by Anne Stuart
Two, it would give her probably her only chance at driving his glorious car. He’d left the keys in the ignition, and it would only take a second…
He reached in and took the keys. “Don’t even consider it,” he said, his voice expressionless. “You aren’t driving this car. Are you coming?”
She didn’t really have much choice. She set the plate of cookies down on the back seat and climbed out, following him past the sagging gate into the graveyard.
He seemed to be looking for something, though she didn’t have the faintest idea what. He moved through the small graveyard at a leisurely pace, reading each headstone, until he stopped at one.
“I guess we’re not the only ones who ever come here,” he said. “So tell me, who do you think brought those flowers?”
She looked down at the headstone. A handful of bright yellow flowers sat in front of it, wilting from the bright sun. It was the grave of Adeline Percey, who died in 1973 at the age of nineteen. Sophie racked her brain, trying to remember who the Perceys were, and a moment later came up with it. Their daughter had been killed in a boat accident during her first year in college.
“Presumably her parents. The Perceys still live just outside of Colby.”
“Maybe,” he said. “What kind of flowers are those?”
“I don’t know.”
“What do you mean, you don’t know? Aren’t you some kind of Martha Stewart wannabe? They must be fairly common around here.”
“Mr. Smith…” She stopped, furious. “I’m not calling you that phony name anymore.”
“You can call me anything you want.”
“I don’t use that kind of language. I don’t recognize the flowers because they’re not common around here. I’ve seen them before, but I can’t remember where. And why does it matter?”
“It doesn’t,” he said.
“Then why are we here and why are you asking me these questions, and what does it have to do with the three girls who were killed?”
For a moment he was silent, glancing back at the neglected grave with its spray of dying flowers. “I’m thinking there were four,” he said. “Maybe more.”
“Don’t you think someone would have figured that out before now?” she said caustically.
“Not when the authorities had a built-in scapegoat.” He knelt down by the gravestone, staring at it as if it held the answers to a thousand unnamed questions.
And Sophie stared at him, finally given the chance to indulge herself.
He was wearing an old denim shirt and jeans, and his glasses had turned dark in the sunlight, obscuring his eyes. Not that his opaque brown eyes gave anything away in the first place. If the eyes were a window to the soul, then his were firmly shuttered.
After a moment he rose, and she could feel him looking at her. “Any more questions? Not that you had any—you’ve already figured out the answers.”
“Look, I didn’t want to come out with you in the first place. I just wanted to thank you for bringing my mother home.”
“And warn me to keep my distance in the future. What did you think I did—lure her to my cave? I’m not here to be invaded by batty old ladies or nubile young ones.”
“I’m not nubile!” she protested.
“I meant your sister.”
“Oh.” The idea was somehow deflating. “Well, I’m glad to hear that,” she said briskly, recovering. “I’ll keep a closer eye on my mother so she won’t bother you.”
“What about the brat?” They were almost back at the car. The sun had disappeared behind a cloud, and there was a hint of chill in the air.
“I’ll keep her as far away from you as humanly possible. She’s young enough and foolish enough to think you’re hot, and I don’t want…”
They’d reached the car, and she was about to go around to the passenger side when his arm shot out, stopping her.
She turned to move in the other direction, but his other arm came up, trapping her against the side of the car. They were miles from nowhere, on a dirt road that might as well be a dead end, and no one would hear her scream. She swallowed, looking up at him with as fearless a look as she could muster.
It wasn’t very effective. She couldn’t see his eyes behind the dark lenses, but his mouth curved in a faint, cool smile. “Young and foolish enough to think I’m hot?” he repeated. “I guess you don’t consider yourself young and foolish.”
“Not really.” There was a slight quaver in her voice, one she hoped he didn’t notice. The only way she could escape from this situation was to show no fear. His long legs were brushing up against her skirt, and she could feel the warmth of his body in the cool air. Too close. Much too close.
“Then why are you so skittish around me? If I didn’t know better I’d say you were downright terrified.”
She didn’t move. Not that she could, with his arms trapping her against the hard steel of the car. So much for showing no fear, she thought helplessly. It would be a waste of time to deny it. “You just make me nervous,” she said after a moment.
“Do I? Is it just me, or is it all men?”
She would have shoved him, but shoving him would have meant touching him, and if she did that he might not move, and then what would she do, with her hands on him? “I don’t like being pinned against a car out in the middle of nowhere,” she said in her coldest voice.
“Yes, but it’s a classic Jaguar XJ6,” he mocked her. “Surely that makes up for the indignity. And you’ve been skittish since I first saw you. Why are you afraid of me? What do you think I’ve done?”
His question startled her. “Absolutely nothing. I just don’t like—”
“Men in general? Or just me?”
Her fear was abating, just a little, replaced by justifiable anger. “I sure as hell don’t like you,” she said. “Now, let me go.”
“Convince me,” he said in a low voice.
“What?”
“Convince me,” he said again. And to her absolute horror he leaned down to kiss her.
