by Emma Accola
“You were married,” I whispered.
He dropped his hands away. “And you were engaged. My marriage had become two people separately walking on the same road toward no destination in particular. That’s what my ex called it. And you, my lovely Gracie, were so far away from me that you might as well have been on Mars. I stared at Leonardo one night and wondered over and over again what he had that I didn’t, even though I knew you two had history and had met as college freshmen. When I finally got your attention and your eyes were on me, it felt as if every moment we spent together, on campus and at your winery, was a gift. I never hoped to be able to take you to dinner, to have you in my living room drinking wine, or in my kitchen in the morning watching you put three cubes of sugar in your tea.”
His candor left me weak. “I’m an idea to you?”
He chuckled. “No, my sweet darling, you’re an idea to Harry Spice. He wants a beautiful, accomplished woman from a Napa Valley winemaking dynasty so he can add you to his list of accomplishments. I want the heart and soul of a real flesh-and-blood woman.”
“You don’t even know me.”
“Then stay here in my home and in my sight and in my life so that I can get to know you.” He pulled me against him. His eyes were burning and blue. “Don’t leave.”
At that moment I knew he was speaking the truth. It made me squirm because I wanted him so much. “If I stay, I want us to be with each other in all ways, and that means—well, you know.”
“What do I know?” he asked, looking puzzled.
“That means I don’t want to be in your guest room.” I blushed. “Last night I could hardly sleep knowing you were all warm and cozy on the other side of the wall. I wanted to come into your bed so badly I thought I would have to climb out of my own skin.”
“And you didn’t think to open my bedroom door and come in?”
“I didn’t want to be intrusive,” I said primly, but mostly I didn’t do it because I didn’t want to risk what I would feel if he turned me away. “Every nerve and muscle in my body was burning up with wanting you. I almost had to leave the house.”
“You did leave the house. I heard you on the patio.”
My hands went from his chest up into his hair. I pulled him toward me so I could kiss him. When I talked, my lips tickled his. Every word was laced with wanting him. “Are we going to stay in the garage or can we go inside?”
Micah laughed as he hit the button to lower the garage door.
CHAPTER EIGHT
When I woke up, the sun was coming in around the edges of the shades. Micah’s side of the bed was rumpled and empty. His clothes and mine lay mingled together on the floor and over a chair. The bitter smell of coffee wafted up from the kitchen. Alone and naked in his bed, I thought about our hot and wild night and how the dim light of the bedroom had shone on his torso. My fingers had traced the ripples in his abdominal muscles. Who knew such a six-pack lay hidden under the suits, shirts, and ties he liked to wear? I had lain with my head on his chest, my fingers playing on his stomach, my leg wrapped around his. He had caressed my hair as he talked until I fell asleep.
Yeah, I had fallen asleep. For the first time in weeks I had felt utterly and totally content and relaxed. That combined with the warm bed and the hot man had been too much for me. I wondered if Micah would think I was no better than a dog, dropping off into slumber once my appetite was sated. Quietly I got out of bed and went to the guest room to find a robe. Some hot tea and toast with cinnamon and sugar sounded good right now.
In the kitchen Micah sat at the table reading something on his tablet computer. He had a mug of coffee at his elbow and some toast on a little plate. He scratched his chin and turned to me.
“Did you sleep well?” he asked, his lip twitching with a smile.
“You know I did.” I sat on his lap. The heat of his thighs burned through the thin fabric of his sleep pants. “You made sure of it.”
“I try to be a good host. I like my guests to feel welcome.”
“Do you oblige them in every way?”
“Only the ones who have visited my dreams every night since I met them.”
I smiled. “Have you met so many women like that?”
Micah cupped my chin. “I only need one.”
