by Cait London
She took her mind to a spot above the noisy room, above the lanterns. The Alessandros were a caring family. Would they give her a wake? she wondered distantly.
Or would they be giving a wake for one of their own?
Because fainter, less certain danger also stalked the Alessandros. Celeste could feel it pulse around her.
Her fingers pried loose the scarf she’d tied at her throat, a frivolous last-minute addition. It was red paisley and silk, her favorite. She’d always loved scarves long enough to flow the length of her caftan, circle her throat, and glide down her back. Vanity, perhaps, but they seemed to make her more slender.
Now, her scarf seemed almost alive, choking her.
She watched Nick and Maggie rejoin the lively crowd, and there was a softness about Maggie that hadn’t been there, a relaxing of those taut shields. What was her past, and how did her trail lead death to Celeste?
Or to Beth? What kindled warm and sweet within Maggie as she looked at Beth? What ran between them, the bond so close to love? Would that deadly trail lead to Beth?
Or perhaps to Maggie, Celeste added sadly, as another dark wave slithered over her. She would have to wait, to know more, because tonight it seemed as if Maggie had forgotten whatever haunted her.
Outside on the street, a car prowled over the cobblestones. Lorna’s Lincoln was easily recognizable. Celeste circled the wealthy, spoiled woman, hovering uninvited outside the restaurant. Lorna wanted Nick, and he was too smart for her games. Or did she really want someone else, someone who wouldn’t play her games?
Vinnie, Nick’s cousin, watched the car from the window and quietly lifted his glass in a mocking toast to Lorna. Framed by shadows, her face was rigid and pale, then the Lincoln shot into the night.
Celeste saw inside Lorna’s bitter, lonely anguish. She was terribly lonesome and covered her scars with brusque attacks. Her father had demanded too much from her, withholding his affection until he’d fashioned her into a seemingly emotionless female shark. Then he’d manuevered, rather sold, her into two consecutive bloodless marriages.
Lorna was doing the best she could, and beneath that brittle exterior, she was just a woman wanting someone to love. Love lay within her like a shriveled bud, waiting for sunshine and nourishment.
Celeste watched Maggie take a glass of wine from Nick, their eyes meeting over the rim. His hand reached to smooth her hair, and Maggie’s smile at him was shy.
Oh, Maggie, I want so for you to live, for you to be happy…please, please let me see…
But the images wouldn’t come, because Celeste saw flashing pictures of what happened before the victim’s death, and the only death she could predict for certain now was her own, and Maggie had brought it to her.
Did she hate Maggie for that? No, it was only as fate would have it. Celeste needed answers, and Maggie couldn’t give them to her—because Maggie didn’t know….
Nick damned himself for the need he couldn’t help, and knocked on Maggie’s camper door. He’d stayed to clean up after the aniversary party and should have gone straight home, but the ache to see Maggie again was too strong. She’d been so relaxed, laughing at Dante’s jokes.
Dante needed to lay off, Nick thought darkly, because when it came to Maggie, he was very selfish.
Inside the camper, Scout barked excitedly and Nick answered Maggie’s cautious “Who is it?”
She opened the door slightly and Nick fought reaching for her. She’d relaxed tonight, leaned slightly against him, the soft curves had stayed with him. Nick reached down to pet Scout. “I forgot something.”
The door opened wider and the light behind her created a halo of reddish soft hair, the towel she held in front of her shielding the over-large T-shirt. Her bare legs were slender and long and gleaming smooth—
Inwardly Nick groaned, because he wanted to run his hands over those legs and upward and over and in; he wanted to be the cause of those soft crooning sounds she’d made in the shower.
“What did you forget?”
“This,” he said, giving way to his need to feel her against him. Nick moved very slowly so as not to frighten her. He placed his hands on Maggie’s shoulders, sliding them down her arms, and gently enfolded her hands with his. The towel dropped to her feet, and Maggie stood still, watching him.
Nick studied the fit of their hands, the way the bones felt strong and lasting beneath the skin softer than his. They were good hands, callused and unpampered, smaller than his, the palms more square.
