Sweet Stuff (17 page)
Authors: Donna Kauffman
He chuckled. “It sounds a little crazy, or a lot crazy. Normally I have a general feel, then dive in and get to know my protagonists as I go. But I know these two better already than I do most characters at the end of five hundred pages. They are fully fleshed out, developed people who feel as real to me as any characters I’ve ever devised. I can’t let them down by giving them any less than a rocking, compelling, engaging, and fulfilling story that lives up to the epic potential they have.”
“Wow.”
“Exactly.” He laughed. “No pressure.”
“No one else can solve the crimes in these stories but them? And the stories can have nothing in common?”
“In my head?” He grinned. “No. I have to pick one. I feel like it’s Sophie’s Choice or something. Once I commit, that is their story. There’s no giant erase, and start over. It’s who they become. To me.”
“Why can’t you make it a series or something?”
“I thought about that, but that won’t work, either. The stories put them together at two different times in their lives. They can have one life, or the other, but they can’t have experienced both, not together.” He slowed his steps, paused a moment, then stopped walking altogether. “Can I ask you something? Hypothetically?”
She turned to look up at him, then shifted so his body blocked the sun from her face. “Sure.”
“And can I trust your discretion?”
She frowned slightly. “Of course. Why?”
“First, let me ask you this. And be honest. Brutally, if needed. What is it that draws you to my books? I mean, when you sit down to read, what’s the thing you hope to find, the element that makes you anticipate the story most?”
“That’s easy, though you might not be happy about it. It’s the relationship between the two leads. Always.”
He folded his arms. “Really?”
She smiled and lifted one shoulder in a half shrug, as if to apologize. “Really. I know you’re a crime novelist and you do an amazing job with all the gritty, gory stuff, and I’m sure most people read your books to get their murder mystery suspense fix. But, since you’re asking me, I can only tell you that I put up with the gory, grisly stuff so I can get my relationship fix from the leads. You always have such powerful couples and they’re so unapologetic in their commitment to one another. I love that.” Her smile turned dry. “Gee, aren’t you glad I’m the one you asked?”
“Actually, I am.” He started walking again, his mind spinning in a new direction. “You said unapologetic. What is it that couples who love each other should apologize for?”
“Absolutely nothing,” Riley said. “That’s what makes your books so great. You totally get that. Despite all the tragedy they live with every day, they’re allowed to be happy. Most books—mystery books, anyway—have the lead detective, be it man or woman, leading some miserable or deeply conflicted life and they’re never allowed to get the girl—or guy—and live happily. Or if they are, it’s short-lived and their new love must die or dump them, so they can go back to being an even more tragic figure. I enjoy a well-told mystery, and I like trying to figure out who did it, but isn’t it bad enough that some poor soul, or souls, died and some horrible monster is on the loose, without making the lead guy who catches him miserable, too? I mean, after a while, it’s just depressing. And hopeless. Like, we caught the bad guy, so everyone can sleep a bit more easily, except of course the guy who did the catching, who is still deeply conflicted and wretched.” She shrugged again. “I guess I don’t get why it all has to be so dysfunctional and tragic, in the guise of making it more like ‘real life.’ ” She punctuated the last two words with air quotes. “Real life has joy and love and happiness, too. And fun, and humor, and ... well, you get my meaning. I love that you show the gritty, all-too-real side of what can happen in this world, what human beings are capable of perpetrating. . . but you show both ends of that spectrum. Maybe it’s the balance, or the contrast, that makes the horrible things that much more horrible. When characters love like your people do, you—meaning me, the reader—are that much more petrified something bad will happen to them, too. That would be just too tragic. So it makes my heart pound harder when you put them in jeopardy than when some sadsack detective puts his neck on the line.” She stopped walking. “I’m sorry. I’m probably sounding like a crazy stalker fan, and you just have your couples in love so they can have hot sex.” She grinned. “I like that part a lot, too.”
Quinn grinned back. “I’m glad. So do I. To answer your other question, no, that’s not the reason why I develop my crime-fighting couples the way I do. I do it ... well, for exactly the same reason you enjoy it. I’m glad to know readers are getting that. Well, one reader anyway.”
“Oh, I’m sure it’s a whole lot more than one reader. I think that’s why your stories have such universal appeal. I don’t know what the breakdown of your readership is by gender, but I bet you have pretty deep hooks into both groups.”
They walked down the beach in companionable silence, Brutus still leading the parade, as Quinn’s thoughts eddied and swirled.
“So ... what was the hypothetical question?” she asked.
He glanced up. “Oh, right. Actually, I think you already answered it.”
“Oh.” She looked a bit deflated. “Okay.”
“All right,” he said, grinning, “here it is, but again—”
She made a lip-locking motion with her fingers, then threw the imaginary key away. On impulse, Quinn darted out a hand and made an air grab, as if catching the imaginary key. He curled his fingers into a fist, and smiled at her.
She smiled, too, and her cheeks warmed again. He got all caught up in watching her pupils expand and her gaze drop to his mouth, before she looked away, back to the shoreline in front of them.
And the question just popped out easily, without hesitation. “Would you be interested in reading a book from me that might leave out the grisly, gory, psycho killer part?”
She stopped walking again, and turned to look up at him. “Yes.” She said it instantly and decisively.
And it was exactly what he’d wanted her to say. “Okay,” he said.
Okay
, he thought. They started walking again. He expected her to pepper him with questions, but she didn’t, respecting his silence and need to think as they continued on down the beach.
Okay
, he thought. They started walking again. He expected her to pepper him with questions, but she didn’t, respecting his silence and need to think as they continued on down the beach.
Brutus suddenly made a turn up the sand to where a cluster of trees provided a swath of shade, and plopped himself down under them.
