Slow Burn

by Heather Graham

  She should just shut up. But she couldn’t. “What do you do these days?” she asked him. “When you’re not following someone like a bloodhound.”

  He shrugged. “It depends.”

  “On what?”

  “Who I’m with.”

  She sipped her coffee, trying not to blink. He leaned toward her suddenly to be sure she could hear him over the music.

  “Why don’t you just come right out and ask me about my sex life, Spencer?”

  She managed not to exhibit a single spark of reaction. “I do have the right to be just a bit concerned.”

  “Oh?”

  She felt her cheeks reddening despite her best effort to stay cool. “We weren’t exactly careful when we…” Oh, come on, Spencer! she silently taunted herself. She was a big girl now. But she couldn’t seem to find quite the way to describe what they had done. “Made love” sounded nice, but somehow it didn’t quite fit the bill. Cruder words might fit, but she didn’t feel like spitting them out, either. Or maybe she did.

  In the end, no words came at all.

  He stared at her for a long moment without replying, but he didn’t need to hear more, and finally he said, “You don’t need to worry about disease, Spencer. You done yet?”

  “What?”

  “Are you done with your dinner? I’ve got a headache, and I’m tired of shouting.”

  “Well you could have woken me so I could have dinner on the plane.”

  “With the mood you were in? I don’t think so, Mrs. Huntington. And you could have chosen another place to eat this particular evening.”

  She arched a brow. “You don’t love rock ‘n’ roll anymore?”

  “Sure I do. Just not tonight. Can we get the check and go?”

  The check had come already. Spencer had slipped it beneath her plate. Now she pulled it out to read it.

  “Give me the damned check.”

  “Why?”

  “Because I’m a chauvinist or whatever else you want to call me. Just give me the damned thing!”

  Surprising herself, she did. They exited the restaurant in silence. By the time the valet brought the car, it was nearly midnight.

  “You know, I am the one who knows the way,” Spencer said.

  “Get in the car, Spencer. Please!” The last was added as she glared at him. She climbed in.

  The Friday-night traffic was thin. Spencer sat tensely for the first part of the drive; then her eyes began to close. Finally she leaned her head back and dozed.

  The next thing she knew, she was being shaken awake. She opened her eyes to find herself lying on David’s lap. She was comfortable there. A fleeting heartbeat of nostalgia assailed her. Yes, she was comfortable with the scent of him, the feel of him, the texture of his trousers. The hardness of him.

  She sat up quickly, blinking.

  They were at the gate to her parents’ home, not far from the mansions that were open to the public, the Breakers, Rosewood and the others. She supposed that her parents’ home might well rank among the most beautiful in the area. It had been built in 1900 and enhanced ever since. It was absurdly large for two people, but until the snows fell each year, her parents lived here alone, except for their staff.

  “This it?” David asked.

  She nodded. “How did you know?” She was still half-asleep. Disoriented.

  “Sly gave me the address. Not that you can really find an address around here. I asked at the gas station down the street for the Montgomery house.”

  “Oh.”

  “How do you get in—without getting arrested?”

  She flipped her straying hair from her face and pointed to a call box. “Hit the button.”

  “It’s pretty late.”

  “My mom is a night owl.”

  He didn’t comment but hit the button. Spencer had to lean over him to talk.

  “Yes?” a cautious, masculine voice said.

  “Henri, it’s Spencer. Can you open the gates, please?”

  “Yes, Mrs. Huntington. Right away.”

  David looked questioningly at her. “Henri?”

  “The butler.”

  “And he’s a night owl, too?”

  “Probably not. But he’s very well paid.” The gates slid open. “Let’s go,” Spencer said.

  They drove along a winding lane. The house sat on an acre, with ten thousand square feet of living space. There were massive Greek columns in the front, and a huge bricked drive. David stopped in front of the columns. “We may need a few hundred more people to keep an eye on you in this place.”

  She cast him a malicious glare. “Right. The butler might attack me.”

  “Could be. I don’t know the butler. What do you think?”

  “I think Sly is wasting his money.”

  David ignored that. “What do I do with the car?”

  “Leave it. The chauffeur will take care of it in the morning.”

  The foyer was several hundred feet square, David thought, entering. The chandelier above his head was probably worth enough to feed half the homeless in Dade County for a year. To the left stretched a huge ballroom, to his right, a library larger than several of the public libraries he had been in.

  Dead center was a marble and wrought-iron stairway that curved elegantly to a balconied second story. They were barely through the front door before Spencer’s mother, in a flowing negligee and matching robe, made her appearance, her husband, in a velvet smoking jacket, following right behind. David felt as if he had stepped into a prime-time soap opera.

  “Spencer!” Mary Louise Montgomery threw her arms around her daughter, delighted to greet her. Then she looked over Spencer’s shoulder and saw him standing there in the foyer, waiting.

  “David!” she gasped, and her tone was quite different, though she struggled valiantly to retain some semblance of a smile.

  He’d seen Spencer’s parent’s at Danny’s funeral, of course. They had all been polite and cordial to one another—what else could people do when they were burying a guy like Danny? And when they had to consider Spencer’s grief.

