by Sharon Sala
She groaned against his mouth and struggled briefly in his grasp before she pulled her arms free and found the object of her search. The hard metal buckle at his waist came undone despite the violent tremble in her hands. There was only a piece of braided metal between her and heaven as she fumbled blindly for the tab of his zipper. It was just about then that she felt her feet leave the floor. Suddenly she was in her bedroom, on her back, on the floor, on a rug, and under Trace Logan. She could vaguely see his clothes coming off faster than the rain outside was coming down.
“Shouldn’t we be on the bed?” Honor whispered, as she felt Trace’s hard, muscled body sliding down beside her.
“Too far,” he muttered, just before he buried his lips in the damp valley between her breasts.
Honor felt his mouth, then his teeth, and finally his tongue begin an exploration of her that drove sanity into the night with the storm. There wasn’t a place untouched or untasted on Honor’s body. And she knew if someone threw a match into the room, she’d ignite. Her skin, heightened to an unbelievable sensitivity by his sensuous foray, was burning beneath his touch as Trace moved over her body with skilled perfection, seeking out the places that made her moan…and the places that made her gasp…and the place that stopped her breath. It was there that the search ended and another journey began.
Trace had reached every limit of endurance he’d ever imposed upon himself. He knew if he didn’t take her now he’d lose his mind. He slid his knee between her legs and felt her open instantly to make room for him. Raising himself on arms that trembled and ached from the self-imposed restraint, he paused only briefly at what he knew would be heaven.
Honor felt his weight shift, realized that this wild, insane ache was going to get worse before it got better, and shuddered as he touched the center of her being. She arched upward, unable and unwilling to wait any longer, wrapped her long legs around Trace’s hips, and pulled him down, down, into the fire he’d started inside her body.
The motion shocked, the sensation came without warning, and before he had time to think, Trace spilled himself into Honor’s body with shuddering, aching thrusts. He felt the answering warmth of her own release as tiny muscles convulsed around him and then fell on top of her in shocked exhaustion. It was long moments later before he could speak, and when he did, it came out in the form of a low, regretful laugh, before he buried his face in her neck and rolled her over on top of him.
“I haven’t lost control like that since I was seventeen,” Trace whispered with a smile in his voice, and gently traced her body as it rested against him in the darkness. “But I should have expected it from you, lady,” he drawled, before he tangled his hands in her hair and pulled her down into his kiss. “You’ve made me as uncertain now as I was then, maybe even worse. Hell, I haven’t had good sense since you cried in my arms the night we met.”
“I wondered even then what this would be like with you,” Honor whispered against his mouth, and moved suggestively against his already rejuvenating manhood. “I can honestly say, my imagination wasn’t as good as the fact.”
“I didn’t have a chance, did I?” Trace teased, as he rolled Honor off his body and then stood before pulling her to her feet.
“Where are we going?” Honor asked, as she slid against his searching thrust.
“Umm,” he mumbled incoherently, as he grabbed desperately at her seeking hands. “If I can get you there,” he groaned, “to bed. And then I think I’ll tuck you in, only this time let me do the tucking. I promise it’ll last longer.”
He sealed his promise with a kiss and proceeded to fulfill his pledge with delicious deliberation.
It was much later that night, when the electricity came back on with startling clarity, that they realized the possibilities still open to them. Trace turned off the lights, cradled Honor’s sleepy body beneath him, gently caressed her love-swollen lips, and then proceeded to rock her back to sleep in a manner as old as time.
Chapter 11
Cool air teased at the bare skin of Honor’s back where the covers had slipped. The sensation made her scoot farther down into the bed, searching to regain the warmth of the night. But the farther she scooted the colder it got. Her eyes reluctantly opened, sleepily searching for the reason. It only took a second for last night’s memories to come rushing back into her consciousness. And with them came the answer to why she was cold. The house was freezing and Trace was nowhere in sight.
