After Caroline

by Kay Hooper

  “The room service waiter will spread the news,” Joanna told him as they rode up in the elevator.

  “I,” he said, “don’t care. In fact, I think I’ll answer the door wearing a towel, and really heat up the gossip.”

  “You wouldn’t,” she said.

  He would. He did. And he made her stay out of sight in the bedroom, presumably not dressed for a hotel waiter’s eyes, while he signed for their supper, tipped the waiter outrageously, and then hustled the young man out in a clearly impatient manner.

  “I can’t believe you did that,” she said, laughing as she rejoined him in the living room of her suite.

  Smiling, he caught her around the waist and pulled her against him. “I told you I was feeling ridiculous these days.”

  Joanna put her hands on his chest, enjoying the feeling of hard muscles and unconsciously stroking the pelt of black hair covering them. “Yes, but I had no idea what lengths you’d go to.” Still unwilling to think about her own feelings or question his, she said, “I’m just beginning to get to know Griffin as a lover, you know.”

  “Griffin as your lover,” he said, bending his head to kiss her.

  She thought it was almost a crime how quickly and easily he could reduce her to a creature of tingling nerves and empty want, but she didn’t fight to control how he made her feel. Her arms slid up around his neck, and she rose on tiptoe to fit herself more closely to him, her mouth opening eagerly beneath his.

  His hands moved down to cup her buttocks and hold her even tighter against his swelling loins. Against her lips, he muttered, “You’re still dressed.”

  “Mmm. Well, do something about it,” she invited huskily. Then she tilted her head back and looked at him. “Our supper’s going to get cold.”

  “To hell with it. We’ll send it back to the kitchen to be reheated. The waiter expects it anyway.”

  Joanna laughed, but she didn’t protest when he lifted her in his arms and carried her to the bedroom.

  “For a couple of intelligent people,” Griffin said later, “we haven’t been very smart. I assume neither one of us has health concerns, but what about birth control? I’m sorry, Joanna, I didn’t even think.”

  They were on the couch in the living room, both wearing hotel robes as they ate their belated supper—which they had not sent back to the kitchen because they were hungry and it tasted just fine as it was—and watched the news on television.

  “I didn’t either,” she said, “but as it happens, I take those shots every three months. The pill didn’t agree with me, and the shots have benefits other than just birth control.” She shrugged. “As to health, I know you’re a responsible man, so I wasn’t worried. And I had a complete physical last summer after the accident, including blood tests. So you don’t have to be worried either.”

  “I wasn’t worried, I just thought we should talk about it.”

  “And you were right.” She leaned over and kissed him briefly. “This is a dangerous time for sex.”

  He touched her cheek as he so often did, and said, “For a woman, there’s probably never been a safe time. You always seem to bear most of the consequences.”

  She chuckled as she drew back. “True enough. But what I can’t figure out is how things got so skewed. Do you know that some of the latest research claims that our notions of early man are probably totally wrong? Back when our people were hunter-gatherers and lived in small groups and didn’t wear clothes, the thinking goes now, the groups were very likely controlled by the women. Because many species—especially primates—are, in effect, matriarchies.”

  Griffin grinned at her. “Ah. So, of course, the men had to find ways of asserting control.”

  Joanna nodded, solemn. “I’m not quite sure when or how the change took place, but whenever you guys got the power, you weren’t about to let go of it. Next thing we knew, we were wearing utterly absurd things like corsets and bustles and high heels, and were practically sold into slavery when we married—and we had to marry, because our fathers certainly weren’t going to leave us money or property, and we couldn’t get jobs. And now that things are finally getting better, what’s happening?”

  “What?” he asked obediently.

  Joanna frowned at him. “We’re criticized constantly. If we work or don’t work; if we marry or don’t marry; if we have kids or don’t. A woman in a position of power, people look at her clothes, for God’s sake; who looks at a man’s?”

  “We mostly wear dark suits,” Griffin protested. “Boring as hell.”

