Secret Desire

“As far as I’m concerned, Luke, you’d have to do a lot to unravel your character. Besides, you can’t turn a Town Car into a Jeep.”

She couldn’t figure out the message in those fiery gray eyes, but his words settled it. “No, but you can trash it. Thanks for the coffee. I’ll find my way out.”

He strode toward the short hallway, stopped and turned. “Where’s Randy?”

She stood straighter, intent on his knowing that nothing and no one got the better of her. “Randy’s painting. It’s one thing I don’t have to urge him to do.”

“Take care.” He walked swiftly, almost as though he scented a prize.

She hated seeing women stand akimbo with their hands on their hips, but she did it then, frustration gripping every muscle of her body. Disgusted with herself, she threw up her hands and headed out back to her garden.

She paused on the porch. Why was she so riled up? She didn’t want to become involved with him or any other man, did she? Her knees nearly buckled as the truth pierced her thoughts. She wanted him. She’d made a play for him because she’d recognized the vulnerability in him. He saw what she’d done, and let her know he didn’t like it. Maybe she was reaching for a thin reed, but she was thirty-eight years old, already past her prime, and had never been in the arms of a man who put her interests, her fulfillment and her well-being above his own. Luke Hickson would do that, and she wanted him. Deflated and saddened when she recalled his disinterested behavior minutes earlier, she reminded herself of the times when he’d behaved otherwise.

“Why can’t I have him, if he wants me?” she asked. She looked at herself in the hall mirror, at the tiny lines at the edges of her still beautiful eyes and the slight creases across her forehead. I’ll take the consequences.

Chapter 4

Luke got in his car, drove around the block and stopped. He had to get a grip on his emotions. He rolled down the window and let the crisp, bracing wind bruise his face. Memories of the peace he’d known with Eunice flooded his thoughts. Their tranquil moments, easy communication and quiet loving came back to him, strong, visionlike, as if it had happened the day before. But was that what a man needed—contentment, a sameness that neither exercised the mind nor the emotions? Yet, it had been good in its way. Eunice hadn’t been imaginative about life, loving or much else, but she’d always been there for him. And he’d loved her. How different his feelings for Kate! She challenged him, excited and galvanized him. Sometimes he had an urge to bend her to his will and, at others—like this morning—he wanted to open himself to her, let her have her way with him and watch her fly.

He turned the key in the ignition and eased away from the curb. A whole day on his hands. His heart told him he should be spending it with her, but for as long as she was under his protection he meant to stick to his guns and stay away from her.

He hadn’t done it on purpose, but he found himself driving in the direction of her store.

He glanced to the right as he neared it, and slammed on the brakes. Yellow and black chalk marks defaced the door and window of her store. He got out and examined them, searching for a symbol, because he was becoming increasingly more certain that Kate’s in-laws had no part in the crimes against her.

He couldn’t let her face that ugliness, so he drove to the housing projects just off Frederick Boulevard, got out, and knocked on Rude Hopper’s door. He could depend on Rude for just about anything, including the man’s vast knowledge of “the street” and what went on there. He’d gotten Rude’s younger son away from a gang and into the Police Athletic League, where he exhibited leadership abilities, and he was now college bound. Rude couldn’t do enough for him.

“I’ll take a couple of friends over there, and it’ll be good as new before noon,” Rude told him after hearing about the vandalism. “You putting somebody there to watch the place?”

“I’ll have a guard on duty from now on. Thanks, brother, I owe you one.”

Rude shook his head. “Not me. I’m the one who’s in your debt, and I always will be. We’ll get right to it. And if I pick up on anything, I’ll let you know.”

Luke thanked him. Kate opened at twelve on Saturdays, so perhaps he’d saved her the shock of seeing the ugliness. He used his cell phone to call a junior detective and assign him to watch the store. That done, he drove out to Eunice’s grave, placed some dogwood blossoms at the headstone, said a prayer and walked back to his car. For reasons he couldn’t understand, he felt lighter than he had in years, and he didn’t question it. He picked up a stone and sent it twirling through the air as a sense of release washed over him. Amanda had begged him to try to bury the past, but he’d punished himself with guilt, and had never attempted to forget. He wondered if he could, and if Eunice had forgiven him for not being there when she needed him. For once, remembering didn’t hurt so much.

