In the Midnight Rain (30 page)

"Did they find a weapon?" Ellie asked.

He scanned the report, flipped a page up,
tsk
ed. "Doesn't look like it."

"Can you tell me what kind of gun killed him?"

"Looks like a small caliber. Real close." He frowned. "Humph. Must have been somebody he knew, then. Somebody he probably thought would be glad to see him."

Ellie kept her face straight. "Was there anyone with him when it happened? Any witnesses?"

"A whole passel of 'em, looks like, but nobody was talking. There was no arrest."

Ellie went back out to the car and put the key in the ignition, then sat there, staring at the rain-blurred world with a sense of doom. "Ah, Mabel," she said aloud. "What am I going to do if you killed him?"

There was no way to find out this afternoon. Alisha had invited her and Blue to come over for supper before the reading group. The thought gave her another wave of uneasiness, and she still didn't start the car.

She felt, today, as if she'd been asleep these past few weeks and had awakened from the enchantment this morning. Suddenly, the deadline seemed pressing, and she realized she had made no progress at all toward figuring out who her father was.

And the truth was, sooner or later, she was going to have to go back to real life. On to the next project. Get on with her life.

A truck passed by in the street, spraying water over the side of her car, and Ellie realized she didn't want to go anywhere. It was like the night on Blue's porch. She'd wanted to sit there and drink bourbon and listen to him all night long, suspended in possibilities.

And now she wanted to just stay right here, in this small space of time in her life, when she was in love with a man who needed her, who made everything in her shout out loud.

But sitting there in her reliable-for-travel Buick, she realized it was more than that. She didn't want to leave this little town that made her feel like herself again, where she'd made connections that somehow went deeper than usual for no particular reason she could discern.

She didn't want to leave Gideon with its painful history, or Rosemary or Connie or Alisha and Marcus. If she hadn't allowed herself to get mixed up with Blue, she might have been able to stay, but as usual, she'd shown a genuine brilliance for making bad decisions.

The rain pounded down on the roof, and she flashed on the way Blue had stood in the doorway this morning and the taste of bourbon on his mouth. That was really at the root of all this soul-searching today, and if she were honest with herself, she'd admit it.

The descent had begun. Blue would let her go.

With a sigh, she started the car. If she had to leave town in a couple of weeks—and she doubted very seriously that it would take any longer than that—she might as well enjoy what time she had left. Because this was as green a time as she'd ever known. It would be a shame to waste it brooding.

16

I
t was still raining when she got back to Fox's Creek, but it had slowed to a friendly drizzle that made the world seem cool and the greens greener. Ellie let April out to run, and stood on the porch, waiting for her to come back.

On the hill, she saw the dark tall figure of Marcus, silhouetted against the whitish walls of the greenhouse. His truck was parked nearby, but the space where Blue usually kept his was empty.

She was moving up the hill before she really acknowledged to herself that she was going to do it. Wet grass slapped at her ankles and she had to duck her head against the soft rain. She whistled for April to follow her.

Marcus caught sight of her—she knew by the break in his steady movements, a half-second halt between starting to bend and actually doing it, but he didn't straighten and wait for her, just kept up with what he was doing.

"Hey, Marcus," Ellie said.

She half expected him to pretend he hadn't seen her, make some polite exclamation of surprise. But that wasn't his style. He stopped long enough to acknowledge her with a nod. "If you're looking for Blue, he ran to the hardware store. Be back shortly."

Ellie had believed she was coming up here to ask him some questions about Mabel, ask his opinion, maybe, on whether he thought Mabel could have killed Peaches. But standing there, she knew she wanted to clear the air. For a minute, she simply watched him in his steady rhythm, his competent hands pulling grass from the edges of the wall.

"Something on your mind?" he asked.

