Matt watched a tear break free, track unnoticed down her cheek and drop onto her clenched hand.
“I don’t have much family, just some cousins twenty times removed, but I never noticed. They, he and Liz, were all the family I needed. When that ended, I don’t know, I didn’t feel like I had the right to feel bad about it.” Her sigh was a shedding of the burden she had carried. “I guess it’s selfish, but now that he’s dead, it’s over. I think I’ve earned the right to feel what I want.”
He nodded, let the bread hitting the skillet with a sizzling flurry of steam fill in the blanks of what he couldn’t say. They ate without speaking.
When Dani had swallowed the last bite of her French toast, she sat back with a satisfied sigh. The food was filling, the talk freeing. She felt better on all fronts. “Thanks. You do a truly fine French toast.”
“I’ll pass your praise onto my mom, the author of my skills as a cook.” Matt took her plate, rinsed it, and then inserted it deftly in the open dishwasher.
“You know your way around a kitchen, I see. Your girlfriend must be thrilled.” Dani propped her elbows on the bar, her chin on her hands, enjoying the view. Kelly had a thing about shoulders, but Dani was about butts, which were their finest when wrapped in snug fitting blue jeans.
He looked at her over his shoulder, his expression openly ironic. “According to my ex-wife, my job is tough competition.”
“Not every woman is afraid of a little competition.”
“No.” He shrugged. “But when they realize it’s a no-win, they give up.”
“I see.” She had already figured this out herself, so having it confirmed at the source couldn’t be the reason for the tightness in her chest. There was a drop of syrup on the counter. She looked dabbed at it with the tip of her finger. “You got a call this morning while you were out.”
“Oh?” He closed the dishwasher and started it.
“She didn’t leave a message.” Dani studied the thick brown drop. Odd how sweet things looked sweet, like a clue left by God. If He had known they would need the sweet in their lives and wanted them to know, who was she to refuse the gift?
Matt turned to blast her about the folly of answering his phone when she was supposed to be in hiding and saw her mouth close over the tip of her finger. Instead of the lecture, he gave a strangled, “Oh?”
She looked up, her look of inquiry fading into a wary yearning. She withdrew her finger, lowered her hand to the counter top and gripped. “I, um, know I shouldn’t have answered.”
“It doesn’t matter.”
She swallowed dryly. “That’s good.”
Not good. Not good at all. He couldn’t even pull up a name, could barely remember his own name with Dani sitting there naked except for his robe and sucking on her finger. It felt too much like a morning after—minus the satisfaction. His control wavered, letting in memory of the way she had looked in his bed this morning. Let in how hard it had been not to crawl in next to her. How much he wanted to kiss and touch her until she was as awake as he’d been. Until she wanted what he wanted.
Man and woman created He them. A good idea it was, too, just not right now. Just because what he was feeling walked and talked and felt like something good, didn’t make it so. A duck wasn’t always a duck. Bottom line? This couldn’t be about what he wanted. It had to be about what was right. If he crossed that line, he lost more than his principles.
Someone could die. Dani could be that someone.
God created life and death, too. Then He made Hayes and let him loose to prey on the innocent in a far from perfect world. That was Matt’s reality. Fantasy was for teenage boys and romance writers.
This particular romance writer reached her hand under her hair and massaged her neck, a wistful curve to her mouth that tried to trump his logic. How did she manage to look fragile and strong, sexy and sweet?
If God was kind, Alice was driving up right now.
Matt’s eyes, Dani decided, were the canvas where emotion played, altering the harsh lines of his face in fractions by narrowing or widening. Desire flared in his eyes. She saw him try to put the fire out before it leapt the space that separated them. Saw him fail. Felt the slow sweet beat of passion’s wings start inside her skin, like a phoenix rising from the ashes of the past.
She didn’t fight it. It had been a long time since she had felt anything that wasn’t vicarious and fictional. It felt good to desire a man. To be desired as a woman. To participate, not just observe and record. To feel warm and soft. To know he was warm and hard.
There was no danger to her body. She wasn’t about to act on the attraction flickering between them like a faulty light switch. There was, unfortunately, plenty of danger to her heart.
She was tired, dangerously tired, in body and in spirit. Kelly was right. Since Meggie died, she had been barely rooted in life. Here with Matt, she could feel her soul starting to grip deeper, harder. Could feel those tender roots start the phoenix of her heart wanting to do more than stir. It wanted to fly high enough to feel the sun beating strong and warm. The poor, mended organ was in serious danger of wanting to beat with passion. Even worse, it wanted to love again.
She couldn’t walk away, couldn’t flee the danger of feeling because she needed Matt if she were to have any chance of finishing what Richard had started.
It would be funny if it were happening to someone else. She had bolted from custody six days ago, determined to go it alone. She hadn’t gone it alone. Even, this was the really funny part, even Spook had helped her. There was no such thing as alone. Way back in 1624, John Donne had recognized the imperative of human contact when he declared that “no man is an island, entire in itself.”
Only with Matt could she be “part of the whole.”
