Finders Keepers

by Carla Neggers

  He was hard-pressed to keep his relief to himself. Holly Paynter was no more finished with him than he was with her. But he said levelly, “I’m not going to beat a dead horse with this. All the discussion in the world can’t change what both you and I know has to happen: you’ve got to leave Mill Brook and go on about your business.”

  “That’s what you want, is it?”

  “Yes.”

  “Bull,” she said, rising smoothly with her coffee.

  “Holly.”

  “I’m going to get dressed and get out of here, just like you say. What you’re doing, Julian Stiles, is throwing me out.”

  “That’s not true. We’re discussing—”

  “We’re discussing you throwing me out is what we’re discussing. What all this talk boils down to is you want me out of here. And I’ll go—I might even agree with you, you know, but I hate being told what to do. Why do you think I’m my own boss?”

  “I’m not trying to tell you what to do...”

  “And if I say I want to stay?”

  “That’s not a good idea and you know it.”

  “There, you see? I’m outta here. And I’ll tell you one other thing, buster.” Her quiet determination had vanished, and she marched across the rug, glancing over her shoulder as she came to the stairs. “Next time, you can come after me.”

  Julian almost smiled. That’s the whole idea. “Admit you’re stir-crazy, Holly.”

  “Okay. I’m stir-crazy. So what? I’m a big girl. Yeah, I’m a wanderer, but I’ll tell you what I’m not, and that’s your dead sister-in-law Melissa Stiles. I’m not the tortured city girl who married your brother and tried to live a life she hated just to please him. I’m not going to run off a road in an ice storm and get myself killed. When I get frustrated or angry at somebody, I don’t take it out on myself. You or Adam or anybody else bugs me, I’ll let you know. Now,” she said, catching her breath, “when you realize that I’m Holly Wingate Paynter and nobody else and I’m not going to turn into a stick-in-the-mud to please you, you can come after me.”

  Julian twisted his mouth from one side to the other, taking in her outburst with equanimity. Obviously his sister had been doing some talking—dear Beth was anything but a close-mouthed Yankee. And obviously Holly Paynter had been doing some sorting out overnight as well. He gave her a steady look. “Sympathetic, aren’t you?”

  “Wingates are used to hard knocks. We know how to cope.”

  With that, she stomped upstairs. He could hear clothes flying and curses and grunts and didn’t know what the hell to do. He’d prepared himself for tears and wails. Holly Paynter wasn’t an easy woman to figure.

  She hadn’t finished. “You know,” she yelled downstairs, “there isn’t a man alive I’m going to turn into jelly over.” She leaned over the rail and shook her finger at him. “And that includes you.”

  “No regrets about this week?”

  “Not one. I even learned something.”

  He couldn’t resist. “What’s that?”

  Back over the rail she came. “A wolf can turn into a jackass in just a few short hours.”

  He had to bite back a smile. The woman could give as good as she got; she was tough and yet resilient. He didn’t know anymore if he was doing the right thing. You are, you are. But hell. She wasn’t a Melissa. Was he afraid of destroying her only because of the tragedy that had been Adam and Melissa’s marriage?

  Holly thumped back downstairs looking a little frayed at the edges, but she raked her fingers through her hair and grabbed her mug of coffee from where she’d left it on the floor by the fire. “I’ll send you your mug,” she told him.

  “Keep it.”

  “Wingates learned a hundred years ago not to take charity from a Danvers or a Stiles—and you’re both.”

  “I can’t deny that, but a mug isn’t charity.”

  “Yeah, well, maybe I’ll smash it to smithereens before I get it in the mail.”

  “I wouldn’t blame you if you did.”

  “I’m a fighter, Julian Stiles,” she said, “in case you haven’t noticed. As far as I’m concerned, we’ve only just begun. I guess I’ll see you when I see you.”

  His heart was pounding, every fiber of his body and soul urging him to grab the wild-haired woman and carry her back up to bed. But he’d made up his mind. “I guess you will,” he said. “Goodbye, Holly. I won’t forget this week.”