“I think he needs a break,” Riley said. “This is a lot of exercise for him. I know he looks big and strong, but a lot of extended motion is hard on his hips and back.”
Quinn nodded and followed Brutus’s path up the sand. “I think there’s room here for all of us.”
“You don’t have to wait, you can—”
Quinn sat just in front of the shady part, so the sun beat down on the damp front of his clothes. He smiled up at Riley, then patted the sand next to him.
“Okay.” She sat down next to him. Past the edge of her loose-fitting, knee-length, light tan khaki shorts extended the whitest legs he’d ever seen.
“Do you want to sit in the shade?” he asked.
“What?” She noticed where his gaze had gone. “Oh, no. I have like 4000 level sunscreen on. The only way I’d tan is if all my freckles converged, and since that would just be oh-so-lovely, I opt for the Casper approach.”
He looked at her. “I think you have beautiful skin. So you’re probably the smart one.”
He knew the skin in question would turn bright pink at the compliment, and she didn’t disappoint him. Feeling utterly content and happy, he smiled and turned his gaze to the water, but not before noticing the bright pink toenail polish she sported ... and the delicate silver band circling her pinky toe.
Just like that, his body leaped to life all over again—with a vengeance—causing him to cross his ankles and shift his weight in the sand. Sitting more upright, he plucked his damp shirt away from his skin so it hung looser.
Riley wore a melon-pink tank top covered with an unbuttoned, short-sleeved pink, orange, and white plaid camp shirt. Her loose-fitting shorts rode low on her hips, drawing his eye when she’d walked toward him earlier. The whole outfit was perky and cheerful and suited her blond curls and ready smile. Styled more for comfort than to show off her figure, it certainly wouldn’t be deemed overtly sexy. Nor were her freckles and pale skin. Not overtly.
Yet, something about the feminine tipped toes, and the earthiness of that tiny band of silver, combined with the comfortable way she dressed and the even more comfortable way she inhabited her lush, curvy body ... pretty much drove him mad with the need to pull her under him ... and find out what was beneath all that cotton and color.
He dug his fingers into the sand and wondered again about Alva’s remark regarding Riley’s availability. He’d thought about that more than once the past week or so. Many more times than once. And had come to the conclusion that it ultimately didn’t matter. If she was unattached and he’d just assumed otherwise, she’d let him run with that assumption. Meaning she was okay with his believing it. Obviously, she did not want to let him to get any closer.
He’d decided to respect that, and her, and just get the hell over it.
But that was decidedly more challenging to do at the moment.
Quinn decided to simply keep his focus on the sound of the water, the feel of the sun soaking through his damp clothes, warming his skin ... and not on his simmering awareness of the woman sitting beside him.
Right.
“So,” she said at length, “and you don’t have to answer, but following your hypothetical question ... is that the problem you’re having? You have a murder mystery story for your couple to solve ... but you also want to just spend time telling your couple’s story? No murders. Is that it?”
He shot her a quick glance, intending to look straight back to the water, but he instantly got caught up in the sincere, direct gaze she’d aimed his way, and he replied without thinking. “I think their love story would be less than it could be if it came before they grew into the characters they are now. It’s not the right time for them to have the love story I know they’d have later. But later ... there are no murders to solve because he can’t deal with any more death. They will have solved all the ones they’re capable of.”
“I get it now. So it really is either or. They either love each other while fighting crime ... or find each other after they’ve fought all the crime they can handle and fall in love then.” She sighed. “I can see the dilemma. Either way, they are who they are right now. So now is when it has to happen.”
“Exactly.” He felt as if an enormous pressure had been removed from his psyche. It wasn’t a solution, but it was a huge help to know someone at least understood the dilemma. “Thank you.”
“Why? I didn’t do anything.”
“You got it, and that’s more than I’d hoped. I had begun to think I’d gotten so far into the forest I’d totally lost all perspective on the trees.”
She shook her head. “I don’t think so. You just want to do them justice. And you don’t know which way will do that best.” Riley shifted in the sand and rolled to one hip so she could face him more directly. “I will say this. I really do love your suspense, purely for the complex plots you come up with. I can rarely ever figure out all the twists and turns. But ... and I mean this as a compliment, there are times in every single book that I wish I could spend more time with your characters, away from the crime stuff. Of course, that’s not what the story is about, so there is no time for that. I understand that it wouldn’t make sense ... but I feel a little left out, every time. Not let down, really, because your books are always wildly satisfying, but ... maybe you know what I mean.”
“To be honest, I always thought the balance was right where I wanted it. I liked contrasting big love against big tragedy, but I was always comfortable with the balance.”
“So, why are these two different?”
He lifted one shoulder. “I don’t know. I really don’t. They just are. I see them, I listen to them, and there’s just so much more to tell. I’ve tried to relegate whatever brought them together to something that’s already occurred when we meet them, and I know they’d do a hell of a riveting job as my crime-fighting duo for the murder mystery I want to tell ... but I just—I couldn’t make the balance work for me. I feel like it wasn’t right, or fair to them. I wasn’t giving them all I could allow them to have, when I know they are capable of having so damn much more.”
“So, doesn’t that answer your question?”
“What do you mean?”
“If telling their story that way feels like you’re letting them down ... then you probably are.”
“Okay, but following that ... if their careers are done, over, for whatever reason, and it’s from those ashes that they come together ... if I’m not giving them anything else to do, and there aren’t all those other extra crazy twists and turns ... does it become dull and not so passionate and epic after all? Do I need that contrast of murder and mayhem in order to make their love story compelling? This would be a huge departure for me, so I have no sense of how it would fly. If I’m going to make that huge leap, risk pissing a lot of people off, then I feel like I have to be damn sure I know what I’m doing, that I can pull it off, make it work.”
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