Dangerous Lover

by Lisa Marie Rice

  Tomorrow the endgame began.

  On Monday morning, Caroline peered out at the sky, trying to gauge what to expect. It wasn’t snowing at the moment, but the sky was a sullen dark gray, even though it was eight in the morning.

  Would it snow today? She hadn’t been able to listen to the forecasts because the TV and the radio were both still on the blink. She could check the Internet, but her computer was up in her room and by the time she powered it up and Googled the weather, she’d be running late.

  Whether it snowed or not was out of her control. She needed to drive to work, and that was that. Plus, Jack wanted to get going on whatever it was he needed to do today. He was already in his denim jacket, ready to go.

  Caroline pasted a smile on her face. Monday mornings were always hard, but this one was harder yet.

  If she could, she’d press rewind and live yesterday all over again. They’d done absolutely nothing but eat and make love all day. Well, she’d done nothing but eat and make love all day. Jack had managed to fix her leaky washing machine, repair the bookshelves in her bedroom, oil the hinges of the garage door and shovel another bazillion tons of snow off the driveway. All the while insisting she sit in front of the fire with a book, a glass of wine and a blanket.

  He didn’t take no for an answer. The only thing he let Caroline do was cook, then wolfed down whatever she put in front of him. They’d made love in front of the fire, in the shower and several times in her bed and she’d slept like a log afterwards.

  It felt as if she and Jack had been living in a delightful little Christmas bubble, cut off from the outside world and its cares. But now the outside world loomed, and she had to face it, starting with driving them into town over icy roads with bald tires and no spare.

  “Weather looks bad.” She sighed.

  “Yeah.” He glanced at his watch with a frown. The doorbell rang. “About time,” Jack muttered, and went to the front door.

  Someone was standing there with a form and a set of keys. Behind him, on the street, was a big black Explorer. Jack signed the form and took the keys. When the door closed behind him, he dangled the keys in front of her, and said, “Wheels.”

  He bent and gave her a quick kiss.

  “What?”

  Jack pointed to the Explorer outside. “I rented that for a week, until I can find something to buy. It’s no weather to be driving around with bald tires. I’ll drive you in and drive you back until the weather clears up.”

  A couple of days ago, Caroline would have objected, out of pride if nothing else. But she’d almost got them killed Friday night, so she said nothing.

  He helped her into her coat and put on his denim jacket.

  Caroline fingered his jacket. “You need warmer clothes.”

  “Yeah. I’ll buy some today.”

  “The cheapest place in town is Posy’s, and the Christmas sales have already begun, so you should get some good deals. Or you could maybe try The Clothes Factory on State Street. They have used clothes, sometimes very good ones. I shop there a lot. I hate thinking of you going out in this weather with only this jacket.”

  He looked down at her, eyes dark and unfathomable. “I’ll be okay,” he said softly. “Don’t worry about me.”

  Don’t worry. Caroline nearly sighed. Worry had been her middle name for so many years now that she’d forgotten what it was like not to worry.

  She looked up at him, hand still on his jacket. She was stalling and she knew why. “I don’t want to go out,” she whispered.

  He picked her hand up and brought it to his mouth. “No,” he said simply.

  Outside was cold and bleak, another country. A country of problems and hardships. Inside was warm and safe, where nothing could touch her.

  Except Jack, of course.

  Caroline stepped forward and put her arms around his lean waist and burrowed in. His arms went around her immediately. There was one thing to be said for dressing lightly, she could hear his heartbeat, strong and steady. Just like him.

  She had a sudden panicky intuition that this weekend had been a mirage. Maybe she’d invented a Jack Prescott out of her loneliness and depression. He’d done nothing but give, filled her with warmth, shown her a sensuality she had no idea existed.

  “I can’t tell you what this weekend has meant to me,” she whispered, holding him tightly. The happiness she’d felt seemed to her like smoke, already dissipating in the air. The more closely she tried to clutch it, the more quickly it vanished.

  Walking outside her front door scared her, like leaving an enchanted castle to face lions and tigers.

