by Cait London
She’d been at work again, making peace in her perfect world. Her father grumbled darkly in the background, and just to irritate him, Mitchell said, “We’ll be there.”
Maybe this wasn’t such a good idea, Uma decided, as Everett, her father, and Mitchell sat at her dinner table. Roman’s excuse not to attend had been thin, but passable; he probably was enjoying a much-publicized boxing match on television. Each man dressed in a summer short-sleeved shirt and belted slacks. The men were grim; the conversation ran between silent gaps as she foraged for a common topic.
The bouquet of roses that Mitchell had brought had stunned her. Each bloom had not opened fully, yet was not a bud, and the thorns had been removed. The fortune cookies in a china blue bowl had also been a wonderful surprise from him.
After a hard, frustrating day of restoring her computer and retrieving the extra set of backup disks she had in the bank security box, Uma had hurried to cook dinner, an easy pot roast, vegetables, and salad. Everett had brought a freezer churn of ice cream, his pineapple recipe and her favorite.
While Everett managed an awkward conversation about weather and travel, her father was ominously silent, his disapproval thundering around the dining room, jarring the antique Blue Willow dishes her great-grandmother had bought long ago. The battle with her father still raged, echoing about, “Not in my house. Not a Warren.”
“I want this resolved,” she’d said. “There is no sense in this war continuing years after his father is dead. You embarrassed me this morning and we’re going to make some gesture that we’re not still living back in feuding land rush days.”
“Oil and water don’t mix,” he’d protested. “Neither do Warrens and Lawrences.”
“They will tonight,” she’d stated firmly. “May I remind you of Mother’s impeccable hospitality? I’m only doing what she would have done. If that isn’t what you want, tell me now. Our living arrangements can be changed, because I don’t know any other way of life than to be neighborly.”
“I heard about him running with you this morning. That gossip is all over town.”
“Everett was there, too. I don’t own the streets, Dad. He can run where he wants. Now I issued a dinner invitation. Are you going to be difficult?” she asked, and tried to toss away the image of Mitchell running on one side of her and her ex-husband on the other.
In the end, her father had sulked, but agreed. Uma had worked furiously on her computer—she could function now, but it would take a full week to get everything up and running. She reassured herself that the dinner would flow nicely, and all the tension would settle down. Everett, her father, and she often had dinner together and the conversation flowed easily.
But tonight only Mitchell, the outsider, seemed at ease. Clearly he had been in difficult situations before, managing the ebb and flow of everyday conversation. He commented on the sweet tea brewed in the sun, the pies at Ruby’s Cafe, and the old gray cat that would wander into the house and sprawl to watch him work.
When her father stiffened, Uma ran her finger around the iced tea glass’s cool rim. For years, her father had been cultivating that old half-wild tomcat, trying to make friends with him with a can of good salmon.
Mitchell took second helpings while the other men deferred. He actually seemed to be enjoying himself. “I see you collect Native American artifacts and pioneer goods, like that old wooden bread bowl,” he said directly to Clarence.
When Clarence ignored the tentative conversation, Uma filled the silence. “My father has always been interested in western Americana. Much of what is in this house is from our family.”
“Is that right? I’d be interested to hear more.”
Then Mitchell smiled at her, a too-pleasant, innocent smile, and a wary tingle went up her nape. Or was he enjoying her discomfort every time those amber eyes locked with hers and the sensual impact sailed to plummet and heat her body?
Was this what she’d been seeking when she’d dressed so carefully in the print summer dress, piling her hair just so on top of her head, smoothing cream on her legs? Why she had smoothed the material over her hips and stood with her back to the mirror, steadying the fit? To get Mitchell’s attention? Why?
What was that raw, tense emotion simmering inside her?
It felt like sex, and more sex, and a woman on the hunt. But that couldn’t be her, not Uma Lawrence Thornton. Those jungle drums that beat when Mitchell looked at her were some—she could only give it one word—“temptation.”
