by Nora Roberts
“Good.”
“Should I ask how things went before court?”
“I did my part. They said I could just, ah, pass off the . . . second round to Sage for transport in the morning. Then I guess we wait and see if any soldier makes a landing.”
“You don’t have to wait long these days.”
He shrugged, slipped his hands into his pockets. “I didn’t think of you.”
“Sorry?”
“I mean, you know, when I . . . donated. I didn’t think of you because it seemed rude.”
Layla’s lips twitched. “I see. Who did you think of?”
“They provide visual stimulation in the form of skin mags. I didn’t actually catch her name.”
“Men.”
“I’m thinking of you now.”
Her brows lifted when he walked back, locked the door. “Are you?”
“And I’m thinking I need you to come back to my office.” He came over, took her hand. “And put in a little overtime.”
“Why, Mr. O’Dell. If only I’d put my hair in a bun and worn glasses.”
He grinned as he drew her across the room, down the hall. “If only. But . . .” He let go of her hands to unbutton her crisp white shirt. “Let’s see what’s under here today.”
“I thought you wanted me to take a letter.”
“To whom it may concern, frilly white bras with—oh yeah—front hooks are now standard office attire.”
“I don’t think this one will fit you,” she said, then surprised him by tugging on his tie. “Let’s see what’s under here. I’ve thought about you, Mr. O’Dell.” She slid the tie off, tossed it aside. “About your hands, your mouth, about how many ways you used them on me.” She unhooked his belt as she backed him into his office. “About how many ways you might use them on me again.”
Like the tie, she whipped off the belt, let it fall. She shoved his suit jacket off his shoulders, tugged it away. “Start now.”
“You’re pretty bossy for a secretary.”
“Office manager.”
“Either way.” He bit her bottom lip. “I like it.”
“Then you’re going to love this.” She pushed him down into his desk chair, pointed a finger to keep him in place. Then with her eyes on his, wiggled out of her panties.
“Oh. Boy.”
After tossing them aside, she straddled him.
He’d been thinking couch, maybe the floor, but at the moment, with her mouth like a fever on his, the chair seemed perfect. He yanked at her shirt, closed his mouth over her lace-covered breast. This wasn’t a woman looking for slow seduction, but for fire and speed. So he used his hands, his mouth, and let her set the pace.
“As soon as you walked in, I wanted this.” She fumbled between them, dragged down the zipper of his trousers. “As soon as you walked in, Fox.”
She closed around him the moment he was inside her. Tightened as her head fell back, as she gasped. Then her lips were on his throat, on his face, were clashing against his in desperation as her hips pumped.
She took him over with her urgency, her sudden, fierce greed. He let himself be taken, be ruled. Unable to resist, he let himself be filled, and let himself empty. When he came, when his mind was still dazzled by his body’s race, she caught his face in her hands and rode him ruthlessly to her own end.
He continued to sit, bemused, after they’d gotten their breath back, even after she rose and started to step back into her panties.
“Wait. I think those are mine now.”
When she laughed, he solved the matter by getting up and snatching them out of her hand.
“Give me those. I can’t walk around without—”
“You and I will be the only ones who know. It’s already driving me crazy. I need to go up, change out of this suit. Come on up, then I’ll drive you home.”
“I’ll wait here, because if I go up there, you’ll get me into bed. Fox, I need those panties. They match the bra.”
He only smiled as he strolled out. He intended to get the bra later. And was considering having them preserved in Lucite, along with his desk chair.
ALL GOOD THINGS MUST COME TO AN END, FOX thought, as they spent the next few hours picking through the second journal, turning Ann’s ordinary words to every possible angle looking for hidden meanings. Once again, Gage’s demand to skip the hell ahead was outvoted.
“Same reasons against apply,” Cybil pointed out, taking advantage of the break to roll tension out of her neck and shoulders. “We have to consider the fact that she’s lost the man she loved, a traumatic event. That she’s about to give birth to triplets. And if that isn’t a traumatic event I don’t know what would be. This is her lull. She needs to steady herself and gear up at the same time. I think we have to respect that.”
