Chapter Fourteen

John

The evening might not end up being a total disaster after all. He had Molly Montgomery alone in his car, didn’t he?

Still, there was every chance he could screw it up. It had been such a long time since he dated. He had hardly even tried since he and Christina split, since the local sheriff couldn’t very well be seen on dating apps or hanging around in bars.

Everything had been going so well back on Jasmine Key until Larry Beckwith III, aka Dylan Dakota, had come along and ruined it.

And it had to have been Beckwith who’d broken into Mrs. Tifton’s house. Beckwith was slim enough to fit into a size small hoodie and also smoked. It wouldn’t surprise John if he’d taken to wearing cologne, too, probably from a bottle he’d stolen.

John had known the mope was still in town. He’d known it. He’d sensed it. His only question was, Why? Why was Beckwith still hanging around on the island instead of fleeing? He had to know John was gunning for him.

Oh, well. There was no accounting for the stupidity of the common criminal.

Although the Larry Beckwith John knew wasn’t stupid—he was cunning. Too cunning to stick around somewhere after committing the kind of crimes he had this time in Little Bridge.

Something was different. If only John could figure out what it was.

Molly was sitting very upright and proper in the passenger seat beside him as he drove her to the hotel where she lived (and worked), her gaze glued to the road. Her profile looked very delicate and feminine against the dark car window beside her. She was being unusually silent, but he could understand that. What had happened back at the widow’s house had probably frightened her.

He cleared his throat.

“It’s very nice of you to offer to stay the night with Mrs. Tifton.”

She turned those huge dark eyes to look at him. “It’s nice of you to offer to sit outside her home, as well. We couldn’t very well let her stay there alone after what happened.”

“Of course.” They were getting very close to the hotel, which was really only a couple of blocks away from the widow’s house. That was one of the few problems with Little Bridge: Everything was only a couple of blocks away. This was an advantage most of the time, but not during situations like this: their ride wasn’t going to last very long. But then he had the ride back to Mrs. Tifton’s to look forward to. “But you really don’t have to worry about him coming back. The High School Thief, I mean.”

The dark eyes seemed to grow even larger, but that might have been a trick of the streetlights beneath which they were passing.

“So you think it was him? The High School Thief?”

“Well, it’s the same M.O.”

“Except for the break-in. I thought the High School Thief only sneaked in through unlocked doors.”

“That’s true.” John didn’t want to say what he really thought—that it was Beckwith, and that he’d done it as a huge “eff you” entirely to John, to ruin his evening at the Red Cross Ball, his attendance at which was known island-wide, because that would sound conceited. What kind of law officer went around thinking that criminals committed crimes for the sole purpose of annoying them?

But it could not be denied that some criminals did, in particular sociopaths like Beckwith.

“We’ll have to wait until my tech crew has finished processing the scene, and see what they come up with,” he said instead.

This made Molly swallow hard and look away.

“But I am really certain it’s him,” John hurried to assure her, sure now that he’d been right: she’d been frightened back at the house. “And he never hits the same place twice—certainly not in the same night. So you and Mrs. Tifton will be totally safe. Besides, I’ll be right outside—”

“Oh, I’m not worried about that.” She gave him a tight little smile. “Here we are.”

He hadn’t even noticed that they’d reached the Lazy Parrot, a large Victorian mansion not unlike Mrs. Tifton’s home, only this one had been converted into an inn. He pulled into the single parking space outside the hotel, marked with a hand-painted sign that read “For Lazy Parrot Guest Drop-Off/Pickup Only.” Parking spots were at a premium on the island. Many of the fights John and his deputies broke up were over parking spaces.

Molly was already undoing her seat belt. “Would you like to come in and wait while I get my things?”

Was this an invitation to her room? He had no idea. But he wasn’t about to turn it down.

“Sure,” he said, and put the car into park and followed her.

Like many houses in Little Bridge, the Lazy Parrot was much larger on the inside than it appeared from the outside. Once they’d gone through the lobby—an old-fashioned foyer, complete with an (unmanned, at this hour) front desk—and sitting room, they reached the gigantic backyard, lush with subtropical foliage, in the center of which sat a large, sparkling swimming pool, lit up turquoise blue. The air was heavy with the scent of chlorine and night-blooming jasmine. All of the guests, as well as the hotel owners, appeared to have retired for the evening. He and Molly seemed to be the only two souls alive, save for some frogs he could hear croaking near the hot tub.

It was one of the most romantic places he’d ever seen.

He turned to Molly to tell her so—or tell her something, anyway—only to see her hurrying toward a set of outdoor steps leading to the Victorian’s second floor, the doors of which could be reached only by a long balcony.

