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“No, no, don’t. You were only guarding your family and property. I put you on alert and a man like you goes on autopilot then, you have to. You thought I was…I’m an intruder.” She gave a short laugh. “I’m not doing too well with the law, am I?”
If he argued with her, he’d get himself in deeper water. “It’s too warm,” he told her. “Feel like something cold to drink?”
“We’d wake someone up. Thanks anyway.”
“No, in the store. No one will hear us there.”
A woman could put some spin on a comment like that. Unfortunately he was simply trying to recover balance for both of them by being polite and pretending he was already over her mistake.
“C’mon, Vivian, don’t make me suffer because I was an ass. Let me try to make it right so I can quit kicking myself.”
She looked at the shadows that were his face, and the unreadable gleam in his eyes, and smiled. “I can’t believe what I did.” She clapped her hands to her cheeks and shuddered.
“Come with me,” Spike said, “Gimme a break, okay? I want a cold drink and I want you with me while I have it. And we need to get some things straight between us—or I think so.”
She thought so, too, but didn’t pretend to herself that she’d like the result. “If you’re sure you want to do that, I am, too.”
Spike was more than sure he wanted to snatch at least this opportunity to be alone with Vivian. He was long past the age of buying a girl a soda and expecting nothing more than conversation and his own sexual frustration.
It would have to do.
Homer kept a spare key in one of the pots of flowers that hung from the eaves all around the store. This was one time when the idea didn’t irritate Spike.
He opened up and put a hand at Vivian’s waist to usher her inside.
“Oh,” she said in a small voice while she backed up against his hand. “It feels strange in here. You aren’t supposed to be inside stores when they’re closed.”
It didn’t feel out of place to slide his hand around her and splay his fingers to span her ribs. She stood so close he felt the warmth of her body.
“I didn’t know your shop was so big,” she said and her voice sounded real small. “Why do all the freestanding displays look weird just because there isn’t much light? They aren’t scary in daylight.”
He didn’t think what he was doing until his mouth touched her hair. He whispered in her ear, “Things we aren’t used to. The ordinary becomes mysterious when the context is out of whack.” They stood still like that, he with his hand at her side and his mouth close to her ear—and the sensation of her bare arm against his chest, Vivian soft and angling her head to bring her face closer to his.
Spike needed his legendary willpower to stop him from kissing her ear, her cheek, and turning her in his arms, and letting things go wherever they might.
Her white tank top didn’t reach her waist and the skin he touched there felt forbidden—and wonderful.
A deep breath expanded her chest and she walked away from him into the store. For an instant he felt cold at the loss of her, but he gathered his wits quickly enough and followed inside, closing and locking the door behind him. Wendy slept deeply and Homer had a history of being hard to rouse. The chances that he and Vivian would be interrupted were more than remote.
Spike hadn’t inherited Homer’s tendency to slip easily into oblivion. He slept only a fraction beneath consciousness and awoke with eyes wide open as if he’d been alert all the time. That was usually a good thing but forgetting he’d pointed a gun at Vivian tonight wouldn’t happen anytime soon.
“A person could do all their grocery shopping in here,” she said, her eyes evidently adjusted to the gloom. “That’s great. I bet you do a great business.”
“Fair. The big grocery stores are our competition but there isn’t one of those too close. The business with the folks who live along the bayou is a plus. So are the houseboats. The sandwich and ice cream bar is a little gold mine. Hey, c’mon and sit down.”
Each time Spike got close to her, Vivian struggled against touching him. His torso shone slightly in the semidarkness and she saw that the hair on his chest was surprisingly dark. Muscular and hard, what she could see of his body made her feel cheated out of what she couldn’t see. He walked away on bare feet.
Did he sleep naked?
Did he leap up and into a pair of jeans—and nothing else—if he had to? His hand at her side, where he had gripped her naked skin, had excited her almost as if he’d pressed between her legs. The flare of sensation she’d felt had given her an instant’s fear that she would disgrace herself by climaxing right then, standing beside him. She had responded to men before, but not like this.
