It Must Be Magic (20 page)

Putting his head back, a sigh slipped from him. “You feel good. Everything about you feels good.”

He rocked in her hand, groaned, and a drop of his essence licked her palm.

“Are you wearing panties?”

“Yes.”

“Take them off for me.”

It felt decadent, naughty, here in the kitchen up against the wall. She couldn’t resist him. There was something elemental about a man wanting you so badly he couldn’t wait to take you to your bed or even to remove all your clothes.

She let him go and pulled up her skirt.

He stilled her hand. “No, wait, let me do it.”

Slipping his fingers beneath the waistband, he slid the lace down her legs until his knees hit the floor and he lifted her feet to whisk the panties away. He leaned in and kissed her bare skin below her belly button. Then lower still, until she felt the tip of his tongue breach her, slide over her, pull her under. Her hands in his hair, she held him close and shuddered with the touch of his tongue.

He rose and kissed her with the taste of herself on his lips. He mesmerized with the shift of his body against her, the pull of his muscles, then the rasp of a plastic packet as he opened a condom and rolled it on.

Lili wrapped her arms around his neck and let him lift her, high. Pulling her legs to his waist and pushing her back against the wall, he entered her, one long, deep thrust, then he stilled.

His breath bathed her throat. “You feel so damn good.”

Grabbing her buttocks, he started his rhythm, her rhythm. She tightened her legs around him and hung on with everything she had. No one had ever done this to her, made her feel needed and special. It should have been dirty, at the least, unromantic, but the feel of Tanner inside her was beyond anything.

She moaned and bit him and cried out as he hit high and deep, filling her. Taking her. Owning her.

When he came inside her, she was his. There was no going back. As they collapsed together to the floor, he gathered her fully against him and held her head to his beating heart.

Lili fell in love for the very first time in her life.

H
E’D TAKEN HER LIKE A RUTTING
caveman, but it had felt so damn good. Holding her now, after the storm had stopped raging through his blood, was bliss. Total bliss. She smelled like cotton candy and hot sex. Her body heat seared him. He throbbed in all the right places.

He’d had the overpowering sense that if he didn’t grab what he could now, right now, he’d miss her altogether. As if the chance only existed for a brief moment, then it would vanish like a figment of his imagination. From the moment he’d stepped off the roller coaster, he’d watched her, memorized every expression, the musical sound of her voice, her laughter. He wanted as he never had before in his life. He’d succumbed to that need, couldn’t wait to get her upstairs or out of her clothes, or to even give her the niceties of a little foreplay.

He could only hope Erika hadn’t figured out what was on his mind, but she was too damn smart for his good. Roscoe, no doubt, saw a hint of it.

“Are you all right?”

Lili shifted against him. “Yes.”

“I didn’t hurt you?”

“No.”

Then what are you thinking?
He almost laughed. He sounded like a teenage boy asking if he’d performed adequately his first time out of the gate.

Cradled against his chest, she let her head fall back and looked at him through dazed and almost sleepy eyes. “You definitely have the makings of a carnivore.”

A laugh rumbled up from his belly. “Is that a compliment?”

“Yes.” She blinked. “I feel devoured.” Then she dropped a kiss in the hollow of his throat. “And I liked it.”

“I liked it, too.” He more than liked it. He wanted her to more than like it. The need riding him kept him silent on that issue. He needed to analyze it, to play his emotions over in his mind and determine what to do with them.

He stroked her arms. “I need to use your bathroom.” He had to get rid of the damn condom.

She pulled away, ran her fingers through her hair, then stretched languidly. Like one of her cats.

The sight raced through his belly like fire. With only a simple stirring of her body, his mind reeled all over again.

He rose, straightened his pants.

“It’s down the hall on the right,” she said.

He found it in the dark. What he felt for her was moving too far ahead of him. He couldn’t keep up. All he knew for sure was that he wanted her in his bed. Tonight. Tomorrow night. A lot of nights. He wanted to wake up beside her in the morning, watch her sleeping, awaken her with a kiss, a touch.

