Nighthawk & The Return of Luke McGuire (36 page)

“Does it energize you?”

She considered that. “I’ve driven it faster than any other car I’ve ever had. Does that count?”

He grinned. “It counts.”

“Is that what does it for you? Fast cars?”

He gave her a long, steady look that made her suddenly nervous, wondering what he was thinking. But when he answered her, the answer was innocuous enough.

“I’ll admit to a certain addiction to speed,” he said. “But I don’t play with that particular fire that much anymore.”

The words
What fire do you play with?
rose to her lips, but with the old adage of not asking questions you don’t want the answer to in mind, she held them back.

“Where’s your bike?” she asked instead.

“I walked.” That surprised her; it was a good two miles to the motel. It must have shown, because he shrugged and added, “I like to walk at night. Call it an old habit I never broke.”

She wondered if that meant he wanted to continue to walk. But he had just been in a fight….

Just then he twisted slightly, as if testing for pain, and that decided her.

“Would you like a ride?”

After a bare moment’s hesitation, he nodded. “Thanks.” He nodded at the car. “Never even ridden in one of these.”

“Do you want to drive it?” she asked impulsively. Then, embarrassed at herself, she stammered, “No, of course not. It’s probably boring, after your motorcycle. That was silly. I—”

He cut across her nervous chatter. “I’d love to.”

“I… All right.” She handed him the keys.

He took a moment to familiarize himself with the controls, then settled down into the leather seat. “Any quirks?”

“No,” she answered, then smiled. “Except it slides up to eighty real easy.”

He laughed. She liked the sound of it and couldn’t help thinking that he’d probably had little reason to laugh when he’d lived here. And wondered how long it had taken him to learn after he’d left.

“Mind if we take the scenic route?”

It was late, and she should be exhausted, especially after what they’d been through, but instead she found herself oddly exhilarated. “No, go ahead.”

Somewhat to her surprise, he kept it well under eighty. They went rather sedately down the hill to the beach, where the pier stretched out to the ocean and the palm trees seemed to emphasize the balmy summer air. She rolled down her window to smell the salt air.

“I keep meaning to take my lunch and come down here to eat it,” she said, gesturing at the picnic tables set up in the grassy park next to the sand. “But something always seems to come up. Odd to think that people travel days to come here, and I can’t even make it for lunch when I’m a few blocks away.”

He made the turn onto the loop that rimmed the pier area, with its tourist shops and restaurants, then started down the coast road that ran along the long stretch of sandy beach the town was gifted with. “I’ll bet people who’ve lived a long time in Anaheim don’t go to Disneyland much, either,” he said.

“You think you ignore what’s in your own backyard simply because it’s in your own backyard?” she asked.

He shrugged. “I think if it’s always been there, you sort of…overlook it. You don’t go there because you always can. Maybe, to really appreciate something, it has to have been a dream you had to work to get.”

“That’s rather…profound.”

He made a sound that seemed almost embarrassed. “Must be the adrenaline ebb.” He gave her a sideways glance. “You do know that a crash is coming?”

He said it like someone who was very well acquainted with high-adrenaline situations and their aftermath. “So I’ve heard,” she said.

Do you even know what he’s doing now?

Jim’s words came back to her. It seemed foolish, to be riding alone in a car—her car, which she’d turned over with barely a thought—with a man whose reputation in this town hadn’t faded much in eight years of absence, when she knew so little about him.

But what was she supposed to do, just ask? With anybody else it would be a simple, reasonable question. But to the bad boy of Santiago Beach, it could sound like she thought the same thing the rest of the town did, that he was still up to no good.

But surely they’d passed beyond that, hadn’t they? After all—

“Damn.”

She snapped out of her indecisive wanderings. Immediately she saw the cause of his exclamation: flashing lights directly behind them. Startled, she asked, “Where did he come from?”

“Beside the Mexican restaurant.” Luke’s jaw was set as he slowed, then pulled over into the beach parking area.

“You weren’t speeding,” she said. “I wonder why he’s stopping us.”

He gave her a look that was ancient in its weariness. “In this town, I’m the only reason they need.”

Amelia had her mouth open to protest that when the shout came from behind them for Luke to turn off the engine. She’d only been pulled over once in her life, but she was fairly certain this wasn’t standard procedure; didn’t the officer simply walk up to the car and ask to see your license?

