The Homecoming (24 page)

When those dark eyes softened, Faith realized he was thinking about makeup sex. With his wife. And wasn’t that yet another waste of expensive department-store lipstick? Another less-than-brilliant idea—not only bringing up his beloved wife, who’d died too young, but inviting comparison.

“You miss her.”
Duh
.

“Sure. The same way you miss Ben.” He frowned. “I miss him, too. And I’ll always feel guilty I didn’t get the guy who killed him.”

“It was an accident.”

“Probably.” Was the hint of doubt she thought she detected in his tone merely her imagination? “But if I’d only known he was checking back on cold cases, maybe I could’ve uncovered something. . . .”

“What?” Faith’s blood, which had been nicely warmed by the wine and the proximity to a very appealing man, turned to ice. “Surely you’re not suggesting Ben’s death might not have been accidental?”

“Hell, Faith, I don’t know.” He shrugged wide shoulders she knew, from watching the way he’d taken such devoted care of Gloria in her final months, were capable of carrying heavy burdens. “But Kara’s got this expert coming in tomorrow”—he glanced down at his wide-banded stainless-steel watch—“today,” he corrected. “Cait McKade’s a former FBI special agent who supposedly knows about a way to get prints off slugs. All we’ve got is a shell casing, but just maybe she can do something with that.”

Faith was reeling. And not from a single glass of wine.

“Kara’s bringing in a former federal agent to investigate her father’s death?” And had never mentioned a word about it?

“Not exactly. Sax Douchett suggested the woman because apparently they’re friends and she knows a forensic pathologist who might be able to do something with that skull found in the cave on the beach. The thing is, we don’t have any unexplained deaths in Shelter Bay. Never have. So Kara’s going to give Sax’s friend the casing and just see if something shows up.”

“Well.” Faith was floored that her daughter could have kept such important and personal information from her.

“She undoubtedly didn’t want to worry you unnecessarily,” John suggested reassuringly. “Since it probably won’t turn out to be anything.”

Although she’d always prided herself on her ability to multitask, Faith was stunned when she was suddenly struck with three disparate emotions simultaneously.

The first was shock at the unsavory possibility that her husband had been murdered.

Second, if that was the case, she wanted the killer apprehended. And despite having always voted for the most liberal candidate on the ballot, she decided there was something to be said for an eye- for-an-eye concept of justice.

But at the same time she was considering the gut- level appeal of bringing the death penalty back to Oregon, as she gazed up into the warmth of caring in John’s patient eyes, Faith experienced a wistful longing that had her going up onto her toes.

He paused. Just long enough to give her time to accept what she was doing. To change her mind.

Which she had no intention of doing.

There was a question in his eyes. Without words, she answered it.

He exhaled a breath. Tossed back his wine, as if wishing it were something stronger, then took her own half-empty glass from her hands and walked a few feet away to place them both, side by side, on an end table.

Feeling as if her shoes had been nailed to the carpet, Faith remained where she was.

And waited.

And then he was back. With his eyes on hers, he took her face in his hands, cupping her cheeks in his wide palms. The pads of his fingers were heavily calloused from his woodworking, but his touch was as light as dandelion fluff. As reverent as a prayer.

Although they’d both gone still as stones, inside, her heart was hammering against her ribs. A liquid warmth was flowing through her veins.

Please
.

Faith had no idea whether she’d said the word out loud, or whether he’d simply read the plea in her mind. But whichever, he responded, lowering his head to close that small breath of space between them.

As the softness of his mouth touched hers, she breathed in the scent of him—the lingering antiseptic of the hospital, the soap he’d used to wash his military-short hair, the decidedly male musk she hadn’t even realized she’d been missing that she was inhaling like a woman who’d been crawling on her hands and knees across the Sahara and had suddenly come across an icy spring.

Her hands came up around his neck as he kissed her with tenderness. With heat. And with a need she could feel pressed against her belly.

“Do you have any idea how much I want you?” His voice was rough. Pained.

Her heart hammered more fiercely. “Tell me.”

