Killing Time

It was also good for airline small talk. Caro strictly avoided weather chats on airplanes, because of the whole lightning, burning, crashing thing. She stuck to TV. She just had to be sure she didn’t talk about any disaster movies of the week. Sitcoms were safe. Soaps were right out.

This wasn’t the first time Caro had gotten distracted from her fear of flying by getting into a discussion of how the dancing midget had been the beginning of the end for Twin Peaks, or how lame the last season of Roseanne had been.

Or this. “Mikey from the Life commercials did not die of a Pop Rocks and Pepsi eruption,” she said to the older woman sitting across the aisle. Caro was in the biz. She knew the urban legends.

“Well, I heard he did.” The woman sniffed and turned away.

The one beside her in the center seat continued to feign sleep, probably wondering why she always ended up beside the psychos on airplanes. Caro didn’t mind seeming psycho. It kept her distracted from the flying. Or, rather, the crashing. That was the part about flying that she really didn’t like—the crashing part. She wasn’t MacGyver, who’d crashed with four teenage gang kids and survived by making stuff out of other stuff.

“Another one down,” she whispered after the plane landed.

“Next time take a sleeping pill,” she heard. Turning, she saw her seat mate. The woman smiled. “I do. It works every time.”

“Thanks.” Caro could have been put out with general anesthesia and she didn’t think that’d relieve the anxiety. Frankly, she’d rather be conscious and alert in the last few minutes before her death, if she really was going to do the crashing and burning thing.

“Crash and burn,” she muttered. Funny, that’s pretty much what had happened on her first ever plane trip. Okay, not on her first plane trip, but rather right before it.

She and Mick had crashed and burned right before she’d dropped out of college and flown out west, needing to make a fresh start somewhere where she wouldn’t hear rumors about his latest escapades or run into him with his latest girlfriend. A distinct probability since the first couple of times she’d met Mick had been when he was with his girlfriend of the week.

She’d heard the stories from the time she’d started school. Mick was the guy who’d climbed down a third-floor drainpipe to avoid being caught with someone in an on-campus sorority house. The charmer who’d somehow managed to get Hootie and the Blowfish to play at the homecoming dance. The prankster who’d rigged the electronic scoreboard at the football field to flash the answers to an upcoming midterm exam in a tough sociology class. The one who’d drawn over a thousand bucks in a charity bachelor auction…from the ex-wife of one of the professors, no less.

The one she’d found hiding in the storage room of her dorm, trying to avoid the two girls he was dating at the same time.

God, what a dog. And she’d been crazy about him. Crazy about him for a year, up until the day she’d realized being crazy about a bad boy was a much different thing from being in love with one.

Crazy was cool. Crazy was just fine for a college kid. But in love? Even worse, in love with Mick Winchester? Insanity.

Exiting the plane, she got her bags and the rental car the studio had reserved. Then she hit the road to Derryville.

By the time she arrived, it was full dark, a lovely September night with a sky full of stars and a huge watery moon. Too perfect a sky to be over a place Caro had begun thinking of as her personal hell.

All except the house. Inside the pretty house was a lovely mother-in-law suite, waiting just for her. With antique furniture, a four-poster queen-size bed, an old-fashioned claw-foot tub. Plus a huge window overlooking the kind of neighborhood the Huxtable or Keaton kids would have lived in.

Not the trailer park where Caro had grown up. Not the high-rise where she paid a fortune for her own small apartment now.

All she could think about was arriving at the little oasis in Derryville. The lovely home with the nice, quiet old landlady on the nice, quiet old street. The house would be her home base, a place to escape from the frenzy that always erupted on a reality television show set.

Best of all, the landlady would give her a physical barrier. She’d be a perfect chaperone in case Caroline lapsed into momentary insanity and lusted for Mick Winchester.

No. No lust. No stroll down a mind-numbingly hot memory lane with a guy who’d always been able to fry her circuits with a smile or have her flat on her back with a touch of his hand.

Damn. No woman should ever be unlucky enough to have a Mick Winchester as her first lover. Starting out with the best meant everything else was downhill from there. And it had been, until it got to the point where she hardly found sex worth it anymore.