  “Umm. Maybe that’s the problem. If we went back to our hunter-gatherer days and all went naked—”

  “With the hole in the ozone? There’d be a hell of a run on sunblock.”

  She giggled despite herself. “We’re not having a serious conversation here, are we?”

  “Not anymore.” He grinned again. “I’ll just offer a blanket apology for my sex going all the way back to whenever it was we began acting like sexist pigs. Good enough?”

  “Well, just remember, I’ll have my eye on you. So don’t even think about reverting.”

  He saluted her with a hand holding a biscuit. “No, ma’am.”

  Both chuckling, they went back to eating, absently watching one of those news magazine shows on television. And it was several minutes later when Griffin spoke again.

  “Joanna…”

  She was looking at a chicken leg that appeared to have nothing left to offer, and sighed as she leaned forward to drop the bone onto the plate on the coffee table. Then she leaned back and looked at Griffin. “Yes?”

  “You told me that when you saw Regan today, you were sure you were here because of her. To help her.”

  Joanna nodded. “I was positive.”

  “Help her in what way?”

  “That, I don’t know. But if Caroline was terrified enough to reach out as far as she did to plead with me to help Regan, then the threat against her has to be pretty strong, at least in Caroline’s mind. To be honest, I was reluctant to leave Scott’s house this morning, but I kept telling myself that the only way I could help her was to figure out what her mother was afraid of.”

  Griffin frowned as he gazed at her. “Why do I get the feeling that with Regan’s possible safety in the picture, you aren’t going to be nearly as cautious as I want you to be?”

  Joanna didn’t attempt evasion. Instead, steadily, she said, “If something were to happen to Regan, something I might have been able to prevent, I’d never be able to forgive myself. She doesn’t have anybody else, Griffin. Scott doesn’t seem to feel a thing for her. She’s … taken to me. Maybe because of my resemblance to Caroline—but I’d prefer to think that just broke the ice.”

  “Look, I agree she needs a friend. Maybe she even needs a protector. All I’m asking is that you keep something in mind. You can’t protect her if something happens to you.”

  Joanna nodded. “I know. And I will be careful.”

  He must have heard something rueful in her tone, because Griffin smiled and put his arms around her. “Am I being too much a mother hen?”

  “Well, warning me once or twice would have been enough,” she replied, grave.

  “I just don’t want to lose you.” He kissed her, then drew back and looked at her, his dark eyes very intent. With his index finger, he traced her eyebrows, the shape of her cheekbones, her nose, her lips. Joanna felt almost hypnotized by his very absorption, and she had the vague feeling she wasn’t even breathing.

  “And what makes it worse is that I don’t really have you,” he murmured, his finger still tracing her features as though he were memorizing her. “There’s a … distance between us, something you won’t let me cross. What is it, Joanna? Why are you holding back?”

  She tried to concentrate on what he was saying rather than the husky sound of it that her body reacted to like a caress. “I’ve known you barely a week, Griffin, and a lot has happened. I just … I need a little time, that’s all.”

  “Is it only that?”


  “No,” she answered honestly. “It’s … everything. I can’t explain to you how much of my mind is filled with what’s happening here, what happened before I came. The dreams, the questions, the possibilities. Sometimes it’s overwhelming. I came here for a reason, because I was compelled to come here, and I just don’t have the … the emotional energy for more right now. It isn’t you. It’s me.”

  His hand cupped her cheek, his thumb rubbing across her lower lip slowly. “Then I guess I’ll have to be patient a while longer.”

  Joanna probably would have said something, thanked him or agreed that would be best, but he was kissing her again, and this time it wasn’t light or brief or anything but raw hunger. It was a hunger her body felt just as strongly, and she responded to him with the natural instincts of a flower opening to the sun.

  She didn’t think at all then, and not much in the hours that followed. But by the time they lay close together in her bed in the peaceful quiet of the night, she knew that she didn’t need any more time to know that she loved him.

  She just needed time to understand what Caroline had meant to him, and to get that other woman out of her head.

  And maybe … out of his?

