Madigan's Wife

Chapter 3

Ray wasn’t surprised to see Luther come strolling into his private office unannounced. Doris had always been a little afraid of the irascible Detective Luther Malone; she let him have the run of the place. She was usually such a stickler for making clients and visitors wait, guarding his domain from her post in the outer office like a friendly but potentially dangerous guard dog.

“So,” Luther said, propping himself on the edge of a messy desk. “What’s up with Grace?”

“I took her home to shower and change clothes, and then I drove her to work,” Ray said, closing the file before him. “She’s still shook up, but figured working would be better than sitting around thinking about what happened.”

Luther raised his eyebrows and shot Ray a look of sheer disbelief as he reached into his pocket for a piece of hard candy. Peppermint. “You didn’t buy that story, did you?”

He’d known from the start, as Grace had, that Luther was skeptical about her account; they’d worked together too long not to be able to read each other’s reactions to any given situation, not that Luther was exactly subtle these days. “Why would she make it up?” he asked calmly.

“I was hoping you could tell me.”

Until recently, they’d had an unspoken agreement not to speak about Grace. She was a forbidden subject. Right now Ray saw more than skepticism in Luther’s eyes; he saw a detective’s unquenchable curiosity. Luther had a ton of questions that had nothing to do with murder.

Ray leaned back in his chair, not quite ready to satisfy that curiosity. “I’m telling you, she was spooked when she showed up at my place.”

“Really?” Luther said dryly. “That’s another thing that bothers me. She ran all the way to your apartment, instead of stopping at one of the many houses she had to pass to get there.”

“Instinct,” Ray said slowly. “She was scared so she went looking for someone familiar.”

“You guys are divorced and have been for years,” Luther grumbled. “Why would she go to you, of all people, when there’s trouble?”

Ray flashed a wide smile. “You know all my ex-wives still adore me and depend on me to take care of them. Gracie’s no different.”

His smile didn’t falter as Luther shot him a biting glance that said, too clearly, that Grace was different. Luther knew too much.

“I have no body,” Luther said in a low voice. “No blood, no sign of a struggle, not a single corroborating witness, even though this supposedly happened right out in the open. I’m looking for a big dark car, and a big guy with medium brown hair under a baseball cap, a trench coat and hard-soled shoes, and evil pale eyes. Blue or green, take your pick.”

“And a temporary limp,” Ray added lightly.

Luther delved in his coat pocket for another piece of candy. Strawberry, this time. He played with it instead of placing it in his mouth, rolling it in his palm and between his fingers. “She might as well have given him a hook and sent me chasing after the one-armed man. Why can’t I get something easy like the Taggert case? A body, a murder weapon, blood, fingerprints, enough evidence to convict the guy twice…but no, that jerk Daniels has the easy cases fall into his lap, and I get a hysterical woman’s fairy tale.”

Ray wasn’t yet ready to admit that Grace might be lying. He couldn’t forget the vulnerable expression on her face as she’d looked at him and said, You believe me, don’t you?

“Maybe it happened the way she said, and maybe she saw something and just overreacted,” he reasoned. “I don’t think she’d make this up.”

“You don’t?”

He knew she’d been terrified when he opened the door to his apartment, when she’d fallen inside and into his arms. She’d have to be terrified to forget her unspoken rule and actually touch him.

“I don’t,” he finally said.

Luther shook his head. “Well, think about it. Has anything happened lately that might upset her? Something that might send her off the deep end.”

“We had lunch yesterday.”

“That’ll do it,” Luther cracked.

Ray’s smile faded. “I told her about the Mobile job offer.” He didn’t like the niggling seed of doubt that settled uneasily in his brain.

Luther stood and lifted both arms wide. His dark suit jacket gaped to reveal his shoulder holster and the snub-nosed six-shooter in it. “That’s it. Don’t you see? She figures if you stick around here to protect her from some big, strong killer in a trench coat and a mysterious dark car you’ll forget about the undercover job.”

The theory made too much sense. He might not like the idea, but he couldn’t immediately dismiss it, either.

“She always hated the undercover work,” Luther added needlessly. “Divorced or not, I think she’d do anything to keep you from going into that again.”

