Cool Shade (4 page)

Angel Mine

"He doesn't bite."

Above her, the dog growled low in its throat.

Maddie kept her eyes squeezed shut. Her heart hammered in her chest. She could hear the dog's panting breath. Smell its dog smell.

A voice. A deep, annoyed voice, coming from somewhere up above. "I said, he doesn't bite."

She ventured a peek from under her arm. The toe of a leather hiking boot, nine inches from her face. Tanned legs. Hairy, but not too hairy. Denim shorts that stopped at his knees. Gray T-shirt that draped softly over rounded chest muscles.

Tall. Brooding. With dark hair that hung on either side of his face as he frowned down at her. Hair that was littered with bits of dead grass and leaves. His jaw was blue-tinged, as if shaded with charcoal. His lips, surrounded by a day or two's growth of stubble, were beautifully shaped.

But what she really noticed were his eyes. Soulful. Eyes so dark that it was hard to tell where the iris left off and the pupil began. Soft eyes. Poet eyes.

He was like somebody out of the past, out of time. He had these eyes that pulled me in, that made me go weak.

The dog whined, licked the side of her face, wagged its tail, sat down, and whined some more.

The man still towered over her, his shadow falling across her.

"What are you doing here?"

His voice was deep, like the bass on a really good stereo system. And kind of gravelly, as if he didn't use it much.

He repeated his question while continuing to pin her to the ground with his eyes.

Instinct told her not to mention Enid, not yet anyway. She rolled to her back, elbows to the ground, feeling even more vulnerable in her new position.

There were the Maxwell Smart "Would you believe" replies… Would you believe, selling Avon? Would you believe, reading your gas meter?

Then there was the old shark skit from Saturday Night Live.

Western Union.

Pizza delivery.

Candygram.

"I'm lost."

Simulcasting. The idea came to her the very second the words popped out of her mouth.

His thick, dark brows lifted. Heavy-lidded eyes blinked. And his smile, when it came, revealed straight, white teeth.

And when he smiled his slow smile—God. My legs went weak.

"Aren't we all."

She turned his response over in her head, rolling it around, deciding she liked it. It had the ring of philosophy, or maybe that was therapy.

"I'm Eddie."

There had never been any doubt in her mind. He couldn't have been anybody else. And then she realized he was reaching for her, hand extended.

Beguiled, she could only put her hand in his.

His grip was sure, firm. He pulled her smoothly to her feet.

She came to his shoulder.

His head was bent. A curtain of hair hid all but his jaw and mouth. She looked down and realized he was cupping her arm in one hand, examining it with the other. Brown fingers moved over white skin.

She instantly regretted all those days spent curled up in bed asleep while the sun was high in the sky, regretted all those nights spent working on her tan under the fluorescent glow of radio station lights. She wished the skin he so carefully inspected was a beautiful shade of gold instead of marshmallow.

"You've cut yourself."

He sounded genuinely sorry. As if it had been his fault that she'd taken off like a wild animal caught by the side of the road, blindly darting into oncoming traffic.

"My blood has excellent clotting properties."

He rubbed a thumb across the soft skin of her inner arm.

Tan against white. Firm against soft.

Why hadn't she taken advantage of the YWCA weight room? Why hadn't she ever started jogging?

"It should be cleaned."

She stared at her arm. At his hand on her arm. Could he see the pulse beating madly in her wrist?

"You're shaking."

He was right. And it wasn't just the arm he was holding. She was shaking all over.

He looked from her to the dog, which she'd totally forgotten. "Don't you feel bad, Murphy?"

Murphy wagged his tail.

"No wonder we hardly ever have company."

The dog. He thought she was shaking because of the dog.

Ah, yes. That was it. Who wouldn't be shaking?

"Did you know your name is Eddie, and your dog's name is Murphy? Get it? Eddie Murphy."

That lazy smile. "It's been mentioned."

About a hundred times, were the unspoken words he was too much of a gentleman to utter.

"Come up to the house and I'll clean that cut for you."

The house? He actually lived there?

He led her back the way she'd come. Dreamlike, she followed. On the porch, he took her by both hands and gently but firmly pushed her down in the wicker rocking chair. And this time the house didn't look ramshackle, it looked charming. It no longer looked abandoned and run-down; it looked more a product of carefully cultivated neglect.

The screen door slammed behind him. She heard his booted footfall moving this way and that.

With some distance between them, her head began to clear. She briefly toyed with the idea of running, but the dog—Murphy—was lying on the porch, muzzle against his paws, watching her with deceptively sleepy eyes.