Yet that was something he couldn’t have. He’d determined long ago that he wouldn’t bring home overnight female guests, nor would he sleep away from home. Satisfying his urges was quick, simple, without fuss. Without exposing his daughter to the unsavory. Or getting her hopes up. Or changing the status quo.

The moment Lili had stepped into his life, it seemed that everything had changed, yet Tanner wasn’t ready to deal with the ramifications of those changes. Not yet.

He needed to think. Rationally. Without the scent of her clouding his mind.

To battle his anger and grief, he’d squashed the bad memories, but he’d also allowed the good to drop so far below his internal radar that it was practically forgotten. He now had a need to create new memories, with Lili, a cache of them.

He just wasn’t sure what to do with them if everything went wrong. More importantly, he didn’t want his daughter attached to someone who might not be a permanent fixture in their lives.

K
ATE BATTED HER LASHES
, and the mascara gummed for a moment. “Thank you so much for a wonderful time.” She batted again, and this time, her lashes didn’t stick.

“Is that lipstick going to come off if I kiss you?”

She smiled at Joe, wickedly. “Yes. It’ll get all over you. So I wouldn’t try if I were you.”

Actually, it was kiss-resistant, but then so was she. The gallons of dime-store perfume she’d doused herself with had been a great repellant, too, making him sneeze every time he got too close. Her getup was a childish trick, leftover from a college friend’s Halloween party she’d been forced to attend last year. She’d told Joe the outfit was really
her
when she wasn’t working.

She wasn’t sure he was fooled.

She had to admit, at least to herself, that she hadn’t lied. The outing to the Boardwalk, Joe’s idea, was fun. Especially the utter shock on Lili’s face. Priceless. Not to mention that of the hunky man at Lili’s side. The mysterious Tanner Rutland. Truly a hottie, as Lili had said. But not quite to the level of Joe.

Not that Kate cared about Joe’s sex appeal. The date had been an experiment, a way to show him their incompatibility. He hadn’t touched her once, well, except for a little harmless hand-holding. The experiment had worked. And the kiss? It was a halfhearted attempt. If he’d really wanted to kiss, he would have done it, no ifs, ands, buts or worry about black lipstick.

Kate fished around in the rhinestone-studded purse for her keys, then waggled her fingers at him. “Nightie-night.”

Joe grabbed her arm before she could insert the key in the condo’s lock. “I’m willing to take my chances.”

She shook her head. “Big mistake. You’ll be sorry.”

“I’ll be sorrier if I don’t.”

Then he took possession of her keys in one hand and her chin in the other.

“You’re going to sneeze,” she said, suppressing an involuntary shudder at the warm touch of his fingers.

He feathered his fingers along her jaw. “I’ve gotten used to it.”

True. He hadn’t sneezed once in the car. “Joe.”

“Kate.”

“Don’t.”

“Yes.”

His face blotted out the light she’d left burning on her condo porch, and his mouth brushed against hers. The soft touch stole her breath before he backed off and licked his lips.

“Nothing there but your sweet taste,” he whispered.

The husky sound of his voice shivered down her spine. “Wrong,” she answered in kind. “It’s all over you. You’ve got a great, big lipstick mustache. It’s awful.”

“Then there isn’t any reason not to take this all the way.”

She put her hand to his chest, holding him off, forgetting about her purse. It dropped with a soft plop on the porch step.

Joe wasn’t about to be stopped. Cupping his big, warm palms to her cheeks, he leaned in and took total possession.

Total.
He licked the seam of her lips, then his tongue delved between, and Kate found herself opening to him. He danced inside her mouth, tilting her world. She had to clutch his arms. He kissed her silly, then slanted his mouth and angled her head for an all-out invasion.

He tasted of sweet chocolate from the ice cream they’d shared. He smelled of the night and the erotic thrill of the roller-coaster ride. He mesmerized with his exquisite tongue, and she didn’t dream of budging when he gathered her close and pulled her right up off her toes. Wrapping her arms around him, she gave in to that hot, delicious melding of mouths. Her nipples tightened, ached. Her body melted. He was no longer kissing her; she was kissing him. Taking, sucking, licking, wanting. Rubbing herself against all that hard, male flesh.

