by Ann Yost
His gut spasmed, his erection throbbed. Frustration slammed into him.
“I’ve got it,” she breathed. She shoved the straps off her shoulders and down her body. The boots stopped her, but her eagerness had given him fresh resolve. He stripped off her boots and clothes, ripped open his jeans, and thrust into her. Christ. He was wound as tight as a rubber band.
Goddammit all to hell. Mabel Ruth had confiscated his condoms. It wasn’t going to stop them. He was already thrusting. She was dripping, moaning. He felt her fingers dig into his hips as she arched up into him. The pleasure was so great it was almost pain. “Jessie,” he gasped.
She read his mind and fought him. “Don’t stop.”
He didn’t think he could stop. He wanted her the way he’d wanted Crystal back in high school; mindlessly, hopelessly, relentlessly. His jaw clenched with desire and resentment. He didn’t want to lose control like this but, damn, he wanted Jessie.
They strained against each other, slipping on the hardwood floor. He retained just enough sanity to stroke her, and he felt her tighten, tighten, even as he pounded into her.
“Ow!” she yelped and he paused, stricken. “What?”
“My head. Think I hit the coat rack.”
Jesus. They’d slid across the hardwood floor, and he hadn’t even known.
“Luke,” she pleaded. “Don’t stop.”
He closed his eyes and touched her again. He knew he couldn’t hold out long enough for her to catch up. His body, squeezed by her tight passage and her writhing hips, thrust wildly. The climax rushed at him like a speeding train. He shut his eyes and buried his face in her shoulder to keep from yelling his relief. Her body convulsed, and her cry seemed to explode in the quiet house.
He jerked his head up in time to see the flush on her face and the self-conscious look in her beautiful golden eyes.
“Sorry,” she breathed, “we’ll get an audience.” He lowered his lips and kissed her softly.
“We’ll probably get a baby, too. I should be shot.” Her eyes widened in shock, but she gave him a potent half smile that made him harden all over again.
“The damage is done,” she murmured. “Let’s do it again.”
With his jeans still open he carried her upstairs and settled them both on the four-poster. He kissed one resilient breast and stroked the other.
“Luke?”
Reluctantly he lifted his head.
“Could you take your clothes off?”
The lust was rising hard, but he paused to smooth a curl behind her ear. “Anything you want, baby. Anything.”
She grinned at him. “I want it all. And I want it naked.”
They didn’t stop until first light. He pulled her against him, spoon fashion, and buried his face in her curls. “Marry me,” he murmured.
“You got it,” she said.
****
Jessie woke up in a cave. A hot cave. It took her a minute to realize the heated, granite-like body that ran along her back was Luke. The hair on his chest tickled her back, and his warm breath soughed over her neck. She let the feelings of happiness wash through her. He’d released the passion she hadn’t even known was buried inside her. She felt as strong as a warrior princess and as invincible. She was close to discovering a murderer and a real life hero wanted to marry her.
On top of that, her family was united.
Oh yeah. And she was in love for the first time. And the guy seemed to want her, too.
Life just didn’t get any better than this.
There were no guarantees. Jessie knew that.
Luke was still fighting the remnants of his feelings for his ex-wife but, in time, he’d let go of those old dreams. She hoped. She’d give him a home and a family and he’d forget the past.
A family. She flinched. She’d kind of lied to him about that. A sin of omission, but still a lie. He’d conscientiously bought the condoms, surrendered the condoms then worried about not having the condoms, and all the while she’d been safe. She probably should have told him she’d only been off the pill a week. Less. Why hadn’t she? The thought was troubling. Was she testing him? Trying to find out whether he’d step up to the plate in case of a possible pregnancy? She knew he would. He had. The thing was, did she really want him that way?
The truth was she wanted him. He might not be in love with her now, but he could learn to love her. The hurly burly of love at first sight wasn’t the kind of love that lasted. Was it? And they had passion going for them. Just thinking about last night made her face flush and her core melt. She closed her eyes and drifted on the sensuous memories.
