Weddings Can Be Murder (9 page)

Tabitha’s killer dropped the phone and listened to the wedding music. The laughter echoing in his mind caused his head to pound.
Ha, ha. Throb, throb
. He started to rock. Back. Forth. Back. Forth. When things went bad, his migraines got worse.

He’d almost had Katie Ray. He’d been inside her house, on his way to her bedroom where the shower had been running, when he’d heard someone at the door. He’d barely managed to get out the back in time. Panicked, he’d driven by his other brides’ graves and left flowers. Then he’d come home, but nothing felt good. Nothing felt right. He went into his closet, all the way to the back, and pulled out the wedding album where he kept pictures of his brides.

Oh, his beautiful brides. Four of them. Sometimes, looking at the pictures was all he needed. He’d gone years without needing to find a new one. But then the laughter had come back. Tabitha’s fault. She’d begged him. He hadn’t done a wedding in three years, but six months ago
she’d come calling. She’d been desperate, someone had canceled, and she’d begged.

His head kept pounding. Something tickled his mind as if he’d forgotten something. When the migraines hit, he had to work hard to stay focused. To act normal. What had he forgotten?

Then he remembered. Remembered the girl and the cop back at Tabitha’s. He’d had a plan for dealing with them. What had the plan been?

Oh yeah, he’d been going to burn it down.

He had to do it. Looking at his watch—almost eleven—he should do that soon. But when everyone was asleep. Midnight.

If only his head would quit shooting that blinding pain. If only that man hadn’t walked into Katie’s house and stopped him from claiming his bride. He could have added her picture to the others. Setting the album on the floor, he pulled out his digital camera from his coat pocket and set it beside his recorder. Then he set his alarm to go off at midnight.

Les walked to the kitchen, more to escape Joe than from needing anything. Unfortunately, he wasn’t the type to let people escape easily. He followed her into the kitchen and pinned her with another accusing look. Les grabbed a diet soda from the fridge and pretended she wasn’t bothered by his look, or by him. But the truth was, Joe Lyon bothered her.

Bothered her plenty.

He gripped the back of a wooden kitchen chair. “You said Katie was nervous about the wedding.”

“Yeah.” She popped the can top and took a sip. The carbonation burned her throat. She swallowed.

“How was she nervous?”

“Wedding jitters. No biggy.”

“That’s all?” He slapped her with another look.

“Yeah.” Not that Les had believed it then…or now.

Joe took a deep breath and studied her harder, and she didn’t like the way he looked at her. “Do you think she ran away?”

“Oh, hell no! Katie would
not
run away.” Les remembered how Joe had flirted with her. “Even if she should.”

He stepped forward, so close she could count his eyelashes. “If you know where she is and you’re not—”

Les slammed her soda down and poked him in his chest. “If I knew where she was.”
Poke
. “I’d be with her and not here.”
Poke
. “Katie is my best friend.”
Poke
. “Since kindergarten.”
Poke
. “And—”

He grabbed her wrist. The memory of him holding her hand in the bar hit hard. And her stupid wow voice spoke again. Damn the voice. And damn her for wanting it to come back.

“Then what are you not telling me?” he asked.

She snatched her hand back. This was crazy. So freaking crazy. She could not be feeling even the slightest spark for this man. This was Katie’s fiancé. So why had he even given her the time of day at the bar? If he’d ignored her as an engaged man should have done, then none of this would have happened.

“I’m her fiancé.” His eyes flashed blue fire.

“Exactly!” she said. “You’re her fiancé. Why did you…?”

“Why did I what?” he asked, when she couldn’t finish it.

“You smiled at me.” Oh, God, that sounded so lame.

“And since when is smiling a crime?” he asked,
not
smiling
.

“You told that guy hitting on me that I was with you.”

“Because I thought you wanted to get rid of him.”

“I could have gotten rid of him myself.”

“What? You keep a bottle of dandruff shampoo in your purse?”

