The Novels of Nora Roberts, Volume 3

by Nora Roberts

“This wasn’t the same.” But his stomach pitched nearly to his knees. “Not at all the same.”

  “Just because we didn’t get to the . . . ‘bounce’ doesn’t change the intent, or the result. You could’ve approached me directly, honestly. You chose not to.”

  “I did. As far as I knew you might’ve been as calculating as she was. Or, failing that, how could I know if you wouldn’t get it into your head to push some claim on the Fate?”

  He lifted his hands. What had seemed perfectly reasonable, certainly necessary at the time, now looked very cold, and very ugly.

  “It may not have come to me by a tidy route, Tia, but it’s been ours for almost ninety years. And when we found out about there being three of them, and what that meant, it changed things considerably. Part of it’s just wanting back what’s ours, and the other, well, damn it, we’re talking a lot of money. Great pots of money. We can use it. Ireland’s booming at the present, and if we had more to work with, we could expand our business.”

  “Your shipping business?” she asked dryly and saw he had the grace to look embarrassed.

  “It’s boats anyway. We run tours out of Cobh and around the Head of Kinsale. Still have a hand in fishing as well. I thought you’d be more comfortable with me if you believed I was in your circle of things.”

  “So, you considered me shallow.”

  He let out a breath, met her eyes directly. “I expected you to be. I was wrong.”

  “You were going to come back here with me tonight, go to bed with me. That’s cold. That’s despicable. You used me, right from the beginning, a means to an end, as if I had no feelings. I never mattered to you at all.”

  “That’s not true.” He crossed to her then, and though she held her arms rigidly at her sides, gripped her hands. “I won’t have you think that.”

  “When you came up to me the first time, when you smiled at me, asked me to go for a walk, it meant nothing to you. I meant nothing. All you wanted was to see if I could be of any use, nothing more or less.”

  “I didn’t know you. At first, you were just a name, just a possibility. But—”

  “Please. Is this the part where you tell me everything changed once you got to know me, to care about me? Spare us both that particular cliché.”

  “I got tangled up being with you, Tia. That wasn’t part of my plan.”

  “Your plan’s a mess. Let go of my hands.”

  “I’m sorry I hurt you.” It was pitiful, but he could think of nothing else. “I swear to God I never meant to.”

  “Let go of my hands,” she repeated. When he did, she stepped back. “I can’t help you, and wouldn’t now if I could. But you can comfort yourself that I’ll be no help to Anita Gaye, either. I’m useless to both of you.”

  “You’re not useless, Tia. Not to anyone. And I’m not speaking of the Fates.”

  She only shook her head. “It’s all we have to speak of. Now I’m tired. I’d like you to go.”

  “I don’t want to leave it like this.”

  “I’m afraid you’ll have to. I really have no more to say to you, at least nothing more that would be the least bit constructive.”

  “Throw something, then,” he suggested. “Punch me, yell at me.”

  “That would make it easier for you.” She needed her cave, her solitude. And some scrap of pride. “I asked you to go. If you have any conscience about what you’ve done, you’ll respect that.”

  Without a choice, he went to the door. He turned, studying her as she stood framed by the window. “The first time I looked at you,” he said quietly, “really looked at you, Tia, all I could think was you had the loveliest and saddest eyes. I haven’t been able to get them out of my head since. This isn’t over, none of it’s over.”

  She let out a long breath when the door shut behind him. “That’s for me to say.”

  THE STREETS WERE steep in Cobh. Like San Francisco, they speared up from a bay at a leg-aching angle. At the top of one was a pretty house painted a pale water-green with a colorful dooryard garden behind a low, stone wall.

  There were three bedrooms, two baths, a living room with a TV that needed upgrading and a comfortably sprung couch covered with blue-and-white checks. There was a small parlor and a dining room as well, both used only for company. There, the furniture was ruthlessly polished and the lace curtains were soft with age.

  On the wall of the parlor were pictures of John F. Kennedy, the current pope and the Sacred Heart of Jesus. That particular trio had always made Malachi so uneasy, he rarely sat in the room unless given no choice.

