by Nora Roberts
“Don’t get used to it.” Still holding her, he leaned forward to make some adjustments on the control panel.
“Can you teach me how to drive this?”
He slanted her a look. She was here, really here. And his. Forever. “I’m already terrified of the idea of you at the controls of a cruise rider.”
“I’m a quick study.”
“That’s what I’m afraid of.” He drew her back until she was settled in the curve of his arm. “I’m not sure even my world’s ready for you.”
“But you are.”
He kissed her again, gently. “I’ve been ready all my life.”
With a sigh, she teased his mouth until the passion simmered. “I don’t suppose we could put this thing on automatic pilot or whatever.”
“Not at this point.”
“We did make it back, didn’t we?”
He inclined his head toward the screen. “We’ve got a little way to go yet.”
“No, I mean back. What year is it?”
He gestured toward the dials. “2254.”
The enormity of it made her giddy. His arms made her trust. “So that makes me . . . 287 years old.” She cocked a brow. “How do you feel about older women?”
“I’m crazy about them.”
“Remember that when I hit three hundred and things start to sag.” She kissed him lightly. “I plan to frustrate you, annoy you and generally make your life chaos for a long time.”
“I’m counting on it.”
Together they watched the blue-green sphere that was home draw closer.
Epilogue
The sound of crashing waves seemed to fill the room. The clear wall opened the suite to the passion of the lightning-split sky and the boiling sea. The scent of jasmine, rich and sultry, rose on the air. Low, pulsing music echoed over the roar of waves and the violent boom of thunder.
“I was right,” Sunny murmured.
Jacob shifted on the cloud bed to draw her closer. “About what—this time?”
“The storm.” Her body still vibrated from passion just released. “I knew it wasn’t a night for moonlight or tropical sunsets.”
She had been right. But he hated to admit it. “The atmosphere didn’t make that much difference.”
She rolled, all but floated, to lie across him. “Is that why you brought me here? To the place you once described to me?”
“I brought you here for a few days of relaxation.”
“So that’s what you brought me here for. When are we going to relax?” She grinned before she bent down to press kisses on his chest. “See, you’re already tensing up again.”
He skimmed a hand over her hair. “How long have we been married?”
Lazily she touched a button on the side of the bed. The time flashed, the numbers suspended in the air, then blinked off. “Five hours and twenty minutes.”
“I figure we’ll relax in about fifty years.” His hand wandered to her bare shoulder. “Do you like it?”
“Being married?”
“That, too. But I mean this place.”
He was so sweet, she thought, the way he didn’t want her to think he was too sentimental. “I love it, and since we’re newlyweds and allowed to be mushy I’ll tell you that bringing me here was the most romantic thing you’ve ever done.”
“I thought you might prefer Paris, or the Intimacy Resort on Mars.”
“We can always go to Mars,” she said, and giggled. “I’m almost getting used to saying things like that. I told you I was a quick study.”
“You’ve been here six months.”
“You are a tough nut.” She slid down him to rest her cheek on his chest. “Six months,” she repeated. “It took you long enough to marry me.”
“I’d have had it over with in six minutes if you and my father hadn’t gotten together.”
“Over with?” She raised her head, her eyes dangerous. “Income tax reports are things you want to get over with.”
“Income tax reports?” he repeated, blankly.
“I forgot. Unpleasant tasks,” she said. “That’s what you want to get over with. If marrying me was so unpleasant, why did you bother?”
“Because you would have nagged me.” He winced when she pinched him. “Because I thought it was the least I could do.” This time he laughed, rolling onto her as she dug her nails into his arms. “Because you’re gorgeous.”
“Not good enough.”
“And marginally intelligent.”
“Keep trying.”
“Because loving you has scrambled my circuits.”
“I guess that’ll do.” Happy, she linked her arms around his neck. “Maybe it was a lot of fuss and bother, but it was a beautiful wedding. I’m glad your father talked us into something traditional.”
“It was all right, as ceremonies go.” And when he’d seen her start down the aisle on his father’s arm, draped in shimmering white, he’d been struck dumb.
