Nemesis (Southern Comfort) (5 page)

The day he’d killed his mother.

Pushing that particular snake pit of thought to the Outer Mongolia region of his brain, Declan eyed Sadie as he maneuvered a fresh keg into place.  She was perched daintily at one of the high tables across the room, tucked next to the fire – which brought the temperature in the bar to something approaching a blast furnace but which his father insisted on for “ambiance” – chatting away with Kathleen, drinking beer and doing her best to ignore him.

Little Miss Muffett enjoying her barley and hops and turning a cold shoulder to the spider.  Of course, he’d seen her periodically darting killing glances his way, and whenever he caught her at it he waved.

Declan tried not to wonder why such juvenile theatrics were
giving him the best time he’d had in ages, opting instead to just go with the flow of the evening and catch his jollies where he could.

Especially considering it was New Year’s Eve.

Snake pit.
 

He stopped himself from
falling into it just in time. After all, there were twenty-four hours in which to torture himself tomorrow. 

After hooking up the new keg, Declan grabbed a terry-cloth towel from behind the bar and began drying his hands.  The towel was
already soggy, because it had been that kind of night, so he chucked it and wiped his hands on his jeans.

His eyes drifted over toward Sadie.

That crack he’d made about her being not quite grown up wasn’t anywhere near accurate.  True, she was the size of your average middle schooler and the small breasts pushing against the soft cotton of her top weren’t what anyone could define as voluptuous. But there was no question she was a woman.  Her crossed legs pulled her jeans tight over cute little buns, and that mouth she’d been smarting off with looked like it belonged on a high-priced hooker.

That rich dude she’d walked out on must be hating life about now.  Declan should have known she’d be the one to do the jilting.  A temperamental, feisty woman like Sadie took a certain kind of man to handle her, and th
e banker obviously hadn’t been up to the task.  She probably walked all over him with her sparkly little shoes.  Lord knew she’d always stood up to Dec, and he’d tormented the hell out of her growing up. 

Yes, he’d learned right off the bat that those baby-doll looks belied a tiger – all sweet and cuddly until you turned your back and then
Bam!
– you had teeth marks on your ass.

Not that it wouldn’t be worth it.

He’d just have to sink in his teeth right back.

And hell, what was he doing, standing here entertaining prurient thoughts about Sadie Rose Mayhew?  Declan had few rules regarding who
m he spent time with between the sheets, provided they were attractive, legal, and not currently married, but one thing he did know was that going down that road with such a close family friend was pretty much asking for a fatal collision.  One of them definitely wouldn’t survive.

And since he didn’t do relationships, it was pretty clear who that would be.

His family already had enough reasons to think he was an asshole without adding a hit and run on Sadie to the list.  So as entertaining as this had been, it was time to apply the brakes.  As kids, they’d been flint and tinder.  But they were grown-ups now, and setting off sparks was just a real good excuse to get burned.

Satisfied that he’d come to his senses, Declan turned his attention toward getting ready for last call.

S
ADIE
felt his eyes singing her back like hot ash flicked from a cigarette.  He’d always known just how to rile her.  Lines drawn in the sand, battlements fortified, it seemed the war between the two of them was back on.  She’d like to think she’d matured beyond this, but his implication that she’d run home, tail tucked between her legs because Rick somehow hadn’t found her worth marrying…

Sadie took another drink
.

“Sadie?” Kathleen asked, and she struggled to bring her friend’s face back into focus. 
Beer was more potent than she remembered.  “I was just asking you about your housing plans. You know you’re welcome to stay with me as long as you like.”

“Oh.”  Sadie waved a hand, and Kathleen grabbed her water glass before it went tumbling over.  “Don’t you worry about putting yourself out.  There’s a renter staying over at my grandma’s place, but his lease is up the day after tomorrow.  Or, tomorrow, actually.  The rental agent’s been trying to contact him to see if he wanted to re
new the lease, but I called and told her not to bother.  I’m moving in after he gets his stuff out.”

“Sadie, has the, uh, property manager actually sent you any… photos of the place recen
tly?”

Even through the haze of alcohol, Sadie sensed things weren’t quite kosher.  “Why?” she asked sharply.

“It’s just that…” her friend’s eyebrows drew together.  “It might not look exactly like you remember.  Why don’t you just crash with me for a while?”

Sadie
had a brief, horrifying vision of her grandma’s house as a crack den. Stained mattresses in the living room, graffiti defacing the white board walls…

She shook her head.  Rental houses took a beating she knew, but Sadie doubted it was a hotbed of criminal activity.  After all, Mr. Murphy still lived next door.

And regardless, it was hers, so she’d just have to make the best of it. “My luggage is already over at that new hotel on the harbor.  I planned on staying there for a couple of days until I got the house situation figured out.  I’m already checked in and it’s already paid for, so don’t get your feathers ruffled.  I don’t want any of y’all to feel obligated to house an unexpected guest.”

She smiled and reached for her beer, but when she wasn’t looking Kathleen had
moved it.

“I think it might be time for me to drive you to your hotel.”

Sadie was wavering between her last vestige of common sense and protest when Kathleen jerked and looked down at her hip.

“
Crap,” she muttered, clicking a little button to check the number on her phone.  “I knew it was too good to last.  Excuse me, Sadie, but I have to take this call.”

Sadie tried to act casual and not listen in, but the truth was she was pretty agog.  Knowing Kathleen was a detective and actually seeing her in action were two entirely different things. 
Kathleen had always been a tomboy, and the first to volunteer for whatever crazy plan the neighborhood boys had hatched, but being a cop – let alone a homicide detective – had to be difficult given the fact that much of the south still tended to be a good old boys’ club.  It reminded her of something she’d always admired about her friend – Kathleen never backed down from a challenge. 

