Once Upon A Killing (A Gass County Novel Book 2) Read online

  A few of those going straight down Chelsea’s pockets for sure, or maybe into her forced cleavage, she thought and answered, “Yeah, it’s been a long day. In fact, it’s been a long week and I’m tired.” She stared down at the small watch decorating her left wrist, something to look at when her eyes got used to not seeing the wedding band anymore. “And it’s already nine. Geez. I need to get home.”

  Throwing the green handbag over her shoulder she pushed back the chair underneath the table, said thank you to Wayne for getting the coffee, and nodded politely to Chelsea, who still only had eyes for Wayne and was still twiddling with the same lock of hair between her fingers. She passed them both quickly before the cool evening air touched her face and she pushed the heavy wooden door open to the freedom of nightfall.

  It’s all good, she thought, this feeling is normal. It’s very normal. Will has been gone for a long time, and it’s okay to think Wayne is handsome, attractive, hot, and that I want his hands all over me. Her mind was running on overdrive as she firmly pushed a hand into the top of her hair, pulling it hard backwards, until a prickle of pain spread across the bottom of her scalp. Good, her mind deliberating, maybe the distraction of pain can kill some of these… feelings.

  She hadn’t moved yet. Still standing underneath the large bending arms of the trees, she closed her eyes and slowly let her hands drag down the sides of her face, stretching her facial features, before she released a long sigh. And I kissed him. And I liked it. I’m so sorry Will. Churning, churning her mind went around. Maybe it’s just hormones, but for the first time in four years I’m feeling… turned on, hot, and bothered. And it’s not by you, it’s by him, her mind whispered into the universe.

  “You okay?” The warmth of a large hand pressing down on her shoulder made her jump right out of her shoes.

  “Yeah, yeah, yeah. Just… just, you know, took a little breather. Thought you’d stay inside and catch up with Chelsea?” Although the temperature outside was on the cooler side, her face tingled of heat. She prayed he wouldn’t see it. The streetlamps weren’t that bright after all.

  He eyed her suspiciously and gave her a wry, almost seductive smile, the uneven smile ever so enticing. Apparently the light from above wasn’t dim enough. “No,” he answered. “She’s too young to hang out with. Maybe she wants to, but it’s not going to happen.”

  “Oh, okay. Anyway, I need to be getting home, pronto. Thanks for tonight, Wayne, and I’ll see you Monday for the lunch delivery to the station. Bye!”

  She was already a few steps away down the sidewalk when she noticed a man’s figure in her periphery, catching up with the quick strides, then she felt his beaming heat as his arm brushed against hers despite the thickness of their sleeves.

  “So, you’re running out on me? Not that this was a date or anything, but at least let me walk you home. Live far?”

  “Afraid you don’t have the stamina to walk me to the door, Mr. Fitness?” she smiled.

  “Oh, I have plenty of stamina. Believe me.”

  That comment could have had dual meaning, he thought. But since she kept smiling and looked straight ahead instead of at her feet, he must be in the clear. But how the hell would he know? He wasn’t a woman, and women were confusing as hell; saying one thing, but almost always meaning something different.

  “Tell me, Wayne,” she said. “What made you become an paramedic? Good-looking, brawny, and self-assured, shouldn’t you be more like a police officer or a firefighter? Someone with more… authority?”

  His hands were down deep into his pockets now, and with a deadly gorgeous smile, he shook his head.

  “Haven’t I heard that one before. What’s wrong with being a paramedic?” He threw the question back at her.

  “Oh, there is nothing wrong with it. Curiosity is what it is. What made you chose your profession? You seem way too… buffed up and cocky for that kind of job.”

  “Ha!” he laughed now, “is that what you think I am? You don’t even know me.”

  Their pace had slowed somewhat and Christine’s shoulders went up in an ‘I don’t know’ kind of action.