“I like your parents. They’ve made me feel very much at home.” With her tongue in her cheek, she looked at him again. “Especially when they let me in on deep, dark family secrets.”
“Such as?”
“The T in J.T.” When he grimaced, she really began to enjoy herself. “It seems you were so rotten, so undisciplined, so . . .”
“I was just a curious child.”
“. . . so hardheaded,” she continued, without missing a beat, “that your father used to say Trouble was your middle name. And the T stuck. Aptly.”
“You haven’t seen trouble yet.”
She slid up again to nip his lip. “I’m hoping I will.”
After a quick kiss, he slid out of bed.
The silky sheets pooled at her waist as she sat up. “Where do you think you’re going? I haven’t finished with you yet.”
“I forgot something.” He hadn’t forgotten at all. He’d been waiting for the right moment. He adjusted the lights so that they flickered like the flames of a dozen candles. Moments later, he returned with a box. “It’s a gift.”
“Why?”
“Because I’ve never given you one.” He set it in her hands. “Are you going to open it or just stare at it?”
“I was enjoying the moment.” With her tongue caught between her teeth, she opened the box. Inside was a teapot, squat, of cheap china, with a bird on the lid and huge, ugly daisies painted on the bowl. “Oh, God.”
“I wanted you to have something from your time.” He felt a little foolish, not ready to admit that he had spent months scouring antique shops. “When I saw this, it was . . . well, like fate. Don’t cry.”
“I have to.” She sniffled, then raised her drenched eyes to his. “It survived. All this time.”
“The best things do.”
“Jacob.” She made a helpless gesture, then hugged the pot. “There’s nothing you could have given me that would have meant more.”
“There’s something else.” He sat beside her. After taking the teapot, he set it aside. “Would you like to see your family for Christmas?”
For a moment, she couldn’t speak. “Are you sure?”
“I’m nearly there, Sunbeam.” He brushed away a tear, let it shimmer on his fingertip. “Just trust me a little while longer.”
Fighting tears, she put her arms around him. “Take all the time you need. We’ve got forever.”
Keep reading for a special excerpt from the newest novel by J.D. Robb
CALCULATED IN DEATH
Available February 2013 in hardcover from G.P. Putnam’s Sons
A killer wind hurled bitter November air, toothy little knives to gnaw at the bones. She’d forgotten her gloves, but that was just as well as she’d have ruined yet another overpriced pair once she’d sealed up.
For now, Lieutenant Eve Dallas stuck her frozen hands in the warm pockets of her coat and looked down at death.
The woman lay at the bottom of the short stairway leading down to what appeared to be a lower-level apartment. From the angle of the head, E
ve didn’t need the medical examiner to tell her the neck was broken.
Eve judged her as middle forties. Not wearing a coat, Eve mused, though the vicious wind wouldn’t trouble her now. Dressed for business—suit jacket, turtleneck, pants, good boots with low heels. Probably fashionable, but Eve would leave that call to her partner when Detective Peabody arrived on scene.
No jewelry, at least not visible. Not even a wrist unit.
No handbag, no briefcase or file bag.
No litter, no graffiti in the stairwell. Nothing but the body, slumped against the wall.
At length she turned to the uniformed officer who’d responded to the 911. “What’s the story?”
“The call came in at two-twelve. My partner and I were only two blocks away, hitting a twenty-four/seven. We arrived at two-fourteen. The owner of the unit, Bradley Whitestone, and an Alva Moonie were on the sidewalk. Whitestone stated they hadn’t entered the unit, which is being rehabbed—and is unoccupied. They found the body when he brought Moonie to see the apartment.”
“At two in the morning.”
“Yes, sir. They stated they’d been out this evening, dinner, then a bar. They’d had a few, Lieutenant.”
“Okay.”
“My partner has them in the car.”
“I’ll talk to them later.”
