She abandoned herself to the delicious rush of the embrace. Whatever was happening between them might not last forever, but it was very real at that moment and that was all that mattered.
His hands closed around her waist and then moved higher, stopping just beneath her breasts.
“I want you,” he said, his voice thickening. “I need to know you want me, too.”
“Yes,” she said. “Yes, I want you, Cabot Sutter.”
“Tonight.”
“Tonight,” she agreed.
He lifted her off her feet, turned and started toward her bedroom. She gripped his shoulders, bracing herself.
“Just so you know,” she said, “I need to be on top.”
In the shadows his smile was very sexy and very, very male.
“That,” he said, “can be arranged.”
He got her into the bedroom and stood her on her feet beside the bed. She thought fleetingly of the bottle of antianxiety meds in the bathroom cabinet and then forgot about them. She wouldn’t need them tonight.
Very gently, Cabot peeled off her robe. Then he picked her up in his arms and dropped her lightly onto the tumbled sheets. She sat up immediately, crossed her legs and watched him strip off his trousers, briefs and T-shirt. His strong, sleek shoulders and back were silhouetted against the glow of the city lights.
When he turned slightly to climb into bed, she saw his fierce erection. Okay, he definitely wanted her, at least for tonight.
Automatically she ran a check on her senses, waiting for the rush of dark, disturbing energy to uncoil within her. But all she felt in that moment was a dizzying anticipation. This man understood her. He didn’t think she suffered from bad nerves. He didn’t think she was weird because she woke up in the middle of the night and ran through a series of self-defense exercises. He didn’t care about her past in a cult.
Before she could jinx the moment with any more internal dialogue, he was lowering himself beside her. She did have a brief moment of doubt then. He was the take-charge type and she could feel waves of desire emanating from him. If he didn’t understand that she was serious about being on top—if, in the heat of the moment, he tried to take control—
But Cabot made no attempt to cage her beneath him. He rolled onto his back and gathered her against his side, letting her choose the position that she wanted.
She levered herself up on one elbow, leaned over and kissed him. He cradled her head in one powerful hand and responded with a sensual hunger that thrilled her. He groaned with a mix of pleasure and need, but he did not lose control.
Emboldened by the fact that she was not showing any signs of flipping the panic switch, she flattened her palm on his bare chest, savoring the feel of his heated skin and the hard muscle underneath. Slowly she moved her lips from his mouth to his throat. Her fingers explored him. When she reached the thick, rigid length of him, she felt him tense. But he did not attempt to force her to hurry things along.
He moved his free hand slowly up her leg, slipping under the edge of the nightgown. He gripped her bare thigh. For the first time she felt a flicker of tension. Her hand stilled on his lower body.
He immediately released her thigh and let his fingers drift slowly over the curve of her hip and up to her waist.
“You feel so good,” he said, his voice very dark, almost smoldering. “Perfect.”
Definitely not perfect, she thought. Any other woman who found herself in bed with this man would be thrilled. And she was thrilled. But some part of her was also scared, waiting for the anxiety monster to leap out of the dark cave where it hid and destroy the moment.
Don’t think about it, she told herself. Focus.
But the more she tried not to think about it, the more she could not stop thinking about it.
Anger at her own inability to relax and enjoy the pleasure that Cabot was offering surged through her. Dismayed, she scrambled on top of him, straddling him in an effort to force her senses to ignite.
Cabot responded with enthusiasm.
“Oh, yeah.”
He gripped her hips and helped her position herself. But she was suddenly very dry, and when she tried to impale herself on his thick erection, he abruptly tightened his hold, stopping her.
“It’s okay,” he said. “You need a little time.”
She sank her nails into his shoulders. “No, damn it. I’m going to do this.”
“Hush, it’s all right. This isn’t like going to the dentist. You don’t have to do this.”
“Oh, crap.” She squeezed her eyes shut against the tears. “Shit.”
He eased her off of his still-hard body. “Go take the meds.”
She knelt beside him in the tangled sheets, pulled her nightgown down around herself and tried to analyze her emotions.
“I’m not having a panic attack,” she said. “I’m just disgusted with myself because I was so afraid of having an attack that I couldn’t relax.”
“I get it.” He sat up beside her. “Like I said, it’s okay.”
He leaned forward and brushed his mouth lightly across hers. It was a comforting kiss, a kiss of deep understanding, not an attempt to seduce her.
She was suddenly torn between tears and hysterical giggles.
“A trip to the dentist?” she managed, her voice shaking a little. “Really, that was the best analogy you could come up with?”
He sat back and gave her a wry smile. “Sorry, but it was the first one that came to mind. I’ll try to have something more romantic ready next time.”
“Next time?” She couldn’t believe what she was hearing. She dashed away her tears with the back of her hand. “You really want to go through this again?”
“Are you kidding? I haven’t gotten this close to having sex in months. Of course I want to do it again.”
She glared. “Now you’re teasing me.”