He remembered the look on her face yesterday, when he’d told her about the job offer. Terror, anger, revulsion. She hadn’t even tried to disguise her true feelings. Would she lie to keep him from taking that job? Did she know he wouldn’t leave town if he thought she was in danger?

Of course she did. Like it or not, she knew him better than anyone else ever had.

“Well hell,” he drawled, as if this new wrinkle didn’t make a bit of difference. “If a body shows up with a broken neck, or if you get a missing persons report on a man that matches her vague description of the victim, then what?”

“Then we reevaluate,” Luther said as he made his way toward the door. “Frankly, I don’t think anything’s gonna turn up. I think Grace pulled a nasty trick out of her hat to make sure you stay right here in Huntsville for as long as she wants you here.”

“And if she didn’t?” Ray asked as Luther opened the door.

“Then we could all be in a heap of real trouble,” Luther said, and then he closed the door softly.

The numbers on the computer screen added up perfectly, as usual. Things had been a mess three months ago when she’d taken this job, but the accounts were beginning to look good. Everything on the screen before her made perfect sense. Losing herself in the menial task had almost made her forget this morning’s horror.

Grace heard a soft noise, a shuffle and a sigh behind her, and she glanced over her shoulder to see Ray standing in the doorway, leaning against the doorjamb with a smile on his handsome face and his arms folded across his chest. He looked like he didn’t have a care in the world. She had never been more glad to see anyone in her life.

She didn’t want to depend on Ray, to need him the way she once had, but again her heart gave a little leap at the sight of him. Why did he have this effect on her? Her heart melted; she felt a rush of warmth and tenderness in her body. She’d never been able to completely get Ray Madigan out of her heart, no matter how hard she tried. And she did try.

“Almost finished,” she said. “Come on in and have a seat.” She gestured to the single unoccupied chair in the room, a rather uncomfortable, hard chair against one wall.

She returned her eyes to the computer screen, even though she’d finished with this particular task. Ray’s presence unnerved her, and she needed a moment to gather her wits. She moved the mouse and clicked the icon to save her changes, again.

Running to Ray this morning hadn’t been a mistake, or so she’d told herself again and again during this long day. Falling into his arms, that had been a mistake. A big one. She liked being there too much, even though she knew they had no future together. He would never forgive her for leaving him, and she couldn’t live with the knowledge that there would always be an enticing, dangerous job waiting for him around the next corner. An enticing, dangerous job he loved more than he’d ever loved her.

She swiveled in her chair to face him.

“How are you feeling?” he asked. She had the strange notion that something new lurked beneath the surface; a wariness in his voice and in his blue eyes.

“Fine, I guess. Did Luther find anything?”

Ray shook his head. “No.”

She didn’t think there was any way the killer could find her, but she worried just the same. What if, somehow, he knew where she lived? What if she walked into her house tonight and found him waiting for her? She shivered as she recalled the way he’d so easily snapped a man’s neck. She’d surprised him and gotten away once. She didn’t think she’d have the opportunity again.

“You’re really worried about this, aren’t you?” Ray asked softly. He stared at her obstinately, as if trying to read her thoughts. If anyone could…

“Yeah,” she admitted.

Ray looked comfortable in his uncomfortable chair, at ease in a cramped office he’d never set foot in before. But then, he always looked at ease. He fit in, wherever he happened to be.

“Grace,” a gratingly familiar voice called from the hallway just before stepping through the doorway into her office. “Did you finish…” Dr. Dearborne suddenly stopped speaking, as he saw Ray sitting against the wall. He even took a half step back. “What are you doing here?” A hint of revulsion touched his voice, and he paled. Just a little.

“Hi, Doc,” Ray said with a wide smile.

“You two know each other?” Grace asked, more than a little confused.

“We’ve met,” Ray said casually.

Their meeting had probably had something to do with Trish’s unpleasant encounter with the dentist, Grace reasoned. Ray could be downright old-fashioned about some things; like honor and the way a lady should be treated. It was the Southern gentleman in him, she supposed. Still, he sometimes went too far.

