by Julie Miller
Like forensic archaeologists, Atticus hammered and chipped away at the mortar while Brooke brushed away the dust and concrete bits that held the block in place between layers of century-old stone and modern engineering. Anticipation kicked in, exciting her pulse as inch by inch, a little more of the double-shoe-box-sized limestone block was revealed.
“Here.” Atticus handed her the tools as the stone began to shift inside the cavity they were opening around it.
Brooke dropped the hammer, chisel and brush in the tool box and quickly returned to assist him. “How heavy is it?”
Dust clung to the perspiration on his arms and forehead, and turned the shoulders of his white shirt to ecru. He glanced down at her outstretched hands. “Too heavy for you to catch. Back up.”
Dutifully retreating to the edge of the scaffolding, Brooke twisted her body, mimicking the pushing and tugging of Atticus’s arms as he jimmied the stone loose. “And we—” she heard the clunk of the last bit of mortar giving way “—have—” stone grated against stone “—victory!”
“Yes!” Brooke pumped her fists as the rock slid free from the wall.
“Not bad teamwork, eh? Let’s clean out the hole and make sure there aren’t any little critters or sharp…or, you could just check it out for yourself.”
Only momentarily distracted by the bulge of Atticus’s muscles as he took the full weight of the stone and set it down, Brooke hurried over to the gaping hole. Bracing one hand against the door frame, she stretched up on tiptoe and stuck her arm inside. Grit. Cool stone. Rough concrete. Her fingertips brushed against something softer, small and bulky, in the back corner. “Oh, my gosh. Oh, my gosh!”
“What?” A strong arm snaked around her waist and pulled her away from the wall.
“Yes!” Brooke twisted, wrapping her arms around Atticus’s neck. “We found it!” Between the adrenaline rush and gravity, they teetered over the edge.
“Ah, hell. Hold on.” Atticus closed both arms around her and jumped before they fell.
Landing with a jolt she barely felt, Brooke clutched her prize in her hand and kissed the side of his neck. His skin was warm and salty, the stubble of his beard like the finest of sandpaper against her lips.
Still riding the euphoria of solving the mystery of the journal and falling through the air to land quite safely against Atticus’s solid, unyielding chest, her senses were already intensified. The kiss, chaste in and of itself, rippled like a shock wave through her system, short-circuiting shyness and sensibilities. She dragged her mouth up along the cordings of his neck until her lips found the sharp line of his jaw and changed directions.
“Yes.” She cheered on their success with a throaty whisper. Kissed the point of his chin. “Yes!”
She pressed her lips against his with an instinct so natural that she hardly realized it was a kiss. But something deep inside her knew. Even in her untutored experience she knew she wanted to kiss him again. And again.
Her fingers knew to comb through the trim ebony silk of his hair and guide his mouth to hers. Her body knew to stretch out against him, echoing the friction between his harder mouth and her softer, seeking lips. She took the kiss she wanted. Demanded another. She…
Oh. No.
The adrenaline wore off and reality rushed in, heating her face with embarrassment. Clenching her stomach with regret. Filling her brain with excuses and apologies and the command to run.
In her mindless celebration, she’d literally thrown herself at the man and was kissing the stuffing out of him.
She gave a token swipe to the hair she’d mussed and quickly pulled her hands down. I’m sorry. My fault. Get the words out. Make the awkward moment go away.
But when she tried to step back, his hands locked at her waist. “Don’t stop now.”
Atticus’s words were laced with portent, his eyes with promise. Brooke watched in wide-eyed wonder as he leaned in. With his thumb and forefinger he nudged her chin up. Even when he paused to pull off his gloves and toss them, the focus of those steely eyes never wavered away from her mouth.
“My turn,” he whispered. His fingertips came back to frame her face, angling it back another fraction of an inch as he closed his mouth over hers.
For a moment, Brooke froze in shock. Atticus Kincaid was kissing her! No, he was embracing her, seducing her. And she was… What was she doing? She’d braced her palms against his chest, neither holding on nor pushing away. She was desperately trying to focus on his expression—through her glasses, beneath her glasses—and read his intent.
