by Radclyffe
“You’re right, mausoleums aren’t that unusual,” Melinda said, pointing to a portion of the photo. “But this is.”
Adrian leaned closer and noticed the figures carved at the upper corners of the impressive mausoleum. “Are those gargoyles?”
“They are, and some of the most lifelike I’ve ever seen.”
Caught by the pensive, almost awestruck tone in Melinda’s voice, Adrian studied her. Her face and neck were subtly flushed, her widened pupils flickering, her expression distant. For the first time since she’d met her, Melinda appeared vulnerable, almost shaken. Adrian gently touched her wrist, and this time sensed nothing but soft, warm skin. “Are you all right?”
Melinda turned to her slowly, her moist lips swollen as if from invisible kisses. “Yes. I’m fine.”
“I’m not sure I see the connection,” Adrian said, withdrawing her hand before Melinda got the wrong idea.
“This article is recent—three years ago. Someone right here is doing very fine stonework, and there aren’t many places to find good stone in any given area.” Melinda traced her finger almost lovingly over the face of a crouched figure with the body of a man-lion beast, scaled wings, and a fierce head with pointed ears and a broad, snarling muzzle. “Whoever sculpted this guardian may be getting the material from the same place as the artist. It’s possible they even know each other.”
“Guardian?” Adrian asked, her pulse suddenly racing.
“This is a guardian gargoyle. He’s a watcher, a protector of the spirit. Quite powerful. Some believe magical.”
Adrian remembered Dominic’s words from that morning. If it’s stone, Rooke does it…markers, crypts, statues. This was Rooke’s work. It had to be. And Melinda was completely enchanted by it. Adrian had no doubt Melinda would be completely enchanted by Rooke, as well.
“Stillwater Cemetery,” Melinda murmured and glanced at her watch. “It’s probably too late today, but there’s always someone around at a cemetery, even on Sunday. Tomorrow, I’ll have to pay a visit.”
“I’ll drive you,” Adrian said quickly before she had a chance to consider how Melinda might view the offer.
“Then tomorrow promises to be a doubly pleasant day.”
“It’s getting late.” Adrian returned the newspapers to their box. She didn’t want to examine too closely her reasons for volunteering to accompany Melinda the next day. All she knew was that she didn’t want Melinda going off alone in search of Rooke.
A new storm greeted them when they walked outside. Darkness had fallen, and snow swirled in wild eddies beneath the curved iron streetlights. The sidewalks were already covered with several inches of new fall over the old, making them treacherously slippery.
Melinda wrapped her arm around Adrian’s waist as they carefully trekked back to the hotel. “I didn’t believe them when they said we were getting five days of snow.”
“I’m going to have to pass on dinner,” Adrian said when they made it to the shelter of the Heritage House front porch. “Plowing the roads out around my grandmother’s isn’t a priority.”
“I’d argue, but I want you to be safe. Besides, I’ll be seeing you tomorrow, so I’ll have another chance to invite you.”
“I’ll call you in the morning. We’ll set a time.”
“I’ll be looking forward to it all evening.” Melinda kissed her cheek and touched her face with a gloved hand. “Sleep well.”
Adrian hurried to the Jeep, quickly brushed the windshield clear of snow with her sleeve, and jumped in. When she started the engine and looked back toward the hotel, Melinda was framed in the doorway with the soft yellow light of the lobby highlighting her dark, blade-like form. For an instant, Adrian remembered the candlelit bedroom and the woman moving demandingly upon her. Only it wasn’t Melinda bending close to claim her. It was Rooke.
Chapter Eleven
After reining in the chaos that had nearly overtaken her, Rooke spent a long time in the shower. She didn’t need the heat, because she wasn’t aware of being cold. She needed the steady drum of the water beating over her skin to drown out the last whispers of Adrian’s touch, fearing the slightest memory would be more than she could resist again.
When she walked into her grandfather’s kitchen and shook the snow from her hair, she said, “Sorry. Hope I didn’t ruin dinner.”
Her grandfather filled two bowls from a large pot on the stove and carried them to the table. He pulled out a red vinyl-covered chair with aluminum legs that matched the aluminum trim on the Formica table and sat down. He gestured to the other chair.