She took a breath. "Yeah. I guess there is. Blue said we're going over to your house tonight for dinner, and well..." She stuck her hands in her pockets. "I guess I just wanted to tell you that's not necessary. You don't have to be polite to me or whatever it is. I can see that you kind of have a problem with"—the words threatened to jam, so she rushed it all out—"Blue and me, um, hanging out while I'm here, and I don't pretend to know why, but you always seemed pretty friendly before so you must have your reasons, and I just want to tell you it isn't necessary"—she took a breath—"to act like you like me." She pulled a lock of hair from her mouth. "Or whatever."

He had straightened as she talked. "Finished?"

She nodded.

He wiped his hands on a red rag. "I like you fine, Ellie. I like what you've done to that man, too." He lifted a brow. "One of y'all is going to end up with a broken heart, I reckon, but that's just how life goes sometimes." He scowled. "Not that Alisha sees it that way. She likely won't let Blue back in her house once you've gone."

Ellie frowned. "Then why—"

He held up a hand. His gaze was direct and serious. "Is your mother Diane Connor?"

"What?" A fist clutched her heart. Surely Blue hadn't betrayed her? No. The minute the thought appeared, she knew it wasn't that.

He cocked one brow, waiting.

It was impossible to lie, looking into those dark, sober eyes. Ellie nodded—and realized how he'd known. "Rosemary's house that night, right?"

"Yeah. Why would you tell everybody you're here to do a book on Mabel?"

"I am! Trying to find out"—she lifted a shoulder, suddenly humiliated to admit that she didn't even have a name for her father—"what happened to my mother here was just too tempting."

"Happened?"

Ellie took a breath. "She came home pregnant. Never said who the father was. My father."

A charge sizzled in the air for a moment. Ellie finally looked up and noticed a strange, guarded expression on his face. "You're looking for your daddy?"

"Pitiful, isn't it?" A loop of hair, frizzed in the damp, fell on her forehead and she pushed it away. "Did you know her?"

"A little. Why don't you just ask her?"

Ellie realized that he had no way of knowing the rest of the story. "She died when I was two. It hadn't become an issue yet."

"Died?"

Ellie nodded.

"Hell. I'm sorry."

Blue's truck sounded on the road. Ellie glanced over her shoulder. "Marcus, you wouldn't happen to know who it might be?"

A single shake of his head. "Can't help you there. I reckon if you're meant to know, the good Lord will figure out a way to tell you." He pursed his lips, touched that goatee with two fingers. "You might want to wonder why your mama wouldn't tell. Could be a good reason she didn't want you to know."

He knew. Ellie felt the certainty from her crown to her toes. "Maybe you're right," she said. "Thanks."

Everybody had their secrets. Marcus, too, it seemed. But as she dashed back down the hill, she realized that Marcus was protective of Connie. Which lent even more weight to the possibility that George Ewing might be her father.

Interesting.

* * *

Blue awakened in the stillest part of the night to find the bed empty beside him. For a moment, befuddled a little by the bourbon he'd drunk at Marcus's, he thought Ellie had already left him, and he put a hand out, thinking of her. The bed was warm. She'd probably gone to the bathroom.

On his pillow, Piwacket stirred, bumping her cheek against the crown of his head, and he smiled, moving his head a little. "Silly cat," he said, and raised a hand to gently rub her bony back.

When Ellie hadn't returned in five minutes, then ten, Blue got up and put on his jeans, picked up his cat, and went looking for her. She wasn't in the kitchen, though he saw evidence that she'd made a cup of tea. He checked the porch. Empty. He peeked out the kitchen windows, but the cabin was dark.

Finally he let Piwacket settle around his neck, purring into his ear, and climbed the steps to the widow's walk on the roof.

Ellie didn't hear him at first. Blue stood in the doorway, stunned all at once at the sight of her. She wore only one of his shirts, and it rode up on one side, showing a stretch of hip, obviously bare. Her hair was swept into a careless knot—how often had he seen her do that, take that thick, curly hair and twist it all up into a Wilma Flintstone bump on top of her head?—and as always, curls had sprung free to fall on her brow and down her neck, and the sight gave him an instant swell of lust, a need to spread his palm over that bare hip, brush his mouth over the turn of ear hiding beneath a single lock of dark hair.

