Give Him the Slip (6 page)

Luke Callahan is yours for the taking. The wink, the innuendo,
told you that. With a little effort you could end your dry spell tonight with a
very sexy stranger who, judging by his reaction to your mention of his return
to Brazos Bend, you'd probably never see again.

You could end your sexual drought and no one would ever have to
know about it. For that matter, what would it hurt if anyone did learn about
it? You can handle gossips. You can handle a fantasy man, a barefoot
tanned-and-toned temptation. You're not young and naive anymore.

No, Rip, Liam, and Cade had cured her of that.

Wait a minute. Maddie's sense of self-preservation attempted to
stand up to her Wicked Inner Wanton. Hadn't she learned that situations aren't
always what they seem? She was treading dangerous waters out here in the swamp.
She might well be better off taking her chances with the gators than sitting
here watching the Big Bad Washboard Wolf busy pouring more wine into her glass.
She needed to evaluate the man as a potential white knight, not a bed partner.
How had she wandered so far off the path?

Chicken,
chided her WIW.
Where has that
attitude gotten you in the past? Alone? Broke? Counting tiles in the ceiling
above your bunk?

It
is
different this time. Your downfall in the past has been
falling in love. I'm talking a one-night stand, here. A relationship isn't a
possibility. What would it hurt if just this once, you indulged yourself?

"...eyes peered out from the reeds..."

A night of Big Bad Wolf sex with an ex-DEA agent in the middle of
the earthy, sweltering Louisiana bayou?

Yum.

"Stop it," Maddie told her evil self.

"Just topping off your glass," the Wolf defended.
"No sense leaving just a few sips in the bottom of the bottle."

A simple one-night stand. Who would it hurt? What happens in the
bayou stays in the bayou.

Luke continued, "Just a sliver of a moon in the sky,
and..."

Maddie looked hard at ex-agent Callahan. She recalled the moment
he'd burst from the houseboat's master bedroom armed and naked.

Armed and dangerous.

Her blood hummed.

"... animal's scream sent a shudder up my spine..."

Oh, I bet he could make me scream.

"...teeth right out of Jaws..."

Maddie wondered whether he was a nipper. She liked that in a man,
those soft little nips that tugged and tested but didn't hurt.
Go for it,
whispered
her Wicked Inner Wanton.

Maybe she would. Maddie felt strong and smart and... sexy. She'd
caught Luke eyeing her legs, sneaking peeks at her breasts. He wanted her. She
knew it. She'd bet an entire giant-sized bag of M&M's that somehow, in Luke
Callahan's unique way, this alligator tale was leading up to a pass.

"...whipped his head around and went for my face."

So what are you going to do about it?

For once in her life, Maddie could take advantage of the
situation, take advantage of the man. What would it hurt? He seems willing. He
seems interested. He seems...

"...about sixteen inches long..."

Oh my God!

"...but it still frightened the bejesus out of me. Sharp
teeth on that little sucker, too."

The alligator, dummy. He's talking about the alligator!

"It bit you?" Her throat was as dry as dust.

"Still have a scar." He pointed to a faint white line
just below his bottom lip. "See?"

What am I going to do?
Maddie responded to her Wicked
Inner Wanton.
I'm strong and smart and sexy.

She pictured herself leaning forward, purring,
Poor baby, want
me to kiss it?

Then she thought one more time of Rip and Liam and Cade. She
thought of that town northeast of Houston and of a country house estate in
England. She told her Wicked Inner Wanton,
I'm taking charge.

She looked ex-agent Callahan right in the eyes and asked,
"Would you like some mushrooms with your steak?"

Mushrooms?

Halfway through the first bottle of wine, Luke had decided that as
long as he went into the event with his eyes wide open—as if any man in his
right mind would shut his eyes when Maddie Kincaid was naked—it wouldn't matter
what his father may or may not have intended when he sent her to Caddo Bayou.
So what if seduction was her plan all along? As long as he made sure his big
brain stayed engaged, what did it matter if his little brain had a good time?