When he went to bed that night, he gave himself points for refraining from calling Kate, but he could still smell her perfume, that spicy floral scent that stayed with him for hours after he’d been near her. Fit to bite nails, he swore at himself when images of her heated his loins, but then a strange peace flooded his being and, with a little effort, he put desire behind him.

He phoned her the next morning, told her about the vandalism and that he’d had the evidence of it cleaned off. She thanked him, and he asked himself why she didn’t protest his protectiveness, as she usually did. That was something he had to watch.

Kate got to her store shortly before twelve and let out a deep breath when she saw nothing untoward, but as she unlocked the door she noticed the squad car sitting across the street and walked over to it.

“Are you stationed here, or just resting?” she asked the officer.

“Ma’am, Second Precinct detectives don’t rest during working hours unless they want another job. I’m posted here.”

“Well…thank you,” was all she could manage. She went in her office and made coffee. Then she took a cup to the officer, who accepted it gratefully.

“Does everybody get this kind of service?” she asked him.

He took a few sips of coffee, and she could see how much he enjoyed it. “This is good stuff, and I was dying for some. Thanks a lot. Oh, yes,” he said, remembering her question. “We do this whenever it’s necessary. Just ignore me and go on about your business.”

She didn’t know what to make of Luke, protective yet distant. She wasn’t a lamb born the day before, so he couldn’t tell her that every citizen in Portsmouth could count on that level of protection. She was grateful that she hadn’t seen her store defaced and that she didn’t have to look over her shoulder every minute, but she hated that when men got interested in her they insisted on enclosing her in some kind of shell, as though she were a fragile embryo. She thought she’d left that behind when she buried Nathan. Still, she wouldn’t dare complain because Randy needed her safe and healthy. It hung in the mirror of her mind like a brilliant Picasso painting that she was all her son had.

By the end of the day, three more people had signed up for the reading club, among them two sexy young women. If providence was kind to her, Axel would flip over one of them. The likelihood of that seemed remote, however, when Axel arrived at closing time bringing an embarrassingly large bouquet of red and yellow long-stemmed roses. She loved roses of all colors, and she didn’t have the heart to scold him.

“You like them?” he asked, more pleased with himself than he had a right to be.

She tried to sound moderately disinterested. “I love roses. Is there a woman anywhere who doesn’t?”

Self-satisfaction radiated from every part of him, and she knew he thought he’d scored big with her. “If I know anything,” he boasted, “it’s how to treat a woman, and especially one like you.”

The door opened and Randy bounded in, followed by an off-duty policeman. She didn’t think she’d ever been happier to see her son or anybody else.

“I made my rounds, Mom, and delivered the stuff to all my clients.” He turned to the officer who’d arrived with him. “I did real good, didn’t I? Mom, this is my partner, Officer Jenkins.”

She greeted the officer and shook hands with him, but she couldn’t hide her embarrassment as Jenkins stared with all-knowing eyes from Axel to the oversize bouquet in her hand.

A frown eclipsed Randy’s face as he stared at the flowers. “Where’d you get those, Mom?”

“Officer Strange just gave them to me.”

Randy looked at the man. And looked and looked, while Jenkins watched. She couldn’t help wondering how early in life the male of the species adopted territorial prerogatives. Randy had just served notice that he did not like Axel Strange and didn’t want him around.

“Captain Luke helps me with my lessons,” Randy said. “He’s my friend.”

She would have banished Randy to her office for that piece of one-upmanship, had not Jenkins begun laughing. And the more he laughed, the more he laughed. She squelched a giggle when she noticed that Randy had gone to stand beside Jenkins, and that Axel’s face had become bloated from his ripening anger. Unable to think of a way out of it, she laid the flowers on a table and started toward the office for a vase. “I’d planned to tail you and Randy home, ma’am,” Jenkins said, “but—”

She cut in quickly. “Thanks so much, officer. I’ll be ready as soon as I get a container for these flowers.”

She didn’t know what the three of them said to each other in her absence, and she hardly cared, but she’d forever be grateful to Jenkins. Not that she disliked Axel—she didn’t. But the man didn’t seem capable of modest behavior. She brought out a plastic Chinese-style vase that she’d filled with water, arranged the roses in it, put the vase on the table, and left it there.

