by Jule McBride
“Pappy would never—”
“I think his grandson, Jeb, might be the culprit. Youngsters may have wanted to take the book for a lark. You know how they do. It wouldn’t be the first time, after all. We’re all beside ourselves with worry, as I’m sure you are, too. It’s one of our dearest possessions and two centuries old.”
“Surely whoever took it knows it’s valuable.”
“I hope. If anything happens to that book, it will be so upsetting. We’ve just got to find it before the Harvest Festival, otherwise we’ll have to make all our tea blends by memory, and…” Her voice trailed off and she laughed, her eyes twinkling as she patted her granddaughter’s cheek lovingly. “As old as we’re getting, I hate to think what might happen if we made up love blends from memory, then tried to sell them.”
“Lord have mercy,” whispered Elsinore, speaking for the first time. “If your potions got jumbled, that really would be terrible, wouldn’t it? All the wrong people would be falling in love, and so forth.”
“Why, Elsinore, I didn’t see you,” said Ariel’s grandmother. “Come into the kitchen with me. Let me pour you some sun tea. I made it during the day with fresh springwater. It’ll cool you off while Ariel takes this gentleman upstairs to get him settled. As soon as Ariel’s mother comes in from her dip, she can run you back down the mountain and pick up Great-gran.” Gran nodded toward the staircase. “That’s your duffel?”
Rex nodded.
She inclined her chin. “Everybody calls me Gran,” she said. “So, you can, too. All the women in the house used to use proper names, but the guests can’t remember. So we just have them call us Mom, Gran and Great-gran. It lends a homey feel, and nobody has to struggle too hard to remember things such as Samantha, Sylvia and Christina.” She chuckled. “Now, the locals know our first names,” she added. “And before anyone tells you otherwise, you should also know that some of the young kids in town believe we’re witches.”
“You certainly look like one,” he agreed.
She smiled, delighted. “Whatever the case, it’s good for business.”
“You might want to throw in a ghost.”
“I’ll consider it,” she assured. “Now, you two skedaddle. Even as it is, dinner’s going to be late. And before you ask, I don’t want help in the kitchen, Ariel. Your job is to entertain the new guest until dinner.” The elderly woman flashed him a wide smile. “Ariel will take care of your every need. I can assure you of that, sir.”
Trying not to take the words as a double entendre, Rex felt glad the sun had dried him well enough that he wasn’t dripping on the woman’s floor. “Sorry I’m not dressed,” he apologized, glancing around at the stately living room, with its hardwood floors, Chinese rugs, marble-top tables and chandelier. “But when I couldn’t check in…”
“You won’t be punished this time,” Gran assured with mock severity. “But next time, we’ll bring out nails and chains. Thumbscrews.”
“I thought that was for the people who tortured the witches.”
“Exactly. As a witch, you pick these things up.”
“Don’t feed the rumors,” Ariel said, the teasing seemingly bothering her.
Heeding the words, her grandmother continued, “Usually, you’re to change in the deck house, but Ariel will explain all house rules.” She glanced at Ariel. “He’s in the Overlook room.”
Looking startled, Ariel parted her lips in protest.
“It’s the only room available.”
Lifting his bag, he shouldered it, then picked up the rest of his belongings. He was still wondering what exactly was wrong with his accommodations as he preceded Ariel upstairs. He couldn’t help but wonder if the view of his tush affected her, too, since it clearly did the women with whom he worked. As they entered a long upstairs hallway, Ariel pointed left, and when he reached the end of the hallway, he understood her objection. The Overlook room was right next door to one with a sign affixed to the door that read Welcome Home Ariel.
“We’re neighbors,” he said as she showed him into his quarters. He could swear he saw her throat working as he took in the door between their rooms. There was a lock on his side and probably one on hers as well….
