Whiskey For Breakfast Page 11

  At five-thirty I was still awake and birds chirped an annoyingly cheerful tune outside my window. I finally rolled out of bed to see what all the fuss was about. The sky was still the hazy gray of night turning to day. The birds sat just outside my window on a tree limb I could’ve touched if the window was open, and they sang and warbled as they bathed in the water that dripped from the leaves from the storm the night before.

  I pounded on the window. “Hey, shut up out there. Not everyone has had their coffee yet.” I startled them enough that they stopped for just a second and then they started again with even greater fervor.

  Thoughts of coffee made me wonder if I was having a hallucination because I swore I could smell it wafting from under the door. Nick was an early riser, but not usually that early. And especially not on a Sunday. I took a second to use the bathroom and splash water on my face and then I grabbed my phone and checked my email as I followed the smell down the stairs.

  My behavior from the previous night was in the forefront of my mind, but I was determined to pretend like nothing had happened. We were both adults. No big deal. I’d grab a cup of coffee and call a cab to take me home, and I’d forget all about Nick Dempsey and move on with my life. I wasn’t going to be the kind of woman to keeping pining over a man who didn’t want her. That was for reality TV shows and people like Mrs. Messer who’d lived down the street from us when I was a kid. Her husband ran off with a hooker he met on a business trip, but Mrs. Messer waited for him to come back for the next twenty years, sure he’d come to his senses.

  I didn’t take the time to snoop around Nick’s house. I needed to get out of there and fast. Though I couldn’t help but notice a few things. The house was modern in style. All the rooms had floor to ceiling windows, letting in lots of natural light, and each room flowed into the next so there was lots of open space. I stopped where the living area turning into the breakfast room and kitchen and just stared.

  The sight of Nick first thing in the morning made my mouth water and my lady bits sing. I was pathetic. With a capital P. I wished like hell my heart had the common sense my brain did. He stood facing the stove with his legs braced apart as if he were waging war with the omelet he was cooking. He only wore a pair of jeans, his feet were bare, and his hair was slightly mussed.

  I needed to get a grip. I’d get my coffee, call a cab, and disappear to my room until it came for me. I headed over to the coffeemaker and grabbed a mug hanging from the hook just above it. I inhaled once before I took the first rehabilitating sip.

  “Hangover?” Nick asked. “I’ve got some aspirin in the cabinet there above your head.”

  “Nope. No hangover. Your parents know their liquor.”

  “I guess that’s one thing they have going for them. I should probably apologize for their behavior. In hindsight a date like that was probably worth way more than five hundred dollars.”

  “I’ll send you a bill for damages.” I hadn’t made eye contact with him yet, but I could feel his gaze on me and my cheeks heated with embarrassment. I stared at my phone, trying to remember what I was going to do.

  Oh, yeah. A cab.

  I looked up the number, took my coffee, and started back out of the room. I was just about to hit the dial button when Nick stopped me again.

  “Hold on a sec,” he said, sliding the first omelet on a plate. He walked over and handed me the plate, and I put my phone down and grabbed it out of reflex. “Have some breakfast. We didn’t really have dinner last night, so I figured you’d be hungry.”

  I finally found the courage to meet his eyes and we both froze for a minute, the plate caught between us. His face was scruffy with his morning beard and he looked as tired as I did.

  “Did you sleep well?”

  “Like a baby,” I lied and took my plate to the table.

  “Really?” His mouth quirked. “I could’ve sworn I heard the shower running in the middle of the night. Must have been my imagination.”

  I decided no response was the best response. I had fond memories of his showerhead and I wondered if he’d heard anything else. He brought his own plate to the table and sat across from me. We ate in silence for a few minutes.

  “So how’d you like the showerhead?”

  I pushed my plate away and moved to run out of the room, but Nick caught my hand.

  “Let me go. I need to get home. I’ve got work to do today.”

