Weddings Can Be Murder (7 page)

“No.” A puff of vapor left her lips. “And he doesn’t have a dog, but he’s very sensitive to my needs.”

Only a real queer wouldn’t give his left nut for the opportunity
to be sensitive to your needs
. The crude remark almost slipped from his mouth, but he bit it back. He tried to justify his sudden dislike for her fiancé, but couldn’t think of a good reason. “What does Mr. Sensitive do for a living?”

“He’s an engineer. And his name is Joe Lyon.”

He stared at her left hand, and while he’d noticed it earlier and hadn’t asked, now his curiosity bit harder. “Why aren’t you wearing an engagement ring?”

Her gaze shot up. “I…I don’t want to talk about it.”

“Trouble in paradise?” Why did that thought make him happy?

“No.” She opened a new box and her eyes widened. “Yes! Finally. I think I just found something we can use.”

Tools?
Relief swept over him. Every instinct Carl
owned told him the sooner he got away from Red, the better.

After hitting another ice patch, Joe pulled up to the curb and dialed Katie’s cell again. It wasn’t like her to not show up. He’d been worried about her all evening.

Yeah, when you weren’t too busy flirting with sexy blondes
.

He thumped his hand on the steering wheel. What the hell had he been doing? Okay, he knew he hadn’t done anything that constituted cheating. But damn if he hadn’t wanted to.

Taking a deep breath, he ran his hands through his hair. Wanting to do something wasn’t a crime. But was it a sign? A sign that he was making the biggest fucking mistake of his life?

The sound of BB-sized hail pelting his windshield drew his attention to the bad driving conditions. Had Katie been in an accident? Or had he gotten the time wrong? Was she ticked at him? That would explain why she wasn’t answering his calls.

“Oh, hell!” He deserved Katie’s anger. Not for getting the times mixed up, if that was what had happened, and maybe not even for being attracted to the blonde, because he hadn’t done anything, but he deserved shit for ignoring Katie these past few weeks. He was one lucky bastard to have found her. To have someone as good-natured, as loyal, and as breathtakingly sexy, who wanted the same things out of life that he did. A woman who could tolerate his mom. A woman whom his mom approved of. Marrying Katie made sense. Perfect sense.

So why the fuck didn’t he feel lucky?

“Tools?” Carl jumped up to see for himself.

“Not tools,” Katie said. “Clothes.”

He stared at her. “Clothes?”

She stood and unzipped his coat. “Yeah. Now you can quit pretending you aren’t cold and have your jacket back.”

Okay, he had to admit that he was freezing his ass off, but he felt positive he hadn’t shown that bit of weakness.

“Clothes,” he repeated, with about as much enthusiasm as he’d say
tax audit
. But then she stripped off his jacket and he got to see what he’d been missing since she’d zipped the thing up.

And he had missed it, too. She tossed his jacket at him. He caught it before it hit his face and obstructed his view. His gaze whispered over the soft mounds of flesh filling out her thin, sexy-as-hell pale blue sweater and matching top. Then his focus moved down to the same-color jeans, which fit like a glove, showcasing every dip and curve. He loved dips and curves.

She pulled something bright yellow from the box. It looked like a bulky ski jacket. Which was going to cover up more of that curvy body than his own jacket had.

When she slipped one arm in, the hem of her sweater
rose and gave him a peek at the skin of her flat belly. Yes, he liked skin. His gaze stayed riveted to the spot, hoping for another flash. It had been too damn long since he’d seen feminine belly skin. Touched skin. Tasted skin.

His mouth watered. Then it was gone.

She pulled the thick ski jacket closed in front and zipped. Reaching down, she brought out a matching scarf. She wrapped it around her neck twice, and it even covered up the bottom of her face—which cheated him out of seeing her mouth. That hurt, because he’d really enjoyed looking at her mouth.

Then came the gloves. He hadn’t thought about her hands being sexy, but he knew he was going to miss seeing them, too.

“Here.” She reached back into the box and tossed a scarf at him. “Put this on.”

He caught the fuzzy and glittery pink strip of fabric. “Red, you’re nuts if you think I’m going to wear this.”

“Oh, yeah,” she said, the tease in her voice muffled by the scarf. “I forgot. You’re macho.”

“And proud of it,” he snapped. “And to prove it, I’m going to go pee standing up, something I bet metro men don’t do anymore.” He tossed the scarf back into the box. But he did slip his jacket back on and cast her a quick glance.

“All I need is hot cocoa and something to eat,” she said.

The mention of food had his own stomach growling, and he remembered. He pulled the bag out of his coat pocket.

“Here, have some worms.” He tossed them to her and took off to the head.

While lathering soap over her body, Les thought she heard something. Then she thought she saw something. Okay, she did see something. A shadow on the other side of the shower curtain.

Katie?
She’d started to call out when a leg, a
masculine,
hairy, naked
leg, slipped from behind the drape of plastic and moved inside the shower. Inside. Inside the shower.

