by Anne Stuart
The table was set for two in the library, with sandwiches and hot coffee already poured, and the fire was burning brightly. Outside, the storm raged, a steady thudding roar that had become almost subliminal. Inside, O'Neal sat in the huge leather chair, his long legs stretched out in front of him, sound asleep.
She closed the door silently behind her. The Marvels were in the kitchen—Katie could hear Mrs. Marvel's raised voice as she spoke to her son. She was alone with O'Neal, and she felt like one of the ghosts. Watching, unseen, a creature neither present nor absent. She moved silently into the room and sat in the chair opposite him, watching him.
It annoyed her that he was so breathtakingly beautiful. He was slightly older than she'd thought, the lines around his eyes told of years of squinting into bright sunlight, and the grim brackets around his mouth held no memory of smiles. His mouth was well shaped, the lips narrow yet oddly sensuous. His nose might have been too pronounced, and yet it merely strengthened his elegant face. His dark hair, a rich seal brown, framed his face, and his skin was tanned, smooth, the glorious skin of the British Isles.
It was just as well his eyes were closed. It was his eyes that she found most unnerving.
She didn't want to look at his body, but she told herself she was a fool to avoid it. A body was nothing more than a shell—he was a man like other men. Two legs, though his were long and strong-looking beneath the faded black jeans. Two arms, long as well, with the usual two hands attached. Beautiful hands, she had to admit. Hands that would know how to touch, to stroke, to gentle a wild creature and tame her.
He was lean and muscled, with a flat stomach, slightly bony shoulders, and narrow hips. He had the kind of body she used to lust after in the movies. She was too sensible to lust after him now. After all, it was the man inside who counted, not the sum of undeniably attractive parts.
He'd kissed her, she remembered suddenly. Kissed her eyelids, not her mouth, and she wondered why she'd blotted that particular fact out of her mind. And why he'd come so close. Had he been drunk? Trying to scare her? If so, it hadn't worked.
She wanted to taste his mouth. She wanted him to open his green eyes and look at her. She wanted him to touch her face, her mouth. She wanted…
His eyes were open, she realized with a chill that washed across her heated skin, and she wondered if he could see the fevered thoughts that had been running through her brain. Thoughts she'd never felt before, for any man.
"How long have you been sitting there?" His voice startled her, smoky, with the faint Irish lilt. She'd forgotten that his voice was one of the most seductive things about him, as powerful as his elegant hands and his haunted eyes. And his thin, sensuous mouth.
"Not long," she said.
"And what were you thinking?" He didn't move, but lounged in the old leather chair, at ease, watching her as intently as she'd watched him.
"That I'm absolutely starving."
He laughed at her pragmatic answer, the sound startling in the stillness of the old room. He wasn't a man who laughed often.
"Help yourself to the sandwiches. Mrs. Marvel is an excellent cook, and I'm sure she's grateful to have an appreciative audience for once. I'm not terribly interested in food."
"What are you interested in?" she blurted out.
He had glanced away, into the fire, but her words drew him back, and his eyes met hers for a long, breathless moment, and she heard the word "you" as clear as a bell inside her head.
But he hadn't spoken. He simply shrugged. "My solitude."
She touched the cross that hung around her neck. "And diving."
His smile was faintly twisted but not without humor. "That's more of a necessity than an interest."
"Why?"
"People lose things," he said carelessly. "I pick them up. It must be part of my tidy nature."
"Do you always return everything?"
He shook his head. "Many of things I find belonged to people who've been dead for decades, even centuries. There's a roomful of stuff in the basement. Most of it completely worthless, of course."
"Most of it?"
"The rest keeps me quite comfortably."
"You mean you find treasure? Pirates' gold?" She knew she sounded incredibly naive, but she couldn't help it. Visions of Errol Flynn movies popped into her head.
"There weren't many pirates around the coast of Maine."
"Is this the only place you dive? Do you never leave here?"
"Actually I'm fond of the Caribbean. The warm water is very soothing. I've found some interesting stuff around Barbados." He tilted his head sideways and assessed her. "Some nice, gaudy jewelry that would appeal to you."
