by Tami Hoag
Jake had decided to give in to it. That morning in the cluttered front of her Bronco, he’d let loose of reason and logic. Dixie was a mystery to him, but the only way he was going to figure her out was to experience her, to let go of his famous control for once and allow himself to be swept away.
There would be all kinds of trouble waiting for him downstream. He knew that. He had painted himself into a tight corner by not telling her the truth about what he was doing here. But he couldn’t right that wrong now, not when she looked so vulnerable, not when she was just waiting to get hurt. He would put it off a little longer and trust that she would understand when the time came.
He took her by the hands and backed across the porch, smiling. “You look very fetching tonight, Dixie.”
She giggled and shrugged. “Yeah, I clean up pretty good.”
“I’ll say.”
He turned her in a pirouette, admiring her dress. It was a soft knit sheath in rich coffee brown and it hugged every ripe curve of her body with subtle grace that accented rather than emphasized. Fitted demurely at the neck in front, it opened in a V down the back, revealing a wedge of creamy skin. On her earlobes she wore large buttons of gold-rimmed mother-of-pearl and at her neck was a simple tiny chain of gold with a small charm that caught Jake’s eye and stirred a vague sense of recognition.
“That’s unusual,” he said, fingering the delicate golden replica of a sea star.
Dixie looked down at where his thumb was brushing her breastbone, making her heart race. “An old friend gave it to me a long time ago,” she said, caught between the sweet rush of feelings Jake inspired and the sadness for a dear friend lost. “She’s gone now…passed away.”
She hated those euphemisms—passed away, passed on, expired. Jeanne was dead. But she couldn’t bring herself to say the word. It was so final. Even now, more than a year later, in her heart she wanted to believe there was a way she could undo it.
“I’m sorry,” Jake whispered, hurting for her, watching the pain cloud her eyes. “Will you tell me about her sometime?”
“Sometime,” Dixie said with a sad smile.
She moved to stand beside him, bracing her hands against the porch railing as she watched the ocean turn indigo. The sun was setting behind them, stealing all the color from the sky. Maybe one day she would tell Jake about Jeanne Parmantel. There was something about him that made her want to tell him everything that was in her heart. But she had learned caution in a tough school, a place where everyone pretended to care but most were too wrapped up with their own success or failure to follow through. It wasn’t smart to trust too easily. She knew that. Still, she wanted to trust Jake.
The sound of car doors slamming behind the cottage heralded the arrival of Leo and Macy Vencour, and Fabiano was coming down the path, his beefy arms laden with long loaves of bread and several bottles of wine.
“Looks like we’re in for quite a feast tonight,” Dixie said. She slanted Jake a look. “That is, those of us who aren’t nutrition fanatics bent on denying ourselves some of life’s greatest simple pleasures—like Black Forest cake.”
“Oh, I’m not that strict,” Jake said. He turned and fixed her with a gaze brimming with sensual promise. He leaned against the post again, virility humming in the air around him like electricity.
“I’m a firm believer in indulging myself in pure pleasure every once in a while. Aren’t you?”
Dixie looked up at him, mesmerized, like a mouse looking up at big sleek cat. She had a pretty good idea he wasn’t talking about supper, but she answered him anyway, her heart hammering, her voice a reedy whisper. “Oh, yes. Hallelujah. Amen.”
SEVEN
JAKE LET THE photograph slip from his fingers and fall back into the box. He frowned, deep in thought, a worry line creasing his brows. Bits of memories and half-formed hunches whirled in his brain. Two and two were not adding up to four.
He stared down at the picture. Tonight, one way or another, he was going to find out about the woman in the attic. He had to settle the matter before he could proceed in any direction—with his project or with Dixie. Discreet inquiries had gotten him nothing. Dixie refused to acknowledge the woman. Fabiano had given him nothing but a blank stare when he’d asked. Sylvie had given him a bruise, smacking him soundly on the arm when he’d told her she looked great in her wig.