She braced herself and looked down to see Everett’s hand possessively covering her own, his expression impassive as he looked at Mitchell. Everett’s thumb slid over her third finger, left hand, a stark reminder that she had once worn his ring. From the slight mocking curve of his lips, Mitchell hadn’t missed the possessive move.
Uma withdrew her hand and placed it on her lap; whatever cat-and-mouse game the men were playing, she wasn’t going to be the prize. She belonged to herself now, and she was keeping it that way. Some women were meant to live in Single City—quiet, peaceful, controlled lives—and she was one of them.
“I’ll help you replace those windows, Clarence,” Everett was saying without looking from Mitchell.
“You know, we’re about finished with the house, and I’d be glad to help you, too,” Mitchell offered lightly.
“No,” Clarence snapped, his control breaking. “Not you. I’m leaving on a trip to Arizona tomorrow, to stay with a friend for a month. You are not to come in my house.”
She knew better than to press the situation; her father loved her, but there were limits to his control. “My, it’s a nice night, isn’t it? Too bad Roman had another engagement,” she said instantly to soothe the obvious snub, and smoothed her hair from her neck.
She dropped her hand quickly when she saw that Mitchell’s eyes had narrowed on her and whatever was happening between them pulsed hot and stormy across the table.
She looked away from Everett’s close study to the Blue Willow platter standing upright on the decorative shelf. She was certain that the tension in the room was enough to make it vibrate and jiggle.
Uma wondered whatever possessed her to think she could bring a fraction of neighborly peace between her father and Mitchell. She wondered why suddenly she was caught between two men who seemed to want her for different reasons—Everett, for the long term…and Mitchell, who wanted sex, pure and outright, with no strings attached.
Clyde smoothed his suit’s wide lapels and straightened from his crouching position near the Warren brothers’ house. They weren’t home; Roman was at the old garage and Mitchell was dining with Uma, Everett, and Clarence.
Mitchell. The background check on him was easy enough with Clyde’s connections. Mitchell had left a high-paying job with a building-and-supply chain, and now he was working as a yard man. Sweating didn’t make sense when someone else could do the work; his only purpose in coming back to Madrid had to be revenge.
From the shadows of a stand of pampas grass, the gray cat hissed, his back arched and his fangs showing white. Half-wild, the cat would be hard to catch and kill, and he’d damaged Clyde’s suit. When Clyde had bent to use his mini-battery-powered saw, the cat had reached out to scratch him, and in flight, ripped across Clyde’s arm, snagging the fabric and digging holes into his arm.
Clyde was angry and could have used killing that old cat to release his frustration. Uma thought the BBs were a child’s prank, and not the threat Clyde had intended. He’d have to make his message—that Uma stay away from the Warrens—much clearer. The mini-battery-powered saw was handy, sliding through the rungs on the ladder easily. He didn’t like physical work, not like those sweating Warrens. Clyde was more of a thinker and a planner, and now he was thinking that the mens’ weight would break the tampered rungs. If one of them fell just right, eliminating him, so much the better.
Uma really shouldn’t be cozying up to the Warrens. She needed a lesson, and so did the cat.
The evening breeze was sudden and
cold, whipping a climbing rose branch against Clyde’s face. The thorn’s scratch was slight, but an eery sensation enveloped Clyde, as if Lauren were protecting her home and those in it. The hairs at his nape lifted, his body chilled suddenly as fear clawed at him.
He pushed away the idea, sneering at his weaker side, and hating that vulnerability. He’d always been too vulnerable, and not tough enough. Now he was handling his life, paying back those who had belittled him.
He’d caused Lauren to be killed, and he’d killed Pete Jones. Exactly how could a dead woman hurt him? he scoffed as he tore a full rose bloom from its vine. It was July now and he had only a couple of months to complete his mission—to kill all of the women—before the last petal fell from the last rose in Madrid.
The dinner had ended uncomfortably—Everett stubbornly taking his place with Clarence for a game of checkers, and Mitchell returning to his home. Later, craving a peaceful relief from the bristling males—Everett and her father—Uma drifted into her moonlit garden. The gray cat slid from the shadow of a trellis, eyes glinting silver in the night, while lightning bugs blinked across the small lawn.
