Best Kept Secrets (20 page)

At first she was so stunned she didn't move. When she realized what was happening, she placed both her fists firmly against his chest. She tried to turn her head aside, but he trapped her jaw in one hand and held it still. His lips expertly rubbed hers apart, then he thrust his tongue between them.

He kissed her thoroughly, sweeping her mouth with his tongue and making stabbing motions toward the back of her throat. His lips were chapped. She felt their roughness against hers as well as the thrilling contrast of their sleek lining.

She might have uttered a small whimper of surprise and need. Her body might have become pliant enough to conform to his. He might have made a low, hungry, growling sound deep in his throat. Then again, she might have imagined it all.

But she didn't imagine the feathering sensation between her thighs, or the tingling in her breasts, or the heat spreading through her middle like melting butter. She didn't mistake the rare and wonderful taste of his mouth, or the scent of wind and sunlight that clung to his hair and clothing.

He raised his head and looked into her dazed eyes. His own mirrored her bewilderment. But the smile that lifted one corner of his mouth was sardonic. "Just so you don't feel cheated," he murmured.

He pecked a series of soft, quick kisses across her damp lips, then ran his tongue over them lightly and teasingly. He probed the corner of her lips with the tip of his tongue, and the suggestive caress caused a ribbon of sensation in her belly to slowly uncurl.

Then he sealed his open mouth upon hers again. His tongue sank into it, as invasive as her response was involuntary. He stroked her mouth with deeply satisfying leisure while his hands moved over her back, then up her sides to her breasts.

He rubbed them softly with the heels of his hands, creating a hunger inside her for him to touch their crests.

Instead, he slid his hands down to her bottom, cupped it, and tilted her hips forward against his. He matched the motions of his tongue with his hips, an ebb and flow that whetted her appetite for fulfillment and eroded her resistance.

Before she could submit to the delicious weakness stealing through her, he abruptly released her. His face still close, he whispered, "Curious to know what I usually do next?"

Alex stepped back, mortified over how close she had come to total capitulation. She wiped his kiss off her lips with the back of her hand. He merely smirked. "No, I didn't think so."

He put on his sunglasses and hat, giving the brim a tug that pulled it low over his eyes. "From now on, Counselor, I suggest you save your cross-examination for the courtroom.

It's much safer."

The Derrick Lounge was far worse than the Last Chance.

Alex approached it from the south, so when she rounded the corner of the building and saw a battered, rusty, red pickup parked there, she breathed a sigh of relief. She'd already made up her mind that if the eyewitness wasn't there, she wasn't going to hang around waiting on him.

When she had left the Westerner Motel, she'd made certain she wasn't followed. She felt ridiculous playing such cat-and-mouse games, but she was willing to go to any lengths to speak to this man who claimed to be an eyewitness to her mother's murder. If this meeting produced nothing but a telephone prankster looking for new thrills, it would be the crowning touch to a perfectly horrible day.

The longest horseback ride in history had been the one she'd made with Reede back to the practice track where she'd left her car. "Have a nice day," he had called mockingly after she slid from the saddle.

"Go to hell," had been her angry response. As he wheeled his horse around, she could hear him chuckling.

"Arrogant bastard," she whispered to herself now as she got out of her car and moved toward the pickup. She could see the driver sitting behind the steering wheel, and although she was glad he had shown up, she wondered how she would feel if he cited Reede as the man who had killed her mother.

It was a disquieting possibility.

She went around the hood of the truck, her shoes crunching noisily in the loose gravel. The Derrick Lounge hadn't spent any money on outdoor lighting, so it was dark at the side of the building. No other vehicles were parked nearby.

Alex entertained a moment's trepidation as she reached for the door handle. Forcibly quelling her uneasiness, she slid inside and pulled the door closed behind her.

Her eyewitness was an ugly little man. He had stark, Indian-like cheekbones with pockmarked craters scooped out

beneath them. He was unkempt, and smelled like he didn't shower frequently. He was scrawny and wrinkled and grizzled.

