by Nora Roberts
door on him and everything he wanted to talk about. Coward, she told herself, and stepped back to let him in. “I suppose you’re here about what we found yesterday.” Maggie put her shoulder to the door to shut it. “I don’t know what I can tell you.”
“I’m sure it was a nasty experience, Miss Fitzgerald, and one you’d just as soon forget.” His voice held just the right trace of sympathy mixed with professionalism. She decided he knew his business. “I wouldn’t feel I was doing my duty as sheriff or as a neighbor if I didn’t give you whatever help I can.”
Maggie looked at him again. This time her smile came a bit more easily. “I appreciate that. I can offer you coffee, if you don’t mind the mess in the kitchen.”
He smiled and looked so solid, so pleasant, Maggie almost forgot the gun at his hip. “I never turn down coffee.”
“The kitchen’s down here,” she began, then laughed. “I don’t have to tell you, do I? You’d know this house as well as I do.”
He fell into step beside her. “Tell you the truth, I’ve been around the outside, hacking at the weeds now and again or hunting, but I’ve only been inside a handful of times. The Morgans moved out when Joyce was still a kid.”
“Yes, she told me.”
“Nobody’s lived here for more’n ten years. Louella just let it go after the old man died.” He glanced up at the cracked ceiling paint. “She held it in trust till Joyce inherited it at twenty-five. You probably heard I held Joyce off from selling.”
“Well …” Uncertain how to respond, Maggie busied herself at the stove.
“Guess I thought we’d fix it up eventually, rent it out again.” To her, he sounded like a man who knew about dreams but never found the time for them. “But a big old place like this needs a lot of time and money to put right. Joyce probably did the right thing, selling out.”
“I’m glad she did.” After switching on the coffeemaker, Maggie indicated a chair.
“With Bog handling repairs and Delaney working on the grounds, you picked the right men.” When Maggie just looked at him, the sheriff grinned again. “Nothing travels fast in small towns but news.”
“No, I suppose not.”
“Look, what happened yesterday …” He paused, clearing his throat. “I know it must be rough on you. I gotta tell you, Joyce was worked up about it. A lot of people who’d find something like that a stone’s throw from their house would just pull up stakes and take off.”
Maggie reached in the cabinets for cups. “I’m not going anywhere.”
“Glad to hear it.” He was silent a moment, watching her pour the coffee. Her hands looked steady enough. “I understand Cliff was here yesterday, too.”
“That’s right. He was overseeing some of the work.”
“And your dog dug up—”
“Yes.” Maggie set both cups on the table before she sat down. “He’s just a puppy. Right now he’s asleep upstairs. Too much excitement.”
The sheriff waved away her offer of cream, sipping the coffee black. “I didn’t come to press you for details. The state police filled me in. I just wanted to let you know I was as close as the phone if you needed anything.”
“I appreciate that. I’m not really familiar with the procedure, but I suppose I should’ve called you yesterday.”
“I like to take care of my own territory,” he said slowly, “but with something like this—” He shrugged. “Hell, I’d’ve had to call in the state, anyway.” She watched his wedding ring gleam dully in the sunlight. Joyce had had a matching one, Maggie recalled. Plain and gold and solid. “Looks like you’re redoing this floor.”
Maggie looked down blankly. “Oh, yes, I took up the old linoleum. I’ve got to get to the sanding.”
“You call George Cooper,” the sheriff told her. “He’s in the book. He’ll get you an electric sander that’ll take care of this in no time. Just tell him Stan Agee gave you his name.”
“All right.” She knew the conversation should’ve eased her mind, but her nerves were jumping again. “Thank you.”
“Anything else you need, you just give us a call. Joyce’ll want to have you over for dinner. She bakes the best ham in the county.”
“That’d be nice.”
