Open Season (31 page)

“You’re sure?”

“I’m sure. I haven’t seen anyone who looks like the third man, though.”

“It would help if we had Sykes’s first name, but we’ll pick up these two birds and my guess is they’ll start singing. Buddy and Dwight aren’t big on taking the fall for anyone else. In the meantime, Miss Minor, where will you be?”

“At home,” she began, but Jack shook his head.

“Until this is settled, I’m checking her into a hotel, and I’m not telling anyone where she is—not even you, Morrison. If you want to get in touch with her, call my cell phone, because that will be the only contact.”

J
ust where are you planning on stashing me?” Daisy asked when they were in the car. “I have the puppy with me, remember?”

“Like I could forget,” Jack muttered. “I don’t like the idea of stashing you anywhere, but it’s the only logical thing to do. Some motels take pets; I’ll call the local Triple A and find one.”

“I don’t have any clothes with me,” she pointed out. “Or books.”

“I’ll send someone by your house to pack some things for you.”

She thought about that. “Send Todd. He’ll know what to get.”

“I told you, Todd isn’t gay.”

“That doesn’t matter. He knows what separates go together, and what makeup to bring.”

“Eva Fay—”

“Todd.”

“All right,” he said under his breath. “I’ll send Todd.”

In the end, he didn’t have to call Triple A to locate a motel that accepted pets; they drove by a new place that had just been built off 1-565, pulled in, and checked, and it did have two rooms allocated for people with small pets. Both rooms were empty at the time, so Jack chose the one that faced the rear. He checked her in under a false name—she was now Julia Patrick, he informed her when he got back into the car and drove around the building to her assigned room.

He unlocked the door and carried in Midas’s things while Daisy let the puppy investigate a patch of grass and chase a butterfly. He was too young to do much chasing; after a few minutes, he flopped on his belly to rest. The heat was almost searing, too hot to let him play outside without any shade to shelter him. She carried him inside the blessedly cool room and gave him some water, and with a tired sigh he settled down on his blanket.

“I’ll be back tonight with your things,” Jack said. “I don’t know what time, but I’ll call first. Don’t open the door to anyone except me.”

She sat down on the king-size bed. “All right.” She wouldn’t beg him to stay, though she wanted to. She had been leaning on those strong shoulders all day long, she realized, letting him handle everything. Of course, murder
was
his field of expertise, so to speak; he knew exactly what to do.

She wanted to ask him how long she’d have to stay here, but that was a silly question: he had no real idea. Morrison might locate Lemmons and Calvin right away, or the two might have left town. They might locate
Sykes, or they might not. Jennifer Nolan’s testimony might be reliable, but everyone in town knew she was an alcoholic; if she’d been drinking this morning, that had to call her statement into question. Everything was up in the air.

Jack had been a rock, Daisy knew she would have managed without him, but it had been nice to have him planning the course of action, taking care of her family, even keeping Midas occupied while she looked through the mountain of mug shots.

He sat down beside her and put his arm around her, hugging her close to his side. “Are you all right?”

“I’m still feeling a little stunned,” she admitted. “This is so . . . unreal. I watched a man die, and I didn’t even realize.”

“You don’t expect to see a murder. Unless there’s a shot or a big fight, most people wouldn’t notice. It’s too far outside their experience.” He tilted her chin up and kissed her. “I’m glad it was outside your experience,” he murmured.

Until he kissed her, she hadn’t realized how much she had been craving him, his taste and touch, the hot male scent. She put her arms around his neck and whispered, “Don’t go just yet.”

“I need to,” he said, but he didn’t get up from the bed. Instead his arm tightened about her and his other hand slid down to her breasts, stroking over them before beginning to unbutton her blouse. Daisy closed her eyes as bliss began unfurling inside her, made all the stronger by the stress of the day. For a little while, so long as he touched her, she could forget and relax.

She tugged his T-shirt free and slid her hands under it, flattening her palms against the heavy muscles of his back.