Honor jumped out of bed, grabbed some underwear and a red sweatsuit from her partially unpacked suitcase, and quickly dressed, sighing in relief as the soft, fleecy interior of the outfit began warming her chilled body. With a pair of socks in one hand and her tennis shoes in the other, she left the room in search of food and Trace, and not necessarily in that order.
The floor was cold beneath her bare feet and Honor wondered, as she sat downstairs on the bottom stairstep and tied her last shoelace, what had happened to Trace and last night’s comforting warmth? She wandered through the entire downstairs, listening for signs of him until finally her impatience ended the search.
“Trace! Where are you?” she called loudly, and then waited for him to answer.
Another gust of cool air wafted through the house. She shuddered. But this time not from cold…from fear. Something was wrong! After last night, no one could make Honor believe that Trace was gone without so much as a note. She started back through the house again, and this time something told her to repeat the search in a quieter fashion.
* * *
An odd, repetitive noise had penetrated Trace’s sleep. He reluctantly unwound himself from Honor’s warmth, careful not to disturb her rest as he slipped across the hall into his own room. He dressed quickly. The house was too cool. He made a mental note to check the thermostat when he went downstairs.
His denim pants and old gray sweatshirt were clothes reserved only for leisure time. And he wondered as he hurried down the hallway why he didn’t allow himself more of this so-called leisure. This trip had started out as a mission to keep Honor out of harm’s way. But it had taken a power failure to put his life and priorities quickly in place. This had become a proving ground for what he hoped was the rest of his life. He wanted Honor to trust and love him just as much as he loved her. She had to get past her resentment of the fact that he was the original bearer of bad news. And if last night was an indication, she was developing a fantastic case of amnesia.
Just as soon as possible, if all his suspicions proved to be correct, charges would be filed that would probably remove Mr. Lawrence from their lives, and society, altogether. Trace had no way of knowing that the wheels of justice had already been set in place by J. J. Malone. Or that Hastings was on the run.
Trace noticed that the sound that awakened him had stopped. Yet he thought nothing of it as he began a cursory investigation of doors and windows. Last night’s storm had been fierce, even by mountain standards. Almost anything could have broken or blown loose.
He could find nothing obvious inside the house to account for the odd noise he’d heard. He started through the kitchen toward the back door and then stopped. His eyes widened in surprise and then narrowed thoughtfully as he saw the basement door standing ajar.
“What the…?” he muttered, and walked toward the gaping door. He pulled it back slowly, leaning forward to peer down the long, darkened tunnel of stairs. Then he stood quietly, listening. Nothing seemed or sounded out of place. He shrugged, stepped back, and started to pull the door shut when something fell to the floor below with a crash.
Trace yanked the door back and hit the light switch at the top of the stairs. Nothing happened. No lights and no further sounds were heard. He muttered a soft curse, knowing that he had better places to be and much better things to be doing with Honor than fiddling around with the boiler again. But his caution overruled his heart as he retrieved a flashlight from the cabinet drawer beside the door and started down into the basement.
* * *
Hastings had kn
own his plans to prevent discovery were over when he’d called the office yesterday without identifying himself and asked to speak to Erin. When he’d been told that she’d taken an extended leave of absence and left the country, a warning had gone off in his brain.
The bitch! She’d told! He just knew it! His suspicions were confirmed when he then asked to be transferred to Legal. He disguised his voice and shrewdly asked to speak to himself. He didn’t have to guess what it meant upon being told that Hastings Lawrence no longer worked for Malone Industries. He hung up in sick panic.
His first instinct was to run. Obviously the least they could charge him with was assault. The worst was attempted murder and embezzlement. His fury soared. He cursed loud and long at the fates that had resurrected that damned granddaughter and ruined long years of careful planning. And his anger grew as he thought of Trace Logan’s threats and interferences that had set off this chain reaction of disasters. He’d run all right! But not before he made them pay. Now all he had to do was find Honor O’Brien, and when he did, he’d find Trace Logan, too. Of that he was certain.
