“Um. Ma’am?”
Ma’am?
Vivian Bexley cringed as the word floated through the window. Or rather, she tried to.
Trapped in the jaws of death of a hundred-year-old window at her father’s house, every movement caused the windowsill to push into her left rib cage and the windowpane to dig deeper into her back. Her cringing abilities somewhat hindered, she stilled. It didn’t feel fatal, exactly, but it certainly wasn’t pleasant.
But really, ma’am?
She fixated on the word, both because it provided a reprieve from the ridiculousness of her current situation and also because she just really hated it.
At what point did the male populace decide that a woman turned from a spry, young miss to an elderly ma’am? Was it twenty, twenty-five, thirty, forty? Did they take a vote? Or, were they born with this pivotal knowledge?
Having lived in Dallas, Texas, for the past ten years, Vivian was well aware that at thirty-two, she’d moved firmly into the ma’am zone. But all this stranger could see was her lower-half.
How could he possibly analyze her ma’amliness?
Furthermore, who the fuck was he to decide.
Vivian took a slow, measured breath and pushed down the urge to instruct the ma’aming small-towner to leave. She was in fact…stuck. And, much to her regret, she needed his help.
The inability to fully breathe was starting to affect her brain function, her vision and thoughts blurring. Oxygen, she’d heard, was important for cognitive thinking. Living. And she feared hers had been restricted for a bit too long. She bit back her pride, readying herself to answer.
“Ma’am?” he asked again.
She rolled her eyes, which thankfully he couldn’t see, then asked breezily, “Yes?”
“Are you doing…okay?”
Vivian could hear gravel from the garden bed she’d climbed through crunch. It sounded as if the stranger was standing right behind her, but readjusting his position to better assess her predicament. His voice was unhurried, amused even—almost as if he regularly came across people stranded in windows.
In Dallas, finding someone trapped in a window would be cause for concern. But, maybe in Darlington, California, population fifteen-thousand and probably declining, it was commonplace—neighborly break-ins from people borrowing a cup of sugar and whatnot.
“Yea, great,” she answered, trying and failing to bite back her sarcasm.
She wiggled her legs and tried one final time to force feeling into them. They continued to numbly tingle, both warming from the sun and freezing from her restricted blood circulation. With a sigh, she let her legs fall limply back against the house as she admitted she wouldn’t be able to save herself.
The fabric of her black linen trousers caught on the wood siding and Vivian tensed, trying not to worsen the damage, trying not to cry. Still, she couldn’t quite stop the soft whimper that left her as she thought about what state her favorite pair of pants would be in when she finally managed to get free of the house.
The stranger laughed.
Laughed!
Vivian balled her fists, using them to push her torso up off the worn-wood floorboards of the library—the room she’d been trying to break into. Maybe she could climb forward. How necessary were legs to her escape anyway. She tried to pull herself into the house, but again the window cut into her back and she stopped. Good and thoroughly…stuck.
“You sure, ma’am?” he asked slowly, clearly trying to tamp down his amusement. He failed and laughed again, but this time it was muffled as if he had placed a palm over his mouth, at least trying to stifle the noise.
But the sound of it drifted through the small crack of the window, hitting her ears and causing her entire body to automatically relax. Vivian knew it was annoying, having this stranger laughing at her, but still, the sound was almost melodic. Lulling.
Fuck.
She closed her eyes.
Melodic laughter was lulling her?
This was more serious than she thought. She needed to get out of the window. The stranger was ma’aming and laughing at her and instead of the justified irritation she should be feeling, she felt…something decidedly different.
Inhaling, Vivian tried to regain control of her senses. One shallow breath, then another deeper—
She immediately stopped.
Her nostrils suddenly assaulted by the smell of something rancid, likely forgotten dishes. She dropped her head between her arms, unclenched her fists, her palms resting against the floor, and let her entire body go limp in resignation.
