Southern Star: Destiny Romance (11 page)

‘And I couldn’t, well . . .’ He looked away for a moment. ‘I couldn’t seem to get over it. And the only thing that helped was the bottle. Stupid.’

‘No, not stupid,’ Blaze said quietly. ‘We all do what we have to do to get through.’

They sat there a few minutes more until Rowdy gave a shaky smile and let her hand go. He stood up. ‘Well, time’s money,’ he said. ‘Best get back to it.’

No more was said about the tragedy, but their relationship seemed to turn a corner that day, and if Rowdy still drank Blaze saw no sign of it.

Mac reached into the fridge and pulled out a cold one. When he tilted the bottle to his mouth, he saw his fingers were dusted in the powder the fingerprint guys had used. The stuff was still all over the kitchen, but that would change tomorrow.

Thank God he had a new cook. Emily Williams might be a little young and nervous but she could throw together a not-bad lasagne and she was available immediately. The hands were satisfied at least, and if her reference checked out, it was good enough for Mac.

Her first job would be to clean the muck from the kitchen now that the police had finished with it. Despite crawling all over it, they hadn’t found a bloody thing. No DNA, no hairs, nothing that matched with any known offenders, apart from good old Pete, of course. Even then, his fingerprints had only been on the fridge and bench, not on the skillet.

Ryan had thrown up the possibility that Mac’s former station hand might have gloved up for the attack, but Mac couldn’t see it – he simply wasn’t smart enough – and now it turned out that the bastard had a watertight alibi. The night of the attack on Peggy, he’d been in the lock-up fifty kilometres away on a drunk-and-disorderly charge.

When that piece of news had come through, Ryan had even backtracked and begun to reconsider whether Peggy had been attacked at all. Perhaps it had been a bizarre accident, and she’d accidentally cracked her own head on the skillet. Stranger things had happened.

The docs had brought her out of the induced coma yesterday, although she was heavily medicated so an interview wouldn’t be possible for at least another few days. They seemed to think her progress was good, although to Mac she still seemed alarmingly fragile. She wouldn’t like the idea of an interloper in her kitchen, though, so Mac was going to hold back on mentioning the new cook for a while longer.

The boys were fractious, too, with Pete’s departure and Peggy’s injury. Everyone was jumping at shadows and tempers were on a trigger-wire. Just this afternoon he’d had to break up a fight between Lewis and Fred. Even Amos seemed spooked, muttering as he stomped around the stables. They were all working harder to make up for being a man down. Harry Blenheim’s kid, Beau, had agreed on a move to Rosmerta, but he had to work out his notice and couldn’t start until next week.

Not that Beau was a kid to anyone except Amos. He was only seven years younger than Mac, and had plenty of experience on his folks’ place and more recently at One Tree Station on the other side of Meriwether, so named because it was a relatively small spread. Rosmerta, at nearly four times the size, would be a feather in his cap for the ambitious new foreman. Mac thought he’d be lucky to get three or four years out of Beau before the guy scraped together the funds to buy his own place or took over his parents’ station. Still, for the time Beau was foreman at Rosmerta, Mac would delegate some of the responsibility for the day-to-day management, which would allow him to work on his plans to diversify into breeding stock horses.

He stood, letting the house settle around him. It seemed quiet, too quiet.

Rubbing his sore shoulders, he wandered up the stairs to his bedroom. Apart from it and the one Peggy sometimes used, three other bedrooms sat there collecting dust. When he’d rebuilt the house, he’d had vague thoughts – assumptions, really – that at some point he’d have a family, and that the spare rooms would be taken up with two or three kids. But the first few years had been so hard, he’d barely had time to scratch himself, let alone date seriously.

There had been fourteen-hour days running the station, sometimes more, and as many as four nights a week poring over the books, wondering how the hell he was going to make ends meet. Even later, somehow it had never happened.

Maybe if he’d met the right woman, he’d have made more of an effort. Once, briefly, four years ago, he’d thought he had. Physically, Leanne had been a good foil for him. Blonde, athletic, interesting. But he’d made the mistake of taking her to meet his father and step-mother after they’d dated for a few months.

