Hotbed Honey (23 page)

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Authors: Toni Blake

BOOK: Hotbed Honey
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I'm glad it's you I'm here with
, he wanted to say.
Good P.I., bad P.I., none of that matters now
. Instead, he only sighed, and reached out to take her hand. "Kimberly?"
"Yes?"
"Tell me about … the Carpenter case."
Kimberly nearly went numb. He'd said it slowly, as though it would be as hard for him to hear as it would be for Kimberly to tell. But he was giving her the chance now, the chance to finally explain what had happened on that ill-fated day. She took a deep breath and tried to think of where to begin.
"Well, I found out my mother was dying on the day I blew the case," she started. From the corner of her eye, she saw him turn to look at her, but she kept talking. "She called me around
noon
to tell me she'd been diagnosed with cancer. I wasn't supposed to meet with Margaret Carpenter until later that afternoon, and I was just taking it easy in my apartment, letting Margaret think I was at work. So I got off the phone and rushed out the door to go be with Mom, but my cat got out into the hallway."
"Misha?" he said, stunning Kimberly once more by recalling the name of her cat.
She nodded. "I'd already locked the door, and I was frazzled and not thinking straight—in too much of a hurry to stop and put her back inside. I saw my neighbor, Mrs. Baines, coming in, and she said she'd catch Misha and take her to her place. I figured I'd get her when I came home before going to meet Margaret. Nothing really mattered besides seeing my mom right then, you know?"
"Of course." He spoke quietly and squeezed her hand.
"When I got to her house, we both cried and it was … emotional. I wished I could've stayed longer and even thought about calling Margaret to reschedule, but Mom insisted I go on and do my job. So I headed home to change and when I got there—" she swallowed hard and forced the rest out "—I found out Misha had run away."
"Oh, Kimberly," he murmured.
It struck her funny that the memory of her cat disappearing came closer to causing tears now than the part about her mother, but, like then, it was the culmination of the events happening all at once that had the ability to make her feel so weak and helpless.
She took a deep breath and forged ahead. "Apparently, Mrs. Baines had trouble catching her—Misha was always afraid of strangers—and when one of the other tenants left the building, Misha ran out. Mrs. Baines tried to follow her, but Misha crossed the street and disappeared into the woods. I went into the woods myself and looked for her, called for her, but she was just … gone. After a while, I had to give up, and pull myself together enough to go meet Margaret."
Now Max was running his thumb lightly back and forth over the top of her hand. "You should have canceled with her, babe," he said sweetly.
"I know that now. Believe me, I know it. But at the time, I was on autopilot. Still reeling from the news about my mom and just pushing my way through the day, trying to get to the end of it, I guess." Kimberly paused and took another deep breath, remembering the overload of emotions.
"So I went to Margaret's, ready to work. But Margaret … well, despite what you may think, Max, she was a very kind woman. She saw immediately that I wasn't myself and asked what was wrong. A part of me knew I shouldn't tell her, but I truly liked her and at the time I really needed a shoulder to cry on, so I told her about my mother, and about what had happened to Misha, too." She gave her head a quick shake. "Of course, I had to make up a stupid story about Misha being my friend's cat and not mine, or Misha would have been there with me at the bungalow. Having to lie in the middle of all that didn't help.
"Anyway," she went on, not daring to lift her gaze to Max, "Margaret listened to me, and when I looked into her eyes, I knew she really cared. She even held me while I cried."
Max sighed, his eyes lowered.
"Then her son came in."
"Our client," Max said.
She nodded, hardly caring about that fact. "I could tell immediately that Margaret was afraid of him. Like I'd told you before, Bruce was gruff when he spoke to her. He didn't even knock on the door of her little house—just barged right in. And he ignored
me
completely. I was already so upset that seeing how he treated her made me angry." In fact, even just recalling it made anger well in Kimberly all over again.
"Margaret was clearly living on a shoestring, something I started thinking about while her son was there, and it helped me get back in a working frame of mind. After he left, I finally got down to business. I talked about the money she wanted to invest and asked her where she'd gotten it. She told me that she'd saved a little here, scrimped a little there. I said, 'Your son doesn't help you out with the bills?' She said, 'No, I just have what I get from Henry's social security.'
"And then … then I noticed these bruises on her arm, mainly because they were like fingerprints, like someone had grabbed her too hard. I asked her about them and she blushed and looked away, started fiddling with the doily on the table next to her. When I pressed her for an answer she told me that her son had done it. She told me they'd argued and he'd pushed her. She tried to play it off like it was no big deal, but I couldn't see it that way."
Pausing then, Kimberly clenched her fists, readying herself for the next part, the hardest part.
"That's when I cracked, Max. I quit caring about the case and started caring more about Margaret. I told her the truth about why I was there, why I had gotten to know her. I know it was wrong. I know it was stupid. And I regret it more than anything I've ever done. It was the biggest mistake of my life. It cost me my job. Worse, it cost you yours and you had nothing to do with it."
She turned to face him then, surprised and comforted that he still held her hand. Their faces were close. "I'm so very sorry, Max. I was so wrong to let my emotions get in the way of what I was there to do."