Inside the shower with her.

Following the leg was…Yes, it had been a while, but she still recognized a half-aroused penis when she saw one.

Her first reaction wasn’t fear. More like shock. More like
incredible
shock. Astonishment, even. But forcing her eyes from the impressive male package to the man’s face, all her stunned emotions were yesterday’s news and fear jumped into the driver seat.

Him!

The guy from the bar. The one she’d thought was a hero. He’d followed her.

Heroes didn’t follow girls from bars. Freaks followed girls from bars. As an ex-investigative reporter she knew what freaks did to their victims, too.

Her lungs gave up every bit of air she had to make sure her scream could be heard on the other side of China. Then, realizing screaming might not be enough, she started fighting. Fighting mean. Fighting dirty.

She kicked. She curled her hands into tight fists and punched.

The intruder stood frozen, staring at her with eyes wider than Ping-Pong balls. So she uncurled her fist and fought like a real girl. She ran her fingernails down the side of his face so hard she knew she’d drawn blood. That at least got a reaction from him. He backed up.

“Stop,” he spat out.

Oh, yeah. As if she was calmly going to let him rape and possibly kill her. Panic jolted through her. She tried to lunge out, but her foot slipped and she tumbled full force into him. They fell, or rather slid, down into the tub. They went down really smooth, him on the bottom, her on top. The soap she’d slathered on her body made
for some serious slipping and sliding. Her naked body slipping all over his naked body. The feel of his arousal, now more than half-mast and positioned between her thighs, sent her panic roaring to new levels.

He grabbed her arm. Trying to grab the edge of the tub, she knocked off the dandruff shampoo. Knowing a weapon when she knocked one over, she snatched it up and squeezed like her life depended on it—which it probably did—until the whole bottle emptied into his eyes.

“Damn!”

While he frantically wiped at his face, she jackknifed up, stepping on his face in the process, and hurdled out of the shower. But the moment her wet, shampoo-laden foot hit the tile, she went down, and her hand landed on the floor by the phone. She snatched it up.

Flipping the phone open, crawling toward the door, she dialed 911 and started screaming, “Help me!” The shower curtain rustled behind her. Breath held, phone to ear, she bounced to her feet and flew out the door.

Obscenities spouted out from the bathroom. Yeah, it always did take a few minutes for the shampoo to start stinging.

Les tore out into the hall. “Help me,” she screamed again into the phone, and tripped again.

“Hey.” The man appeared at the bedroom door.

Les scrambled up. Afraid she’d never outrun him, she darted into Katie’s study, slammed the door, and locked it. She flung herself against it. Her heart throbbed against her chest bone. Oh, God, she couldn’t breathe.

A voice came out of her phone. A woman’s voice. The 911 operator. “Are you okay? Talk to me!”

“Help!” Les squeezed the words out. “He followed me.”

“Where are you? Give me your address.”

“I didn’t follow you!” a masculine voice boomed from the other side of the door.

Les spouted out Katie’s address. “Please hurry.”

“Don’t hang up!” the 911 operator insisted. “Do you hear me? Stay on the line. The police are on their way.”

“The police are coming,” Les yelled at the intruder. “Get out of here!” She glanced around the study for something she could use as a weapon. She grabbed an umbrella. Phone in one hand, umbrella in the other.

“I don’t know who the hell you are,” the man said, “or how you got here, but I did
not
follow you.”

Les’s heart hammered as she stared at the door. Cold air stirred across her naked butt, reminding her that she was wet and naked and she’d come within a hair of being raped. Another frigid blast of wind made her skin prickle. She turned around and saw the broken window. Glass lay scattered on the carpet. Was that how he’d gotten in?

“If you’re calling the police, you’d better tell them that I didn’t lay a finger on you,” the intruder yelled from the hall.

She heard his footsteps. What if he went around and tried to come in through the window? Her heart thumped harder.

“Are you still with me?” the 911 operator asked.

“Yes.” And Les pressed her other ear to the door to listen. Nothing. Had he left?

“Are you safe right now?” the voice asked.

“I don’t know,” Les whimpered, and thought she heard a door.

“Is he still there?” she asked.

“I think he might have left.” Les forced herself to breathe.

“Can you get out of the house to go to a neighbor’s?”

Les’s gaze shot back to the window—where she swore she saw a shadow. Then she saw it again. Did he plan to come in through the window for her? She unlocked the study door and tore out into the hall.

“Worms?” Katie flung the bag to the floor.

“Sour gummy worms.” Carl laughed and grabbed
them and handed them to her. “Oh, the green ones suck. Even Precious says so.” He disappeared into the bathroom.

She saw him start to close the door. Her gaze flew back to the other door leading in from the hall. “Wait,” she said.

He stuck his head back out. “What?”