“I think it’s more.” Layla reached out to touch the book Quinn had set down. “I think she’s writing about sewing, about cooking, about the heat because she needs some distance. She doesn’t write about Giles, about the deaths, what was done. She doesn’t write about what she thinks or fears about what’s going to happen. It’s all the moment.”
She looked at Fox, and he nodded.
“I’ve been leaning that way. It’s what she’s not writing about. Every day she gets through is an effort. She fills them with routines. But I can’t believe that she’s not thinking about before and after. Not feeling all of that. It’s not a lull so much as . . . She wanted us to find the journals, even this one that seems to be so full of daily debris. To me it says—she’s saying—that after great loss, personal sacrifice, horror, put a name on it. After that, before and after a new beginning, the births, there’s still life. That it’s still important to live, to go about your business. Isn’t that what we do, seven years at a time? We live, and that’s important.”
“And what the hell does that tell us?” Gage demanded.
“That part of the process is just living. That’s giving Twisse the finger, every day. Does it know? In whatever hellhole Dent took it to, does it know? I think it does, and I think it burns its ass that we get up every morning and do what we do.”
“I like it.” Quinn tapped a finger on her lips. “Maybe it even sucks on its power. It thrives on violent emotions, violent acts. When it’s able, it feeds on them, creates them and feeds. Wouldn’t the opposite be true? That ordinary emotions and acts, or loving ones starve it?”
“Sweetheart dance.” Layla straightened in her chair. “Ordinary, fun, happy. It came there to ruin that.”
“And before, in the dining room of the hotel. Sure it wanted to scare us off,” Quinn said to Layla. “But its choice of time and place may be a factor. There was a couple celebrating, flirting over candlelight and wine.”
“What do you do when a bee stings you?” Cybil asked.
“You swat at it. Maybe we’re giving him a few stings. We’ll take a closer look at the known incidents, known sightings. And this idea rolls into another for me. Writing something down gives it power, especially names. It’s possible she wanted to wait, or needed to wait until some time had passed. Until she felt more secure.”
“We wrote down the words,” Cal murmured. “We wrote down the words we said that night at the stone, for the blood brothers ritual.”
“Adding to their power,” Quinn agreed. “Writing, it’s another answer. We’re writing everything down. While that may be giving him more power—bringing him earlier— it’s giving him more stings.”
“When we know what we have to do, when we think we know what it’s going to take,” Fox continued, “we have to write it down. Like Ann did, like we did that night.”
“Signed in blood at the dark of the moon.”
Amused, Cybil glanced over at Gage. “I wouldn’t discount that.”
Gage rose to go to the kitchen. He wanted more coffee. He wanted, more than the coffee, a few minutes without the chatter. At this point, and as far as he could see for the next several points, it was all talk, no action. He was a patient man, had
to be, but he was starting to itch for action.
When Cybil came in he ignored her. It took some doing. She wasn’t a woman fashioned to be ignored, but he’d been working on it.
“Being irritable and negative doesn’t add much.”
He leaned back against the counter with his coffee. “That’s why I left.”
After a moment’s consideration, she opted for wine over tea. “You’re a little bored, too. But your way hasn’t finished the job. New days, new ways.” She mirrored his pose, leaning against the other counter with her wine. “It’s harder for people like you and me.”
“You and me?”
“We’re plagued with glimpses of what might come, and sometimes does. How do we know what to do, or if we should do anything, to stop it, or change it? If we do, will it be worse?”
“Everything’s a risk. That doesn’t worry me.”
“Annoys you though.” She sipped. “You’re annoyed right now because of the way things are shaping up.”
“How are things shaping up?”
“Our little group’s paired off. Q and Cal, Layla and Fox.