“Enjoyed yourself tonight, did you?” he asked as he brought her hands to his mouth, cruising his parted lips over her knuckles.
Her yes held just the right amount of breathlessness to stir him on, not too fast, he cautioned, but enough to satisfy just that bit.
Nick turned her hands, opened them, and placed his face within their cradle, wanting her to feel inside him, to trust him. “I did, too.”
“You’re not coming in,” Maggie said huskily.
He’d needed that, to know that she hungered for him and recognized his own hunger. Nick slowly looked down her body, the curved silhouette, the flaring of her hips revealed by the light behind her. “No, I’m not.”
With a tug, he brought her out of the doorway, catching her against him, holding her feet off the ground. It was enough for now, he thought, as her eyes darkened and her arms loosely rested on his shoulders.
He closed his eyes, pleasured by her fingers slowly toying with his hair, one prowling around his ear. Her fingertips skimmed his brows, his lashes, his cheekbones, and slid down his nose. The curiosity was there, the woman testing him each step, wanting to be certain of him.
When they trailed over his lips, he kissed them and settled into a sense of well-being. The late spring night was fragrant and new, and he was with the woman he wanted.
“You’re a lonely man, Nicholas Alessandro. I can’t be her.”
“Did I ask you?”
Her lips brushed his so lightly he feared they hadn’t. “I’m not lonely. I’ve been too busy trying to survive.”
“Mmm,” his tone was all male appreciation.
Maggie smiled against his lips. “Your hands are wandering.”
He moved her slightly against his body, already hard and aching. “I’m just testing your muscle density. You’re in good shape. You feel so good. I wonder if I need a private trainer.”
“You can let me down now, and there’s not an ounce of flab on you and you know it.”
He leaned his head against the hand smoothing his cheek, enjoying the gentleness that lingered between them. “No, you’re staying put. This is nice. You know, I’m a much better guy than Dante. You sat on his lap. Now everyone thinks you’re his girl. You could have sat on my lap.”
She smiled at that. “He’s very charming, and there wasn’t anywhere else to sit. And I didn’t think his lap was dangerous.”
Nick didn’t allow his smirk to show—when a woman noticed a man’s lap, that gave him hope. “And I’m not charming? Okay, maybe I’m out of practice. I’ll try harder.” He intended to give her something to think about, lowering her to her feet, and taking her mouth, devouring it, flying with her.
Instead, Maggie’s hands fisted his hair, her mouth open beneath his, tasting of hunger and storms and heat. He slowly slid his hands down her body, from beneath her arms, to her rib cage, to that indentation of her waist to the curve of her hips, and ran one finger around the elastic waistband of her briefs, lingering where he wanted to take, and cupped her bottom. “You are a fine-looking woman, Maggie Chantel. Can you blame me?” he asked wryly.
Her laugh was sultry and knowing and feminine. “You’re on the make, Nick. I’m just the closest and the newest game in town.”
“I’m wounded,” he returned, moving into the friendly tease, enjoying Maggie without her defenses.
She patted his cheek, and Nick lifted her in his arms, placing her safely inside the camper. “Good night, sweet princess. You can do my laundry any time.”
<
br /> She laughed outright at that, and Nick closed the door, and the temptation that was Maggie, from him. The encounter was friendly and tender and enough—but he wanted much more.
Celeste raised her arms to the moon, calling to the winds, asking them to show her more.
“That’s creepy,” Beth said behind her. “I don’t know if I should stay the night or not. You’ve been in a strange mood lately.”
The winds tugged at Celeste’s caftan as she tried to see inside, where the darkness hovered, expected, and warned. “Do you like my house, Beth?” she asked, loosening her long hair to flow in the wind, twining with her scarf almost sensually.
“You know I love it.”
Celeste liked the idea of Maggie and Beth sharing her small cottage, tending the herbs. Maggie had linked with Beth in some unexpected way, and the younger woman had settled in Maggie’s presence, trusting her.
