Sinister

by Nancy Bush

  “Yes.” He was unequivocal, but his mouth came down on hers, pressing hard. She molded her lips to his and slid her arms around his waist as well. She could feel his hardness against her abdomen and she reveled in it. This was right. This was what she wanted.

  He picked her up and settled her on the bunk. They stared at each other, then she threw off her jacket and lay down, her hands clutching anxiously for him until his body was lying on hers. His belt buckle dug into her skin and she reached down and grabbed it, loosening it and quickly pulling it free before unzipping his pants.

  His own hands were working on the snaps of her jeans and as they popped loose he yanked her waistband down until she was lying in her pink panties, the tiniest ones she owned, that she’d put on in her haste to get ready this morning. When his mouth descended against the scrap of fabric, she inhaled in anticipation and surprise. Then he was heating her in a way that made her writhe in surprise and sudden, blinding desire. Her back arched and she grabbed his dark hair.

  When he lifted his head and pulled her jeans completely off, she moved her hips and wriggled out of her panties. The air was cold but she was hot as they both hurriedly undid the buttons on each other’s shirts.

  When they were both naked Hunter’s gaze traveled hungrily over her. Delilah hadn’t made love to another man in so long she trembled in embarrassment. Her hands stole up to cover her breasts, but Hunter swept them away and held them away from her so she was pinned down. He lay down upon her and they just looked at each other.

  “I think I might be out of my mind,” she said on a swallow.

  His mouth quirked. “No.”

  “No?”

  “No …”

  His hips moved atop hers and her legs eased apart, making room for him. His blue eyes were too penetrating as he settled himself between her thighs, so she reached up and dragged his face down to hers, kissing him for all she was worth as the tip of his manhood probed her wetness. She wanted all of him and she eagerly wrapped her legs around him. It had been years since they’d been together. Years and years, but the time fell away in the familiar, rhythmic thrusts, and it could have been yesterday.

  “Delilah …” He whispered her name in her ear as he moved with ever-increasing tempo. She dug her fingernails into his back and held on. She wanted him. She’d always wanted him …

  And a baby.

  There was no talk of birth control. Maybe he thought she just took care of those things. Maybe he was as swept away as she was. Maybe he just didn’t care.

  His tongue probed her mouth and hers answered back. I love you, she thought. Just like she had years before. I love you. I’ve always loved you.

  The words were in her head, and when he pulled back to bend down and suckle her breast they were in her mouth. But there they stayed. She was too afraid to say them. Too afraid they would break the gossamer threads of this moment and leave reality crashing down on them.

  She could feel the heat building inside her. She strained against him, holding him tight, her breath caught as desire rippled inside her. Hunter … Hunter … Hunter …

  Wild thoughts filled her head. She was going to tell him. She was. What could it matter if he knew she loved him … ?

  She opened her mouth, but the sound that came out was a cry of ecstasy as the explosion rocked her, shattering, sending shudders through her. He groaned and stiffened and followed after her. Her pounding heart was deafening her. Her head swam.

  And then she smelled the smoke.

  Fire.

  Before the impact fully penetrated her brain, Hunter had already rolled away from her and was grabbing for his jeans.

  “Smoke,” he said, his taut gaze lasered on something through the tack room window.

  Delilah scrambled up and followed his sight line. The eastern-side upper floor of the lodge was smoking, gray tendrils curling out from the windows. Inside, flames climbed the curtains of Ira and Pilar’s suite.

  “Oh, God …” she murmured.

  Hunter had yanked on his jeans and was dragging on his boots. Delilah swarmed into her own clothes, her teeth chattering with sudden fear. Leaving buttons undone, she snatched up her own boots, hopping into them.

  Hunter ran out of the tack room and toward the stable door. Delilah was half a dozen yards behind him as they raced to the lodge. He flung open the front door and found Mrs. Mac coming from the kitchen, looking confused. “Something burning,” she said, as Hunter flung himself up the stairs and around the landing.

  Delilah followed after him as Mrs. Mac held a hand to her chest and the downstairs fire alarm began bleating loudly. Hunter was at the bedroom double doors, which were stuck. He slammed his shoulder against them several times as Delilah noticed the shims that had been wedged beneath them to keep them from opening. Before she could do anything, wood splintered and the left door gave. Hunter ran in and Delilah was right behind him. She could smell gasoline or something like it. Lighter fluid? The curtains were ablaze. So were the bedclothes.

  And Pilar, eyes closed, lay silent as death on the bed in her chiffon wedding gown. The fabric and lace trimmings curling into ash, the whole garment burning beneath a layer of racing, hot flames.

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  “Call 9-1-1. Get a fire extinguisher. A hose!” Hunter yelled as he grabbed the blankets and dragged them around Pilar’s body, smothering the flames.

  Choking, Delilah stumbled from the room and yelled down to Mrs. Mac, who had already scurried back toward the kitchen and garage.