It was just as well she had the car behind her and his arms on either side of her. Otherwise she might have slid to the ground in complete astonishment. She tried to duck, but he caught her face in his hands, holding her still as he brought his mouth down on hers, a slow, deliberate kiss, openmouthed, wet, thorough.
She closed her eyes. She told herself it was because there was nothing else she could do, no way to escape, and she didn’t want to look at him. He pulled her arms around his waist and she held on, absorbing the feel of his body pressed up against hers. Hard, strong body, wet mouth, hands that held her and wouldn’t let her go.
And she didn’t want to escape. She wanted to be kissed in the sunlight by a gorgeous man. She just wanted some other man, not this complicated creature who had more secrets than she could even begin to imagine.
But it didn’t matter what her brain wanted. Her body, her mouth, her soul wanted him, and she heard a quiet little sound of desire and knew that it had come from her.
He stopped kissing her, but he didn’t move away, his hips pinning her against the car, his hands still cradling her face. She opened her eyes, dazed, to look up into his unreadable face, shielded by the dark glasses, and she wondered if he made love with his glasses on. And then she realized she was clinging to him, her arms tight around his lean waist, and she slid them up to push him away.
He didn’t budge, just looked down at her. “So that’s not it,” he said obscurely.
“Let go of me.”
“In a minute.” His voice was lazy, provocative, and he kissed her again. And this time she kissed him back.
He slid his hands behind her, pulling her up against him, and she could feel his erection. It should have startled, even disgusted her. Instead she arched her hips against his, rubbing, needing. He reached behind her, fumbling for the car door. “Get in the back seat,” he said in a husky voice, his other hand starting to pull her skirt up her leg.
Reality came crashing down. He wasn’t expe
cting her to shove, and it took him off balance, so that he fell back from her. She sprinted around to the passenger side before he could grab her again, jumped in the car and quickly locked all the doors. Then she sat there, panting, staring out at him in grim triumph.
He wasn’t even breathing heavily. She couldn’t help it, her eyes went to his crotch, now at eye level, wondering if she’d imagined his erection. She hadn’t.
She waited for him to demand that she open the door, and then she could tell him to go to hell. Instead he calmly reached in his pocket, stretching his jeans even tighter across the telltale bulge, and pulled out the keys.
She leaped over to slam down the lock again, but he was too fast for her. He opened the door and slid into the front seat, catching her wrists in one hand and forcing her back into her own seat. “All you had to do was say no,” he said mildly enough.
“I did.”
“I didn’t hear you.”
“No,” she said, furious. “Keep your goddamned hands off me.”
“Yes, ma’am. Hands off your mother, hands off your sister, hands off you. Any other orders while we’re at it?” He started the car, and it was all Sophie could do to resist the hypnotic rumble beneath her.
“Leave town.”
“I don’t think so. I’m here for a vacation and I intend to take it.”
“I’ll make your life a living hell,” she said furiously.
“Stronger men than you have tried,” he muttered beneath his breath. He pulled out onto the narrow dirt road, making a U-turn that almost sent them careening over the hillside.
He drove like a bat out of hell down the narrow dirt road, but Sophie was beyond panic, still too profoundly shaken. She didn’t say a word until he pulled up in front of the inn. Gracey was sitting in one of the rocking chairs, with Doc beside her, and they both stared at the ancient Jaguar with unabashed curiosity.
She started to get out of the car, then stopped, unable to help herself. “Why did you do that?”
“Do what? Drive too fast?”
“Kiss me.”
No expression on his face at all. “Curiosity, I suppose.”
She bit the inside of her cheek to keep from exploding. “And was your curiosity satisfied?” she asked in her iciest voice.
“For the time being.”
She slammed the car door behind her, hoping the window would shatter. But Jaguar XJ6s were too well made for such indignities. Even with all her force, the door closed with an elegant little thump as she stalked up to the porch.
Griffin was humming softly beneath his breath as he drove back down the narrow drive to the Whitten cottage. In fact, it had been a very productive day. He’d learned three things of monumental importance.
One, that there might very well be a murder victim from 1973. He’d been eleven years old in 1973, and living with his father in California. And if he didn’t kill one victim, he probably hadn’t killed anyone.
Two, Sophie Davis was as innocent as he’d suspected, or else she knew damned little about kissing. He probably shouldn’t have given in to temptation, but it had been irresistible, and he’d wanted to find out what her luscious mouth tasted like.
Her mouth had tasted like honeyed ginger, and longing, and fear. And he still couldn’t be sure why she was so afraid of him.
And three—and what should have been the least important discovery, but for some reason it was making him uncharacteristically cheerful—the virginal Miss Sophie Davis wanted him. And she didn’t know what to do about it.
In another time, another place he’d show her. She wasn’t his type—innocence and ruffles and soft curves weren’t his style. But in Sophie’s case he would be more than willing to make an exception, if it weren’t for the fact that he was here to find out what had happened twenty years ago, not to get laid.
He was a fool to let her distract him. He’d been here two days already, and he wasn’t any closer to getting inside the abandoned hospital wing. Or to remembering what happened that night.
No, Sophie Davis was the very least of his problems, an annoying, irresistible attraction that he had every intention of resisting.