“She can’t get over someone like you moving here to Morganville.” He sipped at his coffee while Maggie’s grew cold. While he leaned back in the chair, relaxed, she sat very straight with tension. “I don’t keep up with music much, but Joyce knows all of your songs. She reads all those magazines, too, and now somebody’s who’s in them’s living in her old house.” He glanced idly at the back door. “You ought to speak to Bog about putting some dead bolts on.”
She looked over at the screen, remembering the hinges needed oiling. “Dead bolts?”
With a laugh, he finished off his coffee. “That’s what happens when you’re sheriff. You’re always thinking of security. We’ve got a nice, quiet community, Miss Fitzgerald. Wouldn’t want you to think otherwise. But I’d feel better knowing you had some good solid locks on the doors, since you’re back here alone.” Rising, he tugged absently at his holster. “Thanks for the coffee. You just remember to call if you need anything.”
“Yes, I’ll remember.”
“I’ll go on out this way and let you get back to work. You call George Cooper, now.”
“All right.” Maggie walked to the back door with him. “Thank you, Sheriff.”
For a moment she just stood there by the door, her head resting against the jamb. She hated knowing she could be so easily worked up. The sheriff had come to reassure her, to show her that the community she’d chosen to live in had a concerned, capable law enforcer. Now her nerves were raw from talking to so many police. So many police, Maggie mused, just as it had been when Jerry died. All the police, all the questions. She thought she’d been over it, but now everything was coming back again, much too clearly.
“Your husband drove off the road, Mrs. Browning. We haven’t located his body yet, but we’re doing everything we can. I’m sorry.”
Yes, there’d been sympathy at first, Maggie remembered. She’d had sympathy from the police, from her friends, Jerry’s friends. Then questions: “Had your husband been drinking when he left the house?” “Was he upset, angry?” “Were you fighting?”
God, hadn’t it been enough that he’d been dead? Why had they picked and pulled at all the reasons? How many reasons could there be for a twenty-eight-year-old man to turn his car toward a cliff and drive over it?
Yes, he’d been drinking. He’d done a lot of drinking since his career had started to skid and hers had kept climbing. Yes, they’d been fighting, because neither of them had understood what had happened to the dreams they’d once had. She’d answered their questions; she’d suffered the press until she had thought she’d go mad.
Maggie squeezed her eyes tight. That was over, she told herself. She couldn’t bring Jerry back and solve his problems now. He’d found his own solution. Turning from the door, she went back to the music room.
In her work she found the serenity and the discipline she needed. It had always been that way for her. She could escape into the music so that her emotions found their outlet. She could train her mind on timing and structure. Her drive had always been to release the emotions, hers by the creation of a song and the listener’s by hearing it. If she was successful in that, she needed no other ambition.
Talent wasn’t enough in itself, she knew. It hadn’t been enough for Jerry. Talent had to be harnessed by discipline; discipline, guided by creativity. Maggie used all three now.
As time passed, she became absorbed in the music and in the goal she’d set. The title song had to be passionate, full of movement and sexuality, as the title itself suggested. When it was played, she wanted it to stir the senses, touch off needs, build longings.
No one had been signed to perform it yet, so she was free to use whatever style she chose. She wanted something bluesy, and in her mind she could hear the moan of a sax. Sexy, su
ltry. She wanted the quiet wail of brass and the smoky throb of bass. Late the night before, when she’d been restless, she’d written down a few phrases. Now she experimented with them, twining words to music.
Almost at once she knew she’d found the key. The key was unexplained passion, barely controlled. It was desire that promised to rip aside anything civilized. It was the fury and heat that a man and woman could bring to each other until both were senseless from it. She had the key now, Maggie thought as her pulse began to pound with the music, because she’d experienced it herself. Yesterday, on the rise, in the sun, with Cliff.
Madness. That was the word that streamed through her mind. Desire was madness. She closed her eyes as words and melody flowed through her. Hadn’t she felt that madness, the sweetness and the ache of it, when his mouth had moved on hers? Hadn’t she wanted to feel him against her, flesh to flesh? He’d made her think of dark nights, steamy, moonless nights when the air was so thick you’d feel it pulse on your skin. Then she hadn’t thought at all, because desire was madness.
