Ramsey Rules Read online

  Ramsey shivered again, but this time because his hands were colder than her skin. “Hey. Icy fingers.”

  “Sorry,” he said, but instead of pulling away, he rubbed his hands up and down her back until friction took care of the heat to cold differential. “Better?”

  “Mm.” She nuzzled his neck, kissed the underside of his jaw, and sucked in a short breath when one of his hands slid under her bra to cup her breast. The aureole puckered and her nipple stood at attention. She murmured something unintelligible when his thumb made a pass. It immediately brought to mind his mouth on her breast and the damp edge of his tongue making the same sweep as his thumb. She remembered how he’d worried the nipple between his lips while she sipped air until a breath simply lodged in her throat and she thought she would come out of her skin. He made her feel like that now, like her skin was too tight, too sensitive, like she wanted to crawl out of it, hover above herself, and watch him make love to her.

  His kiss was deep, then deeper still. Ramsey shifted, pressed her thighs together. The walls of her vagina contracted. “Oh, God. I’m going to…” At first, she fought the shudder, but in the end, there was nothing for it but to surrender. Her fingers tightened, dug into his jacket. Her nails left an imprint in the butter soft beaten leather. “Come.” She dropped her forehead against his shoulder. “I came,” she whispered.

  Sullivan pressed a smile against her hair. “I saw.”

  “You conquered.”

  “You think so?”

  “I do. I definitely do.” Ramsey lifted her head. “And I want to return the favor.”

  28

  Ramsey’s senses were still tingling as she turned the corner toward home. She wasn’t sure, but she thought it might be the same for Sullivan, at least she hoped it was. Neither of them wanted to move after she brought him to climax. They sat slumped in their seats, Sullivan with his eyes closed at first, Ramsey with her eyes cast sideways to watch him. A deliciously satisfied smile shaped his sensual mouth. She didn’t know that it mirrored her own, and when he chuckled, the bubble of laughter pressing against her lips broke free. They went silly with laughter for no reason other than they could.

  It was all good.

  He made a grab for her when she tried to leave the cab, and she let him haul her close and kiss her breathless. Her legs were noodles when he finally let her go. She slipped out, shut the door, and leaned against it for a full ten seconds before she found her land legs and walked to her car. He waited until she was moving before he started his truck and then he followed her out of the lot. She kept an eye on him in her rearview mirror right up to the moment they parted ways to their respective parts of town.

  Nearing her house, Ramsey slowed to a crawl to make the turn into her driveway, and then applied the brake for a full stop when she noticed the unfamiliar car parked on the opposite side of the street had a Maryland tag. Maybe the Andersons had a visitor. She wanted to believe that because the alternative made her shiver, and not in a good way.

  The SUV’s headlights swept her front lawn and porch steps as she turned in. The porch remained in the dark, but the motion detector light above the garage door came on as she approached. It didn’t help her see if anyone was waiting for her on the porch. She opened the garage door and drove in, turned off the car, and sat unmoving while her heart quieted. It was easy to tell herself she was being stupid. Much harder to believe it.

  Six million people called Maryland home. What were the chances that the car across the street belonged to someone she knew? Yes, she was being stupid. No, she didn’t believe it.

  Ramsey leaned toward the opposite door, opened the glove box, withdrew her pistol. She made sure the chamber was clear, tucked the Walther into her jacket pocket, and then got out of the car and walked down the driveway to the sidewalk that led to the front porch. She purposely did not close the garage door. The motion detector light illuminated her path until she reached the sidewalk and stood there for a long moment, still as stone.