On another night, in another time, Uma might have talked quietly with Lauren, sharing their lives.
The roses’ heavy perfume wrapped around Uma, and a drift of silky petals washed against her cheek. She could almost feel Lauren—waiting, wanting…fearing.
Uma rubbed her hands, the image of Lauren’s blood staining them.
The cat watched her, then turned to a noise, and suddenly Mitchell towered over Uma. Moonlight caught on his brow and cheekbones, his eyes deeply shadowed. Unbuttoned against the night’s heat, his shirt hung loosely down his chest.
Uma fought the leap of her heart, the pounding of her blood, as Mitchell took a step closer. His hand looped around her wrist, bringing her hand to his chest, smoothing her palm against the rough hair there.
“I’m sorry dinner wasn’t more pleasant, Mitchell. I wanted it to work out. My father can be very stubborn,” she whispered as his other hand released her hair from its knot, his fingers prowling through it.
He studied the effect of moonlight on the strands, lifting them away from her face and lazily twining them around his fist. He gently drew her closer and bent to nuzzle her ear. “Dinner was what I expected. Nice. Cool. Tense. You controlling the situation, keeping a lid on it. I wonder what you can’t control—what makes you look afraid and sweet and sexy, all at the same time. I wonder what would happen if you lost it—that control, the cool exterior jerked aside and the woman inside released.”
He looked down to her fingers, smoothing the hair on his chest, and when he slowly looked back into her eyes, she read the desire heating him, leaping from him, pounding at her.
Then his gaze lowered to her mouth, heating her skin as it traveled lower to her breasts beneath her summer dress. “Do you know that I wake up hard every morning, wanting you?”
“Mitchell, you shouldn’t say—” She couldn’t speak, sensations from his open mouth on her throat riveting her. At first, she thought the tropical warmth came from the night, and then she knew it came from within; she was quivering and aching and needing to possess him, to pit herself physically against Mitchell, battling him, taking his challenges.
Excitement skittered over her body, a primitive hunger to take and to torment—
She had to have his mouth, to taste him. Uma caught his face, bringing it to hers, taking his mouth.
The jolt of his parted mouth, the heat coming from him, poured into her as he tugged her close and tight against him. His kiss wasn’t sweet, but erotic and intense and pulsing through her, demanding that she give everything.
Uma held his hair in her fists, accepting the gentle foray of his tongue into her mouth, raising up on tiptoe to be closer to him, to feel that burgeoning heat of his body against hers.
She realized slowly that Mitchell was easing away, and when she looked up at him, she found his mockery.
“So now we know, don’t we? You can pretend with someone else if you want, but not with me,” he said before turning and leaving her alone and shaking and hot in the night.
Upstairs in her bedroom, Uma gripped her arms and tried not to think about revenge. On the other hand, revenge was the only payback that was acceptable for Mitchell. He’d deliberately set out to prove his point—that she was susceptible to him—and he’d succeeded.
She looked down at the well-trimmed area between their houses to Mitchell’s back porch. If he would just come out, she had just the present for him—
Meanwhile, she worked furiously on her column, “Takers and Givers.” Takers had to be shown the boundaries of a relationship, the equality of it, the intimacy. And they definitely did not walk away from romantic—sensual—interludes, as if they had never happened. They did not use sexual attraction as a tool.
Two hours later, Mitchell lay on his bed. His body ached and he should have known better than to try to prove his point with Uma. The tense dinner had left him raw, the image of Everett’s hand holding hers.
So now we know… Mitchell had been jealous and out for revenge, and Uma didn’t deserve his arrogance.
He’d wanted to claim her, to make her remember him that night, and not Everett—not exactly a class-act thing to do, leaving her simmering and himself aching.
Unable to sleep, Mitchell launched his taut body from the bed and went outside into the garden beneath Uma’s darkened bedroom window. It slid open, the lace curtains moving, and Uma leaned out slightly. “Having fun? Gloating? And do all the men in this neighborhood prefer to run around in their undershorts?”