  But now…

  Mary Louise kept struggling with her composure, pulling away from her daughter to look at him. “Spencer, you’ve—you’ve brought David with you.”

  “Not on purpose, Mrs. Montgomery,” David said, stepping in with their overnight bags. “I’m on guard duty,” he said flatly.

  “What’s he talking about?” Joe Montgomery demanded, stepping forward. He pulled Spencer from his wife’s hold, giving her a long hug but staring at David over her shoulder.

  “Nothing, Dad.”

  Spencer swung around and stared hard at David. He shrugged, his look clearly telling her that he’d assumed she would rather have her parents know that Sly considered her to be in danger, rather than let them think she had brought him along for a fun weekend.

  “David, what’s going on, please?” Joe asked in a low voice.

  David shrugged again, a little sorry for his rashness. He didn’t particularly like or respect Joe Montgomery, but there was a lot of Sly in the man, especially the way he looked, tall, dignified, lean. David didn’t think it was so much Joe who held the grudge against him. Spencer’s mother had simply decided that David wasn’t right for Spencer, and Joe had just gone along with what she thought was best for their only child.

  “Nothing much, really. Sly is a little concerned because a few things seem to be heating up in the investigation into Danny’s death. He asked me to keep an eye on Spencer.”

  “Even here?” Spencer’s mother demanded a little indignantly.

  “Sly is a cautious man.”

  “You know,” Spencer cut in, “it’s really very late. I’m absolutely certain there’s a guest room available for David, and I’m exhausted. We can talk all this out in the morning. I’m going to bed.”

  She walked to the door, taking her small case from David’s hands. “Thanks,” she said briskly, and started for the marble stairs.

  She could feel thre
e pairs of eyes boring into her. No, four. Henri had appeared silently, magically—in a robe not much less elegant than her father’s—to see to David’s comfort. She gave him a wave. “Hi, Henri!”

  “Welcome back, Mrs. Huntington.”

  “Thanks.”

  Spencer kept on walking. Let them stand there staring all night.

  But that wasn’t what happened.

  “Join me for a brandy, David?” she heard her father ask. “Henri can take your things, and I’ll show you the guest room when we go up.”

  “I…sure,” David replied.

  “Perhaps I should have something,” Mary Louise began.

  “No, perhaps you should go on up. I’ll be along soon,” Joe countered.

  Spencer, past the landing, turned back, unable to resist looking over the balcony to the scene below.

  Her mother was stunned, but her father looked very determined. Mary Louise allowed a hand to flutter to her throat, and her voice was totally disapproving. “Well, I suppose…”

  Spencer sympathized with her mother. She was dying to know what the two men were going to say to one another. She was almost ready to go running downstairs, demanding admittance to their private meeting.

  Unfortunately, she was certain she would be just as firmly rebuffed as her mother had been. And she was tired. Exhausted. If she didn’t lie down soon, she would fall down. She was dead tired.

  Dead…

  What an awful word to use. She shivered fiercely and hurried along the hallway to her room.

  It was always ready for her. It had hardly changed from when she’d been a little girl and had come here for the summers. It fit her much better now, for it had never been much of a little girl’s room. The draperies were a golden damask, and the canopy over the cherrywood bed was the same, as was the comforter. The floors were hardwood, covered by a plush Persian carpet. The wrought-iron radiators that remained despite the conversion to forced-hot-water heat were painted a soft beige. The walls were paneled to a point, then the sunburst wallpaper rose to the moldings that rimmed the ceiling. It was a handsome room, an attractive room, done many years ago by a talented interior designer. Spencer didn’t dislike it. But she felt there was little or nothing of herself here. The only thing she really liked was the bathroom, with its old fixtures and huge claw-footed tub. And she liked the balcony as well; it overlooked the rose gardens and the pool, which was kept heated year-round for those very few occasions when someone might actually go in it.

  She dropped her bag at the foot of her bed and walked out of the balcony. She could smell the roses in the garden as she looked out over the pool. The balcony stretched across the rear of the house, but she might have been absolutely alone in the world, the night was so silent. She stepped in, showered quickly and went to bed, certain that she was so exhausted she would fall asleep quickly.

  She didn’t.

  Instead she closed her eyes and remembered the night David had been arrested.

  His eyes. She would always remember the way he had looked at her. She had felt chilled straight through the heart. She had tried to run down and find out what was going on, but her father had been on the stairway, catching her. She had fought him wildly, hysterically, and he had sounded as innocent as a man could be. By the time she’d managed to fight her way past him, David and the police car were gone. Her mother had been implacable. Of course she would never have called the police if she had realized it was David, but then, it was important for David to learn that trespassing was illegal, and so was trying to break windows.

  It had been the worst night of Spencer’s life. No amount of arguing had been able to move her mother. And she had told both her parents that she never wanted to see them again.

  That had made it easy to leave the next day when David had walked out on her.

