“And how have you responded to your unexpected success? By doing everything you can to pretend that nothing’s changed when everyone around you knows it has.” He leaned forward, not touching her. “You’re afraid your success—the fame, the money, the travel—has changed you.”
“Afraid it will change me, maybe. So far it hasn’t.”
His eyes held hers. “Hasn’t it?”
She scowled. “No.”
“I don’t believe you.”
“You didn’t know me before. And you’re not one to talk: I could say you’re up here because you’re afraid to face the results of your helicopter going down in the Gulf of Mexico. Your friend was seriously injured, your reputation tarnished. Better to blame someone else for what happened even when you know you’ve no one to blame but yourself.”
Daniel simply said, “I’m not here to assign blame, I’m here to get answers. If I am responsible, so be it.”
His response surprised her, mainly because he hadn’t told her to go to hell and gotten up and walked out. “You’re not afraid of facing that fact?” she asked.
“Oh, I’m afraid. But I’ll do it.”
She nodded, believing him. “I admire your courage.”
His slate eyes darkened. “It’s not courage: J.D.’ll hold my feet to the fire until I admit I screwed up.” He got to his feet, his mood lightening as if by sheer will. “I’m up for a little dinner. I suggest we go out and really get the gossip mill churning. And don’t say we can eat here. I’ve checked your refrigerator: slim pickings, Ms. Cozie. Course, I could go down to the cellar and catch us a snake for supper.”
“We’ll go out,” Cozie said.
They ate at a popular Mexican restaurant over in Quechee. Daniel muttered about cultural encroachment, but he finally admitted the food was pretty good. They talked Mexican food and all its regional incarnations and worked their way into politics and farming and airline food, skirting the issues that had brought them together on a chilly October night. Although casual and uninhibited in his remarks, Daniel, Cozie felt, remained on edge, alert, wary, as if he expected her to jump up and pluck a bat out of the air at any moment. Or something.
The wind had picked up by the time they left, and Cozie buttoned up her field jacket as they headed to his truck. Being a man who believed in locks, he had to unlock the passenger door for her. “I can feel winter in the air,” she said.
“It’s only October.”
“Exactly.”
Next to her in the truck, she was more aware than ever of his size and strength. He slid his arm across the top of the seat as he looked over his shoulder to back out of their parking space. She watched the muscles in his forearms work as he drove.
When they reached Hawthorne Orchard Road, the wind was howling. “Hope your brother’s holed up in a sheltered spot,” Daniel said. “Should be a rough night.”
“Seth’s used to much worse conditions.” And she added stubbornly, “Besides, he never takes a group out that’s not properly equipped.”
Daniel cast her a look. “I thought we weren’t going to lie to each other.”
“I’m not lying: he never takes a group out—”
“I heard you.” He made a sound of pure disgust. “Has a Hawthorne ever lost an argument?”
She smiled. “Not when we’re right.”
“What are you going to do when Thad Vanackern goes to the police in the morning?”
Cozie felt herself pale, her smile disappear.
“You didn’t know,” Daniel said.
She shook her head.
“Julia stopped by the sawmill this afternoon and said if Seth didn’t come forward by morning, her father would go to the police. I assumed you knew.”
They’d come to her driveway. “You can just drop me off,” Cozie said, abruptly. She had to get out to see Seth, talk sense into him. “I’ll be fine.”
Daniel glanced at her, but she couldn’t gauge his expression in the darkness. But she could feel his intensity. It virtually crackled in the air between them. “I promised Aunt Ethel I wouldn’t let you out of my sight.”
She inhaled. “I don’t need your protection.”
“I know: you, Zep, and your crowbar can ward off any manner of desperado.” He turned up her driveway and parked next to her Jeep. “You’re still not getting rid of me.”
When he climbed out, Cozie didn’t even argue. She had no idea why she was cooperating beyond a growing awareness that arguing with Daniel Foxworth was exhausting and futile when he thought someone’s safety and his precious answers were at stake.
