Julie Miller - Sudden Engagement

Quick, purposeful strides took her to the ladder. There, she latched onto the fourth rung and tilted her face into the lantern light filtering down from the floor above. Her shoulders rose and fell in rapid gasps.

“Gin, are you all right?”

Five gentle fingertips touched her shoulder and she jerked away as if they’d singed her. Damn. She’d forgotten anyone was here. So dark. She’d forgotten. He’d seen her.

She dredged up enough voice to answer Brett. “I’m fine.”

It wasn’t her best lie, but she didn’t care. She didn’t owe him any explanation. She began to climb, attacking the rungs of the ladder as if the darkness itself pursued her. In her haste, she misjudged a step and slipped.

Instead of falling, twin vises caught her thighs. Big hands. Brett’s hands. Long, strong fingers and supple palms that nearly spanned the circumference of each leg. Supporting her weight with effortless ease, he guided her feet back to the second rung.

“Easy.” He crooned the warning in that cavernous voice. The sound of it skittered along her spine, sending soothing tendrils of comfort along her sparking nerve relays. She cursed her body’s foolish reaction to the sound.

Once on solid footing, he released her. Ginny clung to the ladder and quieted her pulse. The imprint of warmth from his hands stayed with her, mocking her attempts to ignore him and don her detective facade once more.

“Claustrophobic?” he asked.

“No.” She spun around and looked straight into eyes of sapphire blue.

He stood a bit too close. Close enough to see the stubble of dark brown beard shadowing his jaw. Close enough to smell the honest scent of wood and work on him. Brett was clearly a man who built things with his hands. It was evident in the outdoorsy tan of his skin, the rough rasp of his fingertips, the minuscule bits of sawdust that clung to the coffee-brown twists of hair that brushed his collar.

Years of practice made it possible for Ginny to note her observations without attributing any emotional or physical response to them. She cataloged her reaction to Brett the same way she cataloged her observations of a crime scene. “It’s the—”

Ginny snapped her mouth shut. She couldn’t let this man know her weakness. Her fears were her own to handle. She would not be made vulnerable. One of the ugliest aspects of her job—of her life—was seeing how cruel the world could be to anyone who was vulnerable.

Let him think the close quarters had gotten to her. A white lie would be better than the truth.

“Maybe a little.”

He backed off a step. “Sorry to crowd you.”

The considerate move surprised her. Maybe there was a touch of real hero beneath his thick, flirtatious veneer, after all.

“You work in construction, right?” she asked.

“Contractor. Run my own business.” If he thought anything strange or rude in her abrupt change in topic, he didn’t comment.

She let her gaze move past his shoulder to that shadowy void that reminded her of more than she cared to remember. “Can you tell me anything about that new wall? The one built to seal him in?”

She averted her gaze from the dark chasm. Some memories refused to die.

“Yes.” He lifted his left hand in a timeless gesture of “ladies first.” “But let’s talk outside. I could use some fresh air.”

Ginny recognized the gallant gesture for the excuse it was, but appreciated it anyway. She gave him a curt nod and climbed the ladder. The basement brightened into artificial twilight. And when she emerged on the front steps of the concrete stoop, she breathed in the mist-filled air like sunshine.

With her phobia behind her, Ginny could think clearly again. She’d been shaken by the darkness, that was all. Any traitorous response her body had had to Brett Taylor had simply been the result of humiliating fear. She was too smart to be attracted to a charmer like him. Way too smart.

This time, she heard the weight of his tread on the threshold and knew he stood behind her. She pulled out her pen and notebook, and turned to meet him. “So, Mr. Taylor, do you think you can tell approximately when that alcove was built? And can you verify that it was built by a nonexpert? The mortar seemed to be inferior grade, falling apart. Maybe it wasn’t mixed together properly.”

He answered her questions with a laugh. “You are one tough cookie, aren’t you.”

Ginny lifted her gaze with a stern look that only seemed to fuel his good humor. “The term ‘cookie’ went out with girdles and seamed stockings. You can call me Ms. Rafferty or Detective.”

He sputtered as he struggled to contain his laughter. “You can call me Brett.”

“I don’t have to call you at all.”

He jabbed a finger in the air at her. “That’s it. That’s the voice.”

“What are you talking about?”

His hands settled on his hips. “That tone of voice you get that says you are too tough to care. The one that could lay out a platoon of soldiers at fifty yards.”

“If you’re referring to the tone of authority…”

“I’m referring to the show you think you have to put on for people to take you seriously.”

Ginny’s confusion puffed out on an abrupt sigh. “Excuse me?”

“All you have to do is talk to me.” He leaned toward her, his height putting him head and shoulders above her. She tilted her face to maintain eye contact. He never stepped closer, never touched her. Yet she felt the breadth and power of him surrounding her, as if he hovered above her, circled around her. A show of force? Or a shield of protection? “You don’t have to talk down to me.”

For a rare instant in time, she stood speechless. No clever zinger sprang to mind, no command seemed appropriate. No one had ever complained about her professional demeanor before. She never meant to be insulting. Damn him, anyway, for taking a criminal investigation and turning it into something personal.

With a surprising degree of decorum, Brett was the first to resume business as usual. He reached into the back pocket of his jeans and pulled out his wallet. He slid out a business card and pressed it into her hand.

“Here’s my card. Call me if you need anything, or you find out something. I have a great deal of money and time and history invested in the Ludlow.”

His odd statement triggered her curiosity, overrode her self-conscious habit of feigning emotional control. “History? What do you mean?”

The look that darkened his face revealed Brett Taylor wasn’t all fun and games. But the grim expression was fleeting. He smiled once more, a handsome crease that formed dimples on either side of his mouth. Ginny wondered if, in her own hypercritical state, she had imagined his quick revelation of sorrow. But he gave no explanation.

“In answer to your questions about the wall, I’d say it was put up ten, twelve years ago. And yes, the mortar work was amateurish. Maybe done in haste, maybe done by someone who didn’t know any better.”

She jotted down the information, too dutiful a cop to do otherwise, but her attention remained focused on his previous cryptic words. “You didn’t answer my question. What history are you talking about with the Ludlow? Is it related to the murder?”

“No. It’s just that…” He stuffed his wallet into his back pocket. Ginny recognized the procrastination of buying time before an unpleasant task. But to his credit, he looked her straight in the eye before answering.

“That’s not the first dead body I’ve seen at the Ludlow Arms.”

“Got a new case?”

Ginny Rafferty turned to the cemetery’s caretaker and nodded. The chocolate-brown eyes set deep in the wrinkles of the African-American man’s face looked as old as she felt. “It’s that obvious, John?”