by Nora Roberts
control, neither did he. Urgency would be met with urgency, fire with fire, but tenderness … What would she do if he kissed her like that again? And how long would she have to wait until he did? A woman could fall in love with a man who kissed like that.
Maggie caught herself. Some women, she corrected, hastily dragging on her jeans. Not her. She wasn’t going to fall in love with Cliff Delaney. He wasn’t for her. He wanted no more than—
Then she remembered that he hadn’t left without a word. He hadn’t left at all.
“Maggie!”
The voice from the bottom of the stairs had her jolting. “Yes.” She answered him while she stared at her own astonished face in the mirror.
“Stan’s on his way.”
“All right, I’m coming down.” In a minute, she added silently, in just a minute. Moving like someone who wasn’t sure her legs could be trusted, she sat on the bed.
If she was falling in love with him, she’d better admit it now, while there was still time to do something about it. Was there still time? It washed over her that her time had been up days before, perhaps longer. Perhaps it had been up the moment he’d stepped out of his truck onto her land.
Now what? she asked herself. She’d let herself fall for a man she hardly knew, barely understood and wasn’t altogether sure she liked a great deal of the time. He certainly didn’t understand her and didn’t appear to want to.
Yet he’d planted a willow in her yard. Perhaps he understood more than either of them realized. Of course, there couldn’t be anything between them, really, she reminded herself hastily. They were poles apart in attitude. Still, for the moment, she had no choice but to follow her heart and hope that her mind would keep her somewhat level. As she rose, Maggie remembered fatalistically that it never had before.
It was quiet downstairs, but as soon as she came to the landing, she smelled coffee. She stood there a moment, wondering if she should be annoyed or pleased that Cliff was making himself at home. Unable to decide, she walked back to the kitchen.
“Want a cup?” Cliff asked as she entered. He was already leaning against the counter in his habitual position, drinking one of his own.
Maggie lifted a brow. “As a matter of fact, I would. Have any trouble finding what you needed?”
He ignored the sarcasm and reached in a cupboard for another cup. “Nope. You haven’t eaten lunch.”
“I generally don’t.” She came up behind him to pour the cup herself.
“I do,” he said simply. With a naturalness Maggie thought bordered on arrogance, he opened the refrigerator and began to search through it.
“Just help yourself,” she muttered before she scalded her tongue on the coffee.
“You’d better learn to stock up,” Cliff told her when he found her supplies discouragingly slim. “It isn’t unusual to get snowed in on a back road like this for a week at a time in the winter.”
“I’ll keep that in mind.”
“You eat this stuff?” he asked, pushing aside a carton of yogurt.
“I happen to like it.” She strode over, intending to slam the refrigerator door whether his hand was inside or not. Cliff outmaneuvered her by plucking out a single chicken leg, then stepping aside. “I’d just like to mention you’re eating my dinner.”
“Want a bite?” Apparently all amiability, he held out the drumstick. Maggie concentrated on keeping her lips from curving.
“No.”
“Funny.” Cliff took a bite and chewed thoughtfully. “Just coming into this kitchen seems to work up my appetite.”
She shot him a look, well aware that she was now standing on the spot where they’d made wild love only a short time before. If he was trying to get a rise out of her, he was succeeding. If he was trying to distract her from what they’d discovered in the attic, he was succeeding, as well. Either way, Maggie found she couldn’t resist him.
Deliberately, she took a step closer, running her hands slowly up his chest. It was time, she decided, to give him back a bit of his own. “Maybe I’m hungry, after all,” she murmured, and, rising on her toes, brushed her lips teasingly over his.
Because he hadn’t expected the move from her, Cliff did nothing. From the start he’d stalked and seduced. She was the lady, the crown princess with the wanton passion men often fantasize about on long, dark nights. Now, looking into those deep, velvet eyes, he thought her more of a witch. And who, he wondered as his blood began to swim, had been stalked and seduced?
She took his breath away—just the scent of her. She made his reason cloud—just the touch of her. When she looked at him like this, her eyes knowing, her lips parted and close, she was the only woman he wanted, the only woman he knew. At times like this, he wanted her with a fire that promised never to be banked. Quite suddenly and quite clearly, she terrified him.
“Maggie.” He put a hand up to ward her off, to draw her closer; he’d never know, for the dog began to bark, and the rumble of a car laboring up the lane sounded from outside. Cliff dropped the hand to his side again. “That’ll be Stan.”
“Yes.” She studied him with an open curiosity he wasn’t ready to deal with.
“You’d better get the door.”
“All right.” She kept her gaze direct on his for another moment, rather pleased with the uncertainty she saw there. “You coming?”
“Yeah. In a minute.” He waited until she had gone, then let out a long, uneasy breath. That had been too close for comfort. Too close to what, he wasn’t certain, but he was certain he didn’t like it. With his appetite strangely vanished, Cliff abandoned the drumstick and picked up his coffee. When he noticed his hands weren’t quite steady, he downed the contents in one swallow.