  Delilah didn’t want to leave Hunter, didn’t want to risk losing him, but she raced down the stairs, half falling, scrabbling for the rail. Then she ran across the room and damn near into Mrs. Mac, who was on the phone. Delilah knew where the fire extinguisher was in the laundry room and she ran for it, yanking it from the wall. Then she was racing back the way she’d come, hurrying up the stairs as Hunter carried Pilar’s limp, blanket-wrapped body from the bedroom and set her on the landing. The alarm was ear-splitting, but she ran past him with the fire extinguisher toward the bedroom.

  “Help her!” Hunter demanded and Delilah paused.

  The singed blankets were smoking as Hunter rapidly unwrapped them. Pilar was gray as he instantly began pushing on her chest. “Trade places.”

  She did as she was told, handing him the fire extinguisher and crossing her hands over Pilar’s chest and pumping. Her head was splitting with fear and the shrill blast of the alarm as Hunter ran into the bedroom and sprayed foam onto the flames.

  Delilah’s world narrowed to the pumping of Pilar’s chest. One, two, three, four … . She counted to ten over and over again in her head. She couldn’t have said how long it was before she heard the fire truck’s siren and the pounding of feet up the stairs, and then there were people all around her and someone was saying, “She’s gone. You can stop. She’s gone.”

  She realized dully that the someone was Hunter. She looked into his smoke-smudged face and wanted to stumble into his arms. But there were too many people and too much confusion and then Ricki was pulling her away.

  “Delilah,” her sister said, in a sharp, worried tone. “You okay? What happened?”

  “I’m fine …”

  “How did this start?”

  “I don’t know. Pilar’s …”

  “Dead.” Ricki was grim as she half supported Delilah down the stairs. “What was Hunter doing here?”

  “He was … at the stables …”

  “Was he here when the fire started?” she clipped out.

  “What?”

  “Was he in the house when the fire started?”

  “No!” Delilah came back to the moment as if she’d been slapped.

  “Could he have done this? You just told me Abby lied for him,” Ricki said urgently. “Maybe we’ve all lied for him without knowing it.”

  “He was with me,” Delilah choked out, furious. “In the stables. He was the first one here to help. You’ve got him all wrong!”

  “I told Sam
what you said and he’s talking to Hunter now.”

  “Ricki! Oh, my God! I never thought he was responsible for the homestead fire. You know that.” Delilah, who’d been planning to strip off her smoke-filled clothes and take a shower, wrenched away from her sister’s grasp.

  “Someone killed Pilar,” Ricki said.

  “Hunter tried to save her!” Delilah heard shouting coming from the great room and turned toward it. Her father’s voice. Booming with fury and grief.

  “If that’s true, you need to defend him fast,” Ricki said.

  Hunter stared silently at Ira Dillinger, who was pale and in shock but screaming like mad at him. He’d come in just after the firemen and had zeroed in on Hunter when he’d learned of Pilar’s death, raging loud enough to shake the snow from the mountains.

  Then Delilah and Ricki entered and Delilah said flatly, “He didn’t do it. I was with him. We were in the stables together.”

  “I don’t believe it,” Ira said, ripping his hands through his hair. He was half-wild.

  “It’s true,” Delilah said.

  Sam Featherstone said, “Let’s all just take a moment.”

  For an answer Ira staggered out of the room and toward the front hallway and looked out to where the EMTs were loading Pilar’s body into the county coroner’s van, slamming the doors shut.

  The wail of grief that filled the rafters was from Ira’s own lips. Footsteps could be heard above their heads: the forensic team and last of the firemen.

  Hunter was tired enough to want to lay his head back against the cushions and fall asleep. He sensed the suspicion and blame even though Delilah had vouched for him. To hell with them all. He didn’t care. He hadn’t done any of this. It pissed him off but good, that he had to put up with this shit, but when he thought about Pilar’s body lying on the bed, it didn’t seem to matter much.

  Raintree had actually come out with the fire team. “Whoever did this used the same accelerant as your fire two nights ago,” he said, shooting a look at Hunter, who’d been the one to give him that information. Better to come from the chief, though.

  Ira wandered back in, his jaw set but quivering all the same. Delilah was sitting quietly now, in shock, he guessed. He wanted to talk to her, hold her, be with her, but that wasn’t going to be for a while yet. Her father wanted to lay Pilar’s death at his feet. He wouldn’t be ready to see that Hunter and Delilah had met more than casually in the stables.

  “This one is different than the Pioneer Church fire?” Sam asked.

  “We’re working on the theory that the church fire was a different doer than the two fires on Dillinger property,” Raintree agreed.

  “Someone killed Pilar,” Ira rasped. He didn’t look at Hunter, but Hunter could feel the old man’s enmity reach him in waves.