"You think I have gaudy taste?" She should have been incensed, but the faint, teasing note in his voice was inescapably seductive.
"I think you could be persuaded to have magnificently gaudy taste." His voice was soft, luring her.
She bit her lip. "I'll have you know I've been sedate and tasteful all my life."
"Poor Katie Flynn," he murmured. "Haven't you ever wanted to run away with the gypsies? Join the circus? Dance on a tabletop?"
"Not particularly," she said. Shutting out her childhood fantasies ruthlessly.
"Haven't you ever wanted to drape yourself in jewels and nothing more? Creamy pearls and sinuous jade?" His voice was what was sinuous, and she had to fight to keep from falling under its spell.
"Sounds drafty," she said.
"I don't know. It sounds quite…hot…to me."
She could feel the heat rising beneath the faded dress, warming her stomach, her breasts, making her skin tingle beneath his languid gaze. "What are you doing?" she asked sharply.
"What do you mean?"
"For the last day and a half you've been scowling at me and trying to get rid of me. Suddenly you're talking about romping naked in jewels. Is this rampant sexuality another attempt to scare me away?"
"Does it scare you, Katie?" His voice was low and beguiling. "Why should you be afraid of sex?"
"I'm not!" Her voice was unnaturally loud in the quiet room. "I'm not," she repeated in a calmer voice. "And why are we talking about sex?"
"We weren't," he said. "You brought up the subject. I was just talking about jewels. Plunder."
There was something incredibly erotic about that word. Plunder. She'd never really considered it before, but coming from his mouth it did strange, unnerving things to her.
"I'm not afraid of sex, nudity, pirates, plundered jewels, ghosts or you," she said firmly. Lying through her teeth.
And he knew it. He leaned back, a faintly mocking smile on his beautiful, distant face. "If you say so, Katie Flynn. Does that mean you don't want to see my treasure room and my hoard of salvage?"
"It doesn't mean any such thing. As you pointed out earlier, we're trapped here for the time being, and life can get boring. As long as you feed me I'm ready for just about anything. Just don't expect me to model your pearls for you." He only smiled.
He wasn't quite sure what had made him tease her like that. Flirt with her. Part of it was waking up to find her watching him. She wanted him. It was no ego fantasy on his part, or merely wishful thinking. She was obsessed with him. And she was frightened of him, far more than she was of the ghostly apparitions that appeared to no one but her.
He still wasn't sure that he believed in her particular ghosts. There could be reasonable explanations for all the fantasies she'd concocted. She might just be an incredibly suggestible creature, easily able to conjure a vision out of an idea.
He wondered how suggestible she would be when it came to sex.
He'd opened his eyes to find her watching him, and he'd immediately gotten hard. It surprised him—he wasn't used to his body responding with such immediate, blatant need. Katie Flynn seemed to have that unfortunate effect on him. And she wasn't as immune to it all as she liked to think.
She also wasn't ready to come romping into his bed, he knew that with depressing certainty. She wasn't a woman who tumbled in
and out of beds, in and out of affairs with the breeziness of her eminently practical nature. Beneath her sturdy no-nonsense demeanor was the soul of a dreamer, and she was a woman who needed to be wooed, needed to be loved, needed to be slowly and cleverly seduced until she was unable to resist.
He didn't have that much time, thank God. She'd be gone by tomorrow—this damned storm couldn't last forever. He'd been through countless nor'easters, even a hurricane or two in the time he'd spent on the Maine coast, and this particular storm had to be the most violent he'd yet encountered. It couldn't get any worse, it could only weaken.
Or so he hoped.
His time with Katie was limited, and he was safe. She wasn't going to discover his unbearable secret. If Mrs. Marvel and Willie had no idea, after living with him for more than twelve years, then no chance-met stranger was going to figure out the unimaginable.
He could flirt with her. He could tease her, annoy her, even touch her if he dared risk it. Tomorrow she'd be gone, and he could retreat back into his hermetic existence.