“No.” She answered his earlier question, giving up. “Can you help push me in? Maybe if you just lift the window a bit I can climb through—”
“Surely, the front door would be easier?”
“Surely,” she repeated. “But this will work too,” she said, then as an awkward afterthought, added, “Please.”
She felt him smile. Tangible and tempting and… She gave herself an internal shake. Now she was hallucinating. The lack of oxygen causing her to believe she was suddenly clairvoyant.
Feel him smile?
What did that even mean?
“The issue, ma’am—”
For fuck’s sake.
She groaned audibly, cutting him off.
Pushing up on her fingertips, she took a small, hopefully calming breath and prayed for patience. It was a prayer she feared would go unanswered. Vivian was not a particularly patient woman even in the best of circumstances. And this was not the best of circumstances.
She needed free.
Not just of the window, but of Darlington.
She shouldn’t have come. She knew she shouldn’t have come. She knew she should have maintained boundaries. Yet five days ago, when Evan Bexley, Vivian’s father, had called, claiming a life-or-death real-estate emergency—like that even actually existed—she couldn’t help but get dragged back to Darlington.
In her defense, at first, she had said no.
A realtor, Vivian was on the verge of having a record-breaking number of closings that month and didn’t really have time for any unplanned and often overly exaggerated fatherly crises. But that answer had resulted in the silent treatment—her punishment for not asking how high when he said jump. He’d refused to tell her what exactly was wrong. Then for days, he’d refused to even answer her calls.
That paternal manipulation was the exact reason she hadn’t been back to Darlington for the past ten years. She found it easier to deal with his guilt trips from a distance of several, intentionally, placed states away.
But after a few days of marinating in guilt—her stomach starting to curl in on itself from the worry of wondering what was happening and if he really was in trouble—she broke down and hopped on a plane. Her boundaries, just pretend lines.
Vivian’s mother, of course, had warned her not to go. She’d stopped giving her father second—and third, and fourth, and fifth—chances a while ago, opting instead for divorce. The gift of elected familial ties like marriage, Vivian supposed, was that one could elect to untie, by court order, with instructions. But Vivian could not divorce her father. And she had no eloquently written statement outlining how their relationship should, or should not, proceed.
So, while her mother might not feel guilty about abandoning him to his own devices, Vivian did—he was, after all, her father. Her guilt was waning though, with every minute she remained stuck in the window.
Although, notably, in his defense, the window had been her bad idea.
Vivian tried again to wiggle, but again failed.
The stranger cleared his throat.
“As I was saying, the issues is—”
A screech sounded and Vivian tensed. “What was that?” she asked, hating that she couldn’t see what was going on behind her.
“Um…” The stranger sounded like he was moving, probably looking around them. “It’s just Norman,” he answered. “He’s still behind the fence though, it’s fine.”
Who the fuck is Norman? Vivian thought. But before she had a chance to press, the man continued.
“Climbing through someone’s window, presumably uninvited, is called breaking and entering. I’d love to help you, but as a police officer, I can’t assist in a criminal act.”
At that moment, it dawned on Vivian that she should have wondered how this random stranger had stumbled across her. Her father’s house was on the outskirts of town, situated on ten acres that overlooked the rolling hills of Darlington, California. Darlington was located in the heart of Sonoma County, and her father’s house specifically was surrounded by small vineyards and farms. He only had one real neighbor—the farmstead across the road. The likelihood of someone just coming upon her had been very slim. Relief washed through her as she realized the ma’aming stranger was duty bound to help her.
“It’s frowned upon,” he teased with mock severity. “Certainly you understand?”
“Certainly,” she echoed. A sense of humor, at this particular moment, seemed entirely unprofessional. “Look.” She dropped the pretense of niceness, unsure if she’d really mustered it in the first place. “Pull me back out. Perform your civic duty and arrest me if you need to. Honestly, I don’t care, but I can’t feel my legs anymore.” Even more worrisome, everything around her was starting to go fuzzy. “Just. Do. Something,” she begged.
