Hannah slid a little on the rocky slope.
Unthinking, Aaron caught her arm. Before he could release her, she halted. She looked blank for a moment, shook her head, then glanced up at him. “Wow. Spooky, but I think I like it.”
Slanting him a sideways look that tingled all his working parts, she returned to sliding down the hill.
Given what he’d been thinking right before he touched her, he was not going to ask what that was about.
Maybe she’d never been much interested in the men she’d dated because she hadn’t been able to read how they felt. Or maybe they didn’t feel things about her the way Aaron did. Or maybe she was just crazy.
But that jolt of insight into his desire had shredded every last cell in Hannah’s body and rearranged them. She thought Aaron had been treating her as a tool to be used as needed. She’d had no idea. . . Well, maybe she’d hoped, but she didn’t have radar for that sort of thing.
The surly antiques dealer desired her? Admired her? That just did not compute. She was the original invisible librarian. No man noticed her. She wasn’t cute, she wasn’t animated or vivacious. . . She was pretty much a plain nerd, all she lacked was the stereotypical spectacles.
Maybe she was imagining what she’d felt in his touch. At least she hadn’t fainted. Or seen knights in tarnished armor.
Focus, Hannah. Besides, Aaron was the one who was supposed to feel things by touching, not her. If he didn’t sense her desire, then he was blocking her as he did everyone else. Fine. Getting involved had never been on her agenda. She barely wanted to commit to teaching little kids. So if she wanted to believe that spirits might travel through time together, theirs were eternally doomed.
When they reached the dying grove of trees, she regarded the terrain with disappointment. “Looks no different than anywhere else. Lots of rocks, cactus, scrubby looking plants that probably aren’t heather. . .”
“It’s pretty in the spring, after a wet winter. That’s probably the best time to hunt for water. It naturally runs to the lowest point.” He studied the landscape. “The tree line goes both ways. I want to assume that the well to our left is the termination point, and that the mountain on our right would be where the stream flows from, but there’s a lower elevation straight ahead.”
“One that also has trees and is lower than this band of them.” Hannah tried to picture a stream flowing down the mountain to the old well and burial ground. The lower stand of trees didn’t fit the topography.
Aaron started down the rocky, dusty hillside to the misplaced trees. “But in a wet winter, with heavy rain flooding down the mountain, water might accumulate down there. If the well sprung a leak, that would be a natural drainage pool.”
“And if there had been a landslide during one of those floods. . .” Hannah slipped and slid down the hill after him. Good thing she’d worn her walking shoes this morning.
“And this is the kind of sandy ground that breaks up if you look at it crooked, so yeah, landslides are a given,” he finished for her.
“And if the soldier really did add his crystals to the native stone statues, they could have traveled downward from the burial ground with the landslide.” She halted on a large slab of slanted rock. Dead trees overhung it—similar to the living ones in Lance’s painting?
Aaron got down on his stomach and leaned over the precipitous edge. Hannah held her breath until he rolled back up. “Broken trees and rock, shifted earth, so yep, landslide in the last century or two. And any lamassu crystals washed down there are gone.”
That was a serious disappointment, but nothing that shouldn’t have been expected. Miracles didn’t really happen.
“Until another flood washes away the dirt—which may be what happened the year the commune turned this into a bathing pool.” Hannah sat on the rock edge planted firmly in the mountainside. “This could be where Val stood in the painting. Which means Carmel and her security guard came down from over there.” She nodded to the uphill slope.
“So if we assume Carmel’s rocks came from the hippies who used this swimming hole, we need to convince the Kennedys that they belong to an ancient graveyard, and they should return them? They’re teetering on the edge of bankruptcy, from all reports. If those stones are worth cash. . .”
“We’ll worry about it when the time comes, I guess. Maybe if they can be convinced the stones are the evil that drove their mother mad. . . Although I’m inclined to believe it was her own greed that did that, enhanced by whatever is in the stones maybe.” Hannah swung her legs over the edge of the rock and admired the few trees still struggling to survive. “Water would help a lot of people, wouldn’t it?”
