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For Keeps
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Table of Contents
Excerpt
Praise for Veronica Lynch
For Keeps
Copyright
Dedication
Story
Thank you for purchasing this publication of The Wild Rose Press, Inc.
He quirked one heavy brow and grinned.
“There’s a half bottle of wine left from dinner the other night. Would you like a glass?”
Meg loved the cool sensation of crisp sheets against her skin as much as the feel of him naked and ready between her thighs. “Better not. I’m on first call tonight.”
That response cast an unfortunate pall over the festivities.
“You take call too damn often,” he muttered. “If you’d quit that job and marry me, like I’ve asked at least a million times, we could—”
Here we go again. She resisted the urge to yawn as he recited from the first chapter of the book Whose Job is More Important, a title they’d revisited more than once after taking the next step in their once strictly professional relationship.
Ignoring the thorny topic of holy wedlock, again, Meg focused on one of the lesser conflicts that too often reared its ugly head. “I’ve told you before, Keenan. Call is taken on a rotating basis among the staff. Tonight is my turn.”
He rose up on one elbow to glower at her, using what she termed his bad cop persona. “Let me remind you of your position at that zoo known as Crime Victim Services. You are the boss. And bosses shouldn’t take call on any night of the week.”
Praise for Veronica Lynch
“The reader doesn’t have to put off witnessing unequivocal humor, intense passion and spot-on characterization. This short story sings its way through a quick fascinating look at two people who, having finally found each other, refuse to compromise their relationship for work. Bravo, Veronica Lynch!”
~Award-winning author, Kathryn Shay
For Keeps
by
Veronica Lynch
A Candy Hearts Romance
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales, is entirely coincidental.
For Keeps
COPYRIGHT © 2016 by Veronica Lynch
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission of the author or The Wild Rose Press, Inc. except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews.
Contact Information: [email protected]
Cover Art by RJ Morris
The Wild Rose Press, Inc.
PO Box 708
Adams Basin, NY 14410-0708
Visit us at www.thewildrosepress.com
Publishing History
First Vintage Rose Edition, 2016
Digital ISBN 978-1-5092-0595-0
A Candy Hearts Romance
Published in the United States of America
Dedication
To Joe Murphy.
It began with your voice and ended with your hands.
In between, you gave me a barrel of laughs.
The best to you always, my friend.
February 1986, Western New York State
Warm lips skimmed the side of Meghan Muldoon’s neck while an even warmer pair of hands worked their way beneath the sweatshirt she’d put on after her shower. “You smell so good,” he murmured in that silky croon that never failed to melt her bones. “If I wasn’t so terrified of incurring a cardiac arrest, I’d take my time eating you in small luscious bites.”
“While I’d pray it would take all night to complete the promise,” she murmured.
For the sake off completing the task at hand, in order to get to the good stuff, Meg squirmed out of Keenan Rossi’s arms. “Let me get the last of the linens on the bed before we start on the appetizers.”
He resumed the previous seek-and-ye-shall-find foray, this time with a bit of teeth action thrown in for added spice. “I don’t care if the sheets are clean.”
“That’s a new one for you.”
“We haven’t had this amount of time alone in a dog’s age. I’d forgotten how good you smell.”
“New cologne,” she said and tossed him one end of the top sheet.
Big mistake when his idea of ‘helping’ to make rigid hospital corners evolved into long, lush kisses and playful nips on the back of her neck. After finishing the task to her liking, she hooked one leg around his knee to tumble them both onto the mattress. Not that the level of resistance on his part was all that high.
“I surrender, my lord.” She feigned a mock swoon, complete with hand to her forehead. “Have your wicked way with me.”
He quirked one heavy brow and grinned. “There’s a half bottle of wine left from dinner the other night. Would you like a glass?”
Meg loved the cool sensation of crisp sheets against her skin as much as the feel of him naked and ready between her thighs. “Better not. I’m on first call tonight.”
That response cast an unfortunate pall over the festivities.
“You take call too damn often,” he muttered. “If you’d quit that job and marry me, like I’ve asked at least a million times, we could—”
Here we go again. She resisted the urge to yawn as he recited from the first chapter of the book Whose Job is More Important, a title they’d revisited more than once after taking the next step in their once strictly professional relationship.
Ignoring the thorny topic of holy wedlock, again, Meg focused on one of the lesser conflicts that too often reared its ugly head. “I’ve told you before, Keenan. Call is taken on a rotating basis among the staff. Tonight is my turn.”
He rose up on one elbow to glower at her, using what she termed his bad cop persona. “Let me remind you of your position at that zoo known as Crime Victim Services. You are the boss. And bosses shouldn’t take call on any night of the week.”
Per usual, her significant other of little over a year insisted on having the last word. As much as she wanted an end to the discussion—so that they could get on with the entertainment portion of the evening—she wasn’t about to give in and have him think he’d won.
“You take call. On a fairly regular basis.”
“Not as regularly as you.”
That put her neck up enough to snipe back. “Two nights ago, that wasn’t me sitting alone in a darkened movie theater while Tom Cruise felt his need for speed?”
