Dangerous Attraction

by Susan Vaughan

  “We’re finished here for the time being,” Cruz said. “Chief said to report everything to Pratt here. This operation has changed course.”

  Three men in protective jumpsuits clambered from the rubble with evidence bags to be analyzed in the police lab.

  Claire. Claire.

  That could have been her—or him—in a body bag. Nausea suffused Michael’s stomach and twined up his throat. Hell of a Christmas Eve.

  He gaped listlessly as the bomb squad loaded their booty into a state police van, then drove past them. The smoke from the fire must be hanging in the air because everything looked oddly foggy. He wanted to clear his head, but the pain…

  “Suppose you two DEA wonder boys come down to CID headquarters and wait for the preliminary lab results,” Pratt said. “I’ll lean on the bomb squad to hurry it along. In the meantime, you can tell me all about your undercover op.” His authoritative tone implied more than an invitation.

  “Will do,” Cruz said with exaggerated amiability. “Always glad to cooperate with the state boys.”

  Michael scowled when his friend hunkered down to scrutinize him. He shivered again.

  Cruz’s mouth thinned. “But it will have to wait until we get back from the hospital. My partner’s in shock. His head’s bleeding pretty bad.”

  When Claire finally entered her house at ten-thirty that night, she found Alley wriggling happily in greeting. The dog sat on command, and the black kitten mewed and pounced on a swishing tail. Claire knelt to hug Alley and pat Spook’s head.

  Dieu merci. Thank God they were all right.

  Then she saw a note taped to her coat tree. The sight of the torn envelope and black ink stopped her heart for a beat until she recognized Elisha Fogg’s cramped scrawl.

  “Left 5:00 p.m. Fed critters. E.F.”

  Tears stung her eyes. The old handyman had spent the entire day there. She hadn’t telephoned because she didn’t think he’d dare enter the house. Just this morning, hadn’t he expressed his faith in her innocence?

  He was the only person now who believed in her.

  Folding the note, she wandered into the living room and flicked on a lamp. She was right to rush to Quinn’s rescue. Without her, he’d have remained on board the Rêve and died.

  Ironically, because of her actions, he thought her a murderer once again.

  Where was Quinn? Chief Snow had hustled her away so quickly, she hadn’t seen if anyone tended his wound. Was he all right? Would he return tonight? He’d have to retrieve his belongings, anyway. The safest thing for him would be to drop her case and leave town.

  Safer for her heart, too.

  Still, she needed to know he was all right. After the hours of questioning and explanations, she had more questions than answers. She’d told Snow everything—the phone calls, the interviews, the blue SUV. She remembered where she’d seen a dark blue Explorer. At the town landing. Maybe Quinn found out more. Snow didn’t tell her anything.

  Exhausted, she wavered beside the unlit Christmas tree. She should eat, but she didn’t feel hungry enough to fix anything. At the police station, they’d offered her a deli sandwich, but she’d only picked at it.

  Christmas Eve. The traditional tourtière she’d planned to share with Quinn would make Alley several festive meals.

  Now the most she could manage was to build a fire and pour a glass of wine. She still wore her boots and coat, which had dried. If she could just get moving.

  “Up you go, Spook.” Scooping up the kitten, she trudged to the kitchen, Alley at her heels. She deposited the bundle of black fur in his box. “Soon you’ll grow big enough to climb over the top. But for now, I don’t trust you not to scoot out the door and disappear.”

  Head cocked, Alley stared at the back door. A whine, then a growl emitted from her thirty-pound form.

  “What is it? Is one of those sassy squirrels at the bird-feeder again?” Claire flipped on the porch light. “I’m sure you need to go out.”

  As soon as the door opened, the little dog raced away into the darkness beyond the arc of yellow light. She woofed warnings at the invisible intruder.

  Claire’s mouth curved fondly. At least twice a day, Alley had to reassert her dominance over the backyard wildlife, usually during daylight hours. This visitor had better be a raccoon and not a skunk. The barking stopped, but Alley wouldn’t return until after her routine circuit.

