But for now he had this first Christmas to endure without any family. Only the Widow Spider. At least she kept him busy. Busy, and alternately frustrated and intrigued.
He didn’t want to like Claire Saint-Ange, didn’t want to care about her. But today’s events had brought out such contrasting facets of her personality. The passion in her duels with him, in her determination to find the truth, in her eyes when he’d held her. The courage to listen without flinching to Russell Santerre’s accusations. The womanly gentleness and patience to coax four abandoned kittens to trust her. The generosity and loneliness to adopt strays.
Strays. More than one. She’d not allowed the handyman to shovel the porch, but Michael had seen in her backyard a brand-new snow blower still bearing tags. He’d bet Fogg wouldn’t bend his frail old back over a shovelful of snow again. And her attachment to the three-legged dog was real.
The episode with the kitten sliced through Claire’s antagonism where his clumsy challenges had failed. No matter her lush beauty, she hadn’t lured three men into marriage with a prickly personality. He’d bet his sub-zero sleeping bag that she recently cultivated her hostility as protective coloration.
Hostility worked for him, too, as a defense against her lethal beauty and fascinating courage. Involvement with the target? Bad idea in more ways than he cared to list. Here it was barely noon on the second day he’d ever seen her, and his libido threatened to compromise his mission. Dangerous Curves Ahead signs should be posted all over that female.
This assignment didn’t require Gestapo tactics, but either he attacked her or he kissed her soft, full mouth until they both couldn’t breathe. And if he kissed her, he’d want to lay her down and bury himself in her until this clawing need burned itself out. Hell, he hadn’t even touched her and every bone in his body ached for her. And one part that wasn’t a bone.
A muffled cry came from the direction of the kitchen.
“Claire?” he shouted, already halfway down the hall.
He found her opposite the kitchen entrance. Dark eyes wide with fear and cheeks pale, she stared at a partially opened pocket door. Her dog stood at her feet, hackles raised, a fierce rumble emitting from her throat.
“Did you go in this room?” Claire asked him.
“Me? In there? No,” he answered in confusion. “What’s the matter?” Taking her trembling shoulders in his hands, he turned her to face him.
She wavered, eyes luminous and vulnerable, as if she longed to seek safety in his arms. Then the defenses slid into place, and she withdrew. “Someone has been in the house.”
“What is this room?” With one smooth maneuver, he positioned her behind him.
“My…my office.” She clutched at his sleeve. “Are you going in there? Do you have a gun?”
“Yes. And no.” He didn’t carry a damn gun. Hadn’t for eight months. “Get back, Claire.”
When she didn’t move, he shoved her sideways at the same time he slid open the door. In an alert half crouch, he burst into the room.
In his search for movement, for telltale sounds, he had a vague impression of dark wood, a breakfront like his mother’s, a computer and printer positioned on a side table. No closet, nowhere an intruder could hide.
“They’re gone,” Claire said from the open doorway. She held Alley in her arms.
“Why’d you think someone had been here?” Michael resumed an erect stance but held himself alert.
“Some things were moved in the kitchen, and I’d closed this door.” After depositing the wriggling dog on the floor, she darted to the computer table, where she examined stacks of papers and books. “I left this printout evenly stacked. You see how the pages are twisted, um, askew? And the books?”
“You’re sure?” He admitted to himself that she usually arranged everything precisely—their mugs on the tray, the candles on the mantel, even the tree decorations. A vision of her straightening the magazines on the side table winked into his mind.
“Quinn, I know how I do things in my own house.” She glared at him, arms folded.
“You’re the damn boss.” He scowled back. “What is all this, anyway?” The printout was in English, something incomprehensible about a moose and a bear, but the reference books had French titles. This woman contained more damn mysteries than Agatha Christie. “Are you a writer or something?”
“Or something.” She sighed. “I didn’t mean for you to see this. It’s private. But now that you have…”
Obviously temporizing, she reached back to tug the fastening from her braid. The movement stretched her sweater across her breasts and shot heat directly to Michael’s loins. When she shook loose her rich fall of mahogany hair, he clenched his fists. Dammit. Was she trying to kill him?