“Nothing,” she said, feeling ridiculous. The man deserved some privacy, and she just needed to toughen up. For God’s sake, she was a Ray.

He stared at her, then at his hand on the door. When he stepped back in, he left the door ajar.

Okay, so he’d guessed she was afraid. She should be embarrassed. And she was, when she heard the sound of him emptying his bladder.

When had she become a wimpy woman?

Since you saw a woman killed a couple of hours ago
.

True, she had good reasons to be a little nervous.

Silence fell. A slight bump sounded against the door. And not the door to the bathroom, either.
Oh, Lord
.

Was she so nervous that she would imagine noises? It came again. A tap. Her breath hitched. She hadn’t imagined that.

“Carl!” she screamed.

The naked woman slammed right into Joe. Of course, he was assuming it was the same woman. He couldn’t see shit. He’d barely managed to find his jeans. The blonde had squirted him right in the eyes with Katie’s dandruff shampoo. And he’d let her—he’d lain there with her soapy body slipping and sliding on top of him and let her squeeze the entire bottle into his baby blues. And he’d fucking kept his eyes open, too.

Normally, he wasn’t so passive, but he’d been beyond stunned when he’d stepped in the shower—expecting to see Katie all naked and hopefully willing, hoping to reconnect with his fiancée, praying some hot sex would
chase away his doubts. Instead, for a second there, he’d thought he was hallucinating. Yeah, he’d been stunned all right.

He’d moved past stunned now, because when she started to fight again, he started to stop her. Hurting her wasn’t his objective—protecting himself was.

She swung her knee up. He caught it. She went to whack him in the face with her phone. He ducked. She swung an umbrella at his head and he snagged it and tossed it away. Then he caught her wrists. Her phone fell to the carpet.

“Stop it,” he screamed. Holding her wrists in his hands, he moved her against the wall to prevent her knee from taking out his family jewels.

“I’m not going to hurt you.” He knew he’d scared her, but he had to get her calmed down. Calm enough so when the police arrived, they didn’t shoot first and ask questions later. Questions, as in
does the dead guy have any
identification on him?

But, damn, this didn’t make sense. What was this blonde doing in Katie’s shower? Who the hell was—
Oh crap!

Katie’s friend who lived in Boston was supposed to be here that week. He remembered this woman telling him she’d been waiting for a friend at the bar. She could have been waiting for Katie, too.

The blonde continued to struggle. Her breasts brushed against him. He ignored his body’s response to her tight nipples and focused on crucial shit. As in
the police are on
their way here now
. The police whom she’d told that he was a freak who’d followed her home.

What had Katie told him her friend’s name was? He clawed at his memory. “Les? You’re Les, aren’t you? I’m Joe Lyon, Katie’s fiancé.”

Les heard the words, but they hung somewhere between her hearing and believing. Closer to hearing than believing.
Her basic instincts still screamed
fight
. She gave her knee another upward thrust before his words really registered.

He was…“You’re
Joe
?” It didn’t make sense. “No, you broke in through the window.”

“I did not!” he growled. “I used my key.”

“You’re hurting me.” She tried to yank free.

“If you promise not to attack me, I’ll go get my driver’s license for you to see.”

Les relaxed—well, as relaxed as you get when you were naked, and up until about a second ago, damn certain the man pressing you against the wall was a murdering rapist. Oh yeah, she was calm all right. Her heart hadn’t had this kind of workout in years.

“Can I get my wallet?” His hold on her wrists loosened.

“Are you there? The police are on the street,” a voice echoed from Les’s phone.

Joe released her, slowly backed away, knelt, and handed her the phone. “Take this if it makes you feel safer. But when you see my license, I want you to call off the troops. Got it?”

When she nodded, he shuffled back two steps. Much to his credit, he never let his gaze travel down her body. Her very naked body. If he were a rapist/murderer, would he have given her the phone, and would he have been polite enough not to look? Did rapists offer their IDs?

But why had he broken…?

I’m Katie’s fiancé. I didn’t break in. I used my key
.

Trying to breathe, she felt his words vibrate in her head as she watched his bare shoulders and jean-covered butt move toward the bedroom. He’d put on his pants. Which was a heck of a lot more than she wore.

“Ma’am? Are you there?” the voice came again from the line.

“Yes,” she managed to say.

Looking toward the living room, she saw Katie’s chenille Mickey Mouse throw tossed across a chair. She ran and snatched it up, and wrapped herself in it like it was a beach towel. When Les looked up, Joe—or the man who had almost convinced her he was Joe—was walking down the hall with his wallet in his hand. He handed her his license.

Les turned on the light. Her gaze shot to the open back door. Who had opened it? Who had broken the window? Her heart raced.

She turned the light on and studied the license.
Joe Lyon
. Swallowing, she put the phone back to her ear. “Is…is it too late to tell the police that I made a mistake?”

Carl had barely had time to get his dick back in his shorts when he heard Katie scream.