  About to descend the few steps, Claire noticed three new boards framing the porch latticework. Elisha. Not content to merely pet-sit, he’d found repairs to do. Again tears threatened, but she berated herself for uncustomary weepiness and made her way to the rows of wood.

  She began lifting logs into her arms, but stopped when she heard a whimper from somewhere beyond the light’s reach. Adjusting her burden, she turned and peered into the darkness.

  “Alley, where are you? Alley, come.”

  All lay silent on this moonless Christmas Eve. With the privacy hedges at either side and the empty house at the rear, no light illuminated the dense black depths of the large yard.

  A movement to her left caught her eye, but it vanished. Nothing. A bird. A bat.

  “Alley, come! Viens!”

  The porch light winked out. Darkness cloaked Claire and the woodpiles.

  An icy dread congealing in her stomach, she edged toward the house.

  A flashlight. She had to get to the kitchen to bring the flashlight. She had to find Alley. She dropped the logs.

  A sudden thought stopped her in her tracks. What if the light hadn’t merely burned out? What if someone turned it off? Someone who could still be in the house!

  Her heart pounded with fear. Was it the anonymous caller? Or the bomber? Were they the same?

  Panic clogged her lungs and closed her throat. She couldn’t call out. Not for Alley. Not for help.

  A creaking noise came from the high double row of wood behind her. Quinn was right. That one would tumble over soon.

  Another creak. A scrape.

  Before she could react, the entire stack crashed down on her. A scream tore from her throat. Agony exploded on her back, through her whole body, with bursts of white light before her eyes.

  Claire crumpled to the snow-covered ground, buried beneath an avalanche of sixteen-inch-long split maple and birch.

  “Alley.” She managed the muffled cry before black oblivion engulfed her.

  The tingling on his nape alerted Michael as soon as he entered Claire’s house an hour later. Something wasn’t right. Tense and alert, he slipped the key in his pocket and closed the door behind him.

  In addition to the hall light, another shone from the living room, but the tree remained dark. The rooms felt colder even than Claire’s usual money-saving temperature. French economy, she’d told him. Her coat didn’t hang on the rack. The house lay silent, waiting.

  His head still pounded, and unease tightened a knot behind his eyes.

  “Claire?” he called, though he wouldn’t blame her for not answering him.

  A clattering of claws came as the immediate response. Claire’s three-legged dog arrived in a flurry of yelps.

  “Yo, Alley. Where’s your mistress?” He knelt to pat the animal.

  The tan mongrel sat for his caress, then whined and dashed to the kitchen. Another light on in there.

  A quick glance didn’t locate Claire.

  Michael wandered into the living room. No glass on a table. No magazine left open. The woman was too damn neat. She hadn’t gone to bed, not with lights on. Where was she?

  Alley returned to bark insistently at him. She danced around him, then raced into the kitchen.

  “You want a biscuit, do you? Just a minute, girl.”

  Expecting to find Claire at work, he trailed to her dining room office. Empty and dark.

  Once again the dog emitted her vociferous plea. She nudged his ankle with her long nose and gazed up at him, ears pricked to full attention.

  Tendrils of alarm crawled over Michael’s skin and curled
in his gut. “What is it? What are you trying to tell me?”

  Unless he was mistaken, worry filled the pup’s liquid brown eyes. If the odd situation hadn’t already alerted him, he would probably have continued to ignore the dog’s behavior.

  Only movie dogs like Lassie led people to the rescue, didn’t they?

  “Okay, girl,” he said. “Where do you want me to go?”

  Continuing to bark, Alley scampered across the hall to the kitchen. She disappeared through the half-open back door as Michael entered the room. No wonder the house was cold. Was Claire outside fetching wood? He couldn’t imagine her leaving the door open.

  Strange. All was dark outside.

  Michael reached inside the anorak he’d borrowed from Cruz. No gun. For eight months he hadn’t carried a gun. He couldn’t stop to examine why he’d suddenly gone for it.

  He flipped on the back porch light and stepped outside. Alley continued to bark and whine. Breathing easier but maintaining alertness, Michael crept down into the yard.

