“Yes, please.”
“Sugar? Cream?”
“Mm, let’s see. I’d like a sixteen ounce, single-shot orange latte. Oh, no, wait, make that a twenty ounce, double-shot raspberry mocha, nonfat. . . . No, make that one percent, no-whip, extra sugar, extra hot, with a single straw. Please.” She smiled up at him as if what she had just said made some kind of sense.
He stared at her.
“I asked you if you wanted coffee,” he groused. “Coff . . . ee. What you want is . . . ludicrous, is what it is. It’s not even in the same league as coffee. If you wanted all that other crap, why in the hell don’t you just have a candy bar with a cup of coffee on the side?”
“Ha, ha, and ha. What are you going to have?”
He straightened his spine, put his fists on his hips and spread his stance. Tucking in his chin, in his best, deepest John Wayne voice, he said, “Well, pilgrim, I’m havin’ coffee. A cuppa Joe. Coffee, the way a man drinks it. Plain. Black. Hot. It’ll put hair on your chest, ma’am.”
“Well, pard, I don’t want hair on my chest. I’m sure you have enough for both of us.”
When Soldier returned with the coffees, he settled across from her, but remained turned in the direction of the doorway. “Here’s your so-called coffee,” he said as he handed her the tall paper cup. Moving next to her, he asked, “Are you anxious about going home?”
Instead of answering, Betsy lowered her lashes and took a sip of her drink. The scent of sweet raspberries and chocolate reached his nose and he fought against asking her for a sample.
She ran her fingers through the soft curls that framed her face. With a tired sigh, she let her head fall back against the padded vinyl seat. Somehow, with her head on it, it looked like a plump silk pillow.
“Yes,” she breathed. “Anxious, and apprehensive. I don’t know what will happen once I get there.”
“We’ll catch a murderer, Betsy. That’s what will happen.” He took a swallow of his very hot, very black, very plain coffee.
“Explain something to me,” she said. “I mean, how can you just stop your life and take off for Port Henry like this? Don’t you have a girlfriend or a family or a cat or some plants that need watering?”
He took another swig of coffee. “I live alone in a small apartment in north Seattle. I don’t have a cat. I do have a black thumb, so my plants died a long time ago.” He sent her an intense gaze. “I’m working on the girlfriend part.”
A soft blush tinted Betsy’s cheeks. “So, what do you do for fun?”
Soldier watched as a gull dipped in front of the window, then lifted away again. “You mean besides writing Pulitzer prize–winning quasi-fiction?”
She stiffened, then relaxed a bit and gave him an overly sympathetic smile.
“Oh, that can’t possibly be what you do for fun, you poor dear,” she crooned, feigning compassion. “I mean, your prose is so twisted and tormented, it’s as though you were in terrible pain when you wrote it. Or was it that somebody was holding a gun to your head, forcing you to crank out overwrought, inflated hyperbolic epistles?” Betsy blinked at him with wide, fake innocent eyes.
“Well,” he drawled, “I suppose you’re the expert, having written so many best-sellers yourself.” He arched a brow and took another gulp of coffee.
She glared at him as she nibbled on her straw. “Okay. Tell me, O Wise One, when was the last time you actually heard anybody use the word ‘empyrean’ in casual conversation, let alone in a crime drama?”
“Is that what’s bothering you about my books? You don’t like my choice of nouns?”
She shrugged. “Among other things.”
“I’m sorry,” he said, placing his knuckles against his mouth in a theatrical gesture of distress. “I obviously didn’t take your reading level into account. I promise, my next book won’t be any problem for you.” He sat back and crossed his arms over his chest.
Betsy looked bored, but Soldier wouldn’t give it up.
“All right,” he grumbled. “This ought to work for you.” He stopped and cleared his throat. “See Spot run.”
She clicked her tongue. “Oh, puh-leeze,” she said, and looked away.
He sat up. “See Spot run into the convenience store, grab the cash and shoot the owner. Oh, oh, oh. See Spot run away. See the Detective chase Spot. Run, Detective. Run fast. Run after Spot.”
Betsy rolled her eyes and took a big sip of coffee.
