Chasing Can Be Murder Read online

  “You sure would, Tiger. You’ve got a terrific right arm. Bet you’d be a baseball star. Bet you’d be the best batsman in the whole Little League.”

  That’s when my crush on Ben slipped over the line into something warm and fuzzy and genuine. It was time to take this relationship one step further—even if it meant losing him as a friend if I got it wrong.

  Determined to give it my best shot, I bent forward over Erin’s head and planted a kiss full on his lips. They were soft and pliant. Surprised, he opened his mouth enough for me to slip my tongue inside. All things sexual immediately clenched and unclenched and then went haywire. Just like before, Ben’s mouth was hot and wet and alive, tasting of strong peppermints and the promise of wild unfettered sex.

  Oh my!

  Prepared to settle in for a bout of blazing tongue sex, I groaned as Erin tugged on my arm. “Hey, come on, you guys. No sloppy stuff,” she wailed, tugging harder. “That’s so gross!”

  Eyes slightly glazed, Ben eased away. “Um...not that I’m complaining,” he said slowly running his tongue over his lips, “but what was that for, McKinley?”

  “Just for being you...”

  “Oh.” He brushed one finger along the line of my cheekbone. “Don’t suppose you’d like to um…talk about this later?”

  “You bet I would.”

  He tossed me a we’ll-do-more-than-talk grin and I returned his invitation with a cheeky that’s-definitely-okay-with-me smirk. I could wait. Hell, I’d been waiting for Ben to notice me for two years. What was another hour?

  Grinning like a horny teenager, Ben backed the car out of the driveway and set a course for the Owen police station.

  27

  A whirlwind of questions greeted us the moment we pushed open the swing-doors of the Owen police station. Didn’t we know it was a jail offence to lie to the police? Why did we put Erin’s life in danger by attempting to rescue her ourselves? Didn’t we know we could be charged for breaking and entering?

  And on it went.

  After twenty minutes of interrogation, Ben’s, we’ll-talk-about-this-later grin and my cheeky that’s-okay-with-me smirk had sagged at the edges and slid right off our faces. And we weren’t even the bad guys. Hey, Erin was safe—wasn’t that the most important item on the agenda? And why weren’t these men in blue out hunting down the bad guys instead of intimidating victims? The only thing that kept me from losing it was Ben’s cool hand in mine.

  Earlier, when I’d first rung the station from the piggery, the Sergeant, realizing this was not only a kidnapping case but also a murder investigation, had radioed his superiors, DCI Stevens and DI Adams. Within minutes of our arrival they’d breezed in, Inspector Gorgeous, as smooth and suave as ever, and Columbo with bed hair and his coat done up on all the wrong buttons.

  However, before the Big Guns took over, Tanya and Dan exploded through the doorway and immediately the police station turned into a three-ring circus. They scooped Erin into their arms. Tanya cried. Dan cried. Tanya cried some more. Then, while Dan harangued the police, insisting on taking their daughter home to bed, Tanya threw her arms around my neck. And with tears and mascara leaving wet black tracks on both cheeks, she apologized for doubting me.

  Finally, to bring calm to the chaos, DCI Stevens allowed Dan and Tanya to take Erin home. On the condition they brought her to the Elizabeth Precinct the following morning at 8 a.m. to arrange for counseling, to answer more questions and to look through their mug files.

  Yeah…that’s right. The police had come back empty-handed from the piggery. By the time they’d picked their way through the sea of pigs stampeding across the roadway and flowing into nearby market gardens, the kidnappers had flown the coop.

  It was past midnight before Ben and I finally made it out of the Owen police station and into the adjacent car park. While Ben angled back onto Port Wakefield Road and set the van’s nose towards Two Wells, I fastened my seat belt and let out a sigh of relief.

  “Remind me never to take up a life of crime,” I told him. “We’re the victims and yet I feel like I’ve been stuck in a microwave on high for the last two hours.”

  “More like on a raft with sharks circling.”

  That got a grin out of me. I could actually see the faces of two of the sharks. They’d been playing good cop—bad cop with us, back at the station. At one stage I’d half expected Columbo to pull out his truncheon and beat us over the head while DCI Gorgeous made us a “nice cup of tea” and offered to wipe up the blood.

