by Julia London
“Ah,” she said with a nod, her eyes sparkling.
“So, clearly not a mass murderer. What about . . . sorceress?” he asked.
Rachel snapped the plastic knife in the bun, and clutching the bottom half of the knife, she blinked up at him “Seriously?”
He grinned, shrugged a little, and fished the other half of the knife from the bun. “Why? Are you?”
“I’m not a sorceress,” she said in all seriousness.
“Is that true, or are you afraid to admit it?” he asked laughingly.
“No, really, I just—” She suddenly stopped, bit her lower lip, and looked at the cinnamon bun. “I love cinnamon buns. I’ll be right back,” she said, and popped up before he could stop her.
She returned a moment later, a new plastic knife in hand, and picked up with a vengeance where she’d left off on the cinnamon bun.
“If you are not, in truth, a sorceress,” Flynn asked, amused by how intent she was on the bun, “then what do you do?”
She stopped sawing on the bun, perhaps because she’d divided it into equal parts of eight, and set aside the plastic knife. She clasped her hands together on the table. “I am a student.”
“Are you! What type?”
Rachel picked up her coffee and looked around the room and muttered something unintelligible.
“Beg your pardon?” he asked, leaning forward to hear her as he helped himself to the bun.
She sighed irritably and glanced at him from the corner of her eye. “Of history!” she said, a little louder.
“How impressive,” he said, taking another bite of what was a delicious cinnamon bun. Full of . . . something like vanilla, he thought.
“Not really,” she said with a snort. “It will probably floor you to know that I’ve been in a doctorate program for almost four years.”
Flynn looked up to see if she was joking. She did not, however, appear to be joking, and in fact, shook her head to indicate she definitely was not. “Any plans to finish?”
“Yes!” she cried heavenward, but caught herself and smiled. “Sorry. A little history there,” she said. “So what about you? What are you doing in the States?”
“Consultant,” he said.
“What sort?”
“Computers.”
“Really?” she asked, her brow wrinkling a bit. “And was it a computer that gave you the black eye?”
Flynn had forgotten about that nasty little bruise, and unconsciously touched his eye.
“I think . . . you’re really a James Bond type of guy on some exciting international case,” she said.
“Actually, I was involved in a local homicide investigation. I ran into a spot of trouble at a dodgy pub on the pier.”
She laughed. “And then jumped in your cigarette boat and sped away, right?”
“No. Just an ordinary motorcar.”
“Okay, so how did you really manage to get that black eye?”
“Honestly,” he said, holding up his scout hand. “A bloke at the pier.”
Rachel’s pretty smile got prettier; she cocked her head to one side. “Okay, so don’t tell me. That of course leads me to believe it was a lover’s spat.”
“I should certainly hope not,” he said with a laugh.
“So what sort of international computer consultant are you, anyway?”
“Software development—banks, mostly.” He helped himself to more of that terribly decadent and astoundingly delicious cinnamon bun. “My turn. What sort of history do you study? American, I presume?”
She laughed heartily. Flynn liked that; an honest laugh. “What’s funny?” he asked, smiling.
She sighed heavenward. “There are a few people in my life who wish it was American history, but its not. I study medieval British history.”
“Really?” he asked, unfazed, but wondered how in God’s name a woman as lovely as Rachel could study something so dreadfully dull. “How did you settle on that fascinating subject?”
She laughed again, a sort of bubbly laugh that was surprisingly silky and as pleasing to the ears as her smile was to the eyes. “Because it’s . . . romantic,” she said. “You know, knights and damsels in distress and all that,” she said. Her cheeks, he noticed, had turned appealingly pink.
Still, he had a hard time seeing her buried in some musty old book. “So you think that it’s romantic that old Henry off’d the heads of his five damsels, eh?”
“Well . . . technically, Henry VIII was not a medieval king. And it was only two.”
“Two?”
“Two heads he off’d. Of six wives.”