When Eddie returned, he was carrying a bottle of peroxide and a hand towel. He made her hold out her arm.

"This'll sting."

He poured the peroxide over the cut.

She watched it bubble. Watched it run down the sides of her arm. Watched it drip on her bare leg.

Normally quite a screamer, she didn't feel a thing.

He capped the bottle and set it aside, then dabbed around the cut with the towel.

"You have the whitest skin I've ever seen."

"I… I, uh don't get out much."

“You haven't been sick, have you?"

Here she meets this really great-looking guy, and she looks so bad he thinks she's been sick. How embarrassing.

"No. Actually, I work nights. I mean, I used to work nights. So I slept all day."

She was talking. She knew she was talking, yet she was hardly aware of what she said. Was she making any sense at all?

She couldn't take her eyes off the man crouched in front of her.

He was beautiful.

It wasn't like her to fall for a pretty face. Good-looking guys had never appealed to her. They were always too hung up on themselves. But it wasn't just his looks, she tried to tell herself. It went beyond physical. This was something that seemed to emanate from him. Something he carried with him. Inside him.

He seems so together.

And Maddie had never been together in her life.

She stared at the leaves in his hair. Her fingers twitched. She started to reach up, stopped, started… Finally, she lifted her hand and touched a shiny, dark strand.

Soft. Incredibly soft.

She couldn't believe she was being so bold, but the whole encounter had a dreamlike quality that made it incredibly easy for her to touch him.

His head came up. His eyes stared into hers.

"You have a leaf…" she heard herself saying.

She worked it loose, and when she was done, she showed it to him, just so he would know, just so he wouldn't get the wrong idea and think she was just looking for an excuse to touch him. Then she went to work on the next one.

"There," she said, finally finished. When she looked into his eyes again, her breath caught. There was such electricity around them, between them. Was it all her? Did he feel it, too?

This is insane.

This is wonderful.

Insanely wonderful
.

For the first time in years, she felt a sense of belonging, of amazing lightness.

She didn't know how long she sat there mooning over him like the village idiot, when suddenly she came somewhat to her senses and decided he was probably politely waiting for her to leave.

"I have to go," she said, getting to her feet.

The dog lifted its head, then let it drop, bored.

She was walking away, feeling awkward about having him watch, wondering if he was watching, when he jumped off the porch and fell into step beside her. "What about the road you were looking for? I might be able to give you directions."

Enid.

She'd completely forgotten about her sister.

She had no idea why she'd made up the business about being lost. What could she say now that would make any sense? That wouldn't make her out to be a total fool?

Before she could open the car door, he was there, beating her to it.

She slid in, her mind in a turmoil.

He shut the door. Then, bent at the waist, hands braced on the window frame, he looked in at her. "Who's place were you trying to find?"

She would have to come clean. She would have to tell him the truth.

She was trying to get the words lined up in her head when his beautiful eyes shifted from her face to the seat beside her.

He frowned.

His eyes lost their soft look.

She followed the direction of his gaze.

There in plain sight was the map Evelyn had given her. Circled in red magic marker was his place.

He reached across and snatched the map. With it fisted in one hand, he looked from it to her. "According to this—" he shook it at her, "you aren't lost at all. In fact, you seem to be exactly where you want to be."

She grabbed the map from his hand, tearing it. She stuffed it between the driver's seat and console.

"You're a reporter, aren't you?" he asked, suspicion giving way to certainty.

Then he laughed in a self-deprecatory manner. "You're good." He nodded, agreeing with himself. "You are really good. And I'm an idiot. You, with that wide-eyed look. The shaking. That was a nice touch. You really had me going."

"I'm not a reporter." A reporter. She'd never been a reporter. That might be a job she'd like. "I wish I were. Actually, I-I'm a hooker."

His eyebrows lifted in disbelief.

Where had that come from? Is that what they called themselves? Hookers? How about prostitute? Whore? Lady of the evening?

"I didn't call for anybody."

She almost collapsed against the steering wheel in relief. "I know. Someone gave me your name."

He was watching her, looking her over in an almost analytical way. "You don't look like a whore," he said, still suspicious.

"I'm kind of new at this. And hey. We don't all have to have short skirts, cleavage, and black eyeliner." She lifted her arm. "I told you my skin was white because of a night job."

"Who told you about me?"

"Who?"

"Yeah. You said someone told you about me."

"Oh. Yeah. Enid. Her name is Enid."