Waiting had gotten him nothing. The mystery lady seemed to have a sixth sense, knowing when he was watching and when he wasn’t. It was almost as if she were taunting him with her nightly dance routine, then escaping in broad daylight.
And the longer he waited to discover her identity, the more confused he became. He was a man accustomed to linear thinking, but in this instance he found himself going from A to B and ending up at X. Nothing made sense. It was time to take action.
Pulling on a pair of black leather gloves, he flipped the light off in his cabin and slipped out the door. He melted into the moonless night in his black jeans and black sweatshirt. With a stealth and silence he had learned in the military he made his way down the path toward the beach house, where, in the attic, amber light glowed in the window. The rest of the house was in darkness.
He had seen Dixie home after dinner at Sylvie’s, kissed her socks off at the door and left her staring hungrily after him as he’d walked back to his own cottage. Leaving her had been one of the hardest things he’d done. Every fiber in his body had ached to accept the invitation in her eyes, but he had steeled himself against the need. Questions had to be answered first and he meant to find the answers in the most expedient manner possible.
Dogs met him on the path, wagging their tails and snuffling for attention. First Honey, then Hobbit, then Abby. He tossed them each a dog biscuit and made his way to the garage.
Finding the ladder was the easiest part of his mission, as it turned out. He had prepared himself for a long search through the disaster area Dixie called her garage, but the aluminum extension ladder was outside, leaning conveniently against a wall, a victim of the space crunch within. Taking great care not to rattle the thing. Jake eased it up off the ground and made his way back to the side of the house.
Hobbit sniffed around his feet for another biscuit. Jake swore under his breath and dug one out of the pouch on his sweatshirt. This alerted the other two beggars and he had to pass out another round and strew the rest on the ground before he could place the ladder below the attic window.
The roar of the ocean muffled any sound he might have made. The wind had come up and thunder rumbled in accompaniment to the sounds of the waves, a portent of a coming storm. Keeping his mind on his objective and his eyes on the attic window, Jake took a deep breath and stepped on the first rung. When the ladder wobbled, he held his breath until the thing steadied, then climbed as quickly and quietly as he could. All he had to do was get to the narrow ledge, pull himself up the rest of the way, have his peek and be gone. Three more rungs and he’d be there.
“Piece of cake,” he whispered.
That was the precise moment Bob Dog arrived on the scene. The big German shepherd bounded around the side of the house, barking enthusiastically. Jake winced and prayed the dog would content himself with the biscuits. But his prayer went unanswered. Bob spotted him instantly and, always ripe for adventure, reared up and planted his massive paws on the fifth rung of the ladder.
Dixie lay in her bed staring at the ceiling. Above her, Dee was howling at Letterman again. She glanced into the shadowed corner at her golf club, then discarded the idea. What difference did it make if her cousin was as loud as a troupe of clowns? Dixie had the distinct feeling she wasn’t going to be getting much sleep tonight anyway.
After all that had happened today—the incident in the truck, the scene on Sylvie’s porch—she had been fairly certain she wouldn’t be going to bed alone tonight. She’d given Jake the green light to pursue the relationship. She’d given every indication that she wouldn’t turn him down if he asked.
Of course, she hadn’t come right
out and said she was willing to go to bed with him. That wasn’t her style. As liberated as she was, she had never been able to be sexually aggressive. She liked the idea of the man being the instigator of a physical relationship, and if that tarnished her image as a modern woman of the nineties, then that was just tough. There was something to be said for old-fashioned femininity.
“I think you must have said it a little too well tonight, Dixie darling,” she muttered to herself, tossing over onto her side as frustration churned in the pit of her belly.
The way Jake had kissed her when he’d brought her home, she had wondered if they would even make it all the way to her bedroom. But then he had stepped back. The fire in his eyes had taken her breath away, and he’d kissed her again, closing the distance between them with one powerful stride, wrapping her up in his embrace as if he meant to fuse her to his big body. She had all but melted from the heat they’d generated. But then he had stepped back again. This time he had bade her good night and left.
