Knock Me Off My Feet (13 page)
She hoped to God it wasn't a woman.
The buzz of her doorbell nearly sent Audie through the ceiling. She ran across the wide living room to the foyer and flipped on the light, slamming her eyes shut in the brightness. She peered through the peephole to see the smiling face of—Tim Burke?
"Tim Burke?" she whispered to herself, dropping her eyes from the door. It was beyond her how he thought it was OK just
to
show up here. It was beyond her how he got beyond lobby security. Why couldn't he just leave her alone?
"What do you want, Tim?" she shouted through the heavy double doors.
"Hey, babe! I was just at a dinner party in the building. I wanted to drop by to say 'Hi.'"
"Not a good time, Tim." As if there ever
was
a good time for Tim Burke.
"Oh. Well, sure. Not even a cup of coffee?"
"I don't have any coffee."
"Oh. Right. How come you haven't returned my calls, Audie? I miss you. You know I care for you."
She huffed. She leaned her forehead against the cool, smooth wood and began a light banging at a slow, even tempo.
"What are you doing, Audie?"
"Bashing my head in," she muttered to herself. "Nothing! Look, I've got company, Tim, all right?" She didn't like to lie, but this was an emergency. "Good-bye."
Audie was turning away from the door when she heard him say, "Is Stacey Quinn in there with you?"
"What?"
"He came to see me today. I'll give you a little advice, Audie. The guy's a hothead and a womanizer and nothing but trouble. Watch yourself."
Audie stuck her eye back on the peephole, but Tim Burke was gone.
She shook her head. Obviously, there was no love lost between Quinn and Tim Burke, and she wondered what had happened so long ago. She could just picture them in a playground scuffle, hurling insults and punches at each other, shoving
and
tearing at each other's little white Catholic school dress shirts.
She was rooting for Quinn.
"Men," she mumbled, heading for her bedroom. She might as well go to bed for the night. That way, when Marjorie asked her on Monday if she was getting enough sleep, she wouldn't have to lie.
Chapter 6
"
W
hat's your favorite thing to do in the summer, Homey?" Quinn settled back on the varnished oak bench of the sailboat and stretched his arms wide along the edge of the cockpit.
"Take in a Cubs game." Audie threw him a teasing smile from her perch behind the helm. "And this—there just isn't much better than this, Detective."
She turned her face into the wind and closed her eyes, enjoying the peaceful sound of water lapping at the side of the boat, the whisper of air over the sails.
Quinn watched her. He didn't think he'd ever seen her truly relaxed, and his heart opened at the sight of it. He was perfectly content to sit there the entire day, just appreciating her face and the way the breeze tossed around her hair.
He'd never been sailing before, but if it meant hanging out with a beer and looking at Audie, he believed this was a pastime a man could grow to like.
It wasn't a stretch to say that Autumn Adams was the prettiest woman he'd ever known. He liked the way the light hit her out here on the lake, making her skin glow like copper and gold. He stared at the long, smooth, casually outstretched leg and remembered all too well what it felt like to touch each place on that leg—the solid calf muscle, the sharp shinbone, the hard knee, the soft thigh. Holy God. That he wasn't jumping on her this very second, pulling her down onto him and devouring her, was proof of his superhuman will. Sixteen years of Catholic school probably didn't hurt, either.
And Holy God. The idea that Tim Burke may have ever put his hands on her was enough to make him lose his mind. He knew that he'd have to ask more about their relationship, but not right now. Not today. Today, he just wanted to enjoy being in her company again.
Quinn moved his eyes from Audie to the flat blue horizon line of
Lake Michigan
. He really had been busy last week. But the truth was, he had asked Stan to take care of Audie so he could cool his jets—pure and simple.
After that out-of-control kiss on his deck, Quinn found himself thinking with his dick instead of the perfectly fine brain God gave him, and that wasn't his style. And he was still responsible for Autumn Adams's case, which had to be his priority—at least for the time being.