Soldier put his hands on his knees and widened his eyes. “See Sally walking down the street with her groceries. See Spot take Sally hostage. ‘Beat it or I do the bitch!’ growls Spot. The Detective is worried.”
Betsy’s mouth flattened. “You can be such a jerk.”
“Oh no! Look, look, look. See Spot shoot Sally. See the blood. It is red! Spot is a very bad dog.”
“You can stop now.”
“See the Detective break down the door. It is loud. Crash! See Spot take aim at the Detective. The Detective has called for backup, but it is late in arriving. See the Detective sweat.”
“All right. I get the point.”
“Poor Sally. Sally is an innocent bystander. She is bleeding. Spot is laughing. Laugh, Spot, laugh. The Detective points his thirty-eight Detective Special at Spot. ‘Drop the gun, asshole!’ orders the Detective.”
Soldier clamped his jaw shut, sat back against the seat and finished off his coffee. Next to him, Betsy blew out an exaggerated breath. A few seconds ticked by. Finally, she turned and glared at him.
“Well?” she huffed impatiently.
“Well what?”
“What happened? Did you collar Spot?” She groaned. “I can’t believe I just said that. But was Sally all right? I mean, you just can’t leave me . . .” She twisted her mouth into a grimace. “Oh, I get it. You are too, too funny.”
Soldier sent her a triumphant look. “The Detective is good. The Detective is smart. See the Detective rush Spot and tackle him. Look, look, look. The Detective arrests Spot and takes him away in a big car.”
“What about Sally?”
“See Sally recover,” he said, as though he were talking to a five-year-old. “Sally thinks the Detective is wonderful. See Sally tell the Detective he is empyrean. And he is.”
“We are so not amused.”
He sent her a toothy grin. “See Soldier smile in triumph. The end.”
Betsy shrugged nonchalantly. “Well, if that’s all it takes, I could write a book. If I wanted to.”
“All right. If you wrote a book, what would it be about?”
“About four hundred pages.”
He pursed his lips. “Four hundred pages? Medieval or Congressional?”
“You’re being deliberately obtuse.”
“I’ve been told I’m acute.”
“Oh, ho . . . working a new angle?”
Soldier chuckled. “You’re quick, I’ll give you that.”
Betsy scoffed and turned to look out the huge window. They had pushed off from the dock and were heading into the main corridor of the sound. In the distance, past the curve of Betsy’s cheek, Soldier could see the deeply green water sparkling here and there in spite of the clouds that pressed heavily on its surface.
For a few more hours, he would have this feisty woman all to himself. After that, well, if they didn’t kill each other first, he’d just have to see how it went.
“So,” he said, nudging her with his elbow. “Where has that nimble mind of yours gone off to now?”
“I was thinking about my father.”
Her father. Hmm. “Betsy, is it possible, I mean, do you think he could be the one who—”
“No,” she declared. “Not Daddy. No matter how strange he might be these days, he would never hurt me. He would never kill. Besides, he’s still institutionalized.”
“Where is he?”
“He’s in Steilacoom, at Western.” Her words were clipped, as though she was giving him the information grudgingly. “I was eighteen when my parents divorced and Daddy got
hurt. He went to live with his brother for a while, but after a few months it got to be too much and Uncle Terry had him committed. I try to visit him as often as I can, but it’s so far away. I wish he could live with me.”
“It’s not your fault, Betsy. You can only do so much.”
“But he’s my father and I love him. Loretta said—”
“Who’s Loretta?” he interrupted.
“My mother.”
“You call your mother Loretta?”
“It’s her name.”
“So I gathered. But why don’t you call her Mom or Mother or Mumsy or something?”
“You’d really have to know Loretta to understand,” she said through a wry smile. “At any rate, Loretta said Daddy won’t get any better and it’s best he stays where he is. I think she’s wrong. I think she just doesn’t want to deal with her own sense of guilt over what happened.”
“Betsy, taking care of a mentally ill person can be an awesome burden. If he really isn’t suited to living outside the hospital, then he, and you, are truly better off this way.”
“And you know this because?” She clamped her jaw shut and sent him a decidedly pissed look.
