by Anne Stuart
“I’m not crazy about the driving conditions,” Sandy said between his teeth. “For heaven’s sake, it’s still October.”
“They often get a first snow by October tenth. I will admit this seems a little intense for this time of year.” She peered out through the whirling whiteness. “I suppose we should have checked the weather report before we took off. I’d forgotten how bad things could be.”
The Audi’s sideways skid immediately gave a perfect demonstration of just how bad things could be. Sandy proved himself more than capable, however, turning into the skid and bringing the car back under control with seemingly no effort at all. The snow was getting thicker, spattering the windshield between each swipe of the wipers, and Sandy slowed their headlong pace.
“Lovely weather,” Sandy muttered.
“You’re handling it perfectly,” she said with only the slightest bit of resentment in her voice.
“I was on the ski team in college. If you like to ski, you get used to driving through new snow. However, I usually had snow tires.”
Jane gave him a look of pure, unadulterated horror as they crested another icy hill and began sliding down the other side. Fortunately all Sandy’s attention was on the slippery road and not on his companion’s sudden lack of confidence. “No snow tires?” she managed in a sickly gasp. The snow was sticking to the roads now, a thin layer of white on top of the icy scum.
“No snow tires,” he verified. “Look at it this way, Jane. You wanted adventure.”
“I didn’t want adventure, I wanted justice. You’re the one who was terminally bored.”
“Well,” said Sandy, as the car began traveling sideways toward the bank on the side of the road, “I’m not bored now.” He touched the accelerator, nudged the wheel, and averted disaster once more.
Jane leaned back against the seat and shut her eyes. If she had to die she didn’t want to watch. She’d been brave enough for the past seventy-two hours, facing gangsters and near drownings and knife attacks. A snowy drive was suddenly her limit. “Neither am I,” she said faintly. “I only wish I were.”
Newfield hadn’t changed much in the years since Jane had been there. The snow slackened a bit as they drove into the village, and the light flurries only enhanced its perfect New England charm. From the white-spired church to the charming general store, from the barn-red mill that had been converted into a gift shop to the rows of perfect white clapboard houses, the place reeked of photo opportunities. The village was shutting down for the night when they drove through at just after five, and they had barely enough time to grab something for dinner before they headed up the road to the old Dexter cottage.
It had been snowing longer in Newfield, probably since early afternoon, and no one had bothered to plow the long, winding drive up to the house. Sandy tried twice, gunning the motor and taking a running start, but even he had to admit defeat. This time he wasn’t able to regain control, and the Audi ended up in a shallow ditch, the headlights pointing crazily at the old cottage.
“We’re here,” Jane said faintly. Sandy only snarled, as the two of them scrambled out of the lopsided Audi and headed up the embankment toward the house.
Even in the fading light Jane could see it, still unchanged after almost seventy-five years. It was the perfect prewar summer cottage, with weathered shingles, porches surrounding three sides, gables and dormers and multipaned windows looking blankly out into the snowy evening. Sandy stood there, ankle-deep in the snow, staring up at the old place, and his expression wasn’t encouraging.
“No heat, eh?” he said gloomily.
“The sooner we get a fire going the sooner we’ll be warm.” She sounded disgustingly hearty, even to her own ears, as she trudged up the broad front steps. She stopped for a moment, looking down. For an instant it had looked as if someone had walked up those steps before the snow had gotten so deep. She thought she could see the faint trace of a man’s boots beneath the fresh layer of snow. She peered down, but she couldn’t be certain. It was probably just Ephraim, checking the empty summer cottages as he’d been hired to do. If anyone had come up to the old house, they were certainly long gone.
It was about thirty degrees in the autumn night air. It was about twenty in the house, the high ceilings and curtainless windows keeping the air icy. Sandy dumped his suitcase on the floor and headed straight for the fireplace as Jane went around turning on lights. At least someone had left a fresh supply of wood and kindling. She listened to Sandy curse, a low, steady stream of profanity beneath his breath, as she wandered through the old place, turning on lights and looking back over her past.