“Now, Meghan…”
“Or last weekend when you had to leave a performance of Aida because a domestic disturbance turned deadly. And I don’t even like opera.”
“Look, all I’m saying is I hate having to consult on-call schedules before I can even think about making uninterrupted love with my girlfriend.”
He ignored her wince at his word choice. “I waited too damn long to find someone who’d put up with all the crap that comes with my job. Add to that load of crap, there’s my charming personality which few women want to deal with.”
Pasting a come hither look on her face, she crooked a finger in his direction. “Nothing is interrupting us now, darling. Your crap is part of the package; I’ve known that from the get. So, lay yourself down here and let me deal with you.”
The barest of smiles creased the corners of his mouth. “Don’t start with the distraction techniques, Miz Muldoon. I’m on a roll here. If you’d quit that freaking job and move in with me, we wouldn’t have to go through this five nights out of seven.”
Unh huh. He’d segued into Chapter Two of the favored book: I Make Enough Money to Support Us Both. Better known in Meg’s version as Watch Her Quickly Go Mad From Boredom.
He settled between her thighs, sneaked both hands beneath her shirt again, and proved his fingers were as talented as his tongue. “Jesus, I love you, Meg. So damn much.”
“Don’t talk. Act.”
Long moments passed as pieces of clothing landed on the floor beside the bed. Finally, down to bare skin and just inches short of the promised land, her pager erupted in an intricate dance maneuver across the top of the nightstand.
Muttering a string of extremely crude phrases, Kee sat up, then swung his legs over the side of the bed. Reaching out, she placed a soothing palm between his shoulder blades. “It could be nothing. One of the volunteers might be looking for a bit of support with a difficult client.”
She slipped on her eyeglasses to read the message screen on the pager, and felt her heart sink to her belly. Call the service…911. She reached for the phone.
“You going in?” he grumbled after she hung up.
She glanced at him as she slid out of bed and went to her dresser for clean underwear and a fresh pair of jeans. “Hospital call. It’s a juvenile; Child Protective Services is involved and requesting advocacy.”
Muttering under his breath, he came to his feet and stormed to the bathroom. The door slammed hard enough to rattle the walls of her ancient apartment. While Meg dressed, she heard two things turn on: a tape of the Four Tenors performing Kee’s favorite arias, followed by the roar of the shower. The building that housed her apartment might be ancient, but it boasted mega amounts of water pressure—something for which Kee often expressed his gratitude.
He didn’t sing along with Pavarotti—or Placido whatshisname—Meg couldn’t tell one from the other. Not that it mattered much now. Keenan’s silence shouted agitation. Or worse—an omen predicting the end of them as a couple.
After slipping into a pair of low boots, Meg took one last look at the pager’s screen before clipping it to the waistband of her jeans. Regret was part of the package for victim advocates. Last minute cancellations; plans scrapped at the drop of a hat or beep of a pager; lack of prolonged, restorative sleep. Usually she handled the less fun parts of her job with a shrug of her shoulders and hope for better nights to come.
Something told her that no matter how long tonight’s call lasted, the evening would not end in a way either of them hoped.
“This is my life,” she pleaded to the man on the other side of the bathroom door. “Why can’t you understand that?”
****
It was close to noon before second platoon investigator Keenan Rossi found the time to park his butt in his own chair behind the desk he shared with detectives from the first and third shifts.
“Not for nothin’,” he announced to a room crowded with uniformed and civilian staff, “but somebody ought to clue in the felons infesting the streets of this fair county that it’s too freakin’ cold to manufacture mayhem, perpetrate mischief, and otherwise get on my nerves.”
“Didn’t get any last night.” The desk sergeant offered as he ambled through the bullpen, stopping at each desk to deliver the day’s mail. “You always get surly, Rossi, when your pipes ain’t gettin’ flushed regular. Oughta think out findin’ yourself a woman to warm your bed.”
“I got a cousin,” one of the requisite smart asses called from the other side of the room. “Still has all her teeth and is round in all the right places.”
“Is that the one who goes about five hundred pounds?” someone asked.
“Like I said,” Matchmaker One said. “Round in all the right places.”
While waiting out the hoots and hollers of laughter, Kee slurped at a cup of rancid coffee, courtesy of the aforementioned sergeant and returned to filing documents related to the latest in a string of B and E’s plaguing the north end of the county.
The newest addition to the Major Crimes Unit, and one of the first females in the history of the Easton County Sheriff’s Department to make detective, Sunny O’Toole, slumped into a chair at the desk next to his. “Gramercy’s cousin doesn’t come anywhere near five bills. She is, however, a bowzer. Makes a Rottie look like Miss America.”
He didn’t mind, like some others, working with a skirt. O’Toole brought a different point of view to the job. Kind of refreshing after the years of a testosterone packed bull pen. That didn’t stop him from trying to jerk her chain as often as possible. “Is there a point to this, O’Toole?”
“I got friends, Rossi. A few walk and chew gum at the same time. Some are able to speak in full sentences and not say ‘ya know’ every other word.”