“Harvey wants it for a winery. Amber’s movie star husband is willing to invest, but without water, it’s all dreams. If there really is water underground, it would have to be dammed for them to use it upstream. That won’t fix the grotto.” Aaron sat down beside her.
“There was enough water for a well once.” Hannah removed sandwiches from the backpack. “I don’t know about enough for a winery.”
Having a sensible conversation while sitting next to a man exuding power and charisma was an exhilarating experience, Hannah decided, one that amazingly achieved balance—both calming and energizing her.
“If we could find the killer, we might find the Healing Stone.” Aaron took the sandwich she offered but didn’t unwrap it.
“We need a better way to employ your skills.” Hannah sipped her water, trying not to admire the strength in the hands so close to hers. She really wanted to touch him again.
Aaron was way out of her league, she told herself. Older, well-traveled, better-educated, more talented, too handsome, too sophisticated. . . She’d never even had a real boyfriend. And she shouldn’t be thinking of a curmudgeonly ex-con in such a manner anyway. Knights in shining armor didn’t exist.
“Your enhancing ability might help.” He slugged back his water. “But most gifts have downsides. I’m not sure either of us is prepared for that.”
If she was prepared to die, she was prepared for anything. “Practice leads to preparation. I’m just uncertain what I can do. I’m uncertain about everything. I hate living in limbo.” There, she’d said it, sort of. He had to translate for himself.
He was quiet for a moment. “I suppose we’re all living in limbo. A bomb could drop tomorrow. A crazed killer could shoot up the town. I hate thinking like that.”
“Your natural state is to protect,” she said with understanding. “You want to throw up a shield to shelter the good and shut out the bad.”
“A Healing Stone sounds perfect,” he agreed. “Too perfect. Essentially, we must fix ourselves.”
“Or die trying,” she said with a laugh. “I’d prefer doing that for a worthy cause, but I don’t even know where to start.”
“Yes you do,” he said quietly. “Every time we touch, we come alive, even if it’s in another time or place.”
“Oh.” She nibbled an apple and didn’t look at him. “I didn’t think you cared.”
“I’m not stone,” he said dryly. “The first time I saw you walk through my door, you lit the gloom like sunshine. I can’t say I appreciate having my lack of life thrown back at me. But you make me see color again. I’m afraid if I let myself go, I’ll suck you dry.”
“Don’t think it works that way. Admittedly, we’re on tricky ground.” Hannah tried to sound casual, but her pulse raced. “But experimentation hasn’t killed us yet. I’ve been living in a dark cave as much as you have. I’m not seeing the light you do.”
“I want to brush that hank of hair off your face. Are you willing to see what happens if I try?” He turned the dark wells of his eyes on her.
She felt that look all the way to her toes. Mesmerized, she lifted her face, giving him silent permission to touch.
Brown fingers caressed her straying hair and brushed her cheek. Instead of fainting, she recognized the connection to another time and place when he had done that. The memory replaced h
er earlier shock, grounding her. Hannah felt the longing deep in her soul, the need for another human touch, this man’s touch.
Hesitatingly, she traced her fingers down Aaron’s angular jaw, to his lips.
He needed no further encouragement. He leaned over and brushed his mouth on hers. When she didn’t topple, he pressed for more.
Her world shivered and quaked, but Hannah clung to the contact, the hard flesh and intoxicating male aroma.
Aaron lifted her across his lap. Their encumbering jeans rubbed where she ached the most. His kiss deepened, distracting her again. His big hands ran under her tank top—she could feel his energy, his desire, as skilled fingers explored her flesh. When he pushed up her sports bra, she was totally open to him.
As he cupped her bare breasts, he opened himself just a little, just enough to sense his genuine awe and excitement and that flickering shared memory of long ago. Here was her knight, the man of her dreams, the one who had awakened her.