  “I don’t think so. You know how hard it was to stay away from you? I thought about you all night, wanting nothing more than to slip into bed and slide right into you.”

  My mouth dropped open and I started to stutter. I couldn’t remember how to form words. He tugged at my hand and pulled me between his thighs. I tried pulling away, but there was no way I could out-muscle him.

  “Let me go, Nick. I mean it. You had your chance last night and decided you didn’t want me.”

  “You were drunk.”

  “So what? I knew what I was doing.”

  “Yeah, but I didn’t want to take any chances that you’d regret what you were doing. Not to mention I wanted to make sure you’d remember every detail of what I plan to do to you.”

  I was starting to panic a little bit. Being with Nick was an emotional rollercoaster.

  “Guess what, babe?”

  “What?”

  “You’re sober now.” His hand found its way beneath my shirt and his fingers skimmed up my ribcage and rubbed the underside of my breast. I whimpered before I could help it and I shook my head to try to shake some sense loose. I pulled against him and a sob broke free when he didn’t let me go.

  “Why are you making this so hard? We can’t keep doing this.” A couple of tears had broken free and I was on the verge of hysteria. It wasn’t fair for him to keep bringing all the feelings I had for him to the surface all the time. “Maybe someday we can be friends, Nick. But now is not that day. I need you to stay out of my life. All the way out. I deserve to have a chance at something else.”

  “With Savage?”

  “Maybe. I don’t know.”

  “It’s not going to happen, babe.” And then he tugged me so that I fell against his chest and into his arms. His mouth was hot on mine, and I kissed him back. I unleashed all the pent up frustration from the night before, my fingers tangling in his hair and each of us fighting for possession.

  He tugged my shirt over my head and my sweatpants somehow ended up on the table. It was a good thing I wasn’t wearing underwear. I’d saved him a step. Nick kissed his way down my neck, suckling and nibbling until he reached my nipple. I groaned at the pressure and tore at the button on his jeans. Before I knew what was happening I was flat on the table and Nick was taking his mouth south.

  “Looks like the table is as sturdy as you thought,” he said. “All I could think about last night was what you said about being good enough to eat. And baby I’m starving.”

  The thing about Nick is that he knows his way around a vagina. I think he studied for a lot of years before he met me. I was about two seconds away from the orgasm of a lifetime. My muscles were tight and vibrating. Sound had condensed so I only heard buzzing in my ears and my erratic pulse.

  He pulled away and I grabbed for his head but I couldn’t reach him. And then I heard why he’d stopped.

  “Wha—” I shook my head and tried to come back to reality. And then his phone rang again.

  “Fuck. It’s the station. I’ve got to take it. I’m on call.”

  “Don’t you dare stop! I swear to God I’ll kill you first.”

  He kissed the inside of my thigh and adjusted his jeans and then went to grab his phone off the counter. I was still sprawled on the table like a Thanksgiving spread. I lay there for a couple of seconds to try and get my brains unscrambled while Nick took his call.

  I rolled off the table and pulled my clothes back on. I had a feeling there was probably egg in my hair, but I wasn’t going to take the time to shower. I headed toward the stairs and left Nick in the kitchen to deal with whate
ver crisis had arisen. I stripped out of Nick’s borrowed shirt and sweat pants and put on my dress from the night before. I dumped my jewelry in my handbag and was back downstairs before Nick had finished his call.

  I knew as soon as I walked back in the kitchen he had to go. I avoided his dark stare as he answered in one syllable words and grabbed my phone off the counter to call a cab. I hoped the driver had change for a hundred because that was all I had.

  “I’ll drop you at your house,” Nick said as he hung up.

  “Not necessary. I’ll call a cab. You don’t want to waste time getting to the scene.” Nick worked homicide, so this wasn’t the first time a call had interrupted our personal lives. I’d pretty much gotten used to it when we’d been dating.

  “I’ve got time to drop you. The body isn’t going anywhere, and the scene is still fresh. There aren’t even uniforms on site yet. Housecleaner called it into the station.”