  “Many years ago a friend of mine, Jefferson, oh by the way he might be someone else you’d successfully sell your lunch delivering service to. He works a bit from home, and now when his wife is pregnant he’s not allowed to cook meat at home anymore. Anyway,” he continued, “where was I, oh yeah, many years ago Jefferson’s brother was in car accident and unfortunately he didn’t make it out alive, and it was then something happened inside me. Like something, or someone, shot a lightening flash up in my brain, telling me what to do. Guiding my steps, directing my path. You can’t imagine the horrible screaming that came out of people’s mouths that day around the scene of the accident. People I didn’t even know had feelings cried. Strong men cried. Women leaned against the walls of the shop where Jefferson’s brother’s car was smashed up against, and Jefferson was mute. He was mute for weeks after. It was then, right there, in all that mess, that I felt strong. Strange to think that way, but I felt like I could’ve thrown that truck away from that smashed up sedan, and lifted his brother to safety. We all knew he was dead, yet I felt I could help. If I can’t save someone, then maybe I can ease someone else’s suffering a bit. I don’t know really… but it’s been that way ever since. It’s like my calling, or something.” He shrugged slightly eyeing the moon as they walked side by side. “Deep enough for you? Am I still just a self-absorbed prick?”

  “I never thought you were a prick. Just very confident. And confidence is nothing bad. In fact, like it.”

  “So, you, a baker? No college or law-degree hiding within what seem to be a very interesting mind and package?”

  “I would rather attest your conjecture of a fictitious schooling by wielding my extraordinary vernacular, demonstrating the inaccuracy in which you are deeming my talent. Not yet have you tasted the talent resting in these hands,” she held them out, palms up. “Nor will your prospect of doing so transpire, when using not only false, but rude assumptions of a woman’s handiwork to diminish talent. You, my friend, have created a negligent mind.”

  “Fine. You went to college. Spare me the fancy words. What do you want me to say? I’m sorry? Alright, yes, I’m sorry. Just didn’t think a plain baker ever paid enough attention to the books to earn a higher degree.”

  She stopped. “Watch that negligent mind of yours, Mr…?” She stopped suddenly looking at him.

  “Matthews. Wayne Matthews,” he answered with that same knee-wobbling smile.

  “Mr. Matthews, guard your mind before it takes off and grows assumptions again, causing nothing but trouble. “

  “Seriously, you can talk normally to me. Don’t have go all Jane Austen on the conversation.”

  Her smile crept back up her face, and she started walking next to him once more. “A man who knows Jane Austen, that doesn’t happen every day either. Good job for knowing that name.”

  He smiled back and kept walking, his stride in tune with hers.

  “So, bakery owner. That’s pretty big. Owning and running a business like that. Good for you.”

  This time his words didn’t offend her enough to make her stop, only make her head shake a little in the chilly evening breeze.

  “Mr. Matthews, I do, or do not. There is no trying.”

  “What?”

  “Oh, come on. I’m trying to steer off the Austen era and be on your level. Master Yoda? Star Wars? In the swamp? Planet Dagobah?”

  “Who is growing a negligent mind now?”

  She didn’t apologize, but continued to stare into his eyes. It felt like minutes went by, and by just watching her in the quietness of the evening he knew she was nothing like the women he’d met before. Not at all. There was some other spice hiding within, something hot and foreign.

  “Using those brain cells of yours to figure something out?” she smiled, her voice almost purring low. If they’d been inside a club or on a date he would’ve definitely taken that tone of
voice for seduction. “Are you thinking about taking me home, pretty boy?”

  “Pardon me?”

  “No need to repeat the question. It’s quiet enough around us to hear a needle hit the bricks on the street. You heard me.”

  Amazed. Surprised. No dumbfounded.

  “Well… maybe.”

  Slowly he watched the tip of her tongue wet her upper lip, before her soft, plump, sugar tasting mouth closed to a smile.

  “You’d have no idea what to do with me, Wayne.” Her step erased the distance between them, making the fabric of their jackets brush against one another. “This mind,” the top of her index finger tapped lightly on the caramel colored strands of hair melting down around her face, “creates ideas not suitable for everyone.”

  “Try me.”

