by Lisa Hendrix
*
“Is your alley always so busy?” Mason asked. He scooped the dice up off the green felt of the backgammon board and rattled them loosely in his fist. “That’s the second time tonight I’ve heard voices.”
“Oh, there’s always someone back there. A lot of people keep their trash cans in the alley, plus some of the neighborhood boys like to play ninja after dark,” said Raine. “I’ve gotten to where I just tune it out.”
“I don’t think it’s kids. At least not this last time.” He shook his hand again and tossed the dice down on the board, and a slight, satisfied smile curved his mouth as he started moving the pieces. “Double sixes. That’s the game.” As he cleared the last of his men off the board, the smile faded. “I keep thinking one of those voices sounded like Miranda.”
“My, aren’t we paranoid?” Actually, Raine had been thinking it sounded like Zoe, but she wasn’t about to open that can of worms. If Zoe had been dumb enough to show up when she’d been told not to, she could just sit out there in the dark. “What would your sister be doing in my alley, anyway?”
“I don’t know. Maybe going through your trash looking for fingernail clippings for her next spell.”
“You’re kidding.”
“I wish I were.” He stood up. “Do you have a flashlight?”
Raine got up and crossed to the junk drawer, where, with Mason lurking over her shoulder so closely it made all the hairs on her neck go on nuzzle alert, she rooted around until she found a red plastic flashlight. She handed it to him. “I’m telling you, it’s just kids. You’re going to be really embarrassed, busting Petey Matthiesen for riding his bike after hours. Serious stuff.”
He stopped halfway to the door. “You know, you’re probably right. I’m just not used to having strangers wander past my windows.”
“I guess not.” She took the flashlight away from him and plunked it down on the counter. “I’m sure nobody wanders in the Highlands, strangers or not. It’s just not done.”
“You know, you’re very class-conscious. If I made as many cracks about class as you do, you’d call me a snob.”
She looked offended, then realization crossed her face. “I am, aren’t I? If you’d asked me last week, I would have told you I wasn’t.”
“Is spending time with me so unpleasant?”
“No.” Hardly. She sat down at the table and started twiddling her tea glass. The half-melted ice cubes swirled. “But it’s different. More different than I would have guessed. It’s more than just the money and the things you own. It’s how you all relate to the world. Take neighbors, for instance. Has anyone ever knocked on your door just to say hello?”
“God, no.”
“We do it all the time in this neighborhood. It keeps us in touch with what’s going on.”
“We gossip, too. We just do it over champagne and caviar instead of coffee and donuts.” He sat down across from Raine and leaned back, a crooked smile lifting one corner of his mouth. “And, naturally, we use lots of big words.”
“You’re making fun of me.”
He shook his head. “Not you, just your stereotypes. It so happens that we’re very good friends with our neighbors. We have dinner together often, and we usually run into each other at the club a couple of times a week. The forum is different, Raine, not the structure. You’re getting a very warped view because of the circumstances. My life usually doesn’t consist of parading women in front of my mother and sister for nefarious purposes. For instance, if I were really romancing you, I’d—”
Some object hit the front door with the force of a cannonball. Mason was on his feet and to the door before Raine had a chance to spill her tea. He started laughing.
“What?” She joined him at the front door, swiping her hands on her shorts.
Bugsy was hanging there on the screen doing his best terrified kitty imitation, his claws curled into the mesh. Raine pushed the door open, cat and all, and carefully unhooked him from the sagging screen.
“What’s the matter, kiddo? Is Zenyar loose again? Zenyar’s the German Shepherd down the street,” she explained to Mason as she carried Bugsy inside. “He’s a good people dog, but he thinks cats are chew toys on the hoof.”
“Is that what happened here?” Mason reached out and scratched Bugsy behind his left ear, the one with the torn tip and a long, jagged scar that made it look like the ruffled petal of a Rembrandt tulip.
“I think so.”
Bugsy wrapped his front paws around Mason’s wrist and leaned into his palm. The weight dragged Mason’s knuckles across Raine’s breast.
