LOVE WITH THE PROPER STRANGER

by Suzanne Brockmann

  "I don't know – who cares?"

  "I care. Take a guess."

  Mariah sighed in exasperation. "Filthy rich, I think. He inherited a company that makes car alarms."

  "You said he's been ill? Nothing serious, I hope."

  Mariah sighed again. "Actually, it is serious. He's got cancer. He's just had a round of chemotherapy. I think the prognosis is good, but there's never any guarantees with something like this."

  "What did you say his name was?"

  "Jonathan Mills."

  "It's probably smart to keep your distance. If you're not careful, you could end up a widow. Of course, in his case, that means you'd inherit his car alarm fortune, so it could be worse—"

  "Serena!" Mariah stared at her friend. "Don't even think that. He's not going to die."

  The blonde was unperturbed. "You just told me that he might." She stood up. "Look, I've got to run. Thanks for the tea. See you later tonight."

  Mariah frowned. "Later...tonight?"

  "My party. You've forgotten, haven't you? Lord, Mariah, you're hopeless without your date book."

  "No, I'm relaxed without my date book. Oh, that reminds me – can I borrow your car this afternoon? Just for an hour?"

  Serena looked at her watch. "I'm getting my hair done at half past two. If you want to drive me to the salon, you can use the car for about an hour then."

  "Perfect. Except I'm not sure I can make it to the party – I'm tentatively scheduled to have dinner again with John." Except she wasn't. Not really. She'd asked, but he'd run away.

  "Bring him. Call him, invite him to my party, and bring him along with you. I want to meet this friend of yours. No excuses," Serena said sternly as she disappeared down the deck steps.

  Mariah gazed after her. Call him. Invite him to the party. Who knows? Maybe he'd actually agree to go.

  *

  He was the one. The gray-faced man from the resort.

  She'd recognized him right away.

  The fact that he'd spent the night with that silly cow only served to make him even more perfect.

  Tonight she would begin to cast her spell. Tonight she would allow herself to start thinking about the dinner she would serve him.

  Oh, it was still weeks away – maybe even months. But it was coming. She could taste it.

  And tomorrow morning, she would go shopping for the perfect knife.

  *

  The message light on his telephone was blinking when Miller returned to his suite of rooms after lunch.

  Daniel had the portable surveillance equipment set up in the living room. The system was up and running when Miller came in. Daniel was wearing headphones, listening intently, using his laptop computer to control the volume of the different microphones they'd distributed throughout Serena Westford's house. The DAT recorder was running – making a permanent record of every word spoken in the huge beach house.

  "Lots of activity," Daniel reported, his eyes never leaving his computer screen. "Some kind of party is happening over at the spider's web tonight."

  "I know." Miller picked up the phone and dialed the resort desk. "Jonathan Mills," he said. "Any messages?"

  "A Mariah Robinson asked to leave voice mail. Shall I connect you to that now, sir?" the desk clerk asked.

  "Yes. Please."

  There was a whirr and a click, and then Mariah's voice came on the line.

  "John. Hi. It's me, Mariah. Robinson. From, um, last night? God, I sound totally lame. Of course you know who I am. I just...I wanted to invite you to a party that a friend is having tonight—"

  "Jackpot," Miller said.

  Daniel glanced in his direction. "Party invitation?"

  Miller nodded, holding up his hand. Mariah's message wasn't over yet.

  "...going to start at around nine," her voice said, "and I was thinking that maybe we could have dinner together first – if you're free. If you want to." He heard her draw in a deep breath. "I'd really like to see you again. I guess that's kind of obvious, considering everything that happened this morning." She hesitated. "So, call me, all right?" She left her phone number, then the message ended.

  Miller really wanted to see her again, too. Really wanted to see her again.

  Daniel glanced at him one more time, and Miller realized he was standing there, staring at nothing, listening to nothing. He quickly hung up the phone.

  "Everything all right?" Daniel asked.

  "Yeah." He was well aware that Daniel had said not one word about the fact that Miller hadn't come back to the hotel last night until after dawn. The kid hadn't even lifted an eyebrow.

