For the Love of Jazz (16 page)

Raising his head, Jazz caught the nape of her neck in his hand, arching her head up to meet his. He took her mouth desperately, almost violently. Her hands closed over his shoulders, kneading the smooth muscle there as his hands cupped her hips and lifted her. “I can’t wait,” he muttered, nudging against her.

Locking her legs around his waist, arching up against him, Anne-Marie responded, “I don’t want you to.” A gasp fell from her lips as he imbedded his length within her, withdrew and slammed into her again. Reaching up, she laced her fingers in the wet silk of his hair, holding him against her.

Jazz reached behind, unlocking her ankles and hooking his arms under her legs, opening her body wide before driving deep inside her. As her muscles started to contract around him, Jazz slowed, nuzzling at her ear. “This isn’t gonna last,” he murmured in her ear.

Water pounding her from the sides, the cool tile against her back, and Jazz thrusting against her, Anne fell even deeper into the storm. A soft low moan escaped her lips only to be swallowed by his as he covered her mouth. Diving deep, he stroked the inside of her mouth, withdrew to nip at her lower lip.

Soft, wet silk—sinking inside of her was like sinking his dick into soft, wet silk. Her sheath rippled around him, squeezing little convulsions that would drain him dry. Jazz shuddered at the pleasure that came with each and every move she made. As she gasped out his name, he buried his face in the curve of her neck so he could breathe in her scent. He bit her lightly on the neck and she responded with a ragged, hoarse moan.

“Jazz…” She whimpered, trying to get closer. Held as she was, unable to move, completely vulnerable… who would have known that could be such a turn on? A helpless thrill shot through her when she tried a second time to move and couldn’t.

Her eyes fluttered closed, a long moan escaped her lips.

“You look at me,” he whispered. “Open your eyes, Annie. And look at me.” As her dark green eyes opened, eyes the color of the forest at dusk, he asked softly, “Who do you see?”

Jazz couldn’t control the storm raging inside him any longer. Thunder pulsed in his head, his gut, in his cock. Water pounded him from the outside, waves of longing and love from the inside.

It was her. It had always been her. The need to mark her, to bind her to him gnawed at him. And the hopelessness of knowing it would never happen. But he had now. Now she was his. He asked her again, “Who do you see?”

She stared at his face, a face she had tried to picture time and again over the years. A face she would see in her mind every day for the rest of her life. “You,” she told him raggedly. “Just you. Just you, Jazz.”

Releasing her legs, he moved closer, until not even a breath of air could come between them. Her hands slid up and locked around his neck. Staring up at him through slitted eyes, she said, “Kiss me, Jazz. Like you did that first time.”

Covering her mouth, he let the storm inside him take them both.

* * *

Dawn was breaking when Anne-Marie woke alone in the bed. The sheets beside her were still warm. Reaching out, she ran her hand over them, before fisting her hand and pressing it to her mouth.

“Did I wake you?” a low, husky voice asked.

Turning her head, she saw Jazz sitting in the chair by the bed, chin propped on his fisted hand. “No. What are you doing up so early?”

“Watching you.”

Self-conscious, she tugged the sheet up as she sat in the bed. Looping her arms around her legs, she asked, “Why?”

“Because you’re here. Because you’re beautiful. Because I want to,” he answered, smiling slightly, as if laughing at some inner joke. “Sleep well?”

Shrugging, she fussed with the sheet, with her tangled hair, her hands, as she waited for the blush staining her cheeks to fade. “Better than I have been. Not as good as I will when I can sleep in my own bed.” Then boldly, she raised her head, met his eyes and added, “Or yours.”

His eyes widened before crinkling at the corners as he grinned. “Feel free to invite yourself any time you wish, Doc Kincade. Any time at all.”

Smoothing the wrinkled sheet over her lap, she smiled primly and said, “I believe I just did, Mr. McNeil.” And then her face sobered and she sighed. “It will be some time though, before I can do that.” Resting her head on her bent legs, she stared at Jazz. “What’s going on, Jazz? Why would somebody want to kill my father?”

Tears welled in her eyes, but only one spilled over. It trickled down her cheek and she brushed it away absently. “Everybody likes him,” she said quietly. “He’s a good man, a good father. He doesn’t drink, doesn’t steal, and doesn’t cheat.” She laughed a little. “Of course, there’s this widow in New Haven he goes to visit. He thinks I don’t know. Daddy’s been alone a long time. I can’t expect him to stay alone always just because I can’t picture him with anyone but Momma.

