Taken Beyond Temptation

by Cara Summers

  She paused to slide her pointer over a string of closely spaced lines. “Basically, all hell breaks loose. Someone vandalizes my store and warns me to get out while I can, the next day when the Jenkinses arrive, the computer system in the hotel crashes, then someone throws tear gas into the center of the maze while Ian and I are there. And finally, someone throws a fire bomb into the basement of the library while Ian and I are doing research.”

  Avery swore under his breath. “This is about you, Jillian. Someone has a personal vendetta against you.”

  Even as a chill snaked up her spine, Ian spoke in a calm voice. “Elaborate, Avery.”

  “I always let the staff know when any of the sisters are going to be in residence. Naomi was a bit of a surprise earlier in the month, but Jillian has been scheduled to be here for months.”

  Jillian nodded. “He’s right. I have appointments set up to meet with contractors and start rehabbing my store. The whole village would know I’m going to be here next week. The colonel just got me here early.”

  “So whoever it is starts small with some vandalism here at the hotel. Then when you arrive, they escalate in both frequency and violence,” Avery said. “But why? Why are they after you?”

  Jillian set the pointer down and fisted her hands on her hips while she studied the timeline. “I’m the one who discovered Haworth House and talked my sisters into buying it.”

  “So if someone wants the hotel to fail and they figure you’re the driving force behind its success, it makes sense to go after you,” Nate suggested.

  Jillian nodded. “According to Matthew Jenkins, no one has ever made a success out of a business here. Maybe there’s someone who wants that losing streak to continue.”

  For a moment there was silence in the room.

  “You’re also the one who opened the tower up and set free Hattie’s ghost,” Ian pointed out. “If someone has a vendetta going against Haworth House, it might involve the original owner.”

  When they all turned to stare at Ian, he raised his hands palms outward. “I know a vendetta against a ghost is a bit of a stretch, but this is a brainstorming session. I thought I’d throw it out there.”

  “You could be right,” Jillian said. “If you are, then the timeline doesn’t go back far enough. And there’s a crucial line missing on it.”

  She picked up the marker and passed it to Avery. “When did you announce to the staff that a writer was coming here to research his book on Haworth House?”

  Rising, Avery moved to the board. “I told everyone the minute I talked Ian into coming. That was a day or two after someone strung wire across the staircase.”

  “Allowing a few days for the word to spread all over the island and the fact that Ian and I arrived on essentially the same day—” she turned to meet his eyes “—you could very well be an equal target here. You could certainly be the reason for the escalation. You’re here to dig into Haworth House’s past, you were in the maze, you were in the basement of the library.”

  There was another moment of silence as they all took time to study the dry board.

  “You could be right, Jillian,” Nate said. He picked up his notebook again. “Did either of you notice anyone following you into the village today?”

  “We pulled to the side of the road for a couple of minutes,” Ian replied. “A few cars passed by us from the direction of the hotel.”

  “Once we parked on Main Street, a lot of people saw us. Vivian Thorley spotted us when we parked and followed us right to the library.”

  “I’ve got a good view of the street from my office desk, and I saw you head toward the library,” Nate said.

  “We didn’t try to disguise our movements,” Ian said. “And once we went into the basement, we were sitting ducks.”

  Jillian turned back to the board. “If I am right about Ian also being a target, then I think the timeline may go all the way back to Samuel Jenkins the first’s death. If it was murder and not suicide, that might explain why someone is so desperate to keep that from coming to light.”

  “Okay.” Nate glanced up from his notes. “I’m going to need some elaboration on the murder theory.”

  Rising, Ian took Jillian’s hand and drew her back down to the couch. “My turn,” he said. “Your throat has to be sore.”

  Ian explained what they’d learned at the library, as well as Colonel Jenkins’s memories of being at Haworth House.

