When a Lover Calls: A Romantic Suspense Novella (A TURQUOISE BEACH MYSTERY Book 1)

by Jane Preston

  Sterling wondered briefly if he was becoming obsessed with her. Then the idea struck him: The hunter is always obsessed with his prey before he catches it.

  For a single moment, his shoulders bunched up with a twinge of anxiety. I wonder if she liked the roses I sent. But then, Sterling relaxed and shrugged. It doesn’t really matter anyway. I have big plans for Maureen Beckley, he thought, grinning like a school boy.

  As he bounded down the carpeted stairs into his basement, he realized that as far as he was concerned, the chase was the ultimate thrill.

  In fact, the only thing that truly worried him was the idea of getting too close to her. Then what? He thought, recalling all too well his devastating effect on women.

  It just kills them to be with me.

  It was Sterling’s final thought before beginning today’s exceptionally vigorous workout.

  ***

  Lucy Troppe was waiting for him in the downstairs lobby of his Victorian home-office when Sterling bounded in an hour early this morning, apparently in an exuberant mood, whistling a vaguely familiar tune. Lucy hated to see him like this, knowing that she’d had nothing to do with his high spirits. Was he still seeing Maureen? she instantly wondered.

  No matter, she reassured herself.

  It’s my turn now.

  Standing up, she quickly smoothed her shorter-than-usual, tight black skirt. As she sprinted across the polished tile floor in higher-than-usual heels, Lucy thrust a steady hand towards him. Befuddled, but knowing he’d seen her somewhere before, Sterling allowed his grin to slowly fade as he shook the firm hand pressed into his.

  “Sterling Matthews? I’m Lucy. Lucy Troppe.” She said it with unquestionable authority.

  While his puzzled hazel eyes searched her tanned, perfectly made-up face, trying to place her in his mind, she whipped out a business card and held it up. “Sterling, I own Sunrise Realty. I’m sure you’ve heard of us. We’re located right next to your yacht club.”

  He responded immediately. “Oh, yes, I see. I’m sorry, Lucy, but I’m not looking to sell my house at this time.”

  “Well, actually, that’s not the reason I’m here, Mr. Matthews.” Her smile implied that a whole world was going on behind her golden brown eyes, adorned with heavy layers of extreme black mascara and liner.

  “Then, what is this about?” For a moment, the corners of his mouth quivered. Was she somehow affiliated with the APA? It wasn’t often, but he’d heard of psychologists giving up their therapy business to pursue another line of work, all the while staying current with their licenses, in case they changed their minds.

  “It’s something we need to talk about. Behind closed doors.” Her voice lowered at the end of the sentence, her smile remaining constant. Lucy Troppe apparently had fixed intentions. And she wasn’t taking no for an answer.

  “Follow me.” Those were his only words, spoken quietly. Sterling’s mind raced ahead with possible worst case scenarios as he led to the way over the plush carpet to his upstairs office. He waited until she’d crossed his threshold before closing the door silently behind her.

  Candy wouldn’t be in for another 50 minutes. That meant plenty of time to find out what this very attractive, pushy woman wanted from him.

  ***

  An hour and a half later, Sterling emerged from his office, walking vigorously in the direction of the quaint coffee shop he frequented. He especially loved their cinnamon cappuccinos topped with mounds of whipped cream. Readjusting his sunglasses so no one could see the evident dilation of his eyes, he put his head down as he took long strides, deep in thought.

  Lucy had come on to him, so strongly he had given into her desires right there on the spacious, mahogany office desk. It was no wonder to him how she’d succeeded so far in life: she took whatever she wanted, with apparently no qualms about whose territory she was invading.

  Pausing at the corner while hectic traffic whizzed by him on both sides, Sterling realized he felt badly about the whole sordid incident. After all, he was desperately trying to win the heart of the woman he couldn’t have, Maureen Beckley.

  If Lucy so much as breathed a word about this morning’s close encounter to Maureen….he’d…well, he didn’t know what he would do.

  But he was sure Lucy wouldn’t like it.

  Thankful to be away from Candy’s affectionate hovering, Sterling took a couple of deep breaths before starting to cross the crowded intersection.

  But as he reached the other side of the street, he realized what bothered him the most. It was the comment Lucy Troppe made just before she marched out of his office.

  She’d said: “And there’s more of that to come. Face it, Sterling. I’m in charge now.”

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  Around ten o’clock that morning, Maureen’s kitchen door vibrated in a way it never had before. Is Leslie having a heart attack – or what? The question rushed through Maureen’s mind as she sprinted to the door to hurl it open.

  Leslie, as usual, burst in past her. But this time, she was full of concern for her alarmed hostess.

  “Oh, I am so sorry to bother you! But you simply have to hear what I have to say.” Not once, in all the time Maureen had known her neighbor, had she ever heard Leslie apologize for coming over and spilling her guts. In fact, the younger woman sometimes behaved as though she was doing Maureen a perverse sort of favor with her boisterous, and admittedly entertaining, visits.