  Until he’d turned twenty-four and had moved into the set of rooms over the boathouse, he’d lived in that same house, shared one of the bedrooms with his brother and fought with his sister over her time in the upstairs bath.

  As long as he could remember, the kitchen was the gathering place. It was the kitchen he paced now, while his mother peeled potatoes for dinner.

  He’d been back only two days, and on the first he’d been buried in work. He’d taken out one of their two tour boats himself, as Rebecca had pointed out he hadn’t pulled his weight in that area for a good chunk of the summer. Then he’d hacked through paperwork until he couldn’t see straight.

  He’d put in a full twelve-hour day, and another ten on his second day home. But he hadn’t been able to work off the anger, or the guilt.

  “Wash these potatoes off,” Eileen ordered. “It’ll give you something to do besides brood.”

  “I’m not brooding. I’m thinking.”

  “I know brooding when I see it.” She opened the oven, checked the roast. It was Malachi’s favorite, and she’d made the Sunday meal in the middle of the week in hopes of cheering him up. “The girl had a perfect right to toss you out on your ear, and you’ll just have to live with it.”

  “I know it, but you’d think she’d see the logic of it all after sleeping on it. At least give me the chance to make it up to her. She wouldn’t answer the damn phone or the door. Probably tossed out the flowers I sent. Who knew she had such a hard side to her?”

  “Hard side, my aunt Minnie. Bruised feelings is what she has. You made it personal when you should’ve kept it businesslike.”

  “It got personal.”

  Eileen turned back and softened. “Yes, I see it did. That’s the wonder of living, isn’t it, never knowing when something or someone’s going to turn you down a different road.” She started peeling the carrots that would go around the roast with the potatoes. “Flowers never worked on me either when your father was in the doghouse.”

  Malachi smiled a little. “What did?”

  “Time, for one thing. A woman’s got to sulk a bit and know a man’s suffering for his sins. And after that a good crawling’s in order. I like a man who knows how to grovel.”

  “I never saw Da grovel.”

  “You didn’t see everything, did you?” Eileen chided.

  “I hurt her, Ma.” He set the potatoes aside to drain. “I didn’t have the right to hurt her that way.”

  “You didn’t, no, but you didn’t start it all with that in mind.” She wiped her hands on a dish towel, hung it back over a hook. “You were thinking of the family, and your own pride. Now you’ve got her to think of as well. You’ll know what to do next time you see her.”

  “She won’t see me again.”

  “If I thought a son of mine gave up so easily, I’d cosh you over the head with this skillet. Haven’t I worries enough with Gideon off with that dancer?”

  “Gideon’s fine. At least he’s made contact with a connection in all this who’s still speaking to him.”

  “YOU SON-OF-a-bitch!”

  She was speaking to him, all right, in a low growl as she planted her fist squarely on his jaw. The sucker punch shot Gideon hard on his ass on the grimy rug outside the door of the dingy room in the last of the fleabag hotels they’d booked.

  He tasted blood, saw stars and heard what sounded like the “Hallelujah Chorus” ring in his ears.

/>   He swiped at his lip and eyed her maliciously as she stood, in a black bra and panties, with her hair still dripping from what the hotel laughingly called a shower.

  “That’s it.” He got slowly to his feet. “For the good of mankind, I have to kill you now. You’re a bloody menace to society.”

  “Come on then.” She rocked on the balls of her feet, lifted her fists. “Take your best shot.”

  He wanted to. Oh, how he wanted to. For five hideous days he’d crisscrossed Europe with her in tow. He’d slept in beds that made the cots in the youth hostels of his short, carefree holiday after passing his A levels seem like celestial clouds. He’d tolerated her demands, her questions, her complaints.

  He’d ignored the fact that he shared very close, even intimate quarters with a woman who got paid to dance naked, and whose body ensured she’d be well paid for the task. He’d behaved like a perfect gentleman even when she’d been deliberately provocative.

  He’d fed her—and Christ could she eat—and made certain she had the best shelter his dwindling budget would allow.

  What did she do? She punched her fist in his face.