She’d been waiting for him all her life and then some.
Twenty-one
When Hannah’s gentle hands slid across his bare torso, Aaron almost froze with the desperate need for this human touch. But Hannah’s caress was different, not just physical but deeper. He could sense her desire and need and her genuine respect and awe. Another moment, and she’d reach right through his skin and grab his heart.
He pressed his forehead against hers and stopped her hand, nearly stopping his heart in doing so. “We’re not doing this here, on hard rock.”
Those were probably the most difficult words he’d ever uttered, but this connection was too magical, too rare, to be thrown away on momentary lust.
Hannah moaned a little, a mew that sliced right through his gut and tightened his jeans at the same time.
Pushing upward, he rose with her arms around his shoulders and her legs still wrapped around his hips—like a limpet. He grinned in memory of his earlier disdain. Who knew he enjoyed limpet clinging?
She dropped her feet quickly, but he didn’t release her. Now that she’d stripped his wicked soul bare, he needed the human contact a little longer.
“I don’t get involved with Lucys,” he warned her instinctively, then regretted it when she stiffened and pushed away.
“Probably incestuous,” she muttered, groping blindly for the scattered remnants of their meal.
He was still thinking with his prick—not clearly at all. “Muddying the waters, at best.” He grabbed her and kissed her again until she landed dizzily against his chest, where he liked having her. “And we’re nowhere as stable as Mariah and Keegan.”
She reluctantly nodded. “Too true. If we’re looking for excuses not to deal with this, you talk first.” She pushed away again and started back up the hill, sending sand and pebbles cascading downward.
“I like your pragmatism,” he said, following, not really liking her practical response at all. But he’d started this, and she was the only woman he knew who could take his own words and beat him over the head with them.
“I thought we were looking for cons, like this damned knot in my brain.”
“Let’s start there then. I want to curse your knot and get a second opinion. You want to say prayers and find a magic stone.” Pervert that he was, he enjoyed watching the sway of indignation in her hips as she climbed.
“My head, my choice. I want to live life fully for as long as I am able.” She turned and gave him a stink eye. “And that includes sex on a rock. I thought we were floating with the stars.”
“I was on the bottom,” he said dryly. “One of us has to be practical.”
“No, one of has to be superior,” she said with indignant humor. “I get that. I’m not a control freak, you are. I can accept that. I accept that I won’t live forever and totally understand that is a major stumbling block for you. So just make this about getting our rocks off—isn’t that what men say?”
Good thing he stayed behind her or she’d probably smack the smirk off his face. She was good. She was damned good. “Lucys do not get their rocks off. They cling, like limpets.” He quickly changed the subject before she called him a Lucy. “Tell me again why you decided to have an MRI.”
She twisted around to study him, but he wasn’t smirking anymore. He was serious.
On level ground again, she fell in stride beside him. “Because that damned painting obsessed me, and I’d never been the least obsessive-compulsive before. I dreamed about it, at first. Then it got worse. I’d sit in the office and imagine it coming to life. When I started fainting if I touched it, I figured it had to be physical. I’d never fainted before, ever. I thought—blood sugar gone awry.”
“Then you fainted when you touched me,” he prodded.
She shrugged. “I now know the problem is literally in my head. When I touched you, I had visions of the knight painting and went down out of habit, I suppose.”
“You haven’t been fainting lately,” he said. “Not unless that flying with the stars comment means you were literally out of it.”
She stuck out a plump bottom lip in thought. “True. Maybe seeing inside your head is a new symptom.”
“You’re not seeing inside my head. You’re magnifying what’s on the objects we touch. Someone else probably had sex on those rocks. What if that knot is where you carry your gift? Or maybe even your library? The brain is made up of masses of similar neurons that congregate in one area for specific reasons. You may have a memory mass that others don’t. Maybe the knot has nothing to do with your fainting and everything to do with your memory.”
