by Anne Stuart
“Fine. I’m not a MacDowell.”
Instantly he realized that was a tactical error. She was a strong, resilient woman, but she’d been through too much in the last few days, culminating in Sally’s death that morning. She picked up a chair and threw it at him.
He managed to knock it out of his way and leap up after her. She’d opened the door, halfway out, barefoot or not, when he caught her arm and dragged her back in, slamming the door shut behind her and pushing her up against it. His own tenuous hold on his temper had snapped as well, and he didn’t care. He loomed over her, trapping her, holding her there, as she fought against him, her strong fists pounding against his chest, her bare feet kicking his shins, as a litany of pathetically lame curses came from her mouth.
He caught her shoulders and shook her once, hard, shocking her into momentary silence. Tears were pouring down her pale face, the tears she hadn’t shed since Sally’s body had been found. “Someone needs to teach you how to swear,” he muttered.
She took a deep, shuddering breath. “Who the fuck are you?” she demanded hoarsely.
A small, reluctant smile cracked his face. “That’s better. I’m Alexander MacDowell, and you know it.”
“Which would supposedly make you my first cousin,” she said bitterly.
He shook his head. “The only person in this room with MacDowell blood is you. Sally’s only child died before he was born—she managed to find another baby boy to substitute for her own.”
Carolyn stopped fighting. She leaned her head back against the door, staring up at him. “You’re crazy!”
He shook his head. “Why do you suppose Sally was so dead set against DNA tests? She knew nothing would be proved. I’m the changeling in the family, Carolyn. Not you.” She looked up at him in shock, and he couldn’t resist touching her face, the silky smooth, pale skin. “Not you,” he repeated softly, leaning his forehead against hers. “Not you.”
HE LEFT HER alone. After she pushed him away he stepped back, and made no move to touch her again. She could be grateful for that much, Carolyn thought in a blinding daze of pain. If he touched her again she would crumble, and she couldn’t afford to let that happen.
She was cold, so cold. She’d lost track of the time, but it didn’t matter. She crawled into one of the queen-sized beds and pulled the covers up tight around her face, shutting out the world, shutting out the man who seemed to have been the harbinger of everything disastrous in her life. If she could sleep then maybe it would all go away.
When she woke the room was filled with an eerie light, and the bed was moving. She lay in the odd stillness, disoriented, knowing something was terribly wrong and not able to remember it. The bed was shaking, and it took her a moment to realize it was her body, wracked with shivers, that was making it move.
Alex lay stretched out on the other bed, asleep. The blue light of the muted television set filled the motel room, and Carolyn watched the screen for a moment. He’d been watching The Weather Channel when he fell asleep. She had no idea whether he was expecting a natural disaster or he was just a weather junkie. She didn’t care.
All she cared about was getting warm. It was 3:47 a.m. according to the digital clock, and the room was like a freezer. She expected to see her breath mist in the frigid air. The pile of blankets lay on top of her like layers of ice, closing the cold in around her, and Alex lay in a t-shirt and jeans, seemingly oblivious to the cold. His bed was stripped down to the bottom sheet—he’d piled them on top of hers, and she felt a dizzy sense of gratitude. In this ice cave he was willing to risk freezing to death for her sake.
She’d read somewhere that freezing to death wasn’t a bad way to go. You got numb, and then you fell asleep, and that was the end of it. But the numbness wouldn’t come, no matter how badly she needed it, the cold was sharp and painful, and she bit her lip rather than cry out. All she could do was lie in the cocoon of covers and shake.
She tried to hit him when he climbed onto the bed beside her, but her arms were trapped beneath the pile of blankets. He made no move to get under them, he simply lay on top of them, wrapping his body around hers. He was hot in the icy room, burning hot, and she thought he must be dying. She didn’t care. She needed his heat.
He was talking to her, she realized. Soft, meaningless phrases, as he warmed her body with his, and one hand gently stroked her face. Her tears were made of ice as well, but the heat from his hand melted them, so that they ran down her skin, burning her.
His whispered words made no sense; she knew that. “Hush, Carolyn. It’ll be all right, I promise. I won’t let anything happen. Just take a deep breath and let the heat surround you. I won’t leave you. I promise I’ll take care of you.”
From somewhere deep inside she wanted to laugh. She didn’t need anyone to take care of her. She had learned early on to be strong, to take care of herself.
And besides, everyone always left her, sooner or later.
What other silly things was he saying to her? It didn’t matter. His feverish body was warming hers, and she could feel herself draining him. She’d leave him a cold, frozen husk if she weren’t careful. She should bring him under the covers, share the warmth with him. She should tell him she didn’t need him. She should do a thousand things.
But all she could do was sleep.
ALEX CONSIDERED making her eat cold lo mein for breakfast, then decided he couldn’t be that cruel. The room was stifling hot, and when he finally woke her she was logy, covered with sweat, limp with heat and exhaustion.
“Five minutes for a shower or we’ll miss the first ferry, and I don’t know how hard a time we’ll have getting a space on the next one.”
