by Nora Roberts
his nephew. “I hear Jenny Metz is stuck on you.”
Bryan flushed from his sauce-smeared chin to the roots of his hair. “She is not.” But the humiliation of that, and the primal fear of girls, was enough to shut his mouth firmly.
Jared sent his stepson a sympathetic look and steered the conversation onto safer ground.
From her vantage point, Rebecca saw Shane lean over, murmur something to the hunched-shouldered Bryan that made the boy grin.
The sound of fretful crying sounded through one of the baby monitors almost as soon as the meal was over. After a heated debate, Rebecca started on the dishes. Babies needed to be tended to, as she’d pointed out. Children put to bed. She was better suited to washing dishes than to fulfilling either of those responsibilities. And—and that clinched it—was she a friend or a guest?
While she worked, she could hear voices from the living room and more sounds through the other monitor that stood in the kitchen. Some soft, some deep. Soothing, she mused. A kind of routine that dug roots, honed traditions. She could hear Rafe talking to Nate as he readied him for bed, Regan murmuring to the baby as she nursed him.
Someone—she thought it was Devin’s voice—was calmly directing children to pick up the scattered toys. Jared poked his head in once, apologizing for skipping out on kitchen duty, explaining that Savannah was exhausted.
She waved him away.
She was sure that if anyone else had to face a mess like this, the piles of pots, pans, dishes, glasses would be daunting at best, tedious at worst. But for her it was a novel chore, and therefore entertaining.
Shane strolled in, thumbs hooked in his pockets. “Looks like I’d better roll up my sleeves.”
“You don’t need to pitch in.” Rebecca was working the problem of fitting everything into the racks of the dishwasher into a geometric equation. “I’ve got it.”
“Everybody else is tied up with kids or pregnant wives. I’m all you’ve got.” So he did roll up his sleeves. “Are you going to put the dishes in there, or study it all night?”
“I’m working on a system.” Fairly satisfied with it, Rebecca began to load. “What are you doing?”
“I’m going to wash the pans.”
She paused, her eyes narrowing a bit as she recalculated. “That would be simpler.” She caught a whiff of lemon from the soap he squirted into the hot running water. But when she bent over, her bottom bumped his thigh and had her straightening again.
“Close quarters around the sink,” he said with an easy grin.
To offset it, she merely walked to the other side of the dishwasher and worked from there. “So, is flirting with women a vocation or an avocation?”
“It’s a pleasure.”
“Mmm… Isn’t it awkward, in a small town, to juggle women?”
“I guess it would be, if you thought of them as rubber balls instead of people.”
She nodded as she meticulously arranged dishes. It would be, she mused, interesting and educational to delve into the mind of a ladies’ man. “I’ll rephrase that. Isn’t it awkward to begin or end a relationship in a small town where people appear to know a great deal about other people’s business?”
“Not if you do it right. Is this another study, Rebecca?”
She straightened again, battling a flush because it had been just that. “I’m sorry. Really. That’s a terrible habit of mine—picking things apart. Just say, ‘Butt out, Rebecca.’”
“Butt out, Rebecca.”
Because there had been no sting in the order, she laughed and got back to work. “What if I just say I think you have a wonderful and interesting family, and I enjoyed meeting all of them?”
“That would be fine. I’m fond of them myself.”
“It shows.” She looked up, lips curved. “And it almost makes me think there’s more to you than a woman-chasing farm boy. I enjoyed watching all of you together, the interaction, the shorthand conversations, the little signals.”
He set a pan into the drainer. “Is that what you were doing when I caught you at dinner? Making observations on the MacKades in their natural milieu?”
Her smile faded a little. “No, actually, I was thinking of something else entirely.” Suddenly restless, she picked up a damp cloth and walked away to wipe off the stove. “I do need to talk to you about making arrangements to work at the farm. I realize you have a routine, and a private life. I don’t intend to get in your way.”
But you will, he thought. He’d suspected it before, but that quick glimpse of sadness in her eyes moments ago had confirmed it. He was a sucker for a woman with secrets and sad stories.
“I told Regan you could come and work there, so I’m stuck with it.”
She shrugged her shoulder. “It’s important enough to me that I can’t worry overmuch about it making you uncomfortable.” When she glanced back at him, her eyes were cool again, faintly mocking. “You’ll be out in the field most of the time, won’t you? Baling hay, or whatever?”
