Harlequin Superromance November 2013 - Bundle 1 of 2

by Mary Brady

  She flipped on the light above the sink and started the teakettle heating.

  “What kind of—” She turned and stopped quickly. “Oh, sorry. I didn’t mean to yell in your face. I didn’t hear you come in.”

  “I didn’t want you to wait on me.”

  “Then the cups are there—” she pointed to a cupboard beside her sink “—and the tray’s over there. How about Rishi’s Serene Dream? It’s got, let’s see, valerian root, lemon verbena, lemon balm, chamomile, lavender and spearmint.”

  “I have no idea what most of those ingredients are.”

  “Serene Dream it is.” She scooped loose tea into her teapot. “Oh, you can light the fire if you would, please.”

  He nodded and backed away.

  Left alone in her kitchen, the tight knot that was supposed to be her heart relaxed a little. This was totally new ground here and she had no idea what she was doing. She and Daniel had spent so much time together in the past three days it felt like a month, at least her poor struggling heart thought so.

  She rubbed her chest. Real, unselfish feelings for a member of the opposite sex were things you didn’t know until you knew. She now realized there had never been a love of her life. She already felt more for Daniel MacCarey than she felt for any man in her past, men she thought she’d marry and spend the rest of her life with.

  Ironic. She wasn’t going to spend the rest of her life with this one, either.

  When the teakettle started to steam, she poured the hot water into the teapot and carried the tray into the living room. Daniel stood in front of the crackling fire, the light doing that gorgeous stuff to his hair again.

  “It’ll steep for five minutes and then we can drink it,” she said as she put the tray on the table.

  “I’m sorry, I guess I should have asked you if you wanted to be left alone to get some sleep. I’m still so awake and there isn’t a crack in my ceiling I haven’t mapped tonight.”

  “Sleep’s not my forte these days.” He retrieved both of the pillows and put them on the floor in front of the fire.

  “I’m trying not to feel awkward about this,” she said as she brought the quilts over near the fire and sat down. “New territory for me.”

  She stretched out with her toes toward the fire and stared into the flickering flames.

  “As long as you don’t get hurt.” He sat on the floor close to her.

  “By this, whatever it is.”

  “Yes.”

  After a few minutes, the microwave timer in the kitchen chimed and Daniel placed the tray with the teapot and cups beside them. When she reached for the pot he said, “I’ll get it.”

  He poured the steaming Serene Dream into their cups.

  “Smells nice.” She picked up her cup and leaned her face over the column of rising moisture.

  “Don’t fall in.”

  His friendly teasing reminded her of the things, the little bonuses she would get if she had this man for her own.

  This was dangerous thinking.

  Still she didn’t care.

  She intended to take pleasure in every enjoyable thing Daniel MacCarey offered.

  “A mini facial,” she said as she lifted her face from the steam. “I take one every time I have bedtime tea.”

  “They must work.”

  “Oh, a compliment. I’ll take that.”

  “Don’t you have a string of guys out there waiting to spend time with you?”

  She snorted and almost spilled her tea. “There was somebody, but he wisely ran away.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “I’m not. Been there done that. Right now, I’m in the ‘I’m perfectly fine with me’ phase. I’m actually quite happy to have run the gauntlet without marrying any of the toads I kissed.”

  This time when she leaned forward over her tea, he tucked the strand of hair behind her ear.

  “They were lucky toads. Well...you know what I mean.”

  They talked about his work and the university. They talked about Rory and her previous boyfriend and this was the first time she had ever been truly able to laugh about those relationships.

  She quite enjoyed talking with Daniel. She couldn’t ever remember having a man for a friend before. That may be where her problems were with the others. She couldn’t imagine sitting around chatting with Rory.

  “So what do you think of our little town? Wait. Sorry.” She held up a hand. “If you’d like me to shut up and just let you rest, I’m good with that.”

  A soft smile spread across his face. “It’s fine, as long as you don’t mind my less-than-sparkling conversation.”

  “You sparkle just fine.”

  “What do I think about your little town? An old coastal fishing village and the prospect of finding an early Maine settler would have been great news to share with my aunt Margaret.”

  “You mentioned her before. She must have been important to you.”

  “She was a wonderful person. She was ninety-two when she died.”

  “I’m so sorry she’s gone.”

  “So am I. You would have liked her. She’d have liked you.”

  Something about his professor appearance made him look more uptight.

  “Thank you.” She reached over and ruffled his hair. “I like it better that way.”

  He scowled but she knew he didn’t mean it.

  “Margaret MacCarey knew a lot about the world,” he said.

  “The world before the internet. Before space travel.”

  “Born about the same time as the cake mix. She had a 1956 black Cadillac convertible when she died. Bought it new. It’s still in her garage.”

  “So you have something to remember her by.”

  He seemed to study the fire while Mia poured more tea for both of them.

  “She left me something else.” He spoke very quietly as if thinking about each word.

  She put her teacup down and focused on him.

  “She left me a ring.”