It was an accident, but the unexpected contact broke the physical barrier carefully maintained all evening. Raine stood there, breath frozen, uncertain. If Mason had jerked his hand away in embarrassment, she might have known what to do, how to joke it off and make them both comfortable, but he didn’t. He just let Bugsy hang on to his hand, not scratching him anymore, but not pulling away, either, his fingers just millimeters from her suddenly aching nipple. If she moved a little, either direction, she could signal what she wanted, but she wasn’t sure she knew what she wanted, and so there they stood.
Finally, Mason took a breath, and that let her breathe, and she moved just enough to take them out of the danger zone. There. They’d pretend it hadn’t happened, that was it.
Bugsy released Mason, rolled in Raine’s arms, and oozed to the floor with a muffled thud, leaving nothing between her and Mason.
“Where were we?” he asked. “Before your cat decided to come in for a landing.”
“You were telling me…” It took a moment for her mind to rewind that far. She felt herself color, knew they were treading dangerous ground, but went on anyway. “…what you would do if you were really romancing me.”
“Ah, yes.” He lifted a hand to push a strand of hair off her cheek. A soft huskiness lowered his voice. “If I were romancing you, I would take you dancing until midnight, and into the mountains at dawn. We’d sample wines and go sailing and sit front row at concerts. I’d make reservations at an inn I know up in the San Juans where they have bicycles and an endless beach and a Scotch salmon that could make the angels cry. I’d find some way to show you off to every person I know and still keep you utterly to myself.” He stepped in, closing those last few inches, and whispered into her ear, “And I’d do my damnedest to keep that blush on your cheeks.”
He kissed her, and this time it wasn’t the kind of kiss meant to end an evening, but the sort that starts a night, full of passion and promise and erotic suggestion. Under the heat of it, common sense burned away like dry grass, and when his fingers brushed her breast again, she lifted into his touch. Their groans mingled in a mist of warm breath.
“It’s a good thing you aren’t really romancing me.”
“Isn’t it?” he breathed. His lips covered hers again, then moved to the tender skin at the base of her jaw. “You always smell of lemons.” His fingers slipped tentatively beneath the bottom edge of her shirt and trailed a shiver up her spine. “How do you manage that?”
*
Miranda stared at the couple inside, twined together in an embrace that gave every indication it would be moving to the bedroom.
Five hours of nothing, and the first time she turns her back, this. Damn it, Mason. Well, she had to stop them, and now.
She whipped out her cell phone, flipped it open, and punched in Mason’s number. A moment later a canned male voice told her that the cellular phone she was calling was not answering at this time, and to try her call later. Mason never turned his phone off. Never. She’d been counting on that. She slapped her phone shut with a frustrated smack and jammed it back in her purse.
So now what? By the time Mason turned his phone back on, she could be on the way to becoming an aunt.
She couldn’t very well just knock on the door and tell him to come to his senses. Well, she could, but she didn’t really want to explain to Mason how she happened to be in the neighborhood.
Dis
traction. Maybe a rock against the side of the house.
She picked up a pebble and tossed it.
It hit the window. Glass shattered, and she got a quick image of Mason sheltering Raine with his body, and then instinct took over and she was running down the alley as though her life depended on it.
Knowing her brother, it just might.
*
“Are you all right?” Mason demanded.
“Fine.”
He grabbed the flashlight and hit the door at full stride. “Stay inside.”
“Paranoid and sexist,” muttered Raine behind him. He heard her following him, but kept going.
Clearing the fence like a steeplechaser, he made a quick check both directions that showed the alley empty. He ran to the near end, but the street was empty, too, and when he turned back, Raine was pelting down the alley in the opposite direction. She, too, found no one. They met back by her gate.
“Kids,” said Raine.
“Miranda,” said Mason. He started poking around and flashing the light into corners, but could find no evidence to support his theory. As the beam swept past Raine, he had to grin. “A baseball bat?”
