“That’s right. You won’t. I will. You’re getting fifty percent of the take just for scribbling. I’m doing everything else, and it’s under control.”
His partner was still harping. “Fifty percent of what you tell me the take is. You don’t exactly give me itemized receipts. Don’t think I haven’t noticed that.”
It had only been six months, and his so-called partner already had delusions of grandeur. Entrepreneurship had its downside, for sure. Which was why he was busy scouting out a new partner, and a new network, too. Away from here. A shark had to keep swimming or die, right?
The best defense was a good offense, and it was past time to remind his partner who had the upper hand. “You saying you want to get more involved?” he asked. “Or do you want me to send over one of those bikers to run the numbers for you?”
“No!”
“Thought not.” It wasn’t really a biker gang, actually. It was a couple bartenders all the way up in Spokane, each with a busy trade and every opportunity to hand something extra across the bar along with a cocktail napkin. Far from Paradise, across the state line, and no connection to him at all. And it was true: the receipts weren’t nearly as low as reported. A bartender took one hell of a smaller cut than a biker gang would have, and was a whole lot less dangerous, too.
There were benefits to having a twisty mind. Always stay two steps ahead, that was his motto. Which was why he was moving up. He was a shark, and he was always swimming.
“Keep scribbling,” he advised his partner now. “And don’t worry. I’ve got this.”
He did. Or he would. Whatever he had to do to get there, he’d do. Ambition had built this country, they said. And it was going to build his future.
NIGHT OUT
As kickoffs went, Rochelle’s first weekend with Travis was pretty much the best ever. It started with him, true to his word, taking her dancing on Friday night. And when she was walking into the Cowboy Bar with a long, lean hunk of testosterone in jeans and boots and shoulders that wouldn’t quit, a man who proceeded to spend the entire evening letting everyone there know that she was the only woman he wanted? That part wasn’t bad at all, ego-boost-wise.
“I ever tell you that I like the way you dance?” she asked him over the wail of the guitar, the insistent beat of the drums. Her boots were sliding over the hardwood in exact time with his, and his hand was steering her with perfect authority, letting her relax and go with the music. To go with him, as if the same energy were running through both of them, a stream of silver flowing from his hand straight into her body.
“I ever tell you that dancing with you is like making love standing up?” he answered, then added, “Twirling you,” and did. Twice.
She was laughing when she came back into his arms. “Really? I’m not sure you’d be doing exactly that, though.”
She saw that delicious twitch at the corner of his mouth. “No?” he said. “Seems to me I turned you around pretty good last night. I think you liked it, too.”
“That’s right,” she said, somehow managing to keep on dancing and breathing. “You told me once that you couldn’t decide which view was your favorite. Guess I’ll have to help you choose again tonight. Maybe we’d better leave a light on so you can find your way. What do you think?”
“See, now,” he sighed, “this is why I love you. Because you always say the right thing. You bet we’re going to leave the light on, because I’m watching that. And I’ll give you some practice right now. Twirling you again.”
This is why I love you. A few words, so casually spoken, and she wasn’t going to believe he meant them. But she was going to hold them close all the same, pressed into her hand like pieces of beach glass, the kind you had to turn in your fingers just so you could feel their smoothness, the kind you had to sneak a peek at now and then just because they were so pretty, and you’d found them for yourself.
It was quite a contrast to what Lake had said, the last time she’d asked him to take her dancing. After he’d looked at her like she was nuts.
“The only reason to ask a girl to dance,” he’d said, “is to find out her name. And I already know your name.”
Now she thought, Ha. Joke’s on you. All Lake would have had to do was take her out and say something like Travis just had, and he could have written his ticket. But then, he wouldn’t have said something like that, and he hadn’t cared that much about his ticket. Her body had been a convenience to him, and that was about it.
