Whispering Birches?"
"Who names a place Whispering Birches? Whispering
Pines, that’s good. Whispering Meadows, that’s okay. But
Whispering Birches? It just doesn’t sound right." "You aren’t answering my question.”
"Don’t change the subject. We are supposed to be
talking about you, not that crazy hotel you work for." "I didn't change the subject. You changed the subject,
and I was just following along."
"Well, we need to figure out how to get your life back.
Meg is worried. When Meg worries, Tom gets worked up.
When Tom gets worked up, he calls me, and then I get
worked up. I get worked up mostly because he calls me in
the middle of the night. Five a.m. is too early for a man to
be up." He looked down at me. "I could get you smuggled
out of the country until this all blows over. I’ve got a friend
in Montreal you could stay with. A really nice gal." “I’m not leaving the country, and I am not staying with
one of your million girl friends. ‘Oh, J.W. is sooo
fabulous.’” I did my best falsetto. "’He bought me a car
and a little dog and screwed my brains out.’” I dropped
the falsetto. "I did not kill Vera, I’m not going to start
acting as if I did. If I sneak away in the night, everyone will
assume I did kill her. I’m not giving them the satisfaction.”
Besides
, I thought to myself,
who would take care of my
animals?
"Eat this." J.W. shoveled a pile of eggs onto a plate and
set it in front of me. "You’re going to need your strength. I hear things can get pretty rough in those women’s
prisons."
I threw my fork at him, but it missed and landed on
the counter. The truth is, I’m afraid I will go to prison. It
nags at the back of my mind, and I don’t know what to do
about it. That doesn’t mean I want my older brother
butting in, trying to make me feel better but ending up
making me feel worse. I needed to take action and get the
situation back under control. If only I knew what action to
take.
I got another fork and shoveled some eggs into my
mouth. "These are good. Just like I like ‘em. You’re a good
brother."
"A lot of thanks I get for it.” He sat down with his own
plate of eggs. "What do you want me to tell Mom? She’s
been calling me every day since one of her local biddy
friends called to tell her that you’re a murder suspect." "She didn’t mention it to me. Sneaky. Tell her I’m fine.
Tell her I didn’t kill anybody. Tell her you came over here
and found me dancing on tables.” I sighed.
Get real.
“Tell
her it will all be sorted out soon.”
I hope.
"Tell her to make
her old biddies keep their noses out of my business." After J.W. left, Meg showed up with Beau and the kids.
I felt my heart jump when Beaux got out of the car, and I
told myself to stop it.
This guy is not for you, B.B.,
I told
myself.
Beau smiled sheepishly. “I thought I’d come up and
help Meg with the kids. Tom’s up to his neck, as usual.” I saw Meg shoot us a look. I figured she was getting
ideas, but there wasn’t much I could do about that. I
followed the herd into the barn.
We spent an hour visiting all the animals. Lucky got
groomed and fussed over. The chickens were counted, and
Meg had to settle a couple of arguments over which chicken had what name. The bunnies were petted. Annabelle, the cat, was held and kissed until she hid under the couch. The dogs pulled out their toys, and the kids stood in the front door yard tossing balls and rings in the
snow.
Beau wandered around after us. He picked up Gemma,
when she slipped on the ice in the yard, and broke up a
tussle over who had named the green-tailed rooster. He
pulled the sleds out of the back of Meg’s S.U.V. and helped
me pull Gemma and Pete to the top of the hill.
After an hour of hard sledding, we were all covered in
snow. I had fallen off the toboggan into a drift and had
wads of it packed down the back of my jacket. The kids
were all rosy faced and tired. We trudged back to the
house for hot chocolate and cookies. Luckily, Meg brought
cookies, because I hadn’t thought to make any.
We stood in the kitchen, warming our backsides in
front of the wood stove. The kids were reliving their runs
down the hill, and the adults studiously avoided talking
about my jailbird status. When Gemma’s fingers had
stopped hurting from the cold, and everyone’s feet were
dry, Meg decided it was time to head home to make
dinner.
“Hey, Meg,” said Beau after we had loaded the sleds
back into the car. “I’m going to stay here for a while, if you
don’t mind. I want to talk to Bree about something.” Meg raised her eyebrows, but she couldn’t have been
more surprised than I was. “How will you get home?” she
asked. “Your car is at my house.”
“I’ll figure it out, don’t worry.”
“Okay, then, see you later.” She shrugged. The kids
packed into the car and waved until the car disappeared
around a turn in the road.
“Want some coffee or something?” I asked Beau after
we escorted the dogs back in the house. I opened the
fridge. “I’ve got some beer in here, too, and soda.” “Nope. None of those things is what I want.” My heart began to beat a little faster.
