Blaire looked down at the stiff envelope in her hand. Darian had stepped around her toward the door and was picking up her things again. Glancing from the object in her hands to the fireplace in front of her, she knew what she needed to do. Darian needed to face up to his problems, not shove them away or run away from him. And for once he was going to do that. Whether he ever loved her or not, she was going to force him to face his problems and stop running.
She took two swift steps to the fireplace and tossed the documents into the fire. For a moment, she watched the flames lick and curl the edges. Then she turned to face him.
The look of surprise on his face was instantaneous. He leapt toward the fireplace to retrieve the papers, but Blaire quickly stepped in front of him. In anger, he bodily lifted her, and placed her to the side, out of his way, but when he turned back, the papers were consumed. Then he turned on her, and Blaire saw the fire in his eyes.
“Why did you do that?”
“You’ve got to stop running, Darian.”
He stepped closer. “You need to stay out of my business.”
“It’s my business too.”
He raked a hand through his hair. “Like hell it is. When did it become your business?”
Blaire stepped closer this time. “When you made love to me last night.”
Darian stepped back. “That has nothing to do with this.”
“That has everything to do with this, Darian. You’re pushing me away. You’ve giving up on your life. You’re signing away your inheritance. And I’m not going to stand around and watch you destroy yourself.”
“You don’t have to. Leave and you’ll never know the gruesome details.”
Blaire shook her head and stepped closer. “Uh-huh, no you don’t. Don’t play the pity party with me, Darian. Look, you’ve had a lot of rough times in your life. Probably worse than most people. Losing your child like that must have been devastating. I can’t imagine…”
“No, you can’t.” His look was pure steel.
Blaire paused at the pain radiating over his face and then continued softly. “But you’ve got to keep going, Darian. You’ve got to keep living. And just because you’ve made a vow to pay homage to your son this way for the rest of your life, doesn’t mean you have to throw your entire life away. You can’t throw it all away, Darian.”
“Yes, I can.”
“I’m not going to let you.”
“You can’t stop me.”
“I can try.”
“I don’t want you to, Blaire. I don’t want you. I don’t want the estate. All I want is to be left alone. If you love me, as you say you do, then you’ll respect that. You’ll leave me here to rot in my own time.”
“And wallow in your self-pity?”
“Perhaps.”
“Such a waste of a human life.”
“I’ve already wasted one life, why not another? And I’ll not waste yours right along with mine.”
Blaire turned her back to him. Her gaze rested on her clothing still lying on the foot of the bed. I don’t have a choice, do I? Then a thought struck her. “There’s nothing I can do to convince you to let me stay?”
After a moment, he answered softly. “No.”
Blaire closed her eyes and sighed. Momentarily, she opened them and walked to the bed, took her time dressing, and then turned and stood before him. “Then I guess there’s only one thing left for me to do.”
Before she reached the door, she turned to look one last time at his face. “I’m ready.”
He dropped his chin in a half-nod, as if he couldn’t acknowledge that she had finally relented. “All right.” He stepped toward her.
“Wait, uh, before I leave, I need to make a trip to the little girl’s room out back, if you don’t mind.”
Darian looked at her momentarily and then nodded. Blaire left.
When she returned, Darian’s back was to her as he stared out a window looking over the hills. “Ready?”
He looked toward her, his face ashen. Determined, she stepped across the room to retrieve her duffel bag and briefcase. She didn’t make eye contact as she passed him, exiting the still open door.
Darian followed.
The jeep was in the barn. Darian opened the barn doors wide. Stepping into the darkened building, he took her things, threw them into the back, then opened the canvas passenger door, and nudged her up into the old four-wheel drive vehicle—all the while, his demeanor sullen, his face fixed as if completing an unpleasant task. Blaire watched, her exterior the same as his, her insides tense.
Darian slipped into the jeep beside her, clutched with his left foot and placed his right foot on the accelerator, and then turned the ignition key. Nothing happened. He tried again. A hushed click filled the silence between them. Blaire looked at Darian.