“I am,” he agreed. “But it also happens to be the truth.” He pushed aside the covers and sat up on the side of the bed. “What do you say we both try to get some sleep?”
“All right.” It wasn’t as if there were a lot of other options, she thought wistfully, not now that she had totally killed the mood.
He leaned down, brushed his mouth lightly across hers, and then he was gone.
She listened intently as he went down the hall. He opened his bedroom door but he did not close it again. If she woke up on the wings of another panic attack, he would hear her. He would probably come to check up on her, make sure she took her meds.
But he would not judge her. He knew where she was coming from.
CHAPTER 25
Cabot awoke before dawn with the shattering conviction that he had missed something very important. He paid attention to the sensation. He had relied on the intuitive side of his nature during his time in a war zone and during his career as a cop.
He pushed back the covers, got up and headed for the small guest bathroom to shower and shave.
When he was dressed, he headed down the hall to the kitchen, trying not to make any noise. He smiled at the sight of Virginia’s glasses on the counter.
He was firing up the coffeemaker when Virginia appeared. She was wearing her bathrobe, and her hair was a tangled mass. Her face was flushed from sleep. She looked sexy as hell. He felt his insides stir. He told himself to focus on measuring the coffee into the machine.
“Good morning,” he said.
“What time is it?” she asked
He handed her the glasses. “A little after six.”
“Oh, wow.” Her voice sharpened abruptly. “I never sleep this late.”
He smiled down at the coffeemaker. “Neither do I. But we did have a rough day yesterday.”
She pushed her glasses onto her nose with one finger. “Yes, we did, didn’t we?”
There was a note of surprise or maybe wonder in her voice.
He knew she was still trying to come to grips with the events at the Wallerton house and maybe with what had almost happened between them last night. But if she wasn’t going to mention the sleeping arrangements, neither would he. They’d figure it out sooner or later.
“Cabot?”
He looked at her. She visibly steeled herself.
“About last night,” she said.
“We don’t have to talk about it, you know.”
“I know. But I wanted to say thank you.”
“For what?”
She widened her hands. “For understanding.” She stepped back quickly. “I’d better go take a shower.”
“Sure,” he said.
“Be back in a few minutes,” she said. She turned and started to rush back down the hall.
“Virginia?”
She stopped and swung around with an air of expectation. He got the impression that she was waiting for him to say something important, something meaningful. But he couldn’t be sure, so he played it safe.
“I wanted to ask you about Hannah Brewster’s last painting, the one she did on the wall of her cabin.”
“Oh,” Virginia said. She looked disconcerted for a beat or two but she recovered quickly, composing herself. “What about the painting?”
“In Brewster’s last picture the little girl intended to represent you is carrying a picture book.”
“Right. But there was nothing unusual about it. I’m holding the book in every picture in the Visions series. It’s part of the standard iconography that Hannah used.”
“You said your mother gave you that book?”
“Yes. It was designed to teach early math to a child. We weren’t allowed to go to school in town, remember? We were homeschooled by some of the women in the compound.”
“Do you still have it?”
“Of course. It’s the only thing I have of my mother’s. Why?”
“Do you mind if I take a look at it?”
“No. I’ll get it for you.”
Virginia disappeared down the hall to the guest bedroom that served as a library and home office. When she returned she carried a slim, handmade book bound with strands of frayed yarn.
“Hannah illustrated it for Mom,” Virginia said. “She used good-quality paper, so the pages have not deteriorated, but it’s still rather fragile.”
She set the book on the kitchen counter and opened it with great care. Cabot hit the start button on the coffeemaker and moved to stand beside Virginia. He was immediately fascinated by the illustrations. They leaped off the page in a riot of colors. Fanciful animals from a magical realm trotted, flew, hopped or paced through the story. Each carried a number or a mathematical sign. In the story that accompanied the pictures, the creatures tried to impress a little girl who didn’t like arithmetic with the wonders of the world of numbers.
“I loved to read but I didn’t like math,” Virginia said. Her voice broke a little. “So Mom came up with a story about a kid like me. Then Hannah illustrated it. The idea was to teach me some basic arithmetic.”
Cabot saw the glint of tears. “I’m sorry to dredge up sad memories.”
“I know, but it’s not like either of us has a choice, is it? This situation that we’re in is all about the past.”
“I think so, yes.”
She blinked away the tears. “It’s just that so much has been happening lately. I feel a little . . . disoriented, I guess.”
“You’re not the only one.”
Acting on impulse, he reached out and tugged her into his arms. She did not resist. Instead she collapsed against him and cried for what seemed like a very long time. He realized that her tears were welling up from some very deep, dark place. He knew that place. He had visited a very similar realm from time to time over the years, often at one thirty in the morning.
He didn’t realize that tears were leaking out of his own eyes until Virginia gently extracted herself from his arms, stepped back and gave him a watery smile.
“Sorry,” she said. “I haven’t lost it like that for quite a while.”