  He reached into his pocket and pulled out a small, cloth bag. If the flames told it true, a light lavender pouch with frayed ribbons, and he handed it to her. “I haven’t taken it out since the night she died.”

  Mia held up the bag. The fabric was thin with some of the velvet worn away.

  She looked up at him and when he nodded, she tugged at the ribbons to loosen them and opened the delicate purse.

  Into her palm she poured a heavy gold ring with a large pale blue stone encircled by what were probably diamonds.

  “It looks old—even I can tell that, and very beautiful.”

  “I never saw her wear it. The hospice nurse gave it to me after Aunt Margaret died, and it came with this.” He pulled an envelope from his shirt pocket and handed it to her.

  Mia took the envelope, scooted closer to the light and read the note she found inside.

  When she was finished, she looked up. “She was a lovely woman, wasn’t she?”

  “She was the best. The nurse also gave me a last message, said it would be up to me whether or not I shared or kept the secret.”

  A family secret. Mia wasn’t going there, definitely not going there, so she tucked the note back inside the envelope and held the ring up to the firelight.

  “Is this your family’s coat of arms on the inside?”

  Daniel sat forward. He cupped one hand under hers and gently took the ring. She couldn’t help it. When he touched her he stoked the fire.

  Fires she could control...

  She hoped.

  She poured more tea into her cup.

  He examined the ring for a long time. Then he got up and turned on the lamp on the end table and looked at it more closely.

  “There’s a magnifying glass in that drawer unde
r that lamp.”

  She wanted to bite her tongue off as soon as she said it. That drawer was currently chock full of condoms.

  He opened the drawer, and without a moment’s hesitation, pulled out one of the little devils and then pretended to use it as a magnifying glass.

  “You are one sick puppy.”

  He raised one eyebrow at her.

  “Very sick.”

  “I think that’s a compliment these days.”

  “It fits.”

  He smiled a relaxed smile and exchanged the condoms for the magnifying glass.

  She drank the rest of her cooled tea, but what she really wanted to do was use a fistful of the packages.

  “There is a wafer of gold that seems to have been added after the ring was made. On it is a coat of arms and it’s not the MacCarey coat of arms.”

  “Oh, secrets galore.”

  “They’re holding the package at the post office. I guess I should pick it up, but I keep trying not to do things that will remind me she’s gone.” He looked up from the ring. “I would have been here sooner if it weren’t for her funeral on Saturday.”

  “Kind of makes me feel bad for thinking all those evil things about that unknown person who was supposed to be coming from the university. Sorry.”

  He turned off the lamp and returned to sit beside her in front of the fire. The warmth reached out and wrapped around them. He put his hand on hers, but didn’t say anything.

  She squeezed his hand in return. “I won’t ask, but if you ever feel like telling me, you can.”

  He smiled a small smile, one that seemed to say something had lightened inside him. That his life just got a little easier. She hoped so.

  Time and tea had taken hold. She reveled in the feeling of sleepiness as she leaned back in to the pillow and relaxed. Daniel did the same, then he put an arm around her and drew her close. She turned over so her body fit into his and he breathed a sound-asleep sigh.

  * * *

  THURSDAY AT SEVEN-THIRTY in the morning Mia awoke to the sound of her shower. She sat up and folded the quilts. That was so much better than a note.

  As she pulled the pillows back to their corners, she wondered if Monique had heard yet that Daniel had spent another night on Blueberry Avenue.

  More, she wondered how Monique and Lenny were doing. Since all was quiet from the neat little house on White Pine Court, things must be going very well.

  With the quilts folded and placed on the arm of the couch, she went out to the kitchen.

  Light streamed in her kitchen window as if starting up a new day meant something different this morning. She touched the hanging crystal and watched the rainbows dance.

  As the coffeepot started to gurgle, she got out the pan for oatmeal.

  When Daniel entered the kitchen looking damp and sexy, she grinned a nice friendly grin. “Good morning.”

  He came over and kissed her on the cheek. “Good morning and thanks for such a good night’s sleep.”

  The touch of his lips made her blush and if she wasn’t careful, that blush was going to turn into a raging fire.

  “Do you know how to make oatmeal?” she asked.

  “That one I can handle.”

  “Good, I’m going to shower.” She took off, abandoning the burbling coffee and the water about to boil. Whatever he needed... Her kitchen wasn’t big, and she need a shower, a cold one.

  By the time she returned, Daniel had added walnuts and cinnamon to the oatmeal along with dried Maine blueberries and butter.

  “Tasty,” she said as they sat at her kitchen table in the white light of the bright day. “What are you going to be doing today?” she asked, hoping he would let her get back to work in the building.

  “I need to get to the university this morning. What about you?”

  “I’ll go talk to the police about the trespassing and then I need to check records at the church. If I get bored and if it’s all right I’ll work on piecing the crypt back together, you weren’t taking the pieces with you, were you?”

  “I can leave them here. You don’t mind if I leave you with all that?”