“Are you going to explain or not?”
“I do translations. English to French. French to English. This one is a children’s book written by a Quebec author.”
Another side to her multifaceted personality. “Why?”
“I enjoy it. I’m good at it, usually. I like having a means to earn at least some of my own income. Is that enough reason for you?”
“Just asking.” He raised his hands in truce. “Any reason someone would want to rifle through these papers?”
“Children’s literature is a stiff market, but I doubt publishing houses send burglars to spy on rivals.” She evened the edges of the papers and arranged the books in a stack. Still frightened but in control.
“Were there any other signs of intruders?”
She shook her head. With her hair wild around her shoulders, she looked sexier than ever.
He had to get out of here. “I’ll check the rest of the house.”
Claire followed, unwilling to stay in the violated room without Quinn. Who could have entered her house? Why? And how did they get in? She’d locked the back door before the drive to the harbor. It was still locked.
To Alley she said, “Some watchdog. You used to growl at everyone. What happened?”
But the dog merely gazed lovingly at her mistress and wagged her tail.
When Quinn was halfway up the stairs, Claire called, “Without me, you won’t know if things are out of place.”
“Stay there.” It was a clear order, issued in a tone of crisp command. “You can check after I make sure it’s safe.”
Straining to hear, she waited at the foot of the stairs. But no sounds betrayed Quinn’s path through the four bedrooms and two baths. On bare floor or carpet, he made no sound. For such a big man, he moved with a cat’s stealth, no doubt due to his DEA experience.
Rather than stand here wringing her hands with anxiety, she dashed to the kitchen, then to the living room with the kitten’s food. The tiny creature lapped his meal greedily. After peering curiously over the box rim and sniffing the fishy aroma, Alley lay down with a sigh on the hearth rug.
“I’ll feed you later, little one, after he is gone.” Her gaze strayed toward the stairway. Still no sounds upstairs.
Why had Quinn left the DEA? A man with his training and talents. “I’d had enough.” His curt response to her question had left more unsaid than it revealed. Any personal inquiry was answered briefly, with no invitation to probe. In the DEA, he must have carried a gun. Why didn’t he carry one now?
What had happened to the man?
Quinn was a skilled interrogator. He’d wheedled more out of Russ than anyone had. That Paul had intended to go out to meet a new supplier the day he died was new information to her. And she had a feeling there was more Russ could have said. Did he hold back because of her?
“All clear. You can come up now.”
At the sound of Quinn’s voice, Claire rushed up the stairs. Seeing his grim-faced form at the door to her bedroom didn’t give her the sense of security she’d anticipated.
All hard-edged masculinity and rugged appeal, he was too attractive for comfort. Slipping past him as she entered the room, she felt his body heat, saw his mouth quirk. Would that hard mouth mold sensuously to a w
oman’s and give pleasure, or would it simply take?
A flutter of awareness in her belly, she trailed around the bath and bedroom under his intense scrutiny. She knew he desired her, and there was something too intimate about being together in her bedroom, in sight of her king-size bed.
She tugged at a corner of the damask bedspread and smoothed the pillow. Remembering his powerful yet light embrace after her misstep, she imagined being entwined with him on her satin sheets, with no heavy parkas, no clothing to separate them. A vision of that hard, muscled body sent heat rushing to her cheeks, and she ducked her head.
“Everything is okay,” she said, struggling to control the tremor in her voice, “but some jars and bottles have been moved around in the bathroom.”
“Nothing missing?” When she shook her head, he said, “You have a maid or someone come in to clean?”
“No, Elisha Fogg’s the only one crazy enough to work for the Widow Spider. Even he doesn’t enter the house.” Unable to meet those penetrating gray eyes, she slid past him and hurried to the other rooms. “Why?”