Well, she certainly had enough to think about, Maggie mused as she walked down the hall. The sheriff was at her door again, Cliff was standing in her kitchen looking as though he’d been struck with a blunt instrument, and her own head was so light from a sense of—was it power?—that she didn’t know what might happen next. Her move to the country certainly hadn’t been quiet. She’d never been more stimulated in her life.
“Miss Fitzgerald.”
“Sheriff.” Maggie scooped Killer up in one arm to quiet his barking.
“Quite a beast you’ve got there,” he commented. Then, holding out a hand, he allowed the puppy to sniff it cautiously. “Cliff gave me a call,” he continued. “Said it looked like somebody’s broken into the house.”
“That seems to be the only explanation.” Maggie stepped back to struggle with both the puppy and the door. “Although it doesn’t make any sense to me. Apparently someone was in the attic last week.”
“Last week?” Stan took care of the door himself, then rested his hand lightly, it seemed negligently, on the butt of his gun. “Why didn’t you call before?”
Feeling foolish, Maggie set the dog down, giving him an impatient nudge on the rear that sent him scampering into the music room. “I woke up sometime in the middle of the night and heard noises. I admit it panicked me at the time, but in the morning …” She trailed off and shrugged. “In the morning, I thought it’d been my imagination, so I more or less forgot the whole thing.”
Stan listened, and his nod was both understanding and prompting. “And now?”
“I happened to mention it to Cliff this … ah … this morning,” she finished. “He was curious enough to go up into the attic.”
“I see.” Maggie had the feeling he saw everything, very well.
“Stan.” Cliff strode down the hall from the kitchen, looking perfectly at ease. “Thanks for coming by.”
I should’ve said that, Maggie thought, but before she could open her mouth again, the men were talking around her.
“Just part of the job,” Stan stated. “You’re doing quite a job yourself on the grounds outside.”
“They’re coming along.”
Stan gave him a crooked, appealing smile. “You’ve always liked a challenge.”
They knew each other
well enough that Cliff understood he referred to the woman, as well as her land. “Things would be dull without them,” he said mildly.
“Heard you found something in the attic.”
“Enough to make me think someone’s been poking around.”
“I’d better have a look.”
“I’ll show you,” Maggie said flatly, then, sending Cliff a telling look, led the way upstairs.
When they came to the attic door, Stan glanced down at the poker still leaning against it. “Somebody could trip over that,” he said mildly.
“I must have left it there before.” Ignoring Cliff’s grin, she picked it up and held it behind her back.
“Doesn’t look like anyone’s been up here in a long time,” Stan commented as he brushed a cobweb away from his face.
“I haven’t been up at all until today.” Maggie shivered as a large black spider crawled sedately up the wall to her left. She hadn’t admitted to anyone yet that the prospect of insects and mice was primarily what had kept her out. “There’s been so much else to do in the house.” Deliberately, she stepped farther away from the wall.
“Not much up here.” Stan rubbed a hand over his chin. “Joyce and I cleared out everything we were interested in when she first inherited. Louella already had everything she wanted. If you haven’t been up,” he continued, peering slowly around, “how do you know anything’s missing?”
“I don’t. It’s this.” For the second time, Maggie crossed the dusty floor to the trunk. This time it was she who crouched down and pointed.
Stan bent down over her, close enough that she could smell the simple department-store aftershave he wore. She recognized it and, on a wave of nostalgia, remembered her mother’s driver had worn it, too. For no other reason, her sense of trust in him was confirmed.
“That’s curious,” Stan murmured, careful not to smear the faint outline. “Did you open this?”
“Neither of us touched it,” Cliff said from behind.
With another nod, Stan pushed the button on the latch. His other hand came up automatically, stopping just short of gripping the trunk in the same spot the handprint was. “Looks like somebody did.” Cautiously, he put his hand on the closure and tugged. “Locked.” Sitting back on his haunches, he frowned at the trunk. “Damn if I can remember what’s in this thing or if there’s a key. Joyce might know—more’n likely Louella, though. Still…” With a shake of his head, he straightened. “It doesn’t make much sense for somebody to break in and take something out of this old trunk, especially now that the house is occupied for the first time in ten years.” He looked back at Maggie. “Are you sure nothing’s missing from downstairs?”
“No—that is, I don’t think so. Almost everything I shipped out’s still in crates.”
“Wouldn’t hurt to take a good look.”
“All right.” She started back toward the second floor, realizing she hoped something would be missing. That would make sense; that would be tangible. The faint handprint on the trunk and no explanation gave her a queasy feeling in the stomach. A cut-and-dried burglary would only make her angry.