Dr. Dearborne put his less than steady eyes on her. “Never mind, Ms. Madigan. What I wanted to speak to you about can wait until tomorrow. Or Monday.” He gave her a sad, weak smile as he backed out of the office. “Nothing important.”

Grace hadn’t been working for Dr. Dearborne all that long, but she recognized fear when she saw it. The poor, personality-challenged dentist was so anxious to get out of the room he tripped over his own feet. After a quick recovery, he disappeared down the hallway.

“What on earth did you do…” she began.

Ray stood, quick and graceful. “How about I buy you dinner?” he interrupted.

Just as well. She didn’t need to hear how he’d so gallantly defended ex-wife number two from the man he insisted on calling Dr. Doolittle.

But dinner sounded too much like a date. “I don’t feel like going out,” she said as she reached into the bottom drawer of her desk for her purse. But oh, she didn’t want to be alone. Not yet. “I can cook you dinner.”

He made a face, screwed up his nose and squinted his eyes until she could no longer see the vibrant blue. “What have I done to deserve this?”

She smiled as she stood. “I’m a much better cook than I used to be. Give me a break. I was just nineteen when we got married. At the time all I could do in the kitchen was make macaroni and cheese out of a box and open a can of soup.”

She wished she could take the statement back, or at least reword it. Suddenly she remembered the times they’d made love in the kitchen. On the table, against the counter, on the floor. Ray would come home and find her trying her best to hone her abysmal domestic skills, and with a touch and a whispered word or two the recipe was forgotten. He’d lift her up or lower her down and she dismissed everything else. Everything. How many pots had she burned? How many leathery roasts had they laughingly tossed in the garbage? It was no wonder she hadn’t learned to cook until after the divorce.

Her face felt warm. Once the memories came they were hard to shake. She tried to put the heated recollections in perspective. So, they’d had great sex. She’d learned the hard way that you can’t build a lasting relationship on lust. Eventually you need stability, commitment, compromise. Ray didn’t know the meaning of the word compromise.

“And if it was the kind that said ‘add water’ we were in trouble,” he said.

“What?”

“The soup,” he clarified.

If he knew what she was thinking about he didn’t show it. But then, Ray was a master at concealing his feelings. No wonder working undercover came so easily to him. He could become whomever and whatever he wanted; he revealed only what he wanted to reveal.

“Steaks,” she said, headed for the door with her purse clutched in her hands. “Salad and baked potatoes. We’ll have to run by the grocery store, though.” She glanced over her shoulder to see that Ray followed; close but not too close.

“No problem,” he said, as he ushered her out the door and to his car.

Ray hadn’t expected he’d ever find himself sitting on the couch in Grace’s new house. Sure, they saw one another now and then, but she always managed to keep her distance, to keep things casual. In order for her to actually invite him here, she had to be either really scared, or else desperate to keep him from going to Mobile.

He wondered, as he watched her work at the bar that separated the long, narrow kitchen from the living room, just how far she’d go to keep him around.

He had no illusions about Grace. She’d loved him once, and she still cared for him; at least a little. She cared for him enough to worry on occasion, and she trusted him enough to come to him when there was trouble. Enough of a spark remained between them to provide the occasional uncomfortable moment, like in her office just a short while back.

But she didn’t care enough to stay. Sometimes he had to remind himself of that fact.

In a flash he knew Luther’s suppositions about the murder story being concocted just to keep him in town were bull. Grace hadn’t made anything up. She didn’t care enough to stay; she sure as hell didn’t care enough to fight.

Annoyed at himself for studying Grace so intently, he turned his attention to the room. This house was old, but had been recently remodeled. Instead of a small parlor and eat-in kitchen, there was now one main room that consisted of a living area with a sofa, chairs, television and small stereo; the open kitchen and the bar that separated it from the living room; and a smaller space for a round oak dining room table with four chairs. The layout was simple and practical.

He saw Grace in this room, in the comfortable caramel-colored furniture, in the fat pillows scattered about the seating area. He saw her in the thriving plants and the lace curtains and the knickknacks on the single bookshelf. Snow globes. She loved snow globes. He recognized a couple of them as gifts he’d given her, years ago. A big snow globe with a white carousel horse, given to Grace for her twentieth birthday; a smaller one with a little boy and a little girl leaning forward for an innocent kiss, presented on their fourth anniversary.

