Her Mysterious Houseguest

by Jane Toombs

  What the hell had triggered all this? Mikel wondered. Aino couldn’t know he’d found the gun. Was it the questions he’d asked Aino about Leo this morning? Or was it merely a reaction to something Sonia might have said about the relationship between him and Rachel?

  “I’ll keep what you’ve said in mind,” he told Aino.

  “Mind? What’s that got to do with it? The mind’s too cunning for what I’m talking about. It’s your heart I said and it’s your heart I meant.”

  Between his grandmother urging him to search his soul and Aino insisting he think with his heart—what a concept—he felt like an alien who didn’t understand the language.

  “Please excuse me, sir,” he said.

  “I realize you’ll do what you must.” Aino turned his face away and closed his eyes in an abrupt and effective dismissal.

  More disturbed than ever, Mikel left him. When he reached his car, he got in and drove aimlessly down the highway, wanting to escape and yet aware he was going nowhere.

  In the town where the vet practiced, Rachel, who’d spent the day wandering around the shops, found a restaurant she liked the looks of and had broiled whitefish for supper. By the time she returned to the vet’s, Metsa had recovered enough from the anesthesia to be taken home.

  “Try to keep her quiet overnight,” he said. “There’s only a small incision, don’t worry about it unless she starts bleeding—which I don’t anticipate. She’ll be back to her normal self by morning.”

  Since she wanted to keep an eye on the dog, Rachel let her curl up on the passenger seat in front as she began the drive home. After a time, she asked, “What am I going to do? I spent the entire day thinking about Mikel. I can’t get him out of my mind and I’m afraid I never will. Yet I know nothing can come of it.”

  Metsa opened her eyes and thumped once with her tail.

  Rachel smiled. “The trouble is I don’t know if one thump is yes or no, and, anyway, neither of them answers my question. When he’s around I can’t think at all, much less decide anything. I thought maybe if I drove alone today I could keep a clear head and come to some decision. No go. Should I tell him the truth? Yet how can I?”

  Metsa moved enough to lick Rachel’s hand.

  “Thanks for your sympathy. You really are a nice dog, but you’re enthralled with him, too, aren’t you? Another susceptible female, just like me and my Girl Scouts. My life was so simple until he came into it.”

  Routine might be a better word for her life, Rachel thought. Maybe even in a rut. She didn’t, she couldn’t regret knowing Mikel, but he’d certainly complicated her life almost past bearing. What was she to do?

  When she reached the farm driveway, the long summer evening was darkening into night and she still hadn’t reached one single conclusion. The headlights picked Mikel out, in the act of rising from the front steps, and she knew he’d been waiting for her return.

  She got out and waited for him to walk over to the car. “I’m glad you’re here,” she said. “Metsa’s pretty groggy yet, she’ll need to be carried in.”

  Without answering, without saying a word, he wrapped his arms around Rachel and kissed her, almost desperately, she thought. As always, his kiss blanked her mind, churning her emotions into a frenzy of need, giving her no space to decide whether or not she wanted to feel this way.

  One last fragment of realization flashed into her mind as she gave herself up to the magic of his kiss. She loved him, loved Mikel, the hunter.

  Chapter Twelve

  Shocked by the realization of what she actually did feel for Mikel, Rachel came partway out of the daze of passion evoked by his kiss, enough so that she recognized a difference in how he held her. Always before, she’d been aware at some deep level that he was cued by her reactions. Now, even though she’d drawn back slightly, he showed no inclination to let her go, in fact he tightened his grip and his mouth came down hard again on hers.

  Ruthless. The word jarred her senses, making her struggle to free herself. “No!” she cried. “Not like that.”

  For a long moment, she didn’t believe he meant to let her go, but then he released her and stepped back. “You didn’t take me with you,” he muttered hoarsely.

  She decided to tell him the truth. “I needed to be alone. You—us…” Her voice trailed off. She began again. “It’s all happened so fast, like a Lake Superior storm.”

  He sighed. “Yes. One we ought to have seen coming.”