He stood beside a shiny wooden table with two chairs, one of about five tables of various shapes and sizes. She sat in the chair he pulled out for her and looked up at him where he stood over her.
So serious. So many questions in eyes gone to navy-blue in the surreal cast of light. “What do you like?” he asked, leaving her and going to a refrigerated case. “We carry about everything.”
“What’s in those glasses? The pink stuff.”
“Strawberry Smush. My dad’s specialty. Started out as something he made for Wendy, then he tried a few in here and they’re popular. Like to taste one?”
“Yes, please,” she said and smiled at the way he slung bottled water between his fingers and held the pink thing in the same hand while he got napkins for both of them, and a spoon for Vivian.
When he put everything on the table, she giggled. “Do you feel like you’re in the Gingerbread House?”
“No…Yes, tonight I feel like that,” he said. “Left alone with the goodies.”
He must mean the food and drinks. No, he didn’t, he didn’t do subtlety too well, but he was letting her know he liked being here with her.
Chapter 8
Spike sat down beside Vivian and unscrewed the cap from his water. With every move he felt self-conscious. He felt her eyes on him, and he’d have to be dead not to know there was a good-size spark between them just waiting to be ignited.
Neither of them said a word until Spike couldn’t stand it anymore and asked, “How about a sandwich?”
Vivian caught up her spoon and dipped it into the Smush, a concoction that resembled a strawberry mousse. She let that spoonful dissolve, almost with a popping sensation, in her mouth. “Can I have a rain check on the sandwich until after I finish this? Maybe I’ll be hungrier for one then. This pops in your mouth. Like it’s carbonated.”
“Made with 7-Up. The sandwich is yours anytime you want it. Just got in a fresh supply of boudin rouge—best sausage in the world and not available on every street corner.”
Vivian giggled and wrinkled her nose as the next spoonful of Strawberry Smush went down. Then she put her spoon in the saucer beneath the thick, dimple-glass parfait glass and anchored her hands between her knees.
Spike swallowed more water and waited.
“I don’t know what came over me this evening,” Vivian said. “This morning. Unless it was you.”
He wiped any hint of a smile from his face. “I can be an overbearing man…Why would you come here because I’m overbearing? Not that you said that was it, only I do know about my faults and—”
“You’re right. You can be overbearing but only when you think it’s for the best. At least, that’s how I see it so far. You have to think I’ve lost my mind. Apart from last night, we’ve met maybe half a dozen times and drunk a cup of coffee together—seems like I’m takin’ a lot for granted.”
“Nine times and I saw you the last time you visited your uncle at Rosebank and you went into Toussaint—three times,” he told her. “Had coffee together twice and walked along the bayou when I met you comin’ out of church that Sunday. I liked that. Only thing wrong was that I wanted to hold your hand and I couldn’t. Then I wanted to kiss you, and I sure as hell couldn’t.”
“You could have tried,” she said and turned her face away, amazed at her own boldness.
Spike got a fresh taste of arousal. At this rate he’d have a permanent zipper mark on his Pride of the South. He grinned at his own little joke, but the pressure didn’t ease. They might as well be locked in a lovers’ embrace for the connection he felt to her—maybe not quite that, but just thinking about it was its own prize.
“You are gorgeous, y’know,” Vivian said, turning to face him again. “Look at you.” She looked at him and he found he was short of breath. No woman had ever looked at him quite that way, studying his face minutely, spending extra time on his mouth until she leaned a little closer and her own lips parted. “And I like you, that’s a good reason to come see you.”
“You’re embarrassing me,” he told her. “But don’t let that stop you.”
She smiled, a quirky smile, and inclined her head to take in his body. He was grateful he remained what Madge Pollard, Cyrus’s bright-eyed assistant, called lean and mean—only with enough bulk to make a girl weak at the knees. “Do you lift weights?” Vivian asked. “Live on some sort of chemicals with Gatorade chasers? I don’t think chests just come like that.”