“All right, you convinced me,” he said, shucking the shirt off over his head and standing to unfasten his belt. Jeans, underwear, socks, and shoes came off in one rough motion, and he left them on the floor, tumbling to the big bed and taking her with him. Her sandals dropped to the carpet. He wrestled her out of her blouse and bra, tossing both garments toward the dresser on the other side of the room.

He pressed kisses to her stomach as he unzipped her denim skirt and peeled it down, then trailed up to her breasts and sucked her nipples until they were hard and flushed with color, sticking out like raspberries. She felt dizzy, but was ravenous for more. She couldn’t get enough of him, couldn’t satisfy the urge to touch him, because every texture made her want more.

“It’s my turn,” she said, pushing on his shoulders.

He obediently rolled over onto his back and covered his eyes with a forearm. “This is going to kill me,” he muttered.

“Maybe not.”

Thoroughly delighted with this opportunity, she cupped his testicles in both hands, feeling the weight and softness of his scrotum, the hardness within. She buried her face against him, inhaling the musty scent, darting her tongue out to taste. His penis jerked against her cheek, enticing her, so she turned her head and took him in.

He groaned and his hands fisted in the bedspread.

She had no mercy, not that he asked for any. She tasted and licked and stroked until his powerful body was drawn like a bow, arching on the bed. Then she stopped, sat back, and said, “I think that’s enough.”

An almost inhuman sound rumbled in his chest and he jackknifed, grabbing her and twisting and coming
down on top of her. She laughed as he fiercely stripped her panties down and pushed her legs apart, settling between them and positioning himself for the strong, single thrust that took him to the hilt and changed her laughter to a groan. She drew her legs up, clasping them around his hips, trying to contain both the depth of his strokes and the wildness of her response. She wanted to savor every moment, not rush headlong into climax, but already she could feel the tension building.

He stopped, his muscles flexing with tension. “Fuck,” he said between gritted teeth. “I don’t have a condom.”

Their eyes met, his narrowed with the savagery of the control he was trying to retain over his body, hers wide with sudden awareness.

His hips rocked as if he couldn’t hold still another moment. “Do you want me to stop?” His face was grim with the effort it took him to make the offer. Sweat gleamed on his forehead and shoulders, despite the air conditioner blowing directly on the bed.

Common sense said yes. A lifetime of responsible behavior said yes. They shouldn’t take the risk, or any more risk than they already had just in his unprotected penetration. Some deep, primitive instinct, however, craved the feel of him inside her, and her lips moved, forming the word
No.

His control broke, and he began thrusting deep and hard, over and over, and what had begun as simple pleasure became something more, something wrenching and powerful. Daisy clung to him because she could do nothing else, because with that one word she had demanded everything he could give her and could hold back none of herself. She arched in climax, her heels digging into
his thighs, the shuddering starting deep and spreading out in convulsive waves. For a long moment she stopped breathing, stopped thinking, caught on a peak of sensation so sharp it blurred the world around her. Then it faded and slowly she went limp, muscle by muscle, legs and arms falling open and releasing him to move fast and strong in his own orgasm.

His heavy weight crushed her into the mattress, but she couldn’t find either the strength or the will to protest. He was utterly limp, his heartbeat slamming against his rib cage, his breath rushing in and out of his heaving lungs. Maybe they dozed; time certainly seemed to disappear.

After a while, groaning with the effort, he withdrew and moved off her to lie on his side and hold her close. Daisy buried her face against his throat, acutely aware of the wetness between her legs. This could be a disaster. But it didn’t feel like a disaster; it felt. . . right.

Gently he stroked her. She tried to think of something to say, but there didn’t seem to be anything
to
say, nothing that needed saying. All she needed to do was come to terms with what lay between them, a sudden awareness that this was much more than an affair.

It couldn’t be. Could it?

“God, I’ve got to get back to the office,” he muttered. “I can’t believe I let myself get sidetracked like this.”

“I’m sure five minutes one way or another won’t make much difference,” she consoled.

He opened one eye and glared at her. “Five minutes? I beg your pardon. I’ve been better than five minutes since I was sixteen.”

She twisted around to look at the clock on the bed-side table. The problem was, she didn’t know if they
had dozed, or for how long. She decided to give him the benefit of the doubt. “Then I’m sure an hour one way or another—”

“An hour! Shit!”