She should have called him back, she thought, rewriting the scene in her head. She envisioned herself calling out to him, and Jake turning slowly, the moonlight silvering his hawkish profile—of course there would be a moon; what was a romantic night scene on the beach without a moon? He would pause at the foot of the stairs and look at her with that burning intensity in his eyes. Then he would bound up the stairs two at a time and sweep her off her feet. The scene would cut to her moonlit bedroom, the two of them naked, sheets twisting around them, passion scenting the air as they made wild love.
Turning onto her other side, she smacked her pillow with a fist. Too bad she wasn’t as good at seduction in real life as she was in her imagination. Then maybe she would be making a little noise of her own in this room instead of listening to her cousin’s television through the ceiling.
A scrape and a bang sounded somewhere outside her window. Scrape, bang. Scrape, bang. Bob Dog barking in rhythm.
“Must be a shutter loose,” she mumbled, making a mental note to fix it the next day. She would have to make a run to the hardware store first, though, and buy a decent ladder.
Scrape, bang. Scrape, bang. Then there was a loud clattering, and the unmistakable sound of a human cry.
Dixie’s blood ran cold. Bounding out of her bed, she shoved her arms into her flowered kimono and belted it hastily. She grabbed her golf club and dashed to the window, visions of cat burglars dancing in her head. What should she do? Call the sheriff? Alert Dee? Scream and hope Fabiano heard her?
She peered out the window, seeing nothing at first. Then she spied a human form.
“Jake!”
She threw open the window and screen and stuck her head out into the cool night air. Jake clung by his fingertips to the narrow ledge below her window, his body hugging the sloping roof of the first floor of the house. On the ground, the dogs milled around, looking up at him, barking. Bob Dog bounded up and down the length of the fallen ladder in excitement.
“What the Sam Hill are you doing hanging from my roof?” Dixie demanded, snagging a handful of hair back from her eyes.
“Trying to keep from falling to my death,” Jake said, adjusting his hold on the ledge.
“I can see that. What happened?”
“Your brainless brute of a dog tried to climb the ladder with me,” he growled, his temper worsening as his arms began to tire.
Dixie frowned. “Now, don’t go blaming Bob Dog. He’s just a puppy and he likes you something fierce, Jake. He didn’t mean any harm. What were you doing on that ladder in the first place?”
Jake glared up at her, his expression the picture of frustration. “Dixie, do you mind if we discuss this at a more convenient time? I’m sure I’ll feel more sociable once I get my feet on solid ground again. The threat of becoming a quadriplegic tends to ruin my natural gift for conversation.”
“Well, you don’t have to get snippy. Hang on.”
“I’m not going anywhere if I can help it.”
Dixie pulled back inside the room and flipped on a lamp. Going to the foot of her big brass bed, she knelt and dug around under the ruffled bed skirt. Her fingers closed around a coil of rope, the end of which was tied securely around the bedpost. She’d fastened it there in the event the house ever caught fire and she needed to escape, but this emergency seemed just as appropriate.
“Here you go,” she said, tossing the coil out the window. The rope fluttered out into space, unfurling and inciting the dogs to another barking riot.
Jake grabbed the lifeline, and pulled himself up enough to get a toehold on the shingles, then started up the incline toward Dixie’s window. She reached for him and yanked with all her might. He stumbled over the sill and grabbed for Dixie instinctively to keep from falling, and together they tumbled across the unmade bed.
“Well.” Jake put on his most winning smile and raised himself up on one elbow to look down at Dixie. “That didn’t go quite the way I’d planned it.”
“You—you planned…?” she stammered, confusion pulling her brows together.
She stared up at him, her heart hammering. He was impossibly handsome. The lamplight turned his hair the color of burnished brass. He looked rugged and tough and terribly male leaning over her. Yet ten seconds ago he had been dangling from her roof.
Tears flooded her eyes and a fist of dread tightened in her chest. He could have been killed. He’d scaled the side of her house to surprise her and had nearly gotten himself killed in the process.