  But now Daniel cleared his throat. "John, I don't mean to pry, but—"

  "Then don't," Miller said shortly. "Not that it's any of your business, but nothing happened last night." But even as he said the words, Miller knew they were a lie. Something had happened last night. Mariah Robinson had touched him, and for nearly eight hours, his demons had been kept at bay.

  Something very big had happened last night.

  For the first time since forever, John Miller had slept.

  *

  Mariah was dressing up.

  She couldn't remember the last time she'd worn anything besides shorts and a T-shirt or a bathing suit. She'd gone to Serena's other parties in casual clothes. But tonight, she'd pulled her full collection of dresses – all four of 'em – out of the back of her closet. Three of them were pretty standard Sunday-best, goin'-to-meeting-type affairs, with tiny, demure flowers and conservative necklines.

  The fourth was black. It was a short-sleeved sheath cut fashionably above the knee, with a sweetheart neckline that would draw one's eyes – preferably Jonathan Mills's eyes – to her plentiful assets. Her full breasts were, depending on her mood, one of her best features or one of her worst. Tonight, she was going to think positively. Tonight they were an asset.

  She briefly considered sheer black stockings, but rejected them in place of bare legs and a healthy coating of Cutter's – in consideration of the sultry evening heat.

  Usually when she went out with a man, she wore flats, but Jonathan Mills was tall enough for her to wear heels. They might make her stand nose to nose with him, but she wouldn't tower over him.

  Since the moment he'd called to tell her that he wasn't available for dinner but he'd love to go to the party with her, Mariah had been walking on air. She was ridiculously excited about seeing him again – she'd thought about almost nothing else all afternoon.

  She couldn't remember the last time she'd felt this way. Even in college, when she was first dating Trevor, she hadn't felt this giddy.

  Even the dark cloud of anxiety cast by John's potentially terminal illness didn't faze her tonight. They'd caught the cancer early, he'd told her. The survival rate for this type of cancer was high. He was going to live. Positive thinking.

  Mariah felt another surge of anticipation as she slipped into her shoes and stepped back to look at herself in the mirror.

  She looked...sexy. She looked...well proportioned. It was true that those proportions were extra large, but they had to be to fit her height. And in this case, she was using her body to her advantage. In this dress, with this neckline, she had cleavage with a capital C. All that without a WonderBra in sight.

  The doorbell rang, and she smoothed the dress over her hips one last time, leaning closer to check her lipstick.

  Ready or not, her date had come.

  Praying that she wasn't coming on too strong, what with the attack of the monster cleavage and all, Mariah opened her front door.

  "Hi," she said breathlessly.

  John's eyes skimmed down her once, then twice, then more slowly, before coming back to rest on her face as he smiled. "Wow. You look...incredible."

  She stepped back and opened the door wider to let him in.

  "Incredibly tall," he added as he noted the heels that put them eye to eye.

  Was that a compliment? Mariah took it as one. "Thank you," she said, leading the way into the kitchen. "
I'm ready to go, but I wanted to show you something first."

  He was dressed a whole lot more casually than she, in a faded pair of jeans, time-softened leather boat shoes and a sport jacket over a plain T-shirt.

  "I think I might be underdressed," he said.

  "Don't worry about it. Knowing Serena's friends, there'll be an equal mix of sequined gowns and tank tops over swimsuits." Mariah opened the door to the basement.

  "Serena?" he asked.

  "Westford," she told him, turning on the switch that lit the stairs going down. "She lives a little more than three miles north, just up the road."

  "Is she one of the Boston Westfords? Funny, maybe I know one of her brothers."

  Mariah shook her head, poised at the top of the stairs. "She hasn't talked about Boston. Or any brothers. When we met, she did give me a business card with a Hartford hotel, but I think that was only a temporary address. I think she lived in Paris for a few years." She started down, careful of the rough wooden steps in her heels. "Aren't you coming?"

  "Into the basement? Is your darkroom down there?"