“Neither have I.” He grimaced, grabbed a paper napkin and wiped his eyes. “When I was a kid, Anson used to tell me that it was no big deal. He said it wasn’t like I was ever going to forget what happened at the compound, so I would have to deal with it. He told me that crying from time to time was probably a good way to keep the bad stuff under control.”
“Stuff?”
“Anson isn’t a trained psychologist. He didn’t have all the fancy words. But my brothers and I got the message. Sometimes it was okay to cry.”
“My grandmother sent me to a couple of therapists who did have the fancy words,” Virginia said. “I got the same message from them, but at the same time, Octavia was sending me another, conflicting message—don’t talk about the past because it’s just too painful.”
“So you stopped talking about it?”
“At home, yes. Later, when I went off to college and then out into the real world, I discovered no one else wants to talk about my past, either, or, if they do, it’s because of morbid curiosity. They looked at me differently after they found out about my time in the cult. I could see them wondering if I was seriously warped or maybe crazy. So I shut up.”
“My brothers and I figured out real fast that talking to outsiders about our past was not a good idea. But at least we had each other and Anson to talk to.”
“I didn’t have anyone to share my past with until Hannah Brewster showed up at the door of my gallery. We did talk a little, but by then Hannah was living in her own world. It was difficult to know what was real to her and what wasn’t. And she was so secretive. Downright paranoid.” Virginia glanced at the picture book of numbers. “She often asked about the book, though.”
“What did she say?”
“She was very concerned that I keep it safe. She said I might need it someday. But, honestly, I’ve looked at it hundreds of times over the years and I still don’t know what she meant. I can tell you that each of the creatures was named after one of the kids who were forced to sleep in the barn, but you have to look very closely at the designs to see that much.”
Cabot chose a page at random and concentrated on the exuberant, highly decorative designs on a hat worn by one of the fantastical creatures. At first he could not make sense of what he was looking at. Then he saw an H followed by the letter u.
“Hugh,” Cabot said. He looked up. “There was a Hugh with us in the barn that night. Hugh Lewis. He and his father were at the compound.”
“Are their names on that list that Anson keeps?”
“Yes,” Cabot said. “Max tracked them down a couple of years ago. They’re living in the Midwest now and doing reasonably well as far as we know. But Max said that neither of them wanted to talk about their time with Zane. Hugh is married with a couple children of his own. His father remarried. Their wives know about their time in Zane’s operation but they don’t want their friends and neighbors to find out.”
“For obvious reasons,” Virginia said.
“You said Hannah never gave you any idea of why the book was important?”
“No. She refused to discuss it. She just wanted to make sure I still had it. Trust me, I’ve looked at those pictures and those numbers a million times. I’ve even worked through the math problems to see if the results mean anything. If there’s a clue there, it’s not clear to me.”
Cabot looked up and met her eyes. “But until you walked through the door of Cutler, Sutter and Salinas, you didn’t know that a lot of money had disappeared in the wake of the California compound fire. I find it interesting that Zane torched the place on the night of the same day that your mother gave you this book.”
Virginia went very still. “You think this book is the key to the missing money, don’t you?”
“If your mother was embezzling th
e cult’s funds, she would have had to find a way to conceal the cash.”
Virginia caught her breath. “Do you think that book is written and illustrated in some sort of code?”
“It’s a possibility. It would explain why Hannah was so adamant about you making sure it was safe.”
“If you’re right, maybe her last painting—the one that shows a modern-day version of Quinton Zane—was meant to warn me not only that he’s come back but also that he’s after the book.”
“This is all guesswork at the moment, but one thing’s for sure: we don’t have time to try to decipher some secret code. Not now. We need to focus on the investigation.”
“All right, but what about the book?” Virginia said. “We can’t just leave it lying around here, not now that we think it might be important. We should put it into a safe-deposit box.”
“Yes, but the sooner we know if this book really is valuable, the better. With your permission I’d like to give it to Anson. He can photocopy the pages and then he can put the original into a safe-deposit box. Once we have a copy to study, we can get some expert help.”
“What kind of expert help?”
“A lot of the people who work in the cybersecurity field are good with codes and puzzles. Max and Jack both have contacts in that world.”
“Hannah was right. Quinton Zane really has come back to haunt us,” Virginia said.
But she didn’t look anguished or defeated, Cabot thought. She looked quietly, resolutely angry and determined.
“We may be dealing with Zane,” Cabot said. “But I think the odds are good that someone else has learned about the missing money and is trying to find it.”
Virginia’s mouth tightened. Her eyes narrowed a little. “You don’t think it’s Zane?”
Cabot shook his head. “The more I think about it, the more I doubt it.”
“Why?”
“Zane was a very slick con man and a very thorough killer. He didn’t make a lot of mistakes. Furthermore, if he is still alive, he’s done a very good job of concealing himself for twenty-two years. If, for some reason, he decided to come out of the shadows now, I think he would operate in a far more careful manner. Got a hunch we’re dealing with someone who is less experienced in this kind of thing.”
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