“She’s been to see him quite a bit. Always after I’ve left the room,” she told him, the corner of her mouth curving up in a small smile. “I leave the room more often now that I know she is out there.”

“Why?”

“Because Daddy, for some reason, didn’t want me to know. I think it started out as something casual, each one comforting the other, maybe. But I think she loves him. Maybe he loves her. He squeezed her hand, once. I came in that first time, not knowing she was there. And she was sitting talking to him. She’s a bit hard of hearing, I think. Anyway, she didn’t hear me come in and she was standing up, telling him goodbye. And I saw his hand tighten around hers.”

“How do you feel about that?”

“If it makes him happy, then I’m happy for him. Momma has been gone a long time, Jazz. It would be selfish of me to want him to stay alone simply because she was no longer here.”

Leaning forward, Jazz traced his fingers down the curve of her cheek. “There’s not a selfish bone in your body.”

“Yes, there is. And it has your name on it,” she told him, taking his hand and holding tight. Lacing her fingers with his, she turned her eyes away, not seeing the intense look in his eyes. “Why did this happen, Jazz? Who would want to hurt my dad?”

Shaking his head, he answered, “I don’t know, Anne. But we’re going to find out.”

Turning her head, she met his eyes once more. “Are we?” she asked, her voice calm, casual.

His was anything but when he tightened his grip on her hand as he rose and settled down on the mattress next to her, “Yes. We are.”

* * *

Tate had a secret passion. For fairy tales, of all things. Books of folklore, myths and legends lined the walls of his office at home. He loved to draw and had since he was a kid. That was part of the reason he was bullied so much when he was little, not just because he’d been so overweight and clumsy. Hidden in the drawer of his desk was a leather-bound journal, stuffed full of drawings of leprechauns, elves and faeries.

Maybe that was why he had always felt drawn to Marlie Jo Muldoon.

She looked like a faerie, tiny, delicate, pale. She barely stood at five feet in her stocking feet and had yards of pale, silvery-blonde hair that she wore in a neat braid down her back. Quiet, shy, she always seemed to hover at the edges, watching all that went on around her, but never really reaching out and joining.

How she came from something like Jackson Muldoon was something nobody could fathom. Though she looked as insubstantial as a mist, Tate had a hunch that there was more to her than most thought. From time to time, something lively and passionate would dance across her face before being subdued.

Wide, blue eyes, eyes the color of the eastern sky at sunset, deep, dark indigo, dominated her small, pale face. Right now, they were full of nerves and barely restrained temper.

“Tate, what are you talking about?” Marlie asked. Her voice was just as soft as the rest of her, whisper quiet.

Tate had to lean forward and concentrate to hear her. “Marlie, I need to know where you were on May fourteenth, Friday night.”

“I was at home with Momma.” A sad smile curved her mouth and she spread her hands wide. “That’s where I am every night, Tate.”

“Your momma can verify that?” he asked, already knowing the answer.

Her mouth firmed and her eyes darkened. “Momma has a hard time verifying her own name, Tate. Much less what I was doing last week.” Leaning back in the kitchen chair, she asked, “What is this about, Tate? I think I have a right to know.”

A slight grin tugged at his mouth.
Yep, I was right. There is some of that sass I knew existed.
He lowered his eyes back to his notepad, adding faerie wings to his sketch of Marlie. That was what she ought to be doing, he thought with disgust. Flitting through a field of wildflowers or dancing on the limbs of a dogwood. Living in a castle somewhere.

Not sitting here in this ratty, dark, depressing house while he questioned her about an attempted murder.

With a deep sigh, Tate threw down his pen. “You were supposedly seen by an anonymous caller out on Old Bluecreek Road several times in the weeks before Dr. Kincade was shot.”

“And what on God’s earth would I be doing there?” she asked, her eyes puzzled. “I don’t think I’ve ever been out there.”

“That’s what I am trying to figure out, Marlie. How do you feel about Dr. Kincade?”

“The older one? I don’t know. I’ve never met him, really. Daddy used to mumble about him from to time, but that was long ago. He seems like a nice enough man. I know he did little Macy Conroy’s surgery for free. Didn’t charge a penny for his services. And he takes on a lot of patients that can’t afford him.”