  "My darkroom's down here," Mariah told him, "but that's not what I want to show you."

  She turned on another light.

  The ceiling was low, and both she and John had to duck to avoid pipes and beams. But it was a nice basement, as far as basements went. The concrete floor had been painted a light shade of gray and it had been carefully swept. Boxes were neatly stacked on utility shelves that lined most of the walls.

  A washer and dryer stood in one corner, along with a table for folding laundry. Another corner had been walled off to make the darkroom.

  But she led him to the open area of the basement, where an entire concrete-block wall and the floor beneath it had been cleared. Only one box sat nearby, in the middle of the room on top of a broken chair.

  Mariah reached inside and pulled out one of the plates she'd bought dirt cheap at a tag sale that afternoon, when she's borrowed Serena's car. It was undeniably one of the ugliest china patterns she'd ever seen in her life. She handed it to John.

  He stared at it, perplexed.

  "It occurred to me this morning that you probably never give yourself the opportunity to really vent," she explained.

  "Vent."

  "Yes." She took another plate from the box. "Like this." As hard as she could, she hurled the china plate against the wall. It smashed into a thousand pieces with a resounding and quite satisfying crash.

  John laughed, but then stopped. "You're kidding, right?"

  "No." She gestured to the plate in his hands. "Try it."

  He hesitated. "Don't these belong to someone?"

  "No. Look at it, John. Have you ever eaten off something that unappetizing? It's begging for you to break it and put it out of its misery."

  He hefted it in his hand.

  "Just do it. It feels...liberating." Mariah took another plate from the box and sent it smashing into the wall. "Oh, yeah!"

  John turned suddenly and, throwing the plate like a Frisbee, shattered it against the wall.

  Mariah handed him another one. "Good, huh?"

  "Yeah."

  She took another herself. "This one's for my father, who didn't even ask if I wanted to spend nearly seven years of my life working eighty hour weeks, who didn't even try to quit smoking or lose weight after his doctor told him he was a walking heart attack waiting to happen, and who died before I could tell him that I loved him, the bastard." The plate exploded as it hit the wall.

  John threw his, too, and reached into the box for another before she could hand him one.

  "This one's the head of the bank officer who wouldn't approve the Johnsons' loan for a Foundations for Families house even when the deacons of their church offered to co-sign it, all on account of the fact that she's a recovering alcoholic and he's an ex-con, even though they both have good, steady jobs now, and they both volunteer all the time as sponsors for AA."

  The two plates hit the wall almost simultaneously.

  "We only have time for one more," Mariah said, breathing hard as she prepared to throw her last plate of the evening. "Who's this one for, John? You call it."

  He shook his head. "I can't."

  "Sure you can. It's easy."

  "No." He glanced at the plate he was holding loosely in his hands. "It gets too complicated."

  "Are you kidding? It simplifies things. You break a plate instead of someone's face."

  "It's not always that easy." He gazed searchingly into her eyes as if trying to find the words to explain. But he gave up, shaking his head. Then he swore suddenly, sharply. "This one's for me." He threw the plate against the wall so hard that shards of ceramic shot back at them. He moved quickly, shielding her.

  "Whoa!" Mariah said. She wasn't entirely sure what he meant by that, but he was catching on.

  "I'm sorry. God—"

  "No, that was good," she said. "That was very good."

  He had a tiny piece of broken plate in his hair, and she stepped toward him to pull it free.

  He smelled delicious, like faintly exotic cologne and coffee.

  "We should get going," he murmured, but he didn't step back, and she didn't, either, even after the ceramic shard was gone.

  As Mariah watched, his gaze flickered to her mouth and then back to her eyes. He shook his head very slightly. "I shouldn't kiss you."

  "Why not?" He'd shaved, probably right before he'd come to pick her up, and his cheeks looked smooth and soft. Mariah couldn't resist touching his face, and when she did, he closed his eyes.

  "Because I won't want to stop," he whispered.