He pulled his mind to business. The room was great. He would have chosen it for a personal vacation. To be honest, he hated small towns, unless they were riddled with some contagious disease. Otherwise, he got bored in under ten minutes flat. Living someplace like Bliss was akin to slow death by torture, as far as he was concerned, but when Jessica had said this was the fanciest place in town, she hadn’t been lying.
“Nice,” he said.
She seemed to soften. “Glad you like it.”
She did, too. He could hear her love for the place in that maddeningly throaty voice. He took in the bed—a king-size, masculine affair covered with a nautically inspired duvet—facing a picture window overlooking the steep, lush-green incline to the spring. Everything reflected the sailing motif—from a shadow box illustrating boating knots, to ships-in-bottles that the women had placed on tables.
He strode to the bathroom and glanced in, feeling his heart skip a beat. The room was spacious, and mirrored, with a sunken tub of navy porcelain; the dark cabinetry, with its brass knocker-style pulls, made the place look like a captain’s quarters. With the tub full of white suds, a man would feel he was bathing in the waves of the ocean.
Her folks might be rumored to be witches, or just crazy old widows who’d killed their husbands, but they knew how to make a man feel like a man. “Spacious,” he commented, deciding not to mention the mirrors as he moved into the room again, and toward the picture window, to stare down at the spring. “Wow.”
“It’s my favorite view,” she said, coming to stand next to him. “Mine’s the same.”
Definitely, he liked the fact that she was next door.
He realized her eyes were full of questions, and he raised his eyebrow. “Hmm?”
“What exactly is the CDC doing here? I mean, I know there are stories about how Bliss is said to have had…well, strange spots of time where business seems to shut down. Such tall tales add…”
“Spice to the town?”
“Exactly. The summer people love it.”
“The source might be a bug called Romeo. Also called generis misealius,” he said. And then he plunged into an account of the history of the virus. He was more pleased than he should have been when she didn’t glaze as he spoke about the difficulties of tracing viruses.
“You’re serious?”
“Absolutely.” He continued, his voice quickening with excitement as he spoke about the possibility of solving the town’s long-standing mystery. At least until he mentioned the World Health Organization.
“They can’t come here!” she said, dismayed. “This is ridiculous. Really Dr. Houston—”
“Rex,” he corrected.
“This is all local myth. It really is.”
“A possibility,” he agreed, moving nearer to where she stood by the window. “You’re related to Matilda Teasdale, right?”
She lifted her gaze from the spring, her crystal eyes looking wary and startled once more. “You know about that?”
He glanced toward the file on the bed. “Your dossier.”
Now she looked mortified. “My…”
He frowned. Suddenly, she became even more interesting, if that was possible. “What could a woman like you have to hide?”
She shot him a long look. “A woman like me?”
He fought the urge to touch her—and lost. He knew better because just one touch would be enough to electrify his whole body and there would be no point to it, except to leave him craving more. Lifting a finger anyway, he glanced it off her cheek. “Proper.”
That seemed to please her. “You think so?”
“Yeah.” He knew his eyes were disrobing her.
Her expression shuttered. “You don’t even know me.”
He wanted to, at least for tonight, and he felt the urge, like a
call to something wild and undeniable. “You could let me get to know you.”
Her eyes darted away. “I don’t think we’ll have time for that.”
“Really?” he returned mildly.
She wanted to back away—he was sure of it; he could feel it in his bones—yet she didn’t. “The dossier doesn’t say much about you, specifically,” he found himself admitting. Surprised at the huskiness of his own voice, he went on, “But it does talk about the history of the house. Everyone seems to think Matilda and the women who’ve inhabited the place since are witches.” His eyes locked into hers. “Are you?”
“You’re a doctor. A scientist. You should know better.”
“So, you think my framework of knowledge is limited to microbes and cells?”
Her lips suddenly twitched, as if the banter was threatening to make her smile against her will. “That was my hope.”
It was a risk, but he inched closer, near enough to catch a whiff of her perfume. “The way you seem to affect me, you’re testing my deepest convictions.”
“A man should always keep his convictions.”