  He took a step toward her, his hands bunched at his sides. “I can’t hit a woman. It pains me more than I can say, but I can’t do it. Now move aside.”

  “Can’t hit a woman.” She lifted her chin, daring him. “But you don’t have any trouble stealing from one. You took my earrings.”

  “That’s right.” He couldn’t hit her, but he did give her a good shove so he could step in and slam the door. “And I got twenty-five pounds for them. You eat like a horse, and I’m not made of money.”

  “Twenty-five?” Her outrage doubled. “I paid three hundred and sixty-eight dollars for those, after an hour’s hard bargaining in the jewelry exchange on Fifth. You’re not only a thief, you’re a sucker.”

  “And you’ve vast experience hocking earrings, have you?”

  She didn’t, but she was sure she could have done better. “Those were eighteen-carat, Italian gold.”

  “Now they’re going to be fish and chips at the pub, and a night’s lodging in this hellhole. You keep hammering at me about being partners, but you don’t contribute anything.”

  “You could have asked.”

  “Sure, you’d’ve handed them over if I’d asked. You, who takes her handbag into the flaming shower with her.”

  Her full, taunting mouth curled. “You’ve just proven I was smart to do so.”

  Disgusted, he grabbed a shirt, tossed it to her. “Put something on, for Christ’s sake. Have some respect for yourself.”

  “I’ve plenty of respect for myself.” She’d forgotten she was in her underwear. She tended to miss fine details when the red haze of temper came over her. But now, the contempt in his tone had her heaving the shirt across the room. “I want that twenty-five pounds.”

  “You’re not getting it. You want to eat, get some clothes on. You’ve got five minutes.” He started toward the bath. He should’ve known better than to turn his back on her.

  She leaped on him, wrapping those long legs like steel bands around his waist, yanking his head back by the hair until lights exploded in front of his eyes.

  He spun, tried to buck her off. She clung like a burr and managed to hook an arm around his throat. With his wind-pipe in danger of being crushed, he reached up, got a good hank of her hair himself. Her howl when he pulled it was pure satisfaction.

  “Let go! Let go of my hair!”

  “You let go of mine,” he choked out. “Now.”

  They circled, her heaped on his back, both of them cursing, both of them yanking. He rammed into the side of the bed, lost his balance. When he hit, he landed on top of her, hard enough to knock the wind out of her and loosen her grip. Before she could recover both, he flipped and pinned her.

  “You’ve got a screw loose,” he muttered, struggling to hold her arms when she started to fight back. “Dozens of screws loose. It’s twenty-five pounds, for God’s sake. I’ll give you twelve and five if you’re so crazed for it.”

  “My earrings,” she panted. “My money.”

  “For all you know I’m a desperate man. For all you know I could bash you on the head and take a hell of a lot more than a pair of earrings.”

  She sniffed, derisively, then, inspired, tried a new strategy. Tears threatened to spill down her cheeks. That wide, lush mouth trembled. “Don’t hurt me.”

  “I’m not going to hurt you. What do you take me for? Don’t cry, come on now, darling.” He released her arm to brush a tear away.

  She attacked like a wildcat. Teeth, nails, flying limbs. She caught a glancing blow off his temple, shot an elbow into his ribs. In his struggle to defend himself, he rolled off the bed, with her on top of him.

  Grunting, sweating, stunned with pain, he managed to pin her a second time before he realized she was breathless with laughter.

  “What is it about a few tears that makes guys all gooey?” She grinned up at him. Christ, he was cute. All pissed off and poetical. “Your mouth’s bleeding, champ.”

  “I know it.”

  “I guess that was worth twenty-five pounds. But I’m not settling for fish and chips. I want red meat,” she demanded.

  Then she saw that focused, narrowed look that meant one thing from a man. Her belly muscles quivered in response.

  “Uh-oh,” she murmured.

  “Damn it, Cleo.” He crushed his throbbing, bleeding mouth to hers. She tasted of sin and smelled like a rain-washed garden. Beneath his, her mouth opened, and it took every bit as greedily. Her limbs wrapped around him again, but silkily this time. She arched, center to center in a slow, sinuous invitation.