With a deep sigh, he got out, lifted the hood, and then slammed it back down in disgust. Blaire fixed the questioning expression on her face. Darian stared at her through the windshield and then traipsed around to her door and jerked it open.
“What did you do with them?”
“What?” Blaire asked naively.
“The spark plug wires. What did you do with them?”
Blaire’s eyes grew wide. “I don’t know what you’re talking about, Darian.”
“The hell you don’t,” he mumbled as he let the door slap shut beside her. He stalked off.
Blaire followed, the corners of her mouth turning up slightly. It worked! If it worked for the nuns in The Sound of Music, then she could stop one angry man from ruining his life—and hers too.
She needed more time, and if misplacing the spark plug wires of Darian’s jeep bought her that time, then she would do it. She watched as he stomped up the porch steps, entered the cabin, letting the outside door slam shut behind him. She smiled as she glanced at the outhouse majestically angled behind the cabin in the snow, her footsteps decorating the path from her earlier trek there.
Certainly, she didn’t relish the notion of walking the two miles back to her car in a foot of snow—he wouldn’t make her do that, would he? Looked like she’d be forced to spend one or two more nights alone with Mr. Darian MacGlenary.
Whether he liked it or not.
****
You can give me love. It’s the one thing I’ve never had in my entire life.
Darian felt the heat of the fire waft over his body. Even with his eyes closed, he could see Blaire’s pitiful face as she spoke those words to him. He could still hear her soft pleading, feel the pounding of her heart. Or maybe it was his own heart.
We shared something last night, Darian. We both did.
It was his heart he felt. Pounding. Her words tore the heart right out of his chest. Beating, pumping blood, and all. Tore it right out and he thought he would die. She wanted him to love her.
She wants me to love her.
What do I want?
Didn’t she know how foolish that would be for her? Couldn’t she tell how painful it was for him? Did she dare think he would love her back? How could she expect that of him? He wasn’t capable of love anymore. Never would be again.
He’d been a rude son-of-a-bitch all day. For days. Not that he’d physically hurt her, he would never do that. He just refused to acknowledge her presence. Refused to talk to her. Turned his back on her whenever she approached him. A rude son-of-a-bitch was exactly what he was. A goddamned asshole. Sooner or later she’d get the message, he was sure. Sooner or later. He just hoped he could hold out that long. It was killing him being this way toward her. Killing him more than he cared to admit.
But finally, she got the message. She left him alone, turned her back on him also, and went to bed.
It was the first sigh of relief he’d breathed for days.
She was trouble. He knew it the first day he saw her. Trouble with a capital T. He knew he’d lost all self-control the first time he picked her up off the ground and held her. When he’d comforted her during the night. When he began breaking all his rules. An
d then he’d had the nerve to make love to her.
He had cared. He had become involved. And like it or not, he had fallen in love. She would never know that though. It was hard enough admitting it to himself, he would never admit it.
It couldn’t happen. It wouldn’t happen. He wouldn’t let it happen. The love he felt for her would not be allowed to grow. He could handle it like this. He could remember the one night they shared and it would be enough to carry him forward. Yes, that would be all they’d share. It couldn’t go any further than that. Their love would not grow.
Tomorrow, come hell or high water—and with her anything was possible—she was heading back to Vermont. Even if he had to drag her there himself.
****
At first, Blaire wasn’t quite sure what had happened.
When she first woke, she rolled over fully expecting to find the brooding Darian flipping eggs or busily scribbling in his journal, intent on ignoring her—but it wasn’t to be. She woke to an ice-cold cabin, no familiar smell of cooking breakfast, no aroma of wood smoke, and no Darian. Panicking, Blaire bolted upright in the bed and glanced about. Her gear was still stashed by the door, but—
Darian was gone.
Gone? Dammit!