It wasn’t until Luke turned the ignition off that she realized the officer had called him by name. She twisted around to look, and to her shock saw that it was Jim Stavros.

And he was approaching with his hand on his weapon.

Luke looked at her. She wasn’t sure if he looked angry or ill. Amelia swallowed tightly. Then her breath left her in a rush as she heard words she thought only happened in the big city or in the movies.

“McGuire! Out of the car. Slowly. And keep your hands where I can see them!”

“Welcome to my world,” Luke said.

He got out of the car with his hands up.

I
t was like living a flashback.

At the cop’s order, Luke turned and put both his hands on the roof of the car. Next would come the pat-down search, then the handcuffs and finally the interrogation. It was old news, he’d been here before. It was beyond bothering him.

At least, it had been.

But now it was all going to happen in front of Amelia, and that made him queasy. It had been a long time since he’d felt utterly humiliated, but he had a feeling he was about to be reminded what it felt like.

Just as he thought it, Amelia leaned toward the driver’s side and called out. “Jim?”

Great. She knew the guy.

It hit him then that this was the same cop who’d warned her off him the other day in the store. Did the guy work twenty-four hours a day or what?

“Are you all right, Amelia?” the cop asked.

Not daring to look at her, not wanting to see her face, Luke stared down at the roof of the car as she opened her own door and got out. “Of course. What’s wrong?”

“I saw your car. You’re not usually out at this hour, so I took a look. Saw him—” he nodded at Luke “—driving, so I figured I’d better check.”

“In other words,” Luke said dryly, finally looking at her, “he thought I’d stolen your car and kidnapped you.”

Amelia’s eyes widened in shock.

“Still got an attitude on you, don’t you, McGuire?” the cop said.

Amelia was gaping at them both. Luke knew this was probably utterly foreign to her; he doubted she’d ever been stopped by the police in her innocent life.

“This place just brings out the best in me,” Luke said, knowing he sounded bitter but unable to help it.
Time to shut up,
he told himself,
when you start sounding like that.

“We’re keeping an eye on you,” Jim warned. “Some people don’t think it’s coincidence that you arrive back in town and we start having a rash of crimes.”

“Jim, no!” Amelia exclaimed. “You can’t really believe that!”

“Didn’t say I did. Just that some do.”

“Mrs. Clancy, you mean,” Amelia said. “And you know she’s got it in for Luke.”

She knew? Luke wondered. She’d heard suspicions that he might be involved, but she’d never said anything? And apparently never believed them? Something warm and unfamiliar expanded inside him as he looked at her.

Jim, his attention completely on Amelia now, said, “You’re awfully quick to defend him.”

“Maybe because everybody else around here is so darn quick to want to hang him! I think they all need to find something else to fixate on.”

Jim drew back slightly, and Luke saw Amelia suddenly realize she’d nearly shouted her words. Luke, stunned at her fierce defense of him, shook his head in wonder. Clearly embarrassed, she flicked a glance at him, and when she saw his expression her chin came up determinedly.

“Well, well,” Jim said after a moment. “Maybe you’ve got a point there, Amelia. But if you’re wrong, expect to hear a lot of ‘I told you so’s.’” The cop turned to go, then looked back. In that same warning tone, he added, “Assuming you’re still around to hear them.”

Luke didn’t move until the marked police car began to pull away. He kept his eyes fixed on Amelia, who was staring after her friend in uniform in shock.

As well she might, he thought cynically, considering he’d just implied rather strongly that she could be in danger just being with Luke.

“Guess that makes up for your father not being here to warn you off the town scum.”

The words came out sharply, rising out of his own pain, and he said them before he realized they might cause her pain, as well. Her head snapped around, and he saw what he’d feared there in her eyes.

“I’m sorry,” he said quickly. “I didn’t mean that, about your father.”

He shoved away from the car. Instinctively, his hands curled into helpless fists, so he jammed them into his pockets. He stared out toward the water, as if the row upon row of breakers, eerily white in the silver moonlight, held some kind of answer for him.

“That was out of line. I’m just…”

Words failed him. Suddenly exhausted, he let his head loll back on his shoulders and closed his eyes.