Quite by accident he’d overheard Leanne and his step-mother, Barbara, speaking about tactics for prising him off the station and back to civilisation. Apparently there was even a senior stock agent’s job going in town, which both women thought would be perfect for him. That had been the end of that relationship, much to his step-mother’s disgust. He wasn’t leaving his land for any woman.

Grinning to himself as he got in the shower to wash off the day’s dust, he wondered what would happen if Barbara and Blaze were thrown together; the social-climber and the star. Barbara would most likely despise Blaze yet want to cultivate her at the same time, while Blaze, used to hangers-on, would ignore her. Deep down, they’d hate each other’s guts. It would almost be worth . . . nah! His smile broadened. Well, maybe something could be worked out. He was long overdue for a barbecue at Rosmerta.

As his closest neighbour, Blaze would be on the guest list, and his step-mother would never be able to resist attending if there was a genuine A-list celebrity as the guest of honour. Something to think about once Peggy was back on her feet. She’d know about caterers, or probably insist on doing the whole damn thing herself.

Drying off, he went to the closet and pulled out clean underwear, T-shirt and jeans. Thinking about Blaze made him yearn for a repeat of that one hot night. It was only seven and still light. Plenty of time to drive over to Sweet Springs with a bottle of wine and try to sweet-talk his way back into her bed.

Her comment of the other night about not being seen with him still rankled, but maybe she’d unwittingly touched a nerve. Perhaps Barbara and Leanne’s disdain for station work had cut deeper than he’d thought and he’d overreacted. Once upon a time he’d been pissed off every time his step-mother looked down her slim nose at a working man; these days it took too much effort.

To give Blaze her due, star she might be, but she’d been applying plenty of elbow grease to scraping old paint off the window frame the last time he’d been over at Sweet Springs. Covered in dust, her hair in a lopsided knot, she hadn’t seemed to mind manual labour then. In fact, she’d looked far more the country girl than Leanne ever had.

In bare feet, he padded downstairs to the kitchen to see what the new cook had left in the fridge. Some sort of casserole. There were heating instructions so he shoved it in the microwave and leant on the bench to wait for the ping, realising he was grinning again foolishly at the picture Blaze had made, balanced precariously on that rickety old ladder.

Denim shorts on a woman were pretty good most times, but on someone with Blaze’s spectacular figure they were enough to make a man drool, and more besides. He glanced down at his crotch. Oh yeah. She might not be wife material, but no woman before – and certainly not Leanne – had got him hard just from thinking about her backside.

The microwave beeped, and he went to eat on the long deck off the living room. Yeah, he wasn’t giving up on Blaze Gillespie yet. Difficult, stubborn and high-maintenance she might be, but she’d always keep a guy on his toes, except when they were burning up the sheets.

Just thinking about the way she’d taken him deep inside – the slight hesitation when he first penetrated her, and then the long, slow gloving and the throaty cries she gave when he fucked her hard – got him hot and bothered all over again, almost enough to chuck the rest of the casserole in the bin and drive over there right now.

He went for his keys and then hesitated. Usually Mac opted for a strategy of being totally direct with a woman, but then usually he already knew the outcome. Blaze Gillespie was a different matter.

Rushing back in after she’d turned him down the other night would probably make him like all the other fools who panted after her. And once she had the upper hand with a man, she’d be hell on wheels. Smarter to wait; give her the chance to come to him. He just hoped the pay-off would be worth the sexual frustration.

Detective Sergeant Ryan gave a cursory knock on Inspector Jean Elsom’s open office door and walked straight in. His boss didn’t even look up from studying the report in her hands, but her usual pleasant countenance was marred by a frown.

‘What’s up, boss?’ Ryan asked as he sat down opposite. ‘Bad news?’

Elsom pursed her lips. ‘I’d say confusing news.’ She shoved the documents before him. ‘Updated investigation notes from the LAPD on the Mitch Redmond homicide.’

‘Since when does the LAPD go around sharing . . . Redmond?’ His mental cogs clicked into place. ‘Ah, the Hollywood filmmaker, right? Blaze Gillespie’s main squeeze.’

‘Well, apparently she denied it when the LA detectives interviewed her. Said they were just good friends.’