She stared at him with blank incomprehension. He wondered if she remembered anything about last night. Probably not, and just as well. It would take a long time to get past her distrust—knowing she’d been vulnerable enough to cling to him and weep in his arms would be hard for her to accept.
He was willing to give her all the emotional space she needed, as long as she stayed close. His first and foremost task was to keep both of them alive. Getting past her formidable sense of betrayal and anger would have to wait.
She was out of the shower and dressed in five minutes flat. He’d already packed up their meager belongings and stowed them in the car, and he was waiting by the open door when she came out. “We can get coffee and something to eat on the ferry,” he told her.
“I’m not hungry.”
“If you tell me that one more time I’ll strangle you,” he said calmly. “I don’t give a shit whether you’re hungry or not. I’m not hungry either. Our lives happen to be in danger. It would make sense if we managed to eat something.”
“Wouldn’t it make more sense if we didn’t go to Martha’s Vineyard? Assuming you’re right and someone wants to kill us, wouldn’t Edgartown be one of the first places they’d look? They’re bound to find us.”
“I want them to find us. I want to flush him out. I want to see the face of the person who shot me eighteen years ago. I want to look into his eyes.”
“His?”
“Or hers. Get in the car, Carolyn, or we’ll miss the ferry.”
“Maybe I want to miss the ferry.”
“Then whoever’s trying to kill you will simply find us in Woods Hole.”
She climbed in the car, maintaining a stony silence until they were safely onboard.
He half hoped she’d continue to ignore him. He didn’t want to deal with questions when he wasn’t sure of the answers. And a wrong guess would be fatal.
The moment they were parked she left the car. He let her go. There was no way she could get away from him on a boat, and for the time being they weren’t in any danger. If she needed half an hour away from him he was willing to grant it.
The last thing he expected was to see her reappear at the car with
a carrier holding two cardboard cups of coffee and a couple of muffins.
She climbed back into the passenger seat and held out the tray. He glanced at it warily.
“Any shrimp in the coffee?” he asked.
“I could spill it on your lap,” she offered sweetly. “I’m trying to make a peaceful gesture. At least you could meet me halfway.”
He looked at her pale mouth, set and determined. She was even stronger than he’d realized. She sat beside him, calm, composed, and shattered inside. And for some reason he found her dignity even more devastating than her vulnerability.
He took the cup of coffee. It was overpoweringly sweet, just the way he liked it. “So we’ve got a truce?”
“For the time being. Have a cyanide muffin.”
He managed a smile. She was bundled in several layers of sweaters, including one of his, and her long blonde hair was damp from her morning shower, hanging in a windswept tangle down her back. She was still wearing the faded jeans, and he’d never seen anyone look less like a MacDowell. It was all he could do not to jump her.
“Are you going to tell me who you think it is?” Her prosaic question made only a slight dent in his erotic fantasies.
He took another gulp of his coffee. It was too hot and he didn’t give a damn. “I don’t know.”
“But you must have some suspicions.”
“It could be almost any of them. Patsy, Warren, Ruben or Constanza. Hell, even George and Tessa might have something to do with it.”
“Tessa was fourteen when you left.”
“And you were almost fourteen. If you’d had a gun, don’t you think you could have shot me?” he countered.
“Easily. But why would Tessa care?”
“I don’t know,” he said. “I don’t know why anyone would want to kill me.”
“I don’t know why anyone wouldn’t have wanted to kill you back then,” Carolyn replied. “The question is, how does that tie in with now? And what makes you so sure someone wants to kill you? Or me, for that matter? I might have been wrong about the gunshots. It might have been some idiot hunter. And brakes do fail.”
“Brakes do fail,” he agreed. “But seldom with such exquisite timing. You want to go back to the bosom of your family and give them a chance to try again? Just to make certain someone really is murderous?”
“Isn’t that what we’re doing by coming to the Vineyard? You’re trying to lure them, to get them to try again. I don’t know why we bothered to come here. We didn’t have to drive two hundred and fifty miles just to get someone to attempt murder—we could have stayed home and saved a lot of time. Why waste the gas?”
“Because here we have the upper hand.”
“Do we?” She wasn’t bothering to hide her cynicism. “It’s an island. Doesn’t that limit most avenues of escape?”
“He’ll be coming. And we’ll be ready for him,” Alex said calmly.
“There’s that ‘he’ again. You think it’s Warren, don’t you? Dear, doting Uncle Warren, out to kill his nephew and his daughter.” Her voice was brittle. “How very . . . MacDowell of him.”
“I don’t know who it is. He’s the obvious choice. He knows you’re a threat to the inheritance. He doesn’t think I am. That’s why you’ve been the target up to now.”
“And now?”
“Now I think he’ll want to hedge his bets. I don’t know what they’re thinking up in Vermont. Probably that we’ve gone off for a few days of hot, unbridled sex. Except the murderer will know better. He’ll know why we’ve run.”
“And what if they don’t guess where we are? Maybe it’s not as obvious as we think.”
“Then I’ll call and tell them,” Alex said. “Just to help things along.”
Carolyn was silent for a moment, surveying the crumbled remains of her muffin. “All right,” she said finally. “But just one thing.”
“Yeah?”
