by Nora Roberts
There was no music. Cliff frowned as he slowly climbed the front steps. Maggie was always at her piano at this time of day. There were times he’d come back earlier and work on the yard himself. He’d know it was five o’clock, because that’s when the music would begin, and it would continue for no less than an hour, often longer. Cliff looked at his watch: 5:35. Uneasy, he turned the knob on the front door.
Of course it was unlocked, he thought, annoyed. He’d left her a note that morning, telling her none of his crew would be there that day and to keep the doors locked. Senseless woman, he thought as he shoved the door open. Why couldn’t she get it through her head that she was completely isolated here? Too many things had happened, and simply by living in this house, she was in the center of them.
Quiet. Too damn quiet, Cliff realized as annoyance began to fade into anxiety. The dog wasn’t barking. The house had that echoing, empty feeling almost everyone can sense but can’t explain. Though instinct told him no one was there, he began to go from room to room, calling her. Her name bounced back off the walls in his own voice and taunted him.
Where the hell was she, Cliff demanded as he took the stairs two at a time to check the second floor. He didn’t like to admit that he could feel panic at nothing more than coming home to an empty house, but panic was exactly what he felt. Every day that week he’d been sure he’d had a crew, or part of one, working outside until he’d been there. He hadn’t wanted her left alone, but because he couldn’t explain it, Cliff had broken the ritual that day. And now he couldn’t find her.
“Maggie!” Desperately, he searched the second floor, not even certain what he expected, or wanted, to find. He’d never experienced this kind of raw, basic fear. He only knew the house was empty and his woman was gone. A pair of her shoes sat carelessly in the center of the bedroom rug. A blouse was tossed negligently over a chair. The earrings he’d watched her take off the night before still lay on the dresser, beside a silver-backed brush engraved with her mother’s initials. The room held her scent; it always did.
When he saw the new tiles in the bathroom, he tried to calm himself. In her helter-skelter way, she’d started a new project. But where in the hell—
Then, in the bowl of the sink, he saw something that stopped his heart. Against the pristine white porcelain were three drops of blood. He stared while panic swirled through him, making his head swim and his skin ice.
From somewhere outside, the dog began to bark frantically. Cliff was racing down the steps, not even aware that he called her name again and again.
He saw her as soon as he burst through the back door. She was coming slowly through the woods to the east, the dog dancing around her legs, leaping and nipping. She had her hands in her pockets, her head down. His mind took in every detail while the combination of fear and relief made his legs weak.
He ran toward her, seeing her head lift as he called her again. Then he had her in his arms, holding tight, closing his eyes and just feeling her, warm and whole and safe. He was too overcome with emotions that had no precedent to notice that she stood stiff and unyielding against him.
He buried his face in the soft luxury of her hair. “Maggie, where’ve you been?”
This was the man she’d thought she was beginning to understand. This was the man she was beginning to love. Maggie stared straight ahead over his shoulder to the house beyond. “I went for a walk.”
“Alone?” he demanded irrationally, drawing her back. “You went out alone?”
Everything turned cold; her skin, her manner, her eyes. “It’s my land, Cliff. Why shouldn’t I go out alone?”
He caught himself before he could rage that she should’ve left him a note. What was happening to him? “There was blood in the sink upstairs.”
“I cut my finger on a tile.”
He found he wanted to rage at her for that. She had no business hurting herself. “You’re usually playing this time of day,” he managed.
“I’m not locked into a routine any more than I’m locked into the house. If you want a placid little female who’s waiting to fall at your feet every night when you come home, you’d better look somewhere else.” Leaving him staring, she broke away and went into the house.
Calmer but more confused, Cliff went into the kitchen to see her pouring a drink. Scotch, he noted, another first. With his mind a bit clearer, he could see that the normal color was absent from her cheeks and that her shoulders were stiff with tension. This time he didn’t go to her or touch her.
“What’s happened?”
Maggie swirled the scotch once before she swallowed.
She found it too warm, too strong, but she sipped again. “I don’t know what you mean.” The kitchen was too small. Maggie took the glass and went out. The air was warm and soft. Outside there were no walls or ceilings to make her feel closed in. Circling around, she sat down on the spread of new grass. She’d sit here in the summer, Maggie thought, and read—Byron, if that was her mood. She’d let the sun fall over her, the silence cloak her, and read until she slept. Maggie continued to look out over the woods when Cliff’s shadow slanted over her.
“Maggie, what’s wrong with you?”
“I’m having a mood,” she said flatly. “You’d expect spoiled celebrities to have moods, wouldn’t you?”
Keeping his temper in check, Cliff sat down beside her, then took her chin in his hand. He waited until their eyes had met and held. “What?”
She’d known she’d have to tell him. It was the not knowing what there would be afterward that left her insides cold and knotted. “Lieutenant Reiker was here today,” she began, but carefully removed Cliff’s hand from her face.
Cliff swore, cursing himself for leaving her alone. “What’d he want?”
Maggie shrugged and sipped at the scotch again. “He’s a man who doesn’t like loose ends. Apparently he’s been finding quite a number. It seems William Morgan withdrew twenty-five thousand dollars from his bank account on the day he was murdered.”