  Nick ran upstairs and got ready. When he came back down he looked as presentable as someone could at a little after six. His weapon was strapped securely to his side. I ignored him about giving me a ride because I remembered we’d left his truck at his parents’ house the night before.

  I was on hold with the cab company when he took my phone and ended the call. He took my elbow, dragged me outside, and locked his front door.

  “Excuse me, Mr. Caveman, but you left your truck at your parents’ house. And honestly, even if it was here I’d still want to take a cab.”

  “I like the ice queen routine. Very sexy.” He hit the remote on his garage, tossed me over his shoulder again and dropped me inside a sporty little black Audi that looked like something Batman would drive. It had leather seats and smelled like Nick’s cologne.

  “I recognize that stubborn look on your face,” he said, getting in and cranking the engine. “I’m taking you home and that’s final.”

  I was still trying to wrap my head around the whole car thing. “Nick, you did not buy this car on a cop’s salary.”

  “It was a gift from my granddad a couple of years ago. My dad had tried to bribe me into going to law school and joining the firm with just about everything you could imagine. He also called the governor and the police chief and tried to have me fired. When that didn’t work he had internal affairs start an investigation to see if they could dig any dirt that way to find grounds for release.

  “I don’t think I like your dad.”

  “I’m sorry to say, I don’t like him all that much either.” I could tell by the sadness in his voice that he really was sorry. The rift between Nick and his parents was obviously painful for him.

  “I pretty much told dad to go to hell after I’d found out about the investigation. Granddad found out what dad had done and he put a stop to it. He said anyone that wouldn’t buckle under the Dempsey pressure was someone he could be proud of. Then he gave me the car, changed his will so I’d inherit most of his wealth, and then he died two weeks later. My dad has been protesting the will and keeping things tied up in legal red tape ever since then. I have my trust fund, which he can’t touch, and that’s what I used to buy the house with.”

  “I’m sorry about your family,” I said. “And I wish you would have told me all of this before when we were together. But I meant what I said. You’re going to take me home and then I don’t ever want to see you again. If you see me on the street I want you to turn the other direction, and if you see me at the agency I want you to pretend I don’t exist. I can’t keep doing this.”

  “It’s not going to happen, sweetheart. When I get finished with the case I’m going to come get you and we’re going to finish what we started.”

  “Over my dead body.” I was so angry I could feel the roots of my hair sizzling. Angry at myself for not having more willpower. Angry at Nick for not letting me come. Angry at whoever died and interrupted us. And angry that Nick did have the willpower to stop.

  “I mean it, Nick. No more. You’re the one who called things off. And I’m not in the market for a fuck buddy. If I wanted that I have plenty of other options. As far as I’m concerned you’re just being cruel at this point.”

  “Well, maybe I was an idiot for calling things off.” He was speeding like a demon through the Savannah streets and I was glad there was no traffic. “It’s been a miserable two months. I want us to give it another chance.”

  “Are you fucking kidding me?” I opened my handbag and dug around for my gun. “Where the hell is my gun? This one has real bullets in it too. I’m not letting you get off with a puny tranquilizer dart this time.” A couple of months before I might have accidentally shot Nick in the backside with a tranquilizer gun when I caught him standing outside a motel with another woman. How was I supposed to know she was an informant?

  “Why are you so angry? We obviously still want each other. I thought this was what you wanted. Women,” he said, his exasperation clear.

  “What I wanted was for you not to dump me in the first place. And now you’re ready to get back together because you haven’t had sex in two months and I happen to be convenient? So I’m supposed to just roll over all because you’re ready to get back together.”

  “Jesus, is all this anger just because you didn’t come? Because really, I’ll only be a few hours.”

  “I haven’t needed you to come for the last two months, and I didn’t need you to come all the years before you met me.”