  She saw him move. He appeared out of the deep shadows of the porch and came to the lip of the steps. She knew his spare and slender silhouette. Knew the breadth of his shoulders, hunched now against the chill in the air, and recognized the backward tilt of his head. It didn’t matter that he already occupied the high ground. He still had to underscore that he was looking down on her. He wasn’t wearing a hat. Ball caps had never suited him and a fedora made him look more like one of John Gotti’s lieutenants than Indiana Jones. His dark hair was carefully cropped and styled, all of it in place in spite of the occasional eddy of wind that blew dry leaves across the lawn. His manner of dress, his way of carrying himself, his classic good looks, set him apart from his jeans and T-shirt colleagues in the IT department at Willow Garden Health. She knew it for a fact because she’d met the colleagues at one too many holiday parties.

  Ramsey took out her phone and raised it so he could see. “You need to leave, Jay.”

  “For God’s sake, Liz. What are you doing? Threatening me with the police?”

  “It’s not a threat.”

  Jay shifted from side to side, stamping his feet. “It’s chilly out here. C’mon. Invite me inside where we can talk.”

  Ramsey let silence speak for her. The last thing she wanted to do was encourage conversation.

  “Don’t you want to know how I found you? In your place, I’d want to know.”

  She did want to know, but it came to her suddenly that it was no longer as important as it would have been four years ago. She would have run then. Picked up and left and put down stakes in some other community. She was not prepared to do that now, and she hadn’t known it until she was facing him again. Ramsey stopped short of thanking him for the epiphany. She pocketed the phone without tapping the green call button.

  Jay dropped down one step, then another. He sat on the edge of the porch and turned up the collar of his wool driving coat. “I never stopped looking for you.”

  “We’re divorced.”

  “A detail.”

  It was so like him to be dismissive of details that were important to her that she almost laughed. There would have been no humor in it, but since he often missed nuance, she remained silent.

  “I hadn’t considered that you’d change your name, Liz. Not at first, anyway. That occurred to me later. Your parents weren’t helpful. Neither was your brother. They don’t know, do they? You cut them out too. They still call you Lizzie.”

  She couldn’t stand it any longer. “What do you want?”

  “What? You think it’s something more than the pleasure of seeing you?”

  “I know it is.”

  Jay jerked his head back toward the door behind him. “Inside. This is no place to talk.”

  “You’re right. And not the time. I’ll meet you for breakfast at Eat’n Park. I’m sure you can find it. Six-thirty. Before I go to work.” She saw him lift a hand and knuckle his chin as he considered her suggestion. Did he understand that it was the best he was going to get from her?

  “All right. But you’re buying.”

  That gave her a small start, and then she thought about it. Her eyes narrowed. The light from the street lamp at the end of the block was too diffuse for her to make out Jay’s angular features. “Are you here for money?”

  He stood and tripped lightly down the steps. When he stood on the sidewalk, he said, “Tomorrow morning. Six-thirty. Eat’n Park.”

  Ramsey backed up into the driveway and stepped sideways to let him pass. Her heart hammered when he paused at the edge of the sidewalk. She wasn’t so far away that he couldn’t have extended an arm and hauled her in. She didn’t know if it was courage or foolishness that made her stand her ground.

  “Careful there, Liz.”

  His voice was a deep throaty baritone. There was a time his voice had very nearly hypnotized her with its silken whisky heat, but just recalling that now made acid rise in her throat. The light above the garage detected their movements and illuminated the drive. She stared
at him.

  “You should have invited me in,” he said. “That was your first error in judgment. Insisting on a public meeting place was your second. Oh, there was the phone threat. I almost forgot that. I’ve got to tell you that if you back up now, you’ll completely give yourself away. It’s still there, isn’t it? You and me. You’d like me to believe you’re afraid of me, but that isn’t it at all. You’re afraid of yourself.”

  When she didn’t reply, he flashed his devastating grin, pivoted smartly, and began walking away. He was at the foot of the driveway when she thought of a comeback that didn’t involve shooting him in the ass, although too much time had elapsed to make her retort witty or snappy. She stayed where she was. The light eventually went out and she welcomed the dark as she watched him get into his car. He fiddled with the seatbelt and the radio before he slipped the Audi into gear and gave it gas. The car rolled away almost silently, which was decent of him given the lateness of the hour and the proximity of her neighbors, but she wasn’t surprised when he tooted his horn two shorts and a long before he reached the corner.