  “Well, at least the police didn’t charge us.”

  Ben snorted. “They wouldn’t dare. Remember it was the Keystone Cops who lost the crooks. Not us.”

  Mentally and physically exhausted, I let out another sigh. It had been a long emotional night. However, one vital question needed answering. Was Ben ready to take our newfound relationship to the next level—or were we still just good mates?

  I leant my head back on the car’s headrest and closed my eyes. “Anyway, thank God it’s all over.”

  “But it’s not over,” warned Ben. “That’s the problem. The guys from the piggery are still out there and after snatching Erin from under their noses and setting the police onto them—I wouldn’t expect an invite to their next Tupperware party.”

  “Maybe they’ll jump a ship and go to Antarctica, or Siberia or somewhere equally far away and never return.”

  “And what about Mr. Big? At the time we were running from his hired guns, he’d have been at the track or a TAB outlet, laying big bucks on Lofty.”

  “Which means, right now, he’ll have a big empty hole where his bank account used to be,” I declared, and laughed as I thought of Lofty’s brilliant ten lengths win. “With luck, if his goons got in touch with him, he might have done a runner too. Surely he’d realize the police are hot on his trail by now.”

  “Or he might be planning revenge.” Ben took his eyes off the road long enough to throw me a speculative look. “In which case, it might be best if I stay with you tonight.”

  Yeees! “What about Scuzz?”

  “Hey, I’m shattered,” he growled, mock-offended. “Does this mean you would prefer the bodyguard’s company to mine?”

  One large warm hand reached across the car console and found my knee.

  “Yes—I mean, no.” All rational thought threatened to fly out the window. I took a quick breath, hung on with both hands and focused on getting this right. “I mean...it’s not that I don’t want you to spend the night. It’s just that Scuzz will be there—that’s all.”

  “And three’s a crowd,” Ben drawled, his lazy fingers massaging the inside of my leg. I did another silent, air-punching, yesss! That was definitely notthe action of a mate. “How about we arrange for Scuzz to go bunk with his cousin?” His fingers crept half an inch higher. “Because wehave unfinished business. Business that could take the entire night to complete.”

  My stomach swirled in anticipation and heat welled between my legs. Even my breasts ached to join the party. No way was I pretending to be coy after waiting this long for action. Hell, I wanted Ben to rip my clothes off and run those tantalizing fingers all over me. My hand reached for his thigh and instead, connected with something hard and stiff that pressed relentlessly against the front of his jeans.

  Uh! Oh!

  Wrong move.

  Ben gasped, swore, and the car swerved sharply to the right.

  I flicked my hand away and sat on it. Jesus, we were travelling at 100ks an hour along Port Wakefield Road and after surviving stampeding pigs and machine gun fire, crashing the car into a tree seemed a pointless way to die.

  “Um…there’s an all-night service station up ahead,” I gulped, wriggling closer to the window, away from temptation. “Want to grab a coffee?”

  “It’s not a coffee I’m after.” Ben’s wandering fingers settled back on the steering wheel. “Look, I’m not sure what’s happening here, Kat, but there’s this weird electricity zinging between us. Never felt that with a woman before.�
�� He paused as though trying to sort his words out in his head before continuing. “See, we’ve been mates for a long time, and it’s like—I don’t know—in the last couple of days I’m seeing you for the first time.”

  “And I thought I’d have to dance naked on the hood of your car to get you to notice I was a female.”

  Ben’s laugh was infectious. “Hey, don’t let me stop you, mate.”

  “There you go again!” I yelled barely refraining from beating my fists against his chest. “I’m not your, mate!”

  “You’re not? Could have fooled me.” He grinned that lopsided grin that got me every time. “Okay, okay, sorry. You’re a woman. A beautiful woman. Even with mud and pig shit in your hair. But if I have to wait one more minute to verify your gender, we’re going to end up in a ditch.” He glanced across at me, his dark eyes hot and fiery. “What say we pull off the road?”

  “Andtalk?”

  He threw me an evil grin. “If you insist.”

  Before the car stopped I had the zip of his jeans undone and he had my T-shirt over my head. After that it took less than thirty seconds to get his chest bare and my jeans down around my ankles.