She didn’t want to think about Lake tonight, though, so she thrust the memory aside and kept dancing with Travis. Pressed up close to his chest during the slow ones, his lips brushing over her temple, murmuring sweet suggestions into her ear. Both of them knowing exactly what they had to look forward to, and both wanting to wait for it until they couldn’t wait a single minute more.
Sliding over beside him again in his rig then, for the drive home. Having him turn at the stoplight and kiss her, long and slow, his hand slipping inside her shirt like he had to do it. She’d worn an apricot top with a wide V-neck, knowing he’d be sneaking peeks down it all evening, and wanting him to.
“Damn, baby,” he said, his breath warm in her ear, his hand hard and hot against her skin. “You turn me on so much. You’ve got me aching for it.” Which wasn’t “I love you,” but it worked for her.
And then they got to his house, and he set about fulfilling every single promise his body had made to hers.
He did leave a light on. And then he laid her down on his bed and undressed her with aching slowness. Pushing the apricot top off one shoulder, her own startled intake of breath loud in her ears as his lips brushed the tender spot just beneath the outer edge of her collarbone, then made their slow way down until he was kissing the swells of her breasts, one hand beneath each full mound, raising them for his eager mouth. His hands so firm, but not the least bit rough, not tonight. Velvet over steel. At last, he was pushing her top up with his thumbs, inch by slow inch, with his mouth right behind it. He was pulling it over her head then, revealing the satin and lace of her strapless bra, which he got rid of with one quick flick of his fingers.
“Ah,” he breathed, and then he was on her. The same urgency as the night before, but not one single bit of rush. His hands strong and sure and still so deliciously slow, his mouth hard and hot, kissing, sucking, biting gently, until she was moving restlessly under him.
“Travis,” she said. “Travis.” And he didn’t answer, but one of his hands was skimming up her thigh, now, making its leisurely way higher and higher. His mouth on hers, stealing her kisses, stealing her breath. Until his questing fingers found the tiny strap, and his hand stilled.
“Mm.” She felt the vibration of the word against her. He rubbed his face between her breasts, then caught a nipple between his teeth, making her shudder. “You’re wearing a thong.”
“Well, yeah. It’s been known to happen.” She was still going for smart-ass, but it was getting harder.
He sighed with pure satisfaction. “Let’s leave that on, then. But we’ll take this little skirt off, how about that?”
“Well, you’re the boss,” she managed to say, and his hand, which had been tracing the strip of lace over her hip bone, stopped again.
“Now, if you’re going to say stuff like that,” he said, “you’re just asking for it.”
“I am asking for it,” she said. “Haven’t you noticed? You going to give it to me?”
“Oh, yeah.” His hand was moving again, stroking down that line of elastic, closer and closer. “I’m going to give it to you. You just wait.”
And “wait” was what he meant. His hand hadn’t reached the right spot for a long time, no matter how eagerly her own hands had slipped under his T-shirt, pulled it over his head, stroked over his chest, down his abdomen, over his back. No matter how slowly and seductively she’d unbuckled his belt and unbuttoned his jeans.
There’d be another night when she was in charge, she promised herself right before she gave it up,
the same way she had on the dance floor, and surrendered to those demanding hands.
The hands that had turned her over, finally, exactly the way he’d promised. Had known precisely where they’d wanted to go, and had gone there, followed by his mouth. He’d kissed his way down her spine one vertebra at a time, and who’d known a back could feel like that? And while he’d been doing that, his hands had been sliding up the backs of her thighs. Sliding up, and sliding them apart.
“You’re so gorgeous,” she heard, though things were getting a bit hazy now. “So I’m just going to do this.” His thumbs were moving along the sensitive line where her thighs began, then diving down, tracing it farther. So close and still so far, until she was wriggling, until she was moaning, her face pressed into the mattress. And then, when she couldn’t have stood it a moment longer, he was shoving a pillow beneath her hips and delving down to touch her where she needed him, using the fabric of the thong as a plaything, rubbing her with it, up and down and around and, finally, inside her, which was the worst, and the best, too. Over and over, until her hips were leaving the bed and she was rising onto her knees.
