Jane Kelly 01 - Candy Apple Red

by Nancy Bush

  "In simple English: yes."

  "What about the will? Who inherits? Think that has any bearing on any of this?"

  "I don’t give a damn. I just don’t want it to be me."

  So, that was what was really bugging him. "You’ll know on Monday."

  "And then I’m out of here, Jane." He gave me a long look, the kind of smoldering gaze that tended to curl my toes. "I’m starting my life over. I know we’ve circled around it, but I’m serious about Santa Fe. I want you to come with me."

  I was still nursing my anger. Still..."I don’t know, Murphy."

  "I haven’t forgotten...how we were."

  We stared at each other. My gaze seemed to move from his eyes, to his mouth, to his chest, to his jaw, then back to his mouth. I hadn’t forgotten either. It had been a long, dry four years.

  Something in the air pressure changed. I flashed on moments with Murphy: the sight of our limbs tangled together, rumpled bed sheets and laughter caught in the back of our throats. I saw his finger tracing the curve of my calf. My mouth was dry. My heart lurched.

  "Jane..."

  I don’t remember crossing the distance between us. It wasn’t like those commercials where we were running in slow motion and finally embraced. One second we were ten feet across the room, the next we were all over each other, the next we were ripping off clothes as we stumbled toward my bedroom. Binkster tried to get underfoot and we slammed the bedroom door in her flat, little face. Maybe it was rude, but who needs anyone watching you in the throes of passion, be it human or fuzzy little beast?

  I’m never sure about protocol during sex. Should we take it slow, say soft, sensual things to each other? That wasn’t what was happening. It was pure animal. Too much time had passed.

  We stopped for a moment to take a breath. I was in my sweatpants, bare from the waist up, breathing hard. Murphy’s shirt was off, his eyes slitted as he examined my heaving chest. It’s not huge, but it’s adequate, and it certainly seemed to be doing the trick tonight. He reached out a hand and cupped one breast. My skin shivered involuntarily.

  "I’ve missed you..." he murmured.

  Ditto, Bucko.

  And then we were all mouths and hands and clinging limbs. I wanted to cry with joy and relief.

  My last thought before falling into exhausted sleep was thank God my brother wasn’t the only one having great sex.

  Chapter Sixteen

  I woke up with a smile on my face. Murphy was lying on his side, his back to me. I thought about wrapping my arm around him but felt shy. Ridiculous, I know, but true nevertheless.

  My slight movement caught his attention and he turned over on his back. I realized he was wide awake and looked like he had been a while.

  "Good morning," I said. "What’s your name again?"

  He cracked a smile and reached for a strand of my tangled hair. Turning, he gazed down at me with affection. "Your hair’s a mess."

  "You have no idea what it’s been through." "It gives you that ‘freshly fucked’ look." "I take offense to that." "No, you don’t." We grinned at each other like idiots. The moment spun out. I was hoping for another trip to the moon, but Murphy’s cell phone rang, shattering the moment. He’d left it on my bedside table. I’d thought it looked cute, side-by-side with my own cell phone. Glancing at the caller ID, he muttered, "Damn. It’s Heather."

  "She’s an early caller."

  "She’s been in a state since Cotton died. I left her at the house last night with Craig Cuddahy."

  My ears pricked. I tried not to sound interested when I asked, "He’s been staying here a while, at the Shoreline, right?"

  "He thinks Heather’s inheriting the island. Maybe she is." He closed his eyes a moment, gathering strength, then he climbed out of bed. Dwayne wasn’t the only one with a nice ass, I thought happily.

  "Mind if I take a shower here?"

  "Go for it."

  I thought about jumping up and joining him but was distracted by my own cell phone chiming away. I glanced at the LCD. "Out of Area" and a phone number. Mom. Guiltily, I thought about not answering. She’d left a few more messages on my answering machine and now had resorted to my cell phone, a last resort as she seemed to think cell phones were futuristic devices that might signal circling UFOs, calling them down from outer space.

  "Hey, Mom," I answered.

  "Well, there you are. I’ve been trying to reach you. Haven’t you got my messages?"

  "I haven’t been around."

  "Where have you been?"

  "Working. Process serving and stuff. Lots to do."

  She got to the point of her conversation. "Your brother’s engaged!"