  Well, at least it took Maureen’s mind off her writer’s block.

  Moving hurriedly towards the stove to switch on the burner under the kettle, Maureen responded: “I’m all ears. What’s the problem?” She kept her voice low and well-modulated in an attempt to soothe her frantic companion.

  Little did she know, her own voice would soon be rising in astonished indignity.

  As Leslie poured out the troubling details – the fact that the two women friends were dating the same man, namely, Sterling Matthews, who also masqueraded as the mysterious (and never home) Chase Clifford – Maureen found herself going from absolute denial to uncertainty and, finally, to rage.

  How could he do something like this to her? And to Leslie?

  And I thought he was so incredibly charming! she exclaimed inwardly. Maureen felt humiliated. But she also experienced the early signs of deep heart break. She was more attached to this mysterious, new stranger in her life than she’d realized.

  Sterling Matthews had seemed to be the answer to her most profound longings.

  Thank God things didn’t go that far with us, she told herself. But it was small comfort in view of the pain she knew was to come. She’d lost her heart to Sterling Matthews – or at least a good part of it. And, now, she’d have to live without him.

  Stealing a quick glance at the lovely, still-fresh roses, she suddenly felt bereft and inconsolable.

  “Oh, Leslie, I can’t believe it!” she found herself wailing. “And, I’m sorry for you, too.”

  Leslie came towards her and embraced her in a big, sloppy bear hug. “I had my tears, Maureen. Believe me, it was a torrential downpour.”

  As if on cue, the kettle sang out loud and clear. It was another shrill voice in the kitchen that night.

  “Tea, tea. We must have tea,” Maureen said the words as though she were chanting the anecdote for all pain. It was a prescription she readily attested to, especially now.

  While Maureen attended to filling the flowery cups, Leslie, on impulse, walked over to the freezer and yanked on its handle. “Hey, do you have any ice cream, preferably, chocolate? Or maybe some of those to-die-for frozen cream puffs? After a crazy night like this, we women deserve a treat!”

  And treat themselves they did.

  At one point, Maureen told herself, as she reached for her fourth cream puff, I don't care how fat I get. At least extra weight would keep impossibly handsome men like Sterling Matthews away.

  And that was exactly what she wanted in this moment: to never again set eyes on his unforgettable face.

  Ma
ureen knew that tonight, after Leslie went home, she should take to her bed and cry herself to sleep. She wasn’t looking forward to the intensity of the tears. But she instinctively knew she needed to experience them if her heart was ever going to heal from the devastating Sterling Matthews.

  Yet, for some unfathomable reason, the tears simply would not come. Instead, a deep, cold anger settled into her heart.

  The heart that still belonged to Sterling Matthews.

  ***

  The romance novelist was still dreaming about Sterling Matthews when her cell rang the next morning. Sleepily glancing at the bedside clock, she noted the time was 9:04 a.m. Dismayed, she shook her groggy head. The alarm clock had not been set last night; she’d been too busy fuming.

  Sniffling a little (was she coming down with a cold because of all this stress?), Maureen wearily answered the phone. She felt a hundred years old.

  “Maureen.” His resonant voice pierced her heart. At that very moment, she absolutely hated the way he said her name, although it sounded like precious silver coming off his tongue.

  Should she hang up now or give him a piece of her mind first? She opted for the latter.

  “Sterling Matthews. How nice to hear from you.” She hoped her tone was dripping with sarcasm.

  He paused for an awkward moment and she heard the catch in his breath. For once, he sounded at a loss for words, which usually came so easily, even too easily, to him. “Maureen? Are you alright?”

  “Of course, I’m OK. Why wouldn’t I be?" she snapped, making every effort to make him feel like the jerk he really was.

  “Well, I haven’t heard from you. And I-I sent you some roses a couple of days ago. Did you receive them?” His voice sounded uncharacteristically hesitant, unsure.

  “Why, yes, I did, Sterling. How nice of you to send them.” She paused for a moment to brace herself before blasting him. “Especially since you’ve also been seeing my best friend behind my back!”

  The intake of breath on the other end of the line was sharp. She could almost see his head reeling. He’d been caught completely off-guard. And there was no way he was going to talk himself out of it.

  “I-I’m not sure I heard you correctly, Maureen.”

  “Of course, you did, Sterling. You’ve been posing as a freelance writer named Chase Clifford while you dated Leslie. You even went so far as to tell her you lived on Elm Street in that crummy 80s split-level. Your cover’s been blown. Face it, Sterling.”

  It was the second time in two days he’d heard that phrase. The conversation felt like the fatal head-on it was. For the rest of their unnerving exchange, she went down her list of recriminations: how could he do this to her? Leslie was such a good woman. She didn’t deserve this either! He tried to fend off her scornful words but as they hit home with honesty and truth, he found he was helpless to defend himself.

  He was a first-class jerk and he knew it. And he’d been caught in the act by the woman he wanted the most in the whole world.