And, she admitted as she followed him into the house, she really didn’t want to be alone. As much as she wanted to see Seth, the wind was howling, the night was dark, and probably no matter what her brother did, the Vanackerns were going to the police in the morning. They had their excuse. They were just waiting so they looked noble, not ones to rush to judgment.
“Heck,” she muttered under her breath, “that’s enough for me.”
But it wasn’t all. She knew it wasn’t. She’d been dealing with howling winds, dark nights, and Vanackerns her whole life—but not a slate-eyed Texan who intrigued her in a thousand different ways.
He set about rekindling the fire in her woodstove, making himself right at home. “Temperature drops fast after dark in this part of the country, doesn’t it?”
She nodded, returning to the back porch to feed Zep. She could hear the wind pushing against the windows, and Daniel at the stove, moving with a steadiness and purpose she’d come to expect of him. When she returned to the back room, the stove was giving off a welcome heat. She thought of Seth alone in the monk hut. Would the police issue a warrant for his arrest? Should she give Daniel the slip and go warn him?
Had anyone ever succeeded in sneaking out on Daniel Foxworth?
There were no messages on her answering machine. She hadn’t heard anything from her caller since morning.
If it was Seth and he hadn’t been able to get to a phone…
She shut her eyes, refusing to finish the thought. How could she even speculate about such a thing? It was disloyal. Crazy.
“I’ll make tea,” she said abruptly.
She went to the kitchen for a teapot and a couple of herbal teabags, not wanting to add any caffeine to her system. She brought them and two mugs to the back room. Daniel could join her or not. He was sitting on the couch, watching her.
“Do you have any other theories about what could have happened to your helicopter? Seth couldn’t have sabotaged it,” she said, “and I have to admit that I can’t imagine you just leaving explosives around to blow up by accident. That kind of recklessness doesn’t seem within your character. Why were people down in Texas so willing to assume you were arrogant and reckless?”
“Because I’m a Foxworth,” he said without bitterness. “We’re known for getting what we want, regardless of the cost. I wanted to get to that fire. Why take the time to check the explosives I had tied down in back, make sure nobody had tampered with them?”
“Could the explosion have been a simple accident—spontaneous combustion or something where no one would be to blame?”
“No. Either I screwed up or someone planted a small explosive device on board.”
“Seth wouldn’t know—”
“He would, Cozie. He’s done a lot of forestry work. He’d know how to attach a timing device to a couple of detonator caps. He might not know the explosion wouldn’t be enough to blow a helicopter to smithereens, but he’d know it’d cause some serious damage in the right place.”
The water in the copper kettle was hot. She poured it over the teabags in the pot, welcoming the warmth of the steam, the spicy scent of the tea. “Couldn’t it have been someone else?”
Daniel was on his feet. “I hope it was,” he said.
He abruptly started up the back stairs. Cozie gestured to him with an empty mug. “Don’t you want any tea?”
“No, thanks. Don’t think I could take herbs
after Mexican food. Think I’ll head on up to a warm bed and a decent book, put this mess out of my mind for a while.” And he added in that voice that curled up her spine, “Good night.”
That was that. No fireworks, no nothing. Cozie poured herself a mug of tea and sat on the couch, groaning inwardly. She could hear him moving around above her. Her awareness of him, the wave after wave of sensual heat inundating her—none of it was going away. Even the sounds of the floorboards creaking seemed sexy to her, overpowering in their intimacy.
What would he do if she turned up the television real loud?
She sighed and called upstairs, “You have everything you need up there?”
“Not quite,” he said.
He didn’t need to elaborate. She knew damned well what he meant. She abandoned her tea and headed for the bathroom and a hot shower. But as she peeled off her clothes and climbed under the hot water, sponged her body with an almond soap, it struck her. She jumped from the shower, pulled on the terry-cloth robe she kept on a hook on the bathroom door, and yelled up at the back room ceiling.
“You sneaky bastard, you’re hoping I’ll take advantage of your being upstairs and go after Seth, so you can follow. You think I know where he is.”