  Her eyes trailed across his face, from his eyes to his lips, and for a short second he thought she would kiss him again the way she’d snuck up on him in the bakery, but instead she smiled and whispered ‘good bye’ into the crack of his slightly opened mouth, and was gone. It wasn’t until he’d watched her walk with great long strides away from him, and disappeared around the brick building of the church that he noticed he had held his breath, which made him lean back onto the cold wall of Lowry’s Offices and pant heavily; sounding like nothing less than someone having had the best and most exhausting round of hot sex in tangled up sheets.

  Chapter Six

  “It’s been a few weeks now that we’ve seen each other, right?” The sweet aroma oozing off the cookies baking in the oven seemed to find its way through the entire bakery. A place he had visited often over the last two weeks, trying not to get too attached to this mesmerizing creature that was Christine, yet too deep in with both feet and with no tantalizing wish to get a paddle and find his way out of this ocean of new feelings. Had he had seen other women? Yes, he’d seen other people, chatted fleetingly with other women while sitting perched up on one of the barstools at Harold’s watching a football game on TV and drinking a beer, but he had not ‘seen’ other women, as in sleeping with them. Which he found rather amazing. He looked, talked, and in rare events he may have squeezed boobs too close on a tight dance floor, or grazed nipples practically handed to him, but something inside him told his dick to keep itself inside his pants, close to his own body. He wasn’t sure why, because he sure as hell had had the opportunity to put himself between a number of sheets to feel the warmth of naked women.

  Not that he was in love, or was someone’s boyfriend. Not at all, scratch that thought completely! In fact, he couldn’t remember the last time he’d had a dry spell similar to this one, and now he did it freely and willingly. He’d come home after a long work shift and use his own hand to please himself while in the shower, and every single time it had been a part of Christine’s body that fluttered across his mind before the release came. Hard. Violently. Until he’d breathlessly lean his back against the cool tile of shower wall and drain the fire under the cascading water, watching part of him run down the drain, dreaming it would be so much better to shoot that load inside Christine.

  Fourteen days without placing himself inside someone else took its toll, not only on his body but on his mind. She was nothing like the other women he’d been with, or met out. She was the only one not in hot pursuit of his body, and it drove him nuts. It would be so much easier if she’d just cave like everyone else, practically beg him to sleep with her, but she’d done exactly the opposite. And it drove him crazy.

  Two weeks of daydreaming of her shoes, how her rounded bottom looked in her jeans when she walked, or the way her long hair grazed the location of her nipples in her tight t-shirts when it flew freely. He knew he should probably to do something about these new fantasies, or else, from this day on, every time someone offered him a sweet smelling cinnamon roll or said the word ‘bakery,’ his cock would salute the world inside his pants.

  “Yes,” she mumbled, her hands cunningly squeezing the soft frosting for a large batch of vanilla cupcakes out of the plastic tube. “We have had coffees and kissed fleetingly a few times, not committing. Nothing big. Feels like high school all over again, but sure, Wayne, we’ve been seeing each other for two weeks.” The sound of the industrial mixer standing on the floor quieted down just to be emptied out on the baking counter, ready to be become another round of infamous cinnamon rolls.

  “Anyhow,” he continued, his body leaning against the end of the counter, strong arms crossing his wide chest. “I have a conference I need to attend for work in New York.”

  “M hm.” Her hands were working hard now spreading the warm dough out flat, brushing it with melted butter, then sprinkling a crunchy mix of sugar and cinnamon across the dough stretched out on the sparkling granite counter top. She didn’t even look at him while he was talking.

  “Are you free this weekend?” he asked. “Want to join me in New York?”

  She snorted a laugh and turned around slowly, sticky hands hanging down her sides.

  “You haven’t paid that much attention to me, to be honest. I wouldn’t even consider us ‘dating.’ If what we are doing is called ‘dating,’ then you seem to be dating every goddamn woman in this town at the moment. I’m not sure I’m interested,” she answered, and put her hands back over the dough, rolling the corners towards the middle like a large burrito. “It’s a big step going from having morning conversations over coffee, to sharing a weekend away.”

  “Did you just cuss at me?” he smiled, and turned his body against her.

