Yes, he needed her…and that would be enough, after all.
He had not turned on the bedside lamps because the streetlights outside, reflecting off the falling snow, had filled his bedroom with a sort of dusky twilight, a soft and flattering background to their lovemaking. For a long time Morganna didn’t even open her eyes, simply luxuriated in the peace of a snow-silenced world and a heart brimming with joy.
When she did look around, she was puzzled. “Why is it so dark?”
“Jack’s prediction was right. The electricity went off a few minutes ago.”
“Oh. I thought maybe—” She felt herself coloring.
“You were afraid that making love had caused you to go blind?” Sloan laughed. “Honey, you’re supposed to see stars and fireworks, not sheer darkness.”
“I did,” she whispered.
He gathered her closer. “And so did I.” His voice was husky.
“I wonder if practice makes the stars and fireworks brighter.”
Sloan raised his head. “We could make a research project of it.”
Before she could answer, there was a distinct click and the electricity came back on. The streetlights were once more magnified by a million snowflakes. The furnace fan began to whirr. The bedside lamps glowed softly golden.
Morganna frowned. “I thought those lamps were off.”
“They were. The sensors get confused sometimes when the power goes out.” He leaned across her to tap the base of the lamp. When both lights were off, he settled back and snuggled her once more to his side. “Now, where were we? Something about a research project…”
“Oh, yes. We’re going to find out once and for all whether you snore.”
“Not tonight, we’re not,” he murmured. “Because tonight I have better things to do than sleep.”
They did sleep eventually, and Morganna woke very late to a wonderland world frosted with snow under a brilliant blue sky. Even though it was Sunday, the household was already humming when she peeked out of the master bedroom, saw that the upstairs hall was empty, and tried to duck across to her own room.
She supposed it was inevitable, given the hour, that she couldn’t manage to make it all the way without running smack into her mother. Abigail paused in midstep, her mouth twisting as if she was trying very hard not to smile.
Morganna shifted from one bare foot to the other and refused to think about the picture she must present, wearing Sloan’s pleated formal shirt as a substitute dressing gown and clutching a crumpled heap of fuchsia taffeta and a tiara. It was none of her mother’s business, after all.
But despite her determination not to act defensive, she heard herself saying, “I was right, he doesn’t own a pair of pajamas, or I’d have borrowed them instead. So if you want to get him some for Christmas—”
“Oh, no,” Abigail murmured. “I hate wasting money on things that will never be used.” She moved on toward the stairway. “Good morning, Selby.”
Morganna ducked for her bedroom door, but she was too late. As Selby reached the top of the stairs, he blinked once as her attire—or lack of it—registered, but his voice was as level as ever. “A gentleman has called to see you, Miss Morganna. Mr. Montgomery is entertaining him in the miniature room.”
That was odd, she thought. Who would be dropping by the house to see her on a snowy Sunday morning? Not a friend, or Selby would have known the name and passed it on. And why had Sloan taken this unknown into her private lair instead of the drawing room?
She dumped her ball gown unceremoniously on her bed and grabbed for a pair of jeans and an oversized ski sweater. With her hair hastily scooped up into a knot at the back of her head, she hurried downstairs and into the miniature room.
Standing beside the model of the Georgian mansion, inspecting it with painstaking attention, was the little man with the thick glasses who had been studying her room box so carefully at the auction last night. Puzzled, she looked at Sloan, who had pulled a stool away from her worktable to perch on it. His smile was a lazily intimate reminder of the night, making her feel warm and rattled all at the same time.
“Next time,” she said under her breath, “wake me up earlier so I won’t be caught half-dressed in the upstairs hall.”
“Next time,” Sloan said just as softly, “I’ll help you move all your clothes and then we can both sleep as late as we want.” He glanced at the little man. “I don’t know what this is about. He wanted to talk to you.”
The little man turned, peering at Morganna through his thick lenses. “There are no dolls in your dollhouse,” he said flatly.
Now that we’ve established the obvious, Morganna thought, where do we go from here? “No,” she said. “There never have been. Making human figures to add to the miniatures is a new sideline for me.”
“I came because I wanted to see more of your dolls.”
She was bewildered. Does he think this is a museum?
“I’m not making myself clear, am I?” the little man asked. “I’m interested in purchasing some of your work.”
“I’ve never sold anything. I’ve just donated pieces, like to the auction last night.”
“And why is that?”
“I don’t mind donating my work to a good cause, and the buyer is willing to pay a high price because they’re making a donation as well. So everyone wins. But I could never charge those prices.”
He nodded. “To adequately compensate you for the hours you put into each piece, your prices would have to be so high that very few people could pay them. And most would not understand why something so small should be so expensive.”
Morganna relaxed a little. Despite the rocky start they’d gotten off to, the man seemed to have common sense. “That’s it exactly. And if people are paying a high price, they often feel that they should be able to set the rules. For me, working on commission would take all the fun out of it. For instance, if you wanted me to reproduce your grandmother’s house, but I didn’t feel inspired by that subject—”
He interrupted. “I do not want a miniature of my grandmother’s house. In fact, I’m not interested in the room boxes, good as they are, because many people do very good scale model rooms or even houses. I’m interested in your dolls. My apologies—your miniature figures. I shouldn’t have called them mere dolls, should I? I’ve been involved with miniatures and scale models and toys for more than thirty years, and I’ve never seen anything so detailed or lifelike as the two little boys you put in the room box I saw last night.”