She let the words come, passionate, wanton promises that simmered over the heat of the music. Seductive, suggestive, they poured out of her own needs. Lovers’ words, desperate words, were whispered out in her low, husky voice until the room was charged with them. No one who heard would be unmoved. That was her ambition.
When she was finished, Maggie was breathless and moved and exhilarated. She reached up to rewind the recorder for playback when, for the second time, she saw Cliff standing in the doorway.
Her hand froze, and her pulse, already fast, went racing. Had she called him with the song, she wondered frantically. Was the magic that strong? When he said nothing, she switched off the recorder and spoke with studied calm. “Is it an accepted habit in the country for people to walk into homes uninvited?”
“You don’t seem to hear the door when you’re working.”
She acknowledged this with an inclination of her head. “That might mean I don’t like to be disturbed when I’m working.”
“It might.” Disturbed. The word almost made him laugh. Perhaps he had disturbed her work, but that was nothing compared to what the song had done to him—to what watching her sing had done to him. It had taken every ounce of his control not to yank her from the piano stool and take her on the littered, dusty floor. He came closer, knowing before it reached him that her scent would be there to add to her allure.
“I lost quite a bit of time yesterday.” Maggie swallowed whatever was trying to block her voice. Her body was still throbbing, still much too vulnerable from the passion she’d released. “I have a deadline on this score.”
He glanced down at her hands. He wanted to feel them stroke over him with the same skill she’d used on the piano keys. Slowly, he took his gaze up her arms, over the curve of her shoulder to her face. For both of them, it was as if he’d touched her.
Her breath wasn’t steady; her eyes weren’t calm. That was as he wanted it now. No matter how often or how firmly he told himself to back off from her, Cliff knew he was reaching a point when it would be impossible. She wasn’t for him—he could convince himself of that. But they had something that had to be freed and had to be tasted.
“From what I heard,” he murmured, “you seem to be finished.”
“That’s for me to decide.”
“Play it back.” It was a challenge. He saw from her eyes that she knew it. A challenge could backfire on either of them. “The last song—I want to hear it again.”
Dangerous. Maggie understood the danger. As she hesitated, his lips curved. It was enough. Without a word, she punched the rewind button. The song was a fantasy, she told herself as the tape hurried backward. It was a fantasy, just as the film was a fantasy. The song was for the characters in a story and had nothing, absolutely nothing, to do with her. Or with him. She flicked the recorder to play.
She’d listen objectively, Maggie decided as the music began to spill into the room. She’d listen as a musician, as a technician. That was what her job demanded. But she found, as her own voice began to tempt her, that she was listening as a woman. Rising, she walked to the window and faced out. When a hunger was this strong, she thought, distance could mean everything.
Wait for night when the air’s hot and there’s madness
I’ll make your blood swim
Wait for night when passion rises like a flood in the
heat dance
Desire pours over the rim
He listened, as he had before, and felt his system respond to the music and the promises that low voice made. He wanted all that the song hinted at. All that, and more.
When Cliff crossed the room, he saw her tense. He thought he could feel the air snap, hissing with the heat the song had fanned. Before he reached her, Maggie turned. The sun at her back shot a nimbus around her. In contrast, her eyes were dark. Like night, he thought. Like her night music. The words she’d written filled the room around them. It seemed those words were enough.
He didn’t speak, but circled the back of her neck with his hand. She didn’t speak, but resisted, forcing her body to stiffen. There was anger in her eyes now, as much for herself as for him. She’d taken herself to this point by allowing her own needs and fantasies to clear the path. It wasn’t madness she wanted, Maggie told herself as she drew back. It was stability. It wasn’t the wild she sought, but serenity. He wouldn’t offer those things.