Another reason to hate the bastard. He’d ruined her sex life.

When she arrived at the house, she parked in the driveway, surprised to note there were five or six cars parked on the street in front of the house. “Sewing circle night,” she mused aloud. “Or maybe a bake sale meeting.”

Though she was tired, this would be a perfect time to meet some of the matriarchs of Derryville. With the production schedule set up by the studio, she had to get the cooperation of the townspeople as quickly as possible. The crew was arriving today and tomorrow, the cast at the end of the week. All the extras had to be screened and signed, the locations set, the schedule firmed. They needed the residents on board from day one.

Swinging her soft carry-on bag over her shoulder, she left her other luggage in the trunk of the car. She wanted to sit down and have a nice hot cup of tea. Maybe some cucumber sandwiches or whatever small-town ladies served at Ladies’ Guild-type meetings.

The front door was wide open, the screen propped as well, propped by a small refrigerator sitting on the porch. It was probably filled with lemonade, or raspberry iced tea. Buttermilk.

“Okay, this isn’t Seventh Heaven,” she muttered, forcing the images of small-town family dramas out of her mind.

This was real. Not TV.

She raised her hand to knock, then noticed something funny. The noises coming from inside the house didn’t sound like a Ladies’ Guild meeting.

Another indication that she wasn’t going to be walking into a room full of nice gentle ladies was the smoke. Thick. Spicy. Obviously from a cigar. Or ten.

She froze, focused on the sounds. Male laughter. Deep. Raucous. Obviously from a man. Or ten.

Holding her breath, she entered the house, instinctively keeping on her toes to prevent her heels from striking the hardwood floors. She followed the noise, the laughter and a loud stereo playing some deafening music.

And suddenly found herself in a room full of testosterone.

Ten. Yep. That’s about what it looked like, though a quick count told her there were really only five.

Five men. Five big, laughing, smoking, drinking, scratching, snorting, belching, card-playing men. They were gathered around a card table that had been set up in the middle of what she remembered was the rec room.

It looked wrecked, all right. Male paraphernalia covered every flat surface. Overflowing ashtrays. Empty beer bottles. A half-empty bottle of Jim Beam and a three-quarters empty one of Crown Royal. Empty glasses. Chip bags. Remnants of pizza in some large boxes littering the floor. Cards. Gambling chips.

And right there in the middle of it, staring at her with a big ol’ shit-eating grin, sat a sexy-as-sin Mick Winchester.

MICK HAD KNOWN she was there the minute Caroline walked into the room. Even if he hadn’t been expecting her he’d have noticed the change in the air. Female molecules, scents and energy stood out in this place. Especially when they were such attractive molecules, intoxicating scents and seductive energies.

He was the only one who saw her at first as she stood there, clad in another one of those power suits tailored to fit perfectly against her curvy little body. And another pair of wickedly high-heeled shoes that accentuated the long, soft legs he remembered.

Forcing his mind out of his crotch, he continued to wait, keeping a casual eye on his cards, the other on her.

Caroline looked shocked. Confused. Ready to faint. Then, ready to kill. She’d obviously seen him.

“Hey, Caroline!” he called, keeping his teeth clamped on the soggy end of a half-smoked cigar.

All the men at the table, his card-playing baseball team buddies, glanced around to follow his stare. He should have told them about her, or at least prepared himself for their reactions. That may have prevented his fists from tightening as Ty Taylor made a soft wolf whistle and Ty’s twin brother, Eddie, muttered something mildly obscene under his breath.

Why he’d want to smash in the teeth of one of his longtime buddies, he really couldn’t say. But he gave Eddie a warning look that instantly shut the other man up.

“What is going on?” Her voice was thready and shaking.

“Poker night. Five card stud. Ten dollar max bid,” Mick explained. “And Jimmy here is kicking our asses.”

She clutched her bag. “I mean, why…why are you here?”

He ignored the question. He also ignored his own slight tinge of remorse for planning this outrageous welcoming party for Caroline. He could have just called her and told her the truth any time over the past few weeks. But her snippy, impersonal little e-mails and faxed messages had kept him from doing it.

“Guys, this is Caroline Lamb. She’s the producer for the new TV show being shot up at the old Marsden place.”