Until she couldn’t breathe and her mind whirled, and she felt her feet touch the ground once more.

She’d have fallen if he wasn’t holding her against him. He swiped his tongue lightly across her lips, and she shivered.

“Not a single smudge,” he murmured.

His eyes weren’t lapis at all. They were midnight-blue and enticing as hell. Kate backed up against the door.

She dragged in a deep breath. “Well.” Then she needed to exhale. She hoped it didn’t sound like a sigh. “Now we’ve gone out. And we’ve proven that we’re not compatible.” She held out her hand. It shook, and she almost stuffed it behind her back. “My keys, please?”

He trapped her hand in his palm.

There was an odd buzzing in her ears. High blood pressure. “Thank you again.”

He didn’t let go of her hand. “What we’ve proven is that a kiss is just the beginning.”

He touched nothing but her hand, yet she felt his body heat all over, his taste on her lips, his scent in her head. “This is the
end
of the night, Joe.”

He tipped his head, a slight smile curving those delectable lips that had consumed her. “What about next time?”

“One date, that’s what you said. We’ve had our one date.”

“And you want me to walk away graciously.”

“That would be the gentlemanly thing to do.”

He ran his fingers up to her wrist, tracing a mesmerizing trail with his thumb. “I am a gentleman.”

He leaned down, stroking her pulse point with his tongue. Kate felt it all the way down to her toes and every erogenous zone in between.

Straightening, he caught her with those haunting midnight eyes and whispered, “Game over. I lose.”

He dropped her keys in her palm, closed her hand over them and let go. Kate barely managed not to sag against the door. “Thank you for respecting my wishes.”

“I’ve always respected you.” Then he saluted her. “Good night, Miss Carson,” whispered on the air as he walked away.

He meant it. She’d won. He was actually going away. At least on a personal level. They’d be back to business only.

Which was the way she wanted it.

Kate put her fingers to her lips.

That was the way she wanted it, right? “Wait!”

Joe hadn’t even made it halfway to his car. He turned, came back. Kate expected a smug, knew-you’d-succumb look to glow in his eyes. Instead, as the porch light fell across his face, he looked…wary, one brow up, his head slightly cocked.

“Yes, Kate?”

She hesitated only a moment. “Since it took seven tries for you to get me out on this first date, maybe it’ll take more than one kiss to convince me to go out with you a second time.” It sounded feeble, but it was better than admitting she might regret it if she didn’t give him another chance.

The corner of his mouth lifted, and he took two steps until he was close enough for her to lose herself in his scent. “How many kisses?” he asked.

“I don’t know.”

“Seven?”

She’d never survive that many. After seven of his kisses, she’d be begging him to take her even if it was in a coffin or on the embalming table, and really, she wasn’t ready for
that.

His eyes fell to her chest as she took a deep breath. Electricity charged the air, raising the tiny hairs along her arms. At this rate, it wasn’t going to take a single kiss before she jumped him.

There was such a thing as self-preservation. A hand on his chest, she pushed him back until she could think clearly. “I lied.”

“About what?” he murmured, his gaze on her lips.

“That first kiss was good enough to prove we should at least have one more date.”

He smiled, then laughed outright. “You do like to torture a man, don’t you?”

She didn’t try to hide her smile. “I haven’t even begun to torture you.”

Removing her hand from his chest, he raised it to his lips. Instead of pressing a courtly kiss to her skin, he sucked her index finger into his mouth. Sweet heat pooled between her legs. Talk about torture, she almost begged right then.

Letting her hand slip through his fingers, he backed down one porch step, then another. “Guess it’s lucky I don’t give up easily. Sunday. Dress casual but warm. I’ll call you this week and tell you when I’ll pick you up.”

As he walked away the second time, she wondered if he’d really given up after one kiss or he’d simply tricked her into saying yes. Not that it mattered. She wanted those next seven kisses. And more.

L
ILI AND TANNER
returned to a house in pandemonium.

“Dad, there’s something wrong with Fluffy. Again.”

A fat tear rolled down Erika’s cheek. Lili put her arm around the girl.

Tanner started asking Roscoe all the questions. “What happened this time?”