“I’ll just get my things and be right back,” she said. “You can wait right here. I’ll only be a second.”

She indicated a wrought-iron lawn chair beside the pool.

“Oh,” he said. “Okay. Great.”

“Can I get you anything?” she asked. “A drink or something while you wait? The bar is right over there—”

“No, no. I’m fine.”

“Are you sure? It wouldn’t be any trouble.”

“Miss Montgomery,” he said, with mock severity, “I’m the sheriff. I can’t be drinking and driving.”

“Ha.” She laughed weakly. “Yes, of course. But, you know, a Coke or something.”

“Molly, I’m fine.”

“Okay. I’ll just be a second.”

She turned and fled.

So. Evidently not an invitation to her room.

Well, that was fine. Better not to take things too quickly, right? Wasn’t that what was wrong with the world these days? Everyone was always rushing around, not paying attention to what they were doing, failing to savor the moment.

That’s what he told himself, anyway, in his disappointment.

He sank down into the lawn chair and pulled out his cell phone to check his messages. Still nothing from Tabitha Brighton’s parents. If he had received a message from a law enforcement agency regarding information about his missing daughter, he’d have called back right away. No, he’d have gotten on a plane and flown to that law enforcement agency immediately.

Maybe that’s what the Brightons were doing. Maybe that’s why he hadn’t heard from them: they were on a red-eye flight from Alaska to Little Bridge.

Except that John suspected the Brightons were doing no such thing.

It was as he was texting Marguerite to have the deputies begin a search of every vacant house, boat, and outbuilding on Little Bridge for Larry Beckwith III that an extremely fat, fluffy orange cat emerged from the shadows and sauntered toward him, meowing plaintively.

John didn’t dislike cats, but he had no particular love of them, either.

This cat, however, did not seem to care about John’s feelings on the matter. It butted its head against his shinbone, getting orange fur all over his dress pants, and meowed up at him some more.

Then, before he could move away, the animal leaped up onto his lap and began to knead its claws into his belly, all while purring very loudly.

“What the—” John began, extremely startled, but before he could pull the cat from him, Molly appeared at the top of the stairs, a small overnight bag in her hand.

“Oh,” she cried in a loud whisper. “I see you’ve met Fluffy the Cat. Isn’t he the sweetest?”

Suddenly it occurred to John that he liked cats—or at least this cat—very, very much.

“He really is,” he said, stroking the cat’s head and causing him to purr with even more intensity and volume—and also to sink his claws more deeply through John’s shirt and into his skin. “Is he yours?”

“Oh, no.” Molly came tripping down the stairs a lot more lightly than she’d gone up them, most likely because she’d changed out of her heels and into a pair of canvas sneakers. She’d also exchanged her sparkly dress for a large button-down shirt over a pair of leggings. “No one knows who he belongs to. He just shows up here, so we feed him. He sleeps with me most nights, but sometimes with the guests. They love him. He’s just the best.”

“He seems that way,” he lied, as the cat mauled him.

Molly came over and stroked the feline in his lap. How was it that even in an oversized shirt and leggings, she looked just as sexy to him as she’d been in a tight-fitting dress?

“Do you and Katie have pets?” she asked.

“No.” It was all he could do to keep from flinging the cat off his lap and snatching Molly up in his arms and kissing her again. “Too busy. One day, maybe.”

“Me, too, when I get my own place.”

“Did you, uh, used to have pets?”

“When I was growing up, of course. But I’ve never lived in a place on my own that allowed them.”

“I see.”

This was unbearable. Her proximity—the sweet, clean scent of her—was going to drive him insane. She’d made it clear there was to be no more hanky-panky by making him wait out here, so he was going to abide by her wishes, but it was hard. John managed to pry the cat’s claws from his shirt and deposit him gently onto the ground, trying not to feel too dismayed about the amount of orange fur all over his newly laundered dress pants. Then he stood up. “Well, do you think you have everything you need?”

She looked surprised by his abrupt shift in mood. “Yes, I’m ready. But—”

He paused. “But—?”

“Well, there was something I wanted to ask you.”

Hallelujah. Would you like to come upstairs after all? That’s what he was hoping she’d ask, anyway. “What is it?”

“There isn’t any chance—I mean, you don’t think, do you, that the High School Thief could actually be in high school, do you?”

What? That was not what he’d been expecting—or hoping—she would ask. “Excuse me?”

“I know it sounds nuts, but one of my patrons was bragging the other day about being the High School Thief. The crazy part of it is, he’s in high school himself. I think he was only saying it to get attention—”

“He was,” John said shortly.