  Metsa whined from inside the car, reminding them of her presence. “We need to get Metsa in before we go on talking,” Rachel said.

  “Where do you want her? On the back porch where she usually sleeps?”

  “For tonight she’d be better off in the back room. That’s where she’ll be sleeping this winter, anyway. Aino would never force her to sleep outside in the cold—he’s softhearted when it comes to animals.”

  Mikel opened the passenger door and scooped the dog into his arms. Rachel scurried ahead to move Metsa’s sleeping rug from the porch to the back room. When he laid the dog on her rug, she tried to get to her feet but subsided with a whine.

  “Take it easy, girl,” Mikel advised her. “You’ll be okay tomorrow.”

  But when they tried to leave the room, Metsa stumbled to her feet and staggered after them. Mikel rolled his eyes. “I suppose I’ll have to take her to the cottage for the night.”

  “That might be best. She’ll be happier with you there.”

  “Bring the rug,” he said, resignation tingeing his words as he picked up the dog again.

  Rachel grabbed the rug and water dish and followed him to the cottage. Once inside, they settled the dog on the rug in front of the unlit fireplace. She dropped her head onto her paws, apparently satisfied since they were with her.

  “Want some coffee?” Mikel asked.

  Rachel nodded, reluctant to leave, even though she felt it might be best if she did. Whatever he might think, she knew there could be no resolution tonight—or any other night. She perched uneasily on a chair, watching him. Soon he’d be gone, out of her life. How could she bear never seeing him again?

  “Sonia took a call today from Eva,” he said over his shoulder. “From where she’s staying in New York. She’s starting home.”

  Since Eva was driving, that meant she’d be here the day after tomorrow or no earlier than midnight tomorrow if she didn’t stop to sleep. All too clearly recalling how Eva tended to get her back up if she thought any of her friends and relatives were being hassled, Rachel tried to quash her inner leap of alarm. When Eva got upset, she wasn’t careful what came out of her mouth.

  I’ll have to make sure to have a talk with her before Mikel begins inundating her with questions, Rachel told herself.

  “That’s good,” she said. “Aino really dotes on his granddaughter.”

  Mikel turned from the coffeemaker and sauntered over to the fireplace. “And on you as well,” he said. “I got warned off.”

  Rachel frowned. She’d gotten the distinct impression Aino as well as Sonia was actively promoting a romance between Mikel and her. “Why would he do that?” She was really asking herself, but she spoke aloud.

  “I’m not sure.” He looked over her head, rather than at her, which wasn’t like him at all.

  “You asked him about Leo, didn’t you?”

  Mikel nodded. “He didn’t like my questions. I got the message that he doesn’t care much for me now, either.”

  “He’s touchy about Leo,” she said carefully.

  “So I found out. I offered to leave the farm, but he refused to kick me off his property. Once I talk to Eva, though…”

  He didn’t finish the sentence, but he didn’t have to. Rachel knew he’d leave once he discovered he couldn’t learn anything from Eva, either. And he wouldn’t if Eva was warned to keep her cool ahead of time. Too bad Rachel had been at the vet’s when the call came or she could have talked to Eva before she got here.

  “Was Eva surprised to learn your grandmother was staying
here?” she asked, determinedly shifting the subject slightly.

  “Sonia never lets anyone stay surprised for long. I’d say Eva knows everything there is to know.”

  Which was entirely correct. And not only about Sonia.

  “Coffee’s ready.” As he spoke, Mikel crossed to what he’d set up as a serving table and then carried two mugs over, handing one to her before he sat down. “Back to our own private Lake Superior storm,” he said. “Are you trying to tell me we’re shipwrecked?”

  His image brought a wry smile to her lips. “That’s one way of looking at it.”

  “Some ships ride out storms.”

  Not ours, she wanted to say, but couldn’t, true as she knew it had to be. Instead of answering, she took a sip of her coffee, a dark fog of sadness settling over her.

  “You’ll be leaving,” she managed to say after a while, completing the sentence he’d begun earlier. “There really isn’t anything more to say.”