Roscoe shrugged both his shoulders and his eyebrows. “Don’t know. I must have left the living room window open, and it looks like he clawed a hole in the screen. We found him cowering under the porch.” He pointed a thumb and the top of his head at the shadow in the corner of the Rutland kitchen. “I should say Einstein found him. We heard her hissing all the way inside.”

Lili hadn’t locked the cat door when they’d gone out. She only locked it at night, right before she went to bed, to guard against the raccoons. She couldn’t trap the cats inside if she wasn’t there. After seeing the spectacle unfolding with Tanner, Einstein hadn’t crept to another room, she’d vacated the premises altogether.

Except that it hadn’t been a “spectacle.” It had been a defining moment of Lili’s life. She just wasn’t sure what it defined. Except that Tanner had liked it.
Like
was as bad as
fine;
totally innocuous words that didn’t tell a girl a thing about what a man
felt.

Tanner ran a hand through his dark blond hair. “Show me the screen.”

“It’s the side window by the fireplace.” They all followed.

Tanner bent down to examine the torn screen, then tipped his head over his shoulder to fasten his gaze on Roscoe. “This wasn’t ripped by any cat. It was cut. Why didn’t you come get me when you found it?”

Roscoe merely raised both eyebrows, and Lili felt a flush rise to her cheeks. Lord. Roscoe had guessed.

Tanner didn’t blush at all. He simply rose to his feet, grabbed the phone on the table next to the sofa and put a call through to the sheriff.

The sheriff was there in half an hour. Lady Dreadlock was unlocated, the poor victim unidentified and the results of the sheriff’s search of the premises were the same as yesterday at her house. Nothing.
Are you sure this hole wasn’t here before?
Tanner merely stared the sheriff down.

He seemed so…remote. Not the man who’d pulled up her skirt and taken her against the wall because he could not wait another second to get inside her. She couldn’t keep up with his hot-and-cold-running emotions.

Everything went south from that moment on.

That night, Fluffy slept with Erika, Einstein slept with Lili and Tanner slept alone. In the morning, there were orders for Roscoe, orders for Erika and royal commands for Lili.

Don’t go outside the yard, Erika.

Call Sheriff Gresswell if you see anything funny, Roscoe.

Stay at the shop until I come to pick you up, Lili.

And, Lili, do not under any circumstances even think about taking Fluffy out sniff testing.

Maybe if he hadn’t
commanded
her not to do it, she might not have decided she
had
to do it. Lili accidentally on purpose forgot to tell Tanner that she worked half days on Tuesdays. Making like (versus making love) did not give Tanner any rights. Even if she was in love with him. He had to be in love with her, too, to gain any rights at all.

They hardly spoke on the way to the shop. He didn’t look at her. He didn’t kiss her goodbye. How could less than twelve hours since that beautiful coming together end up like
this?

Kate had appointments all morning, so Lili didn’t even get to ask about Joe or the date or that truly atrocious outfit and makeup. Not that she would have told Kate it was atrocious.

At one o’clock, Lili had Oscar, one of the drivers, give her a lift home when he went out for his afternoon deliveries.

Now all she had to do was talk Roscoe into letting her “borrow” Fluffy. The cat could ride in the basket of her bike while they cruised around town…sniffing. Okay, she’d have to think of a better way of phrasing it.
That
would show Tanner, when she arrived home triumphant, the killer’s identity in her grasp. Or something. First, though, she had to check on the cats. The best way to get their attention was to pop a top.

Einstein was the first to appear. Lili filled saucers, set them on the floor then gave Einstein the rest of the can.

She counted heads. All present and accounted for. Oops, gosh. The sight of Ghost reminded her that she needed to ease the cat into accepting a new home with Buddy Welch. Yet so much had happened she hadn’t even started the process. And it would have to wait
again.

Done in about half a second, Einstein licked her chops.
Pretty chintzy today, aren’t we?

“Dinnertime is four hours away. This is a light snack. You eat too much, and you’re going to get fat.”

Einstein narrowed her eyes, and Lili surveyed the rest of her charges. And caught a flicker of movement out in the yard.