“Yes, ma’am,” he said, his tone finally appropriately concerned.
But he’d said that word…ma’am…and Vivian couldn’t find it in her to appreciate the fact that he was now taking her rescue seriously. All she heard was that word. She rolled her eyes and tried to contain her groan of disgust. At the same time her butt cheeks started to tingle. A surge of panic filled her. The feminist urge to lecture the officer about his word choice was outweighed by her very real love of the lower half of her body. “Please hurry,” she said, or rather begged.
“I’ve got you,” he answered calmly.
There was more crunching of gravel, a rustle of branches from the hydrangea bush planted to the left of the window, then Vivian felt a large, calloused hand trail across her lower back and grip the right side of her waist. His body moved closer and he pulled her left side securely into his chest. His arm and chest muscles flexed as he moved to push the window up with his left hand, never loosening his grip on her.
Securing her a few inches of freedom, he asked, “Which way?”
“Which way what?” she said distractedly, her thoughts quieting to white noise. She couldn’t think past the searing heat of his hand on her body as it burned through her numbness.
“Inside the house? Or back out?” he clarified, his voice lowering with concern.
Now that she could breathe, her panic had started to subside. Or, maybe it was his secure grip. Either way, she found his worry slightly endearing. She took a breath, her mind calming. “If I go inside, aren’t you aiding and abetting a criminal?” she teased, wanting to assure him she was fine.
His grip shifted subtly, his fingers relaxing into his hold of her as she teased him. She felt his thumb sweep across the exposed skin of her back, where her blouse had untucked from her trousers. It was accidental. Surely. But she shivered nonetheless and his grip tightened.
“Outside it is,” he finally answered. “Can you keep yourself balanced while I push the window all the way up?”
“Yeah.” She pushed against him, using his body for support. He released his hold on her, then the metal window tracks groaned as the windowpane lifted. Vivian moaned at her release, filling her lungs with an unobstructed deep breath, then she shimmied backward. Out of the window from whence she came.
Except, her legs were still unsteady.
She fell. Or, was falling—
The officer dropped the window and caught her before she hit the ground. His arms under hers, he pulled her back to his chest. One arm slid around her waist, securing her to him. She tried to straighten, to stand on her own, but her useless legs refused to work.
“Easy,” he whispered, his breath at her ear.
“I think I’ll be able to stand in a minute,” she assured him.
“No rush.”
Vivian’s knees still felt weak, but a tingling sensation had started to break out across the surface of her skin. It seemed to start at the points where he touched her, then pulse outward. She looked up over her shoulder to assure the officer, again, that she would be fine in just a minute. But the words caught on her tongue.
Their eyes locked and he…smiled.
Her knees wobbled and his grip tightened.
“You okay?” he asked, his smile disappearing and concern re-entering his voice.
His hazel eyes, bracketed by the darkest lashes she’d ever seen, contrasted against his golden skin in a way that she couldn’t help but be entranced by. Like a lovestruck fool.
“I—” she started, but couldn’t finish.
His hair, just as dark as his lashes, was clean-cut, but slightly wavy. She had a sudden urge to rake her fingers through it, just to be sure he was in fact real. That she wasn’t passed out in the window, imagining this entire savior situation.
Vivian tried again to speak, but she couldn’t break herself out of the trance.
“You okay?” he repeated, his brow creasing.
She blinked, then spoke, unthinking. “You’re very pretty.”
His smile came back and this time Vivian scowled.
Too pretty.
His eyes crinkled at the edges and it felt like the longer she looked, the more he pulled her in. With great effort, she tore her gaze from his and frowned.
He needed to be careful where he aimed that thing. An elderly woman, with the right heart condition, caught off guard, it could easily be deadly.
“Thank you,” he said, his tone indicating his amusement at the comment.
Still avoiding looking directly at him, she nodded matter-of-factly.