“How you are doing? I hear it’s been a tough couple of
days.” His voice was quiet and a little husky. He slid his
arms around me. There was a fire starting in my belly. “I’m okay. Not that I’d ever want to repeat the last few
days. I never, ever, want to spend the night in Tom’s office
again. And I hope to never see the inside of the holding
cells.” I rested my head against his chest. Something about
the maverick men made me feel safe and protected. “Well, then.” Beau spoke into my hair. “I think the next
order of business is to help you forget all about that place.”
I backed away from his embrace. “It’s not that I don’t think
you could make me forget. It’s that I don’t know if it’s a
good idea.” I turned to the sink and ran water into a glass.
He was making me thirsty. Well, at least I was going to
blame it on him.
I felt him move close behind me. “No, I definitely think
we need to work on erasing that memory. I hate to think of
you sleeping in Tom’s office. Especially when you should
be sleeping with me.” He lifted my hair and kissed me on
the back of my neck, lingering there, just breathing a
moment or two. "You smell nice. Like lavender." "That’s just my shampoo.”
He slid his arms around me from behind. He was
warm, and I felt my heart beat a little faster as he held me
tight, our bodies pressed together. His hands slid up under
my shirt in the front, and he ran them up until they heated
the skin on my rib cage, just below my breasts. He
breathed warmth onto my neck just under my ear. I felt a
corresponding heat developing below my belly button.
What have I got to lose?
I thought. I could go to prison
tomorrow, and I would have passed up my last chance for
sex. I turned in his embrace and wrapped my arms around
his neck, lifting my face to kiss him at the spot where his
jaw met his neck. He smelled like the outdoors and faintly
of something like old spice. I tasted just a hint of salt on his
neck. He must have worked up a sweat out sledding. We
stood, arms wrapped around each other, breathing for a
moment.
He lowered his head and kissed me on the mouth. His
tongue slid along my lower lip and brushed against my
teeth. He pushed me backward with his weight until I
came to rest against the fridge, and his kiss became more
urgent. His hands slid down my hips and pulled me to
him. I slid my thigh between his legs. There wasn’t a sliver
of daylight between us anywhere. I ran my hands down
his back and up under his shirt. His back was a solid mass
of tight muscle under my fingers.
He released me and took my hand. "Which way is your
room?"
"Through there." I nodded to the archway toward the
living room. "Then up the stairs."
He pulled me up the stairs and along the hall to my
room. It was full of cool afternoon shadows, but the room
was warm. I’d had the heat turned up and the wood stove
blazing downstairs, so the kids wouldn’t be cold after
sledding. Beau slid my tee over my head. He ran his hands
along the skin below my bra and reached up to unhook it.
He pulled me to him again and kissed my neck where it
met my shoulder. I felt hot inside. Beau was kissing my
neck, and I was getting heat down below. Go figure. “Hey. Did I lose you there for a minute?”
“No. No. Go back to what you were doing. I’m pretty
sure I can keep my brain in check.”
He kissed my neck again, and I told the stupid
thoughts in my brain to shut up. I wanted to concentrate
on that feeling.
His lips, tongue, and breath were on my neck. A sigh
escaped me, and my knees started to buckle. I reached out
and curled my fingers into his shirt so I wouldn’t fall
down. He slid his hands up under my breasts, held them
for a moment, and then ran his thumbs across my nipples.
I pressed myself into him, and he slid his thigh between
my legs.
I fumbled with the buttons on his flannel shirt, but I
couldn’t get my hands to cooperate. My brain was totally
flooded with the sensation of his hands on my body. Beau
backed me to the bed until my knees met the edge, and I
sat. He pulled off his flannel and then his tee-shirt
,exposing a tight stomach and muscled chest. He shucked
his jeans and boxers.
I wouldn’t have been surprised if my mouth was
watering. Beau seemed totally unaware of how perfect his
body was. Building houses with stone and brick had toned
him into hard muscle. He was broad-shouldered and slimhipped without an ounce of fat on him anywhere. He reached and pulled my jeans down, sliding them
off my hips. He bent and kissed me just below my belly
button. I felt my skin burning. My brain was screaming,
Enough of this! Get to it!
I moaned involuntarily. “Something wrong, Bree?” Beaux’s voice was husky
with desire.
“Oh, my God. You are torturing me. Finish pulling my
pants off, and get up here.”
“You’re such a romantic.” He laughed. He nuzzled his
head between my thighs, and my breath caught in my
throat.
“Beau. Beau, don’t make me beg.”
Beau raised his head and smiled at me. “What is it that
you want, Bree?”
“Like you don’t know.” I slid down along the full
length of his body until I was on the edge of the bed. I let
my jeans fall to the floor and wrapped my legs up around
him. Sometimes you just have to take matters into your
own hands, or legs, in this case. I drew him down, and he
lowered himself onto and into me. I sang the “Hallelujah
Chorus” in my head.
