The Kissing Game (6 page)

It wasn't
Frankie.

The realization hit him so hard, he had to sit down. He slid behind the steering wheel and gripped it tightly. He hadn't gone up to Chloe's room because she
wasn't Frankie.
If Frankie Paresky had put forth the same proposition to him, he would not have turned her down. He would have been up in her room so fast …. Damn, they wouldn't even have made it up to her room. Simon would've hit the stop button and made love to her right there in the elevator.

The thought was sobering and a tad alarming. And exciting as hell. Simon closed his eyes, imagining himself with Frankie in a stopped elevator, clothes askew, surrounded by four walls of mirrors, Frankie's legs wrapped around his waist, her head thrown back in pleasure as he buried himself inside her again and again and again ….

Sweet Lord, he'd had Frankie in his arms tonight. He'd been that close,
that
close to kissing her, but he'd chickened out. He'd gotten a sudden strange case of nerves. What if he kissed her and she laughed at him? What if he kissed her and she
gave him a classic rejection speech about how they should just be friends? What if ….

That was crazy.
He
was crazy. So what if she laughed at him? He'd just kiss her until she stopped laughing. And she
would
stop laughing.

To hell with twenty years of friendship. To hell with potential disaster. To hell with it all. What ever happened, it would be worth even just one sweet moment of passion. He wanted her so badly, he would gladly trade all twenty years for one single incredible night.

Simon started his car with a roar.

Next time he wouldn't chicken out.

SIMON LOOKED LIKE
hell.

He climbed out of his little black sports car looking as if he hadn't slept all night.

He probably hadn't.

Frankie leaned against the railing at number six Pelican Street, trying not to hate the woman Simon had no doubt spent the night with, trying to convince herself that she didn't care.

But she
did
care. She'd gone to sleep the night before thinking about finding Jazz Chester, yet it was Simon Hunt who'd haunted her dreams.

No more, she silently vowed, turning her attention
to Clay Quinn, who was struggling to unlock the big wooden door. From then on she was going to concentrate her efforts—waking
and
sleeping—on finding Jazz.

Clay's cellular phone trilled, and he gave up on the door for a moment as he answered it, moving to the far side of the porch.

“Morning.” Simon's voice was husky, and Frankie knew if she turned around, he'd be standing much too close.

Still, she couldn't resist. She turned around.

He was wearing dark glasses and his hair was still damp from what had no doubt been a hurried shower. Despite the heat, he carried a mug bearing the logo of the doughnut shop on the corner of Ocean and Main, and sipped hot coffee through a slot in the plastic lid. He wore plaid Bermuda shorts with a white polo shirt, boat shoes on his feet, and no socks. His legs were muscular and tan and covered with golden-tinted hair that gleamed in the sunshine.

He looked much too good despite the fact that he was clearly exhausted. He smiled at her. “Hey.”

“Hey.” Frankie backed away, putting more space between them.

“I have some good news and some bad news,” Simon said. “Which do you want first?”

Clay closed up his phone and went back to wrestling with the door. “Sorry about that,” he called out. “The office is going crazy—one of our longtime clients was arrested last night. I've been getting constant phone calls since five-thirty this morning.” His phone rang again. “Damn!”

He kept working on the door, opening his phone and sticking it under his chin. Frankie turned back to Simon. “I want only good news,” she told him. “As far as I'm concerned, you can just skip anything bad.”

“I called my friend at Boston University.” Simon lowered his voice and Frankie was forced to step closer to hear him. “He said it's illegal to give out an alumnus's personal information, but when I explained what we needed the address for, he said he'd make an exception.”

“That's great,” Frankie said. “So what's the bad news?”

As Clay Quinn muscled the front door open, still talking on his phone, Simon took off his sunglasses and put them in his pocket. His eyes didn't
look tired or slightly bloodshot as she'd imagined. They were clear and bright. She had to look away.

“I thought you didn't want the bad news,” Simon countered, following her into the house.

Clay went directly toward the back, toward the kitchen, as he continued to talk on his cellular phone. His voice echoed eerily in the stillness.

