Jodie's Little Secrets

by Joanna Wayne

  “You mean besides nearly dying?”

  “That was bad enough, I know, but did something happen to frighten you before the attack?”

  “To tell you the truth, I don’t remember much of anything that happened that night. I know I was going there to meet the two of you, something about a ticket you wanted me to check. Did you find it?”

  “No, but that’s okay.” Jodie scooted to the front edge of the uncomfortable chair. “We think someone might have been in the shop that night when you got there. Do you remember seeing anyone?”

  A dark shadow robbed the light from Gloria’s eyes. Shivering she hugged her arms across her chest.

  Jodie felt the same chill that inundated Gloria, but this time the cold was heated with hope. “Don’t be afraid, Gloria. Just tell us if someone was there.”

  “I’m not afraid. Never have been. But this medicine. It makes you dream, you know, strange things. A man stealing your breath away, an ambulance that never reaches the hospital. The weirdest images pop into my head, but I can’t give them credence.”

  “What kind of images?” Jodie’s pulse was racing now, and she had to keep Gloria talking.

  “Last night I could have sworn someone slipped into my room, and told me he had to kill me. I woke up screaming.”

  “You mean someone tried to kill you here, in your hospital room?”

  “No, honey. It’s the medicine. Dr. Creighton says it makes people imagine all kinds of things.”

  “But what about at the flower shop? You weren’t taking medicine or having nightmares then. Was Someone there?” Desperation clawed at Jodie’s insides. “Did you see someone in your shop?”

  “No. I don’t even remember seeing you and Ray, but I’m sure glad you showed up when you did.”

  Ray walked over to stand behind Jodie. He massaged her shoulders, but the tight coils of pressure didn’t loosen. She couldn’t walk away again empty-handed.

  “I’m trying to find someone Gloria.” She struggled to keep her voice calm. “I think he’s the one who ordered the bouquet of flowers from you, the yellow roses you delivered to me at Grams’s house. I think he might have even broken into your shop.”

  “Why would he do a thing like that? I sent the flowers just like he said. Well, now that’s not exactly true. He wanted red roses, but I was fresh out. But the yellow ones were nice, and I even found a card with a heart on it. He was bound and determined the card have a heart on it somewhere.”

  “Did he say why?”

  “No. He had a nice voice, though, real friendly like. I think he likes you.”

  Jodie rubbed a stabbing pain in her right temple. It was time to try a new tack. “What did the man in your dream look like, the one who tried to strangle your breath away?” She was clutching for any shred of hope now, but she couldn’t leave without trying everything. It was possible the fear she wasn’t ready to face consciously was manifesting itself in her dream.

  “I don’t know. Nightmares, they’re more a feeling than a movie, at least mine are. A bunch of shadowy images that make you wake up shaking.”

  “But was he tall? What color was his hair?”

  Gloria shook her head, and squinted her eyes half shut. “I don’t know. Officer Deaton asked me the same thing. I told him I don’t remember a thing, but I promised to call him immediately if I do.”

  “Then we have the bases covered.” Ray tightened his grip on Jodie’s shoulders. “We’ll go now, Miss Gloria, and let you get some rest, hopefully the nonnightmare kind.”

  “I’ve had enough rest. That’s all they let you do in this place.”

  “For good reason, so you’ll get well fast. Your doctor already warned us not to wear you out.” Ray took Jodie’s hand and led her to the door. She managed a proper goodbye and kept a semblance of calm until the door shut behind them.

  “He was there,” she said, when they were out of Gloria’s earshot. “I could see it in Gloria’s eyes when we first asked if she’d seen someone in her shop that night.”

  “All I saw was confusion.”

  “No. He was there. For some reason, she’s blocked it from her mind. Or maybe the medicine has.”

  “We’ll find him, Jodie. I faxed the names of your possible suspects to Cappan and your descriptions to the artist in New Orleans. He wants to talk to you about a couple of them. We can call him from my office.”