We were lying in bed, drifting in the warmth; my back
snuggled into his front, when I realized I’d done it again. I
really should stop sleeping with Tom’s brother. If only it
didn’t feel so damn good.
* * * * *
I drove Beau down to Meg’s later that evening. He’d offered to ask Max for a ride, but I wanted to see how things were coming on the paper, and Sunday evening seemed like a pretty safe time to be downtown.
Beau planted a warm kiss on my mouth, told me to take care of myself, jumped into his car, and headed out. I drove into town and parked as close as I could get to the office. I sat in the car for a moment, getting up nerve. The sidewalk was deserted, as I hoped it would be, so I jumped out of the car, slammed the door closed, beeped it locked, and ran through the door and up the stairs to the office.
I switched on the light and booted up my computer. A pile of letters were stacked on Meg’s desk, and I walked over to take a look. Meg had taken my advice and contacted a local agency about replacing me. There was a mound of résumés for her to read. I looked through them, trying to see through the education and experience to the person underneath. Meg needed someone who was fast and self-motivated but also had a sense of humor and would be fun to work with.
I sorted through the letters, reading about past accomplishments and future plans. Then I ranked them. After tossing half of them in a reject pile, I put the best five on top of the remaining résumés. I wrote, “Try this one first” on a sticky note and stuck it on the top of the pile.
I went back over to my computer and pulled up the layout for the next paper. Meg was doing a fine job of keeping up with layout on her own. I walked back over to her desk and pulled a hefty stack of ads and articles to be set out of her in-box. Looked like she was placing stuff as she set it.
I brought the stack of stuff back over to my desk and started sorting. Some of this stuff was similar to ads I already had on my computer and could just make minor changes to. Some of it would need to be started from scratch. A fourth of the stack was articles or calendar items that would need to be keyboarded in. If I put my mind to it, I could finish in five or six hours. Another four, and I could probably get everything laid out.
I put the stack of stuff that need to be started from scratch in my in-box and started on the ads I had prototypes for. I have a simple but effective filing system on my computer, so if I recognized an ad, I could bring it up at a moment’s notice. It was a lot faster than starting fresh on every ad.
When I looked up, it was midnight. I had finished the last of the easy stuff. I contemplated the stack of stuff left undone. I was tired. Too bad I hadn’t brought some soda or coffee with me. I got up from my desk and walked over to the windows. I stretched and swung my arms around and tried to roll the tension out of my neck. I turned on the radio to keep me company and sat back down.
I was well into the second pile, concentrating hard on not making mistakes, when the door opened. I jumped and knocked a bunch of papers on the floor. Tom came through the door, and I let the air out of my lungs. “I thought I might find you up here.”
“Why’s that?” I bent over to retrieve the scattered papers.
“Because Meg doesn’t usually leave the lights on.” He smiled at me. “How are you doing? Anything I can help you with?”
“No, not unless you can convince Lieutenant Brooks of my innocence. But I think you already tried that, didn’t you?”
“Yeah, I tried. He’s not having any of it. I wouldn’t worry, though.” he smiled kindly. “There doesn’t seem to be enough evidence for you to actually go to trial. In fact, there’s almost no evidence against you at all. It makes me wonder what Brooks is up to.”
“Can’t you make him tell you?”
“He’s in a different division. I do wish he’d talk to me, but I think he’s afraid there’s a conflict of interest. And he’s right, there is.” Tom reached out and touched my hair. “I promise this will blow over. You are not going to jail.”
“Boy I’d really like that to be true. This is a nightmare.” I started sorting through the papers I’d dropped, paper clipping stuff together.
Tom sat on the edge of my desk. “Bree, I wanted to ask you something. Miles told me that you made a phone call from the squad car. I was wondering if you’d tell me who you called.”
“Sure. It was the funniest thing. A few days ago, Brian took me to the housekeeping closet where Vera died. He wanted to know if anything was out of place or unusual. He was trying to help me. I don’t think he believes I killed Vera either. There was an empty space in that closet, up on the top shelf, and I couldn’t think of what belonged there. “When I was in the squad car, I had a flash. I remembered that we kept these big glass balls up there in a basket. We use them at Christmas to decorate the mantle in that room. I called Brian to tell him that I’d remembered what was missing. That was the phone call I made.”
Tom nodded. He was silent for a moment, eyebrows furrowed and his mouth set. “Did you tell Miles this?”
“No. I really didn’t think he was interested in anything I had to say, and I was afraid he’d turn it against me somehow.” I placed the papers in my inbox.
“I can see why you would feel that way. But I want you to tell him now. Okay? I’ll pick you up and take you to the barracks tomorrow.” The way Tom said it was a statement. I didn’t think I really had a choice.
“Okay. But I’m going to be here late, so don’t make it too early.”
“No, I won’t. I’ll call you before I come.”
Tom left me to finish setting ads, while I sulked about being taken back to the barracks in the morning.