“What about his daughter?” he asked, keeping his voice impassive. Nobody would have guessed that just sitting here was making his gut clench with anger and regret. He hated having to put this woman through this. She’d already taken on so much.

“Anne-Marie?” she asked, her voice fainter than normal. Her eyes darted away from his face and her ivory complexion paled even more. “She’s a nice lady.”

“You look a bit odd there. You have a problem with Anne-Marie?”

“Larry talks about her a lot. And her father. He hates both of them.”

“Is there a reason why?”

She raised her eyes and looked at Tate.
He’s so beautiful
, she thought wistfully.
So kind.
Her cheeks flushed a delicate shade of pink and she raised her shoulders in a shrug, forcing her mind back to the conversation at hand. “Because they have money. We don’t. People like the Kincades, they don’t like us.”

Reaching across the table, Tate took her tiny hand in his. On the back of the right wrist was an old rounded, puckered scar, the kind caused by a burning cigarette. Rubbing his thumb over that mark, Tate said, “You’re not like them, Marlie. You never have been.”

A smile trembled at her mouth before she looked away. All around her, there were signs that she was like them. She was a Muldoon, whether she liked it or not. The dingy kitchen that she could never get clean, no matter how hard she tried. The old linoleum, the stove that barely worked. The small lawn outside was cropped short, emphasizing the bare patches of dirt where nothing would grow.

What little money she had leftover from working at the salon, that didn’t go to keeping her and Momma fed, she spent on Momma’s medicines and spare parts for the car that always fell apart. She couldn’t remember the last time she had gone into a store and bought a dress off the rack. She either purchased most of her clothes from a second-hand store or made them.

Thinking back, she pictured how Anne-Marie Kincade had looked the Sunday past, wearing a simple, yellow sheath that spoke of understated elegance. The strand of pearls at her neck had been real, Marlie was certain, as had the simple diamond solitaire she wore on her right hand. Beautiful, smart and kind. The money, though God knew Marlie had so little of it, wasn’t even the thing she envied most. It was the animation that seemed to surround Anne-Marie. She was so full of life, something Marlie doubted she’d ever experience.

With a faint smile, she took her hand from Tate’s and folded both of them neatly in her lap. “But I’ll never be like her, will I?”

“The only thing you have to do is be yourself,” he said, duty and office forgotten. Those eyes were so sad, so empty.

“I doubt this is why you came here, Sheriff,” Marlie said quietly, her eyes going carefully blank.
I won’t take your pity
, she told him silently. It was bad enough when she had to accept it from others, their pity mixed with derision.

But to take it from him…

How would he react if he knew she wanted nothing more than to sit on his lap and hold him? That she woke every morning thinking of him after spending nights dreaming of him?

He’d be uncomfortable, embarrassed, and most likely, even more sympathetic than he already was.

“So your momma can’t exactly be counted on as an alibi, right?” he asked drolly. In the other room, he could hear Marlie’s momma talking to her eldest son, dead nearly two decades now.

A glimmer of a smile flirted with her lips and she shook her head. “I’d rather it not go down in the books that she was outside chasing my naked bottom around so she could put a diaper back on me.”

Tate chuckled, acknowledging with a raised brow that it was a distinct possibility. Just the other week, she had flagged down a deputy on the county road and asked if he could please find her lost chickens.

The Muldoon farm hadn’t been able to support chickens for more than five years. The empty pen that had once been Naomi’s small pride lay neglected.

“Tate.”

Waiting until he looked at her, she asked, “What reason on earth would I have for wanting to hurt him? What could I hope to gain?”

“Marlie, I don’t think this is anything more than an attempt to distract me, to waste time and confuse things. I’d no sooner think you were a murderer than I’d think your daddy was a priest.” He sighed and rubbed his hands over his face. “Godamighty, Marlie. What in the hell is going on? Things like this don’t happen in Briarwood.”

“You can’t find whoever shot Dr. Kincade, can you?” she asked softly, twisting her hands in her lap. She wanted to walk over to him, soothe the lines worry had put on his face. Instead, she focused her attention on the matter at hand. She sighed, shaking her head. “Do you even know why? It doesn’t make sense.”