He would take her down to the vaults and show her what he'd never shown another living soul. Mrs. Marvel knew of the locked rooms, of course, and there was no guarantee she'd never found her way inside. But she wasn't interested in long-lost treasure and pirate booty. She was a practical woman, only interested in practical things.
But Katie Flynn was a dreamer. Drape her in pearls, and she would glow. Cover her in emeralds and rubies, and she could be a pirate's captive and he—
Had definitely too much time on his hands to waste on erotic fantasies. He had one more night with her before the storm finally faded—there was no way it could last any longer. He could push things as far as she'd let him, knowing that in the end she would never make the mistake of going to bed with him. He'd be safe to play with her, tease her, tease himself. And tomorrow she'd be gone, and he'd be alone again. His secrets safe.
"Do you have anything else to wear?" he asked, giving her clothes a derisive glance. In truth, the long, billowing dress draped around her quite nicely, flowing with the curves on her body, but since he'd last seen it clasped snugly around Mrs. Marvel's sturdy frame he had a difficult time fantasizing about it.
"Not unless you brought up my suitcases as well as my grandmother's cross," she said. "Mrs. Marvel was kind enough to lend me some of her stuff, but I can't very well be choosy."
He remembered the suitcases. They'd tumbled open with the force of the car hitting the ocean floor, and the rough waves had tossed the contents along miles of oceanfront. Besides, he liked her in dresses. "It's cold down there," he said. "Eat something while I find you one of my sweaters, and then I'll take you down."
She opened her mouth to protest, then shut it again, and he wondered what it was that troubled her. The thought of descending into the bowels of the old mansion, or wearing one of his old sweaters? She could hardly protest eating, when it seemed to be one of her obsessions.
She didn't protest when he handed her the thick Aran sweater he'd worn yesterday. She pulled it over her head, shivering slightly as she shook her red hair loose. The sleeves came beyond her fingertips and she rolled them up. She looked utterly beguiling in the enveloping folds of the sweater, and he regretted giving it to her. It was too late now.
She stroked the dark chocolate wool that glimmered in the firelight. "What a wonderful color," she said. "It looks like mink. What did they use to dye the wool?"
"It's not dyed. It comes from the wool of a black sheep. I found the idea entertaining."
She looked up at him. "Do you see yourself as a black sheep?"
"I'm not wild enough to be a black sheep. More a lost soul, I think." He glanced at her feet. "Do you have any shoes?"
He already knew the answer, and he pulled a pair of Wellies from the corner by the door. She'd swim in them, but at least they'd provide her feet some protection.
She slipped them on, then looked at him brightly. "I'm ready for treasure hunting," she said.
She wasn't, but he'd learned early on that Katie Flynn wasn't a woman to give in to fear or uneasiness. He picked up an oil lamp to light their way, then reached out and took her hand. "Come along," he said.
Her hand was warm in his cool one, and he half expected her to pull away. He could feel the need to escape warring within her. And then her fingers curled around his, with alarming trust, and the first tendril of regret sank into his bones.
"Lead on," she said.
"I don't think we can wait, Willie." Mrs. Marvel stood in the doorway of her son's tidy little room, eyeing him with her usual grim expression. "I don't know if we can afford to wait until the storm is over. Listen to the man. I've never heard him sound so—"
"Happy?" Willie suggested.
Mrs. Marvel shot him a disapproving glare. "What has happiness to do with anything? O'Neal sounds like he's come alive again, and it's that girl's fault. Even if we get rid of her the damage may have already been done. Our time here may soon be over."
"That's all right. You told me we've got enough money put away—"
"There's no such thing as 'enough money,' " she corrected him. "This was a comfortable spot for the likes of us. O'Neal doesn't even pay attention to all the things he has down there, and he just keeps gathering more. We could have been obscenely rich if we could have held out for a few more years."
"Why can't we?"
Mrs. Marvel sighed, a long-suffering sigh. "Because O'Neal is going to start noticing. Once we get rid of the girl he may go back to the way he was, but I wouldn't count on it. He might even decide to go after her."
"But she'll be dead, Ma."
"I know that, Willie. But he won't. And if he leaves here, he might hear rumors about the two of us. And he won't be around to keep bringing up riches from the ocean."
