s cup of tea. But in his eyes, Elly was—was—hell, he didn’t know … But she had such vivid, fiery life inside her it felt like she’d burst into spontaneous combustion any moment.

  Or maybe it was him who was ready to explode. Denial was useless, and he refused to lie to himself; nobody knew how useless that was more than he did. Wanting to run his fingers over her dark-honey skin, taste every inch of it … and find out how far down those tempting freckles went.

  He wanted Elly like hell. He’d never have her. End of story.

  So move on to why she’s here.

  ‘Plain Jane. Right. I don’t think so,’ he said, dry to the point of brittleness. ‘You must know you’re a bloody attractive woman, Elly. You must have had plenty of men in your life tell you that.’

  The deep rose bloomed in her cheeks again, but it was a flush of discomfort. Her eyes showed a quick flash of dread, even fear, before her gaze fell to her lap. She folded her hands, weaving shadows of calm around herself like mist.

  She’d shut him out for a simple compliment. How could his calling her attractive scare her?

  ‘And your hair? Wasn’t it black, and much curlier, the last time I saw it?’

  She remained shrouded in a tranquil silence that hit him as wrong. Practised.

  He pursued the subject with dogged determination. ‘Black hair’s very difficult to lighten, I hear. I’ve interviewed women who do it—the bleaching and colour, and the straightening treatment. A woman must have a very strong desire for … change … to put herself through all that. The other women I’ve interviewed were on the run from violent partners, or criminals.’

  She lifted her chin and faced him down with a smile, her eyes cool, unreadable. ‘Are you interviewing me, Claudius? Really?’

  ‘Those women were all on the run,’ he persisted, holding her gaze.

  She only sighed, as if she was bored. ‘Maybe they were. Maybe I just had a yen for change all round.’

  Shadows of the past were locked deep inside her eyes, and worry hit the alarm bell on his slumbering life. ‘Elly, talk to me. It’s obvious you’re in trouble—’

  ‘I was so sorry to hear of your father’s death, and Sharon and Zack’s accident,’ she said, her voice subdued. ‘I know how much you loved your father and Sharon—and little Zack, only a month old. It must have devastated you.’

  He took the hit without word or movement, until he realised it wasn’t a ploy to open him up; it was an obvious change of subject. His father’s death to cancer eighteen months ago hadn’t been unexpected, but he’d kept the sudden deaths of his wife and newborn son buried beneath a blanket of silence since it happened. He didn’t like his wounds being probed, and nobody knew that better than Elly. Yet she was putting her finger right in them.

  Then it hit him—she’d been there when he’d first known loss. Eighteen years ago she’d given a faltering prayer at the grave of Abe, his beloved dog—and if she hadn’t truly changed, he knew she’d never open up if he didn’t first. He conceded her right to open the subject with a curt nod.

  ‘Is that why you left Sydney, and the federal police?’ Her voice was gentle, as it had been at old Abe’s grave.

  Sick with relief that she wasn’t going deeper, he nodded again. ‘I was only in the Specialist Response Group for three years—and you’re partly right. I left because I got shot just above the lung in a drug raid two years ago.’

  Her gaze lowered to her lap, her fingers twining around each other. ‘I heard. I wish I could have come to you when you were in hospital. I wish I could have helped you through.’

  ‘So why—’ But seeing the shadows in her face, and her classic gesture when feeling uncomfortable or guilty, he closed his mouth. Who was he to ask? She could have been married, murdered or become famous the past thirteen—really, fourteen—years, since soon after he’d met his wife, and he wouldn’t have known a thing about it.

  Because you never asked. You got out of her life so fast you left skid marks on the road.

  When his wife and father had made it too damn hard for him to ask his grandparents about Elly, the easy option had felt like the only option: walking away and never looking back. And he’d done it so bloody thoroughly he’d almost forgotten she’d existed.