It was dark inside. And cool. The air conditioner was still in working order. It had chugged away for eight years, with only old Axel Bayard coming by periodically to give it a tune-up. Frankie stood for a moment in the foyer, letting her eyes adjust. She remembered this house. Alice Winfield had always kept the curtains open wide, letting the bright Florida sunshine in. Every surface had been scrubbed clean, every window gleamed. The old woman would have clucked her tongue at the years of dust and neglect.

“I was lying,” Frankie said. “Tell me the bad news.”

“My friend wasn't at the office. He was home.” Simon went into the front parlor and pulled open the heavy draperies. Sunlight streamed weakly through the grimy windows, illuminating the dust that hung heavily in the air. “He's got the flu. He
won't be back at work until Thursday—at the earliest.”

“Oh,
shoot.”
Thursday. Today was Tuesday. Two whole days of
waiting ….

“He also told me there was no guarantee that the information he had would be up-to-date,” Simon continued. The furniture in the room was covered by ghostly-looking white sheets. He lifted one and looked beneath it, then whisked it off. “Oh, man, would you look at this!”

Frankie looked. It was a boxy-looking sideboard-type table made of dark, grainy wood.

“Oak,” Simon said, awe in his voice. “That's oak. It's a Stickley piece. This thing must weigh a
ton.”
He took a tiny penlight from his pocket and scrambled onto the floor, on his back, sticking his arm and as much of his head as he could underneath the table.

“Yes!” he exclaimed. “A red seal! This is
great!
“

“A red what …. ?”

“The older, more valuable pieces were built by Gustav Stickley,” Simon told her, pulling himself up off the floor, ignoring the dust that covered him. “They all had a label—a red seal that identified
‘em. The later pieces had a black seal. They aren't as valuable.”

He moved to pull another sheet off a hidden piece of furniture, but stopped, glancing up at Clay Quinn, who stood in the doorway, holstering his phone. “Do you mind?” he asked.

Quinn shrugged. “Not if you cover it up again when you're done.”

Frankie watched as Simon went quickly around the room. He pulled all the coverings off furniture made with that same dark wood in that same straight style and turned them over or looked underneath the pieces.

“It's
all
red-seal Stickley,” Simon said. “It's in perfect condition too.”

Clay's phone rang again, and he vanished in the direction of the kitchen. Simon tossed Frankie the pile of sheets as he raced into the dining room, eager to see what other treasures lay within.

Frankie put the sheets down on the back of a Victorian-era sofa. She'd shared many a glass of iced tea with Alice Winfield, right in this very room, sitting on this very sofa.

The parlor had been Alice's favorite room. It had a big bay window that looked out over the
ocean. Together they'd munched homemade cookies and Alice would talk about her years teaching in a small town near Midland, Michigan. She'd actually taught in a one-room schoolhouse, and as a young girl Frankie had been fascinated by those stories.

Over in the corner was Alice's rolltop desk. Frankie pulled out the chair and pushed up the top. Everything was neatly arranged in the cubbyholes, just as Alice had left it. Blank stationery and envelopes were in one slot. A roll of Scotch tape and a tiny tin of rubber cement were in another. A small accounts book was in a third. Frankie took it out and opened it up.

Alice's handwriting was angular and familiar. She'd kept careful track of the money she'd spent on food and clothing while she was on Sunrise Key. Another page was devoted to telephone, electric, and gas bills.

There was no mention of neighbors, no personal information.

The desk drawers were filled with neatly stacked blank paper and other office supplies. Pens. Pencils. Rubber bands. Scissors. A small box filled with time-hardened erasers of all shapes
and sizes. Twelve-cent postage stamps. Several neatly rubber-banded decks of playing cards.

Frankie closed the desk and crossed to the bookshelf where Alice had kept her photo albums. Frankie had loved to pull them down and look at the seemingly ancient photographs of old-fashioned people in their outdated clothing. It was a window to the past. She loved the picture of a young, laughing Alice, her face wrinkle free as she stood arm in arm with her handsome husband.

Alice kept the photo albums in chronological order on the shelf, always adding a new one every three or four years or so. Frankie found the latest and pulled it free. The top was covered with dust and she carefully wiped it clean as she carried it to the sofa. She set it on her lap as she sat down and opened it.

