Murder on Edisto (The Edisto Island Mysteries) (30 page)

“You’ve made Jeb your crutch,” Stan said.

Heat flushed her cheeks as her temper flared. “Don’t you dare.” She bit each word, the growl angry. “My son is everything, and he isn’t up for discussion.”

Stan’s tone was level, but his enunciation made his awareness of her screwed up mentality crystal. “Then quit throwing him into the mix, Chicklet. He’s not your problem, and you damn well know it.”

The use of her softer nickname disarmed her. He still refused to move, but she dug her butt deeper into the cushion, cradling her mug. “Stop. Just stop.”

Stan’s forehead creased deep. “Don’t bullshit me then. You’re scrawny, and those bags under your eyes aren’t recent. You’ve lost your edge. And Edisto doesn’t agree with you too damn much, if you ask me.”

“Who asked you?” Infuriated, she punched his chest, the power tempered by the drinks. “And who the hell do you think you are going all judge and jury on me?”

He encircled her arm with a tightness that shocked her into silence. He forced her to scoot toward him. “Listen to me.” He shook her. “Look at me, too, dammit.”

The ferocity on his face almost made her cringe. “Stop this!” he bellowed. “The only person who can straighten you out is you. You used to dare me to challenge you, and you took no guff off the worst of us. John loved you for that. Hell, I loved you for it. And another thing.” He released her with a small thrust for emphasis. “A murder would have turned you into a hell-raiser not that long ago. None of this waiting and watching, hand-wringing and whining.”

“I’m not whining.”

“Well, you’re damn sure not hounding this local PD to get their shit together like you would have once upon a time. Surely your Papa Beach deserved better than this.”

“Shut up, Stan.”

He raised his voice again and pointed. “No, I won’t shut up. You’re cowering, refusing to live.” He counted down the fingers. “McDonald, Franks, Stubish, Lancaster, Scottie. Do I need to go on? You ran these people down. Relentlessly, I might add. You caught Leo Zubov, for Christ’s sake.”

Tears welled. Angry, hot tears coated her cheeks. “And it cost me my husband!” A sob escaped. “We hadn’t made up about Bonnie yet.”

“Would John hold any of that against you?” he asked, pain in his eyes.

Tears dripped off her chin, and she wiped them on her shoulder.

“Fix this.” His frustration ebbed now. “Get your head screwed back on straight. Cops make sacrifices. John was a heavier price than normal to pay, and you didn’t deserve that, but you don’t roll over and die because of it, either.”

She sniffed. “Is Mindy your sacrifice?”

“Probably.”

“I’m sorry, Stan. Sorry I wasn’t there for you. How long has it been?”

“A month. I think it’s for good this time.”

Her moist eyes filled again. So much pain shared between them.

The big man kissed the top of her head at the sign of her tears and wrapped his massive arms around her tiny body. “Oh, Chicklet, I know, I know. Shhh.”

“You’re the only one who understands,” she cried into his shirt.

He continued to rock her. “I know, but you can’t stay stuck like this, honey. It hurts me to see you run over so easily. Please get better.” He bent to kiss her head again.

Callie raised her face and let her lips meet him instead.

He drew back. “I don’t think so.”

“Please, Stan.” She leaned in. “Don’t turn me away. I can’t take losing you, too.”

After a pause, he let her lips touch his again. He responded gently at first, testing. Doubting. But when she crushed against him so passionately the third time, he held her in place to kiss her deeply. Her heart pounded against her ribs, sending a pulse throbbing up her neck and down.

It was okay, she told herself. She
should
feel grounded with this man. John respected him. Jeb was in awe of him. Stan was as close to how life used to be as she would ever find. Everything she could ever want in another man.

Callie arched as an intense ache pushed into her groin. She held him tighter.

John was gone. Stan was separated. The house was empty.

Please, give her this one night. She moaned, and she feared he’d break the kiss. If he would only take her to bed. She’d be fierce, assertive, forceful. If only he’d stay the night and help make everything right.

It had been so long since she’d felt alive, and maybe this was how she could start.

Chapter 23

STAN’S FINGERS ROAMED under her tank top, her bra. Disheveled sofa pillows supported Callie as she lay back, the big man’s body warm and intense in its heavy power atop her. Unable to hide what was natural, he rolled as he kissed, moving up then back since his height measured so much more than hers. His shirt was unbuttoned, his pants still on. He checked himself, trying not to mash her petite form, trying to avoid her bandaged arm. His breaths wove amidst low groans that revealed how much he fought his urge to take her. Like a storm trying to decide whether to invade the coast.

Callie tried to tug aside the light throw each time he drew back, to give him full access. Frustrated at the attempts, she pushed up to entice Stan to the bedroom. She craved the wide flatness of her bed and crisp sheets on a naked body with ample room to turn and explore. Instead, Stan held her down and kissed deeper.

“The bed,” she whispered.

“No,” he growled.

“Back up.” She broke free. Now unencumbered, she flipped around and nibbled his neck then up to nip his earlobe, wrapping her leg around his waist until she’d maneuvered into his lap, the throw no longer tangled in the mix. She dove to his other side, biting his neck. Dammit, if he didn’t lift her shirt off, she was going to rip if off herself. “There’s nothing wrong with a need for each other.” This was her in charge of her life again, she told herself.

“It’s too rash,” he said.

She kissed under his ear, then around to his lips. “And this isn’t?” she said into his mouth.

He held her back. His tongue licked his lips once as he seemed to be putting them back into their proper place.

Callie avoided his eyes, fearful to see doubt. She snuggled down tight against his chest. Mindy had ditched him. Callie was single. Couldn’t it be as simple as that?

His hesitant sigh blew across the top of her head.