Though he would have sworn not one of the men in the room would have held a door for his own mother after two hours of bourbon, cigars, raunchy talk and cards, each of them stood up and nodded to Caroline. Mick rose as well, acknowledging what he’d always known about Caroline. She brought out a basic male instinct from any man she came across. The good, the bad and the ugly. “The ugly” might have accounted for this whole welcoming reception, which had seemed like such a fine idea the other night over a few beers at the Mainline Tavern, but was making him feel a bit small now.

He shrugged off the feeling, remembering that Caroline was a champion at making people feel small.

“Nice to meet you,” Ty said. His greeting was echoed by the other card players.

Mick quickly went around the table, introducing them all. Caroline remained silent until he reached the last name.

Then she just stared, waiting for the punchline. So he gave it to her. “Caroline’s my new roommate. How are you doing, roomie? Have a good flight?”

He almost heard her back crack as she straightened it in a stiff stance a Master Sergeant would envy. “This is your house?” Her voice didn’t so much as quiver.

“Yep.” He sat back down, throwing his cards face-down onto the pile in the center of the table. “Damn.”

“This is your house?” she repeated.

He looked up. “Uh-huh.”

Her already creamy face went a shade paler and her lips trembled a little bit. He wasn’t sure whether that was fury or dismay and had to gulp down another bit of unfamiliar guilt.

“Who was the woman? That day. Who was the older lady I met here, the one who baked the pie?”

“My mom.”

The guys, who’d slowly retaken their seats around the table, snorted. Then Jimmy said, “You need to change your locks.” He gave Caroline a glance and wagged his eyebrows at Mick. “Never know when she’s going to walk in on something, uh…personal.”

“Hey, she make you any of her chocolate chip cookies lately?” Eddie asked. Mick ignored him.

“You let me think…” she began.

He shrugged. “I tried to tell you this wouldn’t suit you.”

“I thought this was her house,” she said, not seeming to care that she was basically repeating herself.

“I never said she was the landlady. And you never asked.” Chuckling, he leaned back in his seat, kicking his feet out in front of him and crossing his hands behind his head. “Hope you don’t leave panty hose and women’s crap all over the bathroom.”

“You’re a dead man.”

Mick shrugged, reached over and picked up the new hand of cards that Ty had dealt. The other guys just watched. Considering how wildly unpredictable Caroline had been in the old days, he couldn’t have warned them what they might expect. She could turn and stalk out, not even giving him a chance to laugh and tell her he’d arranged for her to stay at Sophie’s place…and that he’d give her back every penny of her rent.

Or she could pick up the nearest object—even the shoe off her foot—and lob it at his head.

Instead, she shocked even him. Shrugging off the suit jacket in a smooth, feminine move that made her silky blouse pull tight against her curvy body, she kicked off her shoes and strode over.

“Deal me in.”

IN HER SMALL room in her brother’s rectory, Hester Tomlinson sat on her narrow bed. She stared at her black-and-white television as a commercial for Killing Time in a Small Town came on. She recognized the street scene, seeing familiar buildings as a man’s voice talked about bucolic small-town life.

“Some heavenly place,” she said with a snort.

The fellow doing the voice-over made Derryville sound like some Norman Rockwell painting. It wasn’t, as Hester knew better than anyone. “This town has secrets,” she mumbled, keeping her voice quiet since Bob was praying in the next room.

Praying for her, most likely, as he’d undoubtedly done every day of the nine hundred and sixty-two days since she’d come to live under his roof. Not that she was counting or anything.

She’d been doing some praying of her own lately. She prayed for practical things. A decent steak for once. A big fat emerald necklace that would look much too gaudy for a God-fearing woman.

And she prayed for more secrets. For the power that came with those secrets. For the money that came with the power of those secrets. Yes, indeed, she knew all about secrets, how to spot them, how to figure them out and how to benefit from them.

Hester considered herself a fine judge of character, in spite of her brief lapse in figuring out what was going on with that trashy Winchester girl. “Spiteful, ungrateful little wretch.”