After kissing her so deeply he stole her breath, he placed his hot mouth to her ear and proceeded to do exactly that, sharing all the hot, sexy things he wanted to do to her. With her.

The same things she wanted him to do to her. Was desperate to do with him.

She dragged his mouth back to hers.

The tenderness was gone, burned away by a fiery need. As flames licked through her own blood, Faith said yes. Yes. And yes again. To everything.

Having originally planned to be career military, and not wanting to subject a family to constantly having him go wheels-up at a moment’s notice, which was pretty much the way SEALs lived, Sax had never given much thought to having kids.

But as he pushed the flat cart through the aisles of Lombard’s Lumberyard, he was getting one hell of a kick out of Kara’s son, who was nearly bouncing off the walls with excitement.

“What color are you going to paint the walls?” Trey asked as they stood side by side in front of the racks of chips. They’d already arranged to have the Sheetrock, shingles, electrical, hardware, and plumbing supplies, along with some heavy-duty mops and buckets, delivered to the job site and were now down to the fun stuff.

“Hadn’t really given it all that much thought,” Sax admitted. “What looks good to you?”

“I wanted to paint my room at Grandma’s red. But she said it would make me too excited to get to sleep.”

“Don’t want people sleeping at Bon Temps. But if they got too excited, maybe they might start getting into fights.”

“Mom and Dad hated when they got called out to bar fights on the job.”

Since he doubted that was information they would have shared with their child, Sax decided this was yet another case of eavesdropping. Which belatedly made him wonder what, if anything, the kid might have overheard of the conversation he and Kara had had last night, when Trey was supposed to be sleeping.

“So maybe we’ll choose something else.” He looked at the rows and rows of green shades. “Celery. Sage. Basil. Dill. Key lime. Mint. Who thinks up all these colors?”

“They’re all named for food,” Trey pointed out. “Which might be good if you’re going to be serving meals.”

“Can’t pass a good time without food. Problem is, green makes me think of bein’ back in the military, where they seemed to buy it by the barrelful.”

“Grandma says blue is relaxing. That’s why she painted her bedroom blue. Sorta that color.” He pointed at one of the darker chips in the next row.

Sax shook his head. “I’d be laughed out of town if anyone ever heard I’d bought myself a can of paint called Teeny Bikini.”

“Yeah.” Trey pulled a face. “It is a girlie name.”

“Sure is. Besides, while we don’t want folks to get overexcited, we also don’t want them falling asleep during the
fais do-do ’
cause they’re so relaxed, either.”

“What’s a fay-doe-doe?” Trey pronounced it carefully, phonetically, but came pretty damn close.

“Technically, it translates to going to sleep, from when mamas would put their children down to bed in a little side room of the dance hall, so the babies could sleep while the grown-ups partied. Over the years, it just came to mean a dance party.”

They went back to perusing colors, making their way back to the beginning of the display.

“Are you going to be cooking Cajun food?”

“Sure. That and a bunch of seafood, probably.” Sax was beginning to realize there was a lot more to opening up a place than just getting rid of spiders and fixing up Sheetrock.

“Cajun food uses a lot of pepper sauce, right?” Trey asked after they’d dismissed a bunch more shades.

“We like our food spicy, that’s for sure.”

And their women, too. Which Kara had definitely proven herself to be with that kiss last night.

“Then maybe you ought to go with that one.”

Sax plucked the chip Kara’s son was pointing to out of the rack. “ ‘Cajun Red,’ ” he read. “Good call, and near exactly the color of boiled crab shells.”

“That’s what I was thinking. And it looks like Tabasco sauce, too.”

Sax tilted his head and studied the small, serious face. “Smart head and a good eye. That’s a pretty awesome combination.”

“I just notice things,” Trey said with a shrug.

Kara was right: The kid needed some male influence in his life. You expected to hear compliments from moms and grandmas. That was their job. His own mom had certainly always been overly generous with her praise. But a single positive word from their dad could have Sax, Cole, and J.T. beaming inside for days.

“I was thinking about something else,” Trey said. The enthusiasm in his voice validated Sax’s thoughts about the effect of male approval. “Bon Temps is all about having fun, right?”

