Spirited 1 (21 page)

Stretching across the small table, Seth caressed her fists until she opened her hands. He understood her pain. While he couldn’t relate to being adopted, he understood her need for family. “I know a thing or two about sticking it out too long.”

She glanced up at him. Doubt and need shimmered in her emerald eyes. “Really?”

“Oh yeah,” he admitted, stroking the backs of her hands with his thumbs.

She turned her palms up, and he laced his fingers with hers. There was something undeniably peaceful about Jules. Yes, she made his blood pump with her sexy smile and her innocent blushes, but she had a calming effect on him he’d never experienced before. And to his surprise, he opened up to her.

“I told you Catherine isn’t around anymore . . .” He let his words trail off. How could he explain Catherine without sounding like a complete imbecile for not guessing sooner what that drug-addicted loon was capable of?

“Yes,” Jules said, then gently squeezed his hands, encouraging him to go on.

“Let’s just say Catherine found I wasn’t enough for her anymore. And in the end she didn’t have a choice about living with Theresa and me.”

“You left her?” Jules asked, furrowing her brow. When he didn’t immediately answer, she added, “Sorry, it’s just most people just say they were cheated on but you said
she didn’t have a choice about living with you.”

“You’re very observant.” He couldn’t resist caressing her cheek.

“Thanks,” she said wryly. “It usually gets me into trouble.”

She met his gaze and there it was. Connection. That sense of warmth and safety shone in her eyes. It pulled at his defenses, making him want to share his secrets. To learn all of hers. And it had nothing to do with his case.

He reached up and stroked an index finger down her silken cheek. “Does being observant get you into trouble, or is it not listening to your instincts?”

She blinked as if the question surprised her, then gave him a sweet, shy smile. “Both, I guess.”

He nodded, then glanced back down to their interlaced hands. Touching her felt so natural, it was hard to tell where he ended and she began. This was something his mother had told him he’d find one day, but he’d doubted her, because he’d never experienced it with Catherine.

“She was an addict,” he admitted, not surprised to hear the bitterness in his voice. He never talked about her, about what happened, not with anyone. But he couldn’t seem to help himself right now. “She was in a car accident not long before Theresa entered high school. Catherine’s left elbow was shattered. It took a year of therapy before she had full mobility, but she was never the same. I didn’t know it at the time, but she’d developed an addiction to prescription painkillers.

“I started to suspect something was wrong after finding multiple prescriptions from different doctors, but when I confronted her, she promised she was fine. She even tossed out the pills right in front of me. I’d assumed she was better because I hadn’t found another medicine bottle in the house. I was so stupid.”

“You trusted your wife,” Jules argued. “That’s not stupid.”

“It is when it puts your child at risk,” he retorted. Jules’s eyes widened and he regretted snapping at her. “I’m sorry.”

He started to pull away, but she tightened her hold on him. “What happened?”

Memories of those last two years with his ex washed through him. “Catherine wasn’t some street junkie doing smack. She was my wife and Theresa’s mother. I didn’t want her to suffer from the shame of being sent to rehab if she could stop on her own. But she’d started hiding the drugs everywhere. I just didn’t want to believe it.”

“What ended up convincing you?” There was no accusation in her voice, no condemnation. She stared at him with caring in those pools of green light.

“The day Theresa broke her leg at school after she slipped off the stage during play rehearsal.” He shook his head as shame washed through him. “T had been different for months. Her grades were falling, she’d started getting in trouble at school, and my sweet little girl was angry all the time. But the day she fell, it all became clear.

“For two hours, Theresa sat in the nurse’s office waiting for her mother to pick her up. Theresa started shaking and the nurse feared she was going into shock. So she called an ambulance. Thank God, the paramedic knew me. He radioed the station.”

“Why didn’t Theresa have them call you to begin with?” Jules asked, her thumb running back and forth over his hand. Her touch was light, gentle, and seemingly unconscious.

“I was in the middle of taking my sergeant’s exam and T didn’t want to interrupt me. It’s only held once a year in Tidewater and there are sixty-five applicants for one position. Theresa knew how long I’d studied to earn the invitation to take the test. She didn’t want me to wait another year. So she told the nurse I was out of town to keep her from calling the station.”

“Wow.” Jules sighed and smiled sympathetically. “How old was she at the time?”

“Thirteen, and she already knew what I didn’t. Her mother was an addict who had no intention of ever recovering. My little girl spent so much of her youth cleaning up after her mother and I didn’t want to believe it. Not until that day.”

The familiar hollow opened in his chest at the memory of how he’d failed to protect his little girl. She was his baby and he loved her more than anything, but he hadn’t seen what was right in front of him until it nearly destroyed them both.

“What happened?”

“When I brought Theresa home from the hospital she made me promise to take her pain pills with me to work, so her mother wouldn’t steal them.”

“Poor Theresa. What a horrible request for her to have to make.” Jules’s eyes misted.

“It was.” He nodded. “In the end, Catherine refused to admit there was a problem. I took Theresa, moved out of the house, and filed for divorce. T and I lived in my apartment.” He gestured across the hall. “It was smaller than our house, but in just a few weeks, my happy-go-lucky daughter returned.”

“Whatever happened to Catherine?” Jules asked quietly. “Does she keep in touch with Theresa?”

“No.” He ground his teeth at the memory. “She’s . . .”

He hesitated. It wasn’t that he grieved anymore. He just never talked about Catherine. Why was he confessing all this now?

“It’s okay, Seth. You don’t have to tell me if it’s too painful.” Jules shifted closer in her chair. She grasped his right hand between both of hers. Giving it a sympathetic squeeze, she then lifted his hand to her lips and kissed his knuckles.

That one simple gesture, so sweet, so compassionate, had him finishing the story.