  In so many ways, he was a child.

  Ramsey slept fitfully, which was to say she hardly slept at all. After four years, she had really begun to believe she’d left Jay Carpenter in her past. He was a lesson learned and not one to be repeated. He was wrong that there was still something between them. Even before the end of their marriage, there hadn’t been anything there, and if he truly believed it was otherwise, it was his massive ego that was confusing him.

  Sullivan texted her as she was getting ready for bed, wishing her a good night and pleasant dreams. It was the first time he’d done that. Her thumbs hovered about the keyboard as she considered a reply, but in the end, she simply set the phone down on the nightstand and left the text unanswered.

  She lay awake for a long while, tossing and turning at first, then flopping hard onto her back and staring somewhat mutinously at the ceiling. She could not quiet her mind. Questions tumbled. Answers did not.

  Had Jay been serious when he said he’d never stopped looking for her, or had he said that because he thought it would show him in a better light? At the time of their divorce, she’d given him no hint that she intended to leave Baltimore. She certainly never breathed a word that her plan included changing her name. Neither had occurred to her just then. Later, when she realized what she had to do, there were still moments when she believed the name change was an unnecessary precaution. He made it necessary, though, when he wouldn’t leave her alone. After the divorce she still heard from him daily. Sometimes it was multiple phone calls. The texts came in bunches. It was nothing to get forty of them in any twenty-four-hour period. He showed up at the door of her apartment so often that she moved in with a girlfriend not only for her own safety but because she wanted a witness. She recorded enough threats and screen shots of the texts to get a protective order.

  The order slowed him down for a couple of weeks, but it didn’t stop him, and she hesitated to enforce it by calling the police because of his job. It was never her desire to ruin him. Now she wondered if he had ruined his lucrative prospects with Willow Garden Health on his own. It was entirely possible, given his habits, and yet he had managed to find cover for himself for years. Had leaving Jay made him less able to protect himself? Did that make her responsible for whatever happened in the intervening years? It didn’t, not in her mind. But what he thought was likely altogether different.

  Ramsey reined in her tumbling thoughts. She knew she was getting ahead of herself. She had no evidence that Jay was in any kind of trouble, and if he was, she bore no responsibility for it and no reason to believe it was up to her to help him. That was old thinking. Dangerous thinking.

  How did his mere presence provoke those thoughts?

  Ramsey yanked on a spare pillow, put it over her face, and used it to smother her frustrated groan. In the quiet that followed, she pushed the pillow away and waited for her breathing to ease. She felt herself drifting off when she remembered the alarm. Bolting upright, she tried to recall if she’d turned it on. Setting it was such a matter of course, done by rote every night, that sometimes she had no distinct memory of arming it. Ramsey threw off the covers, rolled out of bed, and padded to the front door. The alarm was on. Of course, it was. She shouldn’t have doubted herself, but this feeling of uncertainty was part and parcel of being in Jay’s presence. She didn’t think she was that woman any longer.

  But maybe she was.

  29

  Ramsey arrived at the restaurant at six thirty-five. Jay was already seated and looking over the menu. She removed her jacket, tossed it on the seat, and slipped into the booth opposite him.

  “You’re late,” he said by way of a greeting. He closed the menu and set it aside before he lifted his head to look her over. “I see your hair and a hairbrush are still strangers.”

  They weren’t, Ramsey could have told him, but she’d only given her hair a few cursory strokes before she’d gathered the whole of it in another haphazard knot near the top of her head. In response to his criticism, she tucked a few flyaway tendrils behind an ear and was immediately disappointed in herself for it.

  “I didn’t hear my alarm,” she said and wondered why she believed she had to explain herself. The whole truth was that when she finally fell asleep, she slept hard, and the Star Wars overture that she used as her alarm ringtone was almost at the end before she heard it. The Force was not with her this morning.