But when she'd asked him to go for a sail, he'd accepted gladly. And now he wondered how the hell he'd managed to stay away for a total of ten days—ten very long days.
He took a swig of beer, put the can in the convenient beverage holder on this fancy
Beverly
. He was sure he was a bit out of his element here.
He wondered how long it would be before he ended up at the fucking opera.
"Did you say something?" Audie opened her eyes and smiled at him politely.
"Nope." Those plump lips, wet from a recent slide of her tongue, and that rounded chin, perfect for biting. She looked delicious and juicy and he felt an ache in his groin. Watching this woman did painful things to his chest, too, like his heart was being throttled, like his blood was backing up, like the oxygen couldn't quite make it up to his head.
"I used to sail a lot with my dad when I was a kid," Audie said, running her fingers through her hair and closing her eyes in the wind again. "It was nice to come out here on the water, away from everything, just the two of us."
He actually felt her voice touch his skin. It was warm and smooth and rich and he felt it fall over him, wrap around him in the breeze. It was the weirdest damn thing.
The satiny curve of her throat … had he gotten a chance to taste her there yet? It was all a blur. He couldn't remember if he'd yet run the tip of his tongue up her throat, and it bugged the hell out of him.
"Dear God," he muttered to himself.
"What?"
Quinn shook his head and tried to pick up the threads of the conversation—there had been words exchanged, hadn't there?
"Did your mother ever come out on the boat?"
"No. She didn't care for the lake all that much."
"Did she care for your father all that much?"
Audie's head snapped around and she stared at him in disbelief. "What kind of question is that?"
Quinn winced, annoyed with himself. He didn't want to piss her off already—they'd only been out here a few minutes and he wanted to stare at her for several more hours at least.
"I just saw some of your pictures, that's all. They didn't look too thrilled to be together."
Audie shrugged. "I guess they tolerated each other, like with any marriage. My dad was not a very demanding person, so he kind of let Helen rule the roost and did his own thing. He wasn't home all that much."
"What did he do at the Mercantile Exchange?"
"He traded in the pits for many years, then became
a
broker. Made a ton of money."
"Did he have affairs, Audie?"
She went very still and stared at him. He appeared perfectly innocent sitting there with one leg propped up on a knee, his arms draped across the back of the bench—but his eyes were insistent, intense.
She blinked at him in astonishment. "You know, it amazes me how rude you can be."
"I don't mean to be rude. I'm just trying to figure something out, is all."
Audie snorted. "What in the world would my father's indiscretions have to do with the letters I'm getting? You think one of his old lovers is sending them? That's a bit out there, don't you think?"
He cocked his head and examined her face for a quiet moment, aware that she was uncomfortable. There was no way around it. "So he did have affairs, then?"
Audie closed her eyes briefly and sighed. "I don't know for sure, Quinn. There was just something wrong. That I know."
"Wrong? What do you mean?" He leaned forward, elbows on knees.
Audie was rapidly becoming annoyed by this line of questioning and groaned. "Look, from what you've told me about your family, I don't think you'd understand even if I tried to explain it, so forget it."
Quinn gave her a small smile. "Try me, OK, Homey?"
The beer felt cool going down her throat, and Audie looked out over the water for a while. They were heading south, being nudged along by a nice steady breeze near the shoreline. To the right was one grand home after another, made of stone and brick or wood, surrounded by huge, heavy summer trees and tidy grounds. This back view of the
Winnetka
.
Wilmette
, and
Evanston
was one she knew by heart.
"It was a big house, right?" Audie kept her eyes on the shore, watching the homes float by. "Everyone went to their own corners—you didn't have to see anyone else if you didn't want to. When Dad was home, he went to his den. I went to my room or down to the boathouse. Drew usually just left altogether. And Helen worked with Marjorie in the home office."
"
"No. She didn't buy the building until I was in high school, so they wrote the column from the house for many years."