Okay, maybe in his heart of hearts he knew he was making excuses,
making justifications, but the wine and the woman and the bayou by moonlight
had gotten to him. Judging from a few of the looks she gave him, he suspected
Ms. Maddie Kincaid was feeling the tension, too.

Luke had been working up to suggesting they indulge in a little
no-strings sex.

He thought he'd just float the idea. If she wasn't interested, he
wouldn't press it. He was a nice guy. Most of the time. And, if he could end
this sorry, suck-ass day by making love to a beautiful woman on a moonlit night
aboard the
Miss Behavin' II,
well, looking down from heaven, Terry
Winston would smile with pride.

So he'd turned on the charm, ratchetted up the romance, and for a
while, he thought he'd been getting somewhere. But mushrooms? Usually when he
told his scar story, women asked whether he wanted them to kiss it. This was
the first time he'd elicited a mushroom response.

"Mushrooms?" he finally said aloud.

"I had a sample in my purse, but I must have lost it."

He rolled his tongue around his mouth. "You carry mushrooms
in your purse?"

"Only when I'm running away from killers."

Oh, hell. Luke went still. "Killers?"

"Yes."

He briefly closed his eyes. So, did this mean she was a damsel in
distress for real? Not his father's lackey, after all? Well, shit. Guess that
hosed the sex.

"This is about why you came to see Terry, isn't it?"

At her nod, what was left of his fantasy of no-strings sex sizzled
away to nothing, like grease dripping onto hot coals. "And you decided you
just had to share this tidbit
now?"

Maddie took an extra-large sip of her wine, then babbled, "You
were flirting with me, and I was thinking about it, and I realized that if I
trusted you enough for sex after Rip, Liam, and Cade, then I obviously trusted
you enough to tell you about the mushrooms."

Luke's thoughts bounced back and forth like a pinball, then locked
in on the sex. She'd been thinking about it? But now she's not? And who were
Rip, Liam, and Cade? And... well, hell. "Mushrooms. Let me guess.
Mushrooms and the DEA, so you're talking psilocybin mushrooms."

"If that's what you call the ones that make you high, then,
yeah. I'm afraid so."

Luke sighed heavily, then opened the lid of the grill. Smoke
billowed into the evening air. He picked up his spatula and shifted the steaks
over the fire.

A dozen questions hovered on his tongue. He wanted to know where
she got the shrooms. He wanted to know who'd been killed. He wanted to know why
she didn't go to the local cops for help, why his father sent her to the
Miss
Behavin' II,
and why he'd led her to believe that Terry was female.

Rather than voice the questions, Luke bit his tongue. He wasn't
going to get involved. Absolutely, positively not.

After a moment of waiting for him to speak, Maddie said, "Uh,
I was kidding about putting the mushrooms with the steaks."

"I figured that."

The silence dragged. Maddie shifted anxiously from one foot to the
other. Luke whistled beneath his breath and concentrated on the meat, doing his
level best not to think about his guest's revelation. "How do you like
your steak cooked? I'll do anything from rare to medium well. It'd be criminal
to cook this piece of beef until it's well done."

She let the moment hang, and he watched her eyes light with
annoyance. "Medium is fine," she finally replied. "I wouldn't
want to do anything"—she drawled the word—
"criminal."

Luke snorted. Okay, maybe he couldn't keep the subject entirely
off his mind, but that didn't mean he had to pursue anything. "They're
just about ready. You want to eat up here or inside downstairs?"

"You're just going to ignore me? You don't care that a nice
old man may have been murdered? That his killers are now after me?"

A nice old man? Who...? No. Don't. "You're safe, Maddie.
We're in the middle of a swamp. There's not much either one of us can do now
but eat. Personally, I'm looking forward to it. I'm hungry."

She finally took his not-so-subtle hint, and Luke breathed a sigh
of relief when she disappeared down the spiral staircase. Moments later, the
bang of dishes against the table made him smile. Yep, he bet she would have
been a firecracker in bed.

