A Whisper in the Dark (18 page)

The shop was quiet and semidark, as Julia had expected. The only light came from the antique banker’s lamp on her desk. She could still smell the faint scent of coffee and the sweet aroma of hazelnut from the candles she’d burned earlier. She walked inside, her boots rapping dully against the wood plank floor. “See?” she said. “No monsters.”

“That’s good.”

She went immediately to the coffee station and reached for the teapot. “I’ll make us some tea.”

“Julia . . .”

“Can you hit the lights?”

“I’d rather keep the lights off if that’s all right with you.”

She tensed when his hand landed on her shoulder. Dread curled inside her when he turned her to face him and looked into her eyes. “How long are you going to try to avoid what’s happening between us?” he said earnestly.

“Skip. . .”

“I care for you, Julia. For God’s sake, I couldn’t take my eyes off of you all night.”

“You tell all the girls that.”

He laughed, but there was a tightness to it she’d never noticed before. “You know that’s not true.” Setting his hands on her shoulders, he backed her slowly to the desk. “Look at you. You’re beautiful.” His gaze skittered down the front of her. “I like the way you look in that dress.”

Julia had known this moment was inevitable. The moment when he wanted something she wasn’t prepared to give. She’d been dreading it. She only hoped her turning him away now didn’t affect their friendship.

“Skip, I know we’ve been—”

The next thing she knew his mouth was on hers. Stunned, Julia went back a few steps. She tried to turn her head, but he set his hands on either side of her face, holding her in place. All the while his mouth roamed hers, his tongue seeking entrance. Julia put her hands on his shoulders and pushed.

Only when he dropped one of his hands to cup her left breast did she succeed in turning her head. “Skip . . . cut it out.”

“You want this,” he panted.

“No.”

“I see it in your eyes.”

“This isn’t what I—”

He stuck his tongue in her mouth. She hadn’t realized she was being pushed slowly backward until her backside came in contact with her desk. A jolt of alarm went through her when he squeezed her right breast. Then his hand slid downward, over her pelvis to her mound, where he tried to cup her through her dress.

Shoving him hard with her right hand, Julia twisted away. “Stop it!”

Skip stumbled back, his expression a mosaic of confusion and hurt. “Julia . . .”

“I think she wants you to get the fuck off her, Slick.” John’s voice was little more than a low rumble.

Sweeping the hair from her eyes, Julia glanced toward the storage room. In the semidarkness, she saw John in silhouette. He was leaning against the bookshelf, a bottle in his right hand, watching them with the uneasy patience of a predator.

“I can handle this,” Julia heard herself say, surprised by the high breathlessness of her voice.

“Yeah, I can tell by the way he was grabbing at your crotch.”

“This is a private moment,” Skip said.

“That’s where you’re wrong, Slick.”

“You have no right to eavesdrop.”

“Good thing for her I’m an insomniac, isn’t it?” John raised the bottle and took a long pull. “Were you planning to paw her all night or were you going to take it a step farther?”

“That’s enough,” Julia snapped. “Both of you.” She turned to Skip. “Maybe you should go.”

“Maybe I should.” Staring at her as if she’d just told him she was converting to atheism, he wiped his mouth. “I’m sorry.”

“Sorry I showed up,” John asked from across the room, “or sorry you didn’t get that dress off her fast enough?”

Skip pointed a shaking finger at John. “Stay away from me,” he said and started toward the door.

Saying nothing, John took another long pull from the bottle.

The other man jerked open the door, then turned to give Julia a long look. “I’ll call you tomorrow,” he said.

“I’ll speak to you then,” she said.

Shaking his head, he slammed the door hard enough to rattle the pictures on the walls.

 
Julia wasn’t sure who she was angriest with, Skip for acting
like a jerk, John for intervening when she could have handled the situation herself, or herself for being so damn stupid as to get herself into the situation to begin with. Since John was the only one handy, she took it out on him.

“What the hell do you think you’re doing?” she demanded.

“In the old days they called it protecting your honor.”

“Skip is harmless.”