“Travis,” she moaned, her head turning from side to side. “Please. Come on. I need you.”
“No,” he said. “Not yet.”
He was turning her again, then at last, taking the strap of her thong in both hands and pulling it down her legs, freeing her from it. He left her hips propped high on the pillow, though, and then he was pushing her legs up next to her head with a palm on the back of each thigh while she panted and called out.
“Let’s hear you beg again,” he said. “Let’s hear it, Rochelle.”
“Oh, please,” she said, because it seemed she didn’t have any pride left. “Please. Come on. Please.”
She knew he was smiling, and she didn’t care. When his tongue finally flicked over the aching, sensitized nub, she might have made some noise. And after that . . . she might have made even more.
And still he kept it slow. His hands on her legs were hard, but the rest of him was so patient. He worked her over like he’d never heard of “hurry,” like he’d never heard of “bored,” like he’d never, ever heard of “enough.” Until she was shaking. Until she was crazy. Until she was, finally, over the top, calling out and bucking against him, racked with the spasms that shook her again and again.
And that had just been the foreplay.
ANOTHER SATURDAY NIGHT
On Saturday night, Miles Kimberling knocked once, then walked on into the house in the country with none of his normal pleasurable shiver of danger and excitement. This wasn’t a game anymore, and it sure as hell wasn’t fun.
The usual party, for the usual purpose. They’d been back to Saturdays for the past few weeks, ever since harvest had ended and the farmers among them weren’t in the fields until ten o’clock on Saturday nights.
Most . . . groups . . . handled their transactions in mall parking lots, Miles had been told. They counted on the anonymity of acres of blacktop and rows of cars. Week after week, in the same public places.
Most people were fools. That was why they got caught. He’d been told that, too.
It wasn’t that Paradise didn’t have a mall. It was a big one, stretching along the highway for a good half mile. And, yeah, the Walmart parking lot was good-sized. But it wasn’t anonymous, not in a town this size. A bunch of good ol’ boys getting together after the workweek, though, blowing off smoke out in the country? What could be more natural?
It had seemed so easy when he’d first heard about it. All he had to do was walk into a different pharmacy every day or two, one town or another, one state or another—easy to do here, near the border of Washington, Idaho, and Oregon, with Montana not too far away, either—and hand over a few prescriptions. Piece of cake. In return, he got great parties, and the kind of payoff that made his girlfriends happy to see him, and ready and willing to show it. Both of them.
He didn’t need money, not really. He needed excitement, the edge his boring-ass life had never provided. He’d been getting it now, and then some. And he didn’t have to do anything really bad for it, nothing he’d lost any sleep over. So a bunch of college kids had a pharm party. That wasn’t his doing, and anyway, it wasn’t like anybody was cooking meth here.
But he hadn’t been counting on this. He hadn’t been counting on murder.
The energy level was off the charts tonight, like always. Payday, and collection day. But this time, the tone was wrong, and he wasn’t the only one feeling it. Nobody was hanging around. Most of the guys had handed in their goods, taken their stack of prescription slips and the Baggie or the bills that constituted tonight’s pay, and headed right out again. Only a few of them remained now, and all the others were antsy, too. The difference was, they were willing to say something about it, because they were the ones who’d started out with the boss, the same way Miles had.
The boss had said that, too. Not to use his name. To think of him as “the boss,” and to refer to him that way, if they had to talk about him at all. Which had seemed stupid, but exciting. Kind of like being a spy, or part of some organized-crime syndicate, instead of a guy who was turning into a few drugstore parking lots and standing in line at a few counters.
“All this isn’t doing me one bit of good,” Danny Boyle was saying now. “My boss heard that the cops were talking to me. That was bad enough. And then my wife did.”
“She still enjoying those fringe benefits?” the boss asked. Danny was another one who took his pay in pills. “Tell her there’s nothing in this, other than every single guy at the bar getting questioned. Which is the truth.”