Now it was Flynn’s turn to laugh. “There you are, you’ve discovered my secret—I’m frightfully ignorant of my heritage.” With a smile, he pushed the plate of bun toward her, of which, he noticed with chagrin, he’d eaten two-thirds. “But I’m curious—what do you plan to do with this Ph.D. in British history?”
“You and my father!” she said with a sheepish little laugh. “Congratulations, for you have just posed the sixty-four-million-dollar question, and one I can’t really answer, except to say, at present, it doesn’t look like much.”
“That bad, eh?”
“That bad,” she said with a winsome smile.
“What of your boyfriend?” Flynn asked, looking at her pointedly. The color seemed to drain from her face, and she became all wide-eyed. “The chap with the hair,” he reminded her.
“Yes, I know who you mean. But he is so not my boyfriend.”
Flynn was surprised by that. The chap was acting as if he was. “Isn’t he, really?”
“No,” she said, shaking her head. “He’s just a friend. You didn’t really think . . .?”
“I did.”
“Oh no,” she insisted again, so emphatically that he wanted to laugh.
“Then if he’s not your boyfriend, that can only mean one thing,” Flynn said, glancing at her from the corner of his eye.
“What?”
“That you are . . .” He leaned closer. “Quite unattached.”
Her cheeks turned pinker. “Well. Not to him anyway.”
Flynn shifted a little closer, his gaze on her luscious lips. “Another chap, then?”
She smiled. “Chocolate.”
“Chocolate? Is he still about? I thought he was dead and gone,” Flynn said. He could feel himself being pulled in by her effervescent smile, and he couldn’t help but recall her as she had been that damp night alone in her house, twirling about, and then later, with nothing but a towel wrapped around her, the smooth shape of her back bared to him. In the wake of that memory, he scooted his chair closer.
“Oh no, he’s very much alive,” she said, nodding. “I’m surprised you haven’t seen him. He follows me everywhere—he’s in my milk, in my brownies, in my cake,” she said as Flynn reached for her hand, covering it with his, letting his fingers slide up her wrist, then wrap around it, feeling the delicate bones.
“And what of your pudding?” he asked, studying her hand. “Is Chocolate there as well?”
“Absolutely, he’s there, too,” she said, her eyes sparkling as she turned her wrist in his hand. “And he sneaks in my purse when I’m not looking and wraps himself in bright red and silver tinfoils so that I can’t resist him.”
The lights flickered, indicating one of the poets would begin soon.
“That’s really a very clever idea,” Flynn murmured. “I’ll have to give it a go.”
Her laugh sounded different somehow, and when he glanced up, the smile had gone from her face. She lifted her gaze from his hand on her wrist and said, “I can’t do this.”
“Can’t do what?” he asked, leaning over to take in the fragrance of her hair.
“I can’t pretend—it’s not right.”
Flynn froze for a moment, thought he was going to hear some sort of confession. He slowly moved back, so that he could see her face.
“Can’t pretend? Are you pretending?”
“I mean . . . I should really tell you tha
t you are here with me now under false pretense,” she said, releasing her breath in a rush.
“How can that be?” he asked, his finger caressing the inside of her wrist. “I believe I asked you here.”
“I know you did, but that’s because . . .” She paused, looked surreptitiously about, and Flynn’s heart began to beat a little faster.
“Because?”
She turned her gaze to him again, winced a little. “Because I . . . I put a spell on you,” she said quite low, just as someone took the stage and the crowd began to applaud.
Flynn’s hand stilled on her wrist, and in the midst of that applause, he looked deep into her lovely eyes. “I beg your pardon?”
Rachel glanced around again, leaned a little closer. “When you said I was a sorceress, I thought you knew. I’m not really one, I just tried it, and I . . . I put a spell on you,” she said in a horrified whisper.
Flynn waited a moment or two for the punch line before asking, “You aren’t joking, are you?”
“Unfortunately, no.” She sighed sadly. “I mean, think about it. The two times we’ve seen each other, I was really a mess, and normally, guys like you wouldn’t ask girls like me for coffee.”