  Griffin left first in the morning, since he had to be at the office early. Joanna told him she’d walk into town later on, that she wanted to stop by the library to talk to Mrs. Chandler and run a few errands—and, yes, she would be careful.

  When she left the hotel, it was nearly ten, and she was unwillingly amused to note how many people in the lobby gave her sidelong glances as she passed through; either the room service waiter had been talkative, or else Griffin had not escaped unnoticed on his way out this morning. Then again, perhaps it had just been the presence of his Blazer parked in the hotel lot overnight that had done the trick.

  Life in a fishbowl. Still, Joanna rather liked the feeling of almost everybody knowing each other, and if a certain amount of privacy was lost—okay, if most privacy was lost—that still seemed to her a small price to pay for the feeling of community.

  She stopped at the library for a few minutes to talk to Mrs. Chandler. It was just small talk, but when she impulsively asked the librarian if she had noticed anything odd about Caroline in the week before the accident, she was surprised by the answer she got.

  “Well, just one thing. She came in either that week or the week before and asked me an odd question: Wanted to know how she could find out what countries did not have an extradition treaty with the United States.”

  Joanna frowned. “So she wanted to know where U.S. criminals could go without fearing arrest?”

  “That was the information she was looking for. I was puzzled at the time, but people do come in here with odd questions, naturally, so I didn’t think too much about it.”

  “You didn’t notice anything about her behavior? I mean, did she seem upset or nervous to you?”

  Mrs. Chandler’s sharp eyes narrowed slightly. “To be honest, I don’t remember. Why, Joanna?”

  Joanna shrugged. “I’m just trying to find out all I can about her.”

  “Forgive me if I doubt that’s your reason.” The librarian smiled. “But don’t worry, I won’t demand the truth. Sooner or later, I’ll know it.”

  “One of the benefits of a small town?”

  “Well, the truth usually comes out, and when it does everyone knows it. That’s not to say, of course, that gossip doesn’t get completely out of hand at times. Like now. I wouldn’t blame Cain Barlow if he moved back to Portland.”

  “Have you seen him?” Joanna asked.

  “Not for a few days. Not that it’s unusual for him to go off painting, but he’s not exactly a dense man, and if he knows which way the talk is leaning, it wouldn’t surprise me to learn he’d left just to get away from it.”

  Joanna thought about that as she left the library and walked toward the downtown stores. If Cain had left to get away from the gossip, he couldn’t have picked a worse time. The faster he cleared his name, the sooner the gossip would die down. Joanna knew Griffin well enough to know that, once satisfied as to Cain’s innocence, he would personally see to it that the entire town was made aware of that fact.

  But until then…

  And what about Caroline’s question to the librarian? It was beginning to look more and more as if she had indeed been involved in something dangerous. Had she herself committed a crime? Or had she discovered that her lover had done so and was preparing to flee the country? Had that been the final straw for Caroline, finding out that the man she was involved with was about to leave and didn’t intend to take her with him?

  With Scott eliminated in her own mind, and Cain out of reach at the moment, Joanna couldn’t help but think of Doc. Had he been her lover? And if it had been him, what could he have been involved in that had so frightened Caroline? A doctor, of course, had the knowledge and means to kill; had he? And had Caroline somehow discovered that? Joanna hadn’t checked so-called natural deaths in Cliffside during the last six months or so—perhaps she should?

  Or perhaps Doc had been—maybe still was—involved in something else. As the town’s main doctor, he was certainly privy to a great deal of information; could he have been blackmailing someone?

  Brooding unhappily over that possibility, Joanna looked up to realize she was nearly at the cafe. Lyssa and Dylan stood near the door talking, and then the exotic blonde headed across the street toward the store she ran, On the Corner. She saw Joanna as she turned, but just lifted a hand in greeting as she went on.

  “Hi, Joanna.” Dylan smiled at her. “Can I buy you a cup of coffee? I’m just about to go inside and take a break.”

  “Sure, thanks.” As she preceded him inside, Joanna asked, “A break from what?”