She hadn’t been there in three years, not since Sally had brought her kids back East for a stilted summer reunion. Things had been too hectic then, chasing around after Sally’s hellions, dealing with Richard’s absentmindedness, all the while trying to use her time away from Baraboo to make up her mind whether she should marry Frank or not. No wonder she’d made the wrong decision.
Richard’s idea of a family reunion was to sit in the old Morris chair, smoking his pipe and telling everyone to be quiet. Sally’s idea was to dump the kids on Jane and go off to visit with her childhood friends. And Jane’s idea was to do all the cooking, all the cleaning, all the child-care, and then simply walk out halfway through the allotted vacation time.
She hadn’t seen Richard since, though she’d spoken to him on the phone. Suddenly she missed him, missed him terribly. She could almost picture him sitting in that chair, scowling at everyone over his thick glasses. She could practically smell the rich, pungent smell of his pipe tobacco lingering in the chilly air.
By the time she finished her tour of the house and returned to the cavernous living room, laden with sleeping bags and pillows, Sandy had managed to start a decent fire. The heat penetrated a few feet into the icy vastness of the room, and her accomplice looked well pleased with himself.
He looked up at her, and the flickering firelight danced across his face. “Why don’t we use the electric space heater? It’s going to take a long time for this fireplace to warm the room.”
“We don’t have any electric heaters. The wiring’s too old to take it. We were going to upgrade it but we never got around to it. The three of us inherited the place equally, and no one’s got enough of a stake in it to make any sort of push.”
Sandy rose, stretching his limber body. “Then what’s that in the corner?”
Jane stared. “An electric heater,” she said, suddenly uneasy.
“Looks like there are some new outlets, too. Want to risk it?” Sandy had already crossed the room and picked up the portable baseboard heater.
Jane shivered, but whether it was from the cold or something else she wasn’t sure. “All right,” she said, concentrating on unpacking the groceries.
“What’s wrong?”
She shook her head. “I’m not sure. That heater shouldn’t be here, for one thing. For another, I thought there were footprints on the front steps. The refrigerator is on, when the last person here would have been sure to turn it off. And I have the oddest feeling that someone’s been here.”
“Tremaine?”
She shrugged. “I guess so. Who else would come up here without saying anything? Except that I can’t imagine Uncle Stephen hiding out in any place as cold and uncomfortable as this. He’d be staying in a first-class motel in Stowe, not lurking in a deserted summer cottage.”
“Do me a favor, Jane,” Sandy said suddenly, his voice tight with tension. “This man is apparently a conscienceless murderer, a man who not only killed your brother but has done his best to kill or terrorize you. For God’s sake stop calling him Uncle Stephen!”
“Excuse me,” Jane said stiffly, pressing a hand against her throbbing neck.
“And stop doing that!” Sandy snapped.
“Doing what?”
“Rubbing your neck. I feel guilty enough—you don’t have to remind me.”
“I hate to tell you this, Alexander ‘the Sleaze’ Caldico
tt, but I’m not doing it to make you feel guilty. All my actions are not motivated by how you’re going to react. My neck happens to sting!”
Sandy’s mouth compressed in a thin, angry line that still managed to be sexy. “Are we going to spend our entire time arguing?”
“Probably.”
He glared at her for another long moment. And then a slow, reluctant smile started, first in his gray eyes, then traveling to his mouth, relaxing that tight, tense line. “Well, I guess I’d rather fight with you than be peaceful with anyone else.”
“Anyone else?” She was momentarily disarmed, a danger she recognized and decided to ignore.
“Anyone else. What’s for dinner?”
“Steak and baked potatoes and salad. Except that I don’t want to go out to the kitchen and make it. It’s too cold.”
“We can cook the steak over the fire if you have a grill. And we can roast the potatoes in the ashes. I’m afraid one of us will have to freeze to make the salad.” His smile was just a bit too ingenuous.