‘Right,’ Ryan’s drawl was thick with irony.

‘Mmm, seems she may have been telling the truth.’

Ryan gave her a ‘get real’ look. ‘Come on! The chick’s screwed everyone in la-la-land from what I hear. She was tight with this dude. Why not do him, too? Way I see it, to her he’s just a fuck buddy, but he’s more serious. Then some guy she did the dirty with on that movie set spills the beans on the group-sex deal. It’s all over the media, Gillespie and Redmond fight about it. Gets out of hand as these things do. He ends up filleted. Maybe not murder if there’s no premeditation, not sure on Californian law there. But Jesus! I read some of the reports. He had fourteen stab wounds. That’s no fucking accidental death.’

‘Yes, except according to this they didn’t have a thing going, casual or serious.’ Elsom shoved the papers at him. ‘Read it for yourself. Redmond was gay.’

Ryan stared at her, then at the LAPD report. He sat back in his chair so hard the breath whooshed out of him. ‘Bugger me . . . sorry, inappropriate in the context.’ He thought, sat forward again, intent. ‘And they know this how?’

‘Apparently Redmond’s boyfriend has come forward. A set designer, Carlos Diaz. Hispanic and Catholic. Didn’t want his family knowing he likes guys. And Redmond was also in the closet – mostly – so they kept it discreet.’

Ryan frowned. ‘Okay, well maybe Redmond’s bi. You know, he does it with girls —’

‘I may be fifty-four but I know what bi means, thanks.’

‘Sorry. But Redmond swings both ways. Gillespie finds out he’s been fucking boys, too, confronts him, it gets out of hand. Or she invites herself over for a nice dinner with a plan to off him. Either way you can pretty much lock her up for the next ten to twenty.’

‘I put that one to them.’ Elsom gave him a cool look. ‘In more appropriate language, naturally. They were already checking it out, but they’ve reinterviewed friends and colleagues. Found a couple of old lovers of Redmond’s, both guys. Confirmed he was gay as the day is long and had never gone for girls; just preferred to keep it on the QT.’

Ryan rubbed his eyes. It was late and he wanted to get out of here, but he wanted to make this fly. ‘Well, if Gillespie was such good friends with Redmond, she must have known he was gay, so why not say something? Redmond’s dead and it takes a shitload of heat out of the motive without the sex angle.’

He thought for a moment. ‘Okay, well let’s turn this thing upside down. Gillespie’s a sex fiend, right? She’s gotta have it. Every man wants her except her best bud. She’s had a hard-on – or whatever women have – for Redmond, not knowing he bats for the other team. But he doesn’t have a clue how she feels, so she gets him drunk, has her way with him while he’s under the influence. He sobers up, reacts badly, they fight, et cetera et cetera.’

Elsom smiled and shook her head. ‘Why are you so convinced it’s her?’

‘Because.’ Ryan scratched his chin. ‘I guess she strikes me as the narcissistic type; the kind that doesn’t react well to rejection or set-backs because they so rarely experience it. People around here talk. Apparently the Gillespies doted on their kid. She had everything she ever wanted right from the get-go. Dance classes, acting lessons. They ferried her back and forth from auditions and advertising shoots. Talent contests. You name it, she did it. And she loved to shove it in the faces of her classmates.’

‘Okay, she was a princess. She’s not the first.’

‘But when she’d sucked her folks dry, she was out of here. Moved on to Hollywood, established a new and adoring circle, and charmed her way into movies. Didn’t even bother to keep in contact with her folks after she started making a name for herself, apparently. How’s that for cold?’

Elsom stood and swung her bag over her shoulder. ‘Well, you may be right. However, I can’t see her for Mrs Fairchild. I mean, what’s the motive? She’d never even met the woman. But send whatever you’ve got to the LAPD in case something pops. But don’t, and I mean don’t, forget to explore all avenues. We focus on just Blaze Gillespie and we’re wrong, we’ll look like dickheads, Detective Sergeant.’

‘I’ll do my job, Inspector,’ Ryan told her as he stood and walked to the door. ‘But there’s something weird going on. And Blaze Gillespie’s involved. I just know it.’