He waited in the next doorway as she scanned dresser tops. Unyielding, a granite pillar. “Since there’s no sign of forced entry, I wondered who had a key. Maybe Fogg?”
She spoke as she rearranged antique perfume bottles on a vanity. “I have the only keys. Elisha doesn’t need one. I’m usually here.”
“What about Paul’s? And did Alan Worcester have a key?”
“Alan didn’t have one, and Paul’s are somewhere on the ocean bottom.”
“Okay, let’s leave that for now.” He rubbed his nape. “Then who might want to snoop around?”
“Besides the police, you mean. They are not so careful. Pratt and his men left everything above below.”
Quinn paused. “You mean upside down?” His unexpected smile softened his features and lit his gray eyes to silver.
Dazzled, her heart did a little flip. “Yes, upside down. Bilingualism has its limits. I do occasionally mix up idioms.” Now her equilibrium was above below. She plopped down on the vanity’s padded stool. “Who would snoop in my house?” she repeated. “Many people fear me, hate me for what they believe I did, but simply to prowl around? I don’t know.”
“Russell Santerre sure as hell didn’t conceal his hatred for you. Did you do what he said? Pressure Paul to turn this place into a museum?”
Those accusations hurt, especially coming from the man hired to help her. Pain constricted her chest.
“Did you push him and the others to write wills in your favor? Did you—”
“Mon Dieu, non!”
Hands raised in fists, she flew at him.
He easily caught her and held her hands against the rock wall of his chest.
She struggled, tears burning the backs of her eyes. “No, Quinn, I made no demands of either man. Or of Alan.”
“Then why the wills? You put me off before. Tell me now,” he demanded, so close she could taste the vehemence of his words, see flecks of green in his gray irises, inhale his masculine scent. “Tell me.”
“I told you before. I don’t know. Jonathan came home one day saying he had written the will, that it seemed like a good idea. And Paul made one because Jonathan had. Alan knew about it, I suppose.” Drawn by his heat and strength and tired of the struggle, she rested against him, didn’t resist when his arms slipped around her.
“Paul’s workaholic drive and creating this tasteful Taj Mahal—was all that to keep your love?” His gruff voice wrapped around her like a wool blanket.
Paul had never had her love, but she couldn’t say that to anyone, least of all Quinn.
She shook her head and leaned her forehead against his strong neck. The pulse in it throbbed to the same rapid-fire beat as hers. She needed to trust this man, but she had to fight her attraction to him. “Paul set his goals for success before he married me. I told you he and Jonathan were competitive. Right out of college, he worked constantly to build his seafood business.”
“Seems normal.” The deep rumble slid down her spine.
“You don’t see. They couldn’t compete in business, since Jonathan joined his father’s company. Jonathan and I bought this house, but Paul had to have it professionally decorated. He had to buy the cabin at Caribou Peak and—”
“Caribou Peak? Isn’t that the ski resort where Alan Worcester was killed?”
“Yes, we were staying at Paul’s cabin.” Without that extravagance, maybe Alan would still be alive instead of crushed beneath an avalanche. She drew a deep breath.
“And?” Quinn urged. “The boat? The Rêve?”
“Yes, he had to have that boat designed for himself. And he had to have…”
“What?”
“He had to have Jonathan’s wife,” she whispered. She’d never told anyone her conviction about that. The very idea made her feel dirty. Bought and sold.
“Is that why you didn’t take his name?” He slid his hand up her arm and around to her chin. Like red-hot coals, his fingers burned into her flesh. “Why is it still Saint-Ange?”
“Family,” she said simply. “My cousin Martine has a brother and cousins to carry on the Parent name, my mother’s name, but I’m the last Saint-Ange. My mother and father are gone. With their debts, they left me little but my name. I needed to keep something…something of my family.”
“Family means more to me than you can know. Believe me, I understand.” His voice was a raw murmur, velvet and sandpaper, as he tipped up her chin.
Her heart skipped a beat at the hope that someone understood. “You do, Quinn?” The first step to believing in her. She searched his smoky eyes, but all she saw was heat and hunger. He was going to kiss her, and she was powerless to resist.
