For no required reason, she pushed the door open a few more inches and peeked into the room.
It was always warmer in this room than in the rest of the house, and Quinn had shucked the covers off in his sleep. His naked body lay partially exposed, like a study in shadow and light. Winter moonlight gleamed on him, his precisely sculpted muscles relaxed yet still powerfully defined in his calves, thighs, back, and outstretched arms.
In those first moments she literally forgot to breathe. The lines and forms of his body, in the frosted lighting, made as perfect an artwork as any she’d ever seen.
She lingered there, unwilling to close the door on this vision of masculine perfection.
Somehow, after perhaps thirty seconds, she must have sensed that he knew she was there.
“Connie?” he mumbled.
She should have at least felt embarrassment about being caught at voyeurism. But she felt the odd conviction that this moment was inevitable and beyond her will or his.
“Yes?” she answered in a soft voice little more than a whisper.
He made no effort to conceal his nakedness. He rose up on one elbow to watch her in the ghostly moonlight.
“Well—are you coming in or not?”
She said nothing. The spare room was small, a postage stamp, really. But the miles to cross it to his bed was too far a distance.
She met his eyes, her heart pounding like a tympanum.
“So is it lust or something deeper?” he growled.
“According to you I saved your life.”
The suffused moonlight emphasized his prominent cheekbones and the strong angularity of his face. “Why did you save my life?”
“Fate?” she whispered. “Eventuality? Something deeper.”
He stood. With two long strides, he crossed the vast expanse between them.
She could hardly look at him, at his nudity, his hunger.
He took her hand and pulled her toward him. The door closed behind her. Her robe untied as if by itself, and he pulled it off, letting it fall in a puddle around her feet. Only the sheer silk chemise covered her.
“No, please wait,” she murmured, unsure of herself and the fiery need that had sparked within her.
“Then stay right there in the moonlight.” He eased his nude form back onto the bed. “Just stay like that. Let me look at you. Just for a moment.”
She stood still. His stare seemed like a ravenous animal, greedy and obsessed. Despite the heat of his eyes, the room felt cold and inhospitable. She shivered and covered her barely-clad chest with her arms.
Quinn reached for her. His strong, sensitive hands slid slowly up her thighs and under the chemise. They paused to cup the supple swell of her hips.
She trembled, her legs weakening when he slid both hands across her stomach and took a breast in each hand. He stiffened her nipples in slow, circular strokes that sapped even more strength from her legs.
She moaned with shameless abandon as he slid the silk garment off and folded her into the bed beside him and placed her in the nest of the warm spot he’d just vacated. Their bare legs intertwined, and he pulled her closer, his aroused sex hard and heavy as he pressed against her still-cool skin.
“Quinn,” she whispered, tangling her trembling fingers in his hair and turning his face to hers.
He kissed her, silencing her, his tongue exploring. Over and over she whispered his name as he kissed and tasted her body, lighting fires everywhere he touched.
His own need intensified with hers. His mouth on the tip of her breast became more and more needy. His tongue sizzled across each of her full nipples, giving her small spikes of pleasure she could feel even through her back.
Finally she felt one of his hands slide between her thighs, then move higher. Several fingers gently probed, opening her soft folds like petals to sunlight, sending currents of pleasure pulsing through her.
“I want you,” he whispered.
He rolled on top of her and pushed his length inside her, whispering incoherent words of electric pleasure. Groaning her name, he slid both hands underneath her, thrusting her up so he could enter even deeper, filling her.
The furnace, humming quietly to life, nudged the curtain into rippling motion. The moonlight danced on them just as it danced across waves in the painting hanging above them.
Again, then again, she heard herself cry out, felt her long-hungry body lifting, peaking, each climax stronger than the one before it. With Quinn she’d found a rhythm more joyous than she’d ever experienced before, and the act was more than lust and sex. It was pent-up need, the sheer desperation of their plight; it was a way to get lost, to forget.
Again and again in him she was absorbed in pure, mindless pleasure so intense the world fell away and lay crumpled at her feet.
Her efficient inner clock woke Constance at seven o’clock sharp, as it did almost every weekday.
Even before her eyelids opened, however, she recognized the signs of a near-sleepless night: aching eyes, sluggishness, bodily weariness and exhaustion.
But the arms and legs entwined with hers were pleasantly new and unfamiliar in a safe, dreamlike way. Still floating in the misty haze between sleeping and waking, she snuggled against the human warmth beside her.
Human warmth….
Human warmth?
Her eyes snapped open, and she came fully awake.
Of all the things she might have worried about, she realized before anything else: I’ve slept with Quinn. The outlaw. The desperado.
Chasing this thought, she carefully extricated herself from Quinn’s embrace. Almost in shock, she wondered what had gotten into her last night, and how she was going to handle the new situation she had created. It was already complicated enough before she gave in to her lust.
No, not lust. It was more than lust—on her part, anyway.
Even knowing so little about him, she had felt something inside her soul connecting with his. What she had felt, when he was inside her, was far more meaningful and fulfilling than mere sated desire.
But, she rebuked herself, that doesn’t mean he feels the same.