As I sat on Micah’s lap, I thought how different my experience was with him as compared to Leonardo. Sex with Leonardo had felt perfunctory, something that happened at the end of every Saturday night date, a sort of closure, like the period at the end of the sentence. He had rarely stayed the night, claiming that Tamra smirked at him in the morning, making him uncomfortable. Actually, I had been surprised that he had been perceptive enough to correctly read Tamra’s reaction. Several times she had joked openly to me, asking what sex was like with him. “Wham, bam, thank you, ma’am?” she had asked me once. I had laughed at her question like it was the most hilarious joke ever, but her characterization was dead on. The walls in the apartment had been too thin.
Since Leonardo had been my only lover, I had no basis for comparison other than what I had seen in the movies or read in novels. Once I had tried to talk to him about our sex life, but his response had been sharp, stinging, like a wasp. Vicious words, they left me red-faced and wounded. Each syllable had torn away my skin, leaving me feeling like a critical, demanding, ungrateful slut. We hardy spoke for days afterwards. Then he came to me bearing flowers and asked me what I wanted. The lines of Leonardo’s face had been filled with challenge when he asked the question. At that time, I hadn’t known how to ask for what I needed because I didn’t have words for what it was. The subject went away, forever settled between us.
I pushed the memory to the far corners of my mind and put my hands on the sides of Micah’s face. This morning, with his mussed hair and baseball tee shirt, he looked young and carefree, more like a teenager than a man in his late twenties. “Last night for the first time in my life I wanted to purr like a kitten.”
“You did purr,” Micah replied. “I heard you.”
“Did you take that as a ringing endorsement of your sexual prowess?”
“What man wouldn’t?”
I leaned in, as if to kiss him, but instead I took a long drink from his coffee. “I’m going to make myself some tea.” Then I let my lips brush over his.
I got up and filled the electric kettle with hot water. Micah stared intently into his tablet computer, scrolling through his emails, while I readied a mug and a tea bag. He raked his fingers through his hair as the corners of his mouth tightened the way people do when they have something difficult to say.
“What is it?” I asked.
“I just got an email from Sludge. It’s Harry Spice. I know what he’s going to do next.”
My heart fluttered. “What?”
“That reporter from the campus paper has finished her article about you.” Micah swore. His jaw became tight. “Sludge hacked into the campus computers and sent me a draft. It’s right here. It’s all here.”
“Tell me about it,” I said hoarsely, my tea forgotten.
“That student, Elina, has put in her article your entire history and connection to Tamra and the Harry Spice case. She quotes what she calls a confidential source who says that what happened to Harry Spice was a miscarriage of justice perpetrated by you because you wanted attention and accolades. She implies that you accused Harry Spice of rape out of jealousy because he spurned you. She’s questioning the judgment of the college’s administration for keeping you on the faculty after Mariah Park’s and Lucie Eagan’s disappearances and Loren Hernandez’s hit-and-run death. She quotes Loren’s mother about having Loren’s statement accusing you of sexual harassment. Elina also knows about the allegations of plagiarism, something that shouldn’t have gotten out of your dean’s office. And of course, she mentions the emails sent by my student help and insinuates that I fired those students to assuage your jealousy.”
“Is that all?” I asked, my tone sarcastic.
“No. She has written about
how Gary put you out of his townhouse and office due to moral turpitude and that you’re now living with me,” Micah said as he stared moodily out the window for a moment. “There’s even a statement she claims to be from a family member who asked not to be named. This person says that you’re in their prayers and they hope that you get the treatment you need for your substance abuse.”
Suddenly I wanted to cry. Micah’s mouth became a thin, disapproving line, his eyes flinty. The man I had made love to last night had disappeared. The delicious man, once so candy sweet, looked as forbidding as a shark. He leaned back in the chair, giving me a cold, harsh appraisal.
“Did you talk to someone in your family recently?”
I swallowed hard. “Just Glen. I needed to talk to someone from my family.”
“Glen doesn’t work for the winery.”
I tensed. “He never had an interest in making it his career.”
“Oh, is that why?”