Sadie glanced across the room, eyes landing on Declan.  And hoped she would manage to find the steel in her own spin
e again, because coming back home might prove to be more challenging than she thought.    

KATHLEEN
listened to her partner, Mac Washington, relay the fact that they had a John Doe who’d been found dead in a BP restroom.  There was a crowd gathered and some reporters already on the scene so she was needed ASAP.

“Be there in ten,” she said with a sigh,
ending the call and glancing at Sadie.  She would like to have been able to drop her at her hotel on the way, but the harbor was located in the opposite direction.  Weighing the options quickly, she made her way to the edge of the bar.

“What?” Declan barked, after she’d caught his attention.  He moved slowly to the corner where she was standing, a familiar scowl forming a line between his eyebrows as he deposited the tray of empties he’d been gathering.  The good mood he’d been in since Sadie walked in seemed to have dissipated as quickly as it appeared.

Well tough shit, she needed him to do her a favor.  “Run Sadie over to that new hotel on the harbor. I got called in so there’s no way I can do it.”

Incredulity replaced the scowl.  “Like she’s incapable of getting there herself?  She knows this city almost as well as you and I do.  And I need to be here to help close.”

Kathleen clenched her fists to keep from reaching across the bar and throttling him.  “She’s wasted, Declan.  I want to be sure one of us sees her there safely.  Rogan can’t drive with that cast on his ankle and you know that Dad’s restricted from driving at night.”

“So call a –
”

“Don’t you dare suggest I call a cab
.  It’s not going to kill you to drive five minutes across town.”

“I don’t know. 
Did you check her purse for weapons?”

Kathleen didn’t even bother to address that.  “Just do it, Dec.  I won’t let anyone know you put yourself out.  God forbid somebody start thinking that you’re human.”

Declan stared at her with an unreadable expression.   

“Whatever,” he finally conceded.

“Thank you,” Kathleen said pleasantly, tugging on her jacket.  One just had to push the right buttons to get her brother’s temperamental machinery working.

“Don’t mention it.” 

D
ECLAN
watched her walk over to lay the plan out for Sadie, whose head began to whip back and forth in protest.  So vigorous was her denial that she nearly flung herself right off the stool.

Christ, she really was drunk.

Not that surprising, since she had the body mass index of a gnat.

With a put-upon sigh he grabbed his car keys from
the hook beneath the register, coming around the bar to stage his intervention.  Kathleen obviously needed to get on with her night, and Sadie obviously needed a keeper. 

The fact that he’d been elected was just the cherry in his shit cocktail. 

“Come on, Dorothy,” he said when he reached her, openly mocking the shiny red shoes she wore. “Click your heels together three times and I’ll make sure you get back to Kansas.”

Sadie’s nose scrunched up in her baby doll face and she glared
at him with eyes like blue lasers.  “If you think I’m going anywhere with you, Declan Murphy, you’re even stupider than you look.”

“I’m out
of here,” Kathleen said, clearly eager to be out of firing range.

Dec glanced at Sadie after his sister left.  Her dainty chin was up, her narrow shoulders back, and she looked ready to do battle.  A pint-sized warrior princess anxious to s
lay the mighty dragon.  And the prospect was so damn tempting that Declan had to fight to suppress a grin of challenge.  Engaging in any more of their verbal skirmish was just following that roadmap to disaster. 

“There are a whole lot of things I could say to that, Sadie Rose, b
ut the fact is I’m no longer twelve.  And as amusing as seeing you again has been, I think it’s time we acted like grown-ups.  Now just come along like a good little drunkard and let me get you settled in at your hotel.”

Sadie blinked at the admonishment, obviously surprised by what she was hearing.  Not that he could blame her.  If things were the way they used to be
, he could have sparred with her all night.  But the intervening years had changed him. 

“Yo
u’re right,” she admitted, not quite able to meet his eyes.  “And I appreciate you taking time away from your duties to drive me to my hotel.  I’m afraid I haven’t indulged in a while, and… misjudged my upper limits.”  Concentrating fiercely, she slid down off the high-backed stool.

Declan tried not to feel sorry that she wasn’t spitting at him any longer, because inevitably this was best for both of them.  He wasn’t the same boy he’d been all those years ago, and it was safer for her to understand that.

Safer for which of them he wasn’t entirely sure.

And if Sadie was now acting stiff
ly polite with him, and he sounded like a curmudgeon, well it just made it easier for him to remember his personal boundaries.  Family friends and one night stands didn’t mix.  Plus the less he hung around Sadie, the less chance of dredging up the past.  He spent enough time dwelling there, anyway.

They passed the ride to the hotel in
a somewhat uncomfortable silence, him feeling more and more like he’d just kicked a puppy and Sadie sitting quietly if a bit unsteady in her seat.  Contrary to what he led his family to believe, he didn’t get off making other people miserable.  It just made things… easier for him, somehow. 

Easier to keep everyone at arm’s length. 

Declan noted with some surprise that the street was oddly deserted, with few cars passing them in either direction. The wavering flames of gas lamps adorning the pastel confetti of historic buildings made it look more like New Year’s 1865.  Moonlight dripped liquid silver from the sky, and Dec was struck by the otherworldly beauty of the city to whose charm he was usually inured.

Then h
e hit a rough patch of cobblestones that the Jeep’s faulty suspension didn’t handle smoothly, sending Sadie bouncing toward the ceiling again and again.  She began to look a bit pale, quickly morphing into something greenish, and he suspected that a pint or two of Smithwick’s was about to make a reappearance.