His face closed. The eyes she thought were so soft were now hard. Emotionless. He straightened. "Get the hell out of here."

She'd be happy to. More than happy to.

She watched as he turned and walked toward the house, his boots making a shushing sound in the tall grass. On the porch, the dog rested, his eyes never leaving his master. In the sky above the house, waiting for darkness, was a pale, full moon.

Where Is My Mind?

"I think Eddie Berlin may know something about my sister's disappearance."

Maddie stood in front of—she checked the name plate—Officer Gable's desk.

Gable looked to be in his mid-thirties, with the completely bored, wiped-out attitude of a car salesman. Someone who wished he could be on a golf course instead of in an office. Anyplace but behind a desk with a woman badgering him about something he wanted no part of.

"Berlin is harmless."

Maddie thought about the almost hypnotic power Eddie Berlin had lazily emitted. Thought about her sister's notes. Evelyn's claims. Her own reaction to the man. Harmless wasn't the word she would have used to describe him. Beguiling, maybe, but never harmless.

She'd been around him only a few minutes and she couldn't get him out of her head. Several times she'd caught herself fantasizing about how his mouth would feel pressed to hers. And his hands… His hard body…

Gable made a quick check of his watch, then got to his feet, chair scraping the floor. "Listen," he said, beginning to show signs of impatience. "I've got to pick up my daughter for an orthodontist appointment." He lifted his jacket from the back of the chair and slipped it on. "I'll file a missing person report, but unless something comes up, some tangible evidence of possible foul play, that's all I can do." He rubbed the back of his neck, looked up at the ceiling, then at Maddie. "You may not know it, but then again, maybe you do, but your sister is a prostitute."

"And that makes a difference?"

He looked at her in a speculative way, as if he wondered what she did for a living.

"My sister is a person. She deserves the same attention you would give anybody."

"I'm not dismissing her because she's a prostitute. What I'm saying is that your sister's lifestyle wouldn't be all that traditional. She's an adult. She doesn't have to answer to anyone. She can go away for a month, or six months, or a year without checking in with anybody. It's not like she's a teacher, or an anchor on Channel 6 News. Prostitutes have no commitments except to their pimps. They come and go."

Maddie understood what he was saying. They were talking about Enid here. Enid who'd stolen her car. Enid who'd never felt a shred of remorse, who didn't have a conscience.

Yes, Enid probably just skipped town. Met some rich guy and took off with him.

But what if she hadn't?

That's what Maddie had to find out. Even if she had to start the investigation herself. She couldn't ignore the feeling that something might really be wrong. And that Eddie Berlin might be in some way connected to her sister's disappearance.

Gable left his little cubbyhole of an office. Maddie followed, practically running to keep up. "Can't you at least talk to him?"

Gable stopped. "Okay. I'll stop by his place when I get the chance."

Get the chance? He was brushing her off. He'd make sure he never got the chance. "When?"

"When? Soon."

"How soon."

She wasn't going to stop, wasn't going to let it go until he gave her an answer.

He must have realized how determined she was. "Three days. No more than three days, okay?"

Not okay, but it would have to do. "Yeah. Okay."

"I'm not promising you anything. Eddie isn't receptive to people. He just wants to be alone. People don't understand that. It makes them think he's strange. It scares them." He looked her in the eye, giving added emphasis to his words. "A man's entitled to privacy. It doesn't mean he's guilty of something just because he wants to be left alone."

~0~

Sitting at Enid's desk, receiver to her ear, Maddie punched in the first telephone number in Enid's appointment book. It turned out to be her sister's pimp.

"She owes me two grand. I loaned her the money to buy a car. When you find her, send her my way."

A car.

Enid hadn't changed.

"Have you heard anything from her?" Maddie asked.

"Not for a month. She owes lots of people money. I figured she skipped town. My girls do that all the time. Take off with a client and don't come back."

It was beginning to look more and more like that's exactly what had happened. Maddie was just letting her imagination overrule common sense. But then she'd never had a whole lot of common sense.

"Hey, you looking for work? I can use another girl, especially now, with Enid gone."

"Actually I'm in the market for something I can do fully clothed."

He laughed. "Everybody's bashful at first. But they come around. I've got an easy job to start you on. Recluse that lives outside of town. Just called me about a girl with dark curly hair and white skin. You got dark hair?"

"Y-yes."

"Don't matter. The only time Eddie calls is when he's loaded. Too loaded to perform. All he does is pass out."

"I'll take it.”