He stopped behind her and touched her cheek, feeling the damp path of her tears on his palm. Helpless to know how to prevent those tears. “Juliana, I don’t pretend to know anything about love. The whole institution of marriage terrifies the hell out of me. But as God is my witness, kissing you is no pretense. And staying out of your bed is the hardest thing I’ve ever had to do. I don’t want to hurt you.”
She clasped his hand and pulled it to her lips, sealing her words with a kiss. “I know.”
She did? Was he that transparent?
Hunter tugged on her hand, urging her off the bench. The hope and the love welling in her eyes as she faced him humbled him. He wasn’t worthy of her. But for Juliana, for Cort, he would try. He erased the tears from her cheek with his thumb, then leaned down and kissed her damp lips. Peace settled in his stomach. “Annette’s waiting. Join me for a shower later?”
Her smile was more radiant than a sunrise as she took Cort from his arms. “If you’ll be naked, I’ll be there.”
“YOU’RE WHAT?”
“I’m Cort’s legal guardian,” Hunter explained gently as Juliana placed the baby in Annette’s waiting arms. “Ross and I were friends for years.”
“Umpf!” Annette said, momentarily distracted by the squirming bundle of little boy. “He’s so big. And beautiful! He’s blond like Ross. I imagined he’d be darker like Lexi.”
Juliana stood back and looked from aunt to nephew. “I think he has your nose.”
“I have my father’s nose.”
Frowning up at this new stranger, Cort tentatively explored his aunt’s face with his tiny fingers.
Juliana beamed. “See, he’s warming up to you. He’s a little cranky. It’s almost time for his nap.”
Cort gave a sharp high-pitched squeal, making Annette laugh. “I can’t imagine why anyone would want to hurt this little guy. Has he been staying here since…?” Her sentence trailed off as if she couldn’t bring herself to mention the bombing.
Hunter exchanged a glance with Juliana. “Actually Juliana and I were married last Tuesday. I’ve brought them here as my wife and son. Given the circumstances of your sister and her husband’s deaths, I thought it necessary to protect their son’s identity until he’s old enough to receive his inheritance.”
“You married her just like that?”
Hunter ignored her rudeness. “Juliana’s been caring for Cort since birth. He’s better off with two parents than one.”
Annette appeared to think that over for a moment. “And how do I fit into this cozy little family scenario? He’s my nephew.”
Hunter sat down on the ottoman in front of her. “How about as a close friend of my wife who visits frequently on weekends and holidays?”
“Really?”
Juliana squeezed Annette’s shoulder. “Of course. You’re Cort’s family. He needs you. And you need him. You can stay as long as you like, so get settled and make yourself comfortable. You’ve got lots of privacy here and we’re going to do everything we can to make this difficult time easier for you. After the servants leave at three, you’re welcome to come up to the house and spend more time with the baby—and join us for dinner.”
“That sounds wonderful. Thank you.” Her green gaze flicked to Hunter. “Do the police have any suspects?”
“They have some promising leads, but nothing conclusive,” he admitted. “They reached a dead end with the pager and haven’t located the florist that had prepared the flower order. And we haven’t ruled out a connection between Riana’s kidnapping and the bombing. I’m not giving up on finding Riana.”
Annette captured Cort’s tiny wrist with her fingers, her expression pensive. “I still think Sable Holden’s behind this. Only a jealous woman would kill with flowers.”
HUNTER STEPPED INTO the shower, his heart pounding and anxiety making his muscles feel leaden. They’d returned to the house and had lunch with Brook and Parrish. Then Juliana had whisked Cort upstairs for his afternoon nap. She’d join him in a minute.
He was iron-hard with wanting her and naked in more ways than one.
He worked soap over his body. Being this vulnerable didn’t fit comfortably on his skin. The door to the bathroom opened.
“Hunter?” Juliana’s voice was soft and melodious.
He had to swallow hard to make his throat work. “In here.”