"He's gone before and come back."
"This time, Willie, he won't come back. We can't afford to let that happen."
Willie scratched his head. "What are we going to do, Ma?
Mrs. Marvel sighed. "It may not be too late. I want you to kill her, Willie. I want you to do it quickly and neatly, no noise or fuss, and then I want you to dispose of her body where no one will ever find it. We'll tell O'Neal she was able to get a ride to town, and chances are he'll forget about her. If we're lucky."
"But, Ma, you promised me," Willie protested.
"Not this time, Willie. This one will have to be a job, not a pleasure. The money comes first. I can count on you, my boy? You won't let me down?"
Willie nodded reluctantly. "Ain't fair," he muttered.
"Life isn't fair. I want you to kill her, Willie. Kill her tonight."
"Yes, ma'am," Willie said in his docile voice. "Tonight."
Chapter Ten
« ^ »
If Katie had thought the huge old mansion was cold and dark, it was nothing compared to the winding stone staircase that seemed to lead down to the very heart of the earth. She could smell the salt of the sea, the fresh scent of water as she followed him down, led by his hand and the flickering light of the lantern. Visions of old horror movies danced in her head. She couldn't remember exactly what she'd heard about Bluebeard. Hadn't he had a dozen wives that he murdered and kept locked in a cellar?
Or maybe it was an attic. Besides, O'Neal was hardly likely to murder her, no matter how annoying he found her. Neither was he likely to add her to a long list of deceased brides.
"Where are we going?" she asked, and her voice echoed oddly in the narrow stone tunnel. "It feels as if we're under the sea."
He didn't pause or look back at her, but the feel of his hand grasping hers was still strong. He was growing warmer now—he'd always seemed so cold to her, as cold as the sea. But even as they descended farther into the darkness he seemed to warm to her touch, a fact she found disquieting. Disturbing. Arousing.
"You're closer to the truth than you realize. There are caves criss-crossing beneath the promontory, and some of the pathways run parallel to the stairs. When the tide is parti
cularly high the floors get wet."
She glanced down at her feet in their clumsy rubber boots, but it was too dark to tell whether the dampness had risen or not. "Aren't you worried about the place collapsing? I mean, given the storm and all?"
"It's built on granite, and it's stood for more than a hundred years. I don't think one bad storm is going to send it toppling into the sea."
"It's more than a bad storm. The last weather report I heard talked about a hurricane. Hurricane Margo."
"If I believed every panic-stricken weather bulletin, I wouldn't be living out here at the edge of nowhere," O'Neal said calmly.
"It was supposed to be a big one. Category four at least, with storm surges and catastrophic winds…"
"And how long ago did you hear that? Days ago, it had to have been. It's probably gone out to sea, and the storms we're getting are just the outer edges of it, the remnants hitting land."
"Maybe," Katie said.
He paused, looking back at her. "You don't seem particularly distressed by the notion."
"I love storms. Though if this were a full-blown hurricane I think I'd rather watch it from some safe motel that gets the Weather Channel."
"Some safe motel would probably lose their power, and you'd have no idea what's going on. If by any remote chance there's still some strength left in your hurricane, you couldn't pick a safer place to be. We're entirely self-sufficient. We don't need electricity, we have no radios or televisions so there's nothing to miss. There's plenty of food, plenty of candles and lanterns, and the house is made of stone, built on solid rock. There's no way even the most powerful hurricane could endanger it."
"Knock on wood," she muttered, glancing around her. There was no wood to be seen.
"You don't believe me?"
"I just get superstitious when someone says something can't possibly happen. It seems like Fate takes that as a personal challenge."
For a moment he said nothing, then he shook his head. "I'd forgotten how Irish you are."
"Don't tell me I remind you of your mother," she begged.
"Not Maeve. She was far too levelheaded. And you're not romantic like Fiona. No, I think you're more like my Great Aunt Moira. She used to hold séances and converse with the ghost of Charles Parnell. She also used to slap my hand with a ruler if she thought I was being naughty. She was just like you."