  “Maybe.” Her hands were busy again, folding and rolling the sweetness waiting under her fingers. He watched mesmerized how her dainty fingertips worked sideways over the dough, quickly as the legs of a spider, rolling, rolling, until the entire dough was rolled up like a fat snake having just swallowed its prey, yet smelling fantastic.

  “So?”

  “Two hotel rooms and I’ll agree to go with you. I haven’t seen New York, after all. And while we’re there I would appreciate if you could keep your pants shut, and not flirt with other women while I’m right next to you,” she answered.

  “Are we dating?” he asked, his hands in his pockets.

  “Are we?”

  “It almost sounds like you think we are.”

  Her right hand held a tight grip around the dough cutter and, with firm pushes, the sugar snake lying contently on the counter after feasting on melted butter and sweet spices, became a domino game of cinnamon rolls, pieces tipping others over, preparing themselves to become divine rolls baking in a warm waiting oven.

  “I might be new in the game here,” she said, “after being married for some time, but I usually don’t go out and drink coffee or sit on the phone with men I don’t have feelings for. And I sure don’t kiss them. Do you?”

  “Not men, no,” he smiled.

  “Oh, bite me.” She shoved the first of many baking sheets filled with cinnamon rolls into the gaping mouth of the bakery’s dragon, ‘The Beast,’ as she called it, and slammed it shut. Hard.

  “So, you like me? Nice. Thanks.”

  “Aha, yeah. Not sure that was the answer I was waiting for. You’re so full of yourself, Wayne.” Another sheet followed the first into the heat of the dragon’s mouth.

  “Oh, come on. I’m just kidding.”

  “You know what,” she turned suddenly but instead of looking him in the eyes she stared down at his shoes across the floor, “maybe I don’t want to have anymore coffees or drinks with you, and it’s getting pretty late. You should go. Thanks for coming by.” She turned away and filled the last two sheets of raw dough, making The Beast open its gape for the final last rounds of buns to be made.

  “Christine, come on.”

  “I’m busy, Wayne. I will be busy tomorrow, the next day, and this weekend too. Find someone else. Anybody. It can’t be that hard: Chelsea the waitress, or Melissa who gave you a shoulder rub when we drank that beer at the bar a few evenings ago, or why not fancy-pants Jewels whose picture pops up on your phone when we have
a coffee or go for a walk. Now if you’ll excuse me I need to finish my baking for tomorrow’s customers.”

  Without as much as a look, she moved passed him to take out two perfectly baked sheets of golden brown cinnamon rolls and with the help of an oven mitt placed them on the cooling rack by the back wall. The oven mitt was still on her hand when she felt him right there, strong arms encircling her body, demanding her mouth onto his.

  Like the first time she’d kissed him in here, a short, amazingly soft kiss, the same tingle crept up her spine until a church bell rang loud and clear at the top of her head. His hands found their way down to the back pockets of her jeans, passed them, and with a solid grasp of her butt pushed her body even tighter into his.

  “I’m not going to be one of many, Wayne. I’m not your booty call.”

  “You’re not,” he smirked, “but I do like your booty.”

  “Very funny.”

  “Please come this weekend? It’s just one single night. If you hate me after that weekend I won’t bother you anymore. I promise.” His large hands caressed her bottom, she noticed, but decided not to do anything about it. After all, it fed the desire blooming inside.

  “Is anyone else coming?” she asked, her hands running up his arms, circling his neck.

  “Nobody.”

  “Not even Bryce?”

  “Not even Bryce.”

  “Two hotel rooms?”

  “Two hotel rooms.”

  “You’re paying?”

  “I’m paying.” His mouth found perfect timing and softly pressed onto her right cheek, placing a faint kiss, then he whispered, “Please, Christine. I’m only asking you, no one else.” His hands grabbed her butt once more and pushed her up into his body once more.

  “What time are you picking me up?”

  “5:30 Saturday morning. You’ll be home here the following night. I’ll drive you home too.”

  “Ok, it’s a deal. But no other women.” She stared at him, making her point.

  “Oh, Christine, we have an awesome weekend ahead of us.”