She watched the curtain come down in his eyes and couldn’t blame him. Why should he want the burden of her spirit, her heart? He was already responsible for her life, not to mention the lives of himself and his team. If this was one of her books, he would have no problem with leaping tall buildings, out running numerous locomotives, saving all their lives, and healing her heart without breaking it.
It was too bad that Lewis Carroll’s White Queen could believe six impossible things before breakfast, but between them they couldn’t do one itty bitty impossible thing.
She took a drink of soda, then wiped the moisture from her lips, fighting the need to look at him. The silence was made out of rubber, stretching tight, tighter…
She had to look…
But the doorbell beat her to it, it’s buzz releasing the tension with a snap that made them both jump. Matt rubbed the back of his neck. “Alice. That’s Alice. I called her. Asked her to bring your clothes.”
“My clothes?” Dani fingered the lapel of his robe, felt silk move against her skin and swallowed dryly. “Good idea.”
His crooked grin was unexpected and toe-curling cute. “Seemed like a good idea at the time.”
It was a relief to chuckle, she was glad he had a sense of humor, but it put another notch in her need for him and started another round of rubber tension.
“Dani…”
The bell rang with greater insistence.
Matt rubbed his face. “If I don’t let her in, she’ll kick the door down.”
“Oh. Be hard to explain.” She pivoted on her stool as he came out of the kitchen.
“Yeah. Hard to replace, too. It’s,” he swallowed, “real wood. Solid.”
“Oh. Solid is…good.” Her hands curled into fists under the cover of his robe.
“Yeah.” He swallowed. “I’ll just get that.”
“I would. For the sake of your door.” He stepped past without touching her. She was glad. Touching would not be a good idea, well, it would good, too good, which was bad, very bad.
She meant to be strong and not look, but if there was anything better than a nicely filled out pair of jeans coming at you, it was watching them walking away. No question about it. He had a great butt.
S
he sighed. Wasn’t there a country song about being lonely for too long? She shook her head. There were probably a million of them. All sad. All about her.
NINETEEN
Alice looked rested when Matt opened the solid wood door for her. She’d gone casual with jeans and soft boots. Matt was glad she’d left the heels at home. Made his feet hurt just looking at her. Right now his feet were the only thing that didn’t hurt. He noticed she held a couple of bags and a white pastry box. His brows arched.
“Breakfast?”
“It is the most important meal of the day.” She looked past him, then asked softly, “When did she get here?”
“Last night.” He nodded for her to proceed down the hall.
“Really?” Her brows arched as she stepped past him.
He resisted the compulsion to explain for two whole heartbeats. “She was hammered. Didn’t think she could handle a full court press. Fell asleep before the coffee was done.”
He didn’t finish with, “Satisfied,” but it was implied. Alice wasn’t the only one who could look what she was thinking.
She grinned. “Sorry. I was just a little surprised. I thought this was a female-free zone for the brothers, Kirby.”
“It is, but even we have to occasionally allow free passage,” he waited a beat, “since our mom is a woman.”
Her grin turned cheeky. “Thank her for plowing the field for those of us who aren’t related.”
“I will.” Matt stepped back so she could pass him, then followed her into the living room.
Dani was leaning against the window frame in an unconsciously provocative pose, looking down on the street with a pensive expression. It was as pleasing as all the other expressions he had seen on her face. The light behind her emphasized all the things his robe didn’t hide. “Probably not a good idea to show yourself in a window.”
She turned, pensive giving way for fear before she could bury it again. If his mom had been here, she would have given him a look. Since she wasn’t, Alice did it for him. She didn’t need to. He had finally found an expression he didn’t like on Dani’s face.
“If my neighbors see you in my window,” he said, “wearing my robe, at this time of day, it’ll raise my stock hereabouts and Alice wouldn’t like it.”
Pay back was immediate and almost more than he, or his detachment, could handle when she smiled, holding nothing back. It opened her face, her eyes, and just for a minute, her heart. That gratitude was the main component didn’t lessen the impact.
“I wouldn’t want to make Alice unhappy.” Her gaze shifted to Matt’s companion and turned curious. She had heard their low voiced conversation, the apartment was small after all, and she couldn’t help but wonder about the woman Matt had such comfortable relationship with. She held out her hand. “You must be Alice.”
“And you’re, Dani.” They shook hands, studying each other with veiled curiosity. Dani liked what she saw. It appeared that Alice did, too, when her smile expanded. “Nice to finally catch up with you.”
Dani laughed. “I guess I should apologize for being such a pain in the butt.”
“But you won’t.”
“No. I learned in divorce court to never apologize.”
Alice grinned. “A nicer way of saying that men are always wrong. I’ll have to remember that.”
Matt remembered why he hated being in a room with two women. It was like finding yourself alone with aliens, trying to figure out what they were saying and knowing all the time that you never would.
“Alice is a fan,” he said. To his annoyance, they both looked at him like he had said something lame, then exchanged looks. He hated it when women did that, the main reason why he would only have one of them at a time on his team.
“Alice brought you some clothes,” he said, handing Dani the sack he had taken from Alice.
“And I thought you might be in need of sustenance. Bachelor pads are known to be devoid of the creature comforts.” Alice held up the white box she had brought with her.
