Paradise County (44 page)

“Joe. He’s a great kid.”

Joe grimaced. “Makes you kind of wonder what else you don’t know about them, doesn’t it?” He looked at her again. “What are you going to do about your sister?”

Alex gave a helpless little shrug. “Talk to her. Send her back to boarding school. What can I do? She’s not bad, not really. She’s just—neglected, in the most profound sense of the word. We’ve always had
every material thing we’ve ever wanted, but what Neely wanted was love. She didn’t get much of that, to tell you the truth.”

“You love her.”

“Yes, but I’m her sister. It’s not really the same thing. What she needed was a parent’s love: my father’s. She never really felt like she had it.”

“I sometimes wonder if a father’s love is enough anyway. Maybe what kids really need is their mother. I can’t pick out the right clothes for Jenny, can’t seem to get Josh out of what seems to be a perpetual bad mood, and now Eli’s smoking pot.” He gave a little laugh that was completely devoid of amusement. “I’ve tried my damndest to do a good job raising these kids, but I’m not sure that it’s enough.”

“At least you love them, and they know it.”

“Yeah, I love them.”

“Joe.”

“Hmm?”

Her head was resting against the soft cotton of his navy sweatshirt. He smelled good, she thought, of fresh air and warm skin and smoke from the bonfire, with maybe a touch of Cary’s booze (she probably smelled of it, too; the stench had permeated the cab) blended in. She tilted her head back a little so that she could see his expression more clearly.

“Tell me about your father. Has he been like this—the drinking I mean—since you were little, or …” She let her voice trail off.

His mouth quirked, and his gaze slid away from her to fix on the ceiling. He shifted position so that his shoulders lay flat along the back of the couch. Shifting with him, Alex ended up with her head resting on his shoulder instead of his arm, and her arms wrapped around his waist.

“Pop’s been drinking for as long as I can remember, since before I was born, I guess. When I was a little kid, it wasn’t so bad. He’d just drink until he passed out, not too often, maybe every couple of months, and one of us would cover him up wherever he happened to be and that was that. He was a trainer, a trainer of thoroughbreds, pretty big-time too—did you know that?” Alex shook her head. “He had a whole barn full of horses that he was training at Churchill Downs back then. One night he
got drunk and passed out right there in the barn, and when he woke up Vince Atkinson’s twelve-million-dollar stallion had his leg broke so bad that the bottom half of it was just hanging by a little piece of skin. Horse had to be put down, Atkinson collected the insurance on it—and the word went out that my father got a payoff, that he closed his eyes to the killing of that horse so Atkinson could collect the insurance. Atkinson went bankrupt a few months later anyway, and my father could never get another first-rate horse. His career just went downhill. The horses kept getting sorrier and sorrier, and the jockeys and racetracks too, until finally it was over—he was out of business. Couldn’t even get a quarter horse to train. He had to sell insurance, for God’s sake, and he wasn’t very good at it. That’s when he really started to drink. By the time my mom and sister were killed, he was pretty much a weekend drunk. Now he’s drunk about half the time. That’s why he lives here, instead of with me. I don’t want him around the kids when he’s like that. Usually he just gets drunk up here all by his lonesome and passes out. About every three or four months, he’ll pull something like this performance tonight. I’m getting fed up with it, I can tell you. Did you see Eli’s face back there? And Josh’s? He’s embarrassing my kids. And after tonight, you can believe that I’m going to let him know that he’s setting a hell of a bad example for them, too.”

“So what are you going to do about it?” Her voice was low, sympathetic. Her hand slid up his chest, smoothing the soft cotton sweatshirt and, through it, the hard-muscled chest beneath. Seemingly oblivious of her ministrations, Joe shrugged.

“I don’t know. What can you do? Hold my breath until the next time, I guess.” He slanted a look down at her, and his expression changed, warmed. He picked her hand up off his chest and carried it to his mouth. “You’re beautiful.”

