Tangled Thing Called Love (25 page)

“Maguire …” The woman looked up at her. “Are you their aunt Mazie?”

Mazie’s heart leaped into her throat. Nodding, she braced herself for bad news.

“The boys’ dad took them home an hour ago. Someone was supposed to give you the message, but there must have been a mix-up. Sorry about that.”

“That’s okay. Thanks.” Giddy with relief, Mazie stopped in the nearest women’s room and set to work scrubbing off dirt, untangling her hair, and slapping on makeup, because at the moment she looked a lot scarier than any werewolf.

When she’d achieved a semihuman appearance, she headed back out, stopping at a row of vending machines to buy two cups of orange juice. Ben could probably use the sugar. Walking back, she got lost in the maze of corridors and found herself near the hospital’s rear entrance just as an ambulance glided in.

It didn’t have its lights or sirens on. The police car that quietly pulled up behind it was a Quail Hollow police car. Johnny Hoolihan got out of the car and stood watching as the ambulance attendants came around, opened the back doors, and slid out a gurney. A black body bag was on the gurney. The attendants wheeled it in, moving right past Mazie. She was willing to bet it was heading for the morgue.

Johnny came in a minute later. He didn’t see Mazie until she stepped out in front of him.

“Hey, Chief.”

He looked up startled, then smiled. “Mazie—hey, are you okay? You were in the middle of that fracas in the swamp.”

“You know about it?”

“Every cop in the state knows about it. I’m working with the county guys on this, what with the body turning up on my turf.”

“
Whose
body?”

He put on his cop look. “I’m not free to disclose that just now.” He was a degree cooler than he’d been yesterday, maybe because he was in uniform tonight: light tan shirt with official insignia on the shoulders, brown trousers that fit intriguingly snug in the butt, and a lightweight nylon jacket.

“I think I deserve to know,” Mazie said. “I almost got killed out in those woods tonight. I mean, look at me—I’m in tatters!”

Never mind her tatters—she wanted him to get a load of her ta-tas. One picture was
worth a thousand words; two boobs were worth a thousand gigabytes when it came to loosening a guy’s lips.

A couple of beats went by as Johnny struggled between his need to maintain professional discretion and his desire to impress her. She needed to tip the balance. She thrust an orange juice at him. “For you, Bon Jovi.”

The balance tipped. He took the juice, downed it all in a few thirsty gulps, and eyed her over the top of the cup.

“Needed that. Thanks.”

“You know how you can thank me,” she said, smiling sweetly.

“Okay—the guy in the body bag? His name is Derek Ralston.”

It took a second to sink in. “Dead?” she said.

“Real dead.”

“From burns?” This was horrible. If the boys found out that their potato gun had caused a guy to burn to death—

“No. From a gunshot in the side of the head.”

“A gunshot—he committed suicide?”

“Oh, hell, Mazie. There’s a whole lot we don’t know yet—I’m just waiting here for the medical examiner. But no, he didn’t just off himself. Someone shot him.”

“Who?”

“We don’t know yet.”

“I’m not a suspect, am I?”

“Not as far as I know.” He smiled, leaned over, and picked a sticktight burr off the back of her dress. “But anytime you want me to interrogate you,” he said, lowering his voice, “just let me know.”

Mazie inhaled sharply.

Johnny moved closer. He ran his thumb across a thorn gash on her upper arm.

“Have you had that looked at?”

“Just a scratch.”

“Somebody ought to be taking care of you.” He was so close to her she could smell the leather of his gun holster and the orange juice scent on his breath. He set his hand very lightly on the side of her face. “Maybe
I
ought to.”

He bent his head and brushed his lips against hers.

For a closed-mouth kiss, it was amazingly erotic. She kissed him back, putting a lot into it, and—oh my—a trip to the moon on gossamer wings! This guy knew how to kiss.

She broke away, because she was, after all, Ben Labeck’s
sweetheart
, and shouldn’t be going around smooching other men no matter what amazing kissers they were.

Reluctantly Johnny released her. He gazed directly into her eyes. “That,” he said softly, “was the best thing that’s happened to me in a month.”

Chapter Twenty-nine

“Ouch!” Ben said. “You’re pulling my hair off.”

“You think this is bad?” Mazie scoffed. “Try having a bikini wax.”