Her face wore a pensive expression, very sad. "Must be deep thoughts," he said, settling in the chair opposite the one she sat in.

She smiled faintly, turning her head in greeting, but the rest of her body stayed lax, her legs propped up on the railing, her arms akimbo. "Some," she admitted. "This is a very good spot to sort things out. It all looks manageable from here."

Piwacket deserted him for Ellie, sidling around the dogs to leap into her lap. "Been slipping her liver?" he asked.

"I wouldn't do that." She bent and put her face to Pi's neck. "You are the sweetest thing."

Blue wanted to ask what things had seemed unmanageable till she came up here, but thought she'd get around to it if she had a mind to. He put a bare foot on her chair next to her bare hip, a soft, pleasant electric charge, and leaned back, resting his head on the railing to look at the sky. "Feels nice out here," he said.

"Mmm."

They sat in the quiet and the dark a long time, not speaking. Blue let his thoughts wander, filling his eyes with the sight of the stars. "I had one of those stars named for my wife," he said. "You know those things where you send in sixty bucks and they send you a form with the star and the name?"

"Did you? That's a sweet memorial. Which one is it?"

He turned his head. "Can't see it right now. Below the horizon."

Funny how it didn't hurt to think of her, not with his foot pressed warm into Ellie's leg, not with the night and the cool washing over him and a low sense of arousal warming his sex.

He thought of dinner at Marcus and Alisha's. Ellie loved the children, and played rambunctiously with them, a fact that made Alisha love her even more.

James cried when it was time to go to bed, wanting to stay up and play with her some more, and Ellie had gone in with Alisha to read a book. He heard snatches of it—she read The
Black Snowman
in a lilting voice and waited as Alisha read
Owl Moon.

But all through dinner and into the companionable time afterward when they all sat out in the backyard, surrounded by citronella torches to keep mosquitoes at bay, and listened to the roar of cicadas and crickets, there had been a funny sense of strain between Ellie and Marcus.

"What's with you and Marcus?" he asked now.

"What?"

He lifted his head, wanting to see her face. "You heard me. Y'all are either having wild sex when nobody's looking—which, frankly, I like to pride myself you'd be too tired to do with me around—or you're hiding something else."

"What are you talking about?"

He laughed softly, and reached out to put his hands on her ankle. "C'mon, Ellie. You think I'm blind? You were so polite with each other it was like a Jane Austen novel." He raised his voice to a falsetto. '"Mr. Williams, would you be so kind as to pass me that pitcher of tea?' 'Why, certainly, Miz Connor, I'd be honored to pass you the tea.'"

Ellie laughed. "You're imagining things."

"Liar, liar, pants on fire." He slid his foot up higher on her hip, and the shirt revealed more thigh. "Can't be a surprise party, seeing as I don't have a birthday till August."

"It figures. August. I should have known you were a Leo."

He grinned. "Don't change the subject." Using his toe, he pushed the shirt up a little more, showing an intriguing glimpse of darkness. "This is about whatever secret stuff you've got going on here."

Ellie grabbed the hem primly and yanked it down. "Maybe." She frowned. "Blue, do you think Mabel could have been the one who killed Peaches?"

He inclined his head. "You are
so
transparent, Miz Connor." He managed to get hold of the hem of the shirt in a good grip with his toes, and pushed hard and quick, showing a lot more than hip. "Mmmm." He wiggled his eyebrows. "What else you got under there?"

"You have a one-track mind, Dr. Reynard," she said, grabbing his foot with a laugh and shoving it off her chair.

"Yeah?"

"Yeah." She dipped her head, throwing him a sloe-eyed glance that sent bolts of heat over his skin, and he found himself poised at the promise in her voice.