  The only things he saw were the damn wood stacks. What was different? Hah, that precarious one had finally tumbled over. Now, where had the dog run off to?

  Alley darted toward him from the other side of the fallen wood. One bark, then she raced off again.

  Michael trekked through the snowy yard and around the strewn wood to the sound of the little dog’s distress. At first he saw only the pup on her belly nosing at something under the wood. When she spied him, she stopped barking.

  “What is it, Alley?”

  He spotted a hand, almost as pale as the snow. Then dark, flowing hair like black blood against the white ground.

  Claire!

  Fear made his heart race and twisted the knot behind his eyes. “Oh, my God!”

  He knelt beside her and clutched her hand. Ice cold. “Claire!” He flung log after log away. “Answer me, Claire!”

  She stirred, lifted her head from where it rested on her other hand and squinted at the source of the voice. “No…the quilt…don’t take it. So warm…”

  Just let her be all right.

  His outdoor survival training kicked in, along with a burst of adrenaline. Hallucination, a sure sign of the onset of hypothermia. He tamped down the panic and inhaled deeply to quell the riot in his head and in his heart.

  In the name of God, how long had she lain here? He had to get her out, get her warmed up. The logs fairly flew away with his effort to remove the weight trapping her to the icy ground.

  The occasional snowflake turned into a steady snow.

  In what seemed like hours, Michael cleared enough space so he could check her limbs. Please, please.

  He ran his skilled fingers over her long legs, her back, her arms. No broken bones. Thank God for the coat and boots.

  Incongruously, it came to him that finally he had his hands all over Claire, but not in the way he wanted. Now was not the time.

  She mumbled something unintelligible and tried to swat his hands away. Then she lay still. Her lips were blue. Ice clotted her long, luxuriant hair. Drying it was a priority.

  Grimly clamping his lips together, he lifted her into his arms. “You’re safe, babe. I’ve got you.”

  The front of her coat, which had been pressed into the snow, glistened with moisture and caked ice. Michael hoped to God she wasn’t soaked through.

  “Come on, Alley, let’s warm her up.” He carried Claire’s limp form inside and kicked the door shut behind them.

  Claire raised her head from his shoulder. “M-M-Michael, why are y-y-you here?” she said, teeth chattering.

  Relief swept through him that she was conscious and recognized him. “I’ll take care of you, Claire.”

  The little dog followed, never taking her eyes from her mistress, all the way to Claire’s bedroom. Ever watchful, ears pricked, she curled up on the chaise longue.

  After depositing his limp burden on the king-size bed, Michael ripped the sodden black coat away. He hoped it was ruined. If she were his, he’d never let her wear black again. He kicked the coat and his jacket out of his way.

  All that glorious wet hair clung to her scalp, leaching heat from her. A towel. He strode to the connecting bathroom to grab one, which he wrapped turban-style around her head.

  She lay on the bed, pale as paper. Her dark eyes widened in desperate concern. “You h-have to p-pack up and go,” she said. “He’ll try to k-k-kill you again.” With clumsy fingers, she pushed at his arm.

  Hell and damn. He’d accused her of trying to blow him up, and here she lay cold and injured and fearing for his life. On top of what Cruz had told him, it was enough to make him feel as low as a cockroach. Lower.

  “Shh, Claire, let me take care of you. I should have been here.” Failure tasted bitter as bile. Once again, he’d failed to protect a female in his care. This time, at least, she hadn’t died. Her shivering meant she was warming up.

  Claire’s hands felt icy but thankfully exhibited no white spots of frostbite. He wrapped his big hands around her slender ones and held on, willing his heat into her. The black sweater and slacks had absorbed the cold but not the moisture. A good sign. Wet cold penetrated faster.

  But they still had to come off.

  “Where’s your nightgown?” he said, tugging off her boots.

  “In th-there.”

  He dug around in the drawer until he found a long flannel thing, definitely not something slinky like the other night. His constitution couldn’t take that. “Okay, sit up.”

  When he started to remove her sweater, she twisted out of his grasp. “I can d-d-do it.”

  He doubted it, but trying might help warm her up faster. “Be my guest.”