The idea that Sophie Winchester had said what she’d said…had done what she’d done…had given Hester more than a few sleepless nights lately. Because if she could so completely misread a mealymouthed girl like that, what else might she have overlooked going on right beneath her nose here in Derryville?

A lot. Perhaps a profitable amount.

All that seemed somehow unimportant now. She turned her eyes to the TV again, unable to stop the dart of fear that made her quiver in her 3X cotton high-necked Sears nightie—the one she’d had to order from the catalogue since this lousy little town didn’t even have a decent department store. One more example that she was the queen fly on a dung heap.

But it was better than being queen of nothing.

Coming here to live with her younger brother after his spineless wife had died three years ago had given Hester something she’d never had before. Status. Respect. A position of authority. She wanted to keep it. So the minute she’d heard TV people were coming to town, she’d begun to panic. Bob had worried, too. The two of them had done what they could—him preaching in the pulpit, and her working the more insidious gossip lines.

It had happened anyway, thanks mostly to those Winchesters. That was one family even the powerful standing of the first lady of the local church couldn’t touch, as Sophie Winchester had already proved. No matter what Hester had done to spread rumors about the girl living in sin with the police chief, the thrown mud had slid off her like butter off Teflon.

Sometimes there was no justice. Sophie got away with her disrespect. Her brother Mick…well, he was fine to look at, Hester wasn’t too old to note that. But he was a sinner. One had only to look at him, at the way he smiled at women, at the way he wore his pants and the way he walked. Wicked.

Not that it mattered, because now the town was going to be filling up with wicked people. Those Hollywood types, with their prying eyes and their prying cameras. People who liked to learn secrets, just like Hester.

What if one of these sneaky newcomers, by remote chance, recognized her? It seemed doubtful. She’d changed in the past thirty years, Lord knew. But it wasn’t impossible.

And that was the only thing in the world that scared Miss Hester Tomlinson.

Exposure.

CHAPTER FIVE

CAROLINE HAD LEARNED how to play poker from her Uncle Louie, who was almost as much of a no-gooder as her own father. Uncle Louie had finally settled down and married Aunt Luanne; they were now affectionately called Loulou by everyone who knew them. He’d become a perfectly content husband, unlike her father, who was living someplace in Florida with his third wife.

One thing was sure. Uncle Louie had been a good teacher, beating Caroline out of every last penny in her piggy bank whenever he came to visit.

Thank you, Uncle Louie. She just loved being able to kick ass at cards. One ass, in particular. Mick’s.

“Hell, Caroline, if I’d known you were a card shark I would’ve charged you higher rent,” he muttered as he threw down another hand in disgust two hours later.

She shot him a disbelieving look, amazed that he had the nerve to bring up the subject of rent and renters. That conversation was coming, no doubt about it. But not now, not in front of witnesses who could be used to testify against her in the trial: the one she anticipated after she killed the guy.

She sipped at her now very watery scotch on the rocks, staring at her cards and humming the Alias theme under her breath. Kick-butt woman. That was appropriate tonight. Because she was going to kick Mick’s butt all over the place once they were alone.

But it’s such a nice butt.

No. No thinking of how Mick had looked while naked in his office a few weeks ago. Even as she ordered herself to get him out of her head, however, she knew she’d be unable to do it. The picture of Mick had remained in her brain every minute of every day since she’d seen him again.

The other men in the room were wonderfully good-natured about losing their money to her. Which was a good thing, since two of them were going to be extras on Killing Time in a Small Town. Finally, when the eleven o’clock news came on in the background, the one named Eddie leaned back in his chair and gave an exaggerated stretch. “Workday for me tomorrow.”

Yes, it was, even for her. Unfortunately, she still had no idea where she was going to sleep tonight. But it was worth it to see the way Mick was squirming, wondering when she was going to erupt, and how she would handle her rooming situation.

She knew the answer to both questions: when they were alone, and, at the rent-by-the-hour no-tell motel out by the interstate.

“It was grand, boys,” she said as she accepted her pile of money and tossed her final hand toward Mick. “I think I’ve earned back a week’s worth of the rent this snake slimed out of me.”