Married to Luke. Yeah. She could do that.
****
Luke woke up hot and hard and horny. He needed to get away from Jessie so he could think. He slipped out of the bed and grabbed up his clothes.
He’d been hit by an asteroid. It was the danger, of course. And the fear. Good God, the woman was impossible. She’d tried to hide him in a coffin. The feel of Miss Letty’s still form beneath him was nothing compared with the fear he’d felt about Jessie’s safety. He shook his head. He should have wrung her neck. Instead, he’d come apart in her arms.
He thrust his fingers through his hair and stared into Blanche’s bathroom mirror. There was no going back now. She might be pregnant, and if she wasn’t, she would be soon. He couldn’t keep his hands off her. Wouldn’t. This was it. His lips straightened into a grim line. Like it or not, they were getting hitched.
He hoped it was what Blanche would have wanted.
He picked up the coat rack in the foyer and a shiver of anticipation twisted down his spine. He frowned. He’d just spent hours having sex with Jessie. He should be over it. He spent a few minutes with Pyewacket and then crossed the dining room and walked through the butler’s pantry. He had a half-formed plan in the back of his mind, but he forgot it, temporarily, when he walked into the kitchen and got the shock of his life.
It was Crystal. But a Crystal unlike anyone he’d ever known. Her long, corn silk hair drifted around her face, and she’d given up the expensive white wool suit in exchange for a red-and-white checked blouse and a pair of blue jeans on her long legs. A makeshift apron was tied around her slender waist and she was—he had to take a second look—she was cooking? He looked from the chagrined expression on her face to the burnt toast on the plates. The eggs were burning, too.
The amethyst eyes filled.
“I wanted to make you breakfast.”
He strode across the room, removed the skillet from the burner, and shoveled the eggs onto the plates. As he forked them up he realized he was hungry. Starved.
“Okay,” he said, when he’d finished. “Who are you and what have you done with my ex-wife?”
Her smile was tentative. “I was trying to tell you last night. I’ve changed.”
He met her gaze head on but didn’t speak.
“I made a mess of things between us, Luke. I was so used to getting and so unused to giving.”
He nodded. Beauty like Crystal’s definitely had its downside.
She sucked in a deep breath. Confession might be good for the soul, but it was obviously hard for her. He felt a grudging respect.
“I’ve been working on these changes for a while now and I wouldn’t have bothered you, but when I heard you were here, in Mystic, I just found myself on a plane.”
He could read between the lines. “You heard I was with another woman.”
“Yes.”
“From whom?”
“Mabel Ruth.”
That didn’t make sense. Mabel Ruth seemed like Jessie’s biggest fan.
“I don’t think she contacted me because she wanted to see us together,” Crystal explained. “She thinks you can’t move on until you confront your past.” Her lovely face took on a pleading look. “I don’t want you to move on. That’s it. Plain and simple. I love you, Luke, and, under the anger, I think you still love me.”
He was surprised at her insight. He thought she was right abo
ut Mabel Ruth.
She seemed to take courage from his silence.
“There’s something else.” She looked down at the table and her long, thick lashes swept her lovely cheekbones. “I want to be honest with you.
I got involved with Bobby Ray.” He held still for a long moment.
“Say something, Luke.”
“When?”
“A few months before our marriage ended. I was unhappy because you were gone so much and he, well, he pursued me.”
Luke believed that. For all his undeniable charm, Bobby Ray had been trouble. “Is that why you wanted a divorce?”
The amethyst eyes reflected disbelief. “I thought you’d fight it. I thought you’d come riding in on a white horse and snatch me back, but you didn’t.”
Such a response hadn’t even occurred to him. Now he wondered why.
“Afterward I kept up the clandestine thing with Bobby. Why not? You were gone.”
A bell rang in the back of his brain. “Are you involved in the troubles between Francie and Zach?”
The color drained out of her face. “That wasn’t our intention. You’ve got to believe me. We did use—I used her name as a cover on my letters. I mean, it made it more fun.”