“Twenty-five thousand?”
He sounded surprised, Maggie noted. Genuinely surprised. She recognized his expression, that thoughtful, narrow-eyed look that meant he was considering all the details and angles.
How could she be certain of anything any longer? “The money was never recovered. One of Reiker’s theories is that the murderer hid it away, patiently waiting until people forgot about Morgan.”
Cliff’s eyes sharpened. Automatically, he turned his head and looked back to the house. “Here?”
“Possibly.”
“Ten years is a damn long time to sit on twenty-five thousand,” Cliff muttered. Still, he didn’t care for loose ends, either. “Did you tell him about the trunk in the attic?”
“Yes, he had a look at it himself.”
He touched her shoulder, just his fingertips, so lightly that the touch offered whatever support she might want to take. “It’s upset you.” Maggie said nothing, nor did she look at him. Tension began to work at his own muscles. “There’s more.”
“There’s always more,” Maggie said quietly. Now she looked at him; she had to. “He mentioned that Morgan’s mistress had disappeared right after his death.” She felt Cliff’s fingers tighten convulsively on her shoulder just as she felt the waves of anger.
“She wasn’t his mistress,” Cliff said tightly. “My mother might’ve been foolish enough to fall in love with a man like Morgan, she might’ve been unwise enough to sleep with him, but she wasn’t his mistress.”
“Why didn’t you tell me before?” Maggie demanded. “Why did you wait until I found out this way?”
“It doesn’t have anything to do with you or with anything that’s happened here.” As restless anger swarmed in him, he rose.
“Coincidences,” Maggie said quietly, but Cliff turned and stared down at her. “Weren’t you the one who said not to trust coincidences?”
He was trapped, by an old anger and by a pair of depthless brown eyes. Again he found himself compelled
to explain what he’d never explained before. “My mother was lonely and very vulnerable after my father died. Morgan knew how to exploit that. I was living outside of D.C. at the time. If I’d been here, I might’ve stopped it.” Resentment welled up and was controlled. “He knew how to play on weaknesses, and he played on my mother’s. When I found out they were lovers, I wanted to kill him.”
He said it as he had once before, coldly, calmly. Maggie swallowed on a dry throat. “She was already too involved for anything to be done, deluded into believing she loved him, or maybe she did love him. Other intelligent women had. She’d been friends with Louella for years, but that didn’t matter. When they found his car in the river, she snapped.”
It was painful to look back on it, but Maggie’s solemn brown eyes insisted he go on. “She didn’t disappear; she came to me. She was frantic, and for the first time since she’d become involved with Morgan, she was seeing clearly again. Shame affects different people in different ways. My mother broke all ties with Morganville and everyone in it. She knew her relationship with Morgan wasn’t a secret, and now that it was over, she simply couldn’t face the gossip. She’s still in D.C. She has a new life, and I don’t want any of this to touch her.”
Was he always so unflaggingly protective of the women in his life? Maggie wondered. Joyce, his mother … Where, she wondered, did she fit in? “Cliff, I understand how you feel. My mother was one of the most precious people in my life, too. But there might not be anything you can do about it. They’re reconstructing what happened ten years ago, and your mother has a part in it.”
But that wasn’t all she was thinking, Cliff realized. Deliberately, he sat down beside her, struggling to keep the tension from his fingers when he took her shoulders. “You’re wondering how much a part I might’ve had in it.”
“Don’t.” She tried to stand, but he held her still.
“It’s possible that I could’ve shot Morgan to end a destructive relationship with my mother.”
“You hated him.”
“Yes.”
Her eyes never left his. They looked deep, searching. Logic might implicate him; his own temperament might make him suspect. Maggie stared into the smoky gray of his eyes and believed what she saw. “No,” she murmured, drawing him against her. “No, I understand you too well.”
Her faith—the warm flood of it—almost destroyed him. “Do you?”
“Maybe too well,” she murmured. “I was so frightened before.” Closing her eyes, she drew in the familiar scent of him. He was real, he was solid, and for as long as she could hold on, he was hers. “Not now, not now that you’re here.”
He could feel the pull, that slow, gentle pull. If he wasn’t careful, he’d soon forget there was anything or anyone but her in his life. “Maggie.” His fingers were already tangling in her hair. “You shouldn’t trust without questions.”
“It isn’t trust with questions,” she countered. She wanted it to be only the two of them, with the rest of the world locked out, forgotten. Framing his face with her hands, she drew his mouth down to hers.
She’d expected fire, aggression, but his lips were soft and sweet. Confused, moved, Maggie drew back to stare at him. The eyes that had fascinated her from the beginning held hers as seconds edged closer to a minute. She was lost in the mists and the smoke. Without a word, he brought her close again.
With his eyes on hers, he lightly traced the shape of her face with a fingertip. This, he discovered, was the only face he ever needed to see again. Lightly, he outlined the shape of her lips. These, he knew, were the only lips he’d ever need to taste. With a gentleness he’d shown to no other lover, he laid her back. This was the only body he ever wanted to possess.