“Do you think so?” Her expression was worried. “It’s just that tonight, at Mrs. Tifton’s—well, he wears a hoodie just like that and nearly drowns himself every day in cologne—”

“It’s not him,” John said. He was beginning to realize why she’d seemed so worried in the car. She hadn’t felt frightened at all about what had happened at Mrs. Tifton’s. She was scared of who he was going to arrest for it. “I’m fairly certain after tonight that I know who it is, and it isn’t a high school kid. And it certainly isn’t a high school kid who goes to the library and tries to impress you by bragging that he’s the High School Thief.”

Even in the wavy blue light of the pool, he could see that she was blushing. “Oh, I don’t think he’s trying to impress me. I think he’s just going through a hard time. His parents are divorcing, and he doesn’t have many friends, and—”

“Can we go back?” he asked abruptly.

She stared up at him, confused. “Go back to what?”

“To earlier this evening, when you were teaching me to dance.”

Now she looked even more confused. “You want to dance? Now?”

“No,” he said, and took her in his arms. “I want to kiss you.”

“Oh.” She smiled up at him, the confusion gone, and dropped her overnight bag. “Well, that would be fine with me.”

The next thing he knew, her arms were around his neck, her body melded against his, and she was kissing him. It took less than a second for him to realize she’d shed her bra upstairs when she’d gone to pack and change. He could feel her firm nipples pressing against his heart.

A heart that was slamming hard against the inside of his rib cage.

The night was taking a sudden turn for the better.

He forgot all about his troubles with Katie and the mother-daughter dance, the abandoned baby and Tabitha, and even the High School Thief and Larry Beckwith III (who seemed likely to be one and the same) as he held Molly close. Her body, so warm and alive, felt like heaven in his arms, her lips like paradise. For a few seconds, he lost his head, forgetting that they were standing by the pool in the courtyard of the Lazy Parrot where anyone could look out from their room and see them at any moment, and feeling instead that they were somehow in their own private utopia.

Maybe that’s why he did what he did next—something he’d never have done under other circumstances, but he was simply too swept away by the feel of her lips on his and the smell of the night-blooming jasmine and the tiny sounds she was making, little gasps of desire—

It was no wonder, really, that one of his hands slipped beneath the soft material of her shirt, then cupped the even softer skin of one of her breasts. She reared her head back to look up at him in surprise—then a slow, sly smile spread across her lips, and she pulled him even closer by his shirtfront.

It all would have been perfect if a cell phone—hers, this time—hadn’t gone off.

“Darn it,” she said, and released him with such abruptness that he felt wind rush to cool all the places where her body had been pressed to his—and the temperature outside was in the seventies. They’d really been heating up the place. “That has to be someone in my family,” she said as she reached inside her bag for her phone. “Only they’d call so late. They all live in a different time zone. I’m so sorry—”

But it wasn’t anyone in her family.

“Oh, Mrs. Tifton,” Molly said, giving John a comical look of mock horror as she answered the call. “No, I’m sorry, we’re on our way back now. It just took me a little longer than I—yes, I can certainly pick that up on my way. No, it’s no trouble at all. Of course, I understand. No, we’ll be happy to. We’ll be right there. Okay. Bye.”

She hung up and gave John an owl-eyed look. “Mrs. Tifton wants to know if we can bring her some whiskey. She’s all out and she thinks a little of it in her tea will help calm her nerves after what’s happened.”

John took a steadying breath. He felt as if he could use a little whiskey himself. “We can certainly accommodate her.”

“Yes.” Molly tucked a wayward strand of dark hair behind one ear. “We have plenty of whiskey here at the bar, as a matter of fact. I can borrow a bottle and replace it in the morning. I doubt there’s any place open where I can buy some now.”

“No.” John didn’t want to correct her, because he most certainly didn’t think it appropriate to take the town’s children’s librarian to Ron’s Place, a bar that was open twenty-two hours a day and also sold liquor, and at which he had broken up more than a few fights and even several attempted murders.

“I’ll just go grab a bottle,” Molly said. She was looking flushed in the light from the kidney-shaped pool—flushed, and more beautiful than any woman he’d ever seen. “Then we should probably—”

“Go,” he finished for her, though the thought of having to say good-bye to this woman was killing him.

She smiled—a little ruefully, it seemed to him. Was she thinking the same thing? “Yes. But maybe—”

“We could do this again sometime? Another . . . dance lesson?”

The smile widened. “Yes. That would be lovely.”

He felt as if his heart might burst with joy.

Unfortunately, the feeling didn’t last.