  "I know. I left you a message to that effect."

  "I don’t know anything about her."

  "I told you she’s a criminal defense lawyer."

  "Where’s she from? Who are her parents? What do they do?"

  "Mom, I don’t know. You’ll have to ask Booth."

  "I’ve asked him! He just fobs me off. I’m coming up there. I need to meet her."

  Coming up there?

  I listened to the shower run. "You should let Booth know. They’ve both got tight schedules."

  "Jane, is it all right if I stay with you? I have a feeling he and... Sharona... are living together. Booth didn’t say so, but..."

  Santa Fe was looking better and better. "When are you planning to come?"

  "Is it a problem?" She sounded distressed.

  "No. I was just-asking."

  "I don’t know. I’ll call you next week, okay?"

  I was getting that stifled feeling. Not now. Not while Murphy was here. Wearily, I said, "Fine. You can meet the dog."

  "What dog?"

  "Aunt Eugenie’s dog." My voice was tight. "The one you had delivered here?"

  "Oh." My mother half-laughed. "God, I’m just a mess. Your brother’s thrown me for a loop. No word from him hardly in months and then bam! He’s getting married. Where did he meet her?"

  The shower ceased. "I don’t know. I’ll figure it out. Let’s talk later, okay? I’ve got to get going."

  "I’ll call you next week," she reiterated and I murmured a quick good-bye and hung up. Geez, Louise. A visit from Mom! Love her to death, but it was going to be inconvenient. Binkster and I would end up on the couch, and it would be a tight fit. Not to mention the entertaining I would have to do. But at least Mom would get her eyes on Sharona and all deception would be over.

  Murphy strolled out of the bathroom, a green towel slung around his slim hips. Binky eyed him with interest. She padded into the kitchen and stood by her bowl while I threw on a robe and watched Murphy pull on his clothes. He had a similar build to Dwayne, lean and tall and muscular. But Dwayne had longish, brown-blond hair and a drawl and Murphy was dark hair, blue eyes and dimples. But the dimples didn’t make him approachable. There was a deep reserve about him that I still struggled to breach, even after a night of lovemaking. Of spectacular lovemaking, make no mistake. The earth pretty much moved, at least on my part.

  He kissed me on my cheek, murmured something about calling later, then headed out the door. I looked down at Binks who’d pressed her chin against my leg, looking up at me with those begging, doggy eyes. If I relocated to New Mexico with Murphy who would take care of her? Booth? Dwayne? Mom ...?

  "Want to move to Santa Fe?" I tentatively invited.

  She ran to her bowl, misinterpreting completely.

  I showered, dressed in denim shorts, a white tank top and my Nikes without socks, and was locking my door, after having placed a small piece of wood in my unlatched window to keep my place safe-kind of like locking the barn door after the horse escapes-when my cell phone rang. "Out of Area" again, but this time with no number. "Hello?" I said, unlocking the Volvo.

  "Hi, Jane, it’s Tess."

  I leaned against the car. "Well, well. Did you get my messages? All ten of them?" I felt snarky. I wondered if she’d talked to Owen this morning.

  "I’m sorry if I put you ou
t," she snarked right back. "You don’t know what it’s been like, losing Bobby. I feel like I’ve died myself."

  "What about Cotton?"

  "I’m sorry about him, too, of course. It’s one tragedy after another." Her voice really seemed to lack the emotion one might have expected.

  I decided I didn’t have any more time to waste on this job. Jumping feet first into the fray, I said conversationally, "I think you were right: Cotton did see Bobby at the end. That’s what you wanted to know, isn’t it? That’s why I was hired. That, and to learn what I could about Cotton’s will."

  "It’s a mute point, now, isn’t it?"

  That would be moot, Tess, I thought. "Maybe," I agreed. "But it’s worth discussing a little. I mean, that’s what you paid me for, right?"

  "I don’t understand your attitude," she said frostily.

  "Bear with me, Tess. The way I see it, Bobby came to Cotton and they had some kind of reckoning. Good or bad, I don’t know. And then something happened and Bobby... was murdered."

  "Someone killed him," she said. "And it makes me furious! I can’t think about it! How dare they take him from me! He was my son and I want whoever killed him to be found. I want them to hurt and suffer! They took him from me and I don’t forgive."