Beth would survive, but Maggie—there the whispers doubted and ended, because Maggie had closed herself to Celeste. But in the psychic’s mind, the dog and the locket were bound to Maggie, and there lay the danger…
Strange that Maggie had no sense of danger, and yet it slithered after her. But then too many images filled Maggie’s mind, not letting the danger in. What were those images? What was the link between Maggie and her own death?
Celeste closed her eyes, and beneath her hands, her heart skipped and leaped and stopped. “You’d take care of my cats, wouldn’t you, Beth? If something happened to me?”
They were her family, and so was the girl, and now Maggie.
As a child, Lorna had sought refuge from her father in Celeste’s arms. Perhaps Lorna-the-woman didn’t want to remember those times when she’d needed love so badly. But the attachment was there in a soft look, or the way Lorna stopped by the shop now and then, for no special purpose.
Celeste would never live to see the good Lorna would do, never see her come into a woman’s happiness. But Celeste knew that Lorna would find her path and in giving, receive more than she had ever hoped…
“Jeez, you’re creeping me out, old woman.” But Beth stood beside Celeste and held her hand. “Nothing is going to happen to you. Don’t say that again. I don’t want to think about it.”
But Celeste had to think and wonder and prepare, because her death was coming closer. “I’m going for a walk. Alone. But I’d love for you to spend the night.”
“I’ll come with you—”
“No, it’s my time to think. I need the night at times. It holds me close and whispers. And I listen.”
But I can’t hear what it says about Maggie—only that she brings my death and maybe her own…
EIGHT
Maggie sucked in air and knocked on Nick’s back screen door. The rippling, cool jazz music coming from within the house did not soothe her, nor did mid-June’s evening fragrances. After sunset and an evening of doing yard work at the camper, the fast walk to reclaim Scout was not welcome.
She swatted at the moths fluttering against the yellow porch light and impatiently brushed away the bits of grass clinging to her tank top and cutoff shorts.
Maggie hadn’t talked to Nick for two weeks and she liked keeping her distance. He had pushed her too hard for answers she didn’t want to give. Was her affection and concern for Beth so easily read?
Was she actually trying to substitute Beth for Glenda? Was she obsessing about salvaging Beth when she couldn’t save Glenda? Or was it about reclaiming herself?
Maggie forced herself to release Glenda’s locket. The habit was too telling, leaving her vulnerable for speculation and questions.
Nick was patiently working her for answers, but he was disturbing on a sensual man-woman level.
When he wanted, Nick could send a dark look that sizzled the air between them. In passing, Rosa had said Nick was thinning the blooms on his vineyard, working long hours outside, and also in the winery, contacting customers and working on his bottling supplies and inventory. It was obvious that Nick’s mother wanted Maggie to know that he was very busy, but Rosa’s broad hints were unmistakable. He also came into the restaurant for meals at exactly eight o’clock at night, and if Maggie wanted to drop over for a meal, there would be no cost because the Alessandros liked her.
Rosa had added tightly that her son was not in love with Lorna, who hadn’t resolved the issues her father had created. Maybe she was looking for a strong man like her father, maybe not. “She does things to get attention from men, and she has to have what she can’t have—I think that is why she has chosen Nick. It’s rumored that she has a boyfriend, but no one knows who he is. She actually paid some gigolo to romance her and she likes to shock people by the things she says, getting that attention she should have had from her cold father. What Lorna needs at times is a good spanking, but most of all I just want to hold her like a poor little lost bird,” Rosa had said.
Maggie frowned as she heard footsteps inside Nick’s house. She wasn’t befriending a woman like Lorna; she was already too deep into Beth’s life and couldn’t seem to back away. Lorna had her problems, and Maggie had hers.
Scout’s direct run toward Nick’s house indicated that he was home tonight; Maggie’s dog seemed to have radar where Nick was concerned.
Nick opened the door; a background trumpet wailed softly, curling around her, and Scout appeared to sit beside his feet. The kitchen light behind him framed his body, and other than the towel around his hips, all Nick wore were the glittering drops of water on his shoulders and in his hair.