* * *
The storm’s aftermath had left broken branches, loose rocks, and, in some places, ankle-deep mud. But Hastings didn’t notice the destruction or the sharp bite of the sharp, misty wind that cut across the treetops on the mountain. He chortled gleefully as he hitched his backpack to a more comfortable position. There was Logan’s vehicle right where he’d guessed.
Hastings had been a visitor here only once and had forgotten about the house until he’d begun wracking his brain for places Trace Logan might go to hide.
Hastings knew no one would expect him to hike in. But he’d been quite adept at backpacking during his college days. And, he thought smugly to himself, he hadn’t lost his touch.
He stopped at the edge of the trees bordering the house and grounds and stood for several minutes watching carefully. Finally he was convinced that they were probably still asleep. He was also convinced that Trace had Honor O’Brien with him and thought it a stroke of luck that the two people who destroyed his dreams were in the same place at the same time.
Hastings crept quietly up to the house and began investigating possible points of entry. His logical, meticulous mind allowed for every avenue of exploration. He was rewarded, on his third time around the house, when he finally spied a basement window that was completely concealed by overgrown shrubbery. Crawling on his hands and knees behind the bushes, he slipped off his backpack, and in no time, had gained entrance into Trace’s house.
It was dark and warm in the room, with the big black boiler competently channeling its heat throughout the house. Hastings sat on the bottom step of the basement stairs and warmed himself before venturing farther, comfortable in the knowledge that he was undetected. His plan had been vague as to how he was going to dispose of these two people who had become his nemesis. But he’d come prepared.
He dug into his backpack, pulled out a flashlight and began his investigation. The flashlight’s beam was narrow and weak, and he shook it slightly, as if trying to shake out more light. It only succeeded in making the light go out completely. He then wasted precious time disassembling the flashlight and putting it back together again before he had it in working order. When he located the breaker box that controlled all of the power to the house, the power ceased instantly with a flick of his finger.
“Now,” he whispered softly to himself, as he started toward the boiler with a handful of tools, “let’s see what we have here.”
Hastings was a shrewd man, but his was not a mechanical mind. He fiddled and tapped on every gauge and lever of the boiler. The possibility of an explosion made to look like an accident would be the perfect way to solve his problem. But all his poking and prodding brought no satisfactory results. Ironically, by shutting off the electrical power first, Hastings had unknowingly stopped his own plan for succeeding. The boiler’s fans and even the main switch all worked from electricity. When the power was off, the boiler was incapable of any function whatsoever.
Hastings muttered a curse of frustration and gave the boiler a final thump with his wrench, unaware that the floor vents that carried the warm air throughout the house also carried the sounds of his frustrated vandalism. But the same floor vents had in turn alerted Hastings to the fact that someone was moving about upstairs. His heart missed a beat as he heard sounds of a door closing and then footsteps overhead. He stopped all motion and stood silently waiting, his mind awash with tension. Adrenaline rocketed through his body as a confrontation became more and more apparent.
Suddenly, he knew how to draw them to him. Using the narrow beam from his flashlight for guidance, he quickly ran up the basement stairsteps, listened for a moment to assure himself that no one was yet in the vicinity, then pushed the door that led down to the basement ajar. An open door was perfect bait, especially when it had been closed the night before. He went back quicker than he’d come up, panic fueling his movements as he searched for a place to hide.
When someone came to investigate, he would be waiting. Stairs had become a perfect instrument of destruction for Hastings. He was not big and strong. But he needed more than his cunning to succeed. Why not take advantage of the stairs’ proximity? He pushed aside a stack of empty boxes under the stairs and leaned as far back into the shadows as he could get…and he waited!
* * *
The air is cooler down here than it should be, Trace thought, as he used the flashlight beam to help him negotiate the long, steep flight of steps leading down to his basement.
“Damn!” he muttered, envisioning how cold this house could be with no power. If the electricity was off for an extended period of time, he’d have to hunt for the portable kerosene heaters.