That leaves you and me, big guy. So you’re annoyed, and I can’t blame you. Just FYI, I’m no happier than you are with the idea that some hand of fate might be moving you and me together like chess pieces.”
“Chess is Fox’s game.”
She drew in a breath. “Dealing us into the same hand then.”
His brows rose in acknowledgment. “That’s why there’s a discard pile. No offense.”
“None taken.”
“You’re just not my type.”
When she smiled, just that way, a man heard siren songs. “Believe me, if I aimed at you, you wouldn’t have any other type. But that’s neither here nor there. I came in to propose a kind of alliance, a bargain, a deal. However it suits you.”
“What’s the deal?”
“That you and I will work together, we’ll fight together if it comes to it. We’ll join our particular talents when and if necessary. And I won’t seduce you or pretend to let you seduce me.”
“You wouldn’t be pretending.”
“There, we’ve each gotten a shot in. Score’s even. You’re here because you love your friends, however else you feel about this place, about some of the people in it, you love your friends and are absolutely loyal to them. I respect that, Gage, and I understand it. I love my friends, and I’m loyal to them. That’s why I’m here.”
Glancing toward the doorway, she took a slow sip of wine. “This town isn’t mine, but those people in the other room are. I’ll do whatever I need to do for them. So will you.
“So, do we have a deal?”
He pushed away from the counter, crossed to her. He stood close, his eyes on hers. She smelled, he thought, of mysteries that were exclusively female. “Tell me something. Do you believe we’re going to come out on the other side of this, throwing the confetti and popping the champagne?”
“They do. That’s almost enough for me. The rest is possibility.”
“I like probabilities better. But . . .” He held out a hand, taking hers when she offered it. “Deal.”
“Good. Then—” She started to step away, but he held her hand firm in his.
“What if I’d said no?”
“Then, I suppose I’d have been forced to seduce you and make you my love puppy to keep you in line.”
His grin spread, full of appreciation. “Love puppy my ass.”
“You’d be surprised. Or would if we didn’t have a deal.” She put down her wine to pat his hand before pulling hers free. Picking up her wine again, she started to walk out, then stopped, turned back. The amusement was gone. “He’s in love with her.”
Fox, Gage realized. Cal was already a given. “Yeah, I know.”
“I don’t know if he does, certainly Layla doesn’t. Yet. It makes them stronger, and it makes it all more difficult for them.”
“Fox especially. That’s his story,” Gage said, with finality, when her eyes asked how.
“All right. They’re going to need more of us soon, more from us. You’re not going to have the luxury of being bored much longer.”
“Did you see something?”
“I dreamed they were all dead, piled like offerings on the Pagan Stone. And my hands were red with their blood. Fire crawled up the stone, over the stone, and consumed them while I watched. While I did nothing. When it came out of the dark, it smiled at me. It called me daughter, and it embraced me. Then you leaped out of the shadows and killed us both.”
“That’s a nightmare, not a vision.”
“I hope to God you’re right. Either way, it tells me you and I have to start to work together soon. I won’t have their blood on my hands.” Her fingers tightened on the stem of her glass. “Whatever has to be done, I won’t have that.”
When she left, he stayed, and he wondered how much she would be willing to do to save the people they both loved.
NO TRACE OF SNOW REMAINED WHEN FOX LEFT his office in the morning. The sun beamed out of a rich blue sky that seemed to laugh at the mere idea of winter. On the trees the leaves of summer were in tight buds of anticipation. Pansies rioted in the tub in front of the flower shop.
He peeled off his coat—really had to start listening to the weather—and strolled as others did along the wide bricked sidewalks. He smelled spring, the freshness of it, felt it in the balm of the air on his face. It was too nice a day to huddle inside an office. It was a day for the park, or porch sitting.
He should take Layla to the park, hold her hand and stroll over the bridge, talk her into letting him push her on one of the swings. Push her high, hear her laugh.
