Chapter 6
"We should be safe enough here," Nick said, closing and locking the door of his cabin.
Ivy sat down on his sofa. She was still pale. Right after the gunshot they had left the bushes and the beach.
"Guess we should have come here in the first place," he said.
Ivy nodded. Her brown eyes still showed a trace of panic. All the way from the beach she had hung onto his arm, .but not because of the passion he had awakened.
"I'm frightened," Ivy murmured in a shaky voice. "We could have been killed, you know."
Nick tried to calm her. "It was probably just some idiot out target shooting."
Ivy shook her head and reached for a cigarette with trembling fingers. "It was that damned Ridge-runner, and you know it! You're a man, so you can shrug off the danger. But no woman-likes to live with the thought of being raped and then murdered. Every woman here for the summer feels the same way. Some of them are even leaving ahead of time. For two cents I'd pack up and take off myself." She took a quick, nervous drag at her cigarette. "Who the hell wants to spend a summer vacation walking in fear of every little shadow!"
Nick looked down at her speculatively. It wasn't going to be easy recapturing the mood of passionate closeness that had been theirs so brief a time before. That he knew only too well from past experience.
"We'll be all right now," he said at last. "What about a drink?"
She smiled gratefully. "I think that would help, Nick."
He smiled at her, turned to his radio and found a Lawton music station on the FM band. Nothing like a few romantic melodies to soothe ragged nerves.
As he stood in the kitchenette, preparing a couple of highballs, he heard her in the bathroom. He had been all ready to take off his clothes and start the best part of their affair. A bedroom was the better spot, anyway.
When she reappeared she looked better. She had touched up her lips and deepened her eye-shadow. The architecture of her hips continued to intrigue him. He wondered how many young male students were similarly fascinated when she stood in front of her classes.
He remembered one young biology instructor in high school who had nearly driven him out of his mind.
Ivy accepted the drink and they sat down on his sofa. Her eyes took in his tape recorder, mike and piano. He didn't want her asking questions right now, though. He had to recapture the moments of rising passion they had experienced there in the timber.
By mutual consent they finished their highballs, and he took her empty glass and set it aside. He pressed his leg against the soft curve of her thigh and kissed her under the right ear. She had added a touch of perfume. It made her more appealing.
"I wish we hadn't been interrupted," she whispered, her arms trailing around him.
"Feel better now?" he asked, his hand heading again for her halter.
"Yes!"
He had had her naked to the waist before. She didn't object when he loosened the top of her suit, baring her rounded breasts. He played with them.
"I was so-scared," she murmured. Her ringers slid across his chest.
"I'll find out more about that-but right now suppose you concentrate on something else."
"Darling, I'm trying!"
Somehow, though, she wasn't as pliant or naturally responsive as before. She trembled, swinging her mouth around. He nibbled her soft, full under-lip cozying a sharp nipple in his palm.
Yes, she was trying. Oddly, in that moment, he thought of Nona Mills. He wondered why she was so shy and retiring. He couldn't recall that he had ever heard her voice.
He would have to assert himself. She had a bloom of youth. Those photos of her in a bikini, although puzzling in consideration of her behavior at the store and the few other times he had seen her, flamed in his memory. Experience in women was fine, but the challenge of pursuing something so naive and bashful offered a different kind of thrill.
He sipped at the rising heat of Ivy's mouth and dropped his hand to the inviting conformity of her opened thighs. Her tongue parried with his. Her hand went to his swim-trunks.
As she shaped him with her inquisitive hand his own hands roamed over the silky expanses widening for his pleasure. Another tremor shook her. She pulled her mouth away, her breathing uneven.
"It's been-ages and ages, darling!"
He held the suit-clad curve of her need, and felt the left of her bottom.
"In the bedroom," he whispered.
"Yes!"
But she didn't move immediately. He slid his hand inside her suit. Her grip on him tightened. He fondled her, seeking out the zones of her desire.
A shudder passed along her figure.
Ages and ages, she had cried out in her need. He'd been a fool to work so hard on his new song routines. All this stuff going to waste-school-marms were human, too. Just because she wasn't pretty in the accepted sense didn't keep her from being passionate.
"Ohh-please," she whispered.
He wanted her in the bedroom, though. This was kid stuff. They were all different, however, and it wouldn't do to break the spell that already had been broken once.
He toyed with her. She writhed, her free hand locking in his hair. Her tremors, her quick, harsh breathing added to his enjoyment.
The music drifting from the radio-turned groovy and a little wild, seeming to match her fervor.
He felt the beginnings of her release, and a wave of victorious elation gripped him.
He held her tightly as the beat of her climax communicated itself, tempting him. But he resisted. He gloried in the storm he had kicked up, cradling her close, hearing her quick panting, which gradually faded into deeper breathing, and she went lax in his arms.
"Ohhhh-ummmmm," she murmured, her lips at his ear. "I'm sorry, darling...."
"It's all right, Ivy. Now, what about the bedroom?"
"Well-naturally!" Then his telephone rang.
He smothered a curse. They untangled, and he crossed the room to answer the harsh insistent jangle. What the hell else was going to happen?
He had an impulse to jerk the wire from its connection. He had asked that the phone be taken out, service discontinued. He snatched the receiver from its cradle.
"Yes?" he snapped.
Ivy's brown eyes were on him. Already he could see her concern. The gunshot earlier had really startled her.
"My, you sound upset!" came Lucy's voice. "Are you that busy?"
Two to one she saw me bring Ivy here, he thought.