  She felt a kiss on the top of her head, and Jack stepped back. His eyes were like dark flames. “We either go now,” he said, “or we go back to bed. Your call.”

  Put like that, well…Did she want to spend the day in the bookshop, with maybe three customers all morning if she was lucky, go over her accounts—which always made her wince—longing for the day to be finally over, or did she want to spend the day in bed with Jack, being pampered with fabulous sex?

  Tough call.

  But she was hardwired for duty, and she had a lunch date with Jenna, so she sighed, and said, “Go now.”

  Jack opened the door and ushered her out with a hand to her back. “Spend the day thinking about what you’re going to cook for me for dinner.”

  He laughed and evaded her elbow.

  Jack was doing one of the hardest things he’d ever done in a lifetime of hard things. He didn’t dump a massive amount of money into Caroline’s bank account. Did not did not did not. He had to grit his teeth to keep from doing it, but he managed.

  He was at a Summerville bank. It didn’t matter which one—he’d chosen it because it was next door to a Starbucks, so he could go to the bank and get a good cup of coffee at the same time. The important thing was that it wasn’t Caroline’s bank.

  He knew which bank she kept an account in. He also knew how much money was in that account, and he knew how big her debt was. She banked at the Central Savings & Loan, she had less than $1,000 in her checking account—almost $2,000 with his month’s rent and deposit—and she was $354,759 in the red.

  Caroline was entirely too trusting. Her bank records were kept right out on her desk for all the world to see.

  Knowing she had essentially nothing except debts, he deliberately chose another bank, any other bank, because if he went to hers, the temptation would be overwhelming simply to shift money from his account to hers.

  A million, two. Hell, even three, what did he care? He had more than enough for his needs for the rest of his life, and it would be worth every penny to see those slight frown lines caused by money worries disappear.

  Well, all in due time. It would happen, just not today. Caroline was no dummy, and it wouldn’t be hard for her to connect him appearing in her life together with a large sum of money showing up in her bank account.

  His turn up at the window. There was a perky brunette, who made no attempt to hide her interest.

  “Yes, sir? May I help you?”

  He’d take care of diversifying in stocks and bonds later. For now, he just wanted to dump the money in an account.

  “Yes, I want to open a bank account and get a safe-deposit box.”

  The smile was frankly flirtatious now. “Yes, sir. Please fill out this form. We’ll need your address and telephone number. Will you be making a cash deposit or check?”

  “Cashier’s check.”

  Jack filled the form out quickly, putting Caroline’s address and phone number down. He slid it across the counter together with the cashier’s check for $8 million and change.

  The teller turned it around, running a quick, experienced eye down the form, then glanced at the check and did a double take. A quick look at him, smile gone, and with a murmured, “I’ll be right back, sir,” she disappeared.

  Jack was prepared to wait for as long as it took, but she came back immediately with a short man who was going to fat. Clearly the branch manager.
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  “If you’ll just step this way, sir,” the man said, pointing to a door. Jack entered first. It shouldn’t take long for the bank to check with his own bank in North Carolina. A couple of calls later, the money was deposited, and Jack had put the diamonds in a safe-deposit box.

  Putting the cloth bag into the flat box gave him a huge sense of relief. Even through the cloth, they felt hard, even hostile. Cold lumps of pure evil. He’d taken them from Deaver because he couldn’t stand even the thought of someone profiting from the massacre he’d been helpless to stop and because there’d been no one left alive in the village to give them to. And turning them over to the Sierra Leone authorities…Jack had rarely seen a more vile or corrupt group of men. No, they were going to stay in the safe-deposit box until he could get them where they needed to go.

  When he’d finished his bank business, he stood outside, the gelid wind whipping at his clothes. So this was a Summerville winter.

  He turned his jacket collar up against the icy wind trying to drive needles of sleet into his neck and entered the Starbucks. He needed winter clothes, but he needed another infusion of hot coffee more.

  Jenna came into First Page in a whirl of sleet and the scent of pine. “My God, the weather’s awful!” she exclaimed as she rushed in, kissed Caroline on the cheek and handed her a pine wreath.