Lady Dreadlock stood by the back fence staring at Lili’s house.

“Oh, my God.” There wasn’t time to think about whether it was a good idea. Or remember Tanner’s numerous orders, if anyone could even hold that many orders in their head. Lili dashed out the back door as Lady D. disappeared into the trees.

“Nooo. Wait!” She couldn’t let the woman get away.

Stop.

She ignored Einstein’s shout in her mind. Lili burst through the gate and hit the path, holding her skirt high, but Lady Dreadlock wasn’t in sight.

“Please wait.” She was breathing so hard it was little more than a whisper.

She tripped over a root, but righted herself before she hit the ground. Low-hanging twigs slashed at her, harsh breaths burned her throat and her skirt snagged on the underbrush.

Where could the woman have gone so quickly? For a moment, Lili wondered if she could have been wrong. Maybe she’d seen an apparition. Lili believed in ghosts. If you could talk to animals, you had to know that there were all sorts of other paranormal possibilities out there. A ghost. Oh, my God. Lady Dreadlock could be dead.

Or she could be luring Lili deeper into the woods. Away from the safety of the neighboring houses.

Lili ducked in her headlong flight just as a branch would have smacked her in the forehead. She didn’t even know if she was on the right trail anymore. There were dozens of little tributaries, leading to other backyards, heading out to the road, skirting the meadow instead of heading into it.

She stopped at an intersection, hands on her knees, dragging in a breath. Her skirt was a mess, and her ears rang. If there was any movement in the brush or the trees, she couldn’t detect a thing over the rush against her eardrums. The path leading off to the left was barely more than a deer trail.

Dunce caps paraded through her mind. Einstein wound around her legs.

“Just tell me,” she said between gasps, “which way.”

Einstein lifted her nose to the slight breeze, shot Lili the unmistakable flash of a long, silvery cat with a multicolored dunce cap strapped to her head and took two cat lopes down the left path.

“Yeah, we’re both idiots,” Lili whispered, “but at least we’re idiots together.” She started running again, dodging tree limbs and jumping over roots. This path was even more hazardous than the one she’d left.

Thank God Einstein didn’t have to worry about whacking her head on the low limbs. Rounding a bend, Lili slid to a stop.

Ten feet away, Lady Dreadlock stood stock still in a small glade, sun streaming down on her ratty hair. Twigs sprouted from among the dreadlocks, but her arms had been protected by her thick jacket. Lili’s skin was a mess and her cotton blouse torn.

Einstein crouched at Lili’s side, hind legs tensed, her whole body vibrating. Then Lili saw the stick Lady Dreadlock used to balance herself. A walking stick of polished, gnarled wood with a silver knob on the top.

Exactly the same as the one Fluffy had shown her.

“Oh, my God, you did kill him.”

“God punishes bad people.” The woman tapped the stick twice on the ground.

“Why was he bad?” Lili asked. “What did he do?”

“God doesn’t like it when we hurt things.”

“Did the man hurt you? Is that why you killed him?” Lili backed away slowly, one step at a time.

Lady Dreadlock pointed the stick. “He must be judged.”

With another cautious step, Lili’s boot snagged on a root at the edge of the glade. “I’m sure he’ll be judged in heaven. You don’t have to worry about that anymore. Sheriff Gresswell will take care of everything. He wants to talk to you.”

The woman cocked her head and shifted her gaze. Lili followed the movement and realized she’d forgotten all about Einstein. The cat cocked her head in the opposite direction of Lady Dreadlock’s. Then the oddest thing happened; they both switched sides at the same moment, Einstein’s hackles flat and unruffled, the rumble of her purr humming in the air.

They were talking.

She saw the human’s death.

Lili waited, trying to calm her breathing and the nerves jumping all over her skin.

She stole the murderer’s walking stick to show you.

Me?
Why would Lady D. pick her, of all people?

She trusts you.

Me?
Right. That was why the woman had persecuted her for months.

She wanted to save you because you’re sisters of the heart.

Sisters?

Einstein sent her the dunce cap. She had to admit she was sounding a bit stupid, repeating Einstein’s images in confusion.