  “Neither will I,” she said, but there was nothing wistful in her tone... nothing the least bit final.

  He heard the kitchen door slam and lay down on his back on the floor, the heat of the fire licking at his feet. Outside, her van roared to a start. He shut his eyes, feeling the hot tears trickle down his temples into the rug. How can I let her go?

  After a while, he made himself get up and head into the kitchen for another cup of coffee. He called the dogs inside. They seemed to give him accusing looks,

  blaming him for the loss of potential company. He told them to go lie down.

  Then he looked around the kitchen, sensing something was wrong. Just guilt over what he’d done to Holly? He leaned back against the counter, sipping his hot coffee. No, something.

  “My goblets.”

  They’d been sitting inside the iron case on his kitchen counter when he’d gotten up. Now they weren’t.

  Holly was gone, and so were his matching pair of sterling-silver goblets crafted and signed by Paul Revere himself.

  “The lying little thief,” he muttered, already feeling better.

  She had given him his excuse to go after her.

  Holly gripped the steering wheel and chewed on her lower lip as she headed out of Mill Brook, Vermont, and wondered if she’d handled her confrontation with Julian well at all.

  Admitting that she had fallen in love with him.

  She, Holly Wingate Paynter, in love with a descendant of both Edward Danvers and Jonathan Stiles!

  He was hardheaded and compelling and intensely aggravating. He was also exciting in ways she’d never known. A life with Julian would never be dull—but was it possible?

  She glanced at the iron case on the passenger seat beside her. Would the goblets be enough to get him to come after her? She wanted him to see what her life was like, to peel back another layer. She wouldn’t be easy to find, but she’d leave a trail—just not an obvious one.

  If he refused to rise to the bait of the goblets, she thought, she’d just have to devise another plan.

  Because the prospect of not seeing Julian Stiles again was untenable. Although she had the feeling he felt the same way about her, she wasn’t taking any chances.

  Adam Stiles stood back from the huge up-and-down saw on the lower floor of the original nineteenth-century Wingate mill and glared at his younger brother. ‘‘You’re the biggest jackass I know.”

  ‘That’s twice in one day,” Julian remarked dryly, more to himself than his older brother. He hadn’t been able to get Holly off his mind, had hardly even tried.

  “You ran Holly out of town, didn’t you?”

  “She left.”

  “Because you made her.”

  “Look, Adam—”

  He shook his head, cutting Julian off. “You can rationalize all you want, brother. I know what you’re doing—what you think you’re doing. You figure Holly can’t make it here, you won’t do to her what I did to Melissa.”

  “Adam, for God’s sake. I don’t blame you!”

  Adam didn’t seem to hear him. ‘Turned out, Mel and I weren’t good for each other. We did everything we could to make the other happy, the end result being neither of us was happy. Now she’s dead and I’m missing a hand. Hell, Julian—you booted Holly out of town because you think she can’t be happy here, right? Don’t you think she ought to make that decision herself? Decide for herself what makes her happy and what doesn’t?” Adam sighed deeply, wiped sweat and sawdust from his brow with a folded bandanna. “She doesn’t strike me as the type who’s going to try to drag you off to the sub
urbs, Julian. Maybe she won’t want to live out in the woods like a weasel, but that’s more a matter of compromise than caving in.”

  Julian thought he preferred being compared to a wolf than to a weasel. “What’s your point, Adam?”

  He laughed bitterly. “Hell if I know. Julian—what do you want?”

  “I want Holly to be happy...”

  “That’s not a good answer. You’re not responsible for her happiness. Listen to me. There aren’t any guarantees—we’ve both been around too long to pretend otherwise. But you gotta take risks. My two kids are worth any sacrifices I had to make, all the pain Mel and I went through. She was fighting more demons than just me and Mill Brook. She was a troubled woman, Julian. And her death had nothing to do with me or the kids—or you. It was an accident. It just happened. Yeah, I blamed myself for a long time. I wished we’d had a chance to sort things out before she died, but we didn’t. All that’s over.”

