Winters & Somers by Glenys O'Connell

love was this that her first instinct was to find out
the man’s faults?
                She
staggered wearily up to bed, her mood depressed despite the three glasses of
Powers’ liquid gold that Grace had plied her with ‘to keep the chills out
after such a nasty shock’ .
    She'd had an exhausting couple of hours
convincing Grace that the man she’d assaulted with her umbrella wasn’t in
league with the ‘filthy beast’ who’d caused Cíara to scream for help in the first
place.
    “He was up to no good, anyway, girl,” Grace
declared darkly. “Much too good looking to be wandering about untethered.”
                While
she had to agree that her erstwhile rescuer had given off some very sexy vibes,
embarrassment still twisted in her gut when she replayed the evening as she got
ready for bed. Pulling up the crisp, fresh, lavender-scented covers, she had to
agree with the evil fairy on her shoulder that she'd have loved to have seen
the face of her rescuer when whirling Dervish Grace had pounded upon him, her
deadly umbrella right on target!
    Then Wallace’s protestation that she was ‘just a
hooker’ wormed its way back into her mind and she squirmed with humiliation and
rage. She certainly hadn’t meant to play the seductress quite so obviously!
                She
was still tossing and turning, sleep eluding her, when the cell phone beside
her bed shrilled its catchy little tune.
                “Miss
Somers? Frank O’Keefe here. Sorry to call so late, but it’s the only chance
I’ve had.  Listen, I know you said you’d be in our area this weekend but, well,
my wife is going to a libraries’ conference midweek in Dublin – and J. V. 
Winters is going to be the keynote speaker. Cute, eh? So maybe that would,
well, be the perfect time to see if…” The man’s whispery voice trailed away on
such a dejected note that her heart welled with sympathy.
                “All
right, Mr. O'Keefe, fax my office with the details of the conference and I’ll
see what I can do,” she said wearily. As she put the phone down, her heart gave
a little leap of relief. At least that meant she didn’t have to spend a moment
longer at the scene of her Close Encounters of the Embarrassing Kind. She
imagined that everywhere she went while she was in Waterford, people would be
whispering about last night’s ‘seduction’ and pointing fingers at her.
    Vowing revenge on Wallace’s head, she fell into a
deep, contented slumber punctuated only by the occasional uneasy dream of a
stranger whose face was shadowed in darkness.
    * * *
                Frank O’Keefe, on the
other hand, found it impossible to sleep even after talking to Cíara. In fact,
talking to the pretty detective had made everything seem even more horrifyingly
real. He’d been trying so hard to keep everything casual – although he did
notice that strange look of dismay in Peggy’s eyes when he brought home a bunch
of red roses as a surprise gift. Was it guilt that flooded her face with a
color not that far removed from that of the flower petals?
                What
really filled him with rage and despair was when that brute Winters had come
into the office, large as life, wanting to talk to one of the agents.
    “Oh, yes, Mr. Winters, I think Mr. O'Keefe can
help you out,” Molly O’Flynne, the secretary/receptionist had trilled – yes,
trilled! – as she fawned shamelessly over the writer.
                Frank
had gritted his teeth together and forced himself to paste a pleasant smile on
his face before stepping out from behind his desk to greet the man and accept
his warm, firm handshake. What made it worse was that Frank had the
uncomfortable feeling that Winters was a man he could actually like if
he didn’t think he was trying to. … that he and Peggy were….
                He
let out a deep sigh, trying to blot the end of that thought from his mind,