“You have friends. Amazing.”
“Har har.” She thumbed through the pile of signed investigator reports in their shared In-Box. “Heard the south zone caught a nasty one last night.”
For the sake of keeping the conversation going, he said, “Oh, yeah?”
“Rape, sodomy and aggravated assault. Three guys roughed up the vic pretty good.”
He dared not let O’Toole or anyone in the division know he’d received advanced knowledge of the case—or how he obtained it. “How old?”
“Twelve.”
He pulled a piece of scrap paper from his blazer pocket and wrote himself a note to call his sister after he got home from work. She’d been twelve once—and in a similar situation. “Is there a reason for this need to share what happened in another zone on another shift?”
She reacted to his sharp tone with a shift in posture. “All I heard from locker room chatter was the deps were awful glad when Meg Muldoon responded last night. I hear that girl’s a wizard when it comes to getting victims to relax and cooperate with interrogations. Thought you’d like to know, seeing as you’re so hot to trot to promote positive relations between advocates and law enforcement.”
Over the beat of his heart that kicked into trip hammer rate whenever mention of Meghan Muldoon was made, Kee swallowed hard. No one in the Easton County Sheriff’s Department was aware he and Meg were warming the other’s sheets, just as no one at her job knew about them. Not that he gave a good god-damn but Meg would spit bricks if word got out that she’d gone over to the dark side and was sleeping with the enemy.
Girl. Cooperate. Interrogation.
“Lemme give you a piece of brotherly advice, O’Toole, given that you passing the Investigator’s exam marks your first turn around the promotions dance floor.
Hiding a smirk, Sunny eased back in her chair. “Advise away, Obi Wan.”
He aimed a heavy-knuckled finger in her direction. “There’s only a couple ways to piss off Meghan Muldoon, aka the Reigning Queen of Man Haters. First: refer to her as a girl, or worse a gal. Second: when you mention eliciting a statement from a crime victim, go ahead and use the words cooperate and interrogation in the same sentence. You’re young and healthy. The stay in ICU shouldn’t last longer than a couple weeks.”
“Gotcha, pard.”
“Good. Lesson number two in Investigations One-Oh-One: use all help available. Get the chairman of the Crime Stats Committee on the horn. See if any of the town forces are showing anything with MO’s similar to the B and E’s we got going for us.”
“I live to serve, Kemosabe.”
Leaving the eager Siobhan Sinead O’Toole to the task of walking her fingers through the yellow pages, Kee walked next door to Property Crimes to mooch a cup of real coffee. On the way back, he detoured down memory lane to recall the first time he saw Meg Muldoon…
****
Late Spring, 1984
While waiting in line for a nosh and first cup of morning Joe at the monthly crime stats meeting, Keenan felt a sharp elbow give his left kidney. “How’d a prince of a guy such as yourself end up in a joint like this?” a voice tinged with Brooklyn asked.
Kee glanced down and grimaced at Pete Rizzuto, a height challenged vice cop from the Victory PD. “Better the monthly roasting by the mayor and county exec than walking a
beat on Summerville Pier while my cojones turn to ice cubes.”
He edged a few steps closer to the urns that contained the one thing he loved more than single malt scotch: high test caffeine. The refreshment line rarely suffered log jams, but today was different. He craned his neck in an attempt to identify the source of the road block ahead.
“Look, pal. Can’t you take a damn pastry instead of doing a cavity search on the entire tray? A Danish is a Danish, for Christ’s sweet sake, loaded with a week’s worth of carbs and fat grams.”
The offender, a member of the Victory PD force tossed Kee an exasperated look. “The filling on these things looks remarkably like prunes. I specifically ordered chocolate mousse or almond paste.”
Just as he was about to suggest the guy move on to lighter fare of fresh fruit and yogurt, he heard Rizzuto’s low wolf whistle. “Be still my fluttering heart.”
With the fix of nectar within breathing reach, Keenan let out a groan. Christ he needed caffeine in mega doses to offset the dull throb that had taken up residence behind his left eyeball. “What the hell are you talking about, Scoot?”
“My next ex-wife. This one’s got legs at least ten yards long.”
More focused on tipping the contents of two sugar packets into his mug, Kee didn’t bother looking up. “What is it with you and Amazons? If she’s as tall as you say, if the two of you ever danced a slow one, your chin would land between the cups of her Miracle Bra.”
“Exactly. Wonder who she is.”
Finally. It was just him and the urns. Please, God, don’t fail me now and have them turn out empty. The enticing aroma of dark brewed caffeine sent his taste buds into orbit as it ensured imminent relief from the frayed nerves and jittery hands commonly associated with a bitch of a hangover. Seconds remained before he experienced Nirvana.
“Bet she’s the new kid in the District Attorney’s office,” Rizzuto offered. “You know how the DA likes to put the new hires through a test of fire at the monthly pig roasts.”
If only to shut the man up, Kee glanced at the object of Rizzuto’s affections and, while pulling his jaw off the floor, felt hot coffee dribble down the front of his shirt. “Ho—lee shit.”
For Keeps