Daniel, naturally, hadn’t gone to sleep. She could easily hear his voice from upstairs. “I know you know where he is.”
She flew up the back stairs, well ahead of her common sense, but it wasn’t until she was standing in front of Daniel’s bed that she consciously realized she’d made a mistake. He had his bedside light on, a book opened on his lap. But his eyes were on her. Her skin was still warm and damp. Her robe had fallen open in her mad dash upstairs.
He started to say something, but she shook her head. “No, don’t. Don’t say a word.”
And she knew what she wanted; it was all suddenly so very clear in her own mind. She slid her robe off her shoulders, let it drop to the floor. Her eyes stayed on his. He remained very still. He was sitting up in bed, a thriller open on his lap. She took it from him and laid it on the bedside table.
“Cozie…”
“It’s okay.” She drew back the covers, climbing in beside him, feeling his skin warm and hard. “Unless you—”
But he’d already turned to her, his mouth seizing hers, and there was no question in her mind, none, that she wasn’t exactly where she wanted to be. A rush of heat inundated her, right to the very center of her.
He pulled her onto him, her hair hanging down her front as she took in the sight of him, felt his masculine body beneath her. She was only marginally surprised by how comfortable she felt, how right. Her body melded with his in all the right spots as she straddled his hips, her wet heat already pressed against him. His hands skimmed slowly up her sides and curved over her breasts, lingering there. She shuddered with a warm, liquid desire.
“I’ve been imagining you here with me,” he murmured.
She ran her fingers through the dark, curling hair on his chest, up along the steely muscles of his shoulders, down his arms. He was tanned and hard everywhere she touched. She noted the scars, big and little, fresh and well healed.
“It’s grueling work, isn’t it,” she said, “doing what you do?”
“Sometimes.”
Her fingers were splayed on his chest as if absorbing through the skin everything about him she desired, as if memorizing the feel of him. Tonight was special. She would remember it.
He slid his palms back down her sides, cupping her bottom, lifting her, moving her against him so erotically, so boldly, she gasped and lowered her mouth to his. But before their tongues joined, he whispered, “I can’t imagine ever not wanting you,” and his words sent a heat pouring through her.
And he tasted her, gently at first, but whatever hunger he had for her, whatever need, rose up from the depths of him, and his tongue explored her mouth with a probing heat matched only by his heavy, swollen, thrusting maleness. Things were going to happen fast between them, she knew. Explosively. Just as she’d imagined.
“I want you, honey.” His breath was coming in ragged gasps. “I want you now.”
She thought she would explode just with the power of his bridled passion. He clutched her bottom, his fingers digging into her buttocks. He lifted her. She felt the tip of his erection in the hot, wet part of her that was pulsing with a longing wilder, more insatiable, than she’d ever known.
He stroked her, slowly, holding back his own need.
A fierce tremble rocked her to her toes even as an erotic tension seized her and refused to let go, moaning as she turned back her climax. He kept stroking, pushing her throbbing heat up and down the hard length of him. Her world was focused there, on her raw, aching desire. Nothing could penetrate it.
He raised her higher, and when he pulled her down again, he was inside her. For a long moment neither moved. Then they couldn’t stop.
“Oh, honey.”
His sandpaper drawl only excited her more. He responded, no longer holding back.
When the shattering spasms came, Cozie felt an overwhelming joy, a whirlwind of emotions that compelled her to look at the man beneath her, to see beyond the physical pleasure he was giving her to the human being he was.
She wanted him a part of her life forever. But it didn’t seem possible. The odds were so stacked against them. She snuggled against his warm shoulder, her tangled hair spilling over his chest.
“Stop thinking, Cozie,” he whispered. “It doesn’t do either of us any good.”
Trust in others, Daniel decided as he pulled on his boots, was not a Hawthorne long suit.