The curtain around the old-fashioned bathtub slid open and Juliana stood within arm’s reach, naked, her glorious hair spilling over her shoulders. Her eyes admiring and wanting.
Hunter offered her his hand, a tremor shuddering through him as she delicately placed her slim hand in his and stepped over the wall of the bathtub.
The spray from the shower sent beads of water trickling over the milky globes of her breast. “You are so beautiful, I’m afraid to touch you. Afraid you’ll disappear if I do.”
She smiled up at him, a siren’s smile. “Then I’ll touch you first. Prove to you I’m real.”
Her fingers cupped him, stroked him. Hunter groaned his pleasure. “You’re very bold, Cinderella.”
She pressed a kiss to his collarbone. His skin lit on fire. “I know what I want. I want you.” She kissed his chest, increasing the intensity of the heat searing him with very clever flicks of her tongue.
Her mouth moved lower still to his abdomen, tracing circles of fire around his navel, inciting his hips to rock with tingles of heat. And then she went down on her knees between his thighs and ran her tongue lightly over the tip of him and Hunter couldn’t restrain himself from touching her any longer. His fingers wove like ribbons into her hair as she took him deeply into her mouth.
His control exploded, emotions ripping through him like bolts of lightning. It was too much and not enough. And the only way he knew to tell her what she was doing to him was to lift her from him and kiss her, his tongue plunging into her mouth as his hands found home on her water-slick breasts. He sat her on the rim of the tub, hot water pelting his back as he eased her legs apart. She opened to him with the shy beauty of a rare orchid, each part so delicate and perfectly formed.
He stroked her breasts reverently, rolling the swollen tips between his fingers. Then sucked each tip until Juliana made that lovely keening noise in the back of her throat.
His hunger to know this incredible woman was unstoppable. He kissed the soft skin of her belly and the insides of her petal-soft thighs and very, very gently tasted her sweetest offering. Not for a moment did he ever want her to doubt his desire to touch her. Pleasure her. With his tongue and his fingers he brought her to a sharp gripping climax, then rose and lifted her to his hips. Her legs locked around his.
Water surrounded them in a fine mist. His gaze firmly holding hers, he lowered her wet silken body onto him, inch by inch.
“I love you,” she said clearly. Irrevocably.
Warmth invaded his heart, piercing his doubts, filling him until he thought he would burst. Was this overwhelming feeling love? Would it last a lifetime like the love Ross had for Lexi? He gazed at Juliana’s eyes, molten with gold and red flecks, her desire-swollen mouth, yearning to give her back even a little of what she’d given him—trust, faith, love.
He swallowed hard and prepared to open himself completely for the first time in his life.
“Cinderella…”
His cell phone rang.
Chapter Fourteen
Juliana shuddered as Hunter climbed out of the tub. Her nerves clamored in protest from the sudden severing of her body from his.
His voice sounded strained as he answered the phone. “Bradshaw. What’s going on?”
Juliana turned off the shower and reached for a towel. Whatever the BCI investigator wanted, it was obviously important. Hunter’s muscled body had gone perfectly still, then in a fluid motion he grabbed his clean clothes and a towel.
“I’ll be there in an hour and fifteen minutes tops,” he said curtly and hung up.
“What was that all about?” she demanded, wrapping the towel around her.
“Bradshaw just finished interviewing the principal at the private school the Younges’ oldest son attends. David Jr. was suspended for playing a prank on a science teacher. He left a package on his desk containing what appeared to be sticks of dynamite and a note that said, ‘Bang.’ The boy came forward and confessed. His parents donated a huge sum of money to the school and the principal let him off with a two-week suspension.”
Juliana’s face drained of color. “Do you think David Jr. orchestrated the bombing?”
“I don’t know. According to Bradshaw, the boy’s seventeen. He’s not a child.”
“But how would he have known about Cort?”
“Maybe he overheard his parents talking about it. Sarah has five children, she might have guessed Lexi was pregnant before Lexi knew herself. And David did have access to the Collingwood Corporation’s bank accounts. Bradshaw traced the check Ross gave you to a bank in Cleveland. Younge may have, too.”