She’d be embarrassed by her blunt statement, but it wasn’t a come-on. She’d simply stated a fact. He was…very pretty. She couldn’t pin exactly what it was, but something about him made it hard to look away…especially when he smiled.
Still, she reminded herself that some thoughts were better kept as inside thoughts.
Needing space, Vivian again tried to step away. Blessedly, this time, her legs worked. Extricating herself from his grip, she readjusted her clothing and straightened her hair.
“Should we try knocking?” he offered, watching as Vivian tried to regain her composure.
He was staring and it had started to make her feel heated again. Nervous. Luckily, her nerves were kept in check by the annoyance of his statement. She fought the urge to respond, No shit, before finally settling on a very polite, “He’s not home.”
He shrugged. “It’s Sunday night. Might be at Marianne’s?”
Vivian paused. Arching a brow, she gave the officer a cautious side-eye, wondering why he was so intimately familiar with her family’s schedule. “And who are you? Exactly?”
“Apologies, ma’am—”
She shuddered and he stopped.
It was a sensitivity. She realized that. But that word…ma’am. Somehow, it felt patronizing. Like her entire personhood could be simmered down to her designation of youthful or mature. Like her existence would forever be defined by what category of accessory she was to a man.
In the South, she suffered through. But this far north and this far frustrated, she wasn’t inclined to suffer through.
He cleared his throat, pulling her attention back to him. “Officer Christopher Gomez. But, just Chris is fine.”
“Okay, Just Chris. And how, exactly, do you know my family?”
Again, he shrugged. The motion meant to convey a casualness that Vivian suspected he didn’t feel. “It’s a small town.”
For a moment, they stared at each other. It felt like they were both trying to weigh the other, unsure, yet curious. The corner of his mouth ticked up and Vivian found herself absorbed by it. But then he looked away, breaking the connection.
“Marianne and my mom are good friends,” he said absently, eyes assessing the porch.
She stepped back.
“And you are?” Chris asked.
“Don’t you already know?” she challenged, turning and walking toward the porch before he could catch her off guard again.
Climbing the stairs, she didn’t need to turn around to know he was following, she could hear his footsteps trailing slowly behind her. Once she reached the porch, she put her hands on her hips and evaluated her options.
A gentle breeze blew across her back and Vivian relaxed into it. Wearing black trousers, a black blouse, and black Louboutin heels was probably not the most ideal outfit for traipsing around outside in eighty-degree weather with the California sun beating down her back, but she’d gone straight from a listing appointment to the airport and hadn’t stopped to change. Notably, Dallas was hot too, but like a normal person she spent most of her time in temperature-controlled climates. Whereas here, everything felt…hotter…the heat harder to avoid.
After only a moment’s reprieve, she pushed herself back into action. She tried the door handle. It remained locked. Next, she checked the potted fern to the right of the door for the spare key. But again, it remained keyless. Instead, she found a lot of fern, and dirt, and…a cigarette butt—or she thought it was just a cigarette. The wrapper was black and there was a clove scent.
Apparently, her father had started smoking.
Vivian hoped the house wouldn’t reek of it, for resale value if nothing else, but she wasn’t overly optimistic. There was a strange smell near the front door. But it didn’t smell like smoke. It was different than what she’d smelled in the library, perhaps just fainter. Maybe a gas leak? No, that wasn’t right.
Frustrated, she stood and turned to Chris, who was patiently waiting at the bottom of the stairs, one foot propped on a step. He calmly watched her casing the house like he had all the time in the world.
He grinned up at her. “I have a guess.”
Vivian narrowed her eyes. Did he have…dimples?
Damn it, he did.
Vivian sighed. She wanted to be mad at someone for the disaster the day had turned into. But the only person around was the annoyingly handsome, ma’aming Officer Gomez, with his dimples on full display. Vivian pursed her lips.