  Now there was some real emotion, but I found it hard to feel sorry for her. She was in this up to her bleached-blond eyebrows. "Are you coming back for the reading of the will?"

  "I don’t know." She struggled to pull herself together. "I just don’t care. Maybe."

  "If Cotton left everything to Bobby, doesn’t it revert back to you?" I was really hazy on this kind of stuff, but with Bobby having wiped out his nuclear family, I thought Tess must be next in line.

  "Cotton didn’t leave his estate to Bobby." Her voice was firm. "He told me he was changing his will. He went to see his lawyer to change things."

  "You talked to Cotton?"

  "One quick conversation. He wanted me to know he’d cut Bobby out. All that talk about how much he loved him and in the end it didn’t matter. My guess is he left it all to Murphy. Or Heather..." She said her name as if it tasted bad. "I don’t know if I even care. I just had to come home to Houston for a while because I feel so godawful."

  "Tess, I met with Cotton right before he died. I think you should know that he intimated you were taking care of Bobby all these years. You told me you thought Cotton was taking care of him."

  "I never said any such thing!"

  "Well, yes, you did." I hadn’t forgotten our meeting in Marta’s office even if she conveniently had. "But I’m not the only person Cotton spoke to. The Monroes came to see him."

  "What?" She was startled.

  "They were waiting outside his hospital room when I left. Either Cotton wanted to talk to them, or they wanted to talk to him."

  "Did they talk to him?" she asked urgently.

  "I didn’t stay long enough to find out. But maybe Cotton told them what he told me. Or, maybe he told someone else."

  "I haven’t done anything wrong!"

  "That’s good, because I had a feeling you had Bobby holed up in Hepburn."

  She drew in a breath. "Hepburn?"

  "You helped him get there. You gave him money. Cash, that you’d gotten from Cotton before you were divorced. Maybe more cash since you mortgaged your business and your condo. But Bobby got tired of being a nobody out in the boonies. He came back and hit up his father for money, a new identity, I don’t know what. Cotton loved him, wanted to help him, but couldn’t bring himself in the end to be an accessory after the fact. He cut Bobby loose."

  "I really don’t understand how you can say all these things," she said weakly.

  "I saw the address, Tess. Hepburn, Oregon. I think you chose it for Bobby. I think he was desperate and you decided to keep him somewhere far enough away, yet close enough, too. Hepburn’s a six- or seven-hour drive from Portland. Not right around the corner, but doable."

  She tried to laugh, but I’d hit her in the gut. "What a wild story."

  "You’ve got a fascination with Audrey Hepburn," I went on. "That’s why you came in disguise to get a peek at me that day at the Coffee Nook. Maybe you took out a map of Oregon and your eye fell on Hepburn. Maybe it’s just circumstance. But you couldn’t do this alone. You needed a liaison, a go-between. Probably a rancher. Maybe someone you knew in Texas who was willing to relocate?" The idea zinged from the blue and hit a bull’s-eye as Tess made choking sounds. "You got him to buy some piece of property and you plunked Bobby down into the middle of nowhere. Did he become one of the farmers out there? I hear the area’s known for its watermelons."

  Tess pulled herself together with an effort. "I didn’t pay you good money to come up with a bunch of inflammatory theories that are nothing less than slander!"

  "You paid me to get close to Cotton and find out if he knew anything about Bobby," I answered. "I did that. And you wanted to know about his estate. On Monday, we’ll all know."

  "Well, that’s just fine. You just go ahead and rant and rave and see who listens to you. You don’t know anything about me or my family. And don’t help me any further, Jane Kelly!"

  "Not a problem, Tess. We’re done."

  From the moment I hung up with Tess, a weight was lifted from my shoulders. I immediately wondered why I’d bucked Dwayne all this time. Why had I followed up on the Reynolds/ Bradbury debacle? What had I expected to learn? What was the point?

  I drove toward the Coffee Nook. Halfway there my cell phone rang again. I was about to chuck the damn thing out the window when I realized it was Murphy this time. "Hello there," I greeted him, trying to keep the sickening, bubbling happiness coursing through me from sounding in my voice.

  "Breakfast?" he asked.

  "Sure."

  "Let’s head to La Mer."