  She rubbed a spot between her temples, fighting the beginning of a headache that threatened to be a zinger.

  Ray dropped an arm around her shoulders. “Are you okay?”

  “I’m disappointed.” She leaned for a second, needing the support of his strength.

  “A description from Gloria would have been nice. But, don’t worry, baby, it’ll be over soon.”

  Baby. An arm around her shoulder. All the right actions, from the wrong kind of man. “You don’t have to do any of this Ray. I’ve told you before. It’s not your battle.”

  “You’re wrong. I do have to do it.”

  “Why?”

  “You need me.”

  She pulled away. “I never told you that.”

  “I know. You’re too stubborn.” He took her hand and tugged her along at a snail’s pace. “Right now you’re even doing a good imitation of a mule.”

  “Just take me home, Ray. You can pick up your things and move back into your own home. You can go on with your life.”

  “My life right now is protecting you. And I’m taking you back to my office. We have a killer to catch.”

  “WHAT ABOUT THIS MAN?”

  Kostner was grilling, falling into his lawyer routine, and he could tell Jodie was rebelling. Her responses were growing so sharp, he could feel the prick. But he had to get to the bottom of this for both their sakes. She was in danger of losing her life.

  He was in danger of ruining his, of making a colossal mistake, by falling for Jodie Gahagen so hard he’d never be able to walk away. He’d escaped by the skin of his teeth before. Yet the second he was near her, his well-rehearsed inhibitions flew out the window.

  He tapped the eraser end of his pencil on the description she’d labeled number five. Dark hair cut short, medium build, in his early twenties. Nice-looking. He asked his question again, rephrasing it slightly. “What’s your contact been with this man?”

  “We’ve been over his description before. We’ve been over all the descriptions before, several times.” She uncrossed her right leg and crossed her left, this time swinging her foot toward him.

  “We talked about him, but you didn’t say much. All I have in my notes about this guy is a two-sentence description and the fact that he works at a deli by your office.”

  “It was my office. Past tense. And you don’t have any more about him because that’s all there is. He flirts with me when I buy fresh fruit. Innocent flirting. He does the same with every female. You told me to list every possible suspect. I did.”

  “You overlooked one.”

  “The mayor of New York City? We don’t run in the same circles.”

  “So how about your sons’ father? You must have run in the same circles with him, a least for a while.”

  She stopped swinging her leg. Her brows drew together, and her eyes shot daggers. Just like earlier, the mere mention of the boys’ father put her on edge. There was a story there, but Ray wasn’t sure he wanted to hear it.

  Either the man was a complete jerk, and Jodie had found out in time not to marry him or he was the biggest fool in the world. He’d walked away from one of the best catches of all time. Gorgeous, smart, good sense of humor, at least most of the time. And so sexy she could heat a room to boiling point in thirty seconds flat.

  Ray let out a heated breath. Maybe the boys’ father was only runner-up to the biggest fool in the world. Still, it wasn’t as if Ray had walked away without reason. He was just smart enough to know he didn’t fill the bill as husband or father material. He couldn’t be counted on when the going got rough. He’d proved it one time too many.
r />   His dad’s secretary buzzed in from the outer office. He switched the speaker on.

  “You told me I could have the afternoon off for my grandson’s birthday party. I’ll be leaving in about five minutes. Do you need anything before I go?”

  “Not that I can think of, Barbara.” At least not anything she knew how to do. A one-man law office with no paralegals. One secretary, one part-time student research assistant. Life in the dark ages. “Enjoy yourself.”

  “I will.”

  The interruption over, he zeroed in again. “Back to the subject of the boys’ father. Ex-lovers are at the head of the suspect heap when you’re trying to identify a mystery stalker, Jodie. You know that.”

  “The boys’ father is not a suspect.”

  “Were you in love with him?” God, where did that question come from? Not only was it irrelevant, it was none of his business. And Jodie would mince no words in telling him so. She’d probably march out the door as well.

  “Yes.”

