Whispers at Midnight (46 page)

“You know, the Converses aren’t the only game in town,” Carly said. “I think we should go out. You and I. We can have dinner, and maybe go listen to some music somewhere or something, and not get back until really late. Unless you have plans for later?”

“Are you asking me out on a date?” The look he gave her was mildly horrified. He seemed to scrunch closer to his end of the couch.

Instead of being offended, Carly chuckled. “Don’t panic. Listen…”

In the end, dinner was easy. They went to The Corner Café, which was packed, since it was Saturday night. In the course of waiting for a
table and then settling into a small, dark alcove in the back (which Carly had to tell Mike he needed to specifically ask for) they talked to at least half the town. The general reaction at seeing them together was amazement, both of the wide-eyed variety and the more politely concealed kind. Carly got a few pointed
How’s the sheriff
’s? and
Where’s Matt
’s? Mike got more than a few reproving looks.

“You’re getting me in trouble here,” he muttered as she tucked her hand in his arm and waved at people right and left when they finally finished and exited through the ever-growing crowd. “By tomorrow morning this is going to be all over town.”

“That’s the
point,
remember.” Carly barely managed to keep from sounding exasperated. Mike was a nice guy, but as a thrilling date he lacked a major requirement—like thrill. If Erin wanted him, she could have him. “Okay, now what?”

“Hey, this was your idea.”

Masterful the man was not. Carly sighed.

“Okay, pretend I’m Erin,” she said. “If you really wanted to razzle-dazzle me, where would you take me?”

He looked dubious. “You’re going to get me fired, you know. Matt is going to be so pissed about this.”

“If you’re lucky, Erin will be too. From what I’ve seen, the two of them seem to think a lot alike.”

“They do, don’t they?” Mike said, brightening up a bit at the thought. “If you were Erin, I’d take you to Savannah.”

Now that had promise. Matt usually got home around midnight, and she’d heard Erin tell Dani that she would be home around then too, because she had to be at church early the next morning to go over something about her wedding music with the organist. The reflection that Erin would know how late he had kept Carly out seemed to clinch the matter for Mike. They drove to Savannah, went to a bar, listened to music—they didn’t dance, because neither of them felt the slightest inclination to dance with the other—and drove back to Benton. As far as dates went, it didn’t even rate. But in the end, it was almost two
A.M.
when Mike pulled back up Matt’s driveway, and that made it a success.

Matt’s cruiser was already there. Seeing it, and the faint glow through the curtains that meant somebody was in the living room, Carly smiled with anticipation.

She had no doubt at all who that somebody was.

“Matt’s gonna kill me,” Mike said, nervous again now that D-Day was at hand. He lagged behind Carly as she walked toward the door. In this case, letting her go first was not so much courtesy as cowardice, Carly thought.

“No, he isn’t. Matt and I aren’t even a couple, for God’s sake. And you and I had a good time, remember? Try to act like it,” Carly hissed, fishing in her purse for the key. She was wearing a short black knit skirt and a black tee shirt that ordinarily, if she’d had access to her full wardrobe, she never would have dreamed of pairing because, in her opinion, the solid black along with the clinginess of the knit made the outfit just a little tarty. However, for this occasion tartiness worked. Some black heels she had “borrowed” from Erin, who wore the same size she did, and a pair of Sandra’s dangly earrings completed the ensemble. She smoothed her skirt, adjusted her tee shirt to make sure no skin was showing, and took a deep breath. Then she inserted the key into the lock.

As she pushed the door open, a cacophony of sound filled the air. Before they had even had time to step inside, there was dead silence except for Annie, who rushed the door, her tail wagging madly, and the TV. Suddenly she and Mike were the cynosure of what felt like a hundred pairs of eyes. Carly crouched to pat and silence Annie even as she glanced around in surprise. She had expected to find Matt. She had not expected to find all three of his sisters, their boyfriends, and Sandra and Antonio as well, lounging on every available piece of furniture. From the various drinks and snacks sitting around, it was clear they’d been making quite a party of it. Matt was sitting in his recliner with a bottle of Heineken’s in his hand. He’d obviously been home for some time, because he’d changed out of his uniform into jeans and a tee shirt and a discarded and obviously read newspaper was on the floor beside him. He didn’t get to his feet, but, like everyone else, he looked at them. His face was carefully expressionless at
first, but as his gaze ran over her his mouth thinned. Then his eyes moved on to poor Mike, whom Carly could practically feel shrinking behind her.