Quinn nodded slightly, trying to imagine what it would have been like to have so much room for so few people—the opposite of his experience as a kid. "Go ahead. I'm listening."
Audie sighed. "It wasn't so much that we didn't like each other—we just didn't know each other." She leveled her gaze and stared hard at him. "That's the part I don't think you'll get—how a family can be strangers the way we were. I think my dad and I were the closest, but that's not saying much, and he died when I was fifteen. My mother and I…
"
Audie shrugged and looked up to the telltale fluttering against the jib. She adjusted the wheel a bit until the tiny streak of red cloth flew straight and smooth against the canvas. "Helen and I never really understood each other. I'm a lot like my dad, and that seemed to bother her to no end. She was always busy or traveling and didn't have much time for me. I think she was glad of that."
Quinn looked down at his hands and remained silent.
"Marjorie and Mrs. Splawinski were the ones who pulled me through." Audie flashed a grin. "For as long as I can remember, they were more my mother than Helen. I went to Mrs. Splawinski when I was bummed out, and she'd sit and speak Polish to me and feed me brownies. I didn't understood half of what she said, but God, she makes awesome brownies."
Quinn chuckled. "So Stanny-O tells me."
"And I went to Marjorie when I was in trouble and needed a plan. She covered for me when I came home drunk after my junior prom. She took my side in the whole
Griffin
fiasco."
Quinn's head jerked up. "
Griffin
fiasco?"
Audie sighed. "Helen nearly croaked when I brought
Griffin
home with me. You might have noticed that he's a black man."
Quinn grinned. "And a real snappy dresser. So what happened?"
"Oh, it was hell, basically. Helen would barely speak to me and threatened to cut off my inheritance if I didn't break up with him, all worried about maintaining her position in society. It was ugly. She was ugly. The funny thing is, I know now that Griffin and I hung on much longer than we should have—we make much better friends than lovers—but we did it to spite her." Audie scrunched up her face at the memory. "It wasn't a very mature thing for me to do."
The amusement showed in Quinn's eyes.
"I think that's why I started smoking, too. Just to piss off Helen."
"You smoked?" He looked shocked.
"Yeah. Just a few a day, but I'm pretty much over them now. I noticed smoking was affecting my lung capacity on the soccer field, that and getting older."
Quinn cocked his head and appraised her openly. "You do look downright elderly, Audie."
"Thanks."
"So you were talking about Marjorie and
Griffin
."
"Marjorie stuck with me. She told me to follow my heart, fight for what I wanted, that sort of thing. She played go-between for Mother and me. She was wonderful. She did the same when I was dating Tim Burke."
Quinn sat quietly for a moment, and Audie watched his mouth pull into a grimace.
"You started dating Tim in late March last year, and your mother was killed in late April. You were dating Tim when your mother died. Is that correct?"
"Yes."
"And your mother didn't like Timmy, either?"
Audie saw where this was headed and smiled sadly. "No, she didn't particularly like him, and yes, the reason was because he was Catholic."
Quinn's expression remained quite grim. "And did Tim know how she felt?"
"Yes. I mentioned it."
"Did they ever argue or have words?"
"What? No. Of course not. They knew each other from city functions, but I don't know if they ever said more than two sentences to each other."
They sailed on for several moments in silence, Quinn lost in his own thoughts, staring at his hands, then staring out over the water. Audie watched him, wondering where he would go next in his questions, fascinated with Quinn the detective as much as she was with Quinn the man.
"Did Marjorie live with you?"
Audie laughed a little. "No, but she and Helen were so involved in the column that she was there a lot. I never understood why Marjorie never got married—she's such a great woman, smart and funny and adventurous. Did you know she went climbing in the
Himalayas
about ten years ago? But she only had the poodle."
"A fine animal indeed."
"Oh, there were more than one, Quinn! She went through a bunch of them. As soon as one died, she got another, and they all had men's names."