  The answer caught him off guard, pounding him squarely in the gut with the force of a boxer’s punch. Her gaze was fixed on him, her eyes smoky, but not with anger. He wished it had been. Anger, hate, anything but the dark, hazy passion he saw swimming in their depths.

  The same look she’d given him time and again during his week in New York City, always after they were quiet and spent, his love still inside her, his arms still wrapped around the curves of her seductive body.

  Today the look was for someone else. Someone who had come into her life within weeks after he’d left. While he was in New Orleans trying to get her out of his mind, some other guy was…

  Tension crawled Ray’s spine, tightening every nerve and muscle into painful knots. And he had asked for this kind of misery.

  “I think we’ve covered enough for one day.” He yanked open the top drawer of his desk and slammed the legal pad he’d been making notes on inside. “I’ll drive you home and then come back here and try to finish up before midnight.” He stood up and grabbed his suit coat from the back of his chair. “Trying to keep my career afloat while taking care of Dad’s is a major effort.”

  “Sit back down, Ray. Now it’s my turn to talk.”

  He didn’t sit. It wasn’t his style to be equal with a sparring partner, and from the tone of Jodie’s voice, a big-time confrontation was brewing. Instead he leaned against the front edge of his desk, his suit jacket hooked on a thumb swung over his shoulder, his gaze locked with hers.

  “There’s absolutely no reason for you to continue to stay at Grams’s house,” she continued, her shoulders straight as a lamppost, and just as unyielding. “Not only are the police going to watch the house now that they know the stalker is a murderer, but Ben is moving into the boathouse.”

  “When did this develop?”

  “This afternoon, right before you picked me up.”

  “Does my being there bother you that much, Jodie?”

  “How could it? I never see you. Since I asked you to help with the boys the other night, you’ve managed to stay away until we’re all fast asleep. I don’t blame you. You never know about these single mothers and the traps they lay to get a husband.”

  “Is that what you think?” His hands gripped the edge of the desk. “That I’ve been staying away because I didn’t want to be with you?”

  “What else was there for me to think?”

  What else? The truth. That the more he saw her, the more he wanted her. That every nerve in his body, and a few parts that didn’t classify as nerves grew hard just thinking about her in the next room, dressed in some clingy little nightie, her body stretched across a crisp white sheet, her hair falling like fire over shoulders as soft as fresh cream.

  He left his desk and walked over to the office door, turning the lock.

  “What are you doing?”

  “Come here, and I’ll show you. I don’t want there to be any more confusion about why I don’t come back to Miss Emily’s at night until I’m so tired I can’t think.”

  She stood up, but she didn’t come closer. She didn’t get the chance. Ray crossed the room in a split second, dropping his jacket on a chair as he went. His arms wrapped around her, pulling her close while his mouth sought her lips. The taste of her rocketed through him, bringing him alive deep in his soul.

  Her lips parted beneath his, warm, loving, the Jodie he remembered from a hundred sleepless nights. Nights when hours of New Orleans revelry had dimmed his wit but not his memories. Nights when every sound, every smell, every female voice reminded him of Jodie Gahagen and one week in New York City.

  The memories merged with the present. His hands skimmed her back, his fingers digging into the threads of the soft sweater. Her body was supple, soft and yielding, but her mouth was hot and demanding. Her tongue pushed its way between his lips, seeking out his own and the dark recesses of his mouth.

  Breathless, he pulled his mouth away, but not his body. “This is why I stayed away, Jodie. Why I can’t see you except in public places.” He buried his face in her hair. “Because I can’t be around you without wanting you like this.”

  She swallowed his words with her mouth. “Want me, Ray. Want me like this. I’m tired of fear and running. Tired of men who sneak through closed doors and hide behind notes and gifts.” She trembled against him. “I need to be held, to be loved, like this.”

  He drowned in her kiss, and all he could think about was wanting more. His hands slipped under her sweater. The first touch of his fingers to her heated skin sent shock waves coursing through him. He worked at the clasp of her bra until it let her breasts fall loose, soft mounds of flesh resting against him. His thumbs circled the nipples, pink and perfect and berry hard.