“We’re not having hot, unbridled sex on the Vineyard.” She sounded very certain.
He wasn’t about to disabuse her of the notion. One battle at a time. “Whatever you say.”
Chapter Twenty
THE HOUSE ON Water Street was spotless—during their absence someone had come in and cleaned up any trace of their last visit. Fortunately, the power and water were still on, and this time the phone was working as well. Carolyn listened to the dial tone for a moment, then put the receiver down with a faint frown. There was no one she wanted to call.
“Phone working?” Alex stood in the hallway, holding their suitcases.
“Yes.”
“Don’t answer it if it rings.”
“I thought you wanted them to know we were here.”
“I do,” he said. “But I don’t want to have a cozy conversation with them.” He started toward the stairs.
“I can carry my own suitcase,” she said. “I’ll be sleeping in my old room.”
“No, you won’t,” he said flatly. “I’m tired of you playing Cinderella.”
“Fine,” she snapped. “Then I’ll sleep downstairs in Sally’s room and wallow in luxury.”
“Sorry,” he said, sounding not the slightest bit repentant. “You’re sleeping with me.”
She glared at him. “I told you, I’m not about to sleep with you ever again.”
He was unimpressed. “You look just like my mother did when she was being haughty. I’m amazed I never noticed the resemblance before.”
“I thought you told me she wasn’t your mother.”
“She didn’t give birth to me. But she was my mother, nonetheless.”
“I’m still not sharing a bed with you.”
“You don’t have to. You just have to share a room with me. Haven’t you gotten it through your stubborn head that you’re in danger? Someone wants to kill you. Someone who thinks you stand in the way of a tidy inheritance. This old house is too big for you to be wandering about without someone looking out for you.”
“You really think Uncle Warren is going to show up here with a gun?” She couldn’t think of him by any other name. “I don’t see the point. Why would he think I’d be a threat? Up until last night I didn’t know I had any connection to him, and now that I do, I’d just as soon put as much distance between us as possible. He doesn’t need to kill me. He’s repudiated me all my life—I’m not about to go asking for anything now.”
“Maybe you want revenge for his rejecting you.”
“I’m not the revenge kind of person,” she said flatly.
“I know that. I’m not sure Warren is as observant. He doesn’t look much past the nose on his face. His abiding interest is the MacDowell money, and he can’t comprehend why someone else wouldn’t be equally obsessed. Anyway, we don’t know that it’s Warren. He’s the logical choice, but there’s no proof. Maybe Patsy isn’t as big a space cadet as she seems.”
“Maybe not,” Carolyn said in a quiet voice.
“We’ll be sleeping in the front room—”
“The hell we will,” she said. “There’s only one bed there.”
“At least it’s a double. Don’t worry, angel, I’ll drag a mattress in and sleep on the floor. It’s got the best location. We can hear anyone coming up the stairs, we have a view of Water Street, and we can always escape off the porch roof.”
“What about the back stairs?”
“The floor in the hallway creaks. So does the double bed in the front room, for that matter. If you change your mind we’d better do it on the mattress and not on the bed.”
She just stared at him. “You’re awfully cheerful for someone who just lost his mother and is convinced someone is trying to kill him. Or is it the thought of all that nice money you’ve just become heir to?”
The look he gave her was chilling. “Why, it’s the thought of all that mon
ey, of course,” he said affably. “Why else would I have been hanging around for the last eighteen years, living off the fat of the land? Isn’t it obvious?”
“Sorry,” she muttered.
“Frankly, I’ll be damned glad to get the answers to questions that have been haunting me for almost two decades. I want this over with, and I want to know what’s behind it. We’re going to find out, and then I’ll be out of your life and you can go back to being the perfect little MacDowell, secure in the knowledge that you really are one.”
She stared at him. He’d paused on the landing, and his voice was cool and bitter. “Where will you go?” she asked, unable to keep the wistful note out of her voice.
If he heard it he ignored it. “Wherever my nice fat millions will take me, babe,” he said, and disappeared up the stairs.
It was a sunny day, with a cool spring breeze blowing across the island. Carolyn opened the windows, letting the wind blow through the old house, following her as she walked from room to room, looking at it all with fresh eyes.
More than any other residence, including the Park Avenue apartment and the compound in southern Vermont, this house was the MacDowell house. It was filled with family treasures, portraits of MacDowells, furniture handed down for generations. This house of ancient lineage, where she’d never really belonged, should have changed. Now that she knew she had a right to be here, she should have had a sense of homecoming.
She didn’t. She looked up into the painted eyes of the man who was, in fact, her grandfather, and felt no kinship. Commodore MacDowell had been a ruthless, formidable old man, and his oldest daughter Sally had taken after him in many ways. Carolyn looked into his eyes and felt nothing.
She sat in the Stuyvesant chair, one that had belonged to her ancestors, one that she’d never dared sit in before. It was just an old wooden chair, rickety and uncomfortable.
She’d been given exactly what she’d always wanted, a real family, just as the one person she’d loved had been taken away. And the damnable thing was, once she’d gotten it, it meant nothing. She didn’t need to be a MacDowell. After all these years she didn’t need to be anyone but herself.