He kept his voice steady and bemused, even though she was doing wild things to his blood. “Why?”
“It shows character.”
Chuckling, he shrugged. “An overrated virtue.”
The scent of her perfume was soft, faint and floral, but he could smell something else beneath it that stirred him. He could sense so much in this woman. Old wounds that ran deep. A river of pain, maybe. But he wanted to ask her a thousand questions, starting with how it felt to grow up in a place that was apparently considered to be the local haunted house.
Taking a deep breath, she blew out an audible sigh. “To be honest,” she murmured. “I don’t want the CDC here.” She frowned. “Really, it’s nothing personal.”
“It’s always personal.”
“I don’t know if it was in your…uh, dossier.”
“It’s not a dossier. Just so you know, the CDC doesn’t really keep files on citizens. It’s America, and we do have civil rights, you know.”
“I work for a Pittsburgh TV station,” she began. “And next week, during the Harvest Festival, a cameraman’s coming from Charleston, to help me tape a feature spot. It’s a big chance for me. I don’t want anything blowing it. I definitely don’t want the World Health Organization coming into town during the shoot, much less the military.”
He was impressed. “The plot thickens.”
“Meaning?”
“I thought you were home for a family vacation.”
“That, too.”
But she had ambition.
“And in addition to keeping you off my turf,” she continued, “I need to find a missing recipe book. It’s old, treasured by my family. It contains all Matilda’s recipes, was written by her own hand. People have tried to steal it for years, as my grandmother suggested downstairs, but now, someone’s broken into the safe, and taken it.” She paused. “So you see,” she finished, “I don’t have time for flirtation.”
His heart missed another beat. “Flirtation wasn’t really what I had in mind.”
“No?”
He slowly shook his head. Primal heat flared inside him. Barely able to believe he was doing it—he was usually a little more suave—he glanced pointedly toward the bed. “Flirtation,” he murmured, raising a finger to touch her cheek once more. “It does seem like a waste of time.”
She blinked, as if she couldn’t quite believe the conversation they were having, then answering desire sparked in her eyes and she said the very last thing he expected. “Then let’s not waste any more of it.”
Scarcely believing his ears, Rex leaned across the scant remaining foot between them, circled an arm around her waist and drew her against himself, almost gasping as they made contact. She had a strong body. Probably, she worked out, and the muscles and bones felt equally hard, and yet she yielded to him, too, with a female softness. He arched to her, and as his mouth covered hers, she lifted her hands to his shoulders.
His tongue pushed apart her lips, and belatedly, he realized his kiss was too hard, too demanding. He didn’t even know her. They’d met only moments before. Maybe Romeo was in the water, after all. Maybe he’d become infected as he’d splashed in the chlorinated pool. Why had he gone swimming? Usually, he was much more rigorous at a possibly infected site. But it had seemed so hot, and the proprietors hadn’t been around, and…
Jessica would kill him if she knew.
But right now, he didn’t even care. His hands tightened around Ariel’s back, urging her closer, as her tongue moved against his, feeling silken, hot and delicious. Her fingers dug into his shoulders, then he felt them on his bare back, moving toward the elastic band of his trunks.
He wanted to remove her jacket again. And as he imagined using his teeth to unbutton the flimsy silk blouse, and his tongue to lick inside the lace of the bra, blood engorged him.
When she broke the kiss, he was half-glad. At least one of them had come to their senses. Except that, honestly, he wanted to spiral back downward into the whirlpool of the kiss and spend all night drowning in it.
“I’m sorry,” she said, breathlessly. “I don’t know what…came over me.”
If he reached for her, she’d let him kiss her again, right now. He knew it and she knew it. Even as she took another self-protective step backward, she was licking her lips, tasting his moisture.
“I do,” he managed to say huskily, slowly shaking his head, barely able to believe the kinetic heat that had ignited between them. “We want each other.”