  It was the wrong place, the wrong time, but he was powerless to stop himself. He worked his lips down her neck, and then touched them to her breasts. She moaned, soft gurgling cries that tore at him, releasing new waves of desire so primal he had to take his hands off of her or take her right there. He backed her against the wall, his body against hers, his hands pushing into the painted wood above her shoulders.

  Jodie came up for air only to tear at the buttons on his shirt, pulling them loose and pushing the fabric aside until she could rake his bare chest with her fingertips. Each touch was like flames licking at his self control. If they’d been anywhere else but his office…

  “I want you, Ray. Now. This minute.” Her words were more demand than pleadings.

  “In a law office?” Doubts shook from his lips.

  “The door’s locked.”

  True. And the way he felt right now he could take her on Front Street with the whole town looking on. He lifted her in his arms and carried her to the desk, setting her down on the edge. With one free arm, he swept his hand across the polished surface, raking papers and folders into a pile at one end, more than a few falling to the carpet.

  His fingers fumbled with the buttons of her blouse, hers with his zipper. Somewhere deep in his mind, he knew he was breaking the rules he’d set, forgetting the boundaries. But somewhere else, somewhere much closer to his heart, he was following dictates that couldn’t be ignored.

  Moments later, Jodie’s cries filled the room, and he exploded inside her.

  His strength returned slowly. Finally, he moved, stretching to an upright position and yanking his trousers into place. It was then he heard the sound, slight, like muffled movement in the outer office. Tilting his head, he listened, but there was nothing more.

  Overactive nerves, he guessed, as Jodie stirred beside him, the smoky look he remembered so well dancing in her eyes. And this time it was all for him.

  Chapter Eight

  “You should have seen the man. He was a sight. Out in my backyard on his all fours shooting a picture of a regular old armadillo like he was on some African safari.”

  “That’s some tenant you got yourself this time, Selda. Next thing you know he’s liable to stick that camera in the wrong animal’s face. He’ll be coming in smelli
ng like a polecat and you’ll have to fumigate the whole upstairs.”

  Jodie only half listened to the two women’s conversation and laughter. Selda and Grams had been neighbors ever since Selda had married, over thirty years ago. They’d hugged and cried through the deaths of both husbands, bonding the way only women who’ve celebrated and suffered together can.

  Selda was twenty years younger than Grams, spry as a fox before the hunt, and she kept a keen eye out for her neighbor. There wasn’t much they didn’t know about each other, but every time they got together, they still gossiped and giggled like a couple of teenage girls.

  Jodie smiled in spite of herself. In a world of constant change, it was nice to know some things never varied. Emily and Selda definitely fit into the latter category.

  “Did you meet him yet, Jodie? Jodie?”

  “I’m sorry, Selda, did you say something to me?”

  “My word, child, your mind must be a thousand miles away. I was just asking if you’d met my new tenant yet. He’s a nice-looking guy. A Yankee, but you’re used to those northern men, you might like him.”

  “I met him a few days ago.” Jodie looked up from her position on the sitting room floor. One twin was climbing over her, the other was pulling apart a string of colored plastic links. “But don’t get any matchmaking ideas,” she added.

  “Well, of course not. I wouldn’t think of it. Would you, Emily?”

  “I don’t know. He’d have to be a sight better than having a lawyer in the family. I keep telling her don’t get mixed up with the likes of Ray Kostner. Too handsome for his own good.”

  Reverse psychology. Jodie wasn’t fooled for a minute. Grams smiled like a Cheshire cat the minute Ray appeared, and she’d like nothing better than seeing her granddaughter married to the man. If she knew what Jodie had done a couple of afternoons ago in the Kostner law office…

  No, she’d never believe it.

  Jodie stretched her legs, and the gentle ache in her thighs reminded her of something else that never changed. The way she felt about Ray Kostner.