His fingers only tightened as she pulled back. That surprised them both. He’d forgotten the rules of a civilized seduction, just as he’d forgotten he’d only come there to see how she was. The music, the words, made the vulnerability that had concerned him a thing of the past. Now he felt strength as his fingers pressed into her skin. He saw challenge in her stance, and a dare, mixed with the fury in her eyes. Cliff wanted nothing less from her.
He stepped closer. When she lifted a hand in protest, he took her wrist. The pulse throbbed under his hand as intensely as the music throbbed on the air. Their eyes met, clashed, passion against passion. In one move, he pulled her against him and took her mouth.
She saw the vivid colors and lights she’d once imagined. She tasted the flavor of urgent desire. As her arms pulled him yet closer to her, Maggie heard her own moan of shuddering pleasure. The world was suddenly honed down to an instant, and the instant went on and on.
Had she been waiting for this? This mindless, melting pleasure? Were these sensations, these emotions, what she’d poured out into music for so long? She could find no answers, only more needs.
He’d stopped thinking. In some small portion of his brain, Cliff knew he’d lost the capacity to reason. She made him feel, outrageously, so that there was no room for intellect. His hands sought her, skimming under her shirt to find the soft, heated skin he knew he’d dreamed about. She strained against him, offering more. Against his mouth, he felt her lips form his name. Something wild burst inside him.
He wasn’t gentle, though as a lover he’d never been rough before. He was too desperate to touch to realize that he might bruise something more fragile than he. The kiss grew savage. He knew he’d never be able to draw enough from her to satisfy him. More, and still more, he wanted, though her mouth was as crazed and demanding as his.
He was driving her mad. No one had ever shown her a need so great. Hunger fueled hunger until she ached with it. She knew it could consume her, perhaps both of them. With a fire so hot, they could burn each other out and be left with nothing. The thought made her moan again, and cling. She wanted more. Yet she feared to take more and find herself empty.
“No.” His lips at her throat were turning her knees to water. “No, this is crazy,” she managed.
He lifted his head. His eyes were nearly black now, and his breathing was unsteady. For the first time, Maggie felt a twinge of fear. What did she know of this man? “You called it madness,” he murmured. “You were right.”
Yes, she’d been right, and it had been him she’d thought of when she’d written the
words. Yet she told herself it was sanity she needed. “It’s not what either of us should want.”
“No.” His control was threatening to snap completely. Deliberately, he ran a hand down her hair. “But it’s already too far along to stop. I want you, Maggie, whether I should or not.”
If he hadn’t used her name— Until then she hadn’t realized that he could say her name and make her weak. As needs welled up again, she dropped her head on his chest. It was that artless, unplanned gesture that cleared his frenzied thoughts and tugged at something other than desire.
This was the kind of woman who could get inside a man. Once she did, he’d never be free of her. Knowing that, he fought back the overwhelming need to hold her close again. He wanted her, and he intended to have her. That didn’t mean he’d get involved. They both knew that what had ignited between them would have to be consummated sooner or later. It was basic; it was simple. And they’d both walk away undamaged.
Whereas the arousal he’d felt hadn’t worried him, the tenderness he was feeling now did. They’d better get things back on the right road. He took her by the shoulders and drew her back.
“We want each other.” It sounded simple when he said it. Cliff was determined to believe it could be.
“Yes.” She nodded, almost composed again. “I’m sure you’ve learned, as I have, that you can’t have everything you want.”
“True enough. But there’s no reason for either of us not to have what we want this time.”
“I can think of a few. The first is that I barely know you.”
He frowned as he studied her face. “Does that matter to you?”
Maggie jerked away so quickly his hands fell to his sides. “So, you do believe everything you read.” Her voice was brittle now, and her eyes were cold. “Los Angeles, land of sinning and sinners. I’m sorry to disappoint you, Cliff, but I haven’t filled my life with nameless, faceless lovers. This fills my life.” She slapped her hand down on the piano so that papers slid off onto the floor. “And since you read so much, since you know so much about me, you’ll