“Even if it had been possible, I wouldn’t have let her near Theresa again.” He closed his eyes and remembered the flood of blue and red flashing lights outside the house he’d once shared with Catherine. “Six months before our divorce finalized, there was a shooting at my house. Catherine had spiraled out of control after we left. I later learned she’d been having an affair with my partner on the force. The two of them had taken to dealing pain meds out of the house. Among other things. The report stated there was an argument between them over money. They got into a fight over drugs and she killed him with his own gun before she turned it on herself.”

Jules’s head snapped up. “She’s
dead
? She killed him?”

“Pathetic but yeah.” Seth said. “I thank God every day that Theresa and I had moved out when we did.”

Even the warmth in Jules’s touch didn’t negate the chill that ran down his back at the memory. An icy reminder of what could happen when he failed to listen to his instincts. Had he not finally heeded his own internal warnings and his daughter’s verbal ones, that day could have been far more tragic. He could have lost Theresa too.

They sat in silence for several minutes. “Did you get to retake the sergeant’s exam?” Jules finally asked. That was the last question Seth had expected. “I mean, I can tell that you and Theresa went on. She definitely loves you. That was pretty clear at the restaurant. But you’ve called yourself Detective English several times. Is that higher than a sergeant?”

Rather than answer her question, he said, “It’s getting late. We should get back to the questioning.”

“Oh, ri-right.” Jules nodded but didn’t move away from him. Compassion and warmth still shimmered in her eyes. It made him want to reach out and kiss her.

Instead, he pulled away from her touch and picked up his notebook. Scanning it, he realized he’d asked the only remaining question he had on the case. “Well, it seems you did answer all my questions.”

“But you only asked me about Mason tonight.”

“And you said you hadn’t been in touch with him in five years. That pretty much takes care of the rest of my questions.” He picked up his half-empty wineglass to finish it off. After talking about Catherine, he really needed a stiffer drink, but wine would suffice.

“I’m really glad you came to dinner tonight.” Jules surprised him with the sincerity of her words.

He gazed at her over the rim of his glass. She looked so damned sweet and open. He wanted to kiss her. He wanted to lose himself in her, but what were the odds she’d want to touch him now that she knew what an idiot he’d been? “Thanks for the nice evening.”

“Oh, okay then.” Jules didn’t sound sad, merely surprised.

When she didn’t invite him to stay longer, he turned and headed to the door. He’d almost reached it when he realized he still held his wineglass. Spinning around, he came face-to-face with Jules, who carried her own empty stemware. He hadn’t even realized she’d left her chair, let alone followed him.

“Seth?”

“Yeah?” He handed her his wineglass.

She stared at it for a moment, then frowned. “I’m sorry you didn’t get to take the sergeant’s exam.”

“I will. I’ll get another chance to take the test when I solve this case,
these
cases,” he corrected. “The jewelry store thefts and the murder are tied together, I know it. Once I prove that and solve them, I’ll be invited to take the sergeant’s exam next spring.”

Jules leaned forward and kissed him lightly on the cheek. “For luck.”

His cheek burned where her lips had brushed his skin. Electricity zinged from that innocent little peck. He craved more. He’d wanted her from the first moment he’d seen her but had denied himself for the case.

She stepped back, but before she could go far, he captured her face between his hands and tilted her head up.

CHAPTER 10

J
ULES SAW IT
coming. He gave her plenty of time to pull away. Instead she rose up on her tiptoes and met him halfway.

The touch of his lips on hers sent a sizzled excitement down her spine. She savored the feel of his arms wrapping around her body, his chest pressing against her breasts and the heady scent of him.

Oh, how she wanted this man. She knew one kiss and she’d want to drown in his embrace. She’d been right but she hadn’t expected it to be this explosive, this needy. But that was okay because he wanted her too.

She could taste it in the sensual way his mouth glided over hers. His kisses were light, like butterfly wings fluttering against her lips. She rose up higher, pressing her lips more fully against his and driving her tongue into his mouth.

He groaned and switched from gently exploring her mouth to feasting on her. His kisses were an intoxicating combination of hungry, gentle, and commanding. Still it felt as if he held back, just a little. Like a warrior leashing his passion.

Her pulse jumped, her hands—still wrapped around the stemware—shook, and her body seemed to come alive until every nerve ending screamed for his touch. She closed her eyes and let herself revel in the sensations pouring through her.

No one ever made her body sing from just a kiss before. Dang! She might need to see a doctor about that. It couldn’t be healthy. But boy was it fun. And scary.

“Jules,” Seth said, pulling back slightly, but never letting go of her. He shifted to trailing hot, light kisses across her cheek, down her neck and back again.

“Yeah?” she answered, her breath exhaling in staccato gasps at his incredible touch.

“Open your eyes.”

Against her will, she listened and was caught in the maelstrom of passion in his gaze. He’d stopped kissing her but was stroking her cheek with the backs of his long, warm fingers. His movements might not have been sensual if not for the hungry look in his darkening eyes. He licked his lips.

Her body pressed even closer to his as if being pulled by a magnet. She couldn’t resist rubbing her breasts against his rock-hard chest.

His sexy lips curled into a grin. He lowered his face to hers while his warm fingers massaged the back of her neck. But he didn’t return to kissing her.

And she didn’t just want him to kiss her. She craved it.

“Don’t tease me, Seth,” she said.

“Ah,
precious.
” He said her nickname like a prayer. “I won’t tease. Just one last thing.”

“What?” If he didn’t stop talking and kiss her again soon, she might just scream.

“I’m officially finished questioning you.”

He swooped down, pressing his warm, amazingly soft lips against hers. She melted. He stroked his tongue inside her mouth, and she’d been right. He’d been holding back before. No longer. His kisses were needy, passionate, and so hungry that they enflamed her.