  Caroline smiled and turned the sign around to CLOSED, which is what she usually did when Jenna showed up for their Monday lunches. Tuesday to Saturday, she stayed open over the lunch hour, hoping for a few extra sales.

  No hope of that. Jenna was the first person to come into the bookstore today, and Caroline had a sinking feeling she’d be the last.

  She turned the small wreath around in her hand. “It’s lovely,” she said. And it was—finely made of pine branches with a red silk ribbon braided through it. She brought it to her nose and drew in the marvelous fresh scent of pine. “Thank you.”

  “Don’t thank me.” Jenna was removing layers of clothes, dumping them on the armchair. She hated the cold and always said that when her ship came in or she found a millionaire to marry, she’d move to the Bahamas. “Thank Cindy. She made it for you. I’m so proud of her. She found the instructions in a magazine and spent an entire evening on it.” She eyed the wreath proudly. “Not too shabby for a nine-year-old, eh?”

  “No, indeed.” Caroline carefully placed it on a side table, next to a pile of Christmas-themed books. “She’s coming along well. I’m glad to hear it.”

  “Thanks to you,” Jenna replied. “I’m so grateful to you, I don’t have words to tell you.”

  Caroline waved that off with a smile.

  Jenna had been her best friend all through high school. She’d married her high-school sweetheart instead of going to college, and had had two kids in quick succession—Mark, now twelve and Cindy, nine. Jenna had reveled in marriage and motherhood and had cut herself off from the outside world in a little haze of domesticity. When Caroline’s parents died, and Toby was left so damaged, Jenna had proved completely unable to cope with the idea of tragedy. She hadn’t come to the funeral, and she didn’t answer Caroline’s phone calls.

  It had been such a common reaction that Caroline didn’t even hold it against her. Lots of people somehow felt that bad luck could be contagious, and for a while after Toby’s funeral, Caroline noticed people crossing the street to avoid having to offer their condolences. Nobody likes bad news.

  Then last year, in the space of a week, Jenna’s husband left her for his secretary, and her father left her mother, who had just been diagnosed with Alzheimer’s.

  Jenna was left with two small children, a sick mother, no money and no job. She fell to pieces, leaning heavily on Caroline. For a while, Mark and Cindy had come to stay with Caroline while Jenna made arrangements for care for her mother and found herself a job as a bank teller. Mark and Cindy had been two shocked and scared kids when they’d arrived, their world having fallen apart. If there was one thing Caroline and Toby knew, it was your world falling down around you.

  Jenna placed a big bag on Caroline’s desk and started pulling out cartons. It was her week to buy.

  “God that smells good,” Caroline said eagerly, opening one and picking up the dim sum with her chopsticks, rolling her eyes in delight, “and tastes even better.”

  “Here,” Jenna held her carton out. “Try the beef in black bean sauce, it’s great. And it’s definitely not going onto my hips because I used up at least ten thousand calories walking here in the cold.”

  They dug in happily, the delicious warm food raising their spirits. “Ah, food, glorious food,” Jenna said, leaning back, excavating the last shred of chicken from the bottom of the carton, the chopsticks making a grating sound. “Better than sex.”

  Caroline smiled secretively. No, it wasn’t. Good as the food was, she’d just discovered that sex could be a whole order of magnitude better.

  “Speaking of which,” Jenna pointed the chopsticks at her. “Talk to me. I can’t believe you’ve got this gorgeous guy living with you and you never told me.”

  Caroline’s eyes rounded.

  Oh my God, what was this? Did Jenna have some kind of radar? Was Caroline somehow moving differently? I want you to feel me inside you all day, Jack had whispered in his deep dark voice while making love this morning, and she did. Every time she moved, she could almost feel his presence inside her, against her slightly swollen tissues. Her nipples rasped against her sweater, constantly reminding her how he’d suckled them hard.