Something dark and unnerving glittered in his eyes. “Skip is a now my number one suspect. You would be wise to remember that next time you decide to let him put his hands all over you.”

“He didn’t. I mean, I didn’t—”

“That’s not what I saw.”

Realizing what she was doing, Julia blew out a breath and looked to the heavens. “I don’t have to explain any of this to you.”

“Good. Because I don’t want to hear the details.”

“There are no details.”

“Really?”

He had one of the most shuttered faces she’d ever encountered, making him almost impossible to read. He could go from cutting to mocking in a nanosecond, and Julia was having a difficult time keeping up.

She glanced down at the bottle in his hand, the anger she’d felt earlier transforming into something closer to sympathy. “John, what are you doing?”

“Drinking gin.” He offered the bottle. “Want some?”

“No, thank you.”

“Because of your religious convictions?”

“Because I don’t like it.”

“You don’t know what you’re missing.”

She looked into his eyes, trying to understand why he was torturing himself this way. But she came up short. “You must really hate yourself,” she said after a moment.

“You don’t know the half of it.”

Her surprise must have shown in her expression, because he smiled.

“Why do you hate yourself?” she asked.

“You mean besides the fact that I shot and killed a cop?”

“John, you were cleared . . .”

“Yeah, well, tell his wife and kids that.”

The harsh reality of what he was going through broke her heart. “Please don’t do this to yourself. Don’t blame yourself for what happened in Chicago.”

“I pulled the trigger. Why wouldn’t I blame myself?”

“Because it wasn’t your fault.”

“How the fuck would you know? You weren’t there.”

“You made a mistake.”

“A mistake is when someone backs into the garage door and dents the car. What I did was a hell of a lot worse than a mistake. I killed a man. A good man, Julia. I shot him in the chest and watched him bleed out on the floor.” He scrubbed a hand over his face. “Do you have any idea how many lives that devastated?”

“Don’t let it devastate yours.”

“Too late.”

“It’s not too late.”

“I left two kids without a father. A young woman without a husband. Two grieving parents.”

“You can’t let this ruin your life, John. You’re a good man, too.”

“Am I?

“Yes.”

He took another drink from the bottle and wiped his mouth with his sleeve. “If you had any idea the thoughts running through my head right now about you and that dress you’re wearing, you’d know exactly what kind of man I am, and it ain’t even close to good.”

Heart pounding wildly, she resisted the temptation to look down at the dress in question.

He gave her a lethal smile. “You’re refreshing as hell.”

The way he was looking at her unnerved her. Made her feel stripped bare, both inside and out. Without even touching her he’d made her heart beat faster, something Skip hadn’t been able to do even when his mouth had been pressed against hers. Julia knew it was crazy comparing the two men; they were nothing alike. Skip was predictable and safe. John was volatile and troubled and there was no way in hell she would ever get involved with him. But on some fundamental level, she knew he was the kind of man who could turn a spark into an explosion.

“Go to bed, Julia,” he said in a low voice that sounded more like a growl.

She stood there for a moment longer, knowing if she passed by him he would act on some of those thoughts running through his head. She held her ground.

After a moment he raised the bottle in a salute, walked into the storage room and closed the door behind him.

FIFTEEN

The roses arrived at ten A.M. Two dozen red Chrysler
Imperials surrounded by baby’s breath and salmon-colored tea roses in a lovely lead crystal vase. It was a beautiful arrangement, but Julia took little pleasure in it. Last night, she’d seen a side of Skip she didn’t like. A side she did not want to see again.

Her feelings for John Merrick, however, were a different story altogether. She’d gone to bed thinking of him. She’d wakened thinking of him. She’d dreamed about the scene that had transpired between them the night before. Only in her dreams he hadn’t turned away. He’d acted on the heat she’d seen in his eyes, and the outcome had left her heart pounding. She didn’t know what to do about it. Ignore her feelings and hope they went away? But she didn’t think they would.