For some crazy, unknown reason she wanted him to admit it. Admit that he’d flirted with her. “You held my hand when the lights went out.”

“You seemed scared.” His voice held a ribbon of guilt.

Guilt was good.
No
. Guilt was bad. Guilt had been bouncing around her chest since he’d told her who he was. “You ran your thumb over my hand,” she said before she could stop herself.
You made my wow voice speak for the
first time in eighteen months
.

Neither of them said a word for a few minutes. Then
he spoke. “Instead of accusing each other right now, we should be trying to figure out how to help Katie.”

The truth of his words sank in. She hated being wrong, but wasn’t above admitting it. “You’re right.” She inhaled. “I’m just…scared.”

He blinked. “Me, too.”

She nodded. Their eyes met. “I’m sorry,” she said.
Sorry for ever going and sitting beside you. Sorry for the
scratches and for squirting you with dandruff shampoo. Sorry
for bringing up the fact that we flirted
.

Yep. She was really sorry for bringing up the flirting issue. They were adults, after all. And nothing had happened. Seeing each other naked in the shower had been an accident. Obviously, she was blowing this whole wow-voice thing out of proportion.

His shoulders fell. And Lord help her, she couldn’t help but notice they were nice shoulders.

“What are you not telling me, Les?”

That getting married upset Katie so much that she threw up
and accidentally flushed your engagement ring down the john
. Les almost told him that, then recalled how determined Katie had been to keep it from Joe. If Les thought she could lie convincingly enough, she’d do it, but she didn’t feel convincing. So she opted for the truth—the truth about not telling the truth.

“If I’m not telling you something, it’s because Katie wouldn’t want me to. It has nothing to do with her not being here. Nothing to do with how she feels about you or about any other man.” Les threw in the
other man
part just in case he was the jealous type.

Not that he needed to worry. Katie, like her brother, was loyal to the core. She would never consider letting a man touch her as long as she belonged to Joe. Never.

“Just get in bed with me.” Katie watched Carl rip off more box tops to lay on. She remembered how cold the floor was.

His gaze shot up and he studied her as if contemplating her offer. “Better not.”

She was freezing. The ski jacket kept her top half warm, a lot warmer than his leather jacket had, which meant he was probably even colder than she was right now. In spite of having pulled the sheet off the mattress and draping it over her legs, everything below and above the ski jacket had passed the cold stage and headed to the numb level. She remembered her father talking about a couple who’d been caught in the snow in Colorado and how they’d stayed alive by sharing body heat. “Look—”

He held up one hand. “Tempting offer, and believe me, I don’t usually tell women no, but I’d better not.”

“Oh, puh-leeze. It’s for body warmth.”

“Red, I’m totally aware of how hot your body is. I don’t need to get any closer.”

She rolled her eyes and, yes, his comment made her happy, but now wasn’t the time to…“We’re adults.”

“That’s part of the problem. I’m an adult male and you’re an adult female. Did you miss that class in high school?”

“Nothing is going to happen,” she insisted. “Just come get in the bed. How hard can that be?”

He shook his head. “That’s the problem, it can get—”

“Stop that.” She slapped her hand over her ears, but it hurt to touch them, so she pulled away.

“Stop what?” he asked, and stood up, rubbing his hands together for warmth.

“Stop talking dirty.”

“I’m not talking dirty. I’m talking facts.”

“Facts I don’t need or want to know about,” she lied, and felt slightly disturbed that his dilemma made her want to smile.

“Which is exactly why this isn’t a good idea. Because if I crawl in that bed with you, you’re going to know.”

“Are you telling me you have no control over…over
it
?” Oh goodness, she couldn’t help herself, her
eyes lowered. She snapped her gaze up and hoped he hadn’t noticed. But from the smirk in his eyes, she knew he had.

“Nope.” He grinned and stood a little taller. “It pretty much has a mind of its own.”

She rolled her eyes. “Then we’ll ignore it.”

“Easier said than done.”