Mick sipped his water. She’d noted he’d switched to nonalcoholic drinks after Caro had announced she was staying. Probably for the same reason Caro had nursed just one scotch all evening. She needed all her wits about her. Not so much for the game, because Mick’s friends, while they might have been all-stars on the baseball field, really stank at cards. But no, she needed to keep clearheaded to deal with Mick once they were alone.

Which looked like it was going to be very soon.

“Night, Caroline,” Eddie, a thick-waisted Italian guy with a shaggy mustache, said.

“It’s Caro,” she murmured.

“Like the pancake syrup?”

She shot Mick a glare as she heard him chuckle.

“Welcome to town,” said Eddie’s brother, Ty, who looked just like him except for the absence of about forty pounds. She liked Ty. He hadn’t tried to suck up to her by letting her win the first round or two, like the other guys had. He’d gone right for the gut. She liked a man who wasn’t intimidated by a strong woman.

Like Mick. He hadn’t cut her any slack either. It had been a real pleasure to cut his jacks-over-eights full house out from under him with a royal flush.

If only he didn’t look so darn cute. So male, so king of his domainish. She couldn’t imagine why she had ever thought this house belonged to the nice old lady—his mother, for heaven’s sake. Because while it was old, and tastefully decorated with antiques, it did scream male inhabitant.

The rec room with the completely drool-worthy forty-three-inch flat-screen TV and the five-speaker surround-sound system should have been a tip-off. Little old ladies didn’t usually watch their Matlock or Murder She Wrote reruns in such high-tech surroundings. Caro had just been too deep in lust with the TV setup to question it.

The rest of the house had held similar hints. From the paneled office with the cherry desk—which she’d originally thought might have belonged to the nonland-lady’s late husband—to the overstuffed leather furniture in the living room, she should have expected this. Well, not this. Not Mick. But she should have at least considered the possibility that the woman she’d met was not the owner of the house.

When they were finally alone, Mick walked over to plop on the recliner facing the TV. Following him, Caro found the remote and clicked the off switch. Nothing happened. Spying another remote, she grabbed that one and tried again. Still nothing. “Do you not have batteries in this town?”

He didn’t even look around. “The little one’s for the stereo. The silver one for the CD player. The fat black one works the DVD and the really long one runs everything else.”

Great. A remote-inept roommate. “Ever heard of universal?” she asked, digging into the sofa cushions for the long “everything else” one.

Mick wasn’t helping. “Can never figure out how to get the damn things to work. The one time I tried it, it kept turning on my coffeepot. I thought I’d end up burning my house down.”

She saw a nearly hidden smile. “You’re so full of it.”

“And so are you. You know damn well you’re not planning on staying here. Why didn’t you slap my face and walk out the minute you realized what I’d done to you?”

He gave her one of those lopsided, cocky grins, as if daring her to get close enough to slap his face. She didn’t take the dare. Stepping close to Mick would make her hand itch to do something far removed from slapping.

She already wanted to touch him. Had wanted to touch him since that first moment in his office. But that was a dangerous, slippery road, one she couldn’t afford to travel. She took one tiny, nearly imperceptible step back.

“So tell me,” he said, apparently not noticing the sudden flush in her cheeks, “why haven’t you left yet?”

She crossed her arms in front of her chest, still standing over him. “Where, exactly, do you suggest I go?”

“So you definitely don’t want to be roomies?”

“Not even if you’ve turned into Tom Hanks from Bosom Buddies.”

He rolled his eyes. “Still living life as a sitcom, huh?”

She glanced around the dirty room, which still held a hazy cloud of smoke and a strong smell of liquor. “Still living life as a frat boy, hmm?”

He chuckled. “Christ, how did I survive eight years without hearing those smart-ass comebacks?”

That made her catch her breath, and Mick instantly seemed sorry to have said it. He stared at her, their eyes meeting and exchanging a long, unspoken conversation. Where has the time gone? Where have you been? How has life treated you? What brought us together and what was it, really, that tore us apart?

None of the questions were asked. Much less answered.

Instead, Caroline voiced another one. “Why’d you do it? Why’d you set me up like this?” She instantly regretted it, especially when she heard the note of vulnerability in her own voice. Dammit, she’d pulled off strong and in-control all evening. Why’d she have to go and turn into a girl now when they were alone?