  Nate glanced at the notes he’d taken, then leaned back in his chair. “So what you’ve got is a romanticized theory that Hattie Haworth and Samuel Jenkins were having an affair and that someone—perhaps his wife—shoved him off that cliff. And we’re basing that scenario on the active imagination of Miss Emmy Lou when she was ten and some memories that Colonel Jenkins has suppressed for some fifty-five years?” Nate sent her a skeptical look.

  “There’s the Jenkinses’ sudden interest in getting their hands on the hotel and their willingness to increase their offer substantially within a few hours,” Ian pointed out.

  “And I have something else.” Jillian dug into her pocket and drew out the necklace she’d found just before the fire bomb had exploded. “I found this on the basement floor of the library. It was beneath one of the shelves in the back corner.”

  With a frown, Ian reached for it and studied it more closely. “This looks like the necklace Hattie Haworth was wearing in that portrait she donated to the library.”

  Jillian nodded. “I’m sure it’s the same one. And we know that both she and Samuel visited the library. Maybe Miss Emmy Lou’s idea isn’t so far-fetched after all. Perhaps that’s where they met and that’s where their relationship started.”

  Nate leaned back in his chair. “Or Hattie Haworth’s necklace dropped off while she was taking a tour.” His gaze shifted to the dry board. “And the Jenkinses’ sudden interest in the hotel could be because they think it’s a good business investment.” He sighed. “But someone is clearly getting desperate. So I don’t think we can afford to ignore any possibility on this one. I’ll talk to my father about Samuel Jenkins’s death. He was a deputy at the time.”

  “I spoke with Cody Marsh,” Ian said. “He’s en route and expects to arrive first thing tomorrow morning. He says Margie Brenner Jenkins died some twenty years ago. She moved to Boston after she left here with her son and five years later she remarried a man in the military, Jeremy Daniels. He died ten years ago.”

  Nate tucked his hands behind his head. “Well, if Samuel Jenkins was murdered because he was having an affair, the prime suspect is always the wife. Her demise narrows down our theoretical suspect list to—?”

  “Maybe someone doesn’t want Margie’s name smeared,” Ian said.

  “They’ve gone to a lot of trouble to protect the reputation of someone who’s been dead for two decades.” Nate gathered up his notebook, then rose. “For what it’s worth, I suspect that whoever is behind this has a much more personal stake in it. And they’ll try again.”

  Jillian gripped Ian’s hand hard as Nate met her eyes and then Ian’s.

  “I can spare a few men, and I’ll send them up here. In the meantime, I don’t think the two of you should leave the hotel.”

  14

  BECAUSE SHE WANTED MORE than anything to hold on, Jillian slipped her hand out of Ian’s as they began to climb the stairs. When they passed by the exit for the floor his suite was on and continued to climb toward her floor, she felt something tighten around her heart.

  They weren’t going to his place, after all. She’d gotten the idea that he was scrapping his earlier plans for romance and champagne when he’d wrapped up some of the sandwiches Avery had provided in his suite.

  At the door of her room, they paused. “You need some sleep,” he said.

  “You, too.” That was the sensible route.

  “You know how to set the alarm Dane installed?”

  The tightness around her heart grew. “Yes.” But she didn’t want the alarm. She wanted Ian MacFarland. For comfort? Fo
r safety? For pleasure?

  All of the above and she was beginning to suspect a bit more. But hadn’t she decided in Avery’s suite that she wasn’t going to cling? Jillian Brightman wasn’t a clinger.

  Ian handed her a packet of sandwiches. “You should try to eat something—even if it hurts your throat.”

  When she took the food, his hands closed over hers. “We both need to shut down our minds. And not just because we need to rest. I find that some of my best analytical work goes on when I’m sleeping and my subconscious mind takes over.”

  Jillian tilted her head to one side and studied him. He was making an argument for separate sleeping arrangements. Still, he hadn’t released her hands. So who was he trying to convince? Her best guess eased whatever had nearly been squeezing the life out of her heart.

  “Before we shut down and go into REM mode, I have a suggestion.”

  His eyes narrowed. “Jillian, if I come in, neither of us will get any sleep.”