Dinner turned out as delicious as he'd expected—he did know his
way around a grill. Maddie did more playing with her food than eating,
something Knucklehead was bound to appreciate. While the food was outstanding,
conversation proved to be downright stilted.

He tried small talk, but she wouldn't discuss baseball or college
football or even golf. The woman was as angry as hell that he wouldn't listen
to her tale of mushroom, murder, and mayhem.

Why was it women always had to sulk?

Finally, Luke got tired of it. Having finished his meal, he opened
another bottle of wine and filled their empty glasses. Then he sat back in his
chair and attempted to explain. "It's been a long time since my brother
and I spent any time together. This fishing trip is important to us both."

Maddie stabbed a piece of steak with her fork. "You don't
want anything to interrupt it."

"Exactly."

"You don't feel obligated to help me because you no longer
work for the DEA."

"That's true."

Maddie placed the bite of meat into her mouth, chewed, then
swallowed. "You don't trust me because I'm here because your father sent
me."

Luke considered it, then nodded. "Can't argue with a word you
said."

She set down her fork. "When's the last time you talked to
Branch?"

His lips made a sour twist. "Don't go there."

She opened her mouth, then wisely backed off when he shot her a
fierce warning glare. Shrugging, she picked at her baked potato for a few
minutes, then asked him a question about the fishing tackle a man used when
going after tarpon. Happy with the change in subject, Luke responded in detail
and at length. By the time they'd finished the meal, fed the dog the scraps,
and loaded the dishes in the dishwasher, Luke believed the topic of magic
mushrooms put to bed.

Therefore, he wasn't the least bit suspicious or defensive when
she shifted the conversation back to Brazos Bend. She asked him whether he
remembered Mrs. Hart, the principal of the elementary school in town, and Mr.
Warrington, the former fire chief, who'd retired to a cabin out at Possum Kingdom
Lake. Luke did recall the pair, and Maddie gave him an update on their recent
activities.

She reached down and rearranged the plates in the dishwasher.
"What about Gus Grevas? Do you remember him?"

"Gus Grevas?" Luke repeated, frowning. What was wrong with
the way he'd loaded the machine? "Grevas bought flowers for his wife every
Thursday afternoon at the flower shop across from the high school football
field. We could time our watches by the man. Practice always ended ten minutes
after Gus showed up."

Maddie smiled wistfully. "He was the most romantic man. Some
of the stories he told about romancing his wife, why, they left me breathless.
I've never had that in a lover, but now that I know romantic men are not just a
fantasy, I'm thinking I might hold out for one." She paused for a moment's
reflection, then added, "I guess that's a bright spot in this nightmare.
Gus gets to be with his Sue-Ellen again. I'll bet he's romancing her in heaven
right this minute."

Luke frowned. "He passed away? When?"

"Yesterday. He's the man I told you about. I think he might
have been murdered."

Luke's arm jerked, accidentally knocking a fork to the floor.
"Wait a minute. You're telling me this murder and mayhem happened in
Mayberry? In quiet little friendly Brazos Bend? That Mr. Grevas was a drug
dealer?"

"Yes! Well, except for the bit about Mr. Grevas. That I just
won't believe. He wouldn't have sent me to clear out his lake house if he knew
it was chock-full of an illegal substance. I think he found out yesterday and
that's what upset him. He thought he was having a heart attack, but when he
went to the hospital, the tests ruled out heart trouble. The doctors said his
heart was fine and he'd had a panic attack instead."

Maddie paused long enough to fiddle with the way he'd loaded the
silverware basket. "Because he was such an emotional mess, they decided to
keep him a couple of days for observation—mostly to calm him down. When I
visited him, he told me the mushrooms were worth six million dollars, and I
needed to get rid of them. He said the killers are looking for me and not to
trust the police. Then I discovered his home had been ransacked and neighbors
who also happen to be cops visited him in the hospital shortly before he
died."