His expression turned suddenly serious. “I always have. And I always will.”
He bent his head and laid his lips on hers, kissing her long and sweetly.
Joy seeped inside Janet until she overflowed. She laid her head against his chest, listening to the strong, sure beat of his heart.
“What now?” she asked eventually.
“We ought to get you home.” Ross frowned. “I’ve got a car, but we’re a couple of miles from Carter Farm. You won’t make it far on that ankle.”
“We can take my car,” Janet said. “I’m parked in the church lot.”
“Okay,” he said. “But tomorrow we go out to the farm and pick up the Auburn. Selling it should give me enough capital to start my own business.”
She loved that he was thinking ahead, planning for a future. With her.
All I can see when I close my eyes is you. You and our baby.
“What business is that?” she asked, looping her arms around his waist.
“Classic cars. Rebuilding them. Restoring them. There’s a real market out there.” He helped her down the steps. “And I’ve learned a lot in the past fourteen years.”
“I bet you’ve learned a lot about a lot of things,” she said, daring to tease.
His slow grin liquified her insides. “Honey, I can’t wait to show you.”
They hobbled down the brick walk to the parking lot, leaning on one another.
As they drove home, dawn stippled the east in pink and gold. Dreaming beneath the cover of fields and trees, the hills rested.
Turn the page for a sneak look at
CRIMSON MOON
by Rebecca York
Coming in January from Berkley Books
Chapter One
Auniformed rent-a-cop directed Sam Morgan to a grassy parking spot beside the curving driveway. He pulled his sleek Jaguar next to a boxy Volvo, then got out and clicked the remote control lock. It was a precaution he always took, although he was probably the only thief attending the Wilson Woodlock party.
He’d garnered an invitation to the Montecito, California, mansion through one of the tony organizations he belonged to for the purpose of mingling with the well-to-do, especially the ones who raped the earth for their own gains. The ones who killed animals and savaged forests. The ones who poisoned water and air and earth. Liberating some of their ill-gotten wealth was his chosen profession, as well as one of his chief pleasures.
Wilson Woodlock, whose company was currently denuding a stand of timber in Washington State with the enthusiasm of a termite nest on steroids, was his next target. Woodlock. It should be Woodkiller.
“Enjoy your evening, sir,” the rent-a-cop said as Sam strolled up the driveway.
“I certainly will,” he answered, with the right touch of enthusiasm.
A middle-aged couple in evening dress joined him on the curved drive, and the perfume wafting off the woman almost knocked him to the blacktop. Holding his breath, he dropped several paces behind them, pretending to admire the scenery.
The house sat in the middle of a walled park big enough to swallow a good-sized townhouse development. Instead of cookie-cutter dwellings in the masses, wide lawns and artfully naturalized plantings stretched into the darkness.
A blaze of lights and the buzz of conversation at the end of the driveway announced the mansion. The structure was typical of the upscale southern California neighborhood—Spanish grandee, with wrought iron balustrades and a red tile roof.
As Sam stepped into the entrance hall, a waiter immediately approached with graceful flutes on a silver tray.
“Champagne.”
“No thanks,” he answered politely. He hadn’t touched a drop of alcohol since the long-ago disaster in the Baltimore bikers’ bar. Back then he’d been rough-and-tumble Johnny Marshall wearing a black T-shirt and an attitude. Now he was Sam Morgan who felt as much at home in a tuxedo as he did in his wolf’s skin.
From saloon to salon in eight years. It was amazing how easily he’d taken on the veneer of civilization—once he’d put his mind to it.
Johnny would have been intimidated by the size of the house and covered his discomfort with a derisive sneer. But Sam fit easily into the posh surroundings. He didn’t have to prove anything—to himself or anyone else.
And he silently complimented his host on the small engraved sign at the front of the hallway. THANK YOU FOR NOT SMOKING. At least Woodlock shared one of his values. Like alcohol, cigarettes were on his “don’t even think about it” list. Smoke made him sick, even secondhand smoke.
At the bar in the conservatory, he requested his usual, “Soda water with lime.” Then, drink in hand, he wove his way through the partygoers. He recognized many of the faces—some from Newsweek or the California papers. Others were from households he’d robbed. But why not? A man with Woodlock’s environmental record would have friends of the same persuasion.
He greeted a few acquaintances but kept moving. When he felt the hair on the back of his neck prickle, he went still. Casually he stopped to look at a Picasso print hanging over a Bombay chest. Then, just as casually, he turned. When he saw no one staring at him, he continued on his way.
He encountered his host in the dining room. The lumber baron, a balding sixty-five-year-old man with a shallow chest and stooped shoulders, was propped against a sideboard, talking to several cronies. He seemed almost inert, except for his eyes, which were bright. Too bright. It looked like the guy had fortified himself with something potent in order to withstand his own party.
When Woodlock looked in his direction, Sam pasted a smile on his face and came forward. “I’m pleased to have this chance to meet you,” he said, holding out his hand. “I’m Sam Morgan.”
“Oh, yes. From the Glendora Fund list. So glad you could come.”
The other man’s palm was damp and pudgy against his, and Sam had to work to keep a look of disgust off his face. They chatted for a few minutes; then Sam said he’d like to see his host’s famous pre-Colombian art collection, the one that had been written up recently in Smithsonian Magazine.
The man flushed with pride and directed him toward the back of the house, leaving him to find his own way while he kept up his host’s duties.