Sliding closer to her, he took the paper cup from her hands and set it next to his on the table. “Let’s talk about this some other time. Put your head on my shoulder,” he coaxed. “Get some sleep. I’ll wake you when we get to Port Henry.” I want you close to me. I want to feel your body next to mine.
She looked up at him with wary eyes. “I know what you’re really after, Soldier,” she accused, and his heart gave a guilty lurch. “It has nothing to do with me getting any sleep, or the stalking, or the murder.”
Her eyes glinted with mischief. “What you really want is for me to fall asleep so you can have my twenty ounce raspberry mocha. Coffee, plain, black. Right. You’re dying for a taste, but you’re too proud to admit it.”
Oh, Christ. She’d done it again. Lifting his hand, he brushed her silky hair away from her cheek. He lowered his head and touched his mouth to hers and felt a raw heat flash through his body. The intensity of it shocked him. Just the slightest contact with her made him dizzy to the point of distraction and hungry to the point of desperation.
He tried to pull back, but her lips clung to his for a second too long. Cursing himself, he went back for seconds, kissing her deeply. She tasted like chocolate and raspberries and cream and he wanted to devour her.
When he finally ended the kiss, they were both out of breath. Betsy’s mouth was swollen and damp. With her tousled hair and flushed cheeks, she looked like she had just tumbled from bed all warm and satisfied from his lovemaking.
He licked his lips. “You’re right,” he confessed. “That was all I wanted, but it tasted much, much better this way.”
It had been dark for a good three hours when the ferry finally slipped into its dock. Soldier had visited Port Henry many times and had always liked how the town was set on a series of low hills that rolled gently down into the Strait of Juan de Fuca.
The wharf area was a popular part of town, and it featured seaside businesses such as gift shops, seafood restaurants, and chandleries, all painted in muted blues and greens, colors of the sea. Despite the late hour, gulls circled and squawked overhead, filling the cold, salty air with their familiar squabbling.
The small landing was a confusion of people carrying briefcases or pushing strollers, all waiting to take the return ferry down the sound and into Seattle. Soldier looked for Taylor, and spotted his tall brother wearing blue jeans and a heavy corduroy jacket, leaning against the ticketing stand, his arms crossed over his chest.
Soldier turned his attention to the blond head resting against his shoulder.
She’d slept most of the way, giving him time to think, feel her soft body nestled against his, enjoy her scent . . . and polish off her coffee.
As passengers prepared to leave, Soldier wiggled his shoulder a little. “Wake up, Ms. Tremaine. We’re home.”
Betsy blinked and shifted her position, pushing away from him and sitting up on her own.
Ignoring her sexily sleepy eyes and flushed cheeks, he said, “Taylor’s here to drive us to your house. Once we’re there, I want to go over the reports that he got from Winslow, especially the analysis done on the note. Taylor’s already done some checking on the names you gave me, and I want to see what he’s turned up on those. By the way,” he said, “are there any good motels in Port Henry?”
Betsy arched her brows. “Sure, the place is full of them, but, if you don’t mind the mess, you can stay at my house. It’s huge. It’s a Victorian my parents bought when they were first married. Daddy fixed it up.”
“Well, that would be okay for me, but there’s Taylor—”
“There’s room for him, too. In fact, I’m sure I could fit the entire SPD in my house.” Betsy furrowed her brow. “But you can’t stay with me forever. You can’t protect me every minute of every day. I have a life. I have a job, and a mother, and friends—”
“And,” he interrupted, “you have a stalker-turned-killer who needs to be dealt with. Ready or not, here we go.”
When the man approached them at the ferry terminal, Betsy thought she was seeing double. Taylor McKennitt was as tall as Soldier, as broad-shouldered, and as fit. He was also as devastatingly attractive. Although he appeared to be a couple of years younger than Soldier, he seemed tired somehow, like he never had any fun or didn’t know how to relax. Earlier, Soldier had mentioned that Taylor had just gone through an especially bad divorce, and Betsy could see it had taken its toll.
The brothers grinned at each other and embraced, pounding each other on the back with their open palms. Betsy had rarely seen men engage in gestures of affection. In her own family, open displays of affection were rare, if they existed at all. But these two seemed to genuinely like each other. She didn’t know why, but that gave her a good feeling inside.