“Or whatever.” Damned if she wasn’t pulling his strings, he thought. Both of her. For he was certain there were two women in there, and he had a growing fascination with each one.
Though he hadn’t quite finished the pans, he picked up a towel, dried his hands. Maybe it was that slim white neck, he mused. It was just begging to be touched, tasted. Or it could be those odd golden eyes that hinted at all sorts of elusive emotions, even when they shone with confidence. Or maybe it was just his own ego, still ruffled from her mocking response to him that morning.
Whatever it was, he was compelled to test her, and perhaps himself, again.
He moved behind her, quietly. Following impulse, he lowered his head and closed his teeth gently on the sensitive nape of her neck. She jerked, came up hard against him with a shudder that seemed to rack her from head to toe. As surprised as he was pleased, he took her shoulders firmly in his hands and turned her to face him.
“Not so cool this time,” he murmured, and crushed her mouth with a kiss of practiced skill and devastating intensity.
She hadn’t had time to brace, to think, to defend. His mouth quite simply destroyed her. Her head spun, her knees jellied, her blood went on fast boil. Never in her life had so many sensations battered her at once. The smooth, warm demand of his mouth taking from hers, the hard, confident hands moving over her, the smell of lemon and soap and…man.
Her mind simply couldn’t compute it, so her body took over. Some weak, accepting sound purred out of her throat. She couldn’t stop it, couldn’t stop the trembling or the heat or the sudden and baffling need to let everything she was melt into him. One shock of pleasure sparked another, then another, until there was nothing else.
His first reaction was of arrogant delight. Indifferent to him? Like hell she was. She was hot. She was trembling. She was moaning. The woman he kissed that morning had been cool and amused and mocking. Not this one. This one was…
Deliciously warm. He could have tasted that mouth endlessly, so smooth, so soft, so silky. He eased deeper, aroused by each throaty moan and murmur. His mind went blissfully blank with pleasure when he slid his hands under her sweater and found only Rebecca beneath it.
She quivered, her breath catching in her throat as he skimmed those rough palms over small, firm breasts. His thumbs scraped lightly over her rigid nipples, and he swallowed her gasps, absorbed her shudders.
The arms she’d lifted to twine around his neck went limp, dropped slowly to her sides in a kind of helpless surrender that excited unbearably, even as it warned him.
He eased back, clamping his hands on the stove at either side of her as he studied her face. Her cheeks were flushed, her eyes were closed, her breath was coming fast and harsh through lips erotically swollen from his.
He thought she would look just like that on the floor, with him mounting her. The image of that had him gripping the stove until his fingers ached.
Then she opened her eyes, and he saw that they were blind, drugged, and a little bit afraid
.
“Well, well, well…” He said it lightly, mockingly, as much in defense as in triumph, as his stomach lurched with need. “I’d say we had a different result this time around.”
She couldn’t catch her breath, much less form a word. She only shook her head as her body continued to suffer from quick, lethal explosions.
“No theories this time, Doc?” He didn’t know why he was angry, but he could feel his temper building. Building, then spiking, as she stood there looking helpless, stunned, and more and more terrified. “Maybe we should try it again.”
“No.” She got that out. She thought her life might depend on the uttering of that single syllable. “No,” she said again. “I think you proved your point.”
He didn’t know what his point had been—something about amusing himself, a test—but it certainly didn’t apply now. Now he wanted her with a ferocity that was totally unprecedented. He believed desire was as natural as breathing, and should cause no more discomfort than the easy exhaling of air.
And yet he ached, fiercely ached.
“You… Let me by,” she managed.
“When I’m ready. I’m waiting for your hypothesis—or would it be a conclusion now? I’m curious, Rebecca. How are you going to react the next time I kiss you? And which one of you am I going to find when I take you to bed?”
She didn’t know—and wasn’t sure she could tell him if she did. She was saved from what she was sure would have been abject humiliation when Rafe swung through the kitchen door.
He stopped, summed up the situation in a glance and scowled at his brother. “For God’s sake, Shane.”
“Get out.”
“It’s my damn house,” Rafe shot back.
“Then we’ll get out.” He snagged Rebecca’s arm and took two strides before panic gave her the strength to yank away.
“No.” It was all she said as she walked past both men and out of the kitchen.
“What the hell’s wrong with you?” Rafe demanded. “You had her pinned up against the damn stove. She was white as a sheet. Since when have you gotten off on scaring women?”