“We determined the victim was deceased. No ID on her. No bag, no jewelry, no coat. Pretty clear her neck’s broken. Visually, there’s some other marks on her—bruised cheek, split lip. Looks like a mugging gone south. But . . .” The uniform flushed slightly. “It doesn’t feel like it.”
Interested, Eve gave a go-ahead nod. “Because?”
“It sure wasn’t a snatch and run, figuring the coat. That takes a little time. And if she fell or got pushed down the stairs, why is she over against the side there instead of at the bottom of the steps? Out of sight from the sidewalk. It feels more like a dump, sir.”
“Are you angling for a slot in Homicide, Officer Turney?”
“No disrespect intended, Lieutenant.”
“None taken. She could’ve taken a bad fall down the steps, landed wrong, broke her neck. Mugger goes down after her, hauls her over out of sight, takes the coat, and the rest.”
“Yes, sir.”
“It doesn’t feel like it. But we need more than how it feels. Stand by, Officer. Detective Peabody’s on route.” As she spoke, Eve opened her field kit, took out her Seal-It.
She coated her hands, her boots as she surveyed the area.
This sector of New York’s East Side held quiet—at least at this hour. Most apartment windows and storefronts were dark, businesses closed, even the bars. There would be some after-hours establishments still rolling, but not close enough for witnesses.
They’d do a canvass, but odds were slim someone would pop out who’d seen what happened here. Add in the bitter cold, as 2060 seemed determined to go out clinging with its icy fingers, most people would be tucked up inside, in the warm.
Just as she’d been, curled up against Roarke, before the call.
That’s what you get for being a cop, she thought, or in Roarke’s case, for marrying one.
Sealed, she went down the stairs, studied the door to the unit first, then moved in to crouch beside the body.
Yeah, middle forties, light brown hair clipped back from her face. A little bruising on the right cheekbone, some dried blood on the split lip. Both ears pierced, so if she’d been wearing earrings, the killer had taken the time to remove them rather than rip them off.
Lifting the hand, Eve noted abraded flesh on the heel. Like a rug burn, she mused before she pressed the right thumb to her ID pad.
Dickenson, Marta, she read. Mixed-race female, age forty-six. Married Dickenson, Denzel, two offspring, and an Upper East Side address. Employed: Brewer, Kyle, and Martini, an accounting firm with an office eight blocks away.
As she took out her gauges, her short brown hair fluttered in the wind. She hadn’t thought to yank on a hat. Her eyes, nearly the same gilded brown as her hair, remained cool and flat. She didn’t think about the husband, the kids, the friends, the family—not yet. She thought of the body, the position, the area, the time of death—twenty-two-fifty.
What were you doing, Marta, blocks from work, from home on a frigid November night?
She shined her light over the pants, noted traces of blue fiber on the black cloth. Carefully, she tweezed off two, bagged them, marked the pants for the sweepers.
She heard Peabody’s voice over her head, and the uniform’s answer. Eve straightened. Her leather coat billowed at the hem around her long, lean frame as she turned to watch Peabody—or what she could see of her partner—clomp down the steps.
Peabody had thought of a hat, had remembered her gloves. The pink—Jesus, pink—ski hat with its sassy little pom-pom covered her dark hair and the top of her face right down to the eyes. A multicolored scarf wound around and around just above the plum-colored puffy coat. The hat matched the pink cowboy boots Eve had begun to suspect Peabody wore even in bed.
“How can you walk with all that on?”
“I hiked to the subway, then from the subway, but I stayed warm. Jeez.” One quick gleam of sympathy flicked across Peabody’s face. “She doesn’t even have a coat.”
“She’s not complaining. Marta Dickenson,” Eve began, and gave Peabody the salients.
“It’s a ways from her office and her place. Maybe she was walking from one to the other, but why wouldn’t she take the subway, especially on a night like this?”
“That’s a question. This unit’s being rehabbed. It’s empty. That’s handy, isn’t it? The way she’s in the corner there? She shouldn’t have been spotted until morning.”
“Why would a mugger care when?”
“That’s another question. Following that would be, if he did, how’d he know this unit’s unoccupied?”