He was also dead.

Seventeen

When it registered why he just sat there staring at her with a vacuous, unfocused, and somewhat surprised expression, Alex tried to scream, but nothing came out. Her mouth had turned to cotton. Reaching behind her, she tried to open the pickup door. It stubbornly resisted.

After frantically tugging on the handle, she gave it her shoulder. It swung open so suddenly that she almost fell out.

In her scrambling haste to put distance between her and the bloody corpse, the toe of her shoe got caught in the gravel.

She stumbled and fell, landing hard on the heels of her hands and scraping her knees.

She cried out in pain and fear and tried to stand. Plunging headlong into the darkness, she was suddenly blinded by a pair of headlights and petrified by the blasting of a horn.

Reflexively, she raised her hand to shield her eyes. Against the backdrop of brilliant light, she made out the outline of a man approaching her. Before she could run or utter a peep, he said, "You get around, don't you?"

"Reede!" she cried in a mix of relief and terror.

"What the hell are you doing here?"

He didn't sound at all sympathetic. That enraged her. "I could ask you the same question. That man," she said, pointing a shaky finger toward the pickup, "is dead."

"Yeah, I know."

"You know?"

"His name is, uh, was Pasty Hickam. He's a ranch hand who used to work for Angus." He peered through the bug-splattered windshield and shook his head. "Jesus, what a mess."

"Is that all you can say?"

He turned on her. "No, I could say that the only reason I'm not taking you in on suspicion of murder is because whoever phoned in the tip that Pasty was sitting in his pickup with his throat cut didn't mention that there was a broad with him."

"Somebody tipped you?"

"That's right. Any idea who?"

"I guess whoever knew I was coming here to meet him,"

she shouted. Then, when another thought struck her, she became still and quiet.' 'How'd you get here so fast, Reede?''

"You think I headed him off and put a knife to his throat?"

he asked with an incredulous laugh.

"It's possible."

Holding her stare, he called for one of his deputies. Alex hadn't realized until then that there was someone with him.

She became aware of a couple of things at once--the wail of an approaching siren, the appearance of curious customers, who were rushing out the door of the bar to see what the commotion was about.

"Escort her back to her motel," Reede curtly instructed the deputy. "See that she gets inside her room."

"Yes, sir."

"Keep an eye on her till daylight. Make sure she doesn't go anywhere."

Alex and the sheriff exchanged a hostile stare before she allowed the deputy to lead her back to her car.

'' Sheriff?'' The deputy tapped hesitantly on the door before daring to open it. The word around the office that morning was that Reede was in a bitch of a mood, and only partially because of Pasty Hickam's death the night before. Everybody was walking on eggshells.

"What is it?"

"I've got some papers for you to sign."

"Give them here." Reede eased up from his half-reclining position in the swivel chair and reached for the stack of official documents and letters. He scrawled his signature where it was called for.

"How's Ruby Faye this morning?"

Pasty's lover had been found in her mobile home when the sheriff arrived there to question her, beaten to a pulp. Before passing out, she named her cuckolded husband as the culprit.

"Lyle did almost as good a number on her as he did on Pasty. She's gonna have to stay in the hospital a week or so.

The kids have been packed off to her mama's house."

Reede's expression turned even surlier. He had no tolerance for men who physically abused women, no matter what the provocation. He had been on the receiving end of too many beatings from his old man to stomach domestic violence.

He passed the paperwork back to the clerk. "Any feedback on that APR?"

"No, sir. I'll let you know. And you told me to remind you that you're scheduled to testify in Judge Wallace's court this afternoon."

"Shit, I would've forgotten. Okay, thanks." The deputy gratefully withdrew, but Reede had mentally dismissed him from his mind even before the door clicked shut.

He couldn't hold a thought for longer than a few seconds this morning. The image of Alex left little room for any others.

Swearing liberally, he left his chair and moved to the window.

Outside, it was another sunny day. He was reminded of yesterday, when he'd pulled her up on that horse with him and the sunlight had turned her hair a deep, mahogany red.