  Now, he’d never win her.

  What rotten luck. Tim Keller must have come home early. He recalled seeing a guy who looked a little like Keller at the racquetball court last week. But it was just the back of the man’s head and Sterling had immediately reassured himself that Keller was still on assignment in Europe.

  Sterling Matthews knew he’d blown it with Maureen in the worst way.

  The final insult was when she’d hung up on him while he was still stumbling over his words like a complete idiot, making a futile attempt to calm her down.

  The call disconnected, Sterling threw his cell down on the sofa and hurried to the wet bar to desperately assemble a scotch on the rocks.

  Drink in hand, highly unusual for him this early in the day, he walked to the back of his grand house to look out on the ocean. This overcast, rainy morning, the sea was particularly ferocious, its muddy foam engulfing everything within its reach, including the stones on the shoreline.

  He thought: That’s me. I’m on the rocks too.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  Maureen anxiously clutched the tear-stained and tattered Kleenex in her hands as she searched for the right words. Reflecting on her thoughts and feelings of the past few days, her eyes scanned the small walled-in garden outside the therapist’s quiet home office. Dr. Gilda Brice had come highly recommended from a friend of Leslie’s; she was said to have a kindly but firm way with troubled women.

  And at this moment, Maureen Beckley felt like she definitely belonged to that group.

  The yellow and purple gladiolas and rhododendrons looked filled with life, their innocent faces gratefully turned toward the sun. Maureen looked at them wistfully, with a longing that she, too, would soon be brimming with life.

  But something in her had died. And she was here in this soothing, thoughtful setting to try to resurrect what she had lost.

  Writing her novel had been a complete disaster during the past 72 hours; she didn’t even want to think about Amber and Jared, although she now had much deeper insight into her heroine’s strong reluctance to welcome her new, tall, dark and handsome stranger into her heart.

  It suddenly occurred to her that Amber must see a therapist at some point during the plot of the novel. Just as her author was doing.

  However, first, the author needed to get some things in her own life straightened out.

  She looked back into the patient and steady eyes of the therapist, who had asked the same probing question a second time, gently and quietly: “When did you start having problems with trusting men, Maureen?”

  After pausing for another moment, the new client spoke up clearly but softly. “As far back as I can remember, Dr. Brice. In fact, I can’t recall trusting my own father very much. He could be nice, and I felt close to him, but then he also had a terrible temper.” She shrugged as if that summed it all up.

  Taking a tentative sip of cold water from the glass provided earlier, Maureen returned it to its seat on a flat, round cork coaster on the blond oak table beside her. It was a comfortable room, furnished in muted pastels in the watercolors framed on the walls and two large peach-colored sofas with cushions so squishy one could almost get lost in them. A sweet, warm embrace was what Maureen was reminded of as she sunk even more deeply into the comforting, forgiving fabric surrounding her.

  I wish life were more like this, she inwardly sighed. Soft and cushioned from pain and disappointment.

  The therapist shifted in her seat slightly, as if Maureen’s response had brought her back to life. Accustomed to providing a safe space for clients to find their own answers, Dr. Brice knew the value of silence and long pauses, sometimes remaining practically motionless to encourage the discovery and healing process.

  “Thank you for sharing some details about your life with me, Maureen. Often, women who've had trust issues with their fathers tend to unconsciously carry that same kaleidoscope of problems into their romantic relationships with men.”

  It was a simple statement, appropriately and professionally emitted into this infinitely-calming atmosphere of quietness and Maureen signaled her agreement with a silent nod. She wasn’t used to confiding her deepest thoughts to a stranger, even if that stranger was a board-certified, highly-recommended therapist. But she readily admitted to herself that she had a far better chance of becoming transparent with a female psychologist than a male one.

  She knew the statement was intended to persuade her to open up. Shifting in her own seat, Maureen self-consciously cleared her throat. “Yes, I’ve had a hard time believing in the sincerity of men.” She momentarily frowned. I sound like Amber my heroine, she grimaced, but forced herself to press on. “I think the reason Randy left is because I doubted his feelings for me, even though he tried to be reassuring. He told me on our last day together that he wanted to be with a, quote unquote, ‘confident woman.’”

  Maureen smiled bleakly. She was sure she sounded like an idiot. People with far bigger problems than hers were in the world toughing it out, why couldn�
��t she?

  After several more probing but gentle inquiries, most of which Maureen managed to answer monosyllabically, the therapist leaned forward a notch. “Maureen, you may already know that, in my practice as a psychologist, I also work with hypnotherapy. It’s a legitimate form of thoroughly relaxing a client to encourage the revelation of valuable information that may lie dormant in the subconscious.”

  Here, Dr. Brice paused, then continued quietly. “I’d like for you to consider it as a possibility for our next session. It may help us to uncover a deeper cause of your lack of trust in men.”

  Maureen did not respond immediately. Dr. Brice went on. “Of course, it’s up to you to decide on the pace you feel best suits you and your needs.”