He relented a bit. He couldn't afford to make Lucy too sore. He had learned never to underestimate feminine resentment. He had seen a few guns in the Marker cabin. Perhaps she had fired that shot.
"I was right in the middle of something," he said, dryly.
She laughed. "With your music, of course...."
"Sure."
"Honey," she said, intimately, "drop over tonight, will you."
"I'll see," he hedged. "I'll make things interesting."
"Okay-see you later."
He replaced the receiver with an irritated slam. He moved over beside Ivy.
"You're quite popular," she said.
He slipped his arm around her. The less said now the better. She relaxed, turning to offer her mouth. A shiver ran along her body.
"I hope we don't have any more interruptions," he whispered.
He took her lips, finding them a bit cool now. He cupped a breast, an ache of unrequited heat in his loins. He covered her mouth with his, and she responded. But something had gone out of their closeness.
Then the music program on the radio stopped and a newscaster started talking about the murder at Craig Lake ...
He realized now he should have taken Ivy straight to the bedroom and let the damn phone ring. Her perfume commenced to hit his nerve-centers. Her nipple erected under his caress.
Now he became aware of a car pulling into the parking area north of the cabin.
"Come on," he said. "In the other room."
Her fingers gripped his naked leg. She nodded.
They stood up and walked to the half-opened door of his bedroom. The drapes were drawn, leaving the place in twilight. That would be better, too. They sank down on the bed, side by side. He kissed her again, gratified by her awakening interest. He eased her backward and then she worked out to a full-length position.
He was removing her shorts, already loosened, when he heard footfalls on the trail leading to his cabin. Ivy stiffened. Heavy feet hit the small porch, and then a loud knocking ensued.
"Damn," he breathed.
Her fingers dug into his arms. Her eyes mirrored fright. He hadn't yet removed his swim-trunks. He swung off the bed as the knocking sounded again.
It's not my day, he thought viciously.
He left the bedroom in a rush and went to the front door. He unlocked it. He felt his jaw-muscles ridge and flex. He flung the door open, ready with an outburst of profanity. But it didn't come. His visitor was Deputy Sheriff Carl Hinton. A little squirt of alarm spread through him.
"like to talk a minute, Sturgis," Hinton said thinly.
"Sure. Let's do it out on the porch." He kept his temper with an effort. He had Ivy all ready to swing, and then another crazy circumstance kept them from consummating their need. Would she wait?
"Don't want to alarm you, Sturgis-but we're down to checking out where people around here were at the time of the murder."
"I understand," he answered, cooling. He leaned on a porch support. Hinton wasn't as friendly as before.
I was over at Lucy's, having a ball, he thought. Had he talked to her, yet? But she won't give it away-her hubby might not understand.
"I was here in the cabin," Nick said easily.
Hinton nodded slowly, his gray eyes searching.
"All right," he said finally. "Alone, I suppose?"
"That's right. Why all the questions? Am I under suspicion?"
Hinton smiled thinly. "Right now everybody around here is under suspicion."
"But that's nonsense!" Nick said sharply.
Hinton sighed. "You're jumping to conclusions, Sturgis, same as a lot of other folk. That's thinking that the Ridge-runner and the killer are one and the same. That's not necessarily so. But I aim to find out and put an end to it." He paused and drew a deep breath. "I don't like what's been happening around here, Sturgis. Not one little bit I don't like it. This has always been a pleasant vacation spot. But with rape-killings and such like it's not going to stay that way long. Not unless I get the mess cleaned up quick."
"Okay," Nick said. "I understand." He thought of Ivy waiting for him inside the cabin and because he was impatient to return to her waiting body he deliberately prolonged the talk. "But tell me one thing. Do I look like the type who would go for a girl like Zelda and kill her if she didn't come through?"
Hinton gave him a long look. "That's not a very smart remark, Sturgis. A lot of men went for her. She was loud, maybe, and flashy and liked to kind of flaunt her body around. But some men like that. I wouldn't have any way of knowing off hand what kind of woman you like, Sturgis. So things being the way they are, I'd prefer that you stay around here for the next few days. I'm making it just a request, you understand. But I can make it an order any time."
"I see." Nick said. "Thanks. I'm supposed to be in Bellingham on the fifteenth."
"We should have things cleared up by then."
Hinton left the porch, straightening his gun-belt. Nick decided to shut up. He had already compounded a big lie. He waved as the deputy departed. Obviously the officer didn't believe his being-alone alibi.
He returned to the cabin living room, grinding his teeth together. Ivy, with her swim-suit back on snugly, stood in the bedroom doorway. She looked pale.
"I-I'd better go, Nick. I'm awfully sorry...." He nodded, picking up a pack of cigarettes. "You heard it, I suppose."
"Yes."
He grinned wryly. "When this thing cools down maybe we can get further."
She moved forward, against him. "Nick-I do appreciate everything. But I'm-cold and scared, now!"
He sat down. He was coolish, too. She picked up her beach things and edged toward the door.
"You didn't mention that shot we heard," she said.
"No. I'll let the law worry about it. I'm sick of the whole deal already." Ivy flushed.
"I didn't mean-about all the rest."
"I'll see you then, Nick," she answered, her hand on the door knob. A moment later she was gone. A faint perfume remained, tantalizing his senses, underlining his defeat.
He lit a cigarette, inhaling deeply. He looked around the room, then at the sofa, where Ivy had panted out her climax.
Well, she had some of her fun, anyway, he thought blackly.