“I’m in my own backyard, sweetheart. Proper attire is casual. And I was just making certain that you didn’t get confused about which man you’re kissing,” he returned, still nettled by Everett’s possessiveness.
“I see. For the record, I’m not going to be controlled by you and I don’t like hit-and-run attacks.”
“I wouldn’t exactly call it an attack. Why don’t you come down and we’ll discuss it?” he invited, enjoying the tit-for-tat with her. She gave him pleasure in more than the physical sense. “Or maybe you’d like a second round.”
“Or maybe you should learn some manners.”
The cold water hit Mitchell in the face, drenching his body and undershorts. Before he could think, he was in motion, propping a ladder up against her house, and climbing up to her second-story window. On his way, he plucked a perfect rose.
Stunned, she stared out at him from the open window, and a surge of boyish pleasure hit Mitchell. He couldn’t help grinning as he handed the rose to her. “Are you going to invite me in?”
“Good heavens, no.”
Backed against the wall, with her hair in braids, wearing a loose T-shirt, and clutching a rose to her chest, she looked adorable. Adorable. Now, when had he ever thought a woman looked. “adorable”? “Want to come out and play?”
“Good heavens, no. Mitchell, you’ve got to get down before you get hurt.”
“I’ll need a kiss to take home with me.” Teasing Uma could be addictive, he decided. She looked all flustered and cute.
“You had a kiss, and a pretty good one at that. Then you left me.”
“I apologize. My manners need improvement. The next time I kiss you, I’ll finish the job, good and proper. Goodnight.”
Mitchell almost chuckled as he descended the ladder and replaced it against his house. When he saw Uma staring down at him, her arms crossed, he bowed deeply, then blew her a kiss. The window closed quickly.
Inside, Roman was waiting and laughing. He handed Mitchell a towel. “You’re lucky her old man didn’t spatter your backside with buckshot. I thought you were too old and stiff for playing games.”
“I’m learning a few things.” Mitchell toweled his wet hair and shoulders, crossed his arms, and leaned back against a counter. He wasn’t exactly pleased that his brother had seen him acting like a lovesick, horny boy. And the knowledge that he actually would ha
ve crawled through that window to have her poleaxed him.
Even now, he could feel her warm, soft mouth beneath his, slanted, and fused and giving. He could feel her tremble, her body tight against his, every curve—
Mitchell sighed roughly. It was going to be a long, hard night.
“By the way,” Roman said slowly. “Our friend has been busy again. He works fast and he’s good. He knows we use that ladder. When I came home, it was in a different place than we left it. After the nail and tire incident, I checked and he’d been busy, sawdust on the grass. I fixed it, pronto.”
Mitchell tossed the towel aside with the violence he felt. “It is someone who knows a lot about everyone and he’s giving notice that he’s not happy.”
Clyde leaned back into the shadows. He listened to Edgar MacDougal peeing off his back porch, just a few inches from Clyde’s well-polished shoes.
Mitchell had used the ladder, handling its weight easily as he’d propped it up against. Uma’s house. In fast motion, he’d used his arms to power up the ladder, and not his full weight, as a working man might do.
Clyde frowned; he’d have to remember that Mitchell moved quickly for a big man. That size meant a bigger target, but Clyde didn’t want to just shoot Mitchell. He wanted to enjoy his pain.
SEVEN
Shelly stopped her Wednesday night ironing, poured a long cool glass of sun-brewed sweet tea, and held the icy glass up to her hot cheek. The third week of July baked the streets during the day, and heat hugged the night.
Tabor Street was quiet; the houses along it settled into the night beneath the towering oaks. During the day, the trees gave some relief from the hot summer sun, and in the winter, they sheltered the homes from the fierce winter winds that would sweep across Oklahoma. The basic “starter” houses with small yards were owned by a mix of newly marrieds just starting out, and retired people on strict pensions.
And everyone knew what happened along Tabor Street, who visited who, for how long. It was a friendly gossip, neighbors checking on each other, and as a single mother, Shelly usually appreciated the safety and comfort. But with Roman prowling in Madrid, she wasn’t certain she wanted her life inspected.