Annoyance sharpened my voice. “We fell out when I put in the canning operation. We have since made up.”
Micah didn’t look like he believed me. “Can he be trusted not to sell you out to Harry Spice?”
“Is that one of your twenty questions?”
Micah’s voice sharpened. “Yes.”
“He’s my brother.”
“Somebody close to you is feeding information to Harry Spice.”
I looked down at the tea bag that floated in my mug. “Not Glen. He believed me when I told him that I had never slept with Damien. He knew I wouldn’t do that to my sister.”
“The question is whether he would sell information to Harry Spice if he needed the money.”
My family loyalty reared up fiercely. “He has a job. Besides, I’ve met Elina, and I wouldn’t put it past her to have made up this so-called family source.”
Micah’s expression of skepticism pulled at the weak side of me. I wanted to scream at him not to blame my beloved brother for what had been leaked to the student reporter. My entire body started humming with stress. Glen was the last person in my family who still accepted me. I couldn’t lose him too. A dart of anger stabbed my heart. I wanted to strike out at Micah before those seeds of doubt rooted in my brain, but he was staring out the kitchen window.
“You’re doing that thing again,” I said with some irritation.
“What thing? I’m not doing anything.”
“You have an idea and you’re not sharing it with me.”
Moving slowly, Micah set the tablet computer aside. “I want you to text Glen and tell him we’re going to Lake Tahoe. Mariah Park is from there, so it’s something Harry Spice will believe.”
Offended, I crossed my arms over my chest. “You want to test Glen, don’t you? You want to see if he’ll do anything with that information.”
“Send the text. And tell him we’ve gotten engaged.”
“Engaged? You want me to lie? Have you completely and totally lost your mind?”
“Do it. And tell him we’re on our way and that we’ll be home late tonight. Then wish him a good day. Use lots of emoticons. Let him draw whatever conclusions he might like.”
My fingers hesitated over the smooth black screen. “What are you trying to make him think?”
Micah gave me a narrow look. “I don’t care what he thinks. I care about what he knows. Did your family visit Lake Tahoe when you were kids?”
I hesitated before I answered, curious why this mattered. “We went every summer to hike and take boat rides.”
“Did you have a beach you always visited?”
“One of our favorite places was Vikingsholm. My sister had this thing for Fannette Island. Dad used to complain about the steep walk, but he loved it when we would picnic on the beach.”
“Then that’s the place where Mariah Park’s body will be found.”
My heart gave a slow, heavy beat. “What?”
“If she’s dead, and I think she is, her body will be found in a place that we might be expected to visit. It’s common behavior for couples to take each other to places they enjoyed as children. Harry Spice will expect us to go there.”
I shook my head violently. “No way. You think Glen will tell Harry Spice that we played there as children and Harry Spice will use that information to make us look like we had a hand in Mariah’s murder. That won’t happen. Even he wouldn’t be able to pull that off.”
“Harry Spice doesn’t care about getting us charged with murder. For him it’s all about creating suspicion and doubt.”
“He won’t use my brother for that,” I snapped.
“Right.”
“There’s a student’s life involved here.”
“Probably, but if she’s dead, it will be a mercy for her parents to have her body. Send the text to Glen just as I asked you to. And mention Fannette Island.”
The urge to lash out at Micah for his suspicion almost overcame me, but I held my tongue. This disagreement made me feel nervous and edgy. I wanted to argue with him, but the logic of his theory had some merit. Rather than get defensive, I took up the dare and texted Glen that Micah and I were heading up to Lake Tahoe for the day. I illustrated my words with some smiley face and flower emoticons before adding with a flourish of hearts that Micah and I were engaged. Finally, using some more smiling faces, I wished him a good day. As I pressed the send button, I made sure that I gave Micah a reproving glance to emphasize that he ought to feel guilty. Let the circumstances exonerate Glen. Micah would have the chance to retract his statement when he was proven wrong.