She wants us to go with her, and she’ll show you where she got the stick.

That was too much. Tanner would absolutely kill her. “Lady Dreadlock, I mean, Patsy, we can’t do that. We need to give the stick to Sheriff Gresswell and tell
him
where you got it. He’ll find the killer.”

See, she wasn’t a complete human idiot.

The bushes rustled, then parted. A man stepped into the glade, the bright sun hitting his silver cap of hair.

“Well, ladies, it’s so good to find you together,” Hiram Battle said.

Einstein hissed.

For a moment, Lili couldn’t connect the dots. Maybe it was too outlandish. She did at least
see
the dots. A silver cap of hair that could pass for a gray helmet in a cat’s-eye view. An old man’s walking stick made from gnarled wood. Like a branch. With a knot on it.

She got it all just as Hiram pointed a nasty-looking gun at her. Then he shot a sideways glance at Lady D. “I’ve been looking for
you
everywhere. I’d like my walking stick back, thank you very much. You shouldn’t come up on people’s porches and steal things like that, young lady. Now, I’m afraid, I’m going to have to do something about the two of you.”

T
ANNER FELT HIS BLOOD PRESSURE
rise to the point where his ears had started to ring. Where the hell was she?

Dammit, he knew exactly where she was. Riding around Benton and setting Fluffy out to sniff.

He’d walked out half an hour before his one o’clock meeting, after he’d called the shop and been told that Lili didn’t work Tuesday afternoons. She never worked Tuesday afternoons.

Which meant she’d lied to him.

After the way they’d come together last night, she’d lied to him. He almost couldn’t believe it, but he should have realized that doing the unexpected was just like Lili. When he’d refused to let her use Fluffy, she’d gone around him.

Maybe he shouldn’t have issued all those orders this morning. Maybe he should have kissed her goodbye. Maybe he shouldn’t worry so damn much. With Lili in his life, he couldn’t seem to help himself. They’d made perfect love, then he’d seen that hole in the screen and everything had spiraled down, down, down. Lili would
always
be a source of worry.

The only thing that went his way after he left the office was the traffic. The morning rush hour was long gone and the afternoon commute hadn’t started. His usual hour-plus drive had taken only forty-five minutes.

He pulled in behind Roscoe’s car. Heat rose off the hood; Roscoe had just come back from…somewhere.

Next door, Tanner found Lili’s bike locked up on the front porch, but she didn’t answer when he rang the bell. Around back, the kitchen door was unlocked and open. He pushed the screen and called out her name. Cats shrieked at the intrusion and ran in all directions like scurrying mice. Lili didn’t answer, and he didn’t find her upstairs. She’d left the damn door unlocked. He could see her giving him the logic that since it wasn’t locked, no one could
break
in.

She was crazy.

Dammit, she was probably
walking
Fluffy all over town. Roscoe wouldn’t have driven her down there, would he? Hell, yes, he would. How could Roscoe have given her the cat? Tanner could only hope she hadn’t taken Erika with her to keep Fluffy calm. If
calm
could ever be used to describe that damned nuisance.

His own kitchen door banged behind him as he shouted, “Roscoe.”

His father popped his white head out of the pantry. “You don’t have to yell. I may be old, but I’m not deaf.”

“Where’s Lili?”

“At work. You dropped her off, remember?”

“I called. She only works half days on Tuesdays.”

“Oh.”

“That’s all you have to say? Oh? She lied to me.”

“Lili doesn’t lie.”

“She did about this.”

“Maybe you didn’t ask the right question.”

“I told her I’d pick her up after work.”

“But did you say what time?”

“She knew I meant six o’clock just like yesterday.”

“Maybe she thought you knew she worked a half day on Tuesdays.”

Tanner answered with a glare. “Did you give her Fluffy?”

“She’s trying to find homes for the ones she’s got. Why would I give her another?”

“Roscoe.” That was all he could manage. His father made his eyes bulge out of his head.

Roscoe put a hand on the pantry door and frowned. “What are you so worried about?”

“She wants to solve this murder, and since I told her I wanted it left to the sheriff, I bet she’s gone out on her own.”