Tenderness left her stunned, weak. His mouth lingered on hers, but with such poignancy, the kiss alone made her bones liquefy. The grass was cool beneath her, the sun warm. Swimming in emotion, Maggie closed her eyes while his lips traveled over her face.
Had she ever been touched like this before? As if she were spun glass, his hands stroked over her. As if she were the rarest of delicacies, his lips tasted. And she was helplessly caught in the silken web that was more love than passion.
“Cliff—”
She might’ve told him, if his lips hadn’t captured hers with a sweetness that left her speechless.
He’d never felt a stronger need to savor. It was as if each moment could be stretched to an hour as long as they lay together in the fragrant spring grass. The color in her cheeks was delicate; the sunlight combed through her hair. The look in her eyes was one no man could resist. It told him as clearly as words that she was his. He had only to claim. Knowing it, he moved only more slowly and touched only more reverently.
He undressed her while his kisses continued to hold her in the honey-steeped prison of pleasure. When she was naked, he watched how the sun streamed over her skin. Her large, expressive eyes were half closed. He could feel the pliancy in her body when, with a sigh, she lifted her hands to help him undress.
The raw, primitive need she so often incited in him didn’t rise up. Instead, she drew out the softer emotions he normally held back. He wanted only to please her.
Gently, he lowered his mouth to her breast. He could hear her heartbeat increase in pace as he lingered there with his tongue tracing, his teeth nibbling. The tip grew taut, so that when he drew it into his mouth, he heard her breath shudder out, then catch again. Her hand moved through his hair as she lay back, saturated with sensation.
Her body was like a treasure to be discovered and admired before possession. Slowly, almost leisurely, he took those moist kisses and gentle hands over it, stopping, lingering, when he felt her shuddering response. He knew she was steeped in that dim, heavy world where passions hover around the edges and desires lick temptingly, like tiny tongues of fire. He wanted to keep her there for hours or days or years.
Her thighs were slender and long and pearl white. He loitered there, nudging them both closer, still closer to the edge. But not yet.
She’d forgotten where she was. Though her eyes were half opened, she saw nothing but mists and dreams. She could feel, oh, yes, she could feel each stroke of his hand, each warm brush of lips. She could hear gentle murmurs, quiet sighs that might’ve been his or hers. There was no reason to ever feel or hear anything else. She was slowly, inevitably, being drawn through the sweetness and into the heat. She began to crave it.
He felt the change in her body, heard the change in the breaths that whispered through her lips. He swept his mouth farther up her thigh, but still he didn’t hurry. She would have all he had to give before they were finished.
She arched, catapulted with the sudden intensity of pleasure. She crested, quickly, shatteringly, with an abandonment of self and will. He wanted, demanded, just that. Before she could settle, he drove her up again until the madness once more began to creep into both of them. Cliff held it off, almost delirious with the knowledge that he could give her what a woman might only dream of. Her body was alive with sensations only he could bring to her. Her mind was swirling with thoughts of only him.
Knowing it, reveling in it, he slipped into her, taking her with a tenderness that lasted and lasted and lasted.
Chapter Eleven
Saturday morning, Maggie decided she could lie there, half dozing, until it was Saturday afternoon. She could feel the weight of Cliff’s arm across her waist, his warm breath fluttering over her cheek. Without opening her eyes, she snuggled closer, wallowing in lazy contentment.
If she’d been certain he could be so gentle, she’d have fallen in love with him willingly. But how satisfying it was to have discovered it after her heart had already been lost. He had such emotion in him. Perhaps he was cautious with it, but she could love him much more comfortably knowing it was there and that now and again, unexpectedly, it would reach out to her.
No, it wasn’t flowery phrases she wanted, but his stability. She didn’t need smooth charm. When a woman found a man who was capable of
such passion and such tenderness, she’d be a fool to want to change him in any way. Maggie Fitzgerald, she thought with a little satisfied smile, was no fool.
“What’re you smiling at?”
Opening her eyes, Maggie looked directly into Cliff’s. Because his were alert and direct, she knew he’d been awake for some time. She tried to blink away the mists and smiled again. “It feels good,” she murmured, snuggling even closer. “You feel good.”
He ran a hand down her back, over her hip and thigh. Yes, it felt very good. “Soft,” Cliff said quietly. “So soft and smooth.” He wondered how he’d gone so many years without being able to touch her like this, when she was lazy and warm and naked. He felt no tension in her, none of the subtle little signs he’d grown so adept at spotting. The need was very strong in him to keep that tension away for as long as he could. She’d walked unwittingly into a whirlpool, and somehow he was connected with it. If it was only for a day, he’d keep the problems at bay.
He rolled, pressed her down into the mattress so that she laughingly murmured a complaint. “Are you going to cook breakfast?” he demanded.
Maggie pillowed her head on her hands, giving him arrogant look for arrogant look. “You don’t like my cooking.”
“I’ve decided to be tolerant this morning.”
“Have you?” She arched a brow. “How lucky for me.”
“Floppy bacon and sloppy eggs,” he told her before he nuzzled at her neck.
She shifted, enjoying the rough feel of the night’s growth of beard against her skin. “What?”
“I don’t like my bacon too crisp—” he nipped at the pulse in her throat “—or my eggs too set.”