That's what he must have been thinking about when he'd started shooting off his mouth about that stupid football trophy.

Why, for crissake, had he kept it all this time? Every time he looked at it his emotions were split right down the middle, the way they'd been the night he had received it. His elation

had been dampened because Junior hadn't been named most valuable player. Crazy as the notion was, he had wanted to apologize to Angus and Junior for winning the award. He'd deserved it because he was the better athlete, but winning over Junior had tainted the prize.

Alex had figured all that out by herself. She was smart, all right. But she wasn't as tough as she pretended to be.

She'd had the daylights scared out of her last night, and justifiably so. Pasty had never been a pretty sight, but dead, with blood congealing on his down jacket, he was even uglier.

Maybe it had been good for her to see that. Maybe she wouldn't be so eager to uncover secrets that were none of her concern. Maybe Pasty's grisly murder would scare her out of investigating Celina's. Maybe she'd leave Purcell and never come back.

That possibility should have cheered him. It didn't. It made him angrier with her and with himself.

Kissing her yesterday had been a dumb move. He had let her provoke him. He'd lost his temper. He hadn't been in control of himself. The excuse relieved his conscience, just enough for him to live with what had happened. At the same time, however, it scared the hell out of him. Alex had pushed him over the edge of sound reason. Only one other person had ever been able to do that--Celina.

How had the clever little witch tricked him into mentioning that kiss, he wondered. He hadn't thought about it in years, but all of a sudden, it had been vivid in his mind.

It had been a hot September day, he remembered, when he had gone to check on Celina after she had failed to report to school. The old window air-conditioning unit had labored to cool the stifling little house without much success. The air was hot and humid, instead of hot and dry.

Celina wasn't acting like herself. She had let him in, but had acted subdued, as though this first rite of passage into womanhood had robbed her of girlish animation. Her eyes had been puffy from crying. He had been scared that something was terribly wrong.

When she had told him about her period, he'd been so relieved he had wanted to laugh. He hadn't, though. Her bleak expression had quashed any levity. He had put his arms around her, held her tenderly, stroked her hair, and reassured her that it was something wonderful, not shameful. Seeking comfort, she had wrapped her arms around his waist and nuzzled her face against his collarbone.

For a long time, they had just clung to each other, as they had so many times in the past when it seemed that the two of them were at odds with the rest of the world. But he felt a need to solemnize this occasion, to officially mark her departure from childhood.

He had kissed her cheek first. Tears had left it damp and salty. He kissed his way down. She caught her breath suddenly, and held it, until he pressed his lips firmly upon hers.

It was a fervent but chaste kiss.

He had kissed other girls using his tongue. The Gail sisters were already adept at French kissing, and had been eager to share their expertise with him. At least once a week he met the three of them in the abandoned VFW hall and took turns kissing them, feeling their breasts, and slipping his hand into the elastic legs of their cotton panties to touch the hair between their thighs. They quarreled over which one got to undo his pants and fondle him first.

Those sweaty, sordid interludes made life with his father bearable. They were also the only secret he kept from Celina.

What he did with the Gail sisters would probably embarrass her if she knew. It might also make her mad. Either way, it was better that she didn't know about the condemned VFW

hall and what he did there.

But when he felt Celina's mouth beneath his, and heard that little catch in her throat, he had wanted to kiss her the correct way--the good and exciting and forbidden way. Unable to resist the temptation, his body had overruled his mind.

He'd barely touched the seam of her lips with the tip of his tongue before he felt them separate. Heart pounding, blood boiling, he drew her closer and pushed his tongue into her mouth. When she didn't recoil, he moved it around. She clutched his waist. Her small, pointed breasts burned like brands against his chest.

God, he had thought he was going to die of pleasure. It was immense. The experience rocked the foundations of his adolescent soul. His body had vibrated with volcanic energy.

He had wanted to go on kissing Celina Graham forever. But when his penis became so engorged it pressed against her middle, he pushed her away and began babbling apologies.