  ‘Anyway, I realised how unstable an environment I was putting Zoe in,’ he said, hearing the abruptness in his tone. ‘The element of constant risk in the SRG is better handled by guys without families. So I quit, joined the New South Wales police, and applied to come somewhere slow and quiet, for Zoe’s sake. There had never even been a detective here, or a plain-clothes cop, but there was suspicion of drugs being made in this region. So I was sent here to investigate, using the truth as a cover—I was a single dad looking for a preschool and a house to buy. By the time the case was done I’d bought the house, and Zoe was happy here.’

  Her brows lifted, but whatever she’d been about to ask, she changed her mind. ‘So how is Zoe?’

  Glad to leave the subject, he grinned, though his heart still felt rimmed by darkness and shadow. ‘She’s fine—better than fine. She’s four and a half now, and a holy terror.’

  Her eyes lit with that impish grin. ‘Like father, like daughter? She couldn’t have inherited that from Sharon!’

  His mouth tightened. Stop it. Don’t say her name!

  His brother Jared, his mum, his cousins—everyone had been trying ever since the accident to bring up his dead wife’s name, or Zack’s, hoping he’d talk out what they assumed to be his grief. Now Elly was doing it—but somehow, it didn’t feel the same. She hadn’t been in his life for years; he hadn’t even seen her since the day he’d taken his marriage vows with his dainty, golden-haired bride. Elly was probably assuming he was far enough from the tragedy for his sorrow to have dulled—and she’d be right, if it were sorrow alone he felt.

  ‘The image of her mother, the heart and spirit of her crazy dad,’ he agreed, wondering if she’d press it.

  Her answering smile was sweet, pensive. ‘You still crazy after all these years?’

  Relieved again that she was reading him so well, he grinned. ‘Mum and Dad, Grandma and Grandpa—the whole family—wouldn’t believe you said that. As you seem to know, they call me “Old Sobersides” around here. You’re the only one who ever believed me crazy.’

  ‘Maybe because they don’t know you like I do.’ Her brow lifted, that twinkle back in her eyes, daring him to deny it.

  She was right. He had been crazy when he was with her. Those summers had been—still were—the best times of his life. Stealing food from Grandma’s kitchen for unauthorised picnics, taking forbidden joyrides on Grandpa’s tractor, fishing wi
th lines and reels made from Coke bottles, sleeping in the bush. Coming back from their adventures covered in mud and slime, bringing injured wild creatures home in makeshift cages to care for them. Every day with Elly had been one adventure after another, each more addictive than the one before it. Helpless to resist, and against the will of his stiff-necked father, who’d disliked Elly from first sight, Adam had returned to his grandparents’ farm every holiday he could, and emailed, texted and called her between. No one in his family understood that need to just be—the utter relief of being with someone who accepted him, just as he was.

  Stop it. That ended long ago. You’re not a kid anymore. You have a child to raise, a responsible job. Those days, those pranks are over.

  Again, as if she’d read his mind, Elly changed the subject. ‘You don’t need to let loose after your experiences? You scared me at times, the way you were so single-minded about being a cop. And you’re still a cop after everything you’ve been through. Surely you need to—’

  ‘How do you know what I’ve been through?’ he cut in, not wanting to hear the lecture from her, of all people. ‘We haven’t seen each other in thirteen years.’

  Her grin was sheer impudence. ‘Aunty Hat.’

  He groaned. His great-aunt Harriet had immersed herself in Jepson politics and romance since her fiancé’s death early in the Vietnam War. ‘We can escape Interpol—’

  ‘But Aunty Hat will find a Jepson descendent to pump information from, no matter where we run.’ She finished the family joke.

  He chuckled. Then, thinking it through, he frowned. ‘Did she send you here? Are you checking up on me?’

  Her left brow rose. ‘Why for, Claudius?’ Yeah, she knew why he’d asked, all right, and wouldn’t make it easy for him. ‘Have you been up to mischief again, despite your denials, and this shrink-worthy office? Do you need checking up on?’

  ‘By you? What good would you be?’

  She laughed. ‘Times change, people change, old friend—as you must have noticed, since you didn’t even recognise me.’ He winced at the deliberate needling, but she only grinned, and wiggled her brows. ‘These days, I think I could surprise you with how useful I can be, in the most unlikely of places.’