“We’re in trouble here and you’re thinking about sex,” she accused, and then silently slung the accusation right back at herself.

“I’m a man, that’s pretty much what we do,” he snapped. “At least the macho types do. The sensitive ones may be different.”

“So you’d rather die than share your body heat.” Her teeth chattered, and just like that, she wanted to cry.

The look on his face softened. “We’re not going to die.”

“The tops of your ears are redder than blood.” Emotion rose in her throat again. “I’ve never been this cold.”

He studied her. “Ah, fuck it!”

She had to clinch her jaw to keep her teeth from chattering. “Do you really have to say that so much?”

“Say what?”

“Fuck.”

“You don’t say it?” His brow pinched. “What, another rule?”

Her teeth chattered. “I say it, but only if the situation is f-word worthy.”

“I’m wearing a fuc—friggin’ pink scarf.” He took a step closer. “I’m about to crawl in bed with a gorgeous redhead but there’s not a chance in hell I’m going to get lucky.” He paused and his right eyebrow arched. His eyes twinkled. “Is there?”

“No,” she insisted, but dang it if she didn’t feel the thrill of knowing he wanted her. “We’re just sharing body heat.”

The truth started perking deep down. She’d have loved
to share more, but admitting that to herself was dangerous; admitting that to him could prove fatal. Not
deadly
fatal, but fatal to her relationship with Joe. Her stomach wiggled in a bad way.

He stepped closer, his eyes carrying a leftover smile. “You know, for it to really work, we should take off our clothes.”

The idea sent fantasies upon fantasies doing sexy little dances through her mind. “I think we can skip that part.”

“See. Definitely f-word worthy.” He took another step closer and shrugged his shoulders. “Well?”

“Well, what?” She barely managed to find her voice, her mind stuck on the fantasy of seeing him take off his clothes.

“You gonna scoot over, or do you want me to crawl on top?”

Now came another fantasy. Him on top. Her on top.

Oh, hell, he was right. This was f-word worthy. And she’d been fucking stupid to make this suggestion. “Forget I asked. You were completely right. You should sleep on the floor.”

He frowned and waved his hand at her. “Scoot over, Red.”

When she didn’t do so immediately, he exhaled. “I’m not going to try anything. I swear.”

Yeah, but I might
. She shivered, but not from the cold.

He pulled back the sheet, crawled in beside her, and drew her against him. And there was a lot of him to be against. Every inch of her that touched inches of him became sensitive and alive.

Neither of them spoke for the next few minutes. Then his voice came at her ear. “Breathe, Red.”

She inhaled.

“Better. Now, try to sleep.”

Sleep? How? When every nerve ending she owned was doing a happy dance—including nerve endings she didn’t know she owned?

He raised her wrist and glanced at her watch. “It’s eleven o’clock. Morning will be here before you know it.”

Tabitha’s killer put the photo album of his brides back in the closet and tucked the images away in his mind. Midnight approached, and he needed to finish what he’d left undone.

He remembered the empty gas cans stored in the garage. Walking into the kitchen, he found matches tucked in a drawer.

Realizing he hadn’t eaten, he cut himself a big slice of chocolate cake. As he slowly took bites, he fought the panic looming too close to the surface.

He checked his watch again. Almost time. All he had to do was set a fire in the back of the house so Tabitha’s two guests would be dead before the fire trucks arrived.

Les watched Joe rake his fingers through his hair. Again. Obviously a nervous habit. A habit that made his hair stand up in a little-boy cowlick kind of way. She had the oddest desire to lick her hand and run it over Joe’s bad do, the way her mom had done to her brother’s hair all those years ago. Of course, she didn’t dare touch him.

With hair sticking up at weird angles, he kept staring at her. No doubt he thought she was hiding something important.

While a flushed engagement ring might be important, it wasn’t her news to tell. “Girls keep secrets from guys,” she said. “And that’s all I’m saying.”

“It has nothing to do with where she’s at?” he asked.