“I want to.”
The warmth of his breath puffed against her lips. Her heart tripped on itself in anticipation and trepidation. His face hovered only inches above hers, tantalizing her.
His hand left her chin to tangle in her hair and cup the back of her head. Their lips met with fevered urgency, with stinging need that had simmered since their first meeting. His hard-looking mouth molded to hers with searing demand and sensuous skill. A leap of electricity scorched through her down to her toes.
His lips tasted richly of coffee and heat and need. Curls of pleasure sifted through her as she opened to his probing tongue. Reveling in the narcotic headiness of how perfectly their mouths and bodies fit, she let her tongue plunge and parry with his.
His scent, his hard body, his throaty growls of desire saturated her senses. Her heart clattered and her blood pounded. With his gliding caress down her back to her derriere, she wanted more, more than this devastating kiss. The burning ridge thrust against her belly told her he wanted the same.
When he eased away, Claire blinked, dazed for a moment before she recoiled at her own mindless behavior.
“Oh, hell! I didn’t mean to do that!” He slammed a hand against the doorjamb.
“Quinn, I—” she began. “It was a big mistake, and it mustn’t happen again.” She was responsible for three men’s deaths. She didn’t want another. For both their sakes, she had to keep the relationship on a purely professional basis.
“It won’t,” he said between his teeth. Storming away from her, he pounded down the stairs two at a time. “I’ll check the cellar. Just to be sure.”
Claire took her time descending to the kitchen. Though the lock remained in place on the cellar door, she was glad Quinn insisted on looking around. Just to be sure.
When he returned, all male irritation and aggression, awareness flared again, but the steel core that had armed her these past months held. She busied herself washing their coffee cups. Radiating competence and granite solidity, Quinn leaned against the refrigerator.
She started as the quiet was pierced by a shrill jangle. Drying her hands on a tea towel, she crossed to the telephone. “Hello.”
What she heard stopped her heart, then caused it to race with fear. She dropped the receiver an
d clamped both arms around her middle.
Immediately at her side, Quinn snatched up the instrument. He listened for a moment, then barked, “Who’s there?” Shortly, he replaced the receiver in its cradle. “It’s dead. Claire, what the hell was that?”
A spasm of panic gripped her chest, and her heartbeat jittered. “I’ve been receiving anonymous calls.”
“A man? What does he say?”
“I don’t know if it’s a man or woman.” Her nerves screamed, but Quinn’s proximity calmed her racing pulse, lent her strength. To prevent curling into his arms again, she scooped up her dropped tea towel. “Usually they say nothing, but I feel a threat in the silence.”
“Usually? But not this time?”
“I won’t blame you if you want to quit now. This may be more than just an investigation, Quinn.”
He stood before her, hands fisted at his sides, as if he resisted reaching for her. “I won’t quit. What did the caller say?”
“He said…he said…” Her throat felt paralyzed, but she choked out the words. “‘He’s next.”’
Quinn’s jaw worked, and his eyes darkened to slate. He stalked around the kitchen, shaking his head like the bull she’d compared him to that first day.
“Now I’ve put you in danger.” Jonathan, Paul, Alan—each had died while they were apart from her, off on their own and alone. Quinn was in the same danger now. Her next words shocked her as much as the caller’s had. “Get your things from the motel and move in here.”
Chapter 4
Michael had drunk in worse bars. He must have. But no dive on the Boston waterfront could be any sleazier or dingier than Butch’s Bar, located in the downstairs rooms of a squat, unpainted house near the Weymouth town landing.
At four in the afternoon, the day drinkers slumped at the bar. The happy-hour arrivals, tired and thirsty after a raw day scalloping or pounding nails, cared only about getting a buzz on.
The Ichabod Crane-type bartender slapped down beers and shots on the rough-planked bar for three unshaven men in yellow rubber boots. Odors of fish and gasoline overlay the less pleasant ones indigenous to Butch’s.
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