Blaze thought even Hades couldn’t be this hot as she made the now-familiar drive towards Meriwether. It had to be close to forty-five degrees and the air conditioning in her car was struggling to make a dent in it. Sweat popped out on her forehead, her hands clung clammily to the wheel and her stomach roiled.

If it hadn’t been so important to make this meeting with the development-approval people at council, she would have postponed it to another day. But Rowdy wanted to get the plans for the top-floor extension okayed, and a personal approach could help their case. Perhaps she should have sent Rowdy, but that meant hours away from the job, and really she knew what she wanted better than anyone.

Before her was just heat haze, the bitumen blurring with the unnaturally white sky. She brought the car to a skidding stop on the soft gravel shoulder and took a long swig from the water bottle she’d only remembered to bring with her at the last minute. Almost instantly, she felt one hundred times better. Even the heat didn’t seem as penetrating. Thinking back, she realised that she’d been so busy she’d forgotten to drink anything since early this morning, which was stupid and potentially dangerous. In this kind of heat, dehydration could strike quickly and even fatally.

Back on the road, she went over in her mind how she planned to handle the meeting. She figured the council officers would either be bedazzled or belligerent. Most people were one or the other when meeting someone in public life for the first time.

In fact, both were perfectly polite and only the guy was slightly star-struck, but in a charming way. The woman had been both friendly and firm, and thoroughly professional. Their main concern was to protect the heritage aspects of Sweet Springs, and ensure improvements were sympathetic to the original aesthetic. Blaze talked them through the modifications to the attic level, including the balcony, agreed to compromise on its size and the style of windows, and found herself back out on the street within an hour, having extracted a promise that a decision – probably favourable – would be forwarded in the next five days.

Relieved that she’d have good news to tell Rowdy when she got back, she stopped off at the shopping centre to buy a celebratory bottle of wine and some fresh salmon. She was on her way back to her car when she heard her name called. Turning, she saw Marianne waving. The girl, her pregnant belly protruding even more noticeably, came over.

‘Hi, Ms Gillespie. I didn’t realise you were still here. I thought you would have gone back to America by now.’

Blaze smiled. ‘I’m on a break; just chilling for a while.’ She glanced at the girl’s belly. ‘How’s everything going?’

Marianne rolled her eyes, but she seemed more upbeat. ‘Mum’s as bad as ever, but I met some people who live in a squat in Brisbane. They’ve said I can go there and stay with them.’

‘In a squat?’ Blaze stared at her.

‘Yeah, it’s not great with the baby on the way, but what can I do? I’m not staying around to inflict my mum on the kid.’

‘What about friends, other family members?’

‘Yeah right. Like they want Mum camped on their doorstep, blasting them about giving sanctuary to
a fallen girl
, as she puts it.’ Marianne arched her back and rubbed her hands over her bump. ‘No one likes her but they know what they’re in for if they cross her. Even Dad just sits there and agrees with her for the sake of a quiet life.’

After they’d parted and Blaze had navigated her way back to the road home, she pondered Marianne’s predicament. She knew what it was like to be a teenager, wanting freedom and yet being stifled by parents whose priorities were not yours.

Still, the squat sounded as if she’d be jumping out of the frying pan and into the fire. Blaze wondered if it even had running water or power. It wasn’t her problem, but she’d been Marianne once – without the belly, true – and the girl’s situation struck a chord.

Back at Sweet Springs, Rowdy was packing up for the day. She hid the bottle of wine for later and persuaded him to stay for an early salmon dinner. Over the meal, she told him about Marianne and her mother.

‘I’m just worried she’s going to find herself in a worse mess if she goes off to Brisbane. She doesn’t even really know these people.’

‘Sounds like someone needs to knock their heads together,’ Rowdy said.

‘I want to find somewhere local for her to stay, where she’s safe but doesn’t have her mother in her face.’ Blaze chewed thoughtfully and looked at Rowdy. ‘Can you think of anywhere?’

He shrugged. ‘Bound to be a boarding house or a shelter somewhere round about.’

‘But somewhere where she won’t fall in with the wrong crowd. Can you ask around?’

‘All right. I suppose if she was really desperate she could have the studio out the back of my place for a while, till something better comes along.’