“Nothing.” Les hoped he heard the honesty in her voice.

He frowned. “I guess I have to trust you.”

She let her shoulders relax. With this issue behind them, now they could…“What are we going to do?”

He looked around. “Katie has a notebook with all her wedding stuff. I thought I could call everyone she saw today.” He eyed the countertops. “It’s usually lying around.”

“I think it’s in the bedroom.”

Les took off to get it. When she got back, he had a phone book spread open on the kitchen table. He took the notebook from her.

“While I call them,” he said, “why don’t you call the hospitals? See if there have been any accidents.”

Memories slammed into her and pushed her right into a world of pain.

Joe continued, “We can use our phones and leave Katie’s home line open in case she calls.”

Les’s lungs refused the air she offered them.

“I got the phone book out.” He motioned toward the table.

Les’s gaze shot to the opened page.
H
for hospitals. And there were the doodles and checkmarks on the page. Her doodles. Her checks. The memories grew closer.

She’d sat right here in Katie’s kitchen eighteen months ago, used the same phone book, and called the hospitals. She’d been the one to learn that there had been an accident. She’d been the one to talk to the ER nurse. She’d been the one to know by the nurse’s tone that Katie’s brother, the man Les loved, was gone, and wasn’t ever coming home—no one was. No survivors.

Les reached up and twisted the engagement ring that hung around her neck. One day her life had been fairy tale perfect. Engaged to marry her best friend’s brother on whom she’d had a crush since third grade. Then an 18-wheeler shattered all her dreams and burned them to ashes.

Oh, God. Tears stung her eyes and she closed them. She wanted Katie to walk through that door. To say something lame about traffic or how her wedding planner had kept her late.

“You okay?” Joe’s voice sounded too distant, his touch on her shoulder too close.

She opened her eyes; his concerned bloodshot eyes stared down at her. “Fine. I’m fine.” Forcing herself to
move, she went to find her cell phone. She couldn’t fall apart. She had to find Katie.

Please, God, let Katie be okay.

Katie felt Carl’s warm breath stir against her hair. She wasn’t sure how long they’d lain there. Thirty minutes? Maybe more. She’d checked her watch once: a few minutes past midnight. She should be sleepy. But no.

He’d left the light on. Thank goodness for small favors. The darkness would have made it even more intimate.

His chest melted against her back, and he had one arm tucked around her waist. The front of his knees pressed against the back of hers. This was for warmth, she reminded herself. Oh yes, his heat wrapped around her, seeped through the thin jeans and warmed her down to her very core. Warmed her in ways an engaged woman shouldn’t be warmed by a man who wasn’t her fiancé. Warm like she hadn’t felt warm in a very, very long time.

Every place their bodies met tingled, and she ached to get closer still. She longed to roll over and slip her hands under his jacket, under his shirt, to feel skin. Naked skin. To press her mouth to his, to taste him. She wanted all of him against all of her.

Guilt swarmed her like fruit flies on an expired banana.

She shut her eyes and reminded herself she wasn’t doing anything wrong. Just staying warm. Being attracted to someone wasn’t a sin, acting on it was. And she wasn’t acting. No, she’d never act. She loved Joe.
Yes,
think
about Joe
.

“You stopped breathing again, Red.” Carl’s words came so close to her ear that goose bumps played hopscotch on her neck.

“I’m breathing.” She took in a mouthful of air.

Another pause came and went. “Are you warmer?” he asked.

“Yes.” She heard the dog whimper at the door.

“Good.” His arm curled tighter around her.

Another minute passed, and she heard his stomach growl. “You want some more cake?”

“Nah. We’ll save that for breakfast. Then we’ll have worms for lunch. It’s what you call living large.”

The tease in his voice made her smile. “I’m not eating the green ones.” She rolled over and his scent and smile filled her senses.