With the two men following, she went into her bedroom, checking her jewelry first. Everything was exactly as it should’ve been. In the next bedroom were crates that at a glance she could see were untouched and unopened.
“That’s all up here. There’s more crates downstairs and some paintings I haven’t had reframed yet.”
“Let’s take a look.”
Going with the sheriff’s suggestion, Maggie headed for the stairs again.
“I don’t like it,” Cliff said to Stan in an undertone. “And you don’t think she’s going to find anything missing downstairs.”
“Only thing that makes sense is a burglary, Cliff.”
“A lot of things haven’t made sense since we started digging in that gully.”
Stan let out a quiet breath, watching Maggie’s back as she descended the steps. “I know, and a lot of times there just aren’t any answers.”
“Are you going to tell Joyce about this?”
“I might have to.” Stan stopped at the base of the stairs, running a hand over the back of his neck as though there were tension or weariness there. “She’s a strong woman, Cliff. I guess I didn’t know just how strong until this business started. I know when we first got married, a lot of people thought I did it for her inheritance.”
“Not anyone who knew you.”
Stan shrugged. “Anyway, that died down after a while, died completely after I became sheriff. I guess there were times I wondered whether Joyce ever thought it.”
“She’d have told me if she had,” Cliff said bluntly.
With a half laugh, Stan turned to him. “Yes, she would’ve at that.”
Maggie came back into the hall from the music room. “There’s nothing missing in there, either. I’ve a few things in the living room, but—”
“Might as well be thorough,” Stan told her, then strode across the hall and over the threshold. “Doing some painting?” he asked when he noticed the can and brush by the window.
“I’d planned to have all the trim done in here today,” she said absently as she examined a few more packing boxes, “but then Mrs. Morgan stopped by, and—”
“Louella,” Stan interrupted.
Because he was frowning, Maggie began to smooth it over. “Yes, though she didn’t stay very long. We just looked over the pictures she’d lent me.” Distracted, she picked up the stack. “Actually, I’d wanted to show these to you, Cliff. I wondered if you could tell me how to deal with getting some climbing roses like these started.”
With the men flanking her, Maggie flipped through the snapshots.
“Louella certainly had a feel for making flowers look like they’d grown up on their own,” she murmured. “I don’t know if I have the talent for it.”
“She always loved this place,” Stan said. “She—” Then he stopped when she flipped to the color shot of himself and Morgan. “I’d forgotten about that one,” he said after a moment. “Joyce took that the first day of deer season.”
“Louella mentioned that she hunted.”
“She did,” Cliff put in, “because he wanted her to. Morgan had an—affection for guns.”
And died by one, Maggie thought with a shudder. She turned the pictures facedown. “There’s nothing missing anywhere that I can see, Sheriff.”
He stared down at the pile of photos. “Well, then, I’ll do a check of the doors and windows, see if anything’s been forced.”
“You can look,” Maggie said with a sigh, “but I don’t know if the doors were locked, and half the windows at least were open.”
He gave her the look parents give children when they do something foolish and expected. “I’ll just poke around, anyway. Never can tell.”
When he’d gone out, Maggie flopped down on the sofa and lapsed into silence. As if he had nothing better to do, Cliff wandered to the clock on the mantel and began to wind it. Killer came out from under the sofa and began to dance around his legs. The tension in the room was palpable. Maggie had almost given up wondering if it would ever be resolved.
Why would anyone break into an old trunk that had been neglected for years? Why had Cliff been in on the discovery, just as he’d been in on the discovery in the gully? What had caused her to fall in love with him, and would this need between them fade, as flash fires had a habit of doing? If she could understand any of it, perhaps the rest would fall into place and she’d know what move to make.
“There doesn’t seem to be any forced entry,” Stan said as he came back into the room. “I’ll go into town, file a formal report and get to work on this, but—” He shook his head at Maggie. “I can’t promise anything. I’d suggest you keep your doors locked and give some more thought to those dead bolts.”
“I’ll be staying here for the next few days,” Cliff announced, throwing Stan and Maggie into surprised silence. He continued as if he hadn’t noticed the reaction his s
tatement caused. “Maggie won’t be alone, though it would seem that whatever was wanted in the house was taken.”
“Yeah.” Stan scratched his nose, almost concealing a grin. “I’d better get back. I’ll just let myself out.”
Maggie didn’t rouse herself to say goodbye but stared at Cliff until the front door shut. “Just what do you mean, you’ll be staying here?”
“We’ll have to do some grocery shopping first. I can’t live off what you keep in that kitchen.”
“Nobody asked you to live off it,” she said, springing to her feet. “And nobody asked you to stay here. I don’t understand why I have to keep reminding you whose house and land this is.”
“Neither do I.”
“You told him,” she continued. “You just as good as announced to the town in general that you and I—”
“Are exactly what we are,” Cliff finished easily. “You’d better