“I didn’t scare her.”
But he realized abruptly that he had, and that for a few moments he hadn’t cared that he had. In fact, he’d been hotly thrilled that he could. That was new for him, and shaming.
“I didn’t mean to. It got out of hand.” Frustrated, he dragged his unsteady fingers through his hair. “Hell, I got out of hand.”
“Maybe you’d better keep your distance until you can handle yourself.”
“Yeah, maybe I’d better.”
Because he’d been expecting an argument, Rafe’s brows drew together. He noted now that Shane was just about as pale as Rebecca had been. “You okay?”
“I don’t know.” Baffled, Shane shook his head. “She’s the damnedest woman,” he muttered. “The damnedest woman.”
Chapter 5
As she was a meticulous woman, it took Rebecca hours to set her equipment to her specifications. There were sensors, cameras, recorders, computers, monitors. Cassie had been able to give her one of the larger suites for a couple of days, and she tried to be grateful for it. Yet it was confining not to be able to set up a camera or two on the first floor.
She doubted any of the other guests would welcome one in the rooms they slept in.
Still, she had space, and the thrill of occupying what had been Charles Barlow’s room. The windows afforded a lovely view of the sloping front lawn, the late-summer flowers, the wild tiger lilies lining the edge of the road, and the town itself. She imagined the master of the house would have enjoyed looking out, studying the rooftops and chimneys of the houses and shops, the quiet stream of traffic.
Everything she’d read about Charles Barlow indicated that he had been the kind of man who would consider it his right, even his duty, to look down on lesser men.
She wished she could feel him here, his power, even his cruelty. But there was nothing but a charming set of rooms, crowded now with the technology she’d brought with her.
It was frustrating. She was positive every one of the MacKades had experienced something in this house, had been touched by what lingered there. Why couldn’t she?
Her hope was that science would aid her, as it always had. She’d purchased the very best equipment suited to a one-person operation, and shrugged off the expense. Some women, she mused, bought shoes or jewelry. She bought machines.
All right, perhaps she was buying more in the shoes-and-jewelry line these days. Money had never been a problem, and didn’t look to be one in the foreseeable future. In any case, she was entitled to her hobby, Rebecca told herself as she dipped her hands in her pockets. She was entitled to the new life, the new persona she was carving out.
A great many of her colleagues thought she had gone mad when word got out on what she planned to spend her free time studying. Her parents would be deeply annoyed—if she ever drew up the courage to face them with her new interest. But she wasn’t going to let that matter.
She wanted to explore. Needed to. If she had to go back to being the boring, predictable, utterly tedious Dr. Knight, she would go mad.
Yet she’d learned a valuable lesson the night before. She wasn’t quite ready to handle certain aspects of her new life. She’d been cocky, entirely too self-assured, and Shane MacKade had knocked the chip from her shoulder and crushed it to splinters. Lord knew why she’d thought she could deal with sex.
All he’d had to do was catch her off guard once, and she’d turned into a trembling, mindless mess. She’d spent some time being furious with him for causing it—after she got over being terrified. But she was too analytical to blame him for long. She had put on the mask of confidence, had even tried her hand at flirtation. It was hardly his fault that he’d believed the image and responded to it.
She would simply have to be more careful in the future, and rethink her plan to stay at the farm. The man was entirely too physical, too attractive. Too everything. Especially for a woman who had barely begun to explore her own sexuality.
Yes, she would be very careful, and she wouldn’t dwell on those sharp and intense needs he’d stirred up in her—the way his mouth had felt on hers, the way his hands had moved over her bare skin. What it had felt like to be touched that way, by that man. So intimately. So naturally.
She let out a long, shaky breath and closed her eyes.
No, she wouldn’t dwell on that. She was going to enjoy herself, start her paper on Antietam, make plans for the book she intended to write. And, if perseverance counted for anything, find her ghosts.
Moving to her computer, she sat and booted up.
I’m settled in the MacKade Inn now, in what were Charles Barlow’s rooms during the Civil War period. There are other guests, and I’ll be interested to hear if they had any experiences during the night. For the moment, all is quiet. I’m told that people often hear doors slamming, or the sound of weeping, even the report of a gun. These phenomena happen not only at night, but also during the daylight hours.
Regan has experienced them, and Rafe. There are also reports of the scent of roses. This particular experience is most common. I find this interesting as the olfactory sense is the strongest.