  Nick slowed in front of my house and I had the door open before he stopped completely. “We’re not through, Addison. I’ll be back and we’re going to talk about this. I made a mistake leaving you before and I admit that, but I’m pretty sure I love you more than I’m afraid for you and the crazy stunts you pull. Maybe think about that before you start looking for real bullets.”

  He drove away and left me standing there with my mouth hanging open. Savage came out of his front door about the same time, ready to go on his morning run, and his brows rose at the sight of me still dressed in the clothes I’d worn the night before. I should have been embarrassed that he’d caught me like that, but I was past the point of caring.

  “I’ll be ready to run in ten minutes,” I called out. “I’m ready for some serious training this morning.”

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  Two hours later I was sprawled on my back in the middle of my living room floor. I didn’t have the strength to make it to my bathroom to shower and change.

  “You need to get up and stretch before your muscles get tight.”

  “What I need is for you to just shoot me in the head.”

  When I’d told Savage I was ready for serious training he’d taken me at my word. He hadn’t asked me why I’d been dressed in yesterday’s clothes and he hadn’t tried to find out if I’d rekindled with Nick. He could tell something was wrong and he let me simmer and use the anger to drive me to have a better workout. We ran a couple of miles and we somehow ended up at a hole-in-the-wall gym that had a bunch of serious body builders and no women in brightly colored leotards. I was the only one, and after the third man dropped his weights I was told by the owner I had to put on a T-shirt. Savage had an extra in his locker and let me borrow it. And then we got down to business.

  It turns out I was going about my exercise routine all wrong. Savage said if I did exactly what he said then I’d be in the best shape of my life long before I had to take the physical portion of the test, and that if I didn’t pass with flying colors he’d personally make sure I never ate another hot fudge sundae for the rest of my life.

  “Seriously,” I said when I tried to roll over. “I don’t think I can get up. At least not for three or four years.”

  Savage came over to where I was sprawled on the floor and hauled me up from under my armpits. Then he put another one of his smoothie concoctions in my hand.

  “Drink this and go get your shower. I’ve narrowed down your search for Tannenbaum’s son.”

  An hour later, I was clean and mostly had full control over my arms and legs again. I wore black le
ggings, a royal blue cashmere sweater, and my black Ugg boots because the temperature had started to drop. Savage had showered and changed too and was wearing old jeans and a Harvard sweatshirt.

  I was riding shotgun in Savage’s SUV and I had the information he’d found for me spread out on my lap. He had it narrowed down to three Roses. It was a hell of a lot more information than I’d managed to find.

  “It says here that Rose Parker is still alive. Maybe we should go talk to her first.”

  “Where does she live?”

  “Charleston.” Charleston was only a couple of hours from Savannah. We could go talk to Rose Parker and be back by the end of the day. “The file says she gave birth to a son, James Parker, on April second of 1942. She was eighteen years old. I can’t imagine a woman that age being dragged to a back alley sperm bank by her husband. It seems skeezy.”

  “Times were different then. Especially in the South. I’ve been here long enough to know that lineage is about the most important thing to all of you. Where you came from and who’s worth noting in the family tree. I’d think a man might see it as a weakness if he wasn’t able to get an heir in a timely fashion.”

  “It couldn’t have been that timely. She was only eighteen for Christ’s sake. Anyway, the dates certainly line up with the information Mr. Tannenbaum gave us. Rose gave birth to a daughter six years later, and she lives with her daughter and son-in-law now. James is now deceased, as is his own son. There’s a grandson listed here who is nineteen and also living in the house with Rose. If this Rose was able to have more children with her husband, maybe she’s not the one we’re looking for.”

  “We’ll check it out. Process of elimination, babe. The most exciting thing about police work.”

  I hoped Savage was being sarcastic, but sometimes it was hard to tell. Mostly I hated the process of elimination. It was about as exciting as watching paint dry. I much preferred the stakeouts and catching people in the act of doing something they shouldn’t. Other people’s mistakes were good for my own self-esteem.