  “Okay, Pig Boy,” I gasped as his hand cupped the crutch of my panties causing a fire to stir down below. “What shall we talk about?”

  “Pig Boy?” he drawled, his fingers edging aside the elastic of my bikini briefs until they found their designated target. A target that was already hot, slick and crying out for action. He leaned across the car’s console, and kissed me, his lips hard against mine. “Didn’t I warn you I’d make you sorry for calling me Pig Boy?” he murmured into my mouth.

  When both his kiss and his incredibly agile fingers deepened, I lost track of the conversation and arched to meet him, moaning, writhing and gasping for breath. I wanted to scream out his name. I wanted to drag him on top of me and feel him thick and hard and hot inside of me.

  His mouth still joined to mine, Ben threw one leg over the console, struggling to cram the rest of his body over, when the beam of a torch and a sharp knock on the car window broke through our sexual haze.

  I blinked. Peered over Ben’s shoulder. There was an unfamiliar face plastered against the glass. The face of an old man with thick spectacles, a bald head and a tremulous smile.

  “Sorry to disturb you,” he said, playing his torch through the couple of inches of wound down window. “I was wondering if you could tell me where we are. I’m looking for Wild Horse Plains. My wife and I are paying a surprise visit to our daughter and her family, but we seem to have lost our way.”

  “Fuck!” Struggling to get back into the driver’s seat without doing damage to his masculinity, Ben swore under his breath while I felt on the floor for my abandoned T-shirt, covering myself as best I could.

  “I don’t suppose you have a cell phone?” the old guy went on, as if we were having this conversation at the dinner table on a Sunday afternoon. “I haven’t a clue where the nearest payphone is and I should ring my daughter, Sally. It’s very late and she may get a scare if we just roll up now and knock on her front door.”

  “Um…yeah…hang on a minute, mate.” Ben tried to drag his jeans up over a ramrod straight Mr. Percy, cursing when the zip refused to cooperate.

  “Oh dear, I haven’t caught you at a bad time, have I?” Our intruder peered short-sightedly through the window. “Having a bit of a kip were you?”

  A giggle rose up from my chest and threatened to choke me. Ben, still struggling with the zip on his jeans leant over and banged me on the back.

  “Not a word,” he warned, his own lips twitching as he gave up on the zip and pulled on his shirt.

  I choked down the giggle and concentrated on my predicament. What to do? I desperately needed to pull up my jeans, but if I did, I might drop the T-shirt and reveal all. And that would be even more embarrassing. Unable to make up my mind, I continued to sit like a frozen packet of peas staring at the face at the window. Then, just as I’d decided to risk all and dive for my jeans, a querulous female voice came from somewhere near the roadway.

  “Richard? Is everything all right, dear?”

  Oh God, not another one.

  “Yes, Madge. I’m over here. This nice young couple will give us directions. They’ve also offered to lend us their cell phone so we can ring Sally.”

  Madge didn’t sound appeased. “Why didn’t you wait for me?” she complained. “I told you I didn’t want to be left alone in the car. Just because you’ve only got one gammy leg and I’ve got two, there’s no need to show off, you know. Before my last hip operation I could beat you around the block any day of the week. And you know it.”

  “I’m sorry, dear, but I was in a hurry. I wanted to ask directions before this nice young couple drove away.”

  Another face appeared at the window, this time on Ben’s side of the car. “Oh, dear!” the owner of the new face exclaimed. “And what do we have here?”

  Ben growled and mumbled a string of oaths under his breath. I only caught the words, bloody sideshow before he bent forward and banged his head on the steering wheel.

  “Disturb you, did he?” The woman tutted at us. “Don’t worry, my dears. Blind as a bat is my Richard. I have to drive the car now because he can’t see his hand in front of his face, so there’s no need to worry about him copping an eyeful.” She shone her torch on the bulge at the front of Ben’s jeans. “Hmm…got a little present for the girlfriend down there, have we?” She peered more closely, her nose pressed against the glass. “Although in retrospect, it’s not really what you’d call, little, is it?”