  Julian looked at his older brother. “You haven’t had anything to do with women since Mel died.”

  “How the hell do you know? Look, the right woman comes along, I’ll know it.” He clapped his brother hard on the shoulder. “Go after her, you jackass. Let things work between you if that’s what’s meant to be. Don’t give up on your own happiness just because you don’t want to end up being a crotchety old bastard like me.”

  “Adam, you know that’s got nothing to do with it, but I admit I was hoping you’d say something like that. If I’m going to track Holly down, I’m going to need some time off. I wanted to go over the schedule for the next few weeks with you and Beth, figure out when it’ll be the least problem for me to be away.”

  His brother laughed. “Anytime you want to take off, go right ahead. Hell, it’s not like you do so much work we’re going to miss you around here.”

  “You are a crotchety bastard,” Julian said with good humor. “You know damn well I haven’t taken a vacation in two years—”

  “People who work need vacations,” Adam jibed, but then he looked at his younger brother, his expression suddenly serious. “Listen, Julian, you need me,” he said, “I’m there.”

  “I know that, Adam. Thanks.”

  Being on the road wasn’t the same.

  Holly sat on the cot in her van with the doors open and the camellia-scented evening breeze floating over her. It was beautiful and balmy in Florida. She’d parked her van in the driveway of the little stucco cottage her friends in Orlando owned. They’d invited her to sleep on the couch, but her van was comfortable enough. And her mood didn’t make her the best company. All she could do was think about her trek through the frozen Vermont wilderness two weeks ago.

  Two weeks.

  It seemed an eternity.

  She had resumed the activities she’d planned for her winter break: she was supposed to relax, work up new material, wander around, bask in the warmth of various southern climates. Not until she’d left Mill Brook did she begin to ask herself why she’d arranged such a light schedule for herself. Was it fate? Or was she tired of being a gypsy, of zooming from a performance in one city to another performance in another city—of being so tightly scheduled she didn’t have time to live? She had reached the point in her career where she could pick and choose. She didn’t have to stay on the road constantly. There were alternatives—good alternatives, both for her long-term career and for herself. She could develop new projects...books, videos...a radio program for a certain public radio station in southern Vermont.

  She had been making a half-hearted job at working up a new idea all evening, but it wasn’t going well.

  Two weeks and he hadn’t found her.

  Two weeks and maybe he hadn’t even tried to find her.

  “Another two weeks,” she muttered, “and they’ll be hauling you off to the nuthouse.”

  She hated waiting. Always had. Her natural impatience was what had brought her to Danvers House and the attention of one Julian Stiles in the first place.

  What would she do if he didn’t come?

  How long was she going to wait to find out?

  He could find her easily enough, she was convinced, if he tried. All he had to do was call her Houston number; her answering service would tell him where she was staying. She didn’t normally give out such detailed information to callers, but she’d had to leave a trail.

  She wanted Julian to be able to find her without too much trouble.

  With a huff, she gave up on pretending to work and threw down her pen and clipboard.

  She thought she heard something outside. A dog, probably. There were enough of them in the neighborhood and they all loved her van. To discourage further effrontery, she pitched a paperback book out the door and yelled, “Go on—shoo! Find a tree.”

  “What am I now, a gorilla?”

  Julian! At the sound of his liquid voice in the darkness, Holly had to restrain herself from leaping up with excitement and glee. Her throat tightening, she said as calmly as she could, “A dog.”

  “How charming.”

  He poked his head inside her van, and she inhaled at the sight of his dark hair, his handsome face, his deep emerald eyes, and was pleased that everything about him still fit the image she’d carried around in her mind for two weeks. She hadn’t idealized him.

  So he’s here, at last.

  ‘‘Did you come for the goblets?” she asked.

  “Partly. They are mine, you know.”

  “Not morally.”