Alex smiled a little at that and reached up to kiss him. He stopped her with his fingers placed gently over her lips.

“There’s something I need to tell you before we go any further with this. Something that may make you change your mind.”

Alex’s eyes widened on his face. “What?”

“Tommy asked me to come by his office today,” he said. “He had a
lawyer there waiting for me, a friend of mine, Rob Mayhew, and he asked if he could tape-record our conversation. Then he showed me a woman’s purse and shoes, and told me that they’d found some remains in a plastic garbage bag that they thought might be human.” His eyes met hers. “The purse and shoes were Laura’s. Tommy thinks the remains might be Laura’s, too.”

Alex sat bolt upright on the couch and stared at him as the implications of this became clear in her mind. “Oh, my God! The sheriff thinks your ex-wife was
murdered?
Josh and Jenny and Eli’s
mother?”
Her thoughts flew to the pretty blond woman in the picture on the TV.

He nodded. “That pretty much sums it up.”

“Here in Shelby County?” Her voice was incredulous.

“Apparently so. Of course, it’s always possible that the remains that were found aren’t human, or if they’re human that they’re not Laura’s. That’s what I’m hoping for, anyway. And I’m not going to tell the kids until we hear that they’re hers for sure. Tommy said he’d keep it confidential until the lab lets him know one way or another.”

“Oh, they’re probably not,” Alex said in relief. Then she frowned at Joe. “So what was there in that to make me change my mind about—us?”

He smiled at her, a slow and charming smile that ratcheted up her body temperature. “Us, huh? I like the sound of that.” Then the smile faded. “If the remains should turn out to be Laura’s, that means she was murdered. Right here in Paradise County. About eight years ago, apparently, in June, because of the dates on the contents of some items in her purse.” He took a deep breath. “That was about the time I last saw her. She came to see the kids. We haven’t seen or heard from her since, which has been fine by me. But Tommy already thought I might have murdered her, and if the remains turn out to be hers a lot of people may think that.”

Alex stared at him. “They couldn’t.”

Joe looked faintly rueful. “Apparently they can. I’ve known Tommy since kindergarten, and he tape-recorded our conversation just in case I might be going to confess.”

“That’s ridiculous!” Alex was indignant on his behalf.

Joe smiled at her. “You didn’t ask me if I did it.”

“I know the answer to that.”

“Blind faith, huh?” His smile widened and warmed.

“I know the kind of man you are. Obnoxious and arrogant, yes, sometimes. Rude and impossible, yes again, sometimes. A wife killer? I don’t think so.”

Joe was grinning by the time she had finished. “Thanks for the ringing endorsement. Remind me never to ask you to be a character witness for me.”

“Truth hurts.” Alex parroted his long-ago words to her with a flickering smile. Joe picked up her hand from where it rested on his chest, carried it to his mouth, kissed her knuckles, then turned her hand over to press his lips to her palm. Alex felt the touch of his tongue against her skin and shivered. Her eyelids flickered and her lips parted in involuntary response.

“You don’t really think I’m—what was it?—obnoxious, arrogant, rude, and impossible, do you?” His mouth slid down to rest against the pulse in her wrist. It quickened appreciably; Alex knew he could feel the increased pace of it against his mouth. Not that it mattered: she was equally sure he could read the intensity of her response in her eyes.

“On first acquaintance? Oh, yes.”

“Now, that’s strange. See, even when you were firing me, the precise words that kept running through my head were
What a babe.”

“Liar.” Alex said it abstractedly, her eyes busy absorbing the contrast between her pale, slender fingers and the strong brown hand that held them, her body preoccupied with assimilating a suddenly dry mouth, increasing respiratory rate, and a rapid weakening of all important muscle groups.

“I’m telling the truth, I swear.” His eyes twinkled at her suddenly. “Surely you don’t think I’d make up a story like that just to try to get inside your pants?”

Her gaze met his, and focused with an effort. “Wouldn’t you?”

