No offense, p.19
No Offense, page 19
She’d started to get up to go to her stack of mystery juvenilia, but he reached out and grabbed her hand, then gently pulled her back down onto the couch. When she turned her head to look at him questioningly, she saw that his blue-eyed gaze seemed more intense than ever.
“How did you know I played baseball in high school?” he asked.
Her heart stuttered. Oops. “It’s a small town. People talk.”
“Do they? Or have you been asking around about me?” His lips were tantalizingly close to hers.
“No.” She absolutely had been. “Why would I do that?”
“Because you like me.”
“Well, I don’t dislike you. I certainly respect you in a professional capacity.”
“I respect you in a more-than-professional capacity.”
The next thing she knew, he was kissing her, his lips tasting sweetly tart, like the pie. Not just kissing her, either, but embarking on a thorough exploration of the inside of her mouth with his tongue while his hands slipped up beneath her nightshirt. Fortunately, she wasn’t wearing a bra.
She had no idea what she’d said to cause this kind of reaction from him—something about respecting him, and Nancy Drew.
But if mentioning Nancy Drew was all it took to get him to respond this way, she was going to talk about that crime-solving minx all of the time. As his lips dipped below her mouth and slid down her throat, those hard hands of his began doing things to her beneath the nightshirt that made her toes curl. Then he was pulling the too-large shirt up and over her head, exposing her breasts to his roving lips. When his hot mouth closed over one of her nipples, teasing it with his tongue, Molly couldn’t help burying both her hands in his thick dark hair and arching her body against his, even as she tilted her own head back in ecstasy and . . . heard a stack of books fall over behind her. Damn! The sound of the cascading hardcovers caused him to look up in surprise, but she only pushed his head back where it belonged and said, “Don’t worry about that.” She’d sort the books out tomorrow.
The only problem was that his erection wasn’t the only hard thing she could feel against her soft, bare curves.
“Um, excuse me.” She plucked at his shirt as one of the points of his sheriff’s badge dug into her. “Would you mind?”
“Sorry,” he rasped, and fumbled at the buttons of his uniform.
“Let me help,” she said, and soon he was gloriously shirtless above her. It was everything she’d been hoping for and more. And yet it was not nearly enough.
“And this.” She pointed impatiently at his belt, on which he still wore his gun.
“Oh, damn.” He drew off the belt to place it high on her stack of gothic romances, which promptly tumbled to the floor. His look of dismay was comical. “I’m sorry.”
“It’s okay,” Molly said, and sat up to work on undoing his fly, realizing they were never going to get to where she wanted them to be as quickly as she needed to get there if she did not take the initiative.
“No, I can—”
“I’ve got it.”
She did, too. What came spilling out when she successfully managed to undo his uniform trousers was everything Molly had been suspecting she’d find from that time she’d watched him play cornhole on the beach and had so admired his form, front and back. It was sheer perfection, and it was standing at full attention just for her.
“Oh, John,” she said, and sighed, as she wrapped herself around him, delighting in his heavy, masculine warmth.
“Molly,” he whispered into her hair. He sounded worried. “I don’t—I don’t have—I didn’t bring anything because I didn’t think we were going to—”
Molly leaned her head back to blink up at him. “Are you talking about condoms?”
“Yes.” He leaned up on his elbows, clearly frustrated. She could feel that frustration throbbing against her bare thigh. “I didn’t think I’d be having sex with you tonight. I only came to apologize and bring you a pie. I didn’t bring any . . . any . . .”
Molly laughed. She couldn’t help it. “Don’t worry. I’ve got some.” She leaned down and reached into her purse, which she’d thrown onto the floor along with her bra the moment she’d come home from work. From the depths of the bag she pulled something in a hot pink wrapper. “Leftover from my teens-only sex-ed talk last month.”
He sounded a little out of breath as she straddled him. “Are all librarians like you?”
“Oh, yes.” She ripped the wrapper open with her teeth, then skillfully unrolled the condom down the length of his penis, her breasts skimming the fine dark hair that coated his chest. “We try always to be prepared.”