He’d been with her up until that statement, willing to play along, but that didn’t make the slightest bit of sense. “Why wouldn’t I?” he asked, truly confused. “Because I’m British?”
“British?” she echoed incredulously and suddenly laughed.
“And what makes you think I’ve only seen you twice?” he asked, moving his hand a little higher, to the crook of her elbow. “How do you know that I haven’t seen you a million times and wished for just this moment?”
Rachel blinked. Her mouth opened. Then closed. Then opened again. “You saw me before that day by the phone?”
“Actually, I’d seen you on campus. Which, incidentally, is how I discovered your weaving class.”
“Campus,” she repeated weakly, her gaze falling to his mouth again and stirring something deep inside him.
“I’ve been doing a bit of work there, and I saw you one day. Several times, actually. Enough that I wanted to meet you. Granted, the day I met you at the phone was a coincidence, but it seemed like every time I found you after that, you were rushing off and away from me. I had no choice but to take matters into my own hands.”
“No,” Rachel murmured. “No way. It wasn’t the spell.”
He was suddenly struck with the image of her doing that strange little dance in her living room, and felt his blood start to rush hot. The whole notion was terribly seductive somehow, and he couldn’t quite suppress his grin. “But it must be, for I am completely under your spell,” he said as he leaned into her again, his nostrils filling with the curious scent of vanilla and cinnamon buns, his lips just a hairsbreadth from her lips.
“Ahem . . . If I could have everyone’s attention,” the man on stage said dispassionately. “Our first poet tonight is Marianne Breck.”
Flynn touched his lips to Rachel’s, felt a spark ignite.
Marianne cleared her throat. “What is love? It is red, red, red. What is hate? It is white, white, white.”
Rachel made a little sound deep in her throat, a soft laugh, and the spark in Flynn was instantly fanned into a flame. As Marianne droned on about how red and white she was, Flynn could feel the red of his own body, red desire, spreading through him with the quickness of light. He moved his hand from Rachel’s wrist to her neck, felt the earring she wore bouncing against his knuckles, felt the rapid beat of her pulse, the warmth of her skin. His other hand found her waist and then the small of her back and he held her there, so that he could explore lips that were full and succulent, softly delectable.
He drew her bottom lip between his teeth, gingerly tested the soft pliability of it, then slipped his tongue into her sweet mouth. She opened up beneath him like a bloody flower, tilting her head to accommodate him.
Frankly, that kiss surprised Flynn. He’d not intended this to happen, had not intended to do much of anything but talk, but the memory of her strange little pagan dance and of her wrapped in that towel, along with the oddly invigorating scent of vanilla and her assertion that she had cast a spell on him spurred him into territory he’d not intended to enter.
At the moment, it hardly seemed to matter, as his body was too interested in her mouth, the baby softness of the skin at her neck, and the velvet lobe of her ear, and Flynn imagined that mane of hair tumbling down around them as they made wild, pagan love.
“My love is red, my hate is white!” Marianne insisted from the stage. “But what color is my soul?”
Who cares? Flynn thought in the midst of thundering applause and whistles for Marianne’s rather bland color scheme. But with the applause, he felt Rachel pull away, and reluctantly lifted his head.
She blinked up at him, her lips curved into a wonderfully Cheshire little smile of pleasure. “Okay,” she said, brushing the lock of hair from his brow. “You cannot tell me that wasn’t the result of a spell.”
Flynn grinned. “Let’s get out of here, shall we?” He stood, helped Rachel from her chair, and escorted her out as Marianne trotted out another appallingly bad bit of poetry. “Water runs swift, the moon sinks low . . .”
They walked out onto the sidewalk, and Rachel paused to adjust her shawl around her shoulders. She turned a brilliant smile to him, one that was shrouded in lavender and lovely, soft light. “Thanks. Thanks so much for asking me for coffee, Flynn.”
“What—you’re going?” he asked, surprised by his disappointment.
“I really should. I have to get up and go to work,” she said. “I mean, such that it is. I wouldn’t call it work, really, but still, I should strive not to screw it up.” She took a step toward the car park, looked at him to see if he was coming.