  “I need things to do.” Besides wrestle with bill collectors and her crazy libido.

  Twenty minutes later, Mia stood on her porch and watched Daniel climb into his car and leave.

  Friends, she loved being friends with Daniel MacCarey, but—it was not enough, and as his car rolled down the hill and then disappeared around the corner of Blueberry Avenue and Church Street she felt her good spirits crumple.

  Squaring her shoulders, she headed back into the house. She was a tough Maine woman. She could love and not be loved, though, now that she knew what that truly meant, and wanted to stomp off and challenge whoever was in charge of romance in the world.

  Maybe she’d just go to work.

  * * *

  ON THE WAY back to the university, Daniel called a friend of his, Eleanor Wahl, an avid member of the Jane Austen Society and owner of an antique jewelry business. He set up an appointment to meet her at two this afternoon. If the ring from Aunt Margaret originated in Europe, and it easily could have, and if it was as old as he suspected, this woman might know something of its history. Many ifs but worth checking out.

  Then he called the student in charge of studying the remains and left a message to meet him in the lab at one o’clock to discuss the progress.

  When he got into town, he changed at his condo and went to the lab even though he was early.

  “Dr. MacCarey.” The lead student was so excited he could hardly speak. It was clear to see the trio had found something.

  “You gotta see this,” another of the trio said as she almost danced around a specimen laid out for his examination. A pair of ribs.

  “Come and look,” the third said, and although Daniel knew the young woman was just as eager, she was too reserved to show it.

  As Daniel held one of the ribs under a magnifying glass, a roughness on the surface caught his eye. It looked linear, like nothing that would have occurred from a skeleton slouching in a crypt. He picked up the sequential rib and compared the scoring. The ribs each had similar markings, one more dorsal and one more lateral. The chances of the scorings being incidental damage, was remote.

  “What do you think?” Daniel looked at the three of them one at a time. He wanted each of them to know their answer was important to him.

  “It’s a stab wound,” student one blurted out.

  “He was stabbed in the back,” the young woman said with enough relish that she dimpled and blushed.

  “The location and angle say it was a mortal wound,” the quieter of the group said.

  “What else do you know about a stabbing like this?” Daniel turned back to the bones.

  “Stabbing a man in the back isn’t as easy as it looks on television. The knife needed to go through clothing...between the ribs, and get through several muscle layers to kill. So it had to be done by someone strong, experienced or just lucky.” The information was pieced together as a group paragraph.

  “Good. What else can you tell me?”

  “There was no war in this small coastal town during the window in which this man could have been put in the wall.”

  “And how do you know the time period?”

  “It’s an extrapolation, sir.”

  Daniel nodded. “So the wound was not a war wound.”

  “And self-defense wounds are rarely in the back.”

  Daniel looked at the trio again. He knew by their faces they were dying to tell him their favorite answer. “What does that leave?”

  “Murder,” the three of them chorused.

  Daniel knew he’d have to examine the evidence closely, but this man, whoever he was, had most likely gotten in someone’s way or pissed th
em off.

  “Ms. Vock, Ms. Diaz, Mr. Miller, it looks as though I chose well. Now that the exciting stuff is over, what about the clothing?”

  “The cloth was manufactured in Europe in the early 1800s because of the type of fiber. The cut of the clothing takes a more colonial direction than European. There are no fasteners and no metal accessories, so we can’t be exact. Although it does appear as if the buttons have been cut off.”

  “There is DNA in his teeth, Dr. MacCarey, and some of the bone, should we run it?”

  “What will we compare the DNA against?” Daniel asked. Heather Loch’s name sprang to mind, but he wasn’t jumping there just yet.

  “Oh, yeah. There is that.”

  “But preserve it all. There may be a day when it will be useful. See what you can do with reassembling the clothing. Get started on the computer facial reconstruction model.”

  He left the students with the remains and instructions and headed back to his car with plenty of time to make the trip to Mrs. Wahl’s home.

  None of what the students had found proved the man had been an important historical figure. It did not disprove it, either.

  He found himself smiling at the enthusiasm of the trio. He remembered being twenty-four. He had been invincible, and he knew everything that was important to know about archeology and anthropology. He was two years away from meeting the woman who would become his wife and mother of his child. He was years away from being knocked to the ground by something he had no control over.

  He had wondered if he’d ever get up, until Mia Parker made him feel as if he were finally able to gain some footing. She did something to him, brought out his sense of humor. One of those things he thought might be gone forever.

  He left the university behind for a place that always amazed him. If there was a home that said gentile more than Eleanor’s he’d not seen it. He met Eleanor through his ex-wife, Mandy, and their mutual interest in Jane Austen.

  When he stopped his car and got out in front of the meticulously kept home of Eleanor Wahl, he could only feel awe. Built by her late husband’s great-grandfather, the home had a brick sidewalk, sweeping front porch and an ornate three-story chimney. The chimney running up the front of the house had the name Wahl spelled out in brick at the base.