“I think I—” His hands had gone to her hips, and almost as if he couldn’t help himself, he’d begun to push himself inside her—which was all right, because she was wetter than she could ever remember being. “I think I—”
But she never got to hear what he thought, because at that moment he entered her fully, and she cried out at the sheer physical joy of it.
But wasn’t that what made the best things in life so much more enjoyable, the sweet tinged with a little tart, so that your heartbeat sped up and all your senses came alive?
And, oh, he was moving beneath her, his hands slipping to cup her breasts, and she could hardly breathe. He felt so good, her skin seemed to be tingling all over, and stacks of books were collapsing all around them. Faster and faster, harder and harder, and this was a disaster, why hadn’t they moved to the bed, and oh! Books were tumbling around her, but they weren’t heavy at all. They felt like feathers, golden feathers, cascading around her body, and now all she wanted was for this feeling to never end, except all good things had to end sometime, and—
When she opened her eyes, she was lying collapsed on the sheriff’s damp chest. Both of them were breathing hard. And someone was banging on her door.
“Molly? Molly, is everything all right in there?”
“Oh, no.” Molly lifted her head. “It’s Mrs. Filmore,” she whispered. “She’s in the room downstairs. She must have heard the books fall.”
“I’ll handle her.” John started to get up.
“John, no—you don’t have to say a word to her.”
“I’m not going to say a word to her.” John was already reaching for his shirt. “I’m going to say a lot of words to her.”
“John.” Molly couldn’t help laughing at the absurdity of the situation. “Honestly, don’t.”
“As sheriff of this town, it’s my duty to keep the peace, even if that means shutting up noisy neighbors.”
“She’s not a noisy neighbor,” Molly insisted. “She’s a nosy tourist. She was supposed to check out this past weekend but she and her husband extended their stay because she’s so obsessed with the whole abandoned baby thing. She just wants to know what’s going on between us.”
As if on cue, Mrs. Filmore called through the door, “I heard something falling. Do you need help?”
“No, Mrs. Filmore,” Molly said, frantically looking around for her own shirt. “I’m sorry, that was just some books.”
“Are you sure?” Mrs. Filmore sounded unconvinced. “I thought I heard shouting.”
Meanwhile, John was tugging on his own shirt.
“No, no shouting, Mrs. Filmore,” Molly said, pulling her shirt on over her head, but John was faster. He already had his uniform trousers pulled up and zipped. “Everything’s fine in here. There’s nothing to worry about.”
“Well, I’m not worried, exactly.” Mrs. Filmore’s voice was filled with false concern. “It’s just that Fluffy the Cat has been crying to be let in, and you’re usually so—”
John yanked open the door and stood there, his uniform completely buttoned, everything in place except his gun belt, and smiled down at Mrs. Filmore. “Is there something I can help you with, ma’am?”
John’s body was mostly blocking the doorway—purposefully, so that Mrs. Filmore couldn’t see that Molly was only half-dressed.
But Molly could hear the astonishment in the woman’s voice, even if she couldn’t see it on her face.
“Oh, um, no, Officer,” said Mrs. Filmore breathlessly. “I’m—I’m so sorry to have disturbed you. I was only checking on Molly. I heard, um, a thump, you see, and I thought—”
“Sheriff,” John said.
“I—I’m sorry?”
“You called me Officer. But it’s Sheriff. I’m Sheriff John Hartwell.” He pointed to his badge. “See? I told you that before, downstairs.”
Molly, by that time, had her boxers back on. She hurried to join John at the door.
“I’m fine, Mrs. Filmore,” Molly gushed. “See? Everything is fine. We were just having some pie.”
Mrs. Filmore looked past Molly and the sheriff at the coffee table, which was covered with the empty plates from which they’d had pie earlier. Of course, the floor was also strewn with books, around which Fluffy the Cat was now sauntering. He’d managed to sneak in between their legs when they weren’t looking.