“Hi, everyone,” she said with a little wave, thinking as she straightened that she sounded as brightly chipper as vintage Kathie Lee Gifford.

There was a chorus of answering
hi
’s.

“Have a good time?” Matt’s voice was deceptively casual. Deceptively
soft
and casual.

“Wonderful,” she said, and turned to smile with dazzling brilliance at Mike, who looked hunted.

“Wow, you look really hot.” Lissa looked Carly up and down in transparent surprise. Carly realized that it was the first time Lissa—or any of them, except Sandra and Matt years ago—had seen her in anything but the most casual of clothes.

“Where’d you go?” Dani asked. She sounded almost fascinated by this new turn of events.

“Savannah.” Mike found his voice at last. Casting a covert glance at Erin, Carly saw that she was looking ever so slightly annoyed. That, along with her silence, indicated that Mike’s feelings for her weren’t entirely unreciprocated, Carly thought. Of course, one had to subtract from that the fact that Collin was seated beside her holding her hand. “We danced.”

Liar, liar, pants on fire.
Carly barely managed not to betray any surprise. Mike had taken the bit between his teeth, clearly determined to go for it. Matt was lounging back in his chair now, his head resting against the rolled seat back, his lids at about half mast, his eyes agleam. Only the slight tightening of his hands on the chair arms revealed his true state of mind.

“Mike’s a really good dancer,” Carly said enthusiastically, with an eye toward helping his cause along as well as her own. Matt’s eyes narrowed at her, then slid to Mike’s face.

“You know, next time you pull protective custody duty, you might want to let me know before you take the subject out on a date. If I hadn’t heard through the grapevine what was going down with you
two, I might have been just a little worried when I got home and found the house empty and the subject nowhere around,” Matt said to Mike. His tone was perfectly pleasant with only the most barely perceptible of steely undertones.

“Sorry.” Mike shifted his feet nervously. “It just kind of happened.”

“I’m sure it did.”

“Gee, I guess I didn’t realize I was supposed to be under house arrest, too,” Carly said. Matt smiled at her.

“Uh, well, I think I’ll just be shoving off now,” Mike said.

“Yeah, it’s late.” That was Matt again.

Carly smiled brightly at Mike. “I’ll walk you out.”

“Don’t go any farther than the porch,” Matt called after her as she suited the action to the words. “Mike, you make sure she gets back in before you leave.”

“Will do,” Mike said, and went out the door with Carly right behind him.

“That went well,” Carly said with an impish smile when the door was closed behind them. Matt’s reminder that he didn’t consider it safe for her to be outside alone at night had made her a little nervous, and she stood closer to Mike than she otherwise might have done.

“For you, maybe. I’m going to be pulling grunt duty for the next six months,” Mike said. “That is, if I don’t get fired tomorrow. Matt was mad.”

“He was, wasn’t he?” Carly glanced around at the dark shadows crowding close to the porch. There was nothing there, she told herself firmly. No one there. This was the county sheriff’s house, for crying out loud, and it was practically bursting to the seams with people. “Erin didn’t like it, either.”

“She didn’t say a word, did you notice?” Mike sounded a little more cheerful.

The porch light came on. It was white and hazy and a definite hint. Carly had no doubt at all about who had flipped the switch. Not that she was willing to admit it to anyone except herself, but she was grateful for the light.

“Okay, I’m gone. You can go back in now.” Mike was regarding her warily. Carly suspected that he was afraid she was going to insist on a good-night kiss. Which wasn’t happening. He was a nice guy, she liked him, and he’d been a big help tonight, but he just wasn’t her type. And she wasn’t
that
mad at Matt.