“Now the store will have a nice feminine touch,” she said in a gesture to Axel, and thanked him for the roses. But a bunch of flowers, however beautiful and expensive, didn’t purchase her company, and he’d have to learn that.

She’d thought that had ended it until later that evening when Randy had leaned both elbows on her lap, looked up at her, and said, “I don’t like him. Don’t let him come in the store anymore.”

She put an arm around him, loosely because he hated to be petted. “Randy, my store is a public place, and unless people misbehave, I can’t prevent their entering it. That’s the law. Besides, he’s not a bad person.”

“He’s not like Captain Luke and Officer Jenkins, and he doesn’t like for us kids to go to the precinct. I don’t want him to give you any flowers.”

As much as she loved Randy, she couldn’t let him run her life, but he needed assurance that Axel wasn’t important to her. “Don’t worry about him, Randy. He isn’t special to me in any way.”

“He isn’t?”

“No, darling. Not at all.”

“Gee.” Evidently satisfied, he skipped out of the room.

Luke didn’t care much for parties, not even fund-raisers for PAL, but as a principal supporter of the organization he knew that Mrs. Joshua Armstrong, as she liked to be known, would be insulted if he didn’t attend. He dressed in a business suit, arrived around eight-thirty and made certain that his hostess and all of her guests saw him. Then, he went out on the back porch and sat there in the darkness away from the fawning women, small talk and the scent of liquor. Kate filled his thoughts, and he was glad she hadn’t come. If he didn’t see her, he couldn’t break his promise to himself. He closed his eyes and let the night air blow over him, invigorating him.

Kate hadn’t wanted to be the last person to arrive, but she didn’t relish being the first at a party, either. She greeted Mrs. Joshua Armstrong, resplendent in a long, red hostess gown—a throwback to the thirties, Kate thought—and took a look around her. She wished she’d stayed home. Axel Strange was the only person she knew in that huge room filled with Portsmouth’s moneyed class. Having found her way to an opposite corner of the room, she refused the smoked oysters, wines, and liquors that the waiter offered her and opted for a glass of club soda; after all, she didn’t have a designated driver.

“I looked all over for him,” an attractive fortyish woman who stood nearby said to her female companion.

“I asked Mrs. Armstrong if he’d showed up, and she said he was out on the back porch, probably asleep, since he hates parties,” the woman replied.

“Asleep? In that case I wasted my time coming here. I’ve been dying to meet that man. Girl, if I ever get my hands on that hunk, he can look out.”

The snicker that followed would have discouraged most women. “Honey, what have you got that the rest of us don’t have? Luke Hickson is as elusive as quicksilver. Getting that man is about as easy as grabbing a handful of air.”

Kate didn’t wait to hear more.

Suddenly alert, Luke cocked his ear at the sound of footsteps, though he didn’t open his eyes. And then, tongues of fire leaped through him like a roaring furnace, and he braced himself. Waiting. Delicate fingers covered his eyes, barely touching his flesh. He didn’t breathe, couldn’t breathe, as he awaited the next move. His breath nearly exploded from his lungs as soft, half-parted lips caressed his own, twin butterflies sipping nectar. When he flicked his tongue against them, asking entrance, he heard a quick gasp, then rapid steps—heaven flying from his grasp. The screen door slammed, and he sprang out of the chair and went after her. She could lie if she wanted to, but he knew the wearer of that perfume. Gone was his reticence, his resolve to leave her alone. She’d whetted his appetite and kicked his libido into high gear, and he knew he wouldn’t rest until he’d caressed every centimeter of her naked flesh and lost himself in her.

He found her in conversation with Axel Strange. “Hello, Kate. Imagine finding you in here.” He nodded to Axel. “Evening, Lieutenant.”

Her smile shone with innocence, but that meant little to him. “You wouldn’t have been a track star at some earlier time, would you?” he asked her.

“What does that mean?” Axel asked, his face clouded with unfriendliness. “Haven’t you noticed the lady and I are in a conversation?”

Luke lifted his shoulder in a careless shrug and pinned Kate with a stare that he didn’t intend her to decipher. “You’ve been deep in this conversation for every bit of twenty seconds.” He winked at her. “Right, Kate? By the way, madame, that’s great perfume you’re wearing. I’d recognize it anywhere.”