Jumping out of bed, she frantically scanned the cabin. Some of his dresser drawers were cocked open. Rushing across the room, she jerked on one, it fell open. Empty. Whipping her head around behind her, she rushed to the cabinet at the back of the room and jerked on the stuck door once more so that it fell open with ease and she again landed on her backside on the cold plank floor. This time, however, no boot box full of memorabilia sailed out at her. Rising, she cautiously further pushed both doors open to peer inside. It was gone. The pictures, the pacifier, the cards. Gone. And that could only mean one thing.
Darian was running again.
Damn! Blaire spun around so quickly after slamming the cabinet doors closed that she fell hard against the floor. Tears streamed down her face as she pounded the planks with her fist, cursing the day she met Darian MacGlenary—and the day she let him love her. The day she let herself love him back.
Tears spent, she picked herself up off the floor, changed into warm clothing for hiking, rolled up the T-shirt she’d been sleeping in and stuffed it into her duffel bag. Without a backward glance, she picked up her gear and left the cozy little cabin tucked in the “holler” and hiked the two miles back to her car. Without another thought, she pointed herself toward Vermont and realized that nothing had really changed in her life. Once more she was coming home a failure. Mastin would remind her of that often enough, she was sure. But this time things were slightly different. She’d not only screwed up her career, but her entire life as well.
Chapter Eight
Blaire sat at her desk and picked up the phone for perhaps the eleventh time that afternoon. She peered out the window at the snow piling up on the deep Victorian windowsills of her second-floor office. That the phone rang at all was in itself something to take note of, she’d had barely a phone call in the three weeks she’d been back, in total. The past three hours it had rung off the wall.
But the disturbing part were the hang-ups—no one on the other end of the line. Every. Time.
Blaire shook her head, replaced the receiver, and returned to look at the snow. When she’d arrived back home, the hills were as snow-barren as she’d ever seen them, but now the huge fluffy flakes lazily drifted to the ground striking up a remembrance she’d just as soon not recall. The mountains overlooking the village reminded her too much of the place she’d just as soon forget.
Back to work, Blaire.
She glanced at her desktop and frowned at the photos scattered across it. This case was going nowhere. Just like her, evidently. The sparse four walls of her office were evidence of that. She’d had no time to settle in, and no money to decorate. And she refused to ask her father for a loan.
She really was going to have to move out of Trenton to get anywhere with this business, she decided, her pencil tapping out a rhythm on the Formica desktop. Too many people knew her here, knew her father. Too small a town. Nothing really ever happens here, not a big enough city to support a private investigator business….
Suddenly then, she made her decision. She had to start over somewhere else.
Are you running, Blaire?
No! I’m not running, I’m trying to build a business. And I can’t do it finding lost pets and running after Miles Morgan’s wife all day trying to get compromising pictures of her and the paperboy to prove what everyone in this two-bit town has known for years: she’s a patsy for young boys. Well, everyone but Miles. He’s simply the kind you’ve got to draw a picture for—or take one, at least.
Raking the photos into an open drawer, Blaire jumped as the door to her office flew open bouncing off the wall behind it. Then in walked the man she really had no desire to see at the moment. Particularly when she was feeling so melancholy.
Her father.
“Mastin. What are you doing here?” She shut her desk drawer.
Mastin Kincaid swept his burly body across the room and then stopped square in front of her desk. His hands were buried in the pockets of his expensive overcoat, cheeks ruddy from the brisk temperatures outside, small crystals of snow frosting his precision-cut coal black, silver streaked hair. His ice blue eyes penetrating as only they could.
“How long have you been back?” he barked.
Blaire swallowed. “Three weeks.”
An incisive grin broke across his face and he leaned over the desk, bracing his upper body with his hands. “Then why haven’t you called me, punkin? I would have taken you to dinner.” He reached out and affectionately squeezed Blaire’s cheek.