‘What studio?’ Blaze asked. She was curious. Apart from that one peek inside Rowdy’s place the first day she’d met him, she had no idea how he lived.

‘People we bought the house from had a granny flat out there. It’s got a combined bedroom and living room with a little kitchenette off it, and a toilet and shower. When,’ he cleared his throat, ‘Helen was still alive, we sometimes had people renting it to help us with the mortgage. Haven’t been back there in a while. It would need a clean-out, I guess.’

‘Hmm, well, it’s a thought,’ Blaze said, although not a particularly good one in her opinion. She couldn’t imagine it being an attractive prospect to a teenager like Marianne, and Lord knew what the locals, let alone the girl’s mother, would think when they discovered she’d all but moved in with a middle-aged alcoholic.

Maybe some nice, relaxed family had a granny flat out back. She’d ask Stella next time she went into town, hopefully before Marianne decided to do a runner.

A finger stroked lovingly down the wicked blade of a sharpened chopping knife, before it was replaced in the block beside all the other knives. Knife-work really did have appeal. It was so personal, so up-close and intimate.

But it was too soon after that Hollywood queer for the blade. Over-indulgence tended to lessen the enjoyment, and there was satisfaction in rising to the challenge of a new instrument of killing. Plus, it would confuse the hell out of the fuckwits that comprised the local police force.

The plods were still trying to pin the attack on Black’s housekeeper on some hayseed he’d sacked weeks ago, except they couldn’t make it fly because the guy had been in jail at the time. It was too funny. The cops were a joke; couldn’t find a pot to piss in unless someone gave them directions to the lav. And while they were following the scent way off course, the next phase would be taking shape right under their noses.

Next time required something different in the way of method. It would take some thought, as would the target. Not the slut herself, not yet. But someone close enough to send a strong message, like her lover.

Stupid sucker deserved to die, although a hulk of a man like that might be difficult to bring down in close combat unless it was an ambush of some sort. As well, he hadn’t seen her in days so it was probably already all over. Either he’d found out the hard way that Blaze Gillespie didn’t keep men around for long, or he’d had the good sense to call it quits while he was ahead. Maybe there was a better option. Now, who would Blaze Gillespie most mourn?

Whoever the target was, it would have to be soon to stop the torment of the worms that crawled without mercy just beneath the skin. Already, the urge to scratch was unstoppable. The unbearable itching always started in the forearms first before spreading.

Eventually, it would become agonising and the only thing that could appease the worms was death.

‘Rowdy? Rowdy!’

He didn’t answer, and when Blaze swivelled the study chair to peer out the window, his truck was gone. Glancing at the clock, she saw it was nearly five. He’d probably left at his usual time, around four thirty, and had called out but she’d been so engrossed in the paperwork she hadn’t heard a thing.

‘Damn it! Where are you?’ She flicked through the pile of invoices, estimates and statements of account, trying to find the plans for the upstairs extension. She knew she’d had them when she went to meet with the council. Blaze just prayed she hadn’t left the paperwork there. The architect had already sent her one set of copies after the originals had gone missing, and now the copies had vanished, too – unless Rowdy had them, but if he had, he hadn’t said anything.

All right, she’d lost them. She admitted it. She was starting to wonder if she was sleep-walking at night and moving things around. Usually, they turned up in a different file or pile, but she’d looked everywhere for the plans and, damn it, now she was going to look like a real idiot. It was particularly disheartening after she’d spent a full morning just last week organising her study yet again.

Exasperated, she stomped into the kitchen, grabbed a soft drink and headed outside. The unrelenting heat was fraying everyone’s tempers, including hers. Yesterday, she’d yelled at Rowdy when he’d accidentally knocked a hole in the floor, shouted at Paddy when he brought a dead mouse inside and would have kicked the cat if she’d had one.

‘Buggery bollocks!’ She parroted Rowdy’s favourite curse and kicked the rocker for good measure.

‘Bad hair day?’ quipped a lazily amused voice from behind her, and she whirled to find Macauley Black astride his big grey horse, raising a lazy dark eyebrow at her.

