Winters & Somers (6 page)

Wallace stepped behind her to pull out a chair
and seat her, his fingers lingering momentarily against the bare skin of her
shoulders, just long enough to communicate his interest but not long enough to
cause offence if he were barking up the wrong tree.
He probably didn’t bark
up the wrong tree very often.

“Can I get you another drink?” She shook her
head, holding up the spring water and lemon she’d just ordered.

            “Ah,
now, that’s not a real drink. Let’s see, a lady like yourself should be
drinking good champagne.” Cíara suddenly decided that maybe she could like this
guy. After all, any guy who recognized that she was a lady deserving of good
champers couldn’t possibly be all bad…
smack yourself on the side of the
head, Cíara my girl!
a voice in her head that sounded remarkably like
Granny Somers gave her a wakeup call.
With a start, she realized that this
was probably how a rabbit felt, transfixed in the glare of a snake’s seduction…

            The
champagne arrived. Richer, smoother champagne than she could ever remember
tasting. The bubbles teased her nose rather than launching an all-out tickle
and sneeze campaign. Wallace was a pleasant companion, eager to talk, mostly
about himself with a little judicious, wide-eyed encouragement from her, giving
her an earful about his wealthy family, the jewelry business branch he was
planning to open in Ireland. They were South African, Boer, she learned, and he
found the strict ethical business rules by which his family played
old-fashioned and restricting.

            “This
is a whole new world compared to the one my grandfather knew,” Wallace
declared. “These days it’s no longer desirable to earn your wealth steadily and
slowly. These days you’ve got to always be on the lookout for the main chance,
and seize the opportunities life hands you.”

            “Like
a wealthy marriage,” Cíara muttered, and was gratified to see a quick, guilty
startle cross his face.

 “What? Er, yes”  –  But then he chose to
deliberately misinterpret her remarks. “Is that what you are looking for, my
dear? A wealthy marriage – or a rich lover?”

            She
swallowed the nervous lump in her throat.
She was in the game now, may as
well play all the leads.
“I think a rich lover gives a girl much more
freedom of choice,” she said in what she hoped was a voice loaded with sexual
innuendo but which was in reality probably more a high-pitched squeak.

            “Ah,
I knew the moment I saw you that you were a woman who valued her freedom of
choice,” he said, and his handsome looks suddenly assumed a satyr-like cast.
The first ripple of unease slithered across her skin.

            “Are
you cold, my dear?” Wallace asked, seizing the opportunity to pull her closer
to him.

            “Er,
no, just rather tired. I think it’s probably time I left.”  She was being a
coward but she’d got all she needed and there was just something
wrong
about Wallace. He stood when she did, crowding her, and his mouth –  they were
about the same height – found her ear lobe, tickling it wetly before he
whispered: “I think that’s an excellent idea – your room or mine?”

            That’s
when she knew she’d lost control of the situation.
Disastrously.

            “I’m
not actually staying at the hotel,” she stammered, feeling frantic now that she
was faced with the full implications of her assignment.

            “All
the better, my dear – cuts down on the wagging tongues in the morning….”

            The
next thing she knew they were outside and Wallace was pulling her to him, his
mouth on hers, his tongue making frantic efforts to insinuate itself into her
mouth, his hands making inroads into forbidden territory under the smooth
fabric of her evening gown. As she removed one wandering palm from her breast,
another found the rounded mound of her buttocks, and there was nothing else for
it but to jam her knee up into his tender areas as her Granny had often
advised.

 Except that he now had her pressed against the
rough stone of the wall, the length of his body smooth and hard against her
own, robbing her of any room to maneuver.

            Panic
began to pound at her temples, and she had to move to Emergency Plan B.
Protestations of
no, don’t,
didn’t seem to get her very far, so the next
time she was able to free her mouth, she pulled crisp sea air into her lungs
and screamed bloody murder.

* * *

            “What
the hell was that?” Jonathon Winters jerked upright in his seat, the remains of
a grand steak dinner forgotten as he reacted to the sound of screams.

            “Probably
just some bird or something in the trees.” Alison Wilson, Winters' dinner
companion, literary agent, and one-time lover, replied.

            But
the cop DNA in him was too ingrained. He knew it was a scream he heard and he
couldn’t ignore it. He sprang to his feet, wincing as pain streaked up his
wounded leg, and strode from the restaurant. Outside, the air was cool and
damp, and he paused to listen. Another scream erupted, and he pinpointed the
location. Moving as fast as he could but keeping his back to the wall, he ran
in the direction of the sound to see a couple struggling in the shadows. He
weighed up the possibilities, reminded himself he had no weapon – and then
waded in anyway.

            Grabbing
the man by the shoulders, he tore him away from the woman who was struggling to
free herself. The man turned on him in fury and raised his fists but Winters
got in the first punch. The man staggered, rallied, then seeing they were no
way well matched if it came to a fight, he backed off. Tossing a contemptuous
insult at the woman who was hidden in the shadows, the assailant stalked off.

            Winters
stepped forward to get a better look at the woman he'd rescued – and then his
world dissolved in pain….

* * *

            Cíara
issued another shrill scream, hating the helpless feeling as Wallace's hands
roamed over her and his body pinned her to the wall. Couldn’t anyone in that
crowded hotel hear her? Suddenly her screams were answered - Wallace was
dragged off her. A hefty smack resounded as he was punched in the face.

She wished the light was better; she’d have liked
to have seen that punch. Or better still even administered it.

            “I
think the lady’s trying to tell you to back off,” a deep, North American
accented voice drawled dangerously.

            “What
the hell has it got to do with you?” Wallace asked, his voice muffled by the
trickle of blood from his swelling nose.

            “Just
call it my good deed for the day.”