“Shh.” With the pad of his thumb, he touched the swell of her lower lip, coaxing her mouth to open. She hadn’t said a word, hadn’t made a noise, and yet the calming sound of his voice, the gentling touch of his hand, seemed to reach out to that turbulent place inside her and turn off that internal chaos. “Relax,” he coached. “Let me do this.” He smiled against her lips. “And kiss me back. If you want to.”
She did.
With a deep sigh that cleared away self-conscious second-guessing, Brooke slid her hands up Atticus’s chest and twined them lightly behind his neck. Her mouth opened, her heart expanded, and she melted into him.
“Better.” He moved one hand to the center of her back and pulled her close. The other hand cupped the flare of her hip and aligned them, chest to chest, thigh to thigh. His lips were firm, thorough and achingly patient as he set about exploring each corner and curve of her mouth. “Much better.”
As impulsive and instinctual as those first kisses had been, Brooke now analyzed every nuance of movement—the warm rasp of his tongue sliding across her lips, the way the muscles in his chest hitched when she rubbed against him to ease the tingling friction that made her breasts heavy and her nipples hard. She marveled at every visceral response—the desire to touch her tongue to his, the tightening and unfurling deep inside when he squeezed her bottom and lifted her against the swelling desire behind his zipper. She curled her toes behind his knee and tightened her grip around his shoulders, shamelessly pulling herself closer and begging for the next lesson in passion to be taught.
“Atticus. Att—” Squirming against his solid chest and corded thighs, Brooke felt something hot and liquid swirling up inside her. “More.” She slid her palms against the tickling silk of his short hair. “I want…” She caught his chin lightly between her teeth, loving the salty taste of his skin as much as she liked the tiny sensations of each prickle of beard stubble abrading her lips. “I’ve always wanted…”
She thrust her tongue inside his mouth, sampling the softer, hotter skin there, finding the same pleasure he seemed to find when he’d done the same to her. His answering moan, husky and deep in his throat, washed over her like fuel to a flame. He lifted her higher and she was moving, spinning. His hands roamed, squeezed, heated her skin beneath every touch. And then Brooke felt the hard granite counter beneath her bottom. Atticus’s hands were a flurry of action, as precise as they were swift. He removed her glasses, sifted her hair across her shoulders, parted her thighs and moved between them as he took command of the kiss and began to teach her skill after skill. A nip, a taste. A harder touch, a softer one.
“Much, much better,” he whispered against her lips before claiming them again. He pushed her skirt up past her knees and slid his hands beneath the hem, stroking her all along the length of her thighs. “These are gorgeous, honey. Sexy gorgeous. Don’t hide them from me, okay?”
Brooke nodded, unable to speak, barely able to understand. Sexy? Gorgeous? Had she ever heard those words applied to her before? She committed to memory every delicious sensation—his distinct male scent, musky with exertion and desire, and the deep-pitched rasp of his voice as he whispered against her mouth.
“This is crazy. Completely irrational. You’re Brooke.”
“Yes.”
“You’re Brooke,” he articulated more succinctly, piercing the fog of desire swirling up inside her. He removed his hands from beneath her skirt and brought them up to frame her
face. His chest rose and fell with the same jagged rhythm as her own. He rested his forehead against hers, his silvery eyes dark and drowsy and so close to hers as she tried to make sense of what was happening to her. To them. “We’d better slow this down before your aunts walk in on us.”
“Please?” She skimmed her hands along his arms, her sensitized fingers moving over crisp hair and feverish skin and dusty cotton before retracing their path. Though her mind understood the common sense of what he was saying—that this was too fast, too much—that, in a matter of minutes, they might no longer be alone—she also believed that there was something magical here. Something worth the risk. Something just out of reach that they’d nearly discovered together. She clenched her knees around his hips, her body shamelessly asking for something it had been denied.
“Whoa, honey. Brooke. We need to stop.” Atticus stiffened his arms and stumbled back a step, blurring out of focus.