“Vivian Bexley,” she said, confirming what she presumed he already knew. “You can call me Vivy, Vivian, Ms. Bexley, Hey You. There are a plethora of options…” She paused, tilting her head, assessing him. “But please, if we are going to be friends, you have to stop calling me ma’am.”
He tilted his head, mirroring hers. “Are we going to be friends?”
The air changed.
There was something there, floating between them. It felt tangible. Yet she got the impression that even though Chris clearly felt it too, he wouldn’t make a move. Even while he teased her, she sensed he was too polite to push.
She smiled. Because she was not too polite.
Chris furrowed his brow even as he leaned, almost imperceptibly, closer.
Vivian didn’t want to be in Darlington.
In fact, if her father didn’t show up tonight, she’d rebook her flight and head out tomorrow.
But tonight? Tonight, Vivian had no plans. And she was a pragmatic woman. She believed in making lemonade out of lemons. Looking at Chris—the expanse of his chest, the tight fit of his uniform, the dimples that kept peeking out at her—Vivian thought Chris Gomez looked an awful lot like lemonade. Uncomplicated, delicious, and good for one night. Perfect.
“We could be…friendly,” she responded, letting the implication of her words hang in the air.
He didn’t catch on. Not at first. But as she waited, letting her eyes trace all six something feet of his person, he slowly started to understand.
He cleared his throat, a blush spreading up his neck.
Oh, that was adorable.
Vivian rolled her lips, biting back a smile as she held his gaze. He didn’t look away.
“Have you tried the spare key?” he asked, finally dropping his gaze to his feet as his blush deepened.
“Not in the fern,” she said, walking toward him, a Cheshire Cat grin on her face. She moved slowly so as not to get a heel caught on one of the wood floorboards. The top stair creaked as she started down them.
The noise alerted Chris to her approach and he looked up.
“He moved it,” he said, running a distracted hand through his hair. “To the watering can by the back door.”
Three steps above him, she stopped. Waiting for a moment to make sure he was just nervous and not truly uncomfortable.
He swallowed, his attention wholly hers.
Still, she didn’t move. Not until she saw his eyes drop from hers, his attention moving to her lips, then lower, tracing her body, before finally coming back to her eyes again. He quickly looked away, a guilty expression on his face.
She smiled and continued down the stairs.
“And how do you know that?” she asked. Stopping on the step above him, she tilted her chin down slightly—she was only five-nine, with her five-inch heels.
“He moved it last week,” he murmured. She could feel the breath of his next words as he added, “Said too many people knew the secret location.” Vivian bit her bottom lip in thought and his focus dropped to her mouth. “He took a poll at Champ’s Bar for a new secret spot. Watering can won.”
The way he looked at her, with curious intent and palpable want, it set her off-balance. She placed a hand on his chest to steady herself. At the contact, electricity crawled up her arm. Vivian’s body snapped to high alert, a shiver running up her spine, making her back bow slightly toward him.
Chris tensed under her palm, his face tilting up, his lips parting as if about to ask a question. But he didn’t speak.
Vivian pulled back, confused by what was happening. That touch. The momentary contact felt too visceral to be uncomplicated. Vivian decided then that Chris Gomez was not lemonade. Chris Gomez was limoncello. To be handled with care. Serving size limited, if tasted at all. She took a step back up the stairs, putting more distance between them.
“Seems a little counterintuitive to take a poll on where to hide something,” she said, trying to backtrack from whatever line she’d just crossed. “Yet unsurprising,” she conceded, her thoughts souring as they returned to where her father could possibly be hiding.
Chris remained at the bottom step. Unmoving, his tentative curiosity appeared to morph into something more certain. Calculating.
Vivian took another step away.
“There were some drinks involved,” he added, his voice preoccupied. He watched her edge away, making no advance, but increasingly focused.
Drinks, bad choices, an overly inflated ego, a false sense of godliness. That was her father. The reality of why she was even in Darlington washed over her.