He controlled an urge to sweep her on top of the table and sit with his chair pushed back, making sure he hadn’t missed anything about her—or as little as he could do that with her clothes on. “I do a lot of physical work,” he told her and shrugged. “And I like to run. Oh, what the hell, I might as well fess up to it all. We’ve got an old Nautilus at the station and I love that thing.”
“Worth every second,” she said, her voice somewhat lower. She pointed an index finger at him, made circles with it, looked into his eyes, back at his chest, and slowly set her fingertip on one of his pecs. Vivian poked, quite definitely poked, and made an “ooh” shape with her mouth. “You’ve been eating your spinach.”
He sent up thanks that she managed to keep things light enough to stop him from inviting her to join him anywhere, as long as he was inside her.
“Your face got to me the first time I saw it,” Spike said, and Vivian saw a wicked glitter in his eyes. So this was to be tit for tat. “You’ve got cheekbones that don’t quit and your eyes aren’t just green, they’re green-green and when you close them, you’ve got more black eyelashes than one woman should have. They curve against your face, and flicker because you’re always thinking about something. And your skin is so white. Black hair and white skin. Is your skin the same all over?”
Her eyes flashed at him. “That’s a secret.”
“I like secrets. They turn me on. Sometimes I can’t quit until I find them out.”
Her left hand rested on the table and he covered it with his right. She was cool, almost too cool. Their eyes met and she smiled at him, a conspiratorial smile. Spike turned up the corners of his mouth and made himself keep on looking at her, but something had changed in him and he couldn’t afford that change. He wasn’t going to be able to put Vivian Patin out of his mind easily. At this moment he doubted he would ever forget the way she looked at him now.
He could not have a woman in his life—other than casually. He already knew it didn’t work. Vivian wasn’t the kind of woman a man tried to get close to—with no strings attached.
She turned her hand over beneath his so that their palms touched and their fingertips rested together. He played back and forth, softly, and saw her shiver again but not, he thought, out of fear or because she was cold—not this time.
“This may not be the best timing,” he said, “but what happened with the fire your father died in?”
She nodded and bent low enough over their joined hands to ensure her face wasn’t visible. “Chez Charlotte—that was my parents’ restaurant. Burned to the ground. The fire started in the kitchens and that’s where my father was found.”
Spike knew he must listen quietly and not try to prompt her with his own questions.
She kept her face down but curled her fingers into his palm and made light rubbing motions that tickled vaguely. “My dad was a calm man—unless he lost his temper, and he did do that regularly. But he was alone there. Something I don’t get, and neither does Mama. All alone and cooking. They say he must have been and that he probably set the stove on fire.”
Spike picked up her hand and held it between both of his. Her fingers were long but disappeared inside his own. “What did the local experts decide?”
“Accident,” she said.
“You don’t sound as if you believe that.”
“No. And less now with Louis’s death. Poor man. We have to find what was taken from his briefcase. He became marked by it, whatever it is, I’m sure of that.”
”We,” Spike felt mean but it had to be said. “This is a job for the professionals, Vivian. I won’t be one of them, you already know that. And Errol Bonine and his squad won’t allow you to interfere. They’ll do the askin’ and tell you no more than they have to.”
“He—Bonine asked me questions for two hours.”
“I know. I was in the house, remember? What kind of questions did he ask?” He shouldn’t interfere but didn’t feel any remorse.
“Dumb questions. And the same ones over and over—when he wasn’t resting his eyes. Where was I from? Why would I want to live at Rosebank? Was I in some sort of trouble in New Orleans? Why aren’t I married? Was I ever married? Don’t I like men?”
“Ass,” Spike said with feeling. How Errol had risen as far as he had would always be a mystery—maybe. “Don’t you worry about him. He’s doing what he thinks he’s supposed to do, only he’s forgotten most of what that is. You just keep calm and don’t let him rile you.”