  “We can argue that point for a long, long time. Don’t you want to know what else I came for?”

  “Julian...”

  He climbed into the van, shut the doors, pulled the curtains and came to her on her cot, climbing over her feet. “Take a guess,” he said.

  She smiled into his eyes. “Why don’t you just show me?”

  Her voice had cracked, a rarity for her. Julian smiled back as he eased down beside her on the mattress. It was just a hair small for the two of them, which was perfect. He shifted onto his side and stretched out beside her. The evening air was cooling rapidly, but Holly felt warmer than she had all day.

  “That confident, are you?” he teased.

  She shook her head. ‘That hopeful.”

  “I’ve missed you.” His voice was barely a whisper as he lightly skimmed her cheek with one knuckle; his eyes never left hers. “I lie in bed at night, imagining you beside me. In the morning I can hear you laugh and see your strawberry hair in tangles from a night of wild lovemaking. My life’s been hell without you, I’ll have you know.”

  “Good.” she said.

  “Serves me right for telling you to leave Mill Brook?”

  “Probably, but I was thinking more that my life’s been hell, too, without you, and I’m no martyr. I’d hate to think I’ve been down here pining for you while you were in Vermont having a grand time for yourself. And anyway, we’re together now.” She grinned, catching his knuckle between her teeth in a quick nibble. “I’m not suffering.”

  The simmering heat between them bubbled over then, so abruptly, so totally without warning, that Holly gasped at the depth and immediacy of her arousal. She was wearing a rugby-weight sweat suit, but she might have been nude. Wherever Julian’s body touched hers—along one leg, her hip, her shoulder— her skin tingled and burned as if he were trailing kisses from her toes to her forehead.

  Within minutes, he was.

  Words no longer necessary, each sensing the extent of the other’s anticipation, they flung off their clothes and started what Holly had dreamed about, ached for, since their first time. She could see Julian was in the same state she was. But he didn’t pounce, and she held back, too. Prolonging the sweet torment of their arousal would only increase the potency, the pleasure of their release.

  But she couldn’t hold back for long.

  First his fingers, then his tongue, warm and moist, traced a patch up her calves, along the outside of her knees, then along her inner thighs, until at last he came to the center of her heat. She fel
t her body convulse with rhythms that were automatic, primal. Then, at the exact moment she could stand it no longer, he moved onto her, coming into her quickly, hard, fully aware that she was at the edge... and so was he.

  “You feel so good,” he said, moaning with pleasure.

  “I’ve missed you.”

  All at once they were falling, together, a wild, slightly dangerous, wonderful free-fall that had her crying out, laughing, holding him until all at once, without warning, they were no longer plummeting, but floating gently back to earth. They landed together, and they might have been in the soft grass of a sweet-smelling field instead of on the narrow cot in her van. Closing her eyes, Holly snuggled up to his warm body.

  ‘There’s never been anyone in my life like you.” he whispered into her hair. “You’re it, darling. You’re all I want.”

  Sometime later, hours or perhaps only minutes, they came together again, more slowly, with beauty and tenderness, whispering love words, showing each other where to touch, to kiss, to press, opening up in ways they hadn’t before.

  “We’ll find a way to be together,” Holly whispered. “We have to.”

  They were her last words before falling asleep to very sweet dreams....

  They had an enormous breakfast at a local restaurant crowded with tourists, and they laughed and talked about nothing important, just what people were wearing, the beautiful weather, how great it felt to be together. Afterward, they headed back to her friends’ house. The day was clear and warm, a hint of the ocean in the soft breeze. Holly’s friends had gone off to work, and she and Julian sat out on their porch, enjoying the sunshine.

  Without fanfare, he told her, “I’ve got a flight back home at noon. I’d better call a cab.”

  Holly made no comment.

  “I’d planned to take off a couple weeks so we could wander around Florida together, but one thing’s led to another with this academy property—and we’re swinging into full gear on the Danvers House. I tried to drop everything and go, but I have responsibilities to meet.”