She chopped vegetables for a salad while the potatoes baked, keeping her eyes on the knife and the cutting board and the vegetables. A strand of hair fell over her cheek, a long, dark strand that looked so soft and tempting his fingers itched.

What would she do if he walked into the kitchen, put his hands on her face, and kissed her long and hard? If he pulled that body up against his and quit pretending he didn’t want her? He had a feeling that before this crisis was over, they were going to find out.

When they’d come in from their trip to the grocery store, she’d declared microwave potatoes “not the same,” so they waited for the real thing: big fat potatoes baking in the oven. The steaks were marinating, a gas grill awaited on the patio out back, and the ice cream he’d sneaked into the grocery cart sat in the freezer. And if Grace chopped those vegetables much more they would be baby food, not salad.

“Gracie,” he said softly. “Come in here and sit down. I’m not so old that I can’t chew my own food.”

Her hands stilled, and she looked down at the vegetables on the cutting board as if she hadn’t realized what she’d been doing to them. Very carefully, she laid her knife aside. “I guess I’m still a little distracted by what happened this morning,” she said as she wiped her hands on a dish towel and tossed it aside.

She stepped out of the kitchen and headed straight for the chair adjacent to the couch. Ray had no illusions that she might actually sit on the couch next to him. That would be too close, much too dangerous. Did she think he didn’t notice the way she reacted when he touched her? The way her eyes went wide and her lips parted and her heart raced?

But no matter how Grace reacted, she continued to manufacture a false barrier between them. She hadn’t even taken the time to change out of her work clothes, as if to slip into something more comfortable would send the wrong signal. She wore a straight, knee-length brown skirt and a tan blouse, very businesslike, very professional. On coming home she’d taken off the matching jacket and hung it in the closet, but she still wore panty hose and low-heeled shoes. She hadn’t even let her hair down. Just that one stubborn strand touched her face, one misbehaving lock of dark hair that had fallen from her oh-so-sensible hairstyle.

A nervous Grace didn’t settle back into the overstuffed chair, but reached for the remote control that sat on the coffee table and turned on the television. “Maybe there will be something about the murder,” she said as she returned the remote to the table.

The news was on, and investigative reporter Sam Morgan’s face filled the screen. Ray’s instinctive reaction was to snag the remote for himself and turn the television off. “There won’t be. Luther will contact us if anything comes up.”

“Still,” she said, snatching the remote off the coffee table and switching the TV on again. “You never know.”

And, of course, if the television stayed on she wouldn’t have to talk to him. She could keep her eyes and her attention on Morgan and pretend nothing was going on, here. This time after Ray turned the television off, he placed the remote on the couch beside him. It would be safe there.

“Do you want to talk about what happened this morning?” he asked, managing to make Grace even more skittish.

She placed luscious big brown eyes on him while she twiddled her thumbs in her lap. Her knees were clamped together, her spine straight; she looked like she’d just finished a class on how to sit like a little lady. She looked like a scared little girl.

“Not really. I’ve told you everything already. Talking about it isn’t going to make me feel any better.”

“Are you sure?”

Grace gazed longingly at the remote control. “I’m sure,” she said softly. Poor girl, she was about to jump out of her lovely skin. “You know, I’d better check those potatoes,” she said, practically jumping to her feet.

Without thinking, Ray reached out and snagged her wrist. With a gentle tug, she fell back and into his lap, landing there soft and wonderfully, arousingly heavy. She didn’t stay there long, but slid off his lap to sit beside him. As she landed on the remote, the television came back on. At least Morgan wasn’t on camera anymore.

“The potatoes won’t be ready for at least another half hour, and you know it,” he said, refusing to release her wrist when she tugged gently.

“But I really should…” she began weakly.

“What are you afraid of?”

He hovered over Grace, and she lifted her face to him. She didn’t tug against his grip again, or try to slide any farther away. He reached out and tucked that strand of hair behind her ear, his fingers brushing lightly against her face and grazing her ear as he accomplished the task.