There it was. That self-centeredness. Crystal and Bobby had ruined the happiness of two innocent people just because it “made it more fun.”
“You have to tell Zach. If you don’t, I will.”
“Of course.” The light returned to the beautiful eyes. “Do you think you can forgive me?”
He studied her face. Crystal’s problem wasn’t cruelty. She hurt people without even realizing. Somehow, that seemed worse. Lucky for him, the confession of infidelity felt more like a shallow bruise than a crater in his heart. Lucky for him he’d met another kind of woman.
“Sure. For what it’s worth. I forgive you.”
The eyes lit with a celestial fire. She launched into full seduction mode. With his forgiveness she thought there was a chance for reconciliation.
Luke wondered when he’d become immune to the beauty. He’d probably never know, but he knew what he wanted; he wanted a woman he could count on and that reminded him.
“I’ve got to go get a tree,” he muttered.
Crystal’s eyes lit up. He knew she was remembering two years earlier when she’d dragged him through the snow in search of the perfect white pine.
“Can I come?”
He started to decline but changed his mind. He was going to marry Jessie, but he wasn’t planning to be a lapdog. Not this time. “Sure.”
****
Jessie woke to see the sun streaming through the arched window. She could smell Luke’s tantalizing scent, but she knew she was alone in the big bed.
She stretched like a contented cat.
She inhaled the scent of testosterone and lovemaking on the sheets. She felt a sudden, urgent need to see him, to touch him, to assure herself that his proposal was real.
She hopped out of bed. A quick shower later, she pulled on a pair of green corduroy jeans and a red sweater embellished with a decorated Christmas tree, ran a brush through her curls, and took the backstairs two steps at a time. She had a busy day ahead, but for the first time in a long time, she had a partner.
She hugged the secret to herself.
They’d get to use the stations-of-the-cross ice sculpture after all.
Chapter Seventeen
Monica and Gillian sat at Blanche’s wicker kitchen table bathed in the swath of light created by the morning sun. The cheerful room smelled of cinnamon and coffee and something else. Evergreen?
Jessie hugged her mother and sister. “Merry Christmas,” she caroled.
“You, too, sweetheart,” her mother said.
“Ditto that,” Gillian replied.
Jessie gazed from one to the other. “What’s with the long faces? We’re all here together, and it’s Christmas.”
Two sets of sky blue eyes exchanged a glance. Jessie thought she understood.
“Mom, if you’re self-conscious about last night, I mean I know you and Dad shared a room.”
A pretty flush brightened Monica Maynard’s cheeks, and Jessie’s heart sang. This Christmas just got better and better. “Does this mean you’re reconciling?”
“No,” Monica said. “Dad hasn’t promised to retire and until he does, nothing will change.”
It was a reminder to Jessie that she’d screwed up the plans. If she’d been able to marry Kit, Howard Maynard could have retired and her parents’ marriage would have been saved.
“This isn’t about you,” Monica said, reading her thoughts. “You have to make your own decisions. You have to live your own life.”
“Guess you’re fired as the family’s guardian angel,” Gillian quipped, but there was no twinkle in her eyes.
Jessie put a hand on her sister’s forearm. “What’s wrong?”
Gillian laid her own hand over Jessie’s as the door from the butler’s pantry swung open. Kit entered. He wore an expensive sweater and slacks, and he smelled of the outdoors and his cheeks were rosy, as if he’d just finished a snowball fight.
“It’s about time you got up, sleepyhead.” He grinned at Jessie. “Come on out here and see your surprise.”
“You shouldn’t have,” Jessie said, meaning it. She didn’t want her ex to have any false hopes.
“Don’t worry,” he said, grabbing her upper arm and tugging her along, “I didn’t.”
Jessie looked over her shoulder. Her mother’s smile was wooden and Gillian looked positively grim.
What on earth was going on?