“Angry?”

“I don’t have the energy to spare to be angry about this anymore. I was just…embarrassed.”

“At being treated like that?”

His mouth tightened. He didn’t want to say it, but hadn’t she earned it, by leaping to his defense like that? He lifted his head, opened his eyes and let out a compressed breath.

“At being treated like that in front of you,” he admitted tiredly.

He walked slowly toward the water, only vaguely aware when the surface beneath his feet changed from solid to sand. But after a few yards his legs knew, and his body, now depleted from the adrenaline rush of the fight and the encounter with the police, didn’t have the energy to compensate. He fell as much as sat down.

He didn’t hear her move, didn’t hear her footsteps on the sand, but suddenly she was there beside him. And instead of turning away from him, as he’d half expected, her arms came around him in a comforting hug. He was shocked at how fiercely he responded, how desperately he seemed to need this contact with her, need this reassurance. He didn’t know what she was thinking, or if she had come to him simply out of the goodness of her too-kind heart rather than any deeper feeling. He only knew that right now he needed her there, and beyond that, he didn’t question.

It was a very long time before he spoke, and when he did, he surprised himself by letting out something he hadn’t thought about in a very long time.

“When I was about David’s age, I came out here one night. It was a night like this one, warm, quiet. I stood here and wondered if I should just start swimming, and tried to guess how far I would get before I couldn’t swim anymore. Then all my troubles would be over.”

Amelia’s arms tightened around him. “I’m glad you didn’t let her win,” she whispered.

He stared down at her, wondering how she’d known. “That’s the only reason I didn’t do it. I knew she’d be glad to be rid of me.”

He heard her sigh. “I wish she
had
given you up. Then you’d have known the kind of love I knew, from parents who would have treasured you. Your whole life would have been different.”

He couldn’t even conceive of what that would have been like. “So…you don’t think it’s all heredity? That I was doomed to trouble from the start?”

She leaned back and met his gaze. “I think it’s pretty clear you were driven to most of what you did.”

“Don’t sugarcoat it,” he said. “Maybe she pushed me to it, but once I got started, I’m the one who kept going.”

She looked thoughtful for a moment. Then, with a glint of humor in her eye, she said, “Okay. So maybe you did inherit a little of that hell-raising Irish blood.”

A short chuckle escaped him. She had such a different way of looking at it. “Maybe.”

“Did you ever try to find him?”

“My father? Once. When I was about twelve. I had some crazy idea that if he didn’t know about me, and I found him, he’d want me.”

“You don’t know it was crazy. Maybe he would have.”

“A kid’s fantasy,” he said, as he had before. “What happened?”

He shrugged. “I found out there are a hell of a lot of Patrick McGuires out there.”

“But you never found the right one?”

“Not before my mother got the phone bill,” he said wryly. “I paid for that one for a long time.”

“Maybe you should try again.”

“It doesn’t really matter, not anymore.”

It felt odd, even thinking about it. He’d put it behind him long ago. Talking about it—any of it—was even stranger; he never did, to anyone. Was it being back here, in this place, or just Amelia, who had opened up this torrent of long-unspoken words and memories?

“I’m sorry,” she said suddenly.

“For what?”

“Everything. Your mother. Your brother. And,” she added, “for leading such a dull life that the sight of my car out after midnight brings the police down on us.”

He had to laugh at the wry, self-mocking tone in her voice. And then she started to laugh, too, and it sounded good. Very good. The smile on her face as she looked up at him made him feel warm inside, and he couldn’t help contrasting it to how he’d felt the last time he’d been here on this beach.

Before he even realized he was going to do it, he was kissing her. And this time there was no hesitation on her part, no little start of surprise. This time she gave him pure eagerness, and the feel of her lips parting for him, her tongue stroking his lips, then slipping into his mouth, set up a roaring in his ears that blotted out even the crash of the surf only yards away.

His hand went to the back of her head, holding her as he matched her eagerness with his own, probing deeply, tasting. Her tongue brushed over his, and a shiver rippled through him. She did it again, lingering this time, and he couldn’t stop the groan that broke from him.

He went down to the sand, pulling her with him. He muttered her name as he pulled her tight against him, suddenly needing the feel of her body more than he needed his next breath. He shifted one leg over her, to hold her close, expecting her to push him away; instead she slipped her arms around him and pulled him even closer.