At least for now.
10
“Was that your beau, darling?” Grace asked in a cheerful voice. “Who is he? I’ve never seen him before.”
Sophie mounted the wide front steps to the porch, suppressing a sigh. “He’s not my beau, Mama,” she said. “Far from it. He’s just a neighbor. He’s renting the Whitten place. You remember.”
“I don’t remember anything,” Grace said sweetly. “But if he’s not your beau, why do you look like you’ve been necking?”
So much for Spacey Gracey, Sophie thought. She could feel the color rise in her face. Grace would see that as well, or at least Doc would. He was watching them both with benign fascination—she wouldn’t get any help from that quarter.
“I haven’t been necking with anyone,” she said calmly. It was technically true. Two thorough kisses didn’t quite constitute necking. “You’re imagining things.”
“It’s my memory that’s shot, not my powers of observation,” Grace said with one of those lightning shifts of rationality that always threw Sophie for a loop. “Is he nice?”
“Who?”
“Don’t try that with me, Sophie Marlborough Davis! I’m talking about your young man. Is he nice?”
Escape would be lovely, Sophie thought, eyeing the kitchen door longingly. In a few minutes Grace wouldn’t even remember that Sophie had been gone for a while, much less think to ask questions about her companion. “I really need to go inside and wash up…” she began, but Doc, the traitor, forestalled her.
“Oh, sit down and tell us about it,” he said with a mischievous look in his faded blue eyes. “It’s not often your mother shows an interest in her daughter’s romances.”
Caught, Sophie thought. Hooked and landed, and if she didn’t face the music she’d end up gutted. She plastered a phony smile on her face and dropped into one of the Maine rockers that overlooked the quiet lake.
“It’s not a romance, he’s not a young man, he’s not my beau,” she said patiently.
“Then why were you kissing him?” Grace asked.
“I wasn’t!”
“You shouldn’t lie to your mother, Sophie,” Doc said with gentle reproof.
Sophie glanced at him. The old codger was enjoying this, she thought, annoyed. Maybe her own discomfort was a small sacrifice for her mother’s temporary interest in the real world.
“I didn’t kiss him,” she said patiently. “He kissed me.”
Her mother’s hoot of triumph almost sounded like the old Grace. “I knew it! Was it love at first sight?”
“It’s not love, and it certainly wasn’t first sight. I have no idea why he kissed me, but I doubt he’ll want to do it again.”
“I wouldn’t doubt it at all, Sophie,” Doc said gallantly. “If the man has eyes in his head and half a brain he’d be smitten.”
Sophie repressed a sigh. Smitten, eh? She could just imagine Mr. Smith’s reaction when he heard the old folks were calling him a smitten beau, and her young man. It might almost be enough to drive him away.
“I wouldn’t get your hopes up, Mama,” she said wryly. “Mr. Smith isn’t my type, and the last thing he’s looking for is true love. I have no idea why he kissed me, but it had nothing to do with being attracted to me.” Belatedly she remembered the unmistakable bulge of his erection, and she could feel the color rise in her face again. Well, maybe he was attracted to her, or maybe he just got hard every time he kissed a woman, whether he liked her or not. She’d managed to avoid that kind of information, and she’d just as soon never learn about such things.
No, that wasn’t strictly true. She simply hadn’t been sufficiently tempted before. And wasn’t now, she reminded herself sharply, the moment the thought drifted into her unruly consciousness.
“My Sophie’s still a virgin,” Grace said with the air of someone announcing a termina
l illness. “I don’t know what I’m going to do about her.”
It could have been worse, Sophie thought bleakly. She could have announced it in front of someone other than Doc. She could have announced it in front of Mr. Smith.
“Good for you,” Doc said approvingly. “It’s refreshing to find a girl who’s saving herself for marriage.”
Sophie shuddered at the thought. It sounded old-fashioned and priggish, when she was afraid it was simply a matter of her being cold-blooded. “It’s not that,” she said frankly. “I just haven’t found anyone who interests me enough. God knows I don’t plan to die a virgin, and I doubt I’ll be waiting for my wedding night. I’m just a little…picky.”
“It’s a good way to be,” Doc said fondly. “Don’t listen to your mother, Sophie. Virtue is a highly underrated commodity nowadays. Treasure yours.”
Sophie resisted the impulse to make a moue. She’d started to think of her relatively untouched state as more of a liability than a selling point, and there had been a number of times when she’d been determined to get rid of it with the next available man. Unfortunately the next available man had always proved unacceptable for one reason or another, and she was now the oldest living virgin in the Northeast Kingdom. Maybe in the entire United States.
“Speaking of random sex, where’s Marty?” she asked, changing the subject. Grace laughed, but Doc’s sweet face drooped in sorrow.
“Last we saw she was chasing around after the Laflamme boy,” he said. “Whatever made you decide to hire him to do the yard work? There’s no denying he’s a hard worker, but I would have thought you’d try to avoid temptation as far as your wanton younger sister was concerned.”
That was going a bit too far. Sophie was allowed to criticize Marty and her flagrant habits—Doc had no right to disapprove.