This was definitely not how he wanted the evening to end, but he reluctantly stepped up beside her, and together, they walked down the sidewalk toward the tiny car park. But just before they reached it, Rachel stopped and turned, pressed her back against the brick wall of the coffeehouse and peered up at Flynn. “How long are you in the States?”
“Indefinitely,” Flynn said.
“Oh.” She glanced at the car park, drew her bottom lip between her teeth for a moment. “Do you think . . . I mean, are you planning . . .”
Her voice trailed off; she bit her lip again. Flynn stepped close to her, lifted her face to his. “I’d really like to see you again, Rachel Lear,” he said sincerely. “If that’s quite all right with you.”
She seemed to consider it for a moment, but then Flynn saw the light of a smile in her eyes. “Maybe,” she said. “But I’ll have to speak with chocolate first. He has all my attention, you know. And then, of course, I really should consult the spell book.”
“If I may, I’d like to go on record as not really caring for eyes of newts, if you please.”
“Okay,” she said, and laid a hand lightly on his chest, tapped one finger. “No newt eyes, but I hope you’re okay with newt tongues.”
“What, you think me a complete rube? Of course I’m quite all right with the tongues. It’s just the eyes.” Flynn grinned, covered her hand with his. “Then shall I ring you up?”
“Yes, please,” she said, and the light in her eyes spilled over to her whole face. “I’ll just jot down the number,” she said, already fumbling around in her big tote bag. And while she rummaged around for a pen or paper, Flynn honestly couldn’t help himself—he dipped his head again, kissed the delightful curve of her neck.
Rachel let out a contented sigh and stopped rummaging about her bag. Flynn took that to mean carry on. He put his hands on her waist as his lips moved across her skin, along the line of her jaw, to her mouth. Her enormous bag hit him in the foot when she dropped it to lace her arms around his neck, and they stood there, making out like two teenagers, until someone pulled out of the car park and honked at them.
Flynn stepped back, chuckling a little, and picked up her bag.
He made sure she was safely tucked away in her car before leaving, and kissed her once more. “Cheers,” he said, with a little wave, and walked away, her number in his pocket, a happy jaunt to his step.
He got in his rental, pulled out, and moved down the street, his mind sort of numb and his body uncomfortably hard, and really looking quite forward to their next encounter.
Behind him, Rachel watched him speed off, and released a long, blissful sigh. That man thought she, Rachel Lear, was sexy. And he wanted to see her again! The most magnificent guy in the whole wide world wanted to see her, Rachel Lear. Again!
With a squeal of happiness, Rachel turned in the opposite direction and puttered home, having completely forgotten that she had earlier wondered how he had learned of her weaving class, as it was her own doing and not associated with Brown University.
Chapter Twelve
When Myron showed up for work at the Rhode Island Historical Preservation Society curator offices Wednesday morning, the head curator, Darwin Richter, stopped by his cube with a bespectacled gentleman who was wearing a Windbreaker and jeans.
“I’d like you to meet Detective Keating,” Darwin said. “He’s from the Rhode Island State Police and he’s been looking into the spate of thefts we’ve had.”
“Great!” Myron said, coming instantly to his feet.
“This is Professor Tidwell,” Darwin explained to the detective. “He’s the one who knows our catalog backwards and forwards. He prepares all our insurance claims.”
“Yeah, I read about that forklift accident,” the detective said. “Weird that it happened when these thefts happened, huh?”
“Yeah,” Myron said, and timidly stuck out his hand.
Detective Keating flashed a warm grin and grabbed his hand, shook it so hard that Myron feared something tore in his shoulder. “Good to meet you, Professor,” the detective said cheerfully. “Mr. Richter here says you’ll be able to help us make sense of all this stuff,” he said, pointing at a file he held.
“Yes, anything I can do to help,” Myron said.
“Yeah,” the detective sighed, shaking his head. “When someone steals from a museum, he’s got to be scum. I mean, you need money, you hold up a bank or something, right? You don’t take from a museum. That just hurts everyone.”