His mouth was quirked in a half-smile, while his powerful body controlled the big horse with ease. Blaze stared at him with a dry mouth, her eyes running helplessly over the powerful shoulders that stretched the blue cotton shirt he wore.

It struck her suddenly that he was the cause of all her ills. He was the one who gave her sleepless nights, who fried her mind so she couldn’t remember her own name, who left her temper so ragged she was like a volcano ready to explode. All because he wasn’t giving her any sex, which she shouldn’t want anyway because she was off men.

‘What did you say?’ She put her hands on her hips and advanced towards him, fire in her eyes and desire in her belly.

The look he gave her was just as hot. He indicated her wild hair, coming loose from its top-knot, the T-shirt exposing one shoulder. ‘Every photo I’ve seen of you, you seem polished to perfection, but in reality —’

‘What? What? I’m a mess?’

He held up both hands. ‘Whoa. I didn’t say that. You just look like a . . . what’s the word . . . virago?’

‘You’re calling me a shrew?’

‘Maybe it wasn’t quite the right word. I meant fired up, messed up and very sexy.’

His words took the wind right out of her sails. She just didn’t have the energy for sustained bouts of fury these days, especially when she felt anything but sexy. She scuffed her boot in the dirt. ‘I can’t find anything,’ she mumbled lamely. ‘I was rude to Rowdy and I yelled at the dog.’

‘I’m sure they’ll both hate you forever.’ A full-blown smile broke across his face.

‘Yeah, well.’

‘Going to invite me in?’ he asked over his shoulder as he swung easily off the horse and tied it to the veranda post, before coming up the steps to stand in front of her.

‘Don’t see why I should.’ As a line of defence it was dismal, but what else did you expect when he was standing there looking and smelling good enough to eat.

‘Anyway, where is that vicious dog of yours? I don’t want to get on his wrong side.’

‘He left when I told him off for chewing the rug in the living room,’ Blaze led the way into the house. ‘He’ll be back for supper, probably. And if you give me any trouble, he’ll rip your throat out.’

‘Will he?’ Mac’s hand came up to tilt her chin so she couldn’t help staring into those dark, compelling eyes. ‘What would you say if I told you it might be worth it?’

Not giving her time to answer, even if she could have, he bent his head to hers and took her mouth in a long, drugging kiss of lips and tongues and sighs and wet seeking. There was no urgency, although when he lifted and pressed her to him, Blaze could feel the thrust of his erection against her. His mouth was all slow and thorough, making her tremble and shiver.

When at long last he put a millimetre or two between them, Blaze actually, embarrassingly, moaned. But his lungs were pumping like bellows so that kind of made them even.

‘I’m not having sex,’ she told him when she could speak. ‘Men are the enemy.’

He nodded agreeably. ‘Your commitment to celibacy is completely obvious from your body language.’

‘Shut up,’ she muttered and wished for a little willpower. He might find her lack of self-control amusing, but she certainly didn’t.

‘Maybe we could start again with “Hi” and go from there,’ he suggested.

She pouted but only a little. ‘Hi.’

‘Hi. Invite me in for dinner,’ he murmured.

‘Why would I make time for an obnoxious, overbearing man who sleeps with me, insults me and then doesn’t even call to apologise?’ It was a good question and one she wished she had a better answer to than pheromones!

‘I thought I’d let things calm down and then try the personal touch.’

Blaze sized him up. ‘If I invite you in, it’s just for dinner and I’m not on the menu.’

‘Can you really cook?’ He followed her down the hall to the kitchen, which wasn’t yet affected by the renovations.

‘You’d be surprised.’ She checked on the lamb roasting in the oven. Her intention had been a warm lamb salad, but she figured Mac would need some extra bulk so she cleaned two potatoes and stuck them in a pot of boiling water.

He looked around with interest. ‘You obviously haven’t been working Rowdy too hard. This place looks exactly as it did the last time I saw it, except with electricity.’

Blaze gave him a tart look. ‘We started in the attic. Rowdy’s been ripping everything out. Just got plans approved to extend it to include a bathroom and a balcony. I might show you later if you behave.’

‘So you’re remodelling the scene of our crime. Interesting.’ He moved aside a curl of hair that had fallen against the back of her neck and pressed a lingering kiss there.