Chilling rapidly, fully aware and feeling suddenly self-conscious, Brooke pressed her knees together and hugged her arms across her chest. She fumbled with her collar, tucking her necklace inside and straightening the wrinkled cotton. “I’m sorry.” She squinted, struggling to bring the dark-haired blob that was Atticus Kincaid into focus. “I’m not terribly sophisticated about such things, and I know I got carried away. I mean, we were celebrating and then I was—” Oh, Lordy “—climbing…on you. And I—”
“Shh.” A finger pressed against her lips as Atticus snapped into focus. “I’m not complaining.” He placed her glasses in her hand and as she slipped them on, donning her plain-Jane persona again, he smoothed a trio of stray curls away from her face. “I just wasn’t expecting it.”
With her glasses on, she could see the perplexity that deepened the grooves beside his eyes and mouth. He did seem truly baffled by the passion that had flared between them.
Good. She didn’t want to be the only one trying to figure this out. But was it the passion or the woman he’d nearly lost control with that had him thinking so hard to piece together the clues and find answers?
Atticus clasped her waist and lifted her from the countertop. “You’re full of surprises, aren’t you?” Brooke was vaguely aware of her toes touching the planked floor. He quickly released her with a comment that was both flattering and unsettling. “I always heard it was the quiet ones a man had to watch out for. But I never realized they were talking about you.”
“I’m a bit of a danger to you, aren’t I?” She worried her bottom lip with her tongue, surprised to feel it slightly swollen, but even more surprised to see the way his gaze darted to the self-conscious movement. “Did I hurt anything when I knocked us off the platform? I got a little excited.”
“I got a little carried away, too.” Easing a bit more space between them, he smoothed her hair away from her face, framing her jaw and touching his thumb to her sensitized lip. “Don’t worry. I’m a big boy. I can handle myself okay.”
He handled himself—and her—like a pro.
“Now,” he plucked a chip from the tangled strands of her loose hair, “let’s see what you found, detective.”
Still breathless from his kiss and unsure what to say anyway, Brooke simply nodded and opened her hand between them, revealing a dust-coated wad of material. Brooke unwrapped the faded blue cloth until she got to the treasure inside—a tiny red envelope that said Cattlemen’s Bank, with the number 333 handwritten in black marker across the back. “A safe deposit key.”
“Don’t look so disappointed.” Atticus unsnapped the envelope and pulled out the thin key inside. “This is standard issue. There must be a dozen branches of the Cattlemen’s Bank in the Kansas City area. We should be able to track down a location and get permission to open the box it goes to.”
“And then what? Another cryptic clue?” Brooke huffed out a weary sigh, missing the full-body contact and already fretting that that embrace had been a fluke of the moment—something to be treasured but never repeated. Her frustrations spilled over and blended together. “I guess I thought we’d find answers here. Instead, I’ve torn up my house and wasted your time. I wanted to find a lead on the case for you. And for John.”
“You didn’t waste anything.” He closed his hand around her shoulder and gave her a reassuring squeeze. “You gave me something I haven’t had for a long time.”
A wrenched back? An amusing story to tell his friends?
“What’s that?”
“Hope.” He dipped his head, and Brooke actually braced her hand against his chest, thinking he meant to give her one more kiss. But she must have misunderstood his intent because he abruptly pulled away. “Here.” He dropped the key into her palm and curled her fingers around it. “You better hold on to this. I could get into serious trouble with Major Taylor if I show up with potential evidence that I haven’t cleared through Grove and Homicide first. Now, you want me to help you clean up this mess? Or should I drive back to the office and start tracking down the box that goes with that key?”
Though disappointed by the lost kiss, she smiled, anyway. This was about solving John’s murder, not her misreading signals. “What do you think?”
He nodded, moving like a man on a mission as he grabbed his jacket off the back of a stool. “I’ll call you as soon as I find out anything. Tomorrow, after the banks are open, we’ll check it out.”