“Wow, big leap.” She was silent as they reached the path back to his place. “We can’t prove anything,” she decided. “I’m not about to have the mass removed to find out. You have to accept me as I am.”
“Warts and all,” he agreed. “Just as you have to accept that I’m an ex-con control freak who doesn’t want to hurt you.”
“Wonder how long it will take your painting thief to die if your superstition about not touching it is correct? And if we really want magical thinking, maybe the painting cured me!” With an insouciant grin and no hesitation, she marched straight up the path to his house, superstition be damned.
They were going to do this.
It scared the faex out of him.
Aaron’s bedroom was upstairs, Hannah discovered when he led her up. No fancy carved antiques—he favored heavy masculine lines, gray and blue furnishings, and explosively erotic pen-and-ink artwork. His shower definitely didn’t reflect the mid-century architecture either. Glass, chrome, and marble with thick white towels she could lose herself in. . .
He casually dropped his knit boxers to join her in washing off the day’s grime, and she almost fainted for real. Stud was the first word popping to mind. This was no undernourished grad student but a man in his prime. When his dark gaze drifted downward with interest, she almost covered her inadequate breasts with the huge washcloth, but she grabbed the soap instead. If she was doing this, if this was the only chance she might have for spectacular sex, she meant to experience every single—embarrassing—bit.
He took the soap, lathered his hands, and began washing her shoulders, tantalizingly just above her aching breasts.
Daringly, she repeated the favor, swirling the dark hairs on his chest in foam, because they were easier to reach than his shoulders.
“No knights and nuns,” he murmured approvingly, dropping his hands to cup her breasts.
“Still a chance of fainting,” she admitted, noticing hot water did nothing to diminish his arousal.
“We’re doing this in a bed,” he said firmly, dropping his soapy hands to caress lower. “In a minute or two,” he added when she moaned her pleasure.
She was already half spent by the time they wrapped in towels, and Aaron carried her to the bed. He did things to her that woke her again in record time. And when he donned his guardian shield and entered her, she circled the moon a time or three before exploding like a rocket launcher at the same time h
e did.
No knight or nun or Spanish soldier joined them. For the first time since her diagnosis, Hannah relaxed. She curled up in strong arms that silently promised everything would be all right, somehow.
Because, at long last, they were together, as they were meant to be.
The insistent ringing of several phones brought them back to reality with a crash a few hours later. Aaron groped for a bedside receiver while Hannah scrambled up, wondering where she’d dropped hers. She fell back against the pillow again when she remembered her cell didn’t work out here. Aaron just had a lot of phones.
He was out of bed and grabbing jeans before he even hung up. His curses had her leaping up to look for her clothes.
She was still juggling her panties when Studly Do-Right flung the phone and stalked half-naked out the door, pulling on a shirt as he went. They might have to work on his communication skills.
She couldn’t as easily pull on a tank top and stumble down the stairs in his wake. He was almost out the door before she caught up.
“What?” she demanded, following on his heels to his van.
“Bastard tried to set the shop on fire.” He revved the engine as she hurried to pull herself inside the tall vehicle. The chivalrous knight had shifted into battle mode.
“Why?” she cried. “You’ve done nothing!”
“I had the painting. I’ve been asking questions. Hell if I know.” He took the long, narrow driveway at breakneck speed and accelerated when he reached the highway.
As they drove up, they saw half the town milling about the parking lot beneath the light of Hillvale’s lone street lamp. Men were wrapping up a flat fire hose, and the stench of smoke lingered in the air. Apparently the town actually had a fire hydrant and hoses. Who knew? Aaron leaped out, leaving Hannah to find her own way down.
Amber ran up to hug her. “We thought you were inside!” she cried in relief. “The back door was on fire, and we had to break in the front.” She hugged Hannah tightly. “Thank goodness you’re all right!”
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