Sam easily found the small gallery. It was full of glass display cases that held a wealth of miniature carved and sculpted figures, produced by skilled artisans before the arrival of Columbus in the New World. He bent to look at a woman with large breasts and exaggerated sex organs, then studied the alarm system on the case. When he’d seen what he needed to see, he moved on to other figures—a man riding a llama and a mountain cat ready to spring. There, sixteen little gems were exquisitely rendered. And all were too distinctive to sell on the open market. But he wasn’t interested in their cash value. Simply depriving Woodlock of his fabulously expensive tchotchkes would be enough of a reward.
He switched his attention from the art objects to the room itself, looking for a control panel for the alarm system. Although he saw nothing, he’d studied the house plans and had made an educated guess. As he’d hoped, the keypad was in a closet that backed up to the gallery. Once inside, he turned on the small flashlight he’d brought. Taking a piece of special paper from a case in his pocket, he carefully laid it over the keys, then slipped the case into his pocket again.
His task completed, he strode to the buffet table and enjoyed a slice of rare roast beef on a cocktail bun. But the crush of people was starting to oppress him. There were too many bodies. Too much heat and noise. Too many smells. If somebody on the other side of the room farted, he knew it.
When he found a closed door, he opened it and stepped into the family room, where he could be alone for a few minutes of decompression.
The shelves behind the boxy chenille sofa were filled with an interesting assortment of books and knickknacks. Mentally he noted a couple of figurines he was pretty sure were Limoges. Nice, but probably not worth his time and trouble.
French doors at the side of the
room led to a terrace. He thought he might step outside and give the back of the house a quick inspection. Before he could open the door, however, the swish of a silk skirt stopped him.
“So what do you think of Romberg’s chances in the primary?” a woman asked.
He was about to say that he thought the man would be the Republican candidate for governor, but the words froze in his throat as he turned to gaze into the most extraordinary pair of green eyes he had ever seen. Automatically his mind catalogued other details. She was about five foot six, slender, with delicate features and long dark hair swept back from her face and held by antique platinum clips studded with tiny diamonds. A matching pendant hung from a slender chain around her throat, dipping toward the cleavage just visible at the top of the softly draped bodice of her ice-blue cocktail dress.
“Very nice,” he murmured.
When she gave him a quizzical look, he realized his response hadn’t exactly meshed with her question.
He cleared his throat and tried not to sound like a tongue-tied teenager. “Romberg is going to get the votes of people who are worried about rising taxes.”
She played with a strand of her dark hair. “He can’t run on one issue.”
Sam wanted to say something intelligent. But the woman’s enticing scent wafted toward him—not perfume but her own delicious essence, wrapping him in a seductive embrace. He felt her green eyes stripping away his carefully cultivated veneer, and he couldn’t help wondering if she saw all the way down to the wolf lurking deep inside.
Impossible. Nobody could detect the wolf—unless he wanted them to.
He knew who she was. He’d been intrigued enough to dig up every scrap of information on her that he could find.
Some people photographed well. She was just the opposite. As they stood face to face, he saw that all the cameras pointed her way had failed her utterly. None had managed to capture her subtle beauty.
Before he could speak, she filled the silence. “I don’t think we’ve met. I’m Olivia Woodlock.”
“Sam Morgan,” he answered, then heard himself asking, “Were you following me around?”
Did a little flash of guilt cross her features? Before he could analyze her expression, she dipped her head and looked up at him through a screen of lashes.
Her voice turned flirtatious. “You caught my attention.”
“I try to blend into the woodwork,” he answered.
“You couldn’t.”
Her tone sent a little jolt along his nerve endings, which he tried to ignore. Starting anything with Woodlock’s daughter would be insane. His best option was to put some distance between them, but she took a step closer, moving so that she was facing him.
“I’m glad you stopped by,” she murmured.
“Why?”
“I get tired of the same old faces—the same conversations. Do you live nearby?”
“I drove down for the evening,” he answered easily.
“From where?”
He almost told her where he lived before quashing the impulse. “North,” he said, and left it at that.
It was difficult to keep his focus on her face. He wanted to look at the place where that diamond pendant decorated her cleavage.
He should excuse himself and blend back into the crowd. He and Olivia Woodlock were standing too close, getting too involved. He didn’t want to be attracted to Wilson Woodlock’s daughter. And he didn’t want her to remember him later.
Too late for that. They were reacting on too basic a level—a very sexual level.
Below the surface of the conversation, he was feeling his own guilt, since his purpose in her home wasn’t exactly honorable. Then he reminded himself sternly that she had been brought up in solitary splendor in a house that hundreds of people would be happy to share. Her bedroom alone could probably house three families.
Her bedroom. If he asked her to go up there with him, would she accept the invitation?
The outrageous thought shocked him. Since the bad old days in Baltimore, he’d learned caution. He’d learned to focus on what was important at each moment of his existence. Olivia Woodlock was muddying his brain, tempting him to break the ironclad rules he’d made for himself. He knew by the tension crackling between them that he wasn’t the only one sexually interested.
“Do you often play with fire?” he asked, hearing the thickness in his own voice.
“Never.”
“Then what are we doing now?”
She licked her lips, and his gaze followed the movement of her tongue.
“We’re getting to know each other.”
“And then what?”
He waited for a snappy rejoinder. Before she had a chance to continue the conversation, a loud thumping noise and a shout from somewhere outside the room made her eyes go wide.
The blood drained from her face. Pushing past him, she rushed out the door.
Man of My Dreams Page 32