  She tried to ignore the thrill that raced through her. “Agreed. So I’m not going to invite you in.” Not right now. “But before we retire to our separate suites, I want to go to the tower room and see if we can find anything out from Hattie.”

  “You want to consult a ghost.”

  It wasn’t a question, but she answered it anyway. “That’s not exactly the way it works. Going up there and talking things through with myself—it helps me to sort things out. If we’re right and the motivation for everything that’s happening now goes back to Samuel Jenkins the first, then we might find some answers or arrive at a different perspective with Hattie around.” Plus, she wasn’t ready to let Ian go yet.

  Keeping his hand in hers, she drew him down the hallway to the paneled oak door and punched in a code. “Your brother installed new security on the tower room, too.” After throwing the switch that illuminated the circular iron staircase, she led the way up.

  Ian glanced around the space. Night poured through the windows that ringed the curved outer wall of the tower. A Tiffany lamp on a nearby desk provided a warm glow and Jillian hurried around the room to turn on other lamps. A partial wall divided the space into work and social areas. As his gaze took in the braided rugs on the honey-colored oak floors, the cozy groupings of furniture that mixed the more contemporary with antiques, he was moved to say, “You’ve done a great job with this room.”

  When pleasure lit her eyes, he decided that he hadn’t given her nearly enough compliments. Or romance. His plan when he’d left Avery’s suite had been to put the romance on hold in favor of the practical. Because he very much wanted to toss that plan aside and go to her, he said, “What can I do to help?”

  “It was when I was looking into that mirror over there that she showed me the secret room.”

  Ian turned in the direction she pointed and in the reflection, he watched Jillian pull a lever and a panel in the wall slid open. He moved toward it and examined the small space.

  “I’ve always had the hatbox with me when I try to talk to her.” Bending over, she picked it up and turned toward him. “This is the famous fantasy box. When I was up here, trying to decide what to do about you, I sat down with it in front of the mirror.”

  As she lowered herself to the floor, Ian joined her. “What’s next?”

  “I just start talking.” She glanced at their reflection. “Hattie, this is Ian, Dane’s brother.”

  Ian looked in the mirror, not quite sure if he should wave. In the glass, he saw the two of them seated cross-legged on the floor, the hatbox between them.

  “I know what you’re thinking,” Jillian said in that dry tone he was coming to recognize. “All we need is a few candles and a woman wearing a turban and we could have a séance.”

  He grinned at her. “I hadn’t quite gotten to the lady in the turban.”

  She glanced down at the hatbox, then back at Ian. “I’ve never talked to myself before with a third party listening—except for Hattie.”

  He reached for her hands. “Why don’t you just talk to me. I’d like to know why you believe Miss Emmy Lou’s theory that Samuel Jenkins and Hattie were having a secret affair.”

  “I suppose it’s because of the secret room. Ever since Hattie first showed it to me, I’ve wondered about its purpose. And why is the hatbox the only thing she hid away in there? When I first stepped in there, I thought it would contain something really expensive—jewels, a piece of rare art. It’s taken me a while to figure it out, but I think this box of fantasies had to be very valuable to Hattie.”

  “And the idea that Hattie and Samuel were having an affair makes the fantasies even more valuable?”

  She shook her head. “Not just an affair. What if it started out that way—with an incredible, irresistible attraction? Finally, they give in to it, and instead of going away, the attraction between them continues to grow and it deepens into love. The kind of one man, one woman love that you think only exists in fiction.”

  “They discover they’re soul mates,” Ian said. “And they’re star-crossed.”

  She squeezed his hands. “Yes. Exactly. There’s so much working against them. Samuel has a wife and a child. And he’s an honorable man. He stepped up to the plate and married Margie Brenner when he found out she was pregnant. And he loves Sam the second. Plus, the fact that he brought his son up here with him on occasion is the most telling piece of evidence that Samuel and Hattie were in love. You don’t bring your child with you to a sexual tryst.”