He had the pleasure of seeing her blanch and lower her eyes. “What’s the matter, Kate? Having trouble getting your tongue to work?” A grin formed on his mouth, and, to his surprise, he enjoyed her discomfort.

“You’re in a creative mood tonight, Captain. Very imaginative,” she said, though he could tell from the lack of strength in her voice that her heart wasn’t in her little act.

He folded his arms across his chest. “Indeed, I am. Thanks to you.” Then, to emphasize his point, he rimmed his top lip with his tongue and watched her eyes take on a smoldering haze that betrayed her awareness of him. An answering passion slammed into him. He had to get out of there. “Watch yourself, Kate, and stay out of mischief. Good night.”

At home later that night, he sat at his desk shuffling through his mail. Frustrated and piqued that Kate had used Axel as cover for her daring act, he crushed a sheet of paper in his fist and tossed it into the wastebasket. He itched to get his hands on her—even talking to her would be better than nothing—but damned if he’d call her after that cute trick she pulled, kissing him so sweetly and then running away and staging that scene with Strange. All right, so she’d kissed him on an impulse. Why couldn’t she admit it?

An airmail letter with a French stamp. Now what could that be? He read it a second time—an invitation to speak at the INTERPOL conference in Nairobi on ways of identifying drug couriers. His interception of a courier had effectively busted a drug ring, and he’d known the operation had gained international attention, but an invitation from INTERPOL! A detective thought twice before he turned his back on that august international crime-fighting organization. He replied, accepting the invitation, and was about to seal the envelope when he stopped, leaned back in his chair and gazed at the ceiling. What would happen to Kate and Randy if he was out of the country for ten days? And why did he care so much? All of a sudden, he could feel her lips on him, his mouth tasted of her, and the scent of her perfume came back to him fresh and strong, dancing around his nostrils and heating his blood. He let out an expletive and reached for the phone.

She should have known Axel would be a problem, though if he realized she’d used him to mislead Luke, he didn’t voice the sentiment.

“I’ll see you home,” he announced when she told him she had to leave.

Not if I can avoid it, she told herself. “Thanks, Lieutenant, but I’m driving. Good night.”

He let her know he had the tenacity of a Brahman bull—not that it surprised her. She didn’t consider him naive or insensitive, but he behaved as if he were, and she’d like to know what he was up to.

“Then I’ll tail you. You’re in my care, and I’ll see you home.”

Like a petulant child’s, his voice began to rise. Rather than let herself be enmeshed in a scene, she said nothing, thanked her hostess and left. Besides, she didn’t enjoy hurting anyone, and Axel didn’t deserve unkindness even though he had a penchant for annoying her.

He followed her as she’d known he would, but he wasn’t going into her house. When she reached home, she got out of her car and walked back to him.

“Thanks, Axel. I’m going in through the garage. Good night.”

The muscles of his jaw worked, and his face took on a harsh veneer. She started back to her car, but he grabbed her arm.

“Be careful, Axel. I don’t like to be touched.”

His nostrils flared. “Do you tell Hickson that?”

She knocked his hand off her arm and looked him in the eye. “Captain Hickson has never grabbed my arm.”

“Have you let him touch you?”

It was none of his business, but she couldn’t resist needling him. “He hasn’t tried to touch me, as you put it.”

His face contorted, and she stepped back, not sure she could trust his self-control. “You want me to believe that? The guy’s the biggest womanizer in Portsmouth.”

If Luke was, she hadn’t seen any evidence of it. She took several steps toward her car. “That’s probably all in your imagination. You can believe what you like.”

“When can I see you again?”

Better get it straight right now, she thought. “You and I are just friends, Lieutenant, and that’s all we can ever be.”

All she could think of as she looked at his teeth, bared in a snarl, was the eternally angry bulldog owned by the next-door neighbor when she was a small child. She’d been scared of that dog, but Axel Strange didn’t perturb her in the least.

“Don’t be too sure of that,” he said. “Lover Boy doesn’t stick with one woman for long. You’ll soon see where you stand.”

She walked back to him, fists clenched and the print of her nails scoring her palms. “Why do you think I’m limited to a choice of you or him? You need to downsize your ego. Good night.” Of all the arrogance! She got in her car, slammed the door and drove into the garage. The guy needed a reality check.