She hefted the aluminum bat like a club. “Me Oonga. Kill enemy. Okay, so I’m paranoid, too, in my own way. Come on. Whoever it was is long gone.”
Mason held the gate for her and latched it behind them, and they walked to the porch. Raine stopped outside the window. “Geez.” She used her bat to pop loose a long knife of glass that dangled from the frame. It crashed down and shattered, to be lost among the thousand other shards that covered the table and floor beyond.
Mason swore softly and put his hand on her shoulder. “I’m sorry. I didn’t think she’d go this far over a kiss.”
Raine got very still under his hand, and when she spoke, her voice was artificially bright. “Well, it flushed her out, anyway. We must have looked pretty convincing from out in the alley.”
There was a moment between heartbeats when Mason wanted to tell her that he had been kissing her because he wanted to, because he wanted her, but reason won out. If he hadn’t been thinking of aggravating Miranda, he should have been. That’s what this was about—setting his sister and mother straight, not seducing Raine. Let her believe it had been part of the act; it was safer for both of them.
He was saved from saying anything at all by a thin, reedy voice from the main house. “Are you all right, dear?”
“We’re fine, Mrs. Perlmutter,” Raine called toward the back door, where someone lurked behind the crack of an opening. “Some kid broke my window, that’s all.”
“Shall I call the police?”
“Not until after I kill her,” muttered Mason.
“Hush.” Raine nudged his arm. “No, ma’am. We’ve got it under control.”
“I’m not sure the insurance will pay if we don’t report it.”
“Don’t worry about that, ma’am,” said Mason. “It’s indirectly my fault. I’ll see that it’s fixed immediately.”
“That’s very responsible, young man. He’s a good boy, Raine.”
“Yes, he is. Thanks for checking on me, Mrs. P.,” said Raine. “You go on back to bed.”
“Oh, I wasn’t in bed, I was just getting ready to watch Jay. He’s got that boy I like from Indiana Jones. Harrison Ford.”
“Well, you don’t want to miss him. Good night.”
“Good night, dear.” The door shut, and the light went out. “Bless her heart,” said Raine. “You know she had to be scared, but she still checked on me. That’s what I meant about neighbors.”
“You’re very fortunate.” He wanted to say more, but didn’t know what would have any meaning. “Let’s get this taken care of.”
“There’s a half-sheet of plywood in the garage,” said Raine. “Let me grab a hammer, and we can nail it up.”
“Not necessary.”
“I’m not going to sleep with an open window, even if I do have a bat.”
“You’ll have new glass in an hour.”
Raine snorted. “Yeah, right. It’s after eleven.”
Mason held open the screen door. “Just give me your phone book and watch how we do it in the big leagues.”
She dropped the bat into the umbrella stand by the door, then pulled the Seattle White Pages out of a drawer and handed it to him. A few minutes later he had his party on the line.
“Don. This is Mason Alexander… Fine, thanks. Sorry to disturb you at this hour, but I have a broken window that needs glass tonight.” He described the window and gave Raine’s address, then thanked Don and hung up. “He’ll have a man here in fifteen minutes.”
Raine blinked. “You have your own all-night glazier?”
“I know where he hides the bodies,” said Mason, trying to dismiss the desire he had to cancel the glass man and check Raine into a hotel with a king-sized bed and discreet room service. “You sweep, I’ll hold the dustpan.”
They carted three wastebaskets full of glass to the trash can, and Raine was dabbing up slivers with damp paper towels when the repairman arrived.
Mason shook his hand. “Thanks for coming out. I didn’t want to leave the lady here with an open window all night.”
“Hey, it’s your dime.” He pulled on a pair of heavy leather gloves and started working loose the last few shards that hung in the frame. He dropped one into the wastebasket with a crash. “What happened?”
“Some kids threw a rock,” said Raine. “It wasn’t very big.”