  Ian studied her. Was she even aware, he wondered, that tears were forming in her eyes? He asked the question that she hadn’t answered. “What about the fantasy box? It makes a pretty good argument for the sexual tryst theory.”

  Jillian swallowed. “I know. I told you when my sisters and I first drew out fantasies, we theorized that Hattie was running a house of ill repute on the side. And you should have seen the way this room was originally decorated—it made me think of a French bordello. But I think now that perhaps the fantasy box was their way of escaping from the impossibilities of their situation. This room was their private place. Here they could assume roles—pretend to be people they weren’t—for the simple purpose of bringing pleasure to each other. They didn’t have to deal with the real fantasy—that they could find a way to live happily ever after together. And after he died, she hid the fantasies away—to keep those precious memories private, hers alone.”

  “You make a powerful argument,” he said. And it was clearly making her sad.

  “But I haven’t filled in all the blanks—at least not for myself. I still wonder why did she hid only the fantasy box, and then why did she show me where it was?”

  “Maybe she thought you would understand,” Ian said.

  She glanced down at the box. “Maybe I do, but I think there’s more. I just don’t know what it is.” She met his eyes. “Does any of this make sense to you?”

  “I can understand, if not the need to escape, then the need to find a separate space where you can follow your own dreams.”

  He rarely talked about himself, but because he wanted the sadness to leave her eyes, he continued. “In the adoptive home I grew up in, my mom was great. A really good person. She wanted to adopt because she felt she had a home and a family to offer someone who wouldn’t have had one otherwise.”

  “Sounds like you were lucky.”

  He smiled. “Very. But my adoptive parents already had two sons, one a year older and the other a year younger than I was. My adoptive father had this thing about his own sons. They were his blood, and I figured out by the time we all got to high school that it was better for them and for me if I didn’t outshine them in any way. They both played sports, football and basketball, so I didn’t try out for either of those. Not even when the basketball coach invited me to.”

  “I’ll bet you would have been good at it. You have the height and the hands.”

  “I can still play a pretty good pickup game. And I can beat Dane one on one.”

  “But you gave it up f
or your family.”

  He shrugged. “I joined the chess club and the math team. I ran track—a much less glamorous sport. But in the process of creating my own space where I could succeed without competing with my brothers, I discovered I had a knack with computers. And I found something I like to do—I like to find out things.”

  Jillian tilted her head to one side. “Are you competitive with Dane?”

  He laughed then. “No. We’re total opposites. He’s the man of action, and I’m the geek.”

  Her brows shot up. “Right. You’re a geek who can leap to a balcony in a single bound.”

  “Not my usual style. You bring things out in me I hadn’t known were there. How about you—were you competitive with your sisters growing up?”

  Jillian shook her head. “It wasn’t so much that I felt competitive with them. I just felt different because they always knew exactly what they wanted, and for a long time, I didn’t.”

  “But now you do,” Ian said.

  “Yes.” She knew exactly what she wanted and she was looking right at him. She’d promised no strings, but here sitting on the floor of the tower room, she realized that she was going to do her best to wrap Ian MacFarland up tight in whatever strings she could find.

  A mix of nerves and fear rippled through her. She couldn’t tell him yet. But she could show him. Moving the hatbox to the side, she crawled onto his lap. “My head is beginning to spin. I think we need a break.”

  When he would have spoken, she placed her fingers over his lips. “I know you think we should sleep and let our subconscious minds sort through everything, but sometimes when I hit a brick wall with a problem, I just do something else for a while.”

  She replaced her fingers with her lips, just lightly touching his, and whispered, “So I’m going to seduce you, Ian.”

  A thrill moved through her as she watched those light gray eyes darken. “The first time I saw you, it hit me. Hard. You were wearing those sunglasses, and all you did was touch my arm. Just like that—I wanted you.” Framing his face with her hands, she traced the contours of his mouth with her tongue. “I didn’t know you, but I wanted to taste you like this.” She slipped her tongue between his lips and sampled.