  “I suppose that means you’ve cut our time short,” he said. “You said something about having to go to work.”

  “I called. They know I’m running behind.”

  “And that’s acceptable?”

  “It’s tolerated because it’s rare.”

  “Hmm.”

  Ramsey heard considerable disapproval in the murmur. She picked up a menu and pretended to look it over. The waitress appeared with coffee and creamer. Ramsey took the opportunity to tell her she wanted separate checks.

  “Why did you do that?” Jay asked when the waitress left. “I told you, you’re buying.”

  “I didn’t agree, did I?” She closed the menu, set it on top of his. “Whatever the state of your finances, I’m confident you can afford your own breakfast.”

  Rather than reply, he picked up his coffee cup and sipped.

  Ramsey added two creamers to hers before she drank. She caught their waitress’s attention when she passed and put in her order. Jay asked for the same, which she doubted had been his intention before she indicated there would be separate checks.

  Ramsey unfolded her napkin, put it on her lap, and neatly arranged her silverware. “Are you prepared to tell me why you’re here? The real reason, Jay. I’m not inclined to listen to bullshit.”

  Jay’s carefully groomed eyebrows lifted. “The vulgarity is beneath you, Liz.”

  Ramsey did not engage.

  Jay shrugged. “Very well. I got a promotion. I’m a VP now. Technology and software development.”

  “Good for you. Dressing the part finally paid off, I imagine. You were always suited to management. And by suited, I mean the bespoke men’s wear and Hermès belts and ties.” He was easily the best dressed man in Eat’n Park this morning, which was not a high bar to hurdle, but he could be transported into any law firm or the administrative offices of an industrial park complex and still be a standout for his impeccable taste. In contrast, she was a schlub.

  “Hey, Ramsey!”

  Ramsey looked up as Buddy Conglose rapped his knuckles on the edge of her table. He was in uniform. She smiled widely. “Good morning, Buddy. Are you here for business or breakfast?”

  “Breakfast. Just finishing my shift.” He inclined his head sideways at Jay and cast a questioning look at Ramsey.

  “Oh. Sorry. Buddy, this is Jay Carpenter. Jay. Officer Buddy Conglose.” She purposely did not define relationships and waited to see if they would.

  Buddy nodded once in Jay’s direction but did not extend a hand. Jay smile
d thinly in return. Buddy said, “You’re not from around here, are you?”

  “No. I’m not.”

  Ramsey held her breath while she waited to see if Jay would add information. When he didn’t, she exhaled softly. Buddy, bless his heart, did not begin an interview.

  “You working today?” he asked Ramsey.

  She nodded. “Running behind, but yes, I’ll be there.”

  “Then I guess there’ll be no rest for us.”

  Ramsey chuckled. “None at all.”

  He winked her. “You take care. Have a good one.”

  “You too.”

  He tapped the table again before he hurried off to catch up to the hostess who had been showing him to a table.

  Ramsey smiled, shaking her head as she followed his hasty exit to the point where he nearly bowled over the hostess. Her smile faded when she met Jay’s gaze. His startling blue eyes were iced over; his disapproval was palpable. His expression thawed a little when their waitress came to the table with their orders and freshened their coffee. He had a minimally pleasant smile for her. Ramsey thanked her and she left them alone.

  “So, you did call the police,” Jay said, picking up his fork.

  Ramsey had a moment when she wondered whether a lie or the truth served her better. She settled for the truth and left it to him to believe her or not. “No, I didn’t. That was just what it seemed. A chance encounter.”

  “He’s a friend.”

  “A professional acquaintance.”

  “Professional? What is it you’re doing with your degree these days?”

  Ramsey shook her head. She’d wondered if he knew where she was working. “We were talking about you and your job. Let’s get back to that.” She picked up a triangle of buttered toast and dipped one corner into the sunny side of her egg. The yolk broke beautifully and she leaned in to take a bite of toast.