“Old glass. Not tempered. I bet it went like a bomb.” He took out a knife and started stripping the crumbly old glazing compound. “One good thing about these old single-pane doublehungs, there’s not much to the repairs. Give me half an hour or so.”
Mason drew Raine aside. “Will you be all right here? I’d like to get home before Miranda has time to cover her tracks.”
She nodded. “I’m fine. Go ahead. And thanks for dinner, by the way.”
“You’re welcome.” He started to kiss her, hesitated, then settled for a nice, safe kiss on the cheek. “Good night.”
“Good night, Mason.”
He started for the car, frowning. It was the most formal goodbye they’d had since the day they met. He found that he didn’t like it at all.
*
Eight
« ^ »
Miranda punched the button for the garage as she rounded the house and ran the car underneath the opening door before it was up all the way. She immediately hit the button again twice, so the door stopped and started back down, and was out of the car before it closed.
“Paul,” she called. “Paul!”
Footsteps pounded down the stairs from the living quarters above the garage, and Paul rocketed through the door. “What?” He skidded to a stop, staring. “What happened? Are you all right? You’re hurt.”
“No, I’m not. What are you talking about?”
“There’s blood on your hand.” As he spoke, he went to the cabinet over the sink in the corner and pulled down a first aid kit. He rifled through it quickly, setting items on the counter next to the sink. “And you’re a mess. Come here.”
Miranda glanced down. The damned cat scratches had been oozing, and several thin streaks of red trickled down her wrist. “It’s just a scratch.”
“Let’s clean it up,” Paul said.
“There are more important things right now,” she argued, but she went to the sink anyway and stuck her hand under the faucet. A glance in the mirror showed her that Paul was right: she was a mess. Her hair was full of leaves, her blouse looked like she’d worn it into a sauna, and she had a smudge of something nasty-looking across her cheek. She yanked a paper towel off the holder to her left and wiped her face, then patted the blood off the three angry claw marks on her wrist. “If my brother asks, could you tell him that I came home, oh, three or four hours ago?”
Paul straightened and his eyes narrowed to black slits of disapproval. “Does this have something to do with Miss Hobart?”
&nbs
p; She considered reminding him who worked for whom, but this wasn’t the time to get high-handed. Besides, technically, he worked for Mason. “It’s not really—”
He slammed the lid of the first aid kit shut, cutting her off. “You went to her house, didn’t you?”
Miranda squirmed. “Yes, but—”
“You abused the information you weaseled out of me, and you got caught.”
“No. Well, not quite.”
He gave the cap on a bottle of hydrogen peroxide a vicious twist. His eyes blazed at her. “I thought you were joking this afternoon. If I’d had any idea you were actually going to her house—”
God, he was mad. This was hopeless. She shook her head. “Forget it. I’ll take my chances with Mason.”
“They’re better with me,” he said flatly. “Give me your hand.” His fingers bit into her palm as he dumped peroxide over her wrist.
“Ouch!” She jerked, but he held tight.
“Stand still before you splash this on your clothes and ruin them.” He spilled a little more peroxide over the scratches, and when the foaming slowed, he used a fresh paper towel to blot her wrist dry, squeezed on a line of antibiotic cream from a tube, and ripped open an extra-wide bandage. “What exactly did you do?”
“Mostly I just stood in the alley, watching them.”
“You spent the night in an alley? My God. What if you’d run into some pervert?”
“There weren’t any perverts,” Miranda assured him. “Just me and a policeman.”
“Wonderful.” He stuck the bandage over her wound and tossed the wrapper into the can under the sink.
“I didn’t get arrested or anything.” She explained about the cop and the cat and walking around the block. “When I got back, Mason and Raine were—how shall I put it?—on the verge.”
Paul stepped back, and she could actually see his mind solidify. “I don’t need to hear this.”
However, now that she’d begun her confession, Miranda felt compelled to finish. The words tumbled out quickly, right through the part about the broken window and running down the alley with Mason in hot pursuit. “And now he’s probably going to be here any second, and if be figures out it was me, I’m a dead duck.”