  He took a swallow of coffee, set his mug aside and rose, momentarily startling groggy Metsa. He soothed her before coming to stand over Rachel.

  “It’s easy to tell the dog everything’s all right because it’s true for her,” he said. “I want to say the same thing to you, but I can’t.”

  “Shipwrecked,” she reminded him.

  “Damn it!” He turned away from her, pacing back and forth.

  She watched him, saying nothing, her heart heavy with the knowledge that all too soon he wouldn’t be here for her to watch.

  “I want to tell you a story,” he said at last, pausing beside her. Hooking the footstool by the other chair, he pulled it over and sat on it, his back to her, leaning against her legs as he had once before. Unable to help touching him, she rested a hand on his shoulder, savoring the intimacy.

  How could it feel so right to be sitting here like this with him when things were so wrong between them?

  “Once upon a time,” he began, “when I was in the middle of an agency case, I met a woman named Yolanda.”

  Rachel listened, at first with some confusion, wondering why he was telling her about a former affair, then beginning to realize the point of the story when he kept repeating in one way or another how totally he’d believed in this woman.

  “I don’t discuss agency matters with anyone,” he continued, “and I didn’t with Yolanda. Not consciously. But she was shrewd enough to pick up a snippet here and a snippet there, enough for her to put together a fairly accurate scenario of how the investigation into the illegal arms shipment was going, and so she was able to set me up. The only thing she didn’t count on was my hunches. I don’t know where they come from, but I do get them. And I’ve learned to pay attention. I didn’t pick up on her betrayal, just that something wasn’t right and I yelled at my buddy Steve to get the hell out of that warehouse.”

  When he didn’t go on, she asked, “Then what happened?”

  “One hell of a shootout. Steve and I survived because he believed in my hunches as much as I did. But I got us into the mess because I believed in Yolanda’s honesty, when she’d lied to me from the beginning. She was a small cog in the arms cartel all along and I never caught on until the end that they’d sicced her on me.”

  Rachel set aside her coffee mug and caressed his shoulder, aware of how hurt and angry he must have been. “What a cruel and terrible thing for her to do,” she murmured.

  “So now I’ve come to believe everyone lies to me,” Mikel added.

  He didn’t have to say “even you,” because she knew now that he’d told the story to make her aware he couldn’t trust her. Didn’t trust her. And he was right. Her hand drifted away from his shoulder, came up and clenched her other hand. He believed she’d lied to him, which she had, but, at the same time, she was almost certain he didn’t yet know the real truth.

  Tell him! an inner voice urged. She took a deep breath, searched for a way to begin and found she couldn’t force a single word out.

  Mikel rose from the stool, grasped her hand and pulled her to her feet. With his hands on her shoulders, he gazed down at her. “Don’t look so stricken,” he said. “I did survive.”

  Before she could decide how to respond, he bent and brushed his lips over hers in the gentlest of kisses. “Tell me our ship is still afloat,” he murmured.

  Unable to help herself, she lifted her arms to hold him to her. After all, the condemned were allowed one last request. Hers might be silent, but he’d understand what she wanted.

  With a groan, Mikel caught her close. Because of the still vivid memory of how she’d backed off earlier from the way he kissed her by the car, he tried his best not to let the desperation driving him affect the way he made love to her. As he’d told Aino, he would never hurt Rachel. Even though the way he felt about her frightened him, he couldn’t help wanting her with an aching passion he’d never experienced before.

  And wasn’t likely to experience again?

  Thrusting that thought away, he allowed himself to fall under the spell of holding Rachel in his arms. He’d pinned down her scent—that of the sweet violets they sometimes sold on street corners in New York City, a delicate scent he’d never encountered elsewhere. Tasting her, touching her was an addiction he didn’t know how he’d ever be able to break.

  But this was no time to think of the future when now might be all they’d ever have. The certainty came from deep within him, from the place where his hunches arose. There was more to it than his leaving after he’d talked to Eva, but, at this moment, he refused to seek further for the reason why.