  "You buying?" I asked.

  "As if you’d spring for a meal that expensive."

  "Touche."

  My smile was huge. Love is such a silly thing. I turned the Volvo around and headed back the way I’d come as La Mer was in my neck of the woods, up on a hill with a peek-a-boo view of the lake far below.

  I was slightly surprised he’d picked one of Lake Chinook’s more upscale restaurants. I generally avoided La Mer for two reasons: (1) I couldn’t afford it, and (2) it attracted the snobbiest of the city’s inhabitants and consequently the wait-staff looked down their collective noses at anyone they deemed short of the mark. But it did have a large brick patio that was ringed by trees. In spring and fall the patio was covered with black-and-silver-striped awnings which were rolled back in the summer. In winter a sliding wall of glass cut the patio from the rest of the restaurant, keeping it warm inside while patrons could still enjoy the view. La Mer was definitely a haunt of Lake Chinook’s rich, famous and infamous. Foster’s On The Lake was where everyone went on the east end of the lake; La Mer was the west end favorite. I brave the terrible prices at Foster’s during the summer months because it’s on the water. I steer clear of La Mer as a rule, always.

  I had to stop back by my place and scrounge for something better to wear. I kept the white T-shirt but found a pastel blue loose skirt which drifted around my legs as I walked, and traded in my Nikes for my new flip-flops. These flip-flops were a step up from my old ones; they had little gemlike doohickeys on their plastic straps that looked as if they were dangling by a thread. I was bound to ruin them before sundown.

  I hurried back to my car and raced to the restaurant. Luckily, there’s enough parking nearby La Mer for me to usually find a spot. I found one not too far away and hurried past the black-vested valets standing outside the front door. I hate that shit. Where do they think they are? Downtown L.A.?

  I headed inside and through the main dining room to the patio. Murphy was there ahead of me, standing by the maitre d’ stand. He was dressed in a khaki shirt, chocolate chinos and leather sandals. He looked exactly like the California boy he’d once been. Yes, he was an Oregon transplant, but I’d met him in Santa M
onica and that’s how I always thought of him. These days I was more "Oregon" than he was.

  He was trying to wrangle us a table near the edge of the patio. One that would offer us a view. The maitre d’, who looked as if she sucked lemons on a daily basis, melted at his charm. Murphy didn’t turn it on often, but when he did he slayed ’em right and left.

  We were seated near one of the broad leaf maple trees which ringed the patio. Beyond them was a dense forest of Douglas firs that sloped down from the restaurant to the lake. I could see glimmering slices of green water far below. The sun filtered through the branches. It was such a lovely morning. Thinking about the delicious breakfasts La Mer served, my mouth started watering on its own. I could count on one hand the amount of times I’d eaten here. This was a treat worth savoring.

  I heard the scrape of chairs behind me, but I was deep into scanning the menu. Maybe I could have a mimosa.

  Orange juice and champagne to brighten the palate.

  "Tim Murphy!" a female voice crowed in delight.

  I turned to see Paula Shepherd with her sidekick, Brad. I groaned inwardly. As they approached our table Murphy gazed at them with a serious lack of enthusiasm.

  "I’m so sorry about Cotton," Paula said, her eyes assessing Murphy, trying to get a read on his emotions, her mouth a tight, false smile. Brad shook Murphy’s hand and murmured condolences.

  It was all totally awkward. Paula and Brad were finished with breakfast and we were waiting to be served. They stood beside our table, doing a dance with the waitstaff to keep out of the way as waiters and busboys filled water glasses and took orders, rushing around the patio.

  I found myself wanting to say, "Get to the point," because it was clear they had something on their minds. Finally, Paula said, "We were talking to Heather yesterday and expressed our interest in the property. I guess that’s no surprise. She wasn’t sure it was hers and suggested maybe you might inherit it. If that’s the case, I just want to say how much Brad and I could do for you." She nodded while she spoke, as if this would assure Murphy of her good intentions. Her red lacquered nails lifted a card from a side pocket of her purse as she talked. Lightly, she dropped it on the table, next to Murphy’s knife. She kept a nail on the card a second or two longer. I shot Murphy a look across the table. He was silent but his face was suffused with dark red. I had to restrain myself from pushing my chair back to get out of harm’s way.