Hunter jammed his legs into his briefs and his slacks. Then pulled on a shirt. “Bradshaw’s waiting for me. He’s bringing the Younges in for questioning. I’ll call you when I have news.”
He was almost out the door when he stopped suddenly and turned back to look at her, a grin tugging at his mouth and heat smoking his eyes. “I’m sorry about the interruption. I promise we’ll finish what we started when I return.”
It wasn’t exactly a declaration of his feelings, but it would do for now. She dropped her towel to the floor and smiled sweetly. “Just so you don’t forget where you left off.”
SINCE THE CALL that had awakened him earlier—informing him that Annette was on the island and altering his instructions—he had been busy conducting reconnaissance. Learning the layout of the island, taking note of the two tough-ass guards who discreetly patrolled the grounds and conducting a head count.
From his vantage point in the upstairs room of the old greenhouse, he watched Hunter Sinclair depart in a helicopter. Then a boat arrived at the dock. A woman and a man carrying heavy leather cases walked up to the house. He worried they were staying the night, but Juliana and the baby escorted them down to their boat two hours later.
Just before three, Brook Sinclair, her youngest son and seven other people plus the pilot crowded into the second helicopter.
He made a careful count on the dusty windowpane. That left Juliana, the butler, the two bodyguards and the baby.
A petite figure moved into the garden below, casting nervous looks over her shoulder. Another woman.
Annette.
She and Juliana and the baby would be alone in the house with the butler.
Now those were the kind of odds he liked. But first, he’d eliminate the guards.
Helping himself to a heavy rabbit figurine from a bed in the greenhouse he slipped through the woods. Finding a branch of a tree that jutted out over the path, he climbed the tree and waited.
It wasn’t long before the guard passed.
The figurine hit him in the head dead center.
With a low grunt, the guard dropped to his knees, then fell face forward to the ground.
Smiling, he jumped out of the tree to the path below and rolled the guard over to check his pulse. There wasn’t one.
Too bad, he was a good-looking kid—except for that nasty indentation in his head.
“I’M TELLING YOU, I didn’t make any bomb. And I didn’t hire anyone. My parents were friends with the Collingwoods. Why won’t you believe me?”
Through the one-way observation window Hunter eyed the scrawny teen with the peach fuzz dangling from his knobby chin. He had a feeling Investigator Bradshaw was barking up the wrong tree. He saw an indulged kid who’d pushed a joke with a teacher too far, not a cold-blooded killer.
His cell phone rang and Hunter snapped it open.
“It’s Edwards. Remember the woman who joined Findlay and his fiancée last night? I’ve spent the morning tailing her. Turns out she’s the fiancée’s kid sister. She works as a clerk in a law firm.”
“Which firm?”
“McGuire, Bainbridge and Willoughby.”
Hunter swore. Tom McGuire was Ross’s lawyer. He was one of the few people who knew of Cort’s existence. Hunter rapped sharply on the window to attract Bradshaw’s attention.
The investigator came out of the interview room a few seconds later.
“What’s up?”
Hunter told him. He snagged the list of florists that Stacey Kerr had given him from his jacket pocket. “Have you had anyone check out Findlay’s florist yet?”
“Someone is working their way through the list.”
“Let’s beat them to it.”
THE FLORIST ON THE upper west side was a diminutive powerhouse of a woman in a green smock. She climbed onto a raised platform behind the counter and asked if she could help them.
Hunter gave the woman an encouraging smile as Investigator Bradshaw showed her his badge. “We’d like to ask you about a couple of flower orders.”
She slipped on the pair of reading glasses that dangled from a silver chain around her neck and examined the state trooper’s ID. “It’s a crime to buy flowers now? Geesh!”
Hunter let Bradshaw run the show.
“Do you remember a Simon Findlay ordering a funereal arrangement to be delivered to St. Patrick’s on Wednesday?”