The last of his hesitation vanished. He took her mouth again, urgently, fiercely, the fire already licking along his nerves fed by the little sounds of pleasure she made and the way she moved, twisting against him. Her hands slid up under his shirt, over his back, and he nearly lost it at the feel of her fingers caressing his bare skin. He barely resisted the urge to strip off his clothes and then tackle hers, to hell with where they were, in a totally public place.

He couldn’t remember ever being this hot this fast. This woman had a fire he never would have guessed at first glance. He doubted she even realized she had it herself; somehow she’d decided she was a meek, timid thing and wasn’t about to be convinced otherwise.

Sometime he was going to make her see exactly how wrong she was.

But not now.

He shifted his weight, nearly crying out as she moved at the same time, capturing painfully aroused flesh in a sweet, exquisite vice. His hand slid slowly down her side, then over, and he cupped the soft weight of her breast in his hand. He waited, already scant breath held, for her to pull away. But she leaned into his touch, the rounded flesh now full and hot against his palm. He could feel the tight, hard jut of her nipple, and this time the guttural cry escaped him.

He wanted that nub of flesh, wanted it naked in his hands, wanted it in his mouth, wanted to suckle it until she cried out as he had, from the gut, from deep inside, from that place his own fiercely hardened flesh wanted to be.

He fumbled at the buttons of her blouse with hands that were none too steady. Her bra was simple, white, but satin trimmed with a tiny bit of lace. Utilitarian, yet feminine. A very Amelia garment, he thought through the haze that was enveloping him. She moved, and for an instant he froze, afraid she wanted him to stop. But then he realized she was trying to make it easier for him, and the growing heat turned into a pulsing, leaping blaze as he reached behind her and fumbled for an embarrassingly long time with the hooks. But at last they gave, and he tugged the garment away from her breasts.

He sucked in a sharp breath; she’d hidden a lot behind those severe, businesslike blouses. Full and beautifully curved, her breasts were tipped with nipples that in the moonlight appeared a soft pink. More importantly, they were already aroused to tight little peaks, and the sight of them was like a kick in the gut, stealing his breath. His body surged, hard and ready, and his hands shook with the force of it as he reached out to her.

His fingers brushed over those taut crests, and when she cried out in shocked pleasure, the need that had been expanding inside him ratcheted another notch tighter. He thought—no, he knew—he was going to explode, but he couldn’t help himself, he had to touch her again. And again, this time capturing her nipples between his fingertips and plucking them gently.

“Luke!”

The cry of his name broke from her on a gasp, and it was a spur he couldn’t resist. He lowered his head and fulfilled the fantasy that had been torturing him, taking one begging nipple with his lips and flicking it with his tongue.

Amelia arched in his arms, thrusting herself upward to his mouth, crying out his name once more. The awe in her voice was yet another goad to his urgency; she sounded as if she had never felt this before, and that thought was enough to send him perilously close to the edge. He wondered if quiet, reserved Amelia had any idea what she was doing to him.

Quiet, reserved, Amelia.

He felt like he was caught in a swift-running river and headed for the drop. With an effort as great as trying to steer through heavy rapids, he pulled back.

For a long moment he couldn’t get enough breath to speak. And looking at her only made it worse; she was looking at him with eyes that seemed dazed, drugged with passion, not even aware that she was half-undressed, her breasts bare to the sea breeze, the moon and his gaze. He felt that breeze on his back and realized he was a bit disheveled himself, thanks to her questing hands. He made himself look away.

He shivered, not from the coolness of the breeze but from the memory of her shy yet eager touch. He wanted more of it, wanted it all over him, and most of all he wanted it now. Already he was hard almost beyond bearing. He shifted on the sand, trying to ease the ache. He needed a pair of those baggy pants his brother wore, he thought ruefully, if he was going to spend much more time around Amelia.

And he wanted that time. A lot of it.

She moved then, drawing his gaze back to her. She was covering herself, her eyes downcast. In the faint light of the half moon, he could see her expression. All her tangled emotions were showing in her face, uppermost a stunned sort of shock, no doubt that she had let this happen outside on a public beach where anyone could have come by and seen them.