She gave silent thanks when Madge announced that Randy was asleep, pleaded a headache, and left without her usual small talk. Kate went to the refrigerator for a glass of ginger ale, but as she leaned against the kitchen counter sipping the drink, she hardly tasted it. What had gotten into her? She hadn’t meant to do more than greet Luke and spend a few minutes with the one person at the party whose company she would enjoy. But she’d looked at him, his head back, eyes closed, and his face peaceful and sweet. She’d glanced at his long legs stretched out in front of him and at the silky lashes that hid his gray eyes. It had taken less than a second, but she’d seen him there asleep and open to her whims, and her mouth found his. First came a flash of heat, and then alarm shot through her when his lips moved beneath hers, and his tongue asked for entrance into her mouth. Unused to being aggressive with men, she’d fled.

The phone rang and she raced to prevent it from waking Randy, hoping she wouldn’t hear Axel Strange’s voice on the other end.

“Yes?”

“I assume you knew I’d call.”

She sat down and breathed deeply, steadying her nerves. “Why would I know that?”

“Hang it all, Kate,” he said in obvious exasperation, “you wore that perfume the first time I saw you, and you’ve had it on every time I’ve seen you since then. Why did you kiss me?”

The sudden acceleration of her heartbeat frightened her. “Wh…what do…Luke, do you think I’m the only woman who wears that perfume?”

“You were the only one wearing it at Martha Armstrong’s house tonight. Unless you want me at your front door minutes from now, answer me. Why’d you do it?”

“Luke, I’m…tired. Please say good night.”

“If you’re tired, it’s because you had to tussle with Axel. You’ll learn not to play with him. But that’s what you did. You used him, and he’ll make you pay. Why did you kiss me?”

She wasn’t a child that he could back into a corner. “You were there, and I…I wanted to.”

She couldn’t hear his breathing accelerate. “Next time, warn me.”

Flustered because she hadn’t thought he’d find her out, she rubbed her left side with her free hand. “There won’t be a next time.”

His laugh came through the wire harsh and knowing. “Oh, yes, there will. You started it because you know how much I want you, and you’re going to find out how I act when a woman wants me, and what it’s like to kiss me. Count on it.”

“Luke, please. I apologize. Let’s—”

He interrupted. “You what? Don’t hand me any apology, lady. You want me as much as I want you, and from now on you’ll be the one who puts up the off-limits sign. I hadn’t planned it, I didn’t think it wise, and I fought it—”

“There’s no reason for us to get involved. We can just be friends.”

His laugh had the sound of an angry growl. “I tasted you. I want more, and I’m going to have more, with your full and joyful cooperation. I finish what I start.”

“You didn’t start it.”

“That’s because you ran. But you can slow down. I’m through punishing myself.”

Her fingers rubbed her sides, and she paced back and forth. “Luke, I’ve walked that road and, except for Randy, most of what I got was unhappiness. Before we married, my husband said I was the flower of his life, but as soon as he had to tend that flower, he let it wither to nothing. He promised everything wonderful and delivered ten years of misery. What I want is irrelevant. All I need now is peace for Randy and me.”

“That was some other man, not this one. You ought to know that if you kiss a man the way you kissed me, he’s going after you unless he’s got dead nerves and two peg legs.”

She pulled the front bodice of her dress away from her dampened flesh, picked up a magazine that lay on the bed, and fanned rapidly. “Luke, I…You were out there alone with your eyes closed, quiet. In the dark, you seemed so vulnerable, and…helpless. I—”

“That was in your mind, baby. I heard your footsteps coming toward me and smelled that perfume before you opened the screen door. I knew who was kissing me, and I wanted it. Otherwise, it never would have happened.”

Abruptly he changed the subject. “I’m going to Africa in a couple of weeks, and I’m concerned about leaving you and Randy here alone, at the mercy of whoever’s pestering you. I’ll work out a plan, and I want you to follow it and see that Randy does.”

“Luke, I don’t want any more pampering. I’ve had my fill of it.”

“I know you’re capable of taking care of yourself, but we’re dealing with real crime here, and a determined criminal. If you’re not going to do as I say, tell me right now and I’ll cancel the trip.”