Alice, standing outside, next to her garden. Frankie had taken that picture. Alice's face may not have been smooth, but her smile was still young and her eyes sparkled with girlish pleasure.

Frankie flipped back a few pages, and there, carefully glued to the black paper of the book, was a photograph of Alice, Frankie, and Jazz.

Jazz's stepfather—the man Frankie believed was the mysterious John—had taken the photo.

Dear Lord, Frankie had been so young back then. She'd been barely eighteen, and the world had seemed so full of promise. Her future had seemed so crystal-clear. Jazz had said he loved her, and she had no reason to believe that their love wouldn't last until the end of time—until they both were even older and wiser than Alice Winfield.

Boy, had she been wrong. Jazz had left Sunrise Key, never to return. Alice Winfield had disappeared some years later, kept by her poor health from ever again returning to her beloved house on the island. Frankie's eyes filled with tears.

Eight years. Alice had been alive for eight years, and nobody had bothered to tell Frankie.

She would have written. She would have sent pictures of the ocean and the sky. She would have come to this house and done battle with the dirt and dust. She even would have traveled up to Michigan to visit the old woman.

She turned the page to a picture of Alice standing at the gas grill on the back porch, waving at
the camera—waving at Frankie, who had taken the picture, and her tears overflowed.

Alice had probably thought Frankie hadn't cared.

“Hey, Frankie, are you okay?”

Simon sat down on the sofa next to her, his eyes dark with concern.

She hastily tried to wipe her face, but the tears wouldn't stop. She swore, closing the photo album, afraid of getting it wet, afraid of Simon's gentle pity. “I'm fine.”

He knew she wasn't. He reached out, gently touching the back of her head, softly stroking her hair. His hand was warm, and when she glanced up at him, his eyes were soft.

“I'm not fine,” she admitted. “Alice Winfield was special to me.”

Simon nodded. There was nothing mocking in his gaze, nothing but gentleness in his slight smile. “That's what I like about you, Francine,” he said quietly. “You know every single person who lives on this island—and everyone who's ever lived on this island. And to you, each of them is special in some way.”

He glanced away from her, out the dirt-streaked windows at the brilliant blue of the sky. “Alice Winfield was no angel,” he continued. “She was outspoken and blunt to the point of rudeness. She was also pretty damn miserly. But you focused on her good side.”

“She was
careful
with her money. When she was growing up—”

Simon cut her off with a smile. “Hey, I'm not attacking her.” He shifted toward her on the couch, reaching out to touch her hair again. “I'm just marveling at the way you can overlook the negative and always find some redeeming quality in just about anyone.”

Frankie had to look away. The sensation of his fingers in her hair and the quiet warmth in his eyes was nearly overwhelming. But she couldn't pull away. She closed her eyes, allowing herself to enjoy the gentleness of his touch.

“How about me, Francine,” Simon said softly. “What do you see when you look at me?”

He was leaning in, closer to her, his breath warm against her ear. If she turned her head, his lips would be a whisper away from hers. If she turned her head, he would kiss her, and Frankie
knew without a shadow of a doubt that that single kiss would lead to much more.

What did she see?

Suddenly, with extreme clarity, Frankie saw a vision of the woman in the pink dress, the woman Simon had spent the night with. It had probably been only hours since he'd left her bed. Ap parently, now that Simon had gotten his “previous commitment” taken care of, he felt he could concentrate once more on Frankie.

Frankie stood up. “I see someone who's been my friend for a long time,” she told him as she crossed to the big bay window. “Someone who's about to make a really bad mistake.”

“It might be a mistake, but I'm not sure it's such a bad one.”

She turned to face him. “It is. Absolutely.”

He didn't move. He just gazed into her eyes as if he were looking for answers, searching for hidden truths. “How can you be so positive?”

Frankie wasn't positive. She wasn't positive about
any
thing when it came to Simon Hunt. Especially when he looked at her that way. But she steadily returned his gaze, and without a tremor in her voice she said, “Si, I'm on the verge
of finding Jazz Chester again, and I feel like this could be a real important milestone in my life.” She was trying as much to convince herself as she was to convince him.