The figures she had added as an afterthought, as a mere finishing detail, were what had so absorbed his attention?
“That’s why I came, because I wanted to see more of them.”
“There aren’t any more,” Morganna said weakly.
He pointed at the block of raw clay which still stood on her worktable, one corner carved away. “But there can be. If you are able to create that sort of work on a consistent basis, Mrs. Montgomery, you could be one of the nation’s best-known artists in miniature.”
Morganna reached blindly for the other stool. Sloan caught her arm and guided her to it.
“But—as you yourself pointed out—not everyone will be able to afford an original. To add to the problem, the time involved in each sculpture means that you can make only a relatively small number of figures, so even if you get a high price for each one, your income potential is limited. That’s even more true if you want to maintain your artistic freedom and do only projects that inspire you.”
For a moment, she’d been walking on air—until reality deflated her once more. “So I end up with another hobby,” she said wryly. “That’s no surprise.”
His eyes, magnified by the thick lenses of his glasses, were intent on her. “I can solve that problem. I want to buy the rights to reproduce your dolls. Your originals will command premium prices from the few who can afford them. But I can manufacture quality reproductions at a reasonable price that miniature enthusiasts everywhere will snap up by the thousands. And we’l
l both make—oh, a lot of money.” He took a business card from his wallet and handed it to her. “You think it over, Mrs. Montgomery. And when you have some more dolls for me to look at, give me a call.” He bowed, a formal and courtly gesture.
Morganna was still sitting at her worktable with the business card in her hand, staring at the block of clay, when Sloan came back from showing the man out. “I don’t believe it,” she whispered. “I never dreamed of anything like this. To have a mere hobby—a silly pastime—turn into something that would actually let me earn enough money to—” She had to stop and clear her throat. “To give me the freedom—”
“Amazing,” Sloan said. He reached across her to pick up a booklet which had been tucked behind the block of clay.
The cool note in his voice startled her. “Sloan? Aren’t you happy for me?”
“Of course I am. I’m thrilled. Where did you get this catalog, Morganna?”
She had to pull herself back from a mist of happy dreams even to think about it. “Oh, is that the one from Furnishings Unlimited? Surely you don’t think I was shopping? Jack Hamilton gave it to me. He’d thought you’d like to see it.”
“I’ve seen it. Not this copy, of course.” He folded the catalog and put it in his back pocket. “I’m going over to the hospital to see Joel, and then I’ll probably go to the office for a while.”
“It’s Sunday,” she said blankly.
“I wouldn’t want you to think I was lazing around the house expecting you to support me. Or getting in the way of artistic expression, either.”
He was gone before Morganna had found her voice.
How perfectly ridiculous, she fumed. There was no understanding the masculine ego. Let a woman have just a smidgen of success and suddenly the man in her life was a quivering mass of wounded pride!
Of course, it wasn’t as if Sloan didn’t have reason for wounded pride right now. Perhaps it hadn’t been terribly sensitive of her to crow over her sudden success, when his career was literally in ashes at the moment. Or to tell him how much she looked forward to freedom…
Creative freedom, she had meant. Surely he hadn’t misunderstood that. After last night, he couldn’t possibly have thought she meant that she wanted to be free of him. Had he?
She couldn’t remember exactly what she’d said, but she seemed to recall mentioning money as well as freedom, in almost the same breath. There was a sick feeling in the pit of her stomach. Though it wasn’t what she’d said or meant, there was no question in her mind of what Sloan had heard—he’d thought she was announcing her desire to repay the money he’d put forth to settle her father’s debts. To buy her freedom.
She seized her car keys and the first coat her hand fell on, and was out the door, less than five minutes behind Sloan.
She found him in the hospital corridor, leaning against the wall outside Joel’s room. “What’s wrong?” she asked breathlessly.
“With Joel? Nothing more than usual. There’s a physical therapist working with him.”
“Oh. Of course.” She felt like a fool. “Sloan…” She didn’t know how to begin. “Can we go get a cup of coffee or something? I need to talk to you.”
The door of Joel’s room opened, and a man in a white lab coat came out, nodded to them, and walked briskly down the hall.
“Maybe later,” Sloan said and pushed the door open.
Morganna looked past him and saw the fire investigator coming down the hall, carrying a large carton. She tried to smother a sigh. Of all the people they didn’t need right now…
“Imagine this,” the investigator said cheerfully. “I was planning to stop by to see you, just as soon as I talked to Joel. You’ve saved me a trip.”
“Delighted, I’m sure,” Morganna muttered.
Joel looked pale from the workout, and there was sweat on his brow. “What an honor,” he muttered.
“You don’t look eager for company,” Morganna said. “Maybe later, after you’ve had a chance to get your breath back—”
The investigator set his carton down. “Oh, this won’t take but a minute.”
Sloan didn’t seem to have heard her at all.