  He deliberately let go of reality until only Rachel and he existed, the two of them, the fire flaring between them. She belonged in his arms, he was meant to hold her and caress her until the flames consumed them. Kiss by kiss they eased across the space separating them from the bed, clothes dropping along the way. When at last they lay flesh to flesh, her sweet moans of pleasure and need so aroused him that he could hardly hold back. Only the overwhelming desire to make it last forever kept him from plunging into her soft heat and driving them both to completion.

  He wanted, he needed to savor all of her and he did his best to satisfy that urge, until her whispered “Please—now” drove him over the edge. Deep inside her, he felt her contract around him, heard her cries and joined her in the rapture of release.

  Coming down, he couldn’t let her go. He held her next to him, a strange sensation pervading him. Rachel was his in a way no other woman had ever been. He couldn’t imagine never seeing her again.

  They fell asleep in each other’s arms.

  He woke when she eased away from him, drowsily watching her gather her scattered clothes and don them. He knew it was best she didn’t spend the night with him, much as he wanted her to, so made no move to stop her. But, as she opened the door, he said, “Could be it’s unsinkable.”

  She turned to him and smiled before leaving the cottage, yet her smile had been a sad one, as if in denial of his words. He sighed and, since it was barely light, turned over and tried to go back to sleep. When he finally did, he dreamed….

  He walked, barefoot, along a beach, sandpipers scattering ahead of him. Ahead of him red-haired children played with pails in the sand. As he neared, they all ran off, one leaving behind a toy gun. A woman knelt by the water line searching the damp sand. Dottie, he thought, and asked her what she was looking for.

  “My contacts,” she wailed. “I’ve lost them.” When she turned her face up to look at him, he saw she wasn’t Dottie, she was Yolanda. No, not Yolanda—Rachel. As he watched, she began to cry and her eyes changed color—aquamarine, to pale blue to brown, to—

  Mikel woke abruptly to find Metsa’s front paws on the bed, her brown eyes staring at him as she whined. He sat up, blinking and shaking his head. Taking that as a sign he understood, Metsa limped to the cottage door and waited there.

  “Want to go out, do you?” he mumbled, getting up and opening the door for her. Yawning, he watched her head out into the cool and cloudy morning,
apparently back to normal.

  He wished he were. He could still very faintly smell Rachel’s scent mixed in with the rich flavor of lovemaking and it made him long to have her in his arms again. So much for his theory that his obsession with her would lessen once they’d made love. He wanted her more than ever.

  As he showered and dressed, he supposed he should be glad the dream hadn’t been a Yolanda nightmare, but it had disturbed him all the same. Redheads, toy guns, lost contacts—if the dream was trying to point up something, he could understand the gun and red hair, but not the missing contacts. Rachel wore them, true, but…

  Mikel paused in the act of putting on his shoes, suddenly realizing that he didn’t actually know whether or not Rachel’s eyes were actually brown. As Dottie had reminded him, contacts could change eye color as well as improve vision. He had no reason to believe Rachel wore colored contacts, though. Or did he?

  Troubled, he tied his shoes and left the cottage, Metsa joining him before he reached the house. He’d planned to go to Sylvia’s for breakfast in order to avoid eating at the same table with Aino, but the dream had changed his mind. He needed to see Rachel this morning.

  Aino was not in the kitchen, but Sonia and Rachel were there, deep in conversation. When his grandmother saw him, she broke off whatever she was saying and left the room, leaving Rachel clearly distressed. Why? Mikel took a step toward her, intending to offer comfort. She glanced at him, then backed away, looking even more upset. A moment later she fled, leaving him alone in the kitchen. The cup of coffee he poured failed to make him feel any better.

  In her bedroom, Rachel stared at her reflection in the mirror over her dresser and shook her head. No more masquerade. Reaching for the plastic container where she stored her contacts, she eased them out one at a time and slipped them inside. No matter what came of it, Mikel had to know the truth. Because he’d interrupted Sonia before she’d finished talking, Rachel had no idea how his grandmother had ferreted out the secret—but she had.