He shook his head. “I’m much more direct than that.”

“Oh, really?”

“Mm-hm. For example, if I was trying to get inside your pants, I’d
start by laying you back on the couch just like this”—sliding an arm under her knees, he tilted her backward until she was lying flat with her legs across his lap—“then I’d lean over”—he loomed above her—“and kiss you.”

Alex was already reaching her arms up to wrap them around his neck when his mouth came down on hers.

Forty-two

T
he kiss was gentle, slow, and languorous. His cheeks and chin were scratchy with stubble, and felt like sandpaper against her face. She loved the masculine feel of his beard against her soft skin. His tongue explored the inside of her mouth and his lips moved against hers in a leisurely way that gave the impression that he had all the time in the world. At the first touch of his mouth her body went to fever pitch, ready to take up where they had left off in the woods. Her tongue engaged his in a fierce war. Her lips demanded. She tugged at his shoulders until he was lying on the couch with her, half beside and half on top of her. She wanted him. God, how she wanted him.

But he clearly wasn’t in any hurry, and, conversely, that made her response all the more urgent. She slid her hands under his shirt, running her palms up his bare back. The muscles there were firm and flexible. His skin was warm and smooth. His hand found her breast, flattened over it, and in answer she dug her nails into his shoulder blades. His back tensed, and his thumb teased her nipple through the layers of cashmere and silk. Alex whimpered into his mouth, arching her back to give him better access to her breasts. When he continued to do no more than gently rub his thumb across her nipples, she bit his earlobe in frustration, and
moved so that her pelvis pressed up against his. But that contact with the hard bulge in his pants only made her want more. She kissed his neck, running her mouth over the warm prickly skin, rocking against him, trying to show him without words what she wanted him to do, how she wanted to be touched.

But still he was gentle with her, and slow—oh, so slow. He captured her face between two hands, and kissed her with deep, ravishing kisses. He caressed her breasts through her clothes, moving from one breast to the other, teasing the nipples with his fingers until they were quiveringly erect and she was aching with need for him.

But that was all he did.

Alex couldn’t stand it. She couldn’t wait another second. She wanted him naked and inside her,
now.
Reaching down between them, she ran her fingers delicately over the front of his jeans. Back and forth. Back and forth. The denim was stiff and smooth and faintly cool. The bulge that she wanted to set free was warm and hard. She closed her hand around it and squeezed. It pulsed beneath her hand. Sliding her hand upward again, she groped for the tab of his zipper.

He caught her hand, imprisoning it against the front of his jeans as he pulled his mouth from hers. Propped on one elbow, he looked down into her face. For a moment they stared at each other, sea-blue eyes locking with eyes of a darker, softer blue. With some satisfaction Alex saw that Mr. In Control was breathing hard too. A dark flush stained his cheekbones. His eyes reflected the yellow lamplight, making it look as if they were aflame.

“Wait a minute,” he said. Although his voice was husky, a slow, wicked smile lit up his face. “The whole idea is, I’m supposed to be trying to get inside
your
pants.”

Alex stared at him, narrow-eyed, as that registered. “You did that deliberately!”

“You think so?”

He looked so sexy smiling at her like that that Alex couldn’t even feel affronted for long. What she felt was hungry—for him. Her eyes locked with his for a long, smoldering moment. He’d been deliberately trying to
drive her wild with desire, she realized, and, she had to admit, he had succeeded. Now it was time to turn the tables.

He was still holding her hand flat against the front of his jeans. Alex wiggled her fingers, pressing on the pulsing hardness beneath them, watching him all the while. When his eyes darkened and his jaw tightened in response, she tugged her hand free and slid it inside the waistband of his pants.

His pupils dilated until his eyes looked almost black. Her fingers moved over the washboard-firm muscles of his abdomen to find and close over his hot, swollen shaft. He drew in a sharp breath, and clenched his teeth as she slowly, rhythmically moved her hand.