Drained by the ups and downs of her evening, Brooke led him to the back door. Though he made no mention whatsoever of either kiss, she did like the “we” part of what he was saying. There was hope that the key in her hand was something John Kincaid had left behind for her to find. And there was hope that she and Atticus could continue to work together to uncover the truth about John’s murder.
The air outside was thick and warm on her face when she opened the door. After sweeping up, a cooling shower and spending a little more time with John’s notes sounded like a good plan for the evening.
Atticus hooked his jacket over his shoulder and turned on the deck, urging her back into the house. “Lock this door behind me.”
“I will.”
“And don’t forget to lock the windows.”
“Yes, sir.”
He reached out, stroked his fingers along her jaw. His lips parted, as though he had more directions he wanted to give her. “Such a surprise,” he said instead, before pulling his hand away. “See you in the morning.”
With a nod, Brooke locked the door, then fetched the broom and dustpan out of the utility closet and walked over to the scaffolding to start cleaning up. She was just beginning to formulate the story she’d tell her aunts about the hole in the wall when the telephone rang.
Leaning the broom against the platform, Brooke hurried over to the phone on the kitchen counter and answered. “Hello?” Silence answered. The caller ID didn’t show her anything. Wrong number? Disconnected call? “Hello?”
The mood instantly changed as the silence became breathing. And the breathing became two words. “Pretty lady.”
Familiar, low-pitched laughter increased in volume, drowning out the fear pounding in her ears.
“You’re mine, pretty lady. Don’t forget that. You’re mine.”
Brooke slammed the phone down on its base and ran to her purse to pull out her cell. The heat of the night couldn’t penetrate the chill that worked its way into her bones as she found Atticus’s number and dialed it.
“Detective Kincaid.”
Thank God. Deep. Strong. No-nonsense.
Brooke nearly wept at the sound of his voice. “He was on the phone. Just now. He called.”
Atticus didn’t ask for details. “I’m on my way.”
Brooke shut her phone and hugged her arms tightly around her waist. Should she lock herself in the bathroom until he got here? Turn off the lights so no one could see her inside? Alone?
“Oh, my God.” She looked across the main room to the open windows that had seemed so benign less than an hour ago. Hating how exposed and vulnerable she suddenly felt in the soaring dime
nsions of her own home, Brooke dashed to the windows.
She had barely touched the glass when someone pounded at her back door. Startled by the noise, she screamed.
“Brooke!”
“Atticus? Atticus!” She ran to the door and unlocked it. In one smooth move, he tucked her to his chest, backed her into the kitchen and locked the door behind him. Brooke curled her fingers into the front of his shirt and held on. “How did you get here so fast?”
“I was parked outside, watching the place, waiting for you to lock the damn windows. Are you all right?” He caught her face between his hands and hunched down, looking straight into her eyes, searching hard for answers. “Brooke, are you all right?” he repeated.
When she nodded, he palmed the back of her head and kissed her, firm and fast—some sort of territorial stamp that spoke little of common sense and more of the relief that crowded her thoughts. Switching his grip to her hand, he went to secure the windows and close the shades himself. He kept her right with him as he moved from room to room through the main floor of the house, testing other windows, looking under beds, in closets. He checked the phone and cursed that there was no number, adding that to his list of things to track down tomorrow. Only when he seemed satisfied that all was safe did he sit her on a kitchen stool, pour her a cup of hot coffee and ask her to tell him exactly what happened.
There wasn’t much to tell. “He said…” She clutched the warm mug between her hands and swallowed past the lump of fear in her throat. “He said, ‘You’re mine, pretty lady.’ Warned me never to forget that. And he laughed. Like this is some kind of joke to him. Like I’m some kind of joke.”
“No.” Atticus brushed a tendril of hair from her eyes, but she could barely feel his heat or believe his reassurance.
“I don’t understand why he wants me to be afraid. I don’t understand why he wants me at all.”
“Do you have a sleeping bag?”
She nodded, the abrupt switch in topic startling her from her morbid thoughts. “Why?”
“Because you don’t have a couch. And I’m staying the night.”