Vivian decided that Deputy Sheriff Spike Devol didn’t know exactly what, or who, he was dealing with yet. He’d learn in time. If Vivian had her way, he’d learn everything there was to learn about her. She took a forgotten breath and felt a wash of hopelessness. Spike might be interested in an affair, a short, hot affair, but nothing more unless she was mistaken. That wouldn’t be enough for her—tantalizing as it seemed.
“What kind of record does Detective Bonine have?” she asked. “For solving crimes, I mean?”
“Lousy, but that doesn’t seem to cramp his style. I’m talking out of school but I’d say the detective lives very well for what I know he earns and the possibility is that not solving some cases pays well. I don’t know if your case falls into that category, but don’t expect any speedy answers. It’s likely to drag on, then fade away.”
“I’ve got to find the connection between my father’s death and what happened yesterday. Uncle Guy only changed his will almost literally on his deathbed. Dad died a few weeks after Uncle Guy. The insurance wasn’t nearly enough and my mother took a terrible financial hit. And that was on top of being brokenhearted over Dad’s death.”
“Stinking luck,” Spike said.
“As things stand we don’t have any choice but to make Rosebank work. There’s enough money to creep along for a while and nothing more. We can’t really continue with the renovations until we’re more solvent again. We have to move so slowly when we need to go fast.”
She drummed her fingers and he wondered if she was deciding whether to go on.
“In Uncle Guy’s will there was a strange reference to having faith, that he had taken care of all eventualities and all the Patins would have to do was use their minds if their eyes were to see the truth.”
She had all of Spike’s attention.
“Louis said he was bringing good news. What would you make out of that?”
Careful. “I’d probably make some of the same guesses you’re making. But I wouldn’t get in the way of the law.”
Her determined concentration on the table didn’t fool him. The lady could become hard to handle because she wouldn’t take directions easily unless they made a lot of sense to her.
“The connection has to be found.” She sounded stubborn.
“If there is one.” He slid his rump forward in his chair and carried her fingertips to his mouth. “Heed what I say and don’t meddle. Your life is too important to risk. I won’t let you lose it over money.”
Her startled eyes rose to his face.
Absently, Spike kissed the very tips of her fingers, ran his tongue across them. Vivian said, “I like you doing that. It makes me dizzy.”
“Actually this is a bad idea,” he said, speaking deliberately as if he were discussing the boudin rouge, only with less enthusiasm.
“Is it?”
She was an enigma, and irresistible. His voice might sound cool but what he felt was anything but cool. He’d better back off.
“How about you?” she asked. “Tell me something about you and what you want.”
“I want a better life for Wendy,” he said and Vivian wouldn’t allow herself to remark that he was holding her hand too tightly. “She’s fine now, but she’ll need more and I’ll give it to her. She’s always going to feel loved and it’ll never mean anything to her that her mother…left. Wendy will go to college. She’ll get whatever opportunities it takes to get her to her full potential.”
“I know you’ll make sure of that.”
The flashlight on the floor cast uplights over his face. His gleaming eyes held a faraway expression.
“And you?” she asked. “What do you want for yourself?”
He looked at her and there was nothing faraway about him now. Spike studied only her face and for so long Vivian could scarcely bear the wait. Finally the corners of his mouth tipped up and he said, “I want you. It’s wrong for me to say it, but it’s true. Already I feel I’ve known you forever and I want to know you better. But it couldn’t work out. Even if you’d have me, we’d have to sneak around to be together.”
“Because you’re afraid I’d hurt you, or Wendy. It’s Wendy you worry about most and I like you for that. But are you really thinking about the whole picture, or just about sex?”
His eyes never left her face and he didn’t flinch. “I need that, too. I want that, too. But I’d settle for kissing you—for now. Just to see how we like it. You probably wouldn’t want that when I have nothing else to offer you.”
Vivian looked at their joined hands and inched them toward her. He stopped her, kissed her palm, pressed it against his neck and leaned slowly closer.