“You fool!” she shouted, her belated terror unleashing itself in the form of anger. Her right hand groped for a neck roll pillow and she smacked Jake soundly on the head with it.
“Ouch!” he exclaimed, pressing a hand to his ear.
Dixie rolled out from beneath him and shot up off the bed. She grabbed her 2-iron and brandished it like a baseball bat.
“You could have been killed! Do you know that? You could have fallen and broken your stupid neck!” She took a halfhearted swipe at him with the club. “Who do you think you are—Errol Flynn swinging around on rooftops? You could have been killed!”
Sitting up on the bed, Jake leaned back to dodge a second swing of the club. “Well, I wasn’t—but I have a feeling you’re bent on rectifying the situation.”
Dixie sniffed as the tears began to come in earnest. Aftershocks shuddered through her, and her strength flagged. This time when she swept the golf club in Jake’s direction, he caught it by the shaft. In the blink of an eye he was on his feet and had Dixie in his arms. The club dropped harmlessly to the floor.
Dixie fell against his chest gladly, crying into his sweatshirt. She burrowed against him, seeking out his solid strength, his masculine warmth, trying to calm herself with the reality of him. He was safe. He was here.
“Hey,” he whispered, burying a hand in the wild curls of her chestnut mane. “What happened to that cool-headed lady who was interrogating me while I was hanging from that ledge?”
“She’s crying all over your shirt,” she mumbled. She wrapped her arms around his lean hard waist in a fierce grip. “You scared the living daylights out of me.”
“I’m sorry,” he murmured, bending down to press a kiss to the top of her head. He rubbed his cheek against the silk of her hair and breathed in the scent of lilies of the valley. She was crying because she’d been afraid for him, because she cared for him. That idea warmed him like nothing ever had. He hugged her a little tighter and kissed her ear. “I never meant to scare you, sweetheart. It was supposed to be a surprise.”
What the hell? he thought as he rocked her in his arms. If he had to make something up, why not this? It wasn’t as if he hadn’t wanted to be in Dixie’s bedroom all along, anyway.
“I was surprised all right. I thought you were a cat burglar. You’re just lucky I left my gun in the truck.”
“Yeah. I thought it would have been embarrassing enough explaining falling off the roof. Having you shoot me would have topped that, I guess.”
A chuckle escaped
Dixie as she tipped her head back and looked up at him. “Were you really climbing up here just to surprise me?”
His smile tightened a fraction. “Can you think of a better reason?”
“I swear, I can’t think at all since I met you,” she said, shaking her head. “I didn’t have you pegged for a romantic adventurer, though.”
Jake clicked his tongue and gave her a look of mock disappointment. “You shouldn’t have had me pegged at all, Dixie. You shouldn’t go around trying to pin labels on people.”
One corner of her mouth lifted in a smile. “Touché.”
He brushed her tears away with his thumbs and gave her a tender look. “All done crying?” At her nod he gave her a wicked grin. “Good, because I can think of lots better things to do with our time.”
He pulled her down to the bed, falling once again on the tangled floral sheets and fluffy comforter. He slanted his mouth across hers in a kiss brimming with sweet passion, and the power of the attraction that sizzled between them burned away his determination to settle questions first. With Dixie warm and willing in his arms he couldn’t think why it mattered who or where Devon Stafford was. Dixie was the mystery he wanted to explore—slowly and intimately.
Dixie arched up against him. She tangled her hands in his hair, loving the feel of the silky strands between her fingers, loving the velvety texture of his tongue as it slid against hers. He tasted dark and rich and the feel of him against her was heaven.
She swept her hands across his broad shoulders and down his back, tugging the hem of his sweatshirt up, baring smooth hard flesh with each inch. He broke the kiss long enough to discard his gloves, then the shirt, yanking it over his head and flinging it across the room.
Dixie grinned. “Aren’t you gonna go fold that properly and put it in its place?”
“I’m more interested in putting you in your place,” he said, leaning over her, his voice a low purr that set all her nerve ends humming.