“What do you really have against marriage?” She wasn’t sure why the question popped out. Maybe she wanted to remind him and herself that she was engaged. Or maybe when you snuggled with a guy and listened to his stomach growl, you wanted to know a little about him. While she felt she did know him, she’d really only begun to scratch the surface. Carl Hades, aka Antonio Banderas, fascinated her. He had a crusty side, a side she wanted to brush off to get to the good stuff. She knew that good stuff existed, like his love for his dad, like his giving up his coat, like his telling her about his mom.

“Why do you think only crazy people get married? Did someone hurt you?”

He arched one of his brows. “You gonna tell me why you aren’t wearing a ring?”

She almost considered rolling over, but then she didn’t want to go back to the silence. “I lost it. I lost my ring.”

“Here?” he asked, as if he might help search.

“Not here.”

He studied her as if he could see she was holding something back. And this close, there was no telling what he saw.

She knew what
she
saw: warm, golden brown eyes that laughed a lot. Tenderness, and someone who didn’t want anyone to get too close.

“Where? Where did you lose it?”

She spat out the truth. “I was throwing up and it fell…in, and I…accidentally flushed.”

“In the john?” He laughed. “You flushed your engagement ring down the john?”

“It isn’t funny.” She fought the wave of nausea.

“Oh, yes it is, Red.” The cot shook with his laughter.

Katie’s stomach shook with it. She gave him a stab in his ribs with her elbow. He grabbed her arm, but didn’t stop laughing.

“Now answer my question,” she insisted. “Why do you not want to share your life with someone?”

His lips tilted to the left in a sexy smile. “I share myself when I’m in the mood.”

“So you’re the type of guy who uses women for sex and runs out when things start getting serious.”

His smile faded and his brow tightened. “I don’t use women. But just for the record, using people isn’t gender specific.”

“So you…do what?” she asked, annoyed and not totally understanding why, except she didn’t like men who thought of women as bang toys. “Go up to a woman and say, ‘hey, let’s dirty up my sheets, but don’t plan on hanging around long enough to change them?’ God…you remind me of someone in high school!”

“Believe it or not, Red, some women don’t want commitment any more than some men do.”

“No, all they want to do is get screwed by some selfish guy whose only goal is to get between their legs and squirt them with a little of his DNA.” The moment the crude words were out, she regretted them. “I shouldn’t have said that.” Embarrassed and annoyed, she rolled over and gave him her back.

This time he didn’t put his arm around her. And as much as she hated admitting it, she missed it. And it wasn’t about being cold, but about being close. It was about feeling less alone. And he did that—made her feel less alone.

She counted the gray specks on the gray wall and finally relented and rolled over. “I just can’t imagine why
anyone would choose to be alone. Alone sucks. Hurts. We weren’t created to be alone. Did you know that a newborn baby left without human contact is less likely to live than one that is being held on a regular basis? We are supposed to be with our families—to be loved, held. And families aren’t supposed to die and leave one member behind. They—” Her chest tightened and she realized what she’d said.

“Is that why you’re getting married, Red? Because you lost your parents? Because you don’t want to be alone?”

Immediately, she remembered Les’s words from today.
I hear a friend who’s still trying to deal with losing her entire
family and so worried about turning twenty-nine that she’ll
marry the first Tom, Dick, or Joe who comes along
.

Katie wasn’t stupid; she knew part of the reason she wanted to get married was so she wouldn’t be alone. But it wasn’t the only reason. And even if it played a big part, was it really a bad reason?

And she did love Joe.

Didn’t she?

The question rolled around her heart and butted heads with a thousand other questions floating around in there that she’d refused to answer lately. Like why had Joe been distant for the past few weeks? Like why did she feel certain a piece of paper claiming that she was Joe’s wife was going to chase away the loneliness when being his girlfriend and then his fiancée hadn’t done the trick.

Oh, God. Were Les and Carl right? Was this whole wedding a big mistake?

Her stomach churned. Seriously this time. She lunged up, crawling over him, one hand over her mouth, and barely made it to the bathroom in time.

Right after she let go, she heard, “Ahh, Red, not again.” And he threw up, too.