“Back door. Watering can,” she repeated coolly. Starting back down the stairs, she carefully avoided touching him on her descent. “Thanks,” she added as she walked around the house. She didn’t look back, but again, she didn’t need to. She knew he was there.
Locating the watering can, she tilted it so she could see inside. The sun reflected off the tiny metal key at the bottom. Vivian reached in, grabbed it, and moved to the back door. Every movement mechanical. She inserted the key, unlocked the door, and opened it.
Vivian took a step into the house, then an immediate step back out—running right into Chris. Again, she felt that shot of electricity at the contact, but this time, her focus was consumed by the smell assaulting her and she didn’t step away.
“What is that?” she asked.
“I don’t know.” Chris slid a protective hand around Vivian’s waist, moving her to the side and stepping forward to place himself between her and the house.
“Can I go in?”
Before she could answer, that same screech she’d heard before sounded, but much closer this time. Vivian turned and jumped as a sheep tried to take a bite of her shirt. “What the f—”
“Damn it, Norman.” Chris pulled Vivian closer to him and out of range of Norman’s searching mouth. “Be careful, he eats everything,” Chris warned, shooing the sheep away.
Norman moved roughly ten feet away and stopped, watching them.
Chris sighed, then asked again, “Can I go in the house?”
Vivian nodded, eyeing the sheep warily as she did. “I’m coming too.”
He looked at her, looked at Norman. “Okay. Stay right behind me.”
She nodded, again.
After a moment’s hesitation, he turned from her, his hand trailing across her lower back as he released her, and started into the house. Vivian followed. She pulled the collar of her blouse over her nose, trying to stave off the worst of the smell, but it didn’t work.
Walking through the back door, they entered the kitchen. Immediately, she looked to the sink, thinking maybe her father had left some dishes out for too long. But no. Sink was clear. Kitchen was clean. There was no obvious source of the smell. At least, not that she could see. Not yet.
They continued farther inside and down the hall that ran the length of the house connecting the kitchen to the entryway. The house felt stale, unlived in. Yet, with every step the smell grew stronger.
Without warning, Chris stopped.
Vivian hit his back, unprepared for the sudden lack of movement. She placed a hand between his shoulder blades, bracing herself, and then peered around him.
“What—”
She gasped.
Her hands came up to cover her mouth as she registered what had stilled him—the limp body that lay crumpled at the bottom of the entry stairs. But in the next instant, the body was gone. Replaced with the warm, hard chest of Chris Gomez.
“Don’t look,” he commanded, his voice a mixture of authority and supplication. His hand slid around her neck, tucking her under his chin, as he tried to protect her from the macabre sight. His thumb stroked up the column of her spine. Strong, secure. “I need to call this in. Just”—his fingers splayed across her back, his grip tightening around her—“don’t look.”
Vivian let him shield her. This stranger who touched her with a familiarity that should be unsettling, but for some reason…he felt like home.
Maybe she was in shock? Probably.
But it felt right to lean into him. Like he could reach in, deep into her chest, and still her worry, muffle it with his warmth. It was illogical, but most feelings were. Her arms wrapped around his waist and she gave in to his hold.
Her body relaxed within his arms, but still her mind raced. She squeezed her eyes shut, hoping to erase the visual of what she had seen.
The woman.
She wore a black suit-dress and the same impractical Louboutin heels as Vivian. Blood pooled beneath her still body. It stained the tips of her blonde bob where her hair ghosted across the floor. Crimson radiated from the stab wound in the woman’s back, drenching the fabric of the dress.
Vivian squeezed her eyes shut harder…it didn’t work.
She looked down, her eyes fixating on her own heels, her own outfit. A strange sense of déjà vu swept through her. Their similarities some sort of kismet connection. A sign from the universe. A warning.
The dead woman didn’t belong in Darlington. And neither did Vivian. But Vivian already knew that.
What she didn’t know was…where was her father?
*Read Murder, She Sold to find out!*