In my brief meeting with Savannah MacKade, I learned that she has often felt a presence in this house, and the woods that border the land. I gather that both she and Jared are similarly drawn to the woods where the two corporals met and fought.
It’s fascinating to me that people find each other this way.
Cassie and Devin MacKade are another example. In this case, they lived in the same small town all of their lives. Cassie married someone else and had two children, and from what I can glean, a truly horrific marriage. Still, she and Devin found each other, and from this outsider’s perspective, seem as though they’ve been together always.
Both Cassie and Devin have stories to tell about the inn, and their experiences here. I’ll have to go into them in depth in my official n
otes.
Shane MacKade is the only one who has no stories to tell—or rather none he’s willing to tell. I’m not used to relying on my instincts rather than pure data, but if I were to trust them I’d say he holds back what he knows or feels. Which is contradictory, as he isn’t a man who seems to hold back anything on a personal level.
I’d have to say he’s one of the most demonstrative people I’ve even encountered. He’s a habitual toucher, and by reputation one who enjoys the company of women. I suppose one would call him earthy, without the cruder connotations of the word. He is basically a man of the earth, and perhaps that explains why he scoffs at anything that hints of the paranormal.
To be honest, I like him very much. His humor, his obvious attachment to family, his unabashed love of the land. On the surface, he appears to be a simple man, yet—using those rusty instincts of mine—I sense complications underneath.
He would certainly make an interesting study.
However
“The lady doesn’t come in here.”
Fingers still poised on the keyboard, Rebecca glanced up and saw Emma in the doorway. “Hello. Is school out?”
“Uh-huh. Mama said to come tell you she has coffee and cookies if you want.” Very much at home, Emma wandered in, gazing wide-eyed at the machines. “You have a lot of stuff.”
“I know. I guess you could say they’re my toys. Who’s the lady?”
“She’s the one who used to live here. She cries, like Mama used to. Didn’t you hear her?”
“No. When?”
With calm and friendly eyes, Emma smiled. “Just now. She was crying while you were typing. But she never comes in here.”
A quick, cold shiver spurted down Rebecca’s spine. “You heard her, just now?”
“She cries a lot.” Emma walked over to the computer and solemnly read the words on the monitor. “Sometimes I go to her room, and she stops crying. Mama says she likes company.”
“I see.” Rebecca was careful to keep her tone light. “And when you hear her crying, how does it make you feel?”
“It used to make me sad. But now I know sometimes crying can make you feel better when you’re finished.”
In spite of herself, Rebecca smiled. “That’s very true.”
“Are you going to take pictures of the lady?”
“I hope so. Have you ever seen her?”
“No, but I think she’s pretty, because she smells pretty.” Emma offered another quick, elfin smile. “You smell pretty, too.”
“Thanks. Do you like living in the house, Emma, with the lady and everything?”
“It’s nice. But we’re going to build our own house, near the farm, because we’re a big family now. Mama will still work here, so I can come whenever I want. Are you writing a story? Connor writes stories.”
“No, not exactly. It’s like a diary, really. Just things I want to remember, or read over sometime. But I’m going to write a story about Antietam.”
“Can I be in it?”
“Oh, I think you have to be.” She ran a hand over Emma’s springy golden curls. It was lovely to discover that, yes, she did seem to appeal to children. And they appealed, very much, to her. “I hope you’ll tell me all about the lady.”
“My name’s Emma MacKade now. The judge said it could be. So I’ll be Emma MacKade in the story.”
“You certainly will be.” Rebecca shut down her machine. “Let’s go get some cookies.”
She hadn’t intended to walk over to the farm. She’d set out to take a stroll in the woods—or so she’d told herself. To take some air, clear her mind, stretch her legs.
But she was out of the trees and crossing the fields before she knew it.
She couldn’t say why it made her smile to see the house. She hoped it was late enough in the day that Shane was settled in somewhere, or off with one of his lady friends. She knew that farm work started early in the day, so it seemed safe to assume it would be done by now.
She could see that part of a hayfield had been mowed, but there was no tractor, or whatever was used to cut it, in sight now. She was sorry she’d missed the action. Undoubtedly Shane MacKade riding through the fields on a large, powerful machine would make quite an interesting picture.
But it was really solitude she wanted, before she went back to her rooms and hunkered down with her equipment and notes for the rest of the night.