At this reminder, harsh reality came crashing in on her. Roger Ulrick’s troubling remarks yesterday, and unpleasant thoughts of Doug, were blunt reminders that she was the world’s worst judge of men and their character.
Quinn sighed, muttering something in his sleep, but he didn’t quite wake up when she eased out of bed, naked and shivering in the gray morning light.
Ice coated the windows. She picked up her chemise and slipped her robe on, then crossed the hallway to her bedroom.
She folded open the louvered doors of the big closet and selected a white pullover sweater, indigo pants, and a pair of shearling-lined suede boots. She grabbed underclothing from a bureau drawer, then placed everything ready on her bed.
A steaming-hot shower, in the smaller bathroom off the master bedroom, was followed by a fast, brutally cold rinse in an attempt to jolt herself awake.
Among the day’s many problems still awaiting resolution, she wasn’t sure what to do about work—whether to go or not.
Best to get ready just in case, she decided. She could hear Quinn stirring around as she dressed and quickly applied makeup at her triple-mirror vanity. A nervous stirring in her stomach reminded her, yet again, that she still had to tell him about Hazel.
Guilt stabbed at her. Never mind that he was the fugitive. He had trusted her, after all, and she had broken faith with him. Anyway, that’s how he would see it.
Thus ruminating, she nearly dropped her hairbrush when he knocked on her door.
“Are you hiding?” His tone, muffled by the closed door, was meant to be ironic, she guessed.
Nonetheless, it also revealed confusion.
“It’s open,” she called out. She pivoted on her chair to smile at him—albeit a bit awkwardly—as he entered her room.
He wore the trousers she had given him but no shirt. For a moment, seeing the buff, sculpted torso, she felt a thri
ll of excitement, a tickling flutter of desire.
He met her gaze. His lips coaxed into a smile.
“You looked like a Greek goddess last night, naked in that moonlight,” he said, still standing just inside the door.
The sincerity and longing in his tone made her flush with pleasure at the compliment. But the reckless, remote glint was back in his eyes, reminding her she still had news to break to him.
It wasn’t easy to find a natural opening. He, too, had plenty to think about besides the pleasures of the bed.
She watched him cross to the west window, staying off to one side, and peek out past the curtains. He studied the yard carefully, patiently.
“Going to work?” he asked her, still watching outdoors.
“What would you suggest? I mean, until we—”
She caught herself, momentarily nonplused at how readily she was melding their lives, as if they were a couple.
“Until you have a plan,” she corrected herself, “I thought it might be a good idea to go in to the office.”
He nodded. “Yeah, you’re right. They’re watching you, at least sometimes, and you’ve already missed a day. Best not to disrupt your normal schedule. Connie?”
“Yes?”
He turned from the window to look at her. Even in that grainy light, she thought, he’s strikingly handsome.
“Speaking of disruptions,” he said, “I really am sorry for tossing a monkey wrench into your life. I didn’t think last night would play out the way it did.”
“Yes.” She didn’t know what else to do but agree.
“Are you…sorry about last night?”
“Are you?” she returned his question in a soft voice.
He shook his head, not one sign of hesitation. “Nope, not even if you are.”
His voice seemed sincere to her, but some troublesome qualifier glinted through the smoky tint of his eyes. Either he was staring at inner demons, she thought, or he’s a superb actor. Despite plenty of experience to suggest the latter, she chose to believe it was demons.
“Quinn?” She turned to the mirror again and began brushing her hair behind her ears.
“Hmm?”
She secured her hair with silver barrettes, hands trembling slightly. “I have something to tell you.”
Something in her tone must have alerted him. She saw his face in the mirror, wary now.
“Don’t tell me you’re late?”
She laughed, but did some quick math in her head just for future reference. They sure as hell didn’t go to the drugstore the night before. She might have taken on more trouble than she knew even now.
“Look,” she blurted out awkwardly, “you need to get to Billings, right?”
“Like a shark needs the ocean, lady.”
“I—well, that is, a very good friend of mine is working on a plan for us—I mean you—”
Even in the mirror she saw the expression in his eyes turn dark and angry like a sudden squall. He took two steps toward her, and for a moment fear lanced through her.
“You told someone about me?”
“You don’t understand,” she insisted. “It’s my friend Hazel McCallum, she—”
“McCallum? The cattle rancher?”
“Yes.”
“Why not alert the media while you’re at it? Governor Collins considers that old woman to be a Western icon. He actually killed the big federal project to dam Mystery Valley as a reservoir, all on her say-so.”
“All right, and I’m telling you she’s my best friend. Quinn, she supports you. She even encouraged me to help you when I—when I expressed some doubts. She says she thinks you’re innocent.”
His eyes sought hers, then held them. “How ’bout those doubts of yours?”
“They don’t concern your innocence,” she assured him, truthful yet evasive.
He mulled everything, his face troubled. “I can use some competent help,” he finally conceded. “When did you tell her?”
“Yesterday afternoon while you were asleep.”
“If she wanted me arrested, it would be done by now.”
“Exactly. If you have faith in me, then believe me, you can have faith in Hazel. Her word is her bond.”