The sky was brightening with the approach of dawn. Cozie had slipped out of bed and tiptoed down to her room, obviously thinking he was still asleep. He’d groggily thought she just wanted to wake up in her own bed. She had things to figure out. So did he.
But he’d been wrong.
Fully awake now, he snatched up a shirt and stepped over her discarded bathrobe, then took the steep back stairs as fast as he dared. She had a good head start on him. Even when he’d heard her slipping downstairs, he’d figured she couldn’t get back to sleep and was just going to put on a pot of coffee and watch the birds.
“Right, bubba,” he muttered, bursting onto the cold back porch. He pulled on his shirt.
She hadn’t made coffee or lit the woodstove or watched the birds. She’d snuck her little butt out the front door. If Zep hadn’t tried to follow her, Daniel would still be oblivious. But she’d had to get her dog back inside, and that was when he’d realized his green-eyed Yankee was up to something. He should have been expecting it.
He stood out on the stone landing and scanned the fields and hills. Dawn was breaking out across the horizon in streaks of lavender and rose and orange, and the air was cold, a heavy frost shrouding the landscape. His breath formed clouds in front of his mouth.
Not a sign of her.
He walked up the slope to the trio of apple trees and stood very still, squinting in the distance, listening. This was her turf. He didn’t even know what direction she’d gone. She was on foot: he knew that much because her Jeep was still parked outside beside his truck.
Definitely he should have clamped an arm over her when she’d sneaked out of bed. She wouldn’t have gone far after that.
He returned to the chilly, empty house and put on a pot of coffee and started the woodstove. He sat near the fire with a mug of coffee and the atlas he’d had out yesterday, hoping something might pop out that hadn’t so far. Wherever Seth Hawthorne was hiding, it was close and Cozie was on her way there. But though she might have gotten the better of him this time, Daniel wasn’t concerned. He was in the house where Hawthornes had been living for two centuries. She’d be back.
Chapter
14
Cozie slowed as she approached the cluster of boulders that marked the entrance to the monk hut. The woods seemed curiously silent. She could hear only her breathing and the cry of a few birds.
“Seth? It’s me, Cozie.�
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No answer.
She wondered if he was asleep and crept horizontally across the steep hill, closer to the opening. Twigs crunched behind her and there was a rustling of the dried leaves underfoot. She immediately assumed Zep had snuck out of the house and started to turn to call him.
But something hard struck her in the middle of her back, pitching her forward, up off her feet over the steep grade of the hill. She came down on her side, jamming her shoulder into the fallen pine needles and leaves, but her momentum kept her going even as she yelled out in pain, shock, and fear. She tumbled and rolled through the undergrowth of ferns, princess pine, oak and evergreen seedlings. She couldn’t grab hold of anything strong enough to stop her. She couldn’t breathe. Sticks and rocks and pine cones bit into her hands and arms even as she tried to protect her face.
An image flashed of her and Meg and Seth rolling down hills in blankets as kids. She’d always gotten dizzy, sick to her stomach.
She plunged sideways into a tree that had fallen vertically up the hill. A half-rotted pine. She could smell it.
It was shifting, rolling back toward her. She couldn’t scoot out of its path fast enough as it lost whatever precarious balance that had been keeping it from crashing to the bottom of the ravine.
“No!”
The thick, rotting trunk slid onto her legs and stopped, having found something else to impede its progress down the hill. Her.
The soft ground and the sharp angle of the hill held some of its weight off her legs. But she couldn’t pull them free. By now her head was pointed downhill. Even if she could manage to budge the tree, it could end up rolling over her chest and face, doing worse damage. She lay still. She needed to catch her breath, think before she acted.
Was whoever had pushed her coming after her?
She heard only her own labored breathing. Her lungs ached. Her head was spinning. Her stomach had turned. She spit dirt and bits of pine needles and leaves from her mouth. Scratches on her arms and hands and one on her face stung.
She shut her eyes, concentrated on her breathing, on not throwing up. Best, she thought, to feign unconsciousness and let the SOB make good his or her escape.
Finding You Page 21