Micah got up and hugged me. “Thank you for that. I know it couldn’t have been easy. But we have to be sure.”
As I leaned into Micah, I was inclined to trust his judgment even though he couldn’t be more wrong about my brother, Glen. I was glad Micah didn’t rub it in, because the thought that my own brother could be aiding my tormentor was too much to bear. I also thought about Mariah and the hell her parents were going through. For their sake, I hoped against hope that Micah was right about her body being found, if she had been murdered. My loathing of Harry Spice made me tremble.
Micah stepped back, putting some distance between us. He still held my hands. “Marry me.”
I couldn’t tell whether he was joking. “What?”
“What you told Glen has to be real. Marry me.”
This wasn’t the type of proposal that my sister and I had laughed about late at night when we were teenagers. Those scenarios had always involved moonlit walks on the beaches of San Francisco Bay or linen tablecloths, champagne, and a candlelight dinner. The man was down on his knee spouting declarations of love more flowery and romantic than a Shakespearean sonnet. Micah’s request, delivered first thing in the morning, both of us mussed from sleep, and with me fearing for my future, fit none of my imaginings. I didn’t need to ask whether Micah was being serious. He pulled from his pajama pocket a white gold ring with an enormous diamond encircled by tiny diamonds and sapphires. Gently he took my hand and slid the ring on my finger. It fit, and in that way, the matter was decided.
CHAPTER NINE
A damp darkness had fallen over the city. Micah and I were in the den watching a movie that featured comic book heroes. Because we were pretending to be at Lake Tahoe, we kept to the back of the house with the blinds drawn and the lights down low. This was the first time I’d had Micah to myself for an entire, slow, leisurely day. The entire day my stomach fluttered with delight every time I looked at my hand. Even though nothing about this engagement had followed the track my mind had laid, I still squeezed a tight fist on the ring, loving it. After dinner I lay back against the fine leather of the couch in Micah’s den, snuggled up against him in a soft afghan. I wondered what my mother would say when she heard I was engaged. Faith and I had joked for years that she had our weddings already planned and all we needed to do was supply a groom. My fingers were deep in a popcorn bowl when Micah started to speak.
“I think Harry Spice waited for me to step away from you before bringing
the car up when we were outside the restaurant. He wanted to be close to you.”
I took my hand out of the popcorn. Micah’s fingers played with a tendril of my hair. The direction that this line of enquiry might take called chills up my spine. When I glanced at him, his face was inscrutable.
“He came to intimidate me,” I said. “And plant doubts.”
Micah didn’t answer my response. Instead he pointed to one of the built-in cabinet doors, the only one that sported a shiny brass lock. His observation came slowly, casually, as if he were mentioning how much it had rained. “As we’ve been lying here, I couldn’t help but notice how a cabinet for which neither Caleb nor I ever had a key is now unlocked. No one has been in this house but you and me, so now I have to suspect that a person who isn’t me got it open.”
The wisp of a question in that statement was unmistakable. My heart began an erratic beat. Yesterday I had bumped against that cabinet door and heard a click. When I found it was locked and couldn’t find a key that would open it, I picked the lock. At the time it seemed like a sound solution. What I didn’t realize was that it had been locked before I touched it.
“Are you trying to make a point?” I said, feeling a flush rising in my cheeks.
“Harry Spice told Caleb and me that you could pick locks. Since he’s such a liar, I tested you. I wanted to know if it was true.”
“You tested me to see whether I could pick locks?”
Micah nodded. “Yes, at the winery.”
Suddenly outraged, I sat up straight and the blanket fell off my shoulders. “You’re the one who locked my keys in my desk that day we spent together. Suddenly they went missing and that made me feel foolish in front of you. I blamed the bartender for that.”
“You had that desk open in less than thirty seconds. I used my phone to time you.” Micah lifted the afghan up around my shoulders. “I’ll bet Harry Spice knew you could pick pockets too.”