He bolted out of bed and went into the bathroom. She heard the sound of water running, the toilet flushed, then he came back out and went to the foot of the bed, where he’d left his clothes on the floor. He looked down and froze.

Alarmed by his expression, Daisy struggled up on her elbows.

He looked up then, and in a very even tone said, “Your dog ate my shorts.”

She tried not to laugh; she really did. She managed to hold it in for about one second; then giggles started shaking her like little earthquakes. Once one erupted, they immediately morphed into a belly laugh that rolled her onto her side, holding her stomach as if she could contain them that way.

He bent down and picked up the puppy, holding him at eye level. It was impossible to deny Midas’s guilt, because shreds of the dark green boxers were hanging from his mouth. He seemed very happy about it, too, wagging his tail at a frantic beat, paddling his feet as he tried to get within licking distance.

Jack said, “Fuzzbutt, you’re a pain in the ass.” But he said it in an almost crooning tone, and he cuddled the puppy to him as he removed the shreds from the little mouth.

Daisy looked at the fuzzy puppy and the big, naked man holding him so gently, and she thought her heart would leap right out of her chest. She had already been halfway there, but in that moment she fell completely, irrevocably in love.

No, this wasn’t an affair, at least not on her part. It was much, much more.

He put Midas on the bed, leaving Daisy to deal with the puppy while he got dressed. As she fended off big feet and a madly licking tongue, Daisy watched the jeans slide up over his naked butt and had some very lascivious thoughts.

When he was dressed, he leaned over her and kissed her, and the kiss became longer and deeper than either of them had intended. Spots of color burned high on his cheekbones when he pulled back, and his eyes were narrowed again. “You’re dangerous,” he muttered.

“All I’m doing is lying here.” She caught Midas as he began pulling on the bedspread, told him no, and removed the fabric from his mouth.

“That’s what I said. A naked woman and a fuzzy puppy: what more can a man want? Well, maybe a beer. And a good ball game on the tube. And—”

She grabbed one of the pillows and threw it at him. “Go!”

“I’m going. Remember, don’t open the door—”

“—to anyone but you,” she finished.

“I don’t know what time I’ll be back. There’s a Huddle House next door if you get hungry.” He scribbled some numbers on the notepad by the bed. “This is my cell number, the number of my office, and Todd’s numbers here and at home. Call any or all of them if you need anything.”

“Why do you have Todd’s numbers?” she asked curiously.

“I might have known you’d ask,” he muttered.

“Well, why do you?”

“Because he’s helping us locate Sykes. He has some good contacts we’re using.” He kissed her again,
scratched Midas behind the ears, then was out the door and gone.

Daisy climbed slowly out of bed, her legs protesting. Midas went over to examine the big wet spot on the bedspread, and she hastily grabbed him, setting him on the carpet. He followed her to the bathroom, nosily sniffing around as she washed off.

Embarrassed by the thought of the motel maids finding the bedspread in that condition, Daisy industriously worked at the spot with a wet washcloth and a hand towel until she was certain nothing would show when the spot was dry.

Her first wet spot, she thought, staring at the dark circle. She hoped it was the first of many, because she wanted Jack Russo to be the father of her children.

It remained to be seen whether or not he wanted the same thing. He hadn’t run when her mother had made that pointed comment about the kind of mother-in-law she was, but then he wouldn’t, not with a murder investigation going on and her to protect. He wasn’t a man who shirked his responsibilities.

She really should have made him stop, she thought as she dressed. She didn’t want him to marry her because she got pregnant; she wanted him to love her. This time it would probably be okay—the timing wasn’t right—but Mother Nature had a way of playing tricks and she wouldn’t breathe easy until she got her period.

She sat down and looked around the motel room. As motel rooms went, she supposed, it was nice. It was larger than normal, maybe because it was one of the rooms for people with pets. There was a recliner for sitting, a round table with two chairs, and a tiny refrigerator with a four-cup coffeemaker sitting on top. The bathroom was functional but unremarkable.