Jane sighed. “You know no woman in her right mind likes to cook over a fire. We had too much of it five million years ago. I’ll make the salad.”
“I don’t suppose this house comes with a liquor supply?”
Jane smiled sweetly. “Treat me nice and maybe I’ll break it out. I like my steak practically raw.”
“Savage,” he muttered. “I like my Scotch practically straight.”
“Yes, sir.”
By the time she came back into the living room with a hastily tossed-together salad, two glasses and a half-empty bottle of Johnny Walker Red she was shivering, chilled to the bone. The living room was redolent of broiling steak and wood smoke, and the heat had finally penetrated even the chilliest corners of the room.
Sandy had spread the sleeping bags out on the floor, one on top of the other, and Jane contented herself with a skeptical glance before seating herself cross-legged on them. It certainly wasn’t the softest surface she ever hoped to sleep on, and once she made Sandy take his sleeping bag and move a decent distance away it was going to be even harder. She allowed herself a moment of delicious indecision, and then hardened her heart. She couldn’t afford to get any closer to him than she already had, not until she decided she could trust him, not until she had some sign, other than his ex-wife’s fantasy, that he was involved with her for any other reason than to alleviate boredom.
She had to make one more icy dash into the kitchen for plates and silverware, but the steak was well worth it. Sandy had managed to simply sear it on one end and cook it to his own tastes on the other, a talent Jane properly appreciated. The potatoes were a little uneven, but absolutely delicious with Vermont butter, and the Scotch, without ice and only a trace of water, did a great deal toward advancing the truce.
“Where are we going to look for the lab?” Sandy said once they were finished and the dirty dishes stuffed unhygienically and aesthetically under the sofa until tomorrow. “I presume it’s not in the house?”
“I checked when we got here. Not that I thought he’d bother. This place is impossible to heat when it gets much colder. The lab could be any one of a number of places. There’s a boathouse down by the lake, a garage, a couple of hay barns, even an old icehouse out back by the pond. We’ll just have to check them out one by one.” She reached up to touch her stinging neck, then caught his eyes watching her hand and instead pushed her hair away from her face.
He said nothing. He was stretched out on the sleeping bags, his second glass of Scotch in his hand, and his eyes were hooded, watchful. He was wearing faded jeans which clung to his long legs, and he’d dispensed with his sweater an hour ago. His navy blue corduroy shirt looked worn and soft to touch, and she had to remind herself that she shouldn’t touch, didn’t dare to touch.
“There’s some long winter underwear upstairs in one of the drawers,” she said, knowing she was babbling slightly. “Even in the summer Vermont can get cold enough to need them. We can put them on tomorrow before we go out looking.” She’d taken off her own sweater and unbuttoned her cotton knit shirt, pulling it away from her sore neck.
“All right.” His voice was deep, slumberous, almost erotically soothing.
Fight it, Jane, she ordered herself. Fight it. “I tend to think he would have chosen one of the hay barns,” she said, reaching for her neck again. It was stinging, and a cold wet washcloth would have felt wonderful, but she didn’t want to call attention to it. She no longer wanted Sandy to feel guilty. She didn’t know what she wanted.
She dropped her hand on the sleeping bag between them, staring down at it. There was no mark where her wedding ring had rested, no sign of that tumultuous, painful period in her life. No sign either that she’d used that hand to fling things at the man lying so close to her. His forehead still bore the mark of the few times she’d connected, and then it was her turn to feel guilty. She’d almost gotten him killed in the canal—if it weren’t for her he’d be safely away in the Canary Islands or wherever he’d been planning to go.
And if Lenny the Rip found out she ignored his warning, ignored the warning lightly etched on her neck, he might very well follow them and make his point a little clearer. And if Sandy got in the way this time...
She shivered. “Maybe you should go back to New York,” she said abruptly. “I can rent a car, take over from here.”