As yet uncombed, the thick black waves were plastered to his head; the curls at the ends almost touched his shoulders and dripped slightly. Without the softness of those waves, the jutting masculine planes of Nick’s face caught the light, the hollows in shadow. Those thick brows were locked in a frown, his lashes spiked over narrowed eyes, and a muscle moved beneath that stubble-covered jaw, a pulse throbbing in his muscled neck.
One drop slid from his ear to his shoulder, gleaming on his dark skin. Then it slowly trailed downward to match the others beading the hair on his chest. From there, the single dark line narrowed until it reached his navel, and the white border of flesh where the towel had slipped said Nick wasn’t completely tan.
“I want my dog,” Maggie stated abruptly, to stop the big vibrating warning of you-haven’t-had-sex-in-years awareness of her body.
He took in her sweaty face, the bits of grass clinging to her chest and arms, the worn tank top, cutoffs, and bare legs. She fought wiggling her toe in the hole Scout had chewed in her cheap canvas loafers.
“Bad day?” he asked softly, picking a twig from her hair, and his expression slid into darkly sensual.
Maggie tried not to inhale too deeply; the scent of masculine soap and man was definitely erotic. “Yes. My battery is dead. I’ve been mowing and cutting George’s hedge and cleaning out his old garden. Then I had to walk the two miles to your house to collect my dog.”
She decided to move quickly out of Nick’s sensual appeal. Maggie patted her thigh. “Come on, Scout. Let’s go.”
Scout whined and disappeared into the shadows of the house.
“I would have brought her back. She was here, barking, when I got out of the shower.”
Maggie kept her eyes firmly on Nick’s face. It was just one of those days when nothing went right, including the leap of her senses, the need to slide that towel from Nick. Her personal battery seemed to be well charged.
She looked up at the ceiling and hoped she wasn’t drooling.
“You’re all sweaty,” he said huskily and Maggie’s skin started a different sort of heat, the kind that ran clear through her, staking her soles to the wooden planks of his deck.
“Hi,” she managed, quite a brilliant statement for her lips to make when her mind wasn’t working. In shocking contrast, her body was revved and already in nipple-contraction mode and it wasn’t chilly. The sudden alert had surprised her; she didn’t consider herself a woman whose sensuality was at the fore. But it had cert
ainly leaped at the sight of Nick.
“Hi,” Nick returned, and bent to brush his lips over hers. “You smell sweet, like fresh-cut grass.”
“You smell like soap. I smell like sweat,” she corrected automatically. But while her mouth spoke, her mind had seemed to stop turning. When it did, she envisioned a cartoon of herself—tongue unrolling to the floor, eyes popping, and heart leaping out of her chest to pound madly.
He chuckled, those velvety black eyes flowing warm upon her. “Nothing like a pragmatic woman. It’s girl sweat, sweet and warm and sexy and arousing.”
“I’m really tired, Nick, and not that happy with my dog.” She didn’t want to discuss her sweat with Nick. The damage she did to George’s overgrown yard, heaps of trimmed brush, was a result of taking an in-depth look at her thin finances. Scout’s regular checkup at the veterinarian’s office had been costly, so had the replacement for her pickup’s bald tires, and now it needed a battery.
Longing for a real home, she’d just splurged on women’s magazines, an expensive treat for a woman with a flatliner checkbook—but just possibly they could fill her mind enough to keep the nightmares away.
“I can help you jumpstart that battery. But it would be pretty easy to drop one in tonight.”
“Everything is closed tonight. I walk most of the time anyway.” Tonight, after destroying a major overgrown hedgerow and leaving mounds of brush, she couldn’t manage walking back—not unless she curled up on the roadside somewhere and rested. “I would appreciate the ride. I’ll pay you back. I’ll clean or something…laundry, maybe?”
“A little ride isn’t worth that. But come in. I’m about to have a sandwich. Want one?”
Food wasn’t something she’d thought about in her snit. Now her stomach cramped slightly and she remembered that small carton of yogurt she’d had for lunch.
Nick’s fingertip slid between her brows. “You’re thinking too hard. You’re always thinking too hard. A little relaxation wouldn’t hurt you.”