Taking Betsy’s hand, Taylor lifted a brow. “Gosh,” he said, “you don’t look anything like your picture.”
“You’ve seen my—”
“Um,” Soldier interjected. “Get the dog carrier, would you, bro?”
Taylor reached for the dog carrier in her hand. “Ah,” he said as he took it from her and looked down at the shivering little dog. “Deh Urinator.”
Piddle growled.
“Go ahead,” Taylor said to the snarling pooch. “Make my day.”
“I think you’re getting your action heroes mixed up, pal.” Soldier laughed, then returned his attention to the activity on the dock.
As Soldier and Taylor scanned the crowd, Betsy felt like a visiting dignitary with full security on alert.
She got in the backseat of Taylor’s Forester and buckled up. Setting Piddle’s carrier next to her, she spoke softly to the trembling dog until they were under way. The drone of the motor and the gentle movement over a smooth roadway never failed to put Piddle right to sleep.
But Betsy was far from sleepy. She was a nervous wreck. Even though she’d had nothing to do with the murder, she felt responsible somehow. She couldn’t help but feel that if she’d been smarter or more clever, she could have figured out who was behind all this, and poor Kristee Spangler might still be alive.
Soldier liked the house the minute he saw it. Even though it was getting close to nine o’clock and the street was dark, he admired the two-story Victorian painted in muted blues and contrasting peach tones. It was a pretty house that suited her personality perfectly. Disgusting male that he was, he wondered which was her bedroom, and how far away from it his would be.
Given the late hour and the fact she had been out of town, he had expected the house to be dark, but the downstairs lights were on. Soldier shot a look of surprise at Betsy, who sat behind him staring out the car window, apparently distressed by what she was seeing.
Her eyes were wide with alarm and her cheeks were flushed. Sinking back into the seat cushion, she pinched the bridge of her nose between her fingers like she h
ad a terrible headache.
“Do you always leave all your lights blazing when you go away for the weekend?”
In the relative darkness of the backseat she shook her head and sighed. “I never should have called Paris. I should have left well enough alone. I am simply too stupid to live. Dumb . . . dumb . . . dumb . . .”
Soldier reached for his weapon.
“No!” she gasped. Lifting her lashes, she looked sadly into his eyes. “No weapon,” she murmured. “It’s no big deal, really. It’s just . . . my mother. God, I hope she didn’t bring that Parisian, Dick, with her.”
Soldier and Taylor slowly turned their heads to look at each other. They stared across the seat for a moment.
“Did she say Parisian duck?” Taylor asked.
“I heard dick,” Soldier replied.
“What’s a Parisian dick?”
“I don’t think I want to know.”
As Taylor parked the car in the long, shrubbery-lined drive, the front door of the house flew open. Soldier stepped out of the car and had turned to open Betsy’s door when a man and a woman exited the house, hurried down the porch steps, and came running across the lawn toward the car.
Soldier heard Betsy, still in the backseat, talking to the mutt. “There there, Pids. I’m letting you out of your carrier. There’s your mommy.”
As Soldier pulled the door open, Betsy set the dog on the cement driveway. “Fly, little Chihuahua. Fly!”
Piddle took off like a geriatric marathoner and leaped a good two inches into the air, just in time to be caught in the woman’s lowered arms. Soldier watched as female and dog screeched and whined and kissed and slobbered all over each other. Her male companion halted a few feet behind her, looking at a loss as to how to behave in the face of such unfettered devotion.
Soldier stole a glance at Betsy as she moved forward to approach her mother. In a flash of awareness, he saw what Betsy had probably seen all her life, and why she felt she could never measure up.
What young woman could possibly compare to the likes of Loretta Tremaine?
Betsy’s mother was tall and lithe, with flaming red hair that billowed around her head like an atomic cloud. Her makeup was minimal and she was tastefully dressed in a dark silk suit with a low-cut neckline. Her jewelry was fashionable but not overdone. Her features were stunning. She was an incredibly beautiful woman, full of verve and passion, and was the least motherly looking female Soldier had ever seen.
The Damsel in This Dress Page 14