“The name means ‘good times.’ No point in going to all the trouble to fix it up if people don’t pass themselves a good time.”

“When we lived on the base in California, they used to hold this Mardi Gras celebration every year, like they do in New Orleans, which was a lot of fun. So maybe you oughta hang up a bunch of those beads they throw from floats, and masks and stuff.”

Sax rubbed his chin as he pictured Bon Temps with gold, purple, and green Mardi Gras masks on the Tabasco-colored walls, and beads strung from light fixtures. “My mom and dad had it done up more like an old Cajun cabin,” he said. “Rough wood tables, benches, butcher paper on the tables for shelling the crawfish, that sorta thing. But you know,
cher
, your idea sounds real festive.”

“And bright colors would be exciting. But in a good way. So people would want to hang around and spend a lot of money,” Trey suggested.

“Now you’re talking.” Sax put his hand on the boy’s shoulder. “Let’s go buy us some brushes and tarps and stuff while Mr. Lombard mixes us up a mess of Cajun Red.”

“All right.” Trey pumped a small, triumphant fist in the air.

At first it had seemed a little strange, taking over what should’ve been Jared Conway’s job. But as they debated the merits of rolling over spraying, Sax realized that somewhere during the shopping trip, it had begun to feel pretty damn right.

Kara hadn’t exactly known what to expect from Cait McKade. The magnolia-drenched voice on the phone suggested the wife of Sax’s former SEAL teammate might be a Southern-belle type, but her previous careers as a homicide cop and FBI Special Agent didn’t mesh with the idea of big hair and sparkly earrings.

Which had left Kara admittedly curious.

One thing she never would have expected was the attractive redhead in the black sleeveless top and slacks to be so hugely pregnant that Kara was afraid she might go into labor at any moment.

Cait turned down the offer of anything to drink. “I pee all the time these days,” she said as she slowly, laboriously lowered herself into the chair on the visitor’s side of Kara’s desk. “No point in making it worse.”

“I appreciate your coming all the way here. But is it safe for you to fly this late in your pregnancy?”

She laughed at that, a rich amusement tinged with irony. “Fortunately, Phoenix Team has a private jet. Plus, believe it or not, I’m only at twenty-four weeks.”

“Wow.” Surprised that the other woman was so large at only six months, Kara had spoken without thinking. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean—”

“Don’t worry about it.” Cait held up a hand to ward off any prolonged apology. “I know I look like a damn water buffalo. But I’m carrying twins. Both of whom, if the gymnastics inside me are any indication, are destined to be Olympic pole-jumping champions, or play linebacker for the Carolina Panthers. Which is undoubtedly more likely, since their father is six- foot-five and built like Mount Rushmore.”

“Ouch.” Kara unconsciously covered her own stomach with her hand, inwardly cringing as she thought about the prospect of giving birth to twins. Let alone such large ones.

“Ouch, indeed. I’ve already informed my OB that if she doesn’t come through with every drug in the hospital meds cabinet, I’ll have no choice but to drag out my old FBI Glock and shoot her.”

“Sounds totally reasonable to me,” Kara said sympathetically.

“So.” The other woman stretched out her legs, frowned at her obviously swollen ankles, and said, “Why don’t you show me what you’ve got?”

“I’ve no way of actually knowing if the cases are connected,” Kara said as she got up and went over to the closet.

“What does your spidey sense tell you?”

“That I’ve three unsolved cases in a town that isn’t supposed to experience real crimes.”

“Three?” An auburn brow arched. “You mentioned the bones you found out at Sax’s place. And the bullet fragments from yesterday’s shooting. That’s two.”

“Sax seems to believe there may be another.” Kara took down the Baggie containing the spent shell casing found near her father’s body. “No one ever found the bullet that killed my father last fall. But we do have this. Not that it’d probably be that much use to you.”

“Actually, like I told you when I called, there’s a new technique for retrieving fingerprints from bullet casings and bomb fragments after they have been fired or detonated. It relies on the subtle corrosion of metal surfaces.”