  Claire’s fingers dabbed stiffly and ineffectually at the sweater hem. “M-m-merde. Quinn, what’s wrong?” Her chocolate eyes pleaded with him.

  He sat beside her on the bed. “Sweetheart, your hands are numb from the cold. Let me help you. You have to get under the covers. You’re on the verge of hypothermia. It’s dangerous.”

  With an exhausted sigh, she nodded, still shivering.

  “I promise not to peek. Much.”

  As matter-of-factly as he could manage, he peeled her black sweater from her perfect, rounded breasts and over her head. Skimmed her woolen slacks down her smoothly muscled legs. If his hands happened to brush her flesh in the process, so be it. He hadn’t promised not to savor the soft feel of her skin, living silk his hands would remember.

  Warming silk. Though her legs and arms still felt chilled, her belly was not. Another good sign. The cold hadn’t penetrated to the vital organs. She’d be fine.

  Thank you.

  The heavy coat and boots had protected her from cuts and broken limbs, but angry red and purple marks already blossomed on her soft skin. Tomorrow she’d be stiff and sore, but whole.

  Removing her lacy bra and panties would be too much temptation, so instead he tossed the nightgown over her head.

  Clad in the enveloping flannel, she allowed him to bundle her beneath the covers. He left her to make hot cocoa, but when he returned, he found Claire still quivering in the bed. “What is it?”

  “C-covers are c-cold,” she said.

  “I’ve turned up the furnace. The house will warm up now.”

  He helped her sit up, and keeping an arm around her shoulders as support, brought the cup to her lips. For such a strong, brave woman, she felt small and vulnerable. Using him as a heating pad, she huddled against him, one soft breast pressed into his side.

  His body acted predictably, dammit, hardening him painfully. He’d just have to take it. Aches and pains all over. What was one more?

  “Drink this, and I’ll call the cops…and an ambulance.”

  “N-no, no c-cops, n-no one. I’ve had enough c-cops f-for one day. P-please, Quinn.”

  He knew her aversion to the police, understood how much they must have grilled her tonight. Snow was already covering any footprints, anyway. “Okay, but first thing in the morning.”


  After finishing the cocoa, she said, “Quinn, s-stay with me.” She plucked the towel away and gazed at him expectantly, lips no longer blue but still pale. And tempting.

  He wanted to hold her, to dive into the dark pools of her eyes, to warm her with his own body.

  Dangerous. Wrong.

  Pushing away his desire, he said, “Maybe Alley will let me share her chaise. She’s the heroine of the night. You saved her life, and now she’s saved yours.” He explained how the dog had nagged at him to follow her.

  “I…remember she kept my hands warm for a while.” Claire hesitated, her brow furrowed with thought. “I thought someone had hurt her. She whimpered from the darkness but wouldn’t come. And then…and then—”

  “The wood fell on you?”

  “Yes. But it didn’t just fall. I saw someone. Someone who pushed it over on me.” Her head fell against his shoulder. “I’m too tired and sore now. I’ll explain in the morning.”

  When Michael started to rise, she clutched at him.

  “No, not over there on the chaise. Here. Stay here and keep me warm.” She snuggled closer. “I need you, Michael.”

  God. She needed him. He didn’t want to be needed. He’d failed her like he’d failed the others. Claire needed only his heat. And wasn’t holding her all night what he wanted?

  He’d never allowed himself to lose control with a woman. Over the years, there had been several relationships, none serious or long lasting. He’d always, always held himself in check so his strength aided pleasure but provided no pain. This woman he desired more than any other had the power to snap his restraint like a matchstick.

  He struggled for the strict professionalism and disengagement that had the other DEA agents labeling him a hard case. His head wound throbbed. Exertion and stress made his struggle impossible. He needed rest as much as she did. She was hurt, and he had to take care of her. Helping her warm up wouldn’t compromise his detachment. What was left of it.

  After dousing the light, he removed his boots and sweatshirt, then stretched out under the covers in his T-shirt and jeans, his arms around her. It was healing just to hold her, to have her softness beside him.