It was midnight, they were in the farmhouse kitchen, and Mazie was trying her mother’s nettles remedy on Ben. The first step was removing the nearly invisible embedded nettle spines by pressing strips of duct tape over the rash-ridden areas of skin.

“Try not to scratch,” Mazie advised when she was satisfied that all the affected areas had been de-nettled.

“You shouldn’t have said that,” Ben complained. “Now all I can think about is scratching.”

He was sitting in a chair at the kitchen table, a gauze bandage taped to his head and welts like spiraling nebulae on his arms and neck. He was bare-chested, and Mazie was enjoying the sight. Moving behind him, out of reach of those hands that could instantly turn her into girl-putty, Mazie dipped her fingers into the paste of baking soda and lemon juice she’d been letting sit for a few minutes, then began dabbing the citrusy-smelling stuff to the back of Ben’s neck. She loved the way his thick, dark hair tapered at the nape into tiny, comma-shaped hairs. It was endearingly little-boyish and it gave her the urge to kiss his neck. But this was definitely a full-grown man she was dealing with, and she had to be careful not to get anything started, because Ben Labeck might have an abscess on his brain ready to burst like an overstretched water balloon and she had to be the adult here.

Crap
.

“Feels better already,” Ben said, sighing as the baking soda worked its magic.

Tilting his head back, he reached out, wrapped both hands around Mazie’s face, and gently pulled her downward. Their lips met in an upside-down kiss. Sweet. And amazingly erotic. He was just as good an upside-down kisser as a right-side-up kisser, and he made her legs go all wobbly. She nearly dropped the bowl of glop.

They broke apart, smiling. Mazie had to take a deep breath before she could go on, moving from Ben’s neck to his shoulders. Oh, those lovely shoulders, the skin warm,
supple, and springy with muscle beneath her hands—the trapeziuses, the deltoids, the scapulas, all firm and well developed—and she discovered that she was spreading baking soda where there wasn’t even any rash, just for the sensuous pleasure of feeling his flesh.

“Mmmm,” Ben moaned. “That feels fabulous. I think I got some nettles in my groin area. Yeah, I’m pretty sure my groin is nettled, Mazie, could you—”

“I think a bag of ice cubes would do the trick.”

He laughed. It was her favorite sound in the world: deep, rumbling, and sexy as hell. She attempted to slather the paste along his biceps, but it was nearly impossible because he kept showing off, flexing his biceps and making big muscles. Finally she smacked his arm with the wooden spoon. “Behave, you.”

Ben dabbed a finger in the baking soda mixture and tasted it. “Is this stuff edible? Because I’m hungry enough to eat it.”

The word
hungry
elicited a Pavlovian response from both of them. Ben’s stomach growled with a deep, subterranean sound like a subway train and Mazie’s oinked and gurgled in sympathy. Neither of them had eaten since lunch. How long ago had that been? She was too tired to calculate.

Grubbing through the fridge, Mazie found the pan of lasagna Gran had made for supper, along with garlic breadsticks and a relish tray. It took only a few minutes to heat the lasagna in the microwave, then they fell on it like feral hogs rooting out acorns. Wine would have been a perfect accompaniment, but you didn’t leave spirits lying out in a household where Sam and Joey Maguire might put it to experimental use. They made do with a pitcher of fresh lemonade. It was a funny thing about food, Mazie mused, but it always seemed to taste best eaten outdoors or while leaning against the kitchen counter late at night.

Once her first pangs of hunger had been satisfied, Mazie brought up the subject she’d been dying to discuss. “Why was Derek Ralston out there in the swamp? Do you think he was following us?”

Ben shook his head. “I think he was already waiting in the woods when I showed up, biding his time until I was off guard, focusing on a shot.”

“He sneaked up and hit you with a rock, like the boys said?”

“Possibly. But I think it was a sap. The doctor said she found tiny bits of electrical
tape in my scalp—like what you’d wind around a homemade blackjack. And he seemed like the kind of guy who
would
carry a blackjack around.”

“If Duke—Derek—whatever he called himself—was there ahead of you,” Mazie said, “it means he planned the attack in advance. But he couldn’t have known we’d be videotaping tonight.”

“Did you tell anyone?”

“Well, Gran and Scully knew. And Holly.” She thought back to the talent competition earlier today. Who else had been around? Darlene, Channing, Sophie? “I guess some of the other beauty queens might have overheard me mention it.”