  “Umm...my...cell phone...um...where did I put it?” mumbled Ben his face a bright cherry as he felt around on the floor. “Um…Kat, you got your phone handy? I seem to have misplaced mine.”

  “Nope. Not handy.” I refused to move. My mobile was in the pocket of my jeans and my jeans were still around my ankles and if I moved I might lose my top.

  “Richard, why don’t you switch your torch off for a few minutes?” said Madge, a chuckle in her voice.

  “Why? If I turn off my torch, it’ll be dark and we won’t be able to see a thing.”

  “Exactly.” She swung her walker in front of her at each step, moved around the front of the car until she reached her husband, grabbed his torch, and switched it off.

  By the time the torch came back on again, I was dressed and Ben had his mobile in his hand and was standing outside leaning on the side of the car. Within a few minutes he’d let the unsuspecting daughter know to expect a surprise visit from her parents and drawn a map showing the directions to Wild Horse Plains. And then, after helping Madge fold her walking frame and stow it on the back seat of their car, he stepped back and waved them off.

  “Well, that was fun,” he declared, sliding behind the wheel and blowing out a tightly held breath.

  “Only if you’re into self-mutilation or being eaten by maggots,” I replied. By this time I’d decided making out in the car, on the side of the road, might be high on a teenager’s to-do list, but I’d hold out for a nice comfortable bed. “Let’s finish this at home, Ben.”

  Ben leant across the console and brushed his lips against mine, so lightly, so suggestively, I almost changed my mind. “Best idea you’ve had all night,” he murmured, his voice low and husky.

  The windows were steaming up and I had to fan my face. “Phew! Is it getting hot in here—or is it just me?”

  He grinned and then, obviously satisfied he’d managed to turn my legs to jelly with one kiss, started the car.

  “Your place or mine?”

  “Better make it mine,” I said. “If I don’t show up, Scuzz will be worried.”

  “Ring him and let him know he’s off duty…as from now,” ordered Ben swinging the car back onto the road. “Tell him to hop on his Harley and go visit his cousin.” He sent me a glance so sizzling hot that every one of my hormones began to sweat. “After all, we haven’t finished our talk yet.”

  Flirting outrage
ously, I puckered my lips, sucked my finger and drew the wet digit slowly down his arm. “About that talk, Benjamin,” I said. “What say we slow it down to crawling pace this time? Nice and leisurely and drawn out. We wouldn’t want to miss out on all the good stuff by jabbering, would we?”

  As though his throat had suddenly lost all its moisture, Ben gulped, and I watched his fingers strangle the wheel. He grabbed a shaky breath. “Make that phone call, Kat. Now!”

  Ignoring the corresponding tightening in my groin I jerked the cell off my waist band, hit my preset home number. No answer. I tapped out Scuzz’s mobile number, but all I got was his message bank. A fleeting sense of unease shifted like a heavy weight on my chest. Where was Scuzz? Why wasn’t he answering the phone?

  “Maybe he’s outside checking for prowlers and switched off his mobile in case the ring tone alerts them,” Ben suggested.

  I clipped my Nokia back onto the band of my jeans and nodded. “Yeah, you’re probably right. Scuzz takes his bodyguard duties very seriously. I’ll try again when we get closer to home.”

  As the car hummed along the main road toward Two Wells I settled back and closed my eyes. This had been one hell of a night. I’d crawled through acres of mud and pig shit, broken into a house, been shot at by crooks with machine-guns...

  And to top it all off, my good mate Ben had finally, after two years of me dreaming and fantasizing, noticed I possessed one less X chromosome than he did.

  I smiled as I thought of the way his lips, hotter than roadtar, had left me gasping for breath, the way his fingers, strong, agile, and hitting my G spot with ten out of ten accuracy, had me writhing against him, the way he moaned my name as I explored the warmth of his mouth with my tongue. Oh! Uh! I crossed my legs, told myself to get a grip! We were barreling along Downes Road. Another two minutes and we’d be home. Looking across at Ben’s craggy familiar face, my smile widened. Oooh yeah. And the best part of the night was still to come.

  “Where’s that smoke coming from?” Ben’s body tensed beside me. Frowning, he stuck his head out the open window. “Shit!” he growled, his voice seeming to scratch his throat.