“Can’t ruin stew.” Pops shot her a glance. “You okay?”
“Yeah.”
“You want some rolls? I picked up those kind you like from the store this morning.” Pops pushed a green plastic dish lined with a napkin and filled with buttermilk biscuits toward her.
“Thanks.”
“I got an e-mail. Some of those books you been waiting for came out. You want to look at the list later?”
“I’m okay for now. I’ve still got half a dozen on the iPod.”
“Let me know when you’re ready, then.”
They ate in silence beneath the buzzing rectangular fluorescent light in the center of the ceiling. The small room was warm from the heat of the oven, and after a few minutes Rooke removed her flannel shirt and draped it over the back of her chair. Beneath it, she wore a clean navy blue T-shirt with her jeans and work boots. She’d covered the gash on the top of her hand with several Band-Aids.
“How things look at the Winchester place?” Pops finally asked.
“I got the tarp up. It won’t hold for long, not with the wind that’s coming up. I’ll check it tomorrow.” Rooke carried her bowl to the sink, rinsed it, and set it in the dishpan. “We’ll need to order slate.”
“That’s going to be a few weeks before it comes in.”
“That’s what I told Adrian.” She cleared her grandfather’s dishes and leaned against the counter, her hands in the pockets of her jeans. “The chimney needs rebuilding. I can start on that as soon as the storm lets up.”
“Going to be pretty cold for the mortar. You think it’ll set okay?”
Rooke shrugged. “I’ll rig up a heater. As long as I can layer it and get the stone set while the mortar’s at the right temperature, it should be okay.”
“What’s the hurry?”
“The house stays pretty cold without a fire, and with the added draft, Adrian’s uncomfortable.”
Pops leaned back in his chair. “She’s staying there for a while? Not just the weekend?”
“I don’t know.” Rooke realized she’d just assumed Adrian would be there. Maybe she’d just come up to check the place out and would be leaving come Monday. At the thought of never seeing Adrian again, the tightness returned to her chest. “I’ll have to ask her.”
“Well, either way, we’ll put the estimate together. I’m sure she’ll want to run it by her grandmother.” Pops gave a dry chuckle. “I’ll be surprised if Elizabeth Winchester doesn’t want some fancy outfit from Albany or somewhere to come down here and do the work.”
“She’ll wait a good long time if she does.” Rooke strode to the back door and twitched the curtain aside. Usually she didn’t care how long a storm went on or how much snow fell, but now, the snow presented a physical barrier keeping her away from Adrian. She didn’t even have the excuse of working on the house as a reason to see her as long as it kept snowing.
“You want to tell me why you’re pacing around like a cat in a cage?” Pops asked.
“I don’t know why.” Rooke wasn’t trying to be evasive. She really didn’t know. Since the moment Adrian had stared out at her through the window, a half-worried, half-aggravated expression on her face, she’d been captivated by her. It wasn’t just that she was beautiful. She had an edgy temper that hinted at both strength and vulnerability. She was alternately stubborn and tender. She was mysterious and smart. Very smart. She traveled around the world. She wrote article
s that probably thousands of people read. Rooke sighed. Adrian’s world was light-years away from her own.
“Let’s get the measurements for the estimate, then,” Pops said. “Might as well put some of that energy to use.”
“Right.” Rooke followed her grandfather into the adjoining room that had once been the formal dining room but now was his makeshift office. The big square walnut table in the middle of the room was built to seat ten, although Rooke had only the vaguest memory of ever having a family dinner at that table. Now rolls of drafting paper lay in the center surrounded by coffee cans filled with pens and drafting pencils.
“How big an area of the roof?” Pops asked, bending over a blank pad of paper.
“About a quarter of the rear section.” Rooke had paced it off before nailing down the tarp. She had an excellent sense of spatial dimensions and could remember angles and 3-D relationships with perfect recall. When building any of the larger structures on the cemetery grounds, after she and her grandfather reviewed the plans, she’d sketch the structure and then they’d go to the site. She’d walk the perimeter and stake the positions of all the critical supports. Then he’d measure to confirm it was to plan, and she was always right. “Thirty by twenty-two feet. Thirty feet of flashing. And the vertical downspouts need to be replaced. Eighty feet of pipe should do it.”