She’d opened the shop at eight o’clock, the way she had every morning for the last two years. She went about her morning routine of making coffee and lighting candles. She spent fifteen minutes logging new books and entering the ISBN numbers into the database she had set up. But Julia’s thoughts were not on her work. No matter how hard she tried not to think about John, she invariably found her mind drifting back to him. The way he’d looked at her. The dark glint in his eyes. Words that had made her pulse race . . .

Closing her eyes, she put her face in her hands and sighed. “Do not go there,” she muttered and forced her concentration back to her work.

At ten thirty the bell jangled and Claudia arrived with a box of beignets from Café du Monde. A distraction Julia welcomed.

“How was the show?” Claudia carried the pastries to the coffee station and worked off her coat.

“Breathtaking.” Julia laid a linen napkin in an antique wire-mesh basket and began arranging the beignets inside.

“And your date with Skip?”

“Not so breathtaking.”

Claudia poured dark roast into a cobalt blue mug. “Details.”

Sighing, Julia relayed what had happened the night before, leaving out the part about John. “It was a bad scene.”

“I didn’t know Skip had it in him.”

“Believe me, he does.”

“I told you not to wear that dress.”

“Evidently, I should have listened.”

“So what are you going to do about Skip?”

Julia snagged a pastry from the basket. “I don’t know.”

“Do you like him?”

“I like him.” She bit into the pastry. “But that’s all.”

The door to the storage room swung open. Both women looked up to see John stagger out. He was wearing blue jeans, the top button undone and no shirt. Without so much as sparing them a glance, he stumbled to the back door, flung it open and stepped into the alley. Julia winced at the sound of him getting sick.

“Well, at least someone had a fun night,” Claudia said.

“I think he had a rough night,” Julia corrected.

Claudia’s questioning gaze met hers. But before Julia could explain, John staggered back into the shop. He disappeared into the storage room, then reappeared with a bundle of clothes.

“I need to use your shower,” he said.

It was the first time she’d seen him without a shirt and the sight of his chest rendered her momentarily speechless. He was broad shouldered and narrow in the hip. He was more sinew than bulk, but his muscle definition was like nothing she’d ever seen . . . up close and personal, anyway. His pectoral muscles were covered with a thin layer of black hair than ran down his flat abdomen to disappear in the waistband of low-rise jeans she really, really wished he’d buttoned.

“Of course.” Her own voice came to her as if from a great distance.

“Good morning,” Claudia said.

Giving her a withering look, he turned and started up the stairs.

For several seconds neither woman spoke. Then Claudia broke the silence with “Oh, my God.”

Julia looked at her sister. “What does that mean?”

“That means John Merrick is one breathtaking hunk of man flesh. No wonder you don’t like Skip.”

“Oh, good grief.”

“What can I say, Julia? I’m a chest woman.” Claudia shot her a mischievous grin. “Looks like I’m not the only one who noticed. Your face is red.”

“I’m embarrassed for him.”

“Liar. You’re hot for him. I see it in your eyes.”

“What you see is your concern.” She heard the pipes clang as he turned on the water, and she sighed. “He was in bad shape last night.”

“If the last two mornings are any indication, he’s been in bad shape for quite some time.” Claudia made a sound of dismay. “I never imagined a tough guy like John Merrick with a drinking problem.”

Julia didn’t want to imagine that, either, but she’d always been honest enough to call a spade a spade. “He blames himself for what happened in Chicago.” She relayed the conversation she and John had had the night before.

“He was officially cleared, though, wasn’t he?” Claudia asked.

“That doesn’t seem to matter to him. He seems bent on self-destruction.”

“How sad.” Claudia bit her lip and turned to her sister. “Julia, look, I sympathize with what he went through. But do you really think he’s capable of looking out for you? I mean, the guy’s obviously a mess.”

Absently, Julia fingered the fading bruises on her throat. As much as she didn’t want to admit it, she’d been uneasy since the incident in the alley. More than once last night at the theater, even with Skip watching over her, she’d found herself looking over her shoulder, jumping when someone got too close or when a man she didn’t know made eye contact with her, even just to smile.