Les and Joe had been at it for about twenty minutes. Joe had dialed every number in Katie’s wedding book and
gotten nowhere. Not surprising for twelve thirty in the morning, but still. He left five messages: one for Tabitha Jones, the wedding planner, and one each for the florist, the DJ, the minister who was to marry them, and the photographer.

He slammed the phone down, and was about to call the local police station when his gaze caught on Les. Her hands shook. She was talking to the fourth hospital.

“Yes, I’ll hold.”

She reached for the pen and started doodling in the corner of the phone book, and a wet drop appeared beside where the pen met the paper. The ink became blotchy.

Joe looked up and saw her tears. His gaze went from the doodles that had been on the phone book earlier to the ones she drew now. Matching doodles.

Just like that, he remembered Katie telling him about the night her family was killed. Her parents had been driving in from Austin with her brother, but they hadn’t shown up. Les had been here, too. While Katie had called some of her brother’s friends, Les had called the hospitals. And he remembered something else, too. Les had been engaged to Katie’s brother.

Damn! How hard was it for her to make these calls again?

He took the phone from her. “I got this. Why don’t you make us some coffee?”

She wiped her face, stood, and went to the kitchen cabinets.

A voice came on the line. “No one fits…”

“Thank you,” he said, and closed Les’s cell phone.

“What did they say?” Les asked from behind him.

He turned around. “She isn’t there.”

Les slumped back on the counter, and Joe wondered whether, if the counter hadn’t caught her, she would have fallen over.

“I’m sorry. I just remembered that you did this before.”

She swiped at her tears. “It can’t happen twice,” she said. “That’s what I keep telling myself.”

He went to her and folded her into his arms. She gripped two handfuls of his shirt and buried her head in the crook of his shoulder. He pressed his face into the soft wispy feel of her blond hair and just held her while she cried.

Five minutes later, they were still standing in the kitchen holding onto each other. For comfort. For human contact. And it felt good and right. Like holding her hand earlier had felt right. Right now, the feel of her breasts against his chest sent other feel-good messages spiraling through his body.

Her scent, a vanilla musk, filled his nose. The visual of her naked in the shower replayed in his mind. He had a flashback of how her bare breasts had felt against him when he’d held her against the wall in the hallway.

She raised her face; their gazes met and held. He leaned in just a breath, their lips almost touched. Almost.

Guilt slammed into him. He dropped his hands.

As if she read his mind, she jumped back. “You said we’d try the police one more time.”

“Yeah.” He walked to the table and picked up his phone.

“Don’t touch me again.” Her voice boomed behind him.

His first impulse was to insist it had been innocent. And it had started out like that, but it hadn’t ended that way. He still almost said it, but he simply wasn’t fond of lying. “I won’t.” He looked back, expecting to see fury in her eyes.

However, the same emotion bouncing around his chest was expressed all over her face. Guilt. It should have made him feel better to know she wasn’t holding him solely responsible, but it didn’t.

“We haven’t done anything,” he said, more for her benefit than his.

“I love Katie,” she said.

“Me, too.” And it was true. He loved Katie, but he
was through lying to himself, too. He didn’t love Katie the way he should love her. He loved her as…as everyone loved Katie. She was just too good a person not to love. She was the type who bought all her lightbulbs from the disabled. Who gave up one Saturday morning a month to hold premature babies. She was smart, could talk about art until the cows came home, and she had a way with people. She could make them laugh, make them open up. She saw the best in everyone and it just made a person want to be that best.

So yeah, he admired Katie, he respected Katie. He loved who he was when he was around Katie. And she was too damn beautiful for him not to respond to her sexually. She had every trait and quality he’d been looking for in a wife. And at thirty-four years old, he’d been looking for someone to marry for the last two years. But for the last month, he’d found himself wondering if the respect-and-admiration kind of love was enough. He kept waiting for the emotion to kick in, the one that made good sex mind-blowing sex, the one that told him she was the one.