  In an instant, her body had a flashback to that morning, spread-eagled out on the bed, like a sacrificial virgin in an ancient religion, watching him thrusting in and out of her…

  Caroline tried to control her breathing, her shaking hands. Oh God, she was in trouble if just the thought of him hurled her halfway to an orgasm. She had to calm herself down. She drew in a deep breath. “If you’re referring to my new boarder, um—”

  “Jack Prescott,” Jenna interrupted, a smug smile on her face. “Age thirty-one, former Army officer, and most important of all, tall, dark and handsome.” She wrinkled her nose. “Well…not handsome so much as sexy. And”—she rapped the chopstick on the table—“currently residing at 12 Maple Lane which just happens to be—ta da!—Greenbriars. So talk. Tell all. Where did you two meet? I mean it must have been since last Monday because surely you would have told me you’d started going out with someone? My God, that was quick! You haven’t even known him for a week, and you’re already living together. I mean, at warp speeds like that, can wedding bells be far behind? And let me tell you, couldn’t happen to a nicer girl.”

  “Whoa!” Caroline laughed, shaking her head. “It’s not—it’s not what you think.” She tried to sound prim and disinterested, but she knew that she was blushing beet red.

  And Jenna was no fool. Except for her husband, whose affair came as a total shock, she had excellent sexual radar. She’d been the first person to notice that the mayor and Amanda Riesenthal were having an affair.

  “I mean we—” Caroline bit her lip. She had no idea if Jack wanted to make public their—what was it? An affair? A weekend tumble? She hoped it was more than that, but until she knew what he thought, better not to advertise that they’d become lovers. So she tried to put it on safe ground. “He’s my new boarder. He showed up on Christmas Eve, and was I ever grateful. The Kippings left, I never had a chance to tell you, and I was stuck without the extra rent money. So Jack—Mr. Prescott—showing up and needing a room was a very lucky chance for me.”

  Jenna was listening, dark brown eyes wide open in surprise. She frowned. “He’s a boarder? Your boarder? That’s insane. What does he want with a room with you?”

  Caroline bristled a little. “Well, I know Greenbriars is a little uncomfortable, but I don’t think he could find a much better room at the price. He’d just arrived and needed a place to stay.”

  “Well, well why didn’t he go to the Carlton?” Jenna asked. “Or the Victoria?” The Carlton wa
s Summerville’s oldest hotel, a turn-of-the-century building recently restored. The Victoria was a modern five-star hotel, with a Jacuzzi in every room.

  That was rich, coming from Jenna, who barely made it to the end of the month on her salary. “The Carlton costs $190 a night and the Victoria costs $170. Why do you think he wanted a room?”

  “I have no idea.” Jenna shook her head, puzzled. “Unless he wanted to move in with you.”

  Caroline made an exasperated sound, picking up florets of stir-fried broccoli. “We’d never met before. How on earth could he want to move in with me if he didn’t know me?”

  “I have no idea. It just sounds weird to me, wanting to rent a room when he could go to a comfortable hotel. No offense, Caroline, but beautiful as Greenbriars is, it’s no match for the service and comfort at the Carlton. Or the luxuries at the Victoria.”

  Was Jenna being deliberately obtuse? “How could he afford to stay at the Carlton? Do you know what it would cost? Almost six thousand dollars a month. And he’s a former soldier. How could he afford that?”

  “Jesus,” Jenna whispered, wide-eyed. “You don’t know. You really don’t know.”

  “Know what?” Jenna didn’t answer. “Jenna, you’re scaring me. Know what? What should I know?”

  “I—I can’t talk.”

  Caroline was getting scared. Jenna was looking stricken, as if she had knowledge that Jack Prescott was really Jack the Ripper but had taken an oath not to reveal it. “Jenna—you’ve got to talk. What’s wrong with him? What’s wrong with Jack? He’s living in my home, Jenna. I have to know if there’s something wrong.”

  Jenna stared for a moment, face somber. Finally, she gave a little nod, as if coming to a secret decision. “Okay.” She swallowed and lay a hand over Caroline’s. “Okay, I’ll tell you, but you have to keep it a secret.” Her hand tightened. “You have to promise me.”

  Wide-eyed, throat tight, Caroline nodded.

  Jenna was leaning forward, watching Caroline’s eyes, looking so troubled that Caroline felt her heart clench.