  He lifted his head and looked down at her. Her hair, all that warm, damp sable, was spread over the thin, burn-scarred carpet. Her lashes were still set with those mock tears. He wanted to devour her, one quick gulp, no matter how it might make his belly ache afterward. He was rock hard and randy.

  And he found himself blocked by the same set of values that had prevented him from striking her.

  “Damn it,” he said again and pushed off her to sit with his back braced against the bed.

  Baffled, she levered onto her elbows. “What’s the matter?”

  “Get dressed, Cleo. I said I wouldn’t hurt you. I won’t use you, either.”

  She sat back up on her heels as she studied him. His eyes were closed, his breath ragged. She had good reason to know he was aroused. But he’d stopped. Stopped, she realized, because despite the toughness, the cool calculation she’d recognized in him, he was decent. Right down to the marrow.

  “You’re the genuine article, aren’t you?”

  He opened his eyes to see her smiling thoughtfully. “What?”

  “Just one question. Did you back off because I’m a currently unemployed stripper?”

  “I backed off because whatever you say about partnerships, I’m responsible for you being here. For you having to run out of Prague and across the continent to England with the clothes on your back. I made the choice to go after these statues, and to take the consequences knowing someone was going to try to stop me, however they could. You didn’t have the choice.”

  “That’s what I thought,” she replied. “That means I’ll just have to take you down again.”

  “Cut it out,” he warned when she slithered like a snake into his lap.

  “You can just lie back and take it.” She ran her tongue over his jaw. “Or you can participate. Up to you, Slick. But either way, I’m having you. Umm, you’re all hot and sweaty.” When he clamped his hands on her wrists, she just continued to use her mouth. “I like it. This’ll go easier on you if you cooperate.”

  She rocked on him, then covered his mouth with hers when he moaned.

  “Touch me.” It had been so long since she’d had a man’s hands on her. Since she’d wanted them on her. “Touch me.”

  In one rough move, he had her on her back again, and his hands were everywhere. The floor was hard a
s rock, smelled of stale smoke, but they rolled over it as she tugged at his shirt, as she dug her nails into his back.

  She’d wanted this. Even knowing it was stupid, it was pointless, she’d wanted him. Every time she’d felt his gaze linger on her, every night she’d lain awake knowing he was lying awake an arm’s length away, she’d wanted him.

  The good, solid weight of him pressed her into the unyielding floor, those strong, hard hands streaked over her. She bowed up when he dragged her bra down to her waist, moaned in pleasure when his mouth ravaged her breast.

  Her body was a banquet. Sleek and curvy with generous breasts, endless legs. He’d wanted to feast since he’d first seen her strut onstage in her man’s clothes with that knowing smirk on her fabulous face.

  He couldn’t think about how it was a mistake. He could only think how much he needed to feed.

  He found her mouth again, and pain and pleasure warred through him. She was dragging his jeans down, raking her nails over his hips. And his blood was a raging hammer blasting against his heart, in his head.

  Then he was inside her, rammed deep, and she was already coming around him on a wild, wet burst.

  “Jesus!” Her eyes flew open and were nearly black with shock. “Jesus, what was that?”

  “I don’t know, but let’s try it again.” Even as she shuddered, he drove himself into her in fast, nearly violent strokes. He heard her gasp for air, saw the fresh flush of heat flood her cheeks. Then she was matching him, beat for frantic beat.

  And on the instant when he lost himself in her, she dragged his mouth back to hers.

  Eight

  CLEO lay facedown and crossways on a mattress that had all the yield of concrete. Her lungs had stopped wheezing, and the roar of blood in her ears had subsided to a pleasant hum.

  She’d had her first sexual experience at sixteen when, after a fight with her mother, she’d let Jimmy Moffet do what he’d been begging her to let him do for three months.

  The earth hadn’t moved, but as initiators went, Jimmy had been all right.

  In the eleven years since, she’d had better, and she’d had worse, and she’d learned to be selective. She’d learned what pleasured her own body and how to guide a man to satisfy her needs.