The investigator leaned on the bed rail. “Try to think back, Joel. You told me there was some playhouse furniture in the office, but you couldn’t remember if it was there on the night of the fire.”
Sloan said, “It wasn’t meant to be played with. And it was there when I left the office that night.”
“You didn’t tell me about that furniture before, Mr. Montgomery.”
“I didn’t think about it,” Sloan said coolly. “There are probably a lot of other things I forgot to tell you about, too.”
Joel said suddenly, as if he hadn’t been listening, “I don’t think so. The picture in my mind is hazy, and I couldn’t swear to it. But I don’t think it was there when I went in that night.”
“You,” Morganna muttered, “have a mighty inconvenient memory. And how would you know whether it was or not, unless you walked clear across the room to the window and tripped over it?”
The investigator was looking at her, but he was clearly addressing Joel. “Would you say that furniture was something Mr. Montgomery was fond of?”
“He wouldn’t have had it in his office otherwise,” Joel said.
The investigator lifted the lid from the carton he’d carried in, pulled aside a paper wrapping, and lifted out a two-foot-tall, mirrored bureau. “Do you recognize this, Mr. Montgomery?”
Morganna was stunned. She watched in utter disbelief as Sloan reached across the bed, pulled open the top drawer, and took out a package of antacid tablets.
“It’s mine, yes.” His voice was not quite steady.
“But it’s not even scorched,” she objected. “And the heat, if not the blast, would have broken the mirror. How did it escape the fire?”
“That’s a really good question,” the investigator said. “We found it in a storage locker just a couple of blocks from the factory. We don’t yet know how it got there. But the receipt the owner dug out for us says the unit was rented by a man named Montgomery.”
Joel said bitterly, “So that’s the way the wind blows.”
The investigator pulled a paper from his pocket. “Here’s a copy of the receipt.”
Sloan studied it and handed it back. “It’s not my signature. It’s not a bad approximation, but it’s not my signature.”
The investigator folded the paper away. “Why would anybody hide these things and use your name?”
“Why would I use my own name? I’m not a moron. If I was going to hide these things there are a hundred better places.”
“Like in your house, where your wife might see them? Not likely. Why didn’t you call the police that night, Mr. Montgomery? You say that Joel here told you he’d seen men running from the building. You were carrying a cell phone. Why didn’t you ask for help?”
“I didn’t want to jump at shadows. I thought I’d go look the situation over first.”
“All right. Why didn’t you take your friend Mr. Hamilton with you? I understand he volunteered to go, but you told him to stay at the restaurant.”
“I didn’t see any need to break up the party completely.”
“I see. And when the fire started, why didn’t you call for help then? Surely you hadn’t left the phone in your car.”
“No, it was in my pocket.”
Morganna couldn’t take any more. “He was getting Joel out of the building. As long as you’re jumping on details, what about the clothes? It was Sloan who told the nurses to be sure to keep Joel’s clothes because you’d want them.”
“You don’t think they’d have noticed the gasoline smell without his help?” The investigator’s eyes were wide with interest.
“He was being the hero,” Joel said. “So what was it, Sloan? Insurance again?”
“Again?” The investigator’s tone was crisp.
Joel raised a hand as if to gesture, and let it drop feebly against the blanket. “O
h, I don’t mean he’s done it before, exactly. But there was that business about Morganna’s father’s life insurance. The company didn’t have to pay on a suicide, but Sloan found a clause in the fine print and threatened to take them to court.”
Morganna had stopped listening. Clearly someone had removed the furniture and stored it under Sloan’s name, in order to frame him. But who would have done that? Who could have? And why? If she could just stay calm and think…But her brain was racing with the picture of Sloan being led away in handcuffs. Panic was closing in on her, tightening her muscles till she could scarcely breathe.
“It wasn’t fraud, exactly, to make them pay,” Joel was saying, “but…”
“You weasel.” Morganna’s words seemed to burst forth. “Trying to throw suspicion on Sloan, after everything you owe him—”
“Everything I owe him?” Joel’s voice had a vicious edge. “Including getting blown through a window and having my life destroyed, you mean?”
“It wasn’t his fault. Why did you even go into the building that night? He told you not to. Why did you walk into the office? As soon as you got to the door, you’d have smelled the natural gas. Why didn’t you just turn on the overhead light?”
“Maybe I did. I don’t remember.”
Sloan shook his head. “There were no regular lights on when I came in, just the security lamps. The first light I saw was the explosion.”
Morganna scoffed, “You don’t remember whether you flipped a switch, but you remember seeing the furniture? You’d have had to go clear around the desk to see it.” She paused. “You could almost have touched the desk lamp from the door, but you didn’t do that. You walked all the way around—that’s what you must have done. That’s why you got blown out the window. If you’d just leaned over the desk and touched the lamp, you’d have been blown back toward the door. Right?” She turned to the investigator.
He looked thoughtful. “It seems likely, yes.”
“So why did you go into the office at all?” It was a hopeless question, of course. How could Joel answer when he didn’t remember?
None of it makes any sense, she thought. Nothing fits. Unless all the time we’ve been looking at it from the wrong side…
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