“Oh,” the older woman said. “Well. All right, then. I’m glad everything is okay. I’ll just—”
John’s cell phone began to chime, shrilly. He dug it from his trouser pocket, glanced at the screen, glowered, and said, “I have to answer this. If you ladies could excuse me for a moment—”
Then, his phone pressed to his ear, he stepped out of the room and into the darkness of the hotel’s second-floor balcony to take the call.
But not, unfortunately, far enough away to prevent Molly from hearing every word he said.
Chapter Twenty-Two
John
John recognized the number on the screen of his cell and felt a spurt of irritation. Of course Tabitha Brighton’s parents chose this moment, of all times, to call him back.
But he supposed it was better than calling him ten minutes earlier, when his time had been even more pleasantly occupied.
“Hello,” he said. “This is Sheriff John Hartwell.”
“Sheriff?” The voice of the woman on the other end of the line sounded surprised. Surprised and agitated. “I didn’t realize . . . oh, dear. Not again. I’m so sorry, Officer. What’s Tabby done this time?”
He did not correct her use of the wrong title. “Well, that depends. To whom am I speaking?”
“Oh, I’m sorry. I’m her mother, Beth, Beth Brighton. I’m sorry not to have called sooner, but my husband and I—Tabby’s father—we’ve been away, and cell phone service was a bit spotty, and . . . well, you know, we just receive so many complaints about Tabby—”
“What did she do now, Beth?” demanded a voice—male—in the background. “Whatever it is, I’m not paying for it.”
“Oh.” Beth Brighton sounded uncomfortable. “Sorry. That’s my husband, Tom. Like I was saying, Tabby’s been a bit . . . troublesome over the past few years, and we felt like we deserved to get away for a bit, so . . .”
“I see,” John said. “How long has it been since you last saw your daughter?”
“Oh, let me see. A year? I think it’s been a year or so since she ran off.”
“Ran off?”
“Yes. Well, for good this time. She’s done it before, but this time it’s seemed to stick. We had an argument about the SATs—her grades have never been the best, even though she’s a bright girl. Her IQ is at the genius level, according to one child psychiatrist we took her to. We’ve just never seemed to be able to make her understand that grades are important for getting into the right college. All her friends are going to lovely schools this year—Yale, Duke, Baylor. But last spring Tabby refused to sit for the SATs. She said they didn’t measure anything that’s actually important, only rote memorization, which isn’t real knowledge or intelligence—can you imagine?”
Remembering his own conversation with the Brightons’ daughter, John said, “Yes, I can.”
“Well, of course, we panicked. I mean, she’s our only child. What was her future going to look like if she didn’t go to college? How was she going to be financially successful?”
John wanted to point out that he knew quite a few successful people who hadn’t gone to college, and that there were many different ways to measure success other than financially, but instead he said nothing. He’d learned long ago that one of the most valuable tools in law enforcement was the skill of shutting up and listening.
“She’s always been this way, really—stubborn. Did you know she refused to get braces, too? Said she didn’t see why she had to conform to society’s standard of beauty.”
John wished that Katie had felt this way. It would have saved him thousands of dollars in orthodontia bills.
“But with the SATs, we really thought we got through to her,” Tabitha’s mother went on. “We took her to half a dozen life coaches and therapists, and thought she understood. And then the morning of the day of the test, I went to wake her up, and she was just . . . gone. She’d packed all the things she loved best—books, mostly—and disappeared. Without a word.”
“Except for my Platinum American Express card,” John heard Tom Brighton shout in the background. “I get the bill every month. I can see all the ridiculous things she’s been buying!”
“Oh,” Mrs. Brighton said. “Yes. The credit card. It’s in Tom’s name, but only his initial—T. Brighton. So we didn’t cancel it, because we thought it might help Tabby. She can still use it, even if someone asks for ID. The bills we get every month—and of course calls from people like you, in law enforcement—are the only way we know . . . that we know . . .” She sighed. “Well, that she’s all right.”