            “Good
deed of the day be damned! She’s just a hooker trying to blackmail some cash
out of me without coming across with the goods!”

            “That’s
enough!” But Cíara knew her savior was giving her a re-assessing glance, taking
in the skimpy, clinging dress made even more revealing because Wallace had torn
the neckline, and the silver sandals with their sex-kitten four inch stiletto
heels, all of which glowed in the light filtering through a window on the floor
above where they stood. She couldn’t see his face, but knew the kind of male
judgement she would see there, and her hands knotted into fists.

            “Maybe
she'll be grateful enough to give you a freebie,” Wallace said petulantly and
stalked away, pressing a handkerchief to his injured nose.

            Cíara
turned to her rescuer, wondering how to explain with dignity, but a bright
yellow blur hurtled around the corner of the building and a sharp ‘swap’
sounded as a blunt object connected with the side of the man’s skull. He let
out a disgruntled oomph! and backed against the wall. The light fell across the
shadowy face of his attacker and she gasped in mortification, and then
struggled against the giggles that bubbled in her throat.

            “Mrs.
Muldoon! What are you doing here?”

            “Didn’t
I tell you it wasn’t safe for a young lass like yourself, out dressed like that
amongst these men! Animals, they are, animals,” she said, advancing again on
the tall, dark shape of Cíara's erstwhile rescuer, who backed up further
against the wall as the umbrella once more descended towards his scalp.

Cíara grabbed for the weapon just in time,
“You’ve got it all wrong…”

            “Wrong!
And wasn’t I watching the main doors for you, and didn’t I hear a scream and
recognize your voice, and that scream one of fear?”

            “Well,
yes, but this wasn’t the man…?”

            A
moment’s silence passed, and then Grace slowly lowered the umbrella: “It
wasn’t?”

            “No.”

            “Then.
how many…?”

            “How
many men are the two of you terrorizing? That’s a good question…I don’t know
what kind of scam or blackmail game you're playing, but you’ll not get a penny
out of me, and think yourselves lucky I don’t call the police.” With that, the
tall figure stalked away, albeit a little stiffly, with one hand on the wall to
steady himself. Cíara thought perhaps she should run after him, see if he
needed some help – after all, Grace looked as though she packed a mean umbrella
– but thought better of it.

 She might just scare him to death if she chased
him!

            With
a grin, she turned to her landlady. “Grace, let’s go home. I’ll try and explain
what was happening…”

            “I’ve
a nice bottle of Powers whisky in the press. I think it might make the
explaining more understandable,” Grace said, shaking her head.

            “Yep,
I think it just might,” Cíara agreed. “I think it just might.”

            “So,
if we boil it all down, you were hired to go out and prove if this man could be
led off the straight and narrow by a pretty face? But girl, everyone knows that
any man can be led like that – your boss must have a barrow-load of money to
throw it away re-inventing the wheel.”

            Cíara
began to protest, but clamped her mouth shut. Grace might be cynical about the
male species but maybe she had a point. And, in truth, perhaps Serena
McLaughlin was simply looking for a reason not to continue the relationship.
After all, what kind of love was this that her first instinct was to find out
the man’s faults?

            She
staggered wearily up to bed, her mood depressed despite the three glasses of
Powers’ liquid gold that Grace had plied her with
‘to keep the chills out
after such a nasty shock’
.

She'd had an exhausting couple of hours
convincing Grace that the man she’d assaulted with her umbrella wasn’t in
league with the ‘filthy beast’ who’d caused Cíara to scream for help in the first
place.

“He was up to no good, anyway, girl,” Grace
declared darkly. “Much too good looking to be wandering about untethered.”

            While
she had to agree that her erstwhile rescuer had given off some very sexy vibes,
embarrassment still twisted in her gut when she replayed the evening as she got
ready for bed. Pulling up the crisp, fresh, lavender-scented covers, she had to
agree with the evil fairy on her shoulder that she'd have loved to have seen
the face of her rescuer when whirling Dervish Grace had pounded upon him, her
deadly umbrella right on target!

Then Wallace’s protestation that she was ‘just a
hooker’ wormed its way back into her mind and she squirmed with humiliation and
rage.
She certainly hadn’t meant to play the seductress quite so obviously!

            She
was still tossing and turning, sleep eluding her, when the cell phone beside
her bed shrilled its catchy little tune.

            “Miss
Somers? Frank O’Keefe here. Sorry to call so late, but it’s the only chance
I’ve had.  Listen, I know you said you’d be in our area this weekend but, well,
my wife is going to a libraries’ conference midweek in Dublin – and J. V. 
Winters is going to be the keynote speaker. Cute, eh? So maybe that would,
well, be the perfect time to see if…” The man’s whispery voice trailed away on
such a dejected note that her heart welled with sympathy.

            “All
right, Mr. O'Keefe, fax my office with the details of the conference and I’ll
see what I can do,” she said wearily. As she put the phone down, her heart gave
a little leap of relief. At least that meant she didn’t have to spend a moment
longer at the scene of her Close Encounters of the Embarrassing Kind. She
imagined that everywhere she went while she was in Waterford, people would be
whispering about last night’s ‘seduction’ and pointing fingers at her.

Vowing revenge on Wallace’s head, she fell into a
deep, contented slumber punctuated only by the occasional uneasy dream of a
stranger whose face was shadowed in darkness.

* * *

            Frank O’Keefe, on the
other hand, found it impossible to sleep even after talking to Cíara. In fact,
talking to the pretty detective had made everything seem even more horrifyingly
real. He’d been trying so hard to keep everything casual – although he did
notice that strange look of dismay in Peggy’s eyes when he brought home a bunch
of red roses as a surprise gift. Was it guilt that flooded her face with a
color not that far removed from that of the flower petals?