She could feel the sudden tension in his body. “I thought you forgave me for not coming to your rescue.”
“It’s not that.” Her voice sounded desperate. “I don’t want to be responsible for your getting hurt. Getting killed.” She tugged at her shirt, pulling it up around her stinging neck.
He reached out and stopped her hand, pulling it away. “No one’s going to kill me,” He said. “No one’s going to kill you, either. And if anyone lays a hand on you again I’m going to be the one who does the killing.”
She lay perfectly motionless, staring into his eyes, and she knew he was absolutely serious. And she knew he would do just that.
“In the meantime,” he continued, his voice low and beguiling, “we need to see about your battle scars. You’ve been tugging at your collar all day.” His hand, deft and strong and warm, reached into her shirt.
“I’m fine.” She tried to push him away, but he was too fast for her, capturing her combative hand in his while he pushed her back on the sleeping bags.
“We can turn this into a wrestling match,” he said, leaning over her, a glint of laughter in his eyes, “and you know I’d prefer that. Or you can humor me. I should have insisted you go to the hospital this morning, but I’m sure we could still find one...”
“Thirty miles away,” she said. “All right, you can check it out. I hate to admit it, but it stings like crazy.”
She tried to look anywhere but into his face as he leaned over her, pushing her shirt back over her shoulders to expose the long scratches on her throat. She heard his swift intake of breath, and she tried to sit up. He simply pushed her back down.
“What is it?” she demanded. “Why did you make that sound? Does it look infected?”
“Don’t be such a sissy. I wasn’t reacting to your neck,” he said calmly, and belatedly Jane realized that the bra she was wearing, now fully exposed to his interested gaze, consisted of not much more than two triangles of white lace.
She tried to pull her shirt back around her, but he pushed her hands out of the way. “Stop leering,” she said grumpily, giving up the fight.
“I’m not leering. I’m just being properly appreciative. Your neck does look painful. What did you put on it?”
“Earlier? Just water.”
“I think it needs some disinfectant.” He sat up and reached for the bottle of Scotch. “This is the best I can do at the moment. Relax, Jane. This will hurt you more than it does me.” He poured a generous amount on the dish towel Jane had found to serve as a napkin and pressed it gently to the side of her neck.
She let out a loud, piercing scream, more of sur
prise than actual pain. The sting of the whiskey wasn’t much worse than the scratches themselves had been, and she’d barely noticed when they’d been inflicted.
“It’s not that bad,” Sandy muttered, pouring a little more Scotch onto the dish towel as he held it against her skin. The cold whiskey trickled down her neck, sliding over her shoulder and down between her breasts. “Now who’s being a coward?”
She took a deep intake of breath as the burning liquid slid over her flesh, and from her supine position she looked up at him, into his hooded eyes. “I am,” she said, her voice husky, and they both knew she wasn’t talking about the pain.
For a long moment he didn’t move. The flickering firelight danced across his face, and the hiss and pop of the burning pine was the only sound in the huge room. Then he leaned forward, his voice low and husky, his breath warm and sweet on her skin. “It would be a sin to waste good Scotch, don’t you think?” he whispered, moving the saturated cloth away. And he kissed her neck, his lips feather soft, and his tongue snaked out to taste the trickle of whiskey along the slender white column of her neck.
Chapter Nineteen
Jane lifted her hands to his shoulders, to push him away. Instead her fingers dug into the faded corduroy, feeling the bone and muscle and sinew beneath, and she was lost. Lost as she’d been since the night in Bay Head, lost as she’d been since she first got up enough nerve to knock on a stranger’s door and ask him to commit arson with her.
His tongue slid across her jaw, down her chest, to the vee between her breasts, tickling her, sipping at the spilled whiskey. Her shirt was spread around her, and suddenly the front clasp of her bra was free. Some small part of sanity, of self-preservation, reared its ugly head, and she said in her most prosaic voice, “Are you really going to do this?”