Her skin was flushed, her breath short. “Like I said,” she continued, her voice holding a quiver that indicated she was just as shaken as him. “I’m worried about my project. And you’re only here overnight. Before dinner, you can take your samples of the water.” She pointed through the window. “Those steps take you right down to the spring.”
“I have to take them from other locations as well,” he found himself saying, the words seeming strangely inane in his mouth. Why were they talking at all? The way she’d felt in his arms, and tasted on his lips, they should have wound up in that huge bed making love.
Tonight, she’d come to him. He knew it like his own name. And right now, if someone told him he’d become clairvoyant, he’d have believed it. He could see her in his fantasies, naked and sudsed in the bathtub…how he’d slowly dry each inch of her before pulling down the duvet and laying her on sheets.
Her voice still held that crazy-making quiver. “You’ve got a few hours until dinner.”
With that, she turned to go. He could only watch in disbelief—and need. Every swish of her hips felt like sheer torture. His hands ached to mold the curves of her hips. Instead, he said, “I’ll be leaving in fifteen minutes. Think you can be ready?”
At the threshold, she turned. Everything in her gaze said she felt they’d better stay as far apart as possible. “Ready?”
Determined to ignore the fact that he was standing there, barefoot with a hard-on, in nothing but wet trunks, he said, “In case the World Health Organization really does wind up involved in this. It might affect your story.”
Looking torn, she considered the truth of it. “Okay,” she finally said. “Fifteen minutes. I’ll meet you downstairs. We’ll take my car. It’s the silver Honda Accord.”
4
AS REX LEANED OVER THE EDGE of a dock on the outskirts of town and filled a test tube, he tried to strike up a conversation, saying, “Romeo’s reputed to thrive in places like this.”
A breeze was gaining momentum and, as waves of sticky air came her way, Ariel pressed a hand to the hem of her dress, holding it against her thigh. She’d hardly anticipated an outing like this, so she’d had to wear clothes from her old closet at the teahouse. Most were racier than she’d be caught dead in nowadays, but she’d managed to find a white sundress with an empire waist and spaghetti straps. Or at least she’d thought it was suitable until the breeze had begun lifting th
e hem. Since the dress gathered beneath her breasts and had a built-in slip, the air threatened to lift it all the way over her head. Every time she looked at the man in front of her, she was stunned that she’d let him kiss her, and with such abandon. She didn’t even know him! But she wanted him….
“I think it might storm,” she said when the fabric billowed like a sail once more. She was determined, like him, to play it cool, as if nothing had happened. But it had. She could still feel the heavenly burgeoning pressure between her legs. He’d been so aroused….
She forced herself back to the present once more, as he said, “It’s supposed to later.”
Supposed to? For a second, she couldn’t even remember what he’d been referring to. Then she thought, Supposed to rain. Right. Picking up the earlier conversation, she continued, “Um. What do you mean, ‘places like this’?”
Still acting as if their kiss were the last thing on his mind, Rex slid another test tube into a tray he’d brought down the steep embankment, then he glanced at her. Wearing a T-shirt and jeans, he looked every bit as good as he had in his swimsuit. He was just as aware of her as he’d been in the Overlook room, too, judging by the glint in his eyes. “At this time of year,” he explained. “And in weather like you’ve been having in Bliss, an environment may have been created in which the virus could best grow.”
“And it doesn’t hurt people?”
He shrugged. “Doesn’t seem to. But like I said, the South American documents were lost, if they ever really existed.”
She was still wondering what had happened to them in the Overlook room. One moment, she’d been shaking hands with the man. In the next, they’d been kissing in a way that could only lead to bed. “You don’t think they did exist?”
“Your guess is as good as mine.”
“Why would anyone lie about something such as that?”
He eyed her a long moment. “A love bug,” he reminded her. “You’ve got to admit the idea is pretty funny.”
Intriguing, anyway. She couldn’t help but smile back, even though his presence threatened everything she’d hoped to accomplish in Bliss this week. “Are you saying scientists have a sense of humor?”