“If they force me to give a sample, though . . .” Danny said. “Thing is—it could have been me.”
The reason for the DNA test was common knowledge around town now. As always, Miles’s mind skittered away from the implications. DNA was an easier word than baby, or even fetus.
Embryo, he told himself desperately. Ball of cells. No matter how he thought about it, the idea made him sick, as it had ever since he’d heard. And not just because of the danger to himself.
Mostly the danger to himself, though. That DNA was like a bullet in a game of Russian roulette. You were spinning the chamber every time, knowing that eventually, the trigger wouldn’t click on empty. Somebody had been the father, and given Heather’s habit, it was likely to be one of them. That was why it was so important, they’d all been told, that nobody rule himself out. Every time you took a man out of the mix, you shortened the odds on everybody else. And you shortened the odds that somebody would talk, too, that one of them would rat the rest out.
“It could have been anybody,” the boss said. “That’s the point. That’s our loophole. They can’t force you to give that sample, not without a judge’s order, and for that, they’d need hard evidence. Which they don’t have. They’ve asked just about all of you, and plenty of other guys, too. Anybody they heard she danced with, or left with. Ol’ Heather got around, and that’s what’s going to save everybody here. As long as nobody lets them swab his cheek, as long as everybody keeps quiet, everybody’s all right. Hang together, or hang separately.”
He looked around the circle of faces. Some men stared back at him, while others looked into their plastic cups. When the glance came his way, Miles looked down. He didn’t know who’d done it. He didn’t want to know. He didn’t even want to think about it.
Some random guy, he told himself. Some guy she met. The cops hadn’t even pinned it down to a single night. They were asking about Saturday and Sunday. Which meant it could have been anybody. Except he didn’t think so.
The boss didn’t raise his voice. He lowered it. “And I mean just exactly that. You give them that sample? I’m going to find out about it. So don’t do it. If you do? Your paycheck isn’t the only thing you’ll lose.”
Almost everyone looked away, then. Miles could see that with a quick glance to either side beneath his lowered eyelids. “Just ask cute little Heather,” the b
oss continued. “Oh, wait. You can’t.”
Miles hung around for another half hour, even though all he wanted to do was to get out. At last, though, the screen door finally banged behind Dave Harris, and the boss was looking at Miles sideways, like he was wondering what he was still doing there.
“Time to go,” he said. “Party’s over.”
“Yeah.” Miles reached a hand into his back pocket and pulled out the prescription slips. “I just wanted to tell you—I’m out.”
Silence, and Miles started getting nervous. More nervous. “Hey,” he said. “I get that it’s leaving you a guy short. So, here.” He pulled the bag of pills from his front pocket and handed them over. Tiffany and Amber were both going to be pissed, but all of a sudden, that didn’t matter. “Look, you can have these back. I wasn’t counting on all this. It was just for fun, you know? But my old man—” He was sweating now. “You know. He could kick me out. He’s already said some things. Too much to lose, man. I didn’t even sleep with that girl. I couldn’t be the father, and this is way past what I thought it would be. I wasn’t counting on this,” he repeated.
“You’ve got a whole lot more to lose if you talk,” the boss said. “You do get that, right?”
“Hey, man.” Miles was backing away a couple paces now. “I get it.”
“You go getting your cheek swabbed, and it’s not going to be a secret. Everybody’s a friend here. That’s how this all started, right? You don’t want to make enemies. You’ll be out there all alone, and you’ll be in a very bad spot.”
“I won’t,” Miles said. “I’m not. It’s just . . . I’m getting a lot of pressure, man. And I’m done.”
CHANGE OF PLAN
Unfortunately, Rochelle only had two weekends with Travis, and a couple of work weeks during which she tried not to let herself get carried away and pretty much failed miserably. And then, on Saturday, he took off for San Francisco again.
Turn Me Loose (Paradise, Idaho) Page 20