“I fed her,” Matt protested. They ignored him.
“I hope that’s what I think it is,” Dani said, getting that look of anticipation that was so hard on his parts.
“If you think its pastries, your hope is not in vain.”
“I guess you’ve been reading my file, too.”
She didn’t seem to mind that Alice had been poking in her life, Matt noticed.
“They probably aren’t as good as you can get in New Orleans, but I think you’ll find them quite palatable.”
Dani peeked in the box Alice held out. “Oh yes. This is very good. I think we’re going to be friends, Alice.”
Matt looked at Dani. “You can’t be hungry.”
Dani and Alice exchanged another one of those looks, then Dani said, “If I only ate when I was hungry, I’d never eat.” She scooped out a treat. “I’ll just take this with me while I go change.”
He couldn’t argue with her. He needed her to get out of his robe before he imploded. He had a strict, non-implosion policy around Alice. She would enjoy seeing him in coyote position a little too much. Besides, it was time to get down to business. He didn’t like it any better this time around. “Why don’t you help her, Alice. I’m gonna call Anderson.”
She nodded, her gaze meeting his for a brief, pointed moment. She was a smart girl. She understood he wanted her take on Dani’s state of mind.
He shouldn’t have, but he watched Dani leave. Then he went and found a cold drink to down before he made his call.
* * * *
Dani changed, then ate her pastry. While her palate enjoyed flaky pastry and rich filling, her thoughts circled like a vulture waiting for that last gasping breath from a dying corpse. It was an interesting sensation. “You married, Alice?”
“I was.” Alice sat down in the chair. “Divorce is a bitch, isn’t it?”
“Yeah.” Dani stretched her legs out, missing the soft silk of Matt’s robe sliding across her skin, the heat of his eyes even more. She didn’t know how cold she had been until now. “How long for you?”
“Two years.”
“Eight for me.” She and Steven had tried to keep it going after Meggie died, but it was hard to keep anything going with liquor playing third wheel. And Steven had needed the time to make sure they had no community property to divide. “You started dating yet?”
“A little. My job gets in the way.” Alice was quiet. “You were young when you divorced?”
Dani shook her head. “I was young when I married, but old when we divorced.”
It was good to remember this now, good to remember the flip side of love and desire. Good to remember how bad love felt when it was dying. Was it just a sign of the times or a product of their short attention span society, she wondered. People used to stay in love longer. Course they used to live shorter.
“Your books are about love,” Alice said. “I’ve only read one, but I really liked the way the characters found hope when they found each other.” She looked rueful. “Almost made me want to give love another crack.”
“Almost. Let’s face it, the older we get, the slimmer the pickings.” Her smile was as rueful as Alice’s. “In the eight years I’ve been single, I’ve had close contact with, maybe ten guys.”
“Ten is good. That’s almost a dozen,” Alice pointed out.
“Really?” Dani started counting down. “Six of them I made up. Two turned out to be killers. One’s a married biker—”
Dani stopped counting and looked at the lone finger still up.
Alice chuckled. “And number ten? Any hope there?”
Dani sighed. “Him?”
A lonesome, mountain climbing lawman and a romance writer who was afraid of heights might work in fiction—if the fiction was paranormal so that a liberal dose of magic could be stirred in—but this was real life. She wrote fiction, she didn’t live it. She looked at Alice.
“He’s a man. The odds aren’t good.”
* * * *
Where
was Willow?
The game was different this time, and yet almost the same, Hayes thought, trying to hold back frustration that would only confuse his thinking. He was hunting, but not for blood. Not this time. Now he searched for the other half of his heart.
He could feel her out there, but he couldn’t pinpoint her yet. Soon, very soon he would have a fix. It was harder this time. He couldn’t use his usual contacts. Whatever fear they had of him would evaporate in the scent of all the money on his head right now.
Maybe he shouldn’t have put the contract out on Orsini. He was pretty far up the food chain. Rattled the cages of some pretty serious sharks. The big ones didn’t like it when their biters bit them. Hubris wasn’t just a problem the Greeks had.
He grinned. “It’s a fine thing to rise above pride, but you must have pride in order to do so.”
If he couldn’t find Willow the usual way, he would find her the unusual way. He would feel his way to her on his hands and knees if he had to.
The real test of a man is not how well he plays the role he has invented for himself, he recalled, but how well he plays the role that destiny assigned to him.
Their destiny was to live—or die—together. For them both, he would play the role assigned to him.
* * * *
Matt’s face was grim when Dani and Alice joined him in the living room. What tiny bit of warm she had been able to hold onto turned to ice when he told her why. She wrapped her arms around her middle, but didn’t help. Inside, with a snap so loud, she was surprised Matt and Alice didn’t hear it, Willow failed to bend. She didn’t break. Not yet. She cracked. A prelude to breaking. With no shock to cushion her against the ugly realities of circumstances.
Meggie was dead.
Stephen was a drunk who wanted her dead.
Richard, who’d wanted her dead, was dead.
Spook was Dark Lord.
He wanted her dead, too—
A ripple of disquiet wound in, the sense she was missing something important…
The Lonesome Lawmen Trilogy Page 21