Finished, Kimberly waited for him to turn cold, or at least cool. That's how it had been on the day they'd gotten fired. It's how Max had reacted a few days ago when she'd tried to explain. Now she finally
had
explained, and it suddenly hit her—her excuse wasn't very good. Her emotions had gotten in the way? How utterly lame. How completely unprofessional.
"I understand," Max said softly, slowly, as if amazed by his own words.
But he couldn't have been any more amazed than Kimberly was. "You do?"
He gave a short nod. "Maybe I couldn't have understood it before, even if I'd let you explain it all to me. I can understand
now
, though, because I'm guilty of the same thing, guilty of bringing my emotions into
this
case. "He lowered his voice. "Emotions for you."
Kimberly's stomach clenched. Was he talking about lust again? Or was there something else, something more?
"I owe you an apology, Kimberly," he went on. "For the times when I got angry with you this weekend. I put you in a tough position making you sexual bait for Carlo. Turns out everything you did to reel him in worked on me instead. I haven't been very professional over the last couple of days, and I was wrong to take out my frustrations on you. But I just wanted you so badly and it was so hard to watch him touching you, and you giggling with him and encouraging him."
She swallowed. She still wasn't really sure how he felt inside, if it was all merely sex or if there was anything else behind his desires. "It was my job, Max," she reminded him.
"I know," he told her, "and that's why I'm apologizing. You were doing your job and I started acting as if you were doing something wrong." He paused and turned toward her, their eyes meeting in the semidarkness. "Maybe the truth is that I expected you to do a worse job at being a seductress. I thought it would bother you more … maybe I
wanted
it to bother you more."
"It bothered me plenty, but I've gotten better at my job over the past three years."
"I've noticed." To her surprise, he gave her a small grin. "As we've discussed before, you're considerably sassier than I recall."
She shrugged. "I found out I had to be a little tougher if I wanted to survive in this business."
"It works for you," he said. "But…"
"But what?"
"But I like the
other
you, too, Kimberly. The
softer
you."
Something in Kimberly's stomach rippled.
He liked the softer her
, the her that she thought of as the
real
her. She wanted to succumb to his gentle words, to simply melt inside, but she thought that perhaps, at the moment, it would be smarter to concentrate on business lest she crumble completely. "I guess this has all proven, though, that tough or not, I'm not a very good P.I."
She felt his incredulous look. "Why would you say that?"
"Because in the end, when it mattered the most, I panicked and caved in—I messed up. I was afraid of him and I let him see that." She was remembering the moment she'd called Max's name when he'd burst into the room and saved her from Carlo, how it had tumbled from her lips unbidden, how desperate and afraid and needful she'd felt all at once. No matter how perfect the sight of him had been, it was an unprofessional move.
Yet Max was reaching up and smoothing her hair with gentle fingers, saying words she'd never thought she'd hear him say. "Some things are more important than a case, Kimberly. And I hate that I let you do that, that I let you be in that position with him."
"It's not an uncommon thing for a female P.I. to have to do, Max. You know that."
He sighed. "Of course I know that, but it's different—and a lot easier—when it's someone you don't know very well, someone you don't care for."
Kimberly's body suddenly felt as if it belonged to someone else, as if, piece by piece, it was shattering in a frightening bliss that it was far too soon to feel.
Stop it
, she commanded herself.
You're misunderstanding him. You must be.
Tears threatened to leak out, but she held them back. "You … care for me, Max?"
He released a huge sigh and then his arms were coming around her, drawing her close, holding her against him like something cherished. "Kimberly," he whispered, "do you really have to ask?"
She pulled back just enough to meet his eyes. "Well, yes, I do have to ask. I mean, after we slept together, Max, you … well, you acted…"
Max was silent as he leaned toward her until his forehead rested on her shoulder. "I know," he said. "I'm sorry for how I acted. I didn't want to admit to myself how I felt, how I cared. But I
did
, Kimberly. So much that it caught me off guard, scared me."
She swallowed at the impact of his words. That sounded serious. So serious that she couldn't delve any deeper right now, couldn't risk finding out it wasn't really true, that it meant something less than what she was hearing. So she kept it simple and asked him the question that had haunted her for days. "Max?"
"Hmm?" His head still rested on her shoulder.
"Who is Julie? A … lover?"
He lifted his head and smiled at her with a short, low laugh. "Julie lives next door to me. I pay her to clean my condo and do my laundry. She's sort of like a second mother to me."
"But you came out in a towel, thinking I was her."
Again, he laughed quietly. "She's seventy years old, Kimberly, and believe it not, she's seen me in a towel, even less—she nursed me through a killer stomach infection with a fever of 103 degrees last winter. She was supposed to drop my laundry off that night you came by." He gave his head a sly tilt, accompanied by a wicked little grin. "Were you jealous?"
She smiled at him as she lied. "No."
She knew he could see right through her, but that was okay, because they were sharing a moment, something quiet and without need of words. She still didn't know how he really felt for her, after all, he'd said wonderful things, but he'd not exactly confessed to loving her. Yet, even so, it just felt good to know there was
something
mutual between them, that it was not all one-sided, and most of all, it was incredible to know he understood now about the Carpenter case, and that he might even begin to forgive her.

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