When she went inside, secretly relieved to be out of the night, Matt was standing near the door talking to Antonio, who was standing too. The other men were in the process of getting to their feet, and Carly saw that the party was breaking up. She suspected that its sole, although probably unstated, purpose had been to wait for her and Mike, and witness Matt’s reaction to their return.

If you didn’t know him, it had been deceptively mild. But then, she did know him. Very well.

“Well, I’m going to say good night now,” she said to the room in general.

Various versions of good night, including a very dry one from Matt, answered her. Carly could feel his gaze on her back as she went up the stairs. However good a face he might be trying to put on it, he hadn’t liked her going out with Mike, that much was certain. Not one bit. At the thought of Matt being jealous, she felt a little thrill.

Could
he be in love with her? Her heart went into triple time at the thought.

One way or another, she was determined to find out.

The entire female population of the house followed her upstairs.

“The whole town’s talking about you going out with Mike,” Lissa whispered at the top of the stairs. “One of my friends came up and asked me if you and Matt had broken up.”

“It made for an interesting evening,” Dani said. “Especially after we got home.”

“So just how did you and Mike decide to go out?” Erin asked carefully.

“Ladies,” Matt called up the stairs. “If you’re going to gossip, do you think you could do it somewhere where I can’t overhear?”

Lissa giggled, Dani called down, “You shouldn’t listen,” and Erin just gave Carly a quick, slightly uncertain smile before they all went their separate ways to bed.

Sandra waited until she and Carly, plus Annie and Hugo, of course, were alone in the bedroom they shared before turning to her with a huge grin.

“Woo-ee, that woke him up, all right. He didn’t like that.”

“Was he really mad?” Carly slipped out of Erin’s shoes—she’d return them tomorrow—and grinned back at Sandra.

“The first time he called Antonio to see if he knew where you and Mike were, he was real worried. The next couple of times, he was hotter than a firecracker on the Fourth of July.” Sandra shook her head. “Mike must have turned his phone and his radio off”—Carly had practically had to twist his arm to get him to do it—“and Matt was
ticked
because he couldn’t get hold of either of you. He did some fancy cussing. By the time we got back to the house, people had been talking to him and he knew where you were—well, he knew you were somewhere on a date with Mike. Lissa and her boyfriend were here with him and he’d pretty much cooled down. Guess he didn’t want everybody thinking he was jealous.”

“Was he jealous, do you think?” Carly realized she sounded just a little wistful.

“Oh, yeah. No doubt about that. He didn’t want to make a fool of himself in front of the company, but I imagine you’ll be hearing more about that.”

“I hope so.” Carly slid the earrings out of her ears, and held them out to Sandra. “Thanks for these, by the way. How was your night?”

“Let’s just say that Antonio now appreciates me for something besides my cooking,” Sandra said with a naughty twinkle as she accepted the earrings and moved across the room to drop them back into the drawer from which Carly had taken them. The slight limp as she moved was now the only visible reminder of the injuries she had suffered.

“Oh, yeah? How was it?”

Sandra smiled a tantalizing smile.

“That good, huh?” Carly felt a twinge of jealousy as she headed for the bathroom.
Matt…

“Hey, wait a minute, if you’re planning on one of those hour-long soaks of yours, I need to get in there first,” Sandra said as Carly reached the door.

Carly sighed. What she needed, besides Matt, was her life back.

33

C
ARLY DIDN
’
T SEE
M
ATT
again until late the following afternoon. Dressed in a short, stretchy white piqué shift and flip-flops, she was sitting on the back stoop beside her escort of the day, Sammy Brooks, watching Annie making mad dashes after birds and butterflies and anything else that moved. It was Sunday—she’d finally surrendered to years of conditioning and gone to church, and was thankful just to have survived the gossip gauntlet afterward—and the house, as usual, was full of people. No, correction, it was even more full of people than usual. Sandra was cooking a sumptuous feast, and news of it had apparently gone out far and wide and drawn a crowd.