  She trembled again just to remember it after so much time, so much life and death, had come between them. He’d been her life, and he’d walked away. She’d defended her parents, but she’d hated them then. It had been years before she’d managed to forgive them; she hadn’t even come home from school for holidays at first. In fact, if it hadn’t been for Sly, she might never have forgiven them, or herself; she had simply been too hurt that the people she loved could have betrayed her so deeply.

  It was so long ago. And she had gotten past it. Married Danny, been happy with Danny. But now…

  Now she was struggling again. It was so easy to feel close to David again. To feel as if the memories of their relationship could come rushing in and cause her marriage to fade to the far recesses of her mind. She bit her lip lightly and admitted that she had never fallen out of love with David. That didn’t mean that she hadn’t loved Danny, because she had. But maybe not as she should have. Still, there were moments when the guilt began to fade, and then she would feel guilty all over again for not feeling guilty enough. But despite the guilt there were moments when she forgot everything and simply wanted David. But they were older now, leading new lives. And she didn’t dare feel too deeply until…

  Until Danny’s memory could rest with his soul. And then, maybe…

  Her eyes flew open. She heard something. A creak, a whisper. She stared at the French doors that led to the balcony. Moving across the filmy gauze curtains floating on the breeze, she saw a shadow.

  Her heart leaped to her throat. Sly had never convinced her that someone was trying to kill her. But the shadow seemed so menacing, looming in the moonlight, growing larger as it moved closer to the doors.

  She bounded out of bed. Streaked across the room and froze against the wall beside the French doors.

  One began to move slowly inward. She should have screamed, but she was afraid to. There was a large Lladro figurine on her dressing table. She snatched up the porcelain statue as the shadow moved into the room. She raised her weapon and started to bring it down. The shadow spun. An arm deflected her blow, and a palm flattened over her mouth when a scream at last promised to burst from her throat.

  “Spencer, they arrested me for throwing pebbles! They’ll have me on death row for breaking into your bedroom.”

  “David!” she gasped, pulling free from his grasp. “You son of a bitch! You scared me half to death! Why didn’t you just knock?”

  “I didn’t want to wake you. I just wanted to make sure you were all right.”

  She set the Lladro figurine on the dresser, trembling, her heart beating way too quickly again. He was a damned good-looking shadow. He’d showered and he was in jeans and nothing else. She loved the clean scent of his flesh. For a moment she was tempted to throw herself at him, to tell him that she was scared and needed him to stay the night beside her. She wanted to feel the living warmth of his flesh, wanted to feel hot again, so hungry that the world was forgotten.

  What would he say? That they would wake to a firing squad? But that wouldn’t really matter to him. He didn’t give a damn what her parents thought; he’d learned the hard way that self-respect was the most important thing.

  She closed her eyes, feeling slightly sick, ashamed of herself for how quickly she was able to forget that she had loved Danny. How quickly everything could fade away, the past and the future, when she got too close to David. An aching was all that remained, a longing. And then…

  The pain was something she would only remember later.

  Danny had been one of the world’s most wonderful guys. And she had loved him. She had really loved him.

  But once she had loved David, too.

  And if he touched her again, just touched her…

  But he didn’t. He turned, heading for the French doors. “Amazingly,” he said, an ironic tone in his voice, “I’m just the next room over. They seem to trust me as a watchdog. If the littlest thing happens, scream. I’ll leave my door open.”

  “Nothing is going to happen here,” she said.

  “Why not?”

  “Has anything happened since the incident in the cemetery? And if I was in danger then, it was my own fault. As you a
nd a number of others have been so willing to point out.”

  “Spencer, be a good kid and behave, huh?”

  “Nothing is going to happen. Not here. We’re a million miles from home.”

  “Yeah, well, I hope so.” He hesitated. “Maybe you should move up here for a while—”

  “And maybe not!” she said indignantly.

  “You were quick to run away.”

  “I didn’t run away.”

  “Yes, you did. You’ve always run, and run fast. But this time it might not be such a bad idea.”

  “David, I came for the weekend. That’s all.”

  He shrugged. “Well, it’s late. We can argue it out tomorrow.”

  He started to walk away, but she called him back. “David!”

  “Yeah?”

  “What did my father want?”

  “A private conversation with me.”

  She set her jaw and repeated evenly, “What did my father want?”

  David hesitated for a second. “He apologized. He said he was sorry for having me arrested all those years ago.”

  The breeze rustled; the gauze curtains rose and fell.

  “And what did you tell him?”

  “That it was a long time ago. And it didn’t matter anymore. Good night, Spencer.”

  He paused, watching her for a moment. Then he disappeared and she lay there awake, thinking of him.

  Sleeping in the next room.

  So very close.

  She dozed, and she remembered….

  She awoke with a start, sat up, shivered. Groaned. Tried to sleep again.

  It was a long night.

  When she woke the next morning she found the rest of the household already up, having breakfast on the porch. The day was cool, but the sun was strong; it was a perfect morning to sit outside and feel the breeze and the touch of heat. David had a cup of coffee in hand. He wasn’t exactly sitting at the table with her parents like a long-lost friend, but at least he was there, drinking coffee as he looked out over the expansive lawn.