She loosened his waistband, feeling his gaze on her but not meeting it, then ran her hands down and around, gripping his buttocks.

He jerked to stand and lifted her up, her legs around his waist, her arms clasped tight around his neck. With minimal effort supporting her teacup size, taking huge steps across the floor, Stan entered her bedroom, kicked the door shut behind him, and laid her on the bed.

As he shed his shirt, she shed hers. Her pulse tried to burst from under her skin as she awaited his touch, such that she almost came at his touch when he removed her jeans. Raising her bottom, Callie studied the man’s nude chest, his age hidden behind days at the gym with only the slightest bulge around his middle. A bulge that disappeared when he dropped his pants.

While she’d socialized little with Stan, the man was no stranger. For years she reported to him, discussed cases over lunch. Patted each other on the back as cuffs snapped on a perp. He knew her darkest fear, child violence cases, and her major love, mint chocolate anything, just like John had.

As he lowered himself down, he turned her on her side to face him. He kissed and nuzzled her chin and neck, the gentle yet aggressive manner sending flutters into her belly. She melted into the quilt.

His home life made her wonder how he meshed his gruff manner with a wife that seemed anything but. He held a controlled strength Callie admired. Then she went home to John, who read Callie’s needs and loved her more than she deserved on some days. John was all she’d ever needed. She still missed him so damn much.

Stan was the link to those halcyon days. But here, in her bed, with John gone, she wanted her old boss as she envisioned in fleeting thoughts during their coffee breaks and staff meetings.

No one was at fault. They tended to each other. The moment matched their needs.

Those big hands roamed across her stomach, covering so much skin with so little effort. She felt so small and malleable under those fingers. This was a man she could be vulnerable with. He could do what he wanted with her now, and she could trust him. How long had it been since she’d trusted someone? How much was Mindy still trusting him?

“Chicklit,” he half-whispered, a warm palm stopped across her stomach. “I didn’t intentionally come down here to—”

“Shhh,” she hushed. “You came down to take care of me.”

She directed him, and he reached down and teased her warm, moist region, then he crept up and cupped her jaw, those big fingers wrapped from her chin to behind her ear as he kissed her again. She laid her hand on his, so enthralled to have a man cradle her like some sweet, endeared doll.

Like John had. But John wasn’t here and never would be again.

But Stan would return to Boston. What the hell was she doing to him?

Don’t think about it.

Her old boss was hard and holding back. She guided his strokes away from her face, to the part of her that wanted him the most, to toss the conflict from her mind. Her heart hammered. She prepared for the first time since John.

She would pick up the pieces afterwards.

Stan’s phone rang. She paused, but he didn’t.

Someone left a voice mail from the ding.

Callie returned her attention to matters in hand, literally, her strokes almost fierce, taking them both to the edge. Making them forget.

Someone left a text message.

His eyes scoured her.
He wants me
.

Another text.

He bent down to kiss her; she arched up to meet his lips.

Again a text.

He shoved her down, apart, then poised over her.

She held her breath. Is this really what they needed?

His phone rang.

“Stan?”

“Don’t, Chicklet.”

“It might . . . be important.”

“That’s what I’m afraid of.”

She eased back, breaths still rapid, watching him fight to ignore who might be on the other end of those messages. “Check it, Stan. I’ll be right here.”

Releasing a deep groan of frustration, he rolled off the bed and fumbled in his clothes for his phone. The device came alive and illuminated Stan’s face as he scrolled and read messages in the dark, then tapped buttons to retrieve the voice mails.

Fist on his nude waist, he turned his back to Callie, phone to his ear. “Shit,” he whispered, punched buttons again, then apparently replayed the message.

Elbow bent, leaning on her hand, she admired his shadowy silhouette as her pulse slowed. She no longer saw Stan as a boss; the lines had blurred reckless between them. A mild disappointment took root as she waited for what she wouldn’t be surprised to hear. Her head back down on the pillow, she wondered whether to go ahead and retrieve her clothes.

Stan disconnected the call and fixated on the opposite wall.

“Mindy?” Callie asked softly.

“Yeah.”

“It’s okay, Stan,” she said and chose the right words instead of the ones that would coax him back into her bed. But even as she convinced herself of the logic, tears threatened.

To call at this time of night, Mindy missed her husband in her own bed.

Stan reached down and retrieved his clothing, slipping into each piece quietly, as if afraid to stir the air too much.

Callie eased out of bed and around the man to her closet, avoiding skin contact, and retrieved her robe. When she returned, he worked his shirt buttons, clothed except for bare feet. She yearned to play in his hairy chest one more time before he completed his task.

“I shouldn’t have started this,” she said, lying as cleanly as she could. If Mindy hadn’t called, Stan would be inside her at this moment. But her friend needed to hear the proper words to take his conscience home.

The bedside clock read almost three a.m. She couldn’t have fallen asleep if she tried, and she knew Stan was a whirlpool of confusion . . . and regret. “I think I’ll fix coffee and sit on the front porch. It ought to be close to high tide, so the breeze should be lovely. Care to join me?”

Silently, he followed her into the kitchen and then helped her carry the cups outside.

Wind pushed up the stairs and tossed the edge of her robe aside. She tied it tighter as she folded herself into the white settee in the far corner of the porch. Stan took a rocker two feet away.

They sat silent for most of an hour, and Callie almost dozed to the distant lullaby of the waves. She opened her eyes to see Stan’s mind at work, his focus on the sago palm growing at the foot of the newly painted stairs.

She sipped the remnants of her cold coffee as if it were still good. “Not that I know her well, I mean, we only met at the occasional barbecue, but she seemed to suit you. Twenty years, right?”

“Twenty-one.”

Callie already knew they had no kids. “That’s a long time.”