An instant later she knew. She stopped dead in the double-door entrance to the parlor and gazed at the Currier & Ives scene. A ten-foot white pine filled the bay window. A lean, dark-haired man stood on a stool arranging a string of lights while nearby his beautiful blonde wife directed and advised. A perfect pas-de-deux.
Right out of Christmas in Connecticut.
Right out of The Nightmare Before Christmas.
It was the tree she wanted and the man she wanted.
She remembered that old saying Be careful what you wish for.
Luke and Crystal were absorbed in their project, absorbed in one another. Listening to their conversation was like plunging a dagger into her own heart.
“Shift that one string up a couple of inches. It’s all about spacing and color. We don’t want a red light next to a Santa light, do we?”
“Why,” Luke grumbled, “am I getting such a sense of déjà vu?”
His tone was playful, familiar, as if they’d done this many times before. As if they’d do it many times in the future.
Jessie wrapped her arms around her waist. They looked so right together. It wasn’t as bad as seeing Kit’s dalliance with his ex-wife. It was ten times worse. A hundred times. Because this time she was in love with her fiancé.
Kit’s arm came around her shoulder. She barely felt it.
“Isn’t it perfect?”
“Perfect,” she echoed.
Luke’s head lifted and his green eyes met hers. She masked her sense of betrayal. He couldn’t help loving someone else.
The doorbell chimed.
“Who’s that?” Jessie asked, even though she didn’t really care.
“It’ll be Ezra,” Crystal said. “We called him from the truck. Mabel Ruth, Millicent and Maude, too.”
They’d gone out to cut the tree together. Of course.
“Jessie,” Luke said. They heard Crystal greeting the visitors.
“Let me go see about the coffee,” she said.
****
Chief Smith settled into Blanche’s rocking chair. Mabel Ruth and Maude sat side by side on the Victorian loveseat while Monica, Gillian, and Millicent shared the sofa. Luke had brought a pair of chairs from the dining room. He straddled one. Crystal took the chair across from him. She was in Luke’s direct line of vision. It was a good strategic move. If Jessie had been one-tenth as beautiful as Crystal, she’
d be into staging, too. She dropped down to the hearth and scratched Pyewacket behind the ears. She looked up to see Luke’s green gaze on her, and something inside her cracked. The pharmaceutical companies were missing the boat, she thought. There ought to be an over-the-counter pill for heartbreak. She heard Luke’s voice. It took a minute for her to realize he was talking about their midnight adventure.
“We thought the coffin might be empty,” he said. Everyone gasped. “Jessie had a theory, a very good one, I might add, that Epps was smuggling drugs in carcasses and burying the coffins to allay suspicion.”
“So was Letty in there?” It was Millicent.
Luke rested his lean, muscular arms against the back of the chair. The sight of those powerful thighs and competent hands catapulted her back to the pleasure of last night. She forced herself to listen to his answer.
“Most of her.”
“Most of her?” Monica Maynard sounded shocked. She and Howard stood near the glass doors.
“Her bones had been replaced with lengths of plumbing pipe.” Luke’s eyes met Jessie’s. “That’s why Epps keeps it on hand.”
The old newspaper headline flashed before her. Epps wasn’t smuggling drugs. “He’s corpse looting,” she murmured.
Horrified gasps filled the room.
Luke nodded. “Corpse looters harvest bone and tissue and sell it to tissue banks, hospitals, and individual doctors. The buyers need the body parts for transplants, and they don’t realize the parts were illegally obtained. Epps undoubtedly forges signatures granting permission, and he falsifies the certificates if the donors are over age or have been seriously ill.”
“There’s a strong risk of infection for the recipients,” Jessie explained. “There was a lot of publicity about the scandal involving Alaistair Cooke. His body parts were looted up at a funeral home in New Jersey.”
Smith frowned. “Alaistair Cooke?”
“The host of Masterpiece Theater,” chorused Mabel Ruth, Millicent, and Maude.
“I think Miss Letty suspected,” Jessie said, soberly. “I read a headline in one of her old papers. I think it was about the Alaistair Cooke story.”