John said, “I see,” again. It was the only thing he could think to say. Truthfully, he was a little disappointed. Not about the credit card—although it had been missing from Tabitha’s wallet, so he presumed one of the Sunshine Kids had stolen it . . . most likely Beckwith.
No, he was disappointed that Tabitha’s relationship with her parents was so adversarial. That meant they were going to have no idea who the father of her baby was. Though Tabitha herself insisted it was Beckwith, and that Beckwith loved her and the baby, John was beginning to think this was doubtful. Why would Beckwith put his own offspring into a box and then leave her in a library restroom? He couldn’t imagine any father doing this. It was possible Tabitha was so crazy about the guy, she only wished the baby was his.
Then again, Beckwith was the worst. If anyone was going to abandon his own newborn, it would be him.
Why, though, had he abandoned the baby and its mother only to stick around town? In a decent boat, he could have crossed the Gulf and been in Mexico by now.
Not that any of it mattered. Regardless of whether or not the baby was his, John intended to spend the rest of his life making sure Beckwith paid for what he’d done.
“Where is she?” Mrs. Brighton had apparently put her husband on speaker phone, because John could now hear him barking very clearly into his ear, “Where is my daughter, and what has she done now? If you’ve got her locked up, you can tell her from me that I’m not bailing her out again. I’m sick of all her wacko views. All I want is a kid who’ll go to college and get a job and stop spending all my money on pizza and spray paint.”
“Well, Mr. Brighton,” John said in his calmest tone, “I don’t know about any of that. All I can tell you for sure is that your daughter is currently in the maternity ward in the hospital on Little Bridge Island, Florida.”
“Florida?” Mr. Brighton repeated with as much horror as if John had said Hell.
His wife was a little more on the ball. “Maternity ward? Is—is she all right, Officer?”
“My understanding is that she will be. Congratulations. You’re grandparents. Your daughter’s given birth to a healthy baby girl.”
“What?”
Both parents were stunned into silence. As he waited for them to catch their breath, John listened to the sound of the waterfall by the side of the pool splashing in the courtyard below, along with the rumble of jets in the hot tub and the loud croaking of the frogs that lived in the bushes behind it. He decided to take the opportunity while the Brightons were still too shaken up to think better of revealing such personal information to ask, “Would you happen to know who the father is?”
“The father?” Mrs. Brighton murmured vaguely. She was still in shock at the news that she, an attractive and relatively young woman in her early forties—John had looked her and her husband up, and seen that they were wealthy suburbanites—was a grandmother. “No. No, how would I know that? I didn’t even know she was pregnant. We haven’t heard from her in months.
“Oh, my little girl,” Mrs. Brighton cried. “I just can’t believe it. My baby—has a baby!”
“Where is my granddaughter?” Tabitha’s father demanded. “When can I see her? And my daughter?”
“Well, just as soon as you can board a plane and get down to Little Bridge Island,” John said, hoping that neither Tabitha Brighton nor Molly Montgomery would be too displeased with what he’d done. Obviously Tabitha had the right to keep her whereabouts and the birth of her daughter a secret from her parents, with whom she’d apparently been feuding for some time.
But she had nearly died. And so had her child. These were things John felt her parents had a right to know, too.
“Fine,” said Mr. Brighton. “We’ll be there tomorrow. . . . Wait, where is this Little Bridge, exactly?”
It took John some time to straighten out the logistics of travel to Little Bridge Island with the Brightons, since there were no direct flights, unless they chartered a private jet. This irked Mr. Brighton, but his wife seemed eager to take the trip to see her daughter and granddaughter, no matter how many hours it took or how inconvenient it seemed.
John considered this a good sign.
What was decidedly not a good sign was when he ended the call, put his phone away, and turned to see Molly Montgomery standing in the open doorway to her room, glaring at him with her arms folded across her chest.
“What?” he asked. It was hard to tell with the light streaming from behind her, but her body language indicated that she was mad. He had a feeling that he knew why, but surely after the extraordinary sex they’d just had, she couldn’t be that mad.