He made notes. “Chimney dimensions?”
“Forty by twelve.” Rooke judged the vertical height by the width of the stone in the chimney. “I’m going to use the native stone that’s on site. I’ll need at least twenty bags of mortar.”
“Inside?”
“A pallet of reclaimed bricks.”
“Your labor?”
Rooke hesitated. “Maybe we could give them a discount?”
Her grandfather looked up. “Why? You’re gonna be freezing your butt off out there. And standing on a scaffold in this kind of weather isn’t all that safe.”
Rooke felt herself blushing. She could hardly tell him that she’d do the work for free if it meant she could talk to Adrian once in a while. She didn’t want Adrian making coffee for someone else. “I…uh…the shop is slow right now. I could use something to do.”
“I just sent you four new orders for markers.”
“They’ll be ready. No problem.”
He scratched something down on the paper. “All right.”
“So what’s the total?”
He told her.
“I’ll take it over to Adrian tomorrow,” Rooke said. “I want to check to make sure the tarp is holding.”
“Uh-huh.”
He watched her as if expecting her to say something else. When the silence grew uncomfortable, Rooke said, “Thanks for dinner. I’ll get breakfast.”
“Sausage and eggs would be good.”
“You got it. ’Night, Pops.”
He waited until she was almost at the back door before calling, “Get some rest.”
Rooke pulled on her shirt and walked back to the shop. She hadn’t slept the night before and she was tired. She wasn’t sure she’d be able to sleep, though. She let herself into her apartment and got a beer from the fridge. Then she sat drinking it on the sofa in the dark. In the past when she’d been too agitated to sleep, she’d never known why—she’d only been aware of searching for something always just beyond her reach. Tonight, she knew her restlessness was because of Adrian, but nothing had really changed. Adrian was also beyond her reach.
*
Adrian didn’t want to go to sleep, so she cleaned. She’d replayed the events of the afternoon all the way home and still couldn’t stop thinking about the article she’d read about the young woman who died in the accident. Had Grace Tyler been Rooke’s mother? Was Rooke the child who’d nearly died? Why had there been so little mention of other family members in the article or so little follow-up in the press? Usually in close, tight communities such as this any tragedy, but especially the death of someone so young in such a violent manner, warranted more than a brief obituary. Why had her grandmother been so dismissive of the Tylers, and so obviously wrong in her assessment of Rooke? All her life, Adrian had felt compelled to look beneath the surface for the truth, perhaps because she’d grown up in a world that seemed built on superficiality and subterfuge. Rooke was a mystery she wanted very much to solve.
Rooke wasn’t the only person who occupied her mind as she straightened the kitchen, put away dishes, swept, and vacuumed. The sudden and intense appearance of Melinda Singer in her life had her in a quandary. She couldn’t bring herself to dislike her, even though Melinda’s attentions made her alternately aggravated and aroused. As annoying and frustrating as that was, Melinda still fascinated her. She’d always been drawn to danger—the unknown captivated her. That’s why she spent weeks of her life in places no sane person would travel, chasing a rumor, digging for a story. Melinda and her quest for the unidentified artist intrigued her, and the closer Melinda’s hunt took her to Stillwater, and Rooke, the more Adrian was driven to discover what Melinda was really after. She had moments when she wondered if their chance meeting on the train was really chance at all. Rationally, she knew it had to be coincidence, but nothing about Melinda felt ordinary. Her life seemed to have veered off course the moment she’d met Melinda Singer.
Moving into the parlor, she swept up the stone debris that had blown in when the chimney had collapsed. As she emptied the dustpan full of gray black powder into a heavy garbage bag, she recalled the smudge of soot on Rooke’s cheek and smiled to herself. Rooke had looked awfully sexy stretched out on the floor, one knee up, her long torso arching upward as she’d reached for something inside the chimney. Her pose might have been one of a woman lifting to meet her lover.