She grimaced and pulled away. Dinner was Mastin’s way of making up for lost time. She’d had enough dinners to last her a lifetime. Blaire stood and walked to the window, and stared at the street below. “I’ve been busy.” Then she turned back. “Besides, you’ve been in D.C., haven’t you?”
Her father ignored the question. He’d traveled around the desk, his eyes riveted to one of the photos sticking out of the drawer. Then he reached for it. Blaire stiffened and sucked in a quick breath.
“How’s the new career? Busy?” he sarcastically queried of her, holding up the photo of Karen Morgan sucking face with the pubescent bag boy from the grocery store, the likes of which would rival Electrolux, Blaire thought.
Quickly, she cut the distance between them and snatched the picture out of his hand. “Quite,” she said and then stuffed the picture back in the drawer as Mastin watched.
“No need to be embarrassed, dear.”
“Embarrassed?” Blaire choked on her nervous laughter. “What do I have to be embarrassed about?” Then she realized she was biting her fingernails. He always made her bite her fingernails. She shoved her hands into the pockets of her blue jeans.
Mastin turned, the disapproving-father look on his face that she so despised. “Embarrassed that you haven’t made a go at this attempt at a career either.” He glanced around the room. “You know, I thought after that attempt at the catering business you would have learned your lesson, particularly when the Raspberries Flambé caught Carolyn Van der Meter’s draperies on fire. And remember that disaster of a pet sitting service you had in college? The one in which I had to pay off the Humane Society so they wouldn’t file suit against us? Then of course there was the incident with the vending machines—I’m not sure we’ll ever quite live that one down. Not to mention that stint on the police force…”
Blaire’s cheeks were on fire. “That’s enough, Father,” she returned coldly.
Mastin cocked an eyebrow at her. “Father? You usually only reserve that tone of voice and that particular endearment when you’re extremely agitated with me Blaire. What is it? Is it me, or this particular career move that has you so out of sorts?”
Blaire hated his repeated use of the word “particular.” It drove her up the wall. Closing her eyes momentarily, she ga
thered a bit of strength and then opened them as she exhaled. “I’m twenty-nine years old, Mastin. Let me make my own way in the world. Let me fall on my face.”
“You’ve certainly done that enough,” he interrupted.
Blaire grimaced and continued. “And let me pick myself back up by the bootstraps. This is the career I’m sticking with. I loved the work I did on the police force—that’s why I majored in law enforcement in the first place. I know it wasn’t good enough for you, but this is me. Let me make my own mistakes. I know I’m not going to make a go of it chasing Karen Morgan around for the rest of her days…that’s why I’ve recently made some career decisions.”
Mastin’s right eyebrow arched. “Oh?”
Blaire really didn’t want to get into this with him, but she did anyway. “I’m relocating the business. I’m not sure where, but I’m going to take my time to find the right place. Until then, I’ll stay here and finish up the few jobs I have.”
“Did you finish that MacGlenary thing?”
Blaire froze. He knew about that? “Yes,” she lied. “It’s finished.”
“Not according to Reva MacGlenary.”
“What?” Blaire met her gaze and held. She’d settled everything with Reva MacGlenary right down to the penny. She’d given back all of the money minus her expenses. “What are you talking about?”
“I keep close contact with my constituents, Blaire. Especially the important ones. You know that. Reva is a very powerful and very opinionated constituent. She’s totally unsatisfied with your work, you know. Not very good for advertising.”
The nerve of that woman! Blaire turned her back to her father. “I’ll handle it,” she grumbled.
“See that you do, dear. That woman is worth a lot of votes. I shouldn’t like to miss out on them come election time.” Blaire bit her lower lip to keep her tongue from flapping out words she had no business saying to her father. Actually, she wasn’t sure who she was madder at, him or at Reva. She certainly didn’t need a bad reputation starting out in this business.
Another reason to relocate, Blaire.
She turned to her father. “Like I said. I’ll handle it.”
Body Heat (Vintage Category Romance) Page 10