“I’m not afraid of anything,” she whispered, but the fear in her eyes told him she lied.

“Not even the man who chased you this morning?”

Her eyes widened. “Him? Of course I’m afraid of him. I’m not stupid.”

Her short slide across his lap had caused her skirt to ride up, just a little, and when he glanced down he caught a glimpse of shapely, silk encased thigh. He placed his hand there. Grace trembled.

No matter how hard he tried he couldn’t forget how it had been with them. He touched her and she was his. She laid her head against his chest and he forgot everything. When they came together there was power, and heat, and lightning. Like a spring storm, they lit up the sky and rocked the world.

He lowered his mouth to hers and kissed her, soft, tender, tentative. He felt the tremble of her lips, the gentle sigh of acceptance that touched his mouth. His mouth lay over hers, fixed for a long moment. God, she tasted good. Warm and soft, sweet and real and hungry. There was something akin to relief in the kiss, like he’d had an itch in the middle of his back for six years and someone had finally scratched it. The unexpected comfort of the kiss terrified him, but he didn’t move away.

Feeling bold, fearlessly greedy, he moved his lips against hers, ever so slightly. Grace answered with a soft, gentle draw of her own. A tender sucking, a deep and arousing reception. Everything inside him tightened and heated, as if a bolt of lightning coursed through his body.

His hand, resting on her leg, inched higher until his fingers brushed her inner thigh. The flesh he stroked was giving, soft and warm, enticing and irresistible. This was familiar territory, even though it had been years, six long years, since he’d touched Grace this way. She trembled, but didn’t take her mouth from his.

Ray Madigan was not a complete fool. He didn’t love Grace anymore; how could he? She’d left him, she’d hurt him in a way no one else ever had or ever would. She’d taken a world he’d thought was safe and happy and blown it apart. No, he didn’t love her, but he did want her. Yes, dammit, he did want her.

If the response of her mouth against his was any indication, she wanted him, too. She moved her lips against his and inhaled as if gently sucking the life out of him, as if she wanted to taste deeply but was afraid. Soft and hesitant and almost innocent, she brushed her lips against his.

He leaned over her, pressing her back into the soft cushions of the couch, and deepened the kiss. When he slipped his tongue into her mouth she gasped, and her hands went to his face, his head. She touched his cheeks and speared her fingers through his hair, and she answered the kiss, for an all-too-brief moment.

And then she pushed his head back, forced his mouth from hers. “I can’t,” she whispered. Unshed tears made her dark eyes sparkle, the flush on her face made her look nineteen again.

“Why not?”

She shook her head. “I can’t sleep with you, Ray. I can’t.”

“I wasn’t exactly thinking about sleeping, sweetheart,” he said huskily as he moved closer. Her thighs fell slightly apart; she had to feel his arousal pressing against the inside of her thigh. He could so easily take her, here and now. He needed it; she needed it.

“You know what I mean.”

Ah, she was serious. “What’s wrong? Have you gone back to your ten date rule?” he asked lightly, as if it didn’t make any difference one way or another if they finished what they’d started. As if he didn’t want to ask her, here and now when there was no escape for either of them, why she’d left him.

He’d never understood the way she’d left. A damn note on the refrigerator, like a grocery list. Milk. Eggs. Goodbye.

He would never ask. The question would sound too much like pleading, and he would not grovel in front of Grace. Not now, not ever. He wanted her as much as he ever had, right now he hurt for her, but by God he did not need her.

“Don’t you think a ten date rule is a little excessive in this day and age?” he asked casually, holding his body against hers. He felt and savored every breath she took, the tension in the length of her bewitching body.

He remembered how she’d explained it to him, the first time he’d tried to make love to her. Still a virgin, she’d concluded that she wouldn’t know a man well enough to sleep with him until they’d had at least ten dates. Never a patient man, he’d asked her to marry him that night, on their third date. She’d said yes and they’d been married three days later. He’d been so sure that what they had was real and deep and lasting, that Grace was the one person who would always be there. He’d been young and stupid.