“Oh, I have faith in you, all right.”
She believed him. But that troubled glint was back in his eyes. Despite the need in his soul, he seemed unable to accept what she offered. Something stood between him and happiness, some secret that plagued him like a family curse.
“We’d better have some breakfast,” she suggested. “Then I’ll call Hazel and tell her I’ll be at work if she wants to call me.”
He nodded.
She stood up, and only inches separated them.
His hands reached for her. They embraced. For a few moments, while she moved her hands in slow circles on his muscle-corded back, the exquisite memory of making love to him consumed her.
“You would have to be all dressed,” he complained in her ear as he kissed it until her heart was racing.
“Five more seconds of that,” she protested, gently pushing him away, “and I won’t be dressed.”
“Would that be so awful?”
His eyes and tone challenged her to deny her hunger for more pleasure. That spreading warmth was back in her loins, giving the lie to any verbal denial she might make.
“Awful?” she repeated, flashing him a demure smile. “No, and that’s precisely why I’d better not. So tell me, are you in the mood…for apple pancakes?” she teased him.
“Wrong appetite,” he assured her. “Let’s try another.”
But she deftly ducked around him. “One thing about you men—you’re simple and direct when it comes to your loins.”
A true fencer, he parried immediately, “Would you prefer a dash of treachery and deceit?”
Resentment flared up within her instantly. She moved to the doorway, stopping to turn and glower back at him. He saw the hurt in her angry amber eyes.
“Men already provide plenty of that,” she informed him with cold precision. “I’ll fix us something to eat before I go to work.”
Willing herself to concentrate on business, not on Quinn Loudon, Constance opened the real-estate office promptly at nine o’clock.
Ginny took every Tuesday morning off to volunteer as a teacher’s aide at her daughter’s elementary school in nearby Whiteford Township. Constance was grateful she was gone—she was in no mood to explain a still-unfolding situation she couldn’t even grasp herself, let alone make clear to someone else.
For about forty-five minutes she actually succeeded in proofreading copy for some local listings she had sent to a real-estate magazine that served Colfax County. Her calendar included a ten o’clock appointment to show a place out on Indian School Road—a beautiful five-bedroom log home with a wraparound porch.
She locked up the office at 9:45, grateful she had worn her long wool coat—it was cold outside and getting colder. She watched each breath form airborne ghosts as she walked out to the car.
If Ulrick or anyone else was following her, she couldn’t spot them as she left the outskirts of Mystery Township. She bore south on the winding two-lane asphalt road that led to a vocational-skills school for the Flathead Indian tribe.
A car already waited in the cul-de-sac out front when Constance arrived at the house. Stuart Beals and his wife stood on the porch, looking cold and miserable despite their ridiculously heavy winter coats, scarves, and gloves.
Beals, a Southerner, had evidently done well for himself in the restaurant-equipment business. Now he desired a second home out West. She had picked up bad vibes from him over the phone, especially his tendency toward one-upmanship.
Constance escorted them through the place, pointing out such features as the gorgeous custom mill-work throughout, custom built-in bookcases, the large breakfast area with built-in buffet.
Despite her sleep deprivation, momentary memories of last night, in bed with Quinn, abruptly energized her body and mind. But recalling
his searing kisses and touch also lent an absurd feel to her professional patter.
“As you can see,” she told them, escorting them into the huge den, “this room has lots of windows and bookcases.”
“Awfully tall ceiling,” Stuart Beals pointed out. He was middle-aged, florid-faced from the cold outside, a prissy, nondescript little man who wielded his success like a bludgeon. Pamela Beals, in stark contrast, was gracious and self-effacing, quick to smile.
“Ceilings this high,” Beals added, “cost a small fortune to heat in winter.”
Constance tried to stay focused on the here and now. Again, however, she saw torrid images from last night, felt Quinn’s hands under her chemise, firing her body like a kiln.
“You…you might be pleasantly surprised about that,” Constance managed to assure him. She pointed at twin skylights. “Those are solar-assist panels. Notice how we can’t see our breath in this room even though the heat is off? The master bedroom has them, too.”
During all this, Pamela Beals had been gazing through the windows at the terraced garden out back, complete with a three-tier marble fountain.
“I just love that gazebo, Stuart,” she interjected. “It’s two stories. Isn’t that cute?”
Constance watched him send his wife a warning glance. It was a look she’d noticed often in the real-estate game. Prospective buyers like Beals felt compelled to engage in certain rituals of bargaining. One was the maxim: Never show too much enthusiasm; they’ll jack up the price.
“A gazebo,” Beals announced primly, “means much less to me than proximity to a good golf course.”
It was hard to be focused and professional when her calves were going weak at the memory. In her mind’s eye Constance felt Quinn’s fingers coaxing her open. I can feel how much you want me….
All at once she realized both of them were watching her with expectant faces, waiting for her to say something…. oh, right, golf.
“Valley Greens is only fifteen minutes from here,” Constance somehow managed to point out. “Eighteen holes with a full-service restaurant and clubhouse.”
“What about tennis courts?” he demanded.
“There’s several at the park downtown.”
The Lawman Meets His Bride Page 13