“Sure, I remember. I might be old, but I don’t have dementia. That was for the Collingwood funeral. Sad, a young couple like that. It wasn’t Mr. Findlay who ordered the flowers. It was his fiancée. Pretty girl, but not too bright upstairs. She came in here asking for a sincere and expensive arrangement—the larger the better. Imagine that? Size matters, even in flowers. I told her I could do her something ‘very sincere’ for $425.00 plus delivery. She left smiling.” The woman held her liver-spotted wrists out to the BCI investigator. “For that you’re going to arrest me?”
Hunter struggled to hide a grin.
Investigator Bradshaw cleared his throat. “No, but we would like to know whether Findlay or his fiancée ordered any flowers the week before. It would have been three large arrangements.”
“Doesn’t ring any bells.” She thumbed through a stack of yellow invoices stuck on a metal pick.
Hunter leaned on the counter. “It was probably a pick-up order for Thursday morning. One of the arrangements was in a white wicker basket. It might have been under the name of Goodhew.”
“Sorry, fellas. Nothin’ under Findlay or Goodhew. The only thing I got is a pick-up order for three arrangements on Wednesday night. One was in a basket but that was a special order for a wedding anniversary. The customer came in the beginning of the month and placed the order.”
“What’s the name?” Bradshaw asked.
“Robert Lance.”
Hunter exchanged a now-we’re-getting-somewhere glance with the investigator. The pager used to detonate the bomb had been purchased with Robert Lance’s stolen ID.
“You got an address or a phone number?”
“No. He paid cash when he ordered it. Said he didn’t want to leave a number because he didn’t want to take the chance of someone calling from the shop and ruining the surprise.”
“Can you describe him?” Investigator Bradshaw asked.
“Geesh! I saw the man twice. He was an ordinary Joe. Nothing special. Bit of a receding hairline.”
“Hair color?”
“Dark, I think.”
“Eye color?”
“I’m an old lady. Who notices these things?”
Hunter frowned. “What about the order itself? What was so special about it?”
“Now that I remember. He had a picture from their wedding and wanted me to reproduce the arrangement with the basket as closely as possible. Then he asked me to do two other similar arrangements in large vases.”
“Do you still have the picture?” Bradshaw asked.
“It’s in the back. You want to see it?”
“Definitely. We’ll come with you.”
They foll
owed the florist through a beaded curtain into the cluttered back room. A bulletin board mounted on the wall near a large worktable had a jumble of orders and photographs pinned to it. The florist indicated a photo with a gnarled finger.
Hunter leaned closer to examine it. The photograph had been cut down with scissors to the size of the basket. It was impossible to tell where it had been taken, though there was a hint of a blue gauzy background visible. But he knew Juliana would know whether that specific arrangement had been used in Ross and Lexi’s wedding.
Investigator Bradshaw used a pencil to lift up the photo and look on the back. “There’s no writing or identifying marks, Ma’am,” he said, straightening. “You and the picture are going to have to come with us. We need to take your fingerprints.”
THE SUN WAS SINKING into the horizon when Hunter called. Juliana and Annette were appreciating the spectacular show of the sunset with a glass of wine when Lars came into the drawing room with the portable phone and announced Juliana had a call.
She set down her glass of wine on the coffee table and took the butler’s cell phone from him. “Excuse me, Annette.”
Hunter’s voice warmed her ear and sent shivers over her skin. “Sorry to disturb you.”
“I’m not sorry.” She glanced at Annette who’d leaned over to talk to the baby. Cort lay on his back beneath an activity set, batting his hands and feet at the colorful toys dangling just within his reach.
“There’s been a new development I thought you could help with.” He described the basket arrangement the florist had made. “Does it sound like something from Ross and Lexi’s wedding?”
“Your description leaves something to be desired,” she said tactfully. She got up and walked out into the hall.
“Here, talk to the florist yourself.”
“Who am I talking to?” She heard a woman ask Hunter.
“My wife. Describe the flowers.”
“Geesh,” the florist said into the phone. “Is your husband always this bossy?”
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