“Lives in the area? Is part of the rehab crew?”
“Maybe. I want a look inside, but we’ll talk to the nine-one-one callers first. Go ahead and notify the ME.”
“The sweepers?”
“Not yet.”
Eve climbed the stairs, walked to the black-and-white. Even as she signaled to the cop inside, a man pushed out of the back.
“Are you in charge?” Words tumbled over each other in a rush of nerves.
“Lieutenant Dallas. Mr. Whitestone?”
“Yes, I—”
“You notified the police.”
“Yes. Yes, as soon as we found the—her. She was . . . we were—”
“You own this unit?”
“Yes.” A sharply attractive man in his early thirties, he took a long breath, expelling it in a chilly fog. When he spoke again, his voice leveled, his words slowed. “Actually, my partners and I own the building. There are eight units—third and fourth floors.” His gaze tracked up. No hat for him either, Eve mused, but a wool topcoat in city black and a black and red striped scarf.
“I own the lower unit outright,” he continued. “We’re rehabbing so we can move our business here first and second floors.”
“Which is what? Your business?”
“We’re financial consultants. The WIN Group. Whitestone, Ingersol, and Newton. W-I-N.”
“Got it.”
“I’ll live in the downstairs unit, or that was the plan. I don’t—”
“Why don’t you run me through your evening,” Eve suggested.
“Brad?”
“Stay in the car where it’s warm, Alva.”
“I can’t sit anymore.” The woman who slid out was blonde and sleek and tucked into some kind of animal fur and thigh-high leather boots with high skinny heels. She hooked her arm through Whitestone’s arm.
They looked like a set, Eve thought. Both pretty, well-dressed, and showing signs of shock.
“Lieutenant Dallas.” Alva held out a hand. “You don’t remember me?”
“No.”
“We met for five seconds at the Big Apple Gala last
spring. I’m one of the committee chairs. Doesn’t matter,” she said with a shake of her head as the wind streamed through her yard of hair. “This is horrible. That poor woman. They even took her coat. I don’t know why that bothers me so much, but it seems cruel.”
“Did either of you touch the body?”
“No.” Whitestone took over. “We had dinner, then we went for drinks. At the Key Club, just a couple blocks down. I was telling Alva what we’ve been doing here, and she was interested, so we walked over so I could give her a tour. My place is nearly done, so . . . I was getting out my key, about to plug in the code when Alva screamed. I didn’t even see her, Lieutenant, the woman. I didn’t even see her, not until Alva screamed.”
“She was back in the corner,” Alva said. “At first, even when I screamed I thought she was a sidewalk sleeper. I didn’t realize . . . then I did. We did.”
She leaned into Whitestone when he put an arm around her waist. “We didn’t touch her,” Whitestone said. “I stepped over, closer, but I could see . . . I could tell she was dead.”
“Brad wanted me to go inside, where it’s warm, but I couldn’t. I couldn’t wait inside knowing she was out there, in the cold. The police came so fast.”
“Mr. Whitestone, I’m going to want a list of your partners, and of the people working on the building.”
“Of course.”
“If you’d give that and your contact information to my partner, you can go home. We’ll be in touch.”
“We can go?” Alva asked her.
“For now. I’d like your permission to go inside the unit, the building.”
“Sure. Anything you need. I have keys and codes,” he began.
“I’ve got a master. If there’s any trouble, I’ll let you know.”
“Lieutenant?” Alva called her again as Eve turned to go. “When I met you, before, I thought what you did was glamorous. In a way. Like the Icove case, and how it’s going to be a major vid. It seemed exciting. But it’s not.” Alva’s gaze swept back toward the stairs. “It’s hard and it’s sad.”
“It’s the job,” Eve said simply, and walked back toward the steps. “We’ll wait to canvass until morning,” she told Officer Turney. “Nobody’s going to tell us much if we wake them up at this hour. The building’s vacant, not just the unit. See that the wits get where they need to go. What’s your house, Turney?”