Something moved below and Trace’s senses sharpened. That was not the wind! Every possible caution that he should have used earlier before he started down the steps came rushing into his brain. He turned the narrow beam of light to the open stairwell beneath his feet, but it was too late! Someone grabbed at his feet, yanking his balance out from under him. His body flailed outward, grabbing at nothing but air as his body was propelled by gravity outward and downward. Trace’s shout of fury was drowned out by a cackle of laughter. He recognized the laugh and the danger, but it was too late. He threw the flashlight backward in an attempt to distract his assailant. It connected with a loud thump, but it was too late to help Trace.
He started to shout Honor’s name in warning, but there wasn’t enough time between the thought and the distance to the concrete floor. He hit the bottom step with his shoulder, and the floor with his head. Then he rolled limply on his side as the darkness claimed him before the pain had a chance to register.
Hastings stepped out from under the open stairwell and kicked Trace’s flashlight aside. He rubbed gingerly at the swiftly swelling knot over his right eye and watched in satisfaction as a bright-red stain began pouring onto the sleeve of Trace’s gray sweatshirt. One of his arms was outflung as if trying to break the fall, the other lay under his head where the deep, ugly gash in his forehead was emptying his life onto his shirt and the floor beneath him.
Hastings watched, satisfied that the fall would be mortal, then just to aid the process, kicked him sharply in the rib cage. There was absolutely no reaction, nor indication of life from the big man at his feet. He grunted in satisfaction and began gathering his tools.
“You’ll never threaten me again, you bastard,” Hastings muttered. Now all he had to do was get rid of the bitch upstairs, and he was home free.
He blinked rapidly, trying to clear the vision of the eye that continued to swell. But it was no use. And he didn’t care. He could see well enough with the uninjured one to tell that Trace Logan had just spent his last day on earth.
By the time Hastings had gathered all of his gear, carefully repacked it in the backpack, and stuffed the backpack through the basement window for later retrieval, the house was thoroughly chilled and his eye was swollen shut. He stepped
over Trace’s limp form, started upstairs, and then turned for one last check. He leaned over and ran his fingers along Trace Logan’s neck, smiling at the fluttering, fading pulse. He knew that with a little luck and time on his side, Logan would soon be dead. It was perfect! When Logan’s body was discovered, it would look as if he’d just tripped and fallen, then died from the injuries and exposure.
Satisfied that all was well, he patted his jacket pocket, assuring himself that the gun he’d retained from his backpack was still in place. He had other plans for Miss O’Brien Malone. They’d never find her body. There were caves all over these mountains. He’d seen several on his way up. But his reverie was interrupted by Honor’s voice as she called out Trace’s name.
Hastings looked around wildly, unwilling to be caught down here with her. She was too big for him to remove if he had to do away with her here and he still wanted all of this to look like an accident. He ran quickly up the stairs and shut the door behind him as he silently entered the kitchen. He didn’t want her wandering down where she didn’t belong. His heart raced and his fingers twitched as he pulled the gun from his pocket. One down, one to go.
* * *
Honor slowed down the urge to shout Trace’s name again. She didn’t know why but some instinct told her that silence was imperative. Her hands shook as she reached back blindly, and when she felt the solid strength of the wall behind her, leaned against it and listened.
She knew by the amount of daylight outside that it was way past sunrise. But the sky was still cloudy, promising another dreary day. From her vantage point in the downstairs hallway, Honor could see all of the living room and a portion of the wall that separated it from the kitchen and dining area. Her gaze was focused on the outside view. For some reason, she’d imagined that if there was any danger it would be coming from outside, not inside with her. But when she saw the reflection of the man in the wide expanse of living-room windows and realized that he was already inside the house with her, she panicked. Then when she saw the gun and who was holding it, she had to stifle the moan of fear that slid up her throat. Honor looked around, desperate for an answer to the situation, and took the nearest exit until she had time to think. The patio doors behind her led onto the outside deck. If she could get them open without alerting Hastings, maybe she could use the density of the woods to her advantage. She had to get away and she had to get help. She couldn’t let herself think about why Trace hadn’t come to her rescue.