Ben poured himself another glass of lemonade. “I’d like to know
why
Ralston attacked us. Was it to stop us from working on the film?”

“You think this is about the documentary?”

“I think it’s about Fawn.”

Mazie nodded. “Fawn mentioned Derek in her diary.
Duke the Puke
.”

“Right. Didn’t she say he came on to her when she was working in the garage?”

“She said he hit on her. Maybe he held a grudge about it. Maybe he wanted to get back at her. The night of the pageant he might have seen his chance.”

Ben considered the possibility. “I saw the police investigation files. Duke was alibied to the eyeballs. A lot of witnesses saw him at a local bar the night Fawn disappeared. There’s a time gap between the end of the pageant—around eleven—and Duke leaving the bar, around one in the morning.”

Mazie brushed a clot of baking soda off Ben’s ear. “Still, he could have done something afterward.”

“I’m with you on that. Alibi or not, I think Ralston had something to do with Fawn’s disappearance. But not necessarily working on his own.”

Mazie frowned. “You think more than one person was involved in Fawn’s disappearance?”

“Look—it can’t just be coincidence that as soon as we start digging up stuff about Fawn, we’re both attacked, and nearly killed.” Ben picked up their plates and carried them to the sink. “Someone gets worried we’re going to find out what happened to Fawn and sics Ralston on us. But things go bad for Ralston during the attack—his meth explodes,
he’s burned, he’s out of his mind with pain. What does he do then?”

Mazie shrugged, too tired to think. She ran water into the lasagna pan to let it soak.

“He needs someone to drive him to the hospital,” Ben said. “He goes whining to—okay, this is hokey—but let’s call him Mr. Big. Mr. Big realizes that Duke is a big, dumb loose cannon who’ll blab if the police come around looking for a guy with meth burns.”

“That makes sense,” Mazie said. “So Mr. Big pretends to drive Duke to the hospital. Instead, he pulls over behind the grain elevator and kills him.”

“Right. All we have to do now is find out who our Mr. Big is.”

“Or
Ms
. Big,” Mazie said. “But we’re not doing it tonight. Bed, you.”

While Ben showered, Mazie went up to his room and put fresh sheets on his bed—they’d feel good on his nettle-rashed skin—then lugged a pillow and comforter over to the easy chair on the opposite side of the room.

Ben came up to his room all showered and shaved and baking soda–free, in clean boxers and T-shirt. He was smiling. “That paste stuff worked. The rash is practically gone.”

He wrapped an arm around Mazie, took her chin in his hands, and kissed her lightly. “Thanks for taking such good care of me.”

“You’re welcome. Now get in bed.”

“You have no idea how long I’ve waited for you to say that.” He eased himself into the bed, then looked over at Mazie as she settled into the chair. “Wait—what’s wrong with this picture? Why are you over there and I’m over here?”

“Because I’m monitoring you.”

“
Monitoring
. Hmm. Is that like canoodling?”

“You know very well what it means. I watch you to make sure you don’t have a seizure or start to drool.”

He patted the sheets. “You can monitor me closer here. Get a lot better view of my drool.”

“If I come over there, do you promise to go to sleep?”

He lowered his eyelids and gave her a come-hither smile. “Eventually.”

Mazie bit her lip. “The boys—”

“We’ll be very quiet.”

“And Gran—”

“She’s on the other side of your house, right?”

“Yes, but—”

Ben did that up-down-up thing with his eyebrows she loved.

“I can picture the headlines now,” Mazie said. “Ex-Convict Has Sex with Injured Man; Causes His Death.”

“So now you’re bragging? You think you’re so good you’re going to make my skull explode? Sweetie, you’ve got to back that up with action.”

“Go ahead, make jokes. You’ll be dead. I’ll be the one living with the guilt.”

Ben lifted the blanket and patted the sheet beside him. “Some things are worth dying for. Come here, baby.”

She did, her body mutinying against her brain. She stripped off the ragged remnants of her gown and dropped it to the floor as she walked toward Ben, until she was wearing nothing except bikini underpants.

Watching her, Ben thought this just
might
be Krakatoa for his creased skull, because his whole body was jolting into sensory overload at the sight of Mazie’s beautiful bare breasts, her nipples erect in the cool room, her waist tiny, her hips lusciously curved. She smelled of perfume and sweat, because she hadn’t had time to shower, and the scent of her own natural body was ten thousand times more aphrodisiacal than any perfume.