  She leaned forward and brushed his lips with hers. With her heels on, she didn't even need to stand on her toes. She kissed him again, as softly and gently as before, and he groaned, pulling her into his arms and covering her mouth with his.

  Mariah closed her eyes as he kissed her hungrily, his tongue possessively claiming her mouth, his hands claiming her body with the same proprietary familiarity.

  But just as suddenly as he'd given in to his need to kiss her, he pulled himself away, holding her at arm's length. "You're dangerous," he gasped, half laughing, half groaning. "What am I going to do with you?"

  Mariah smiled.

  "No," John said, backing even farther away. "Don't answer that."

  "I didn't say anything," she protested.

  "You didn't have to. That wicked smile said more than enough."

  Mariah started back up the stairs. "What wicked smile? That was just a regular smile."

  When she reached the top of the stairs, she realized he wasn't behind her.

  "John?" she called.

  From the basement, she heard the sound of a shattering plate.

  "Did that help?" she asked with a smile, as he came up the stairs.

  He shook his head. "No." His expression was so somber, his eyes so bleak, all laughter gone from his face. "Mariah, I'm...I'm really sorry."

  "Why, because you want to take some time before becoming involved? Because you're trying to deal with a life-threatening illness? Because it's so damn unfair and you're mad as hell? Don't be sorry about that." She gazed at him. "We don't have to go to this party. We can stay here and break some more plates." She paused. "Or we could talk."

  He tried to smile, but it didn't quite cancel out the sadness in his eyes. "No, let's do it," he said. "I'm ready to go." He took a deep breath. "As ready as I'll ever be."

  Chapter 5

  Serena Westford. She was small and blond and green-eyed with a waist Miller could probably span with his hands. Her fingernails were perfectly manicured, her hair arranged in a youthful style. She was trim and lithe, dressed in a tight black dress that hugged her slender curves and showed off her flat stomach and taut derriere to their best advantage. She had sinewy muscles in her arms and legs that, along with that perfect body, told of countless hours on the Nautilus machine and the StairMaster.

  She was beautiful, with a body that most men would die for.r />
  But Miller knew more than most men.

  And even if she wasn't his only suspect in a string of grisly murders, he still wouldn't have wanted to give her more than a cursory glance.

  But she was his suspect, and even though he didn't want to look at anyone but Mariah, he smiled into Serena's cat green eyes. He'd come into this game intending to do more than smile at this woman. He was intending to marry her. Until death – or attempted murder – do us part.

  Of course, his plan depended quite a bit on Serena's cooperation. And it was entirely possible that she wouldn't hone in on what Mariah was clearly marking as her territory with a hand nestled into the crook of his elbow. Serena was probably a killer, but Miller's experience had taught him that even killers had their codes. She may not hesitate to jam a stiletto into a lover's heart, but hitting on a girlfriend's man might not be acceptable behavior.

  And that would leave Miller out in the cold, forced to bring in another agent to do what? To play the part of his even more terminally ill friend? A buddy he'd met in the oncology unit of the hospital?

  God, if Serena wouldn't take his bait, the entire case could well be lost. Still, he found himself hoping...

  But Serena smiled back at him and held his hand just a little too long as Mariah introduced them, and Miller knew that he was looking into the eyes of a woman who had no kind of code at all. If she was interested, and he thought that she was, she would do what she wanted, Mariah be damned.

  "Look at us," the blond woman said, turning back to Mariah. "We're wearing almost exactly the same thing tonight. We're twins." She flashed a glance directly into Miller's eyes, just so that he knew she was well aware of the physical differences between the two women.

  Miller forced himself to smile conspiratorially back at Serena, knowing that Mariah was going to see the exchange, knowing that she was going to interpret it as friendliness. At first.

  Later, when she'd had time to think about it, Mariah would realize that he'd been flirting with her friend right from the start.

  "You wouldn't happen to be from the Boston area, would you?" be asked Serena, "I know a Harcourt Westford from my Harvard days – his family came from...I think it might've been Belmont."

  "No, as a matter of fact. I've never even been to Boston."