“Don’t go there,” Adrian muttered. The last thing she needed was another episode of unrequited arousal. Her body was already a seething mass of contradiction. She’d meant it when she’d told Melinda she wasn’t going to sleep with her, but the woman was almost mind-blazingly beautiful and so seductive the mere sound of her voice made Adrian wet. The response was purely physical, and she knew it. She just couldn’t stop it. The simmering arousal Melinda had incited plus the anxiety of driving on the slick road along the river in the dark, all the while remembering the article about Grace Tyler plunging into the Hudson in a similar storm, had her about ready to crawl out of her skin. She’d needed to do something to burn off the adrenaline, and she hadn’t wanted an orgasm that Melinda had prompted. So she cleaned.
Finally finished with the room, she relaxed on the sofa and immediately remembered being there earlier and opening her eyes to see Rooke bending over her. She’d looked so fierce, so possessive. Adrian’s breath came a little quicker and a familiar heaviness surged into her center. Rooke excited her in an altogether different way than the almost disconnected sexual response Melinda evoked. A smile from Rooke, a simple touch, stirred her, ignited her, in ways nothing else ever had. Melinda made her want to throw her shields up. Rooke made her want to take them down. She wasn’t certain if she should be exhilarated or terrified by that.
At last, physical exhaustion won out. She took a hot shower and fell into bed, vowing to put Melinda and Rooke and mysterious images of guardians and gargoyles from her mind.
*
At 3:15 a.m. Melinda was awakened by soft tapping at her door.
She didn’t bother with a robe, but answered the door in the black silk peignoir she’d worn to bed. Becky stood in the hall, her fingers laced together in front of her, looking uncertain and a little afraid.
Smiling, Melinda caressed her cheek. “Hello, darling.”
“I…I…” Becky’s green eyes were glazed, her peaches-and-cream complexion flushed a dusky rose. Her breasts lifted and fell erratically beneath her pale yellow blouse. She stared at Melinda’s mouth. “Please. I need…”
“Shh. I know.” Melinda clasped the back of Becky’s neck, weaving her fingers through her red-gold hair, and pulled her into the room. She gently closed the door, leaving t
hem in the dark. “I know.”
Becky’s arms came around Melinda’s neck and she fell against Melinda’s body. Melinda kissed her and Becky trembled, her heartbeat as skittish as that of a frightened bird. Cradling her face, Melinda traced the contours with her thumbs as she kissed her way down the fluttering pulse in Becky’s neck. She nibbled the sweet, tender skin at the base of Becky’s throat and Becky whimpered. Opening Becky’s blouse with one hand, she made her way lower, running her tongue over the rise of her sweet young flesh as she cupped the firm breast in her palm. Becky gasped as her legs gave way and Melinda barely caught her in time to keep her from falling to the floor.
“Come.” Melinda guided her to the bed and removed her blouse and bra, continually caressing her until Becky gave a small cry and collapsed. Melinda quickly removed the rest of Becky’s clothes and leaned over her, taking a tight warm nipple in her mouth.
“Please,” Becky murmured, gripping Melinda’s shoulders. “Please, I need you.”
“Yes.” Melinda covered Becky’s body with hers, breast to breast, thighs entwined. Becky writhed, panting, fingers digging frantically into Melinda’s hips. The hunger, awakened earlier by her desire for Adrian and left unsatisfied, reared up in Melinda’s depths like a voracious beast, demanding its due at last. She’d tried earlier to soothe the hunger by her own hand, but nothing she could do had been enough. Now Becky was here, offering herself, and Melinda nearly screamed with the agonizing ache to be filled. She couldn’t deny the beast again, not and keep her sanity. Shuddering, she ground her hot, swollen center against Becky’s tight thigh.
“Becky,” Melinda crooned, holding herself back with the last remnant of her restraint, “let me pleasure you. Let me make you come. Say yes, darling. Say yes.”
“Oh God, yes, yes.”
Melinda slid a hand between them and entered her, first her fingers, then as Becky opened, more. Hot, smooth muscles instantly enclosed her and the power of Becky’s innocent passion flooded her. Melinda threw her head back, crying out. Her flesh became flame as the hunger lashed through her.