  “Wrestling with bureaucratic red tape,” he responded. “Scott wants to move forward with all speed to build Caroline’s addition to the clinic, and you wouldn’t believe the paperwork involved. I just spent the last two hours at the courthouse.”

  Sitting across from him at a booth, Joanna smiled sympathetically. “You’d think things would be different in a small town, but that sounds just like Atlanta.” She looked up as Liz came to their table, and ordered coffee from the waitress. Dylan did as well. It was brought to them promptly and with a cheerful smile from Liz, who asked Joanna if she had recovered from the crash.

  “Completely, thanks,” Joanna told her. “Didn’t even get a scratch.”

  “Glad to hear it,” Liz said with a nod. “God, these modern cars are filled with so much wiring it’s a wonder we don’t all find ourselves hurtling down a highway out of control. My brother’s a mechanic, and he says between all the sensors and other gadgets in these little cars, there’s hardly room for a decent engine anymore.”

  “I think I’ll get something bigger next time,” Joanna mused. “Maybe a Jeep.”

  “I like Jeeps,” Liz volunteered. Then she rolled her eyes as the cook yelled to her that there was an order waiting. “The master’s voice,” she muttered, and turned away with her coffeepot.

  “Scott told me you’d been in a wreck,” Dylan said, shaking his head. “Something about the throttle? Jeez, sometimes I think we’d do better to go back to horses and buggies.”

  Relieved that Scott had apparently not mentioned the tampering, Joanna laughed and said, “Oh, we don’t have to be that drastic. It was just a fluky thing, what happened to me. Anyway, the car’s the rental company’s headache now, and I’m not going to worry about it.”

  “Probably smart.”

  She smiled at him and sipped her coffee. “So, what about your headaches at the moment? I saw the bulldozers beside the clinic and assumed the new addition was well under way.”

  “Well, Scott more or less jumped the gun when he ordered the lots cleared off. The work had to be stopped while all the necessary permits and paperwork were taken care of. And Doc isn’t happy, of course, because with winter coming on, the addition probably won’t be finished until next summ
er and will undoubtedly cost more than the estimates.”

  “Caroline left a finite amount to cover the costs?”

  Dylan nodded. “Probably enough—but maybe not. Of course, Scott would make up the difference.”

  “Would he?”

  “Oh, yeah. Caroline wanted it built, and he’ll see to it that it’s built.”

  Joanna hesitated as he drank some of his coffee, then said, “I guess you knew her pretty well.”

  “I was in and out of the house nearly every day,” he said musingly. “So, yeah, I guess I did. She didn’t much notice the peons, though.”

  Joanna felt a little chill and really looked at him, focused on him. “Peons? Surely she didn’t feel that way about everybody who worked for Scott?” She couldn’t help but think of Adam Harrison and his miserable love for Caroline.

  Dylan frowned slightly. “It wasn’t contempt, just indifference. She’d grown up with servants in the house, and to her they were virtually invisible; since I have an office in the house and work for Scott, I guess that put me in the same class. There was nothing hateful about it.” He smiled wryly. “But feeling invisible isn’t the most pleasant sensation.”

  But handsome men weren’t invisible to Caroline—no matter who they were. Joanna knew that as surely as she knew her own name.

  “I imagine not,” she said slowly. Another lover? God, did she even sleep with a man her husband saw every day, a man with an office in her own house? It seemed more than likely, but Joanna wasn’t quite ready to ask a blunt question. Instead, she said, “Did you notice anything odd about her that last week? I mean, was she upset?”

  “Upset? Caroline was never upset, at least not that I saw.” He shrugged. “But I was in and out of Portland that week, so I hardly saw her. Why?”

  It was Joanna’s turn to shrug. “I just thought she must have been upset about something to lose control of her car that way.”

  “I’ve always wondered where she was coming back from,” Dylan said. “I mean, so far north of town, and heading back this way, according to Griff. She didn’t leave town very often—and in the middle of the day?”