He should buy her flowers. Something simple and springlike. The idea had him backtracking, checking traffic, then dashing across the street. Daffodils, he thought as he pulled open the door of the shop.
“Hi, Fox.” Amy sent him a cheery wave as she came in from the back. She’d run the Flower Pot for years, and to Fox’s mind never tired of flowers. “Terrific day, huh?”
“And then some. That’s what I’m after.” He gestured to the daffodils, bright as butter in the glass refrigerated display.
“Pretty as a picture.” She turned, and in the glass, the dim reflection of her face grinned back at his with sharply pointed teeth in a face that ran with blood. Even as he took a step back, she turned around, smiling her familiar and pretty smile. “Who doesn’t love daffodils?” she said cheerfully as she wrapped them. “Are they for your girl?”
“Yeah.” I’m jumpy, he realized. Just jumpy. Too much in my head. As he got out his wallet to pay, he caught a scent under the sweet fragrance of blooms. A swampy odor, as if some of the flowers had rotted in water.
“Here you go! She’s going to love them.”
“Thanks, Amy.” He paid, took the flowers.
“See you later. Tell Carly I said hi.”
He stopped dead, spun around. “What? What did you say?”
“I said tell Layla I said hi.” Her eyes shone with puzzled concern. “Are you all right, Fox?”
“Yeah. Yeah.” He pushed through the door, grateful to be back outside.
As traffic was light, he walked across the street in the middle of the block. The light changed as a cloud rolled over the sun, and he felt a prickle of cold against his skin— the breath of winter out of a springtime sky. His hand tightened on the stems of the flowers as he whirled around, expected to see it, in whatever form it chose to take. But there was nothing, no boy, no dog, no man or dark shadow.
Then he heard her call his name. This time the cold washed over him, into him, through his bones, at the fear in her voice. She called out again as he ran, as he followed her terror to the old library. He rushed through the open door that slammed like death behind him.
Where there should have been empty space, some tables, folding chairs for what was now the community center, the room was as it had been years before. Books in stacks, the scent of them, the desks, the cart
s.
He ordered himself to steady. It wasn’t real. It was making him see what was not. But she screamed, and Fox ran for the steps, taking them two and three at a time. He ran on legs that trembled, that remembered running this way before. Up the stairs, up past the attic, to heave himself against the door leading out to the roof. When his body hurtled through, the early spring day had died into a hot summer night.
Sweat ran down his skin like water, and fear twisted tearing claws in his belly.
She stood on the ledge of the turret above his head. Even in the dark he could see the blood on her hands, on the stone that had torn at them when she climbed.
Carly. Her name pounded in his head. Carly, don’t. Don’t move. I’m coming up to get you.
But it was Layla who looked down at him. Layla’s tears spilling onto pale cheeks. It was Layla who said his name once, desperately. Layla who looked into his eyes and said, “Help me. Please help me.”
And Layla who dived off the ledge to die on the street below.
Fourteen
HE WOKE IN A COLD SWEAT WITH LAYLA SAYING his name over and over. The urgency in her voice, the solid grip of her hands on his shoulders pulled him out of the dream and back to the now.
But the terror came with him, riding on the raw and wrenching grief. He locked himself around her, the shape of her, the scent, the rapid beat of her heart. Alive. He hadn’t been too late, not for her. She was alive. She was here.
“Just hold on.” A shudder ripped through him, an echo of that stupefying fear. “Just hold on.”
“I am. I will. You had a nightmare.” While she murmured to him, her hands soothed at the knotted muscles of his back. “You’re awake now. It’s all right.”
Was it? he wondered. Would it ever be?
“You’re so cold. Fox, you’re so cold. Let me get the blanket. I’m right here, just let me get the blanket. You’re shaking.”
She pulled back, yanked up the blanket, then positioned herself so she could rub the warmth back into his arms. In the dim light, her eyes never left his face. “Better? Is that better? I’m going to get you some water.”