  Had they meant to kill Pilar? he asked himself now. Was she the target? He searched inside his own head, examining what he knew about arsonists and fire and the emotions tied to them.

  Sam said, “ME’s put a rush on to learn the cause of death.”

  “Cause of death?” Ira’s glazed eyes raked over Sam. “She was burned, you fool. By Kincaid.”

  “Hunter wasn’t in the house when it went up,” Sam said.

  “I don’t give a good goddamn. He did it somehow.”

  “It appears Pilar was drugged first,” Sam said. “The champagne glass beside the bed is being tested.”

  At that moment Colton rushed in. “The kids are with Sabrina at the bunkhouse. Rourke’s upset, but I wouldn’t let him come up here. I saw the coroner’s van …”

  “Pilar’s dead,” Ricki said, coming up to Colton and grabbing his arm, pulling him to the side of the room.

  “Oh … God …” Colton looked out the window toward the direction of the bunkhouse. “I gotta tell Rourke,” he said bleakly.

  “I’ll come with you,” Ricki said. “Brook’s there, too?”

  Colton nodded as they headed for the front door.

  Hunter watched Colton leave with a heavy heart. He had the unenviable task of alerting his son to his new reality, one without his mother.

  “Well, who was it then?” Ira demanded, sinking into a chair. But the fight wasn’t out of him yet. “You were here,” he said to Hunter. “You were on Dillinger land.”

  “I was here, too,” Delilah reminded. “Hunter and I were in the stables. We ran to the house when we saw the smoke.”

  “What were you doing in my stables?” Ira asked Hunter.

  “Ira.” Sam tried to intervene.

  “Talking to Delilah,” Hunter replied.

  “You just happened to be at the stables?” Ira demanded.

  “He met me,” Delilah said.

  “After he set the fire.”

  “I didn’t set this fire or any other,” Hunter said, getting to his feet. He was sick to the back teeth of all of them, save Delilah. His head was full of images, not the least being Delilah’s soft skin dappled by light through the small stable window, her soft moans that sounded like a plea, the wet heat of her. But superimposed on that glory was Pilar’s still body and the smell of burning hair and flesh. Luckily, the fire had been easily put out. Whoever had set it had drugged Pilar before setting the bedclothes and curtains on fire.

  Who?

  “Where are you going?” Ira demanded as Hunter headed for the door.

  Ignoring Ira, he strode outside and gulped lung-freezing air that helped clear his head. Someone had killed Pilar on purpose. All Ira could see was that a Kincaid was to blame, but there was a reason she’d been chosen, a method to the doer’s madness.

  But who? Why? What?

  He wished he could just forget it all and grab Delilah and make love to her forever. That’s what he wanted. Delilah. With him. In Prairie Creek or some other stretch of Wyoming. It’s what he’d wanted since those early days.

  She wanted to leave with Hunter. What would they do if she just got up and walked out with him? Delilah wondered. Ira would have a fit, of course, but she didn’t give a rat’s ass. And she was furious with Ricki for saying all those things about Hunter to Sam. Sure, sure, Ricki was just trying to figure out what had happened, but it wasn’t Hunter. Ricki knew that! Didn’t she? Didn’t she? Delilah wanted to cut out her own tongue for talking to her sister about what had happened at the homestead. Damn it. It was so long ago, and Ricki didn’t have all the facts anyway. In fact, she’d been the one to tell Delilah to talk to Hunter.

  And who had killed Pilar? Someone had deliberately taken her life; that was clear. Delilah wondered if she should go to the bunkhouse and help with Rourke, or if maybe it would be better to wait until Colton asked for her help.

  She felt ill and unhappy, when mere hours before she’d been in ecstasy with Hunter. Awed and amazed that after all this time it was still there. Desire. Craving. Attraction. Love …

  “Who’s doing this?” she asked aloud into a lull in the conversation and accusations that had still rung through the air after Hunter’s departure.

  Everyone looked at her, but no one had an answer.

  Deciding she’d had enough, she left the great room in a rush and ran outside. Her gaze swept the area for Hunter, but all she saw was the back of his gray pickup as it burned away from Dillinger land.

  Three hours later Ricki pressed the cell phone to her ear and asked, “Does the lab know anything yet?” as she walked outside and away from the oppressive mood inside the lodge.

  It was a long shot, but Sam had said there was a rush job on the cause of Pilar’s death.

  “Preliminarily looks like she died of a drug overdose. The fire was secondary.”

  “What drug?”

  “Looks like oxycodone.” Sam gave her a quick rundown of what was in the hurried lab report: not much at this juncture. Part of Ricki had wanted to leave with him, but there was emotional chaos at the Rocking D and Brook needed her close, whether she knew it or not. Now she stared off toward the Tetons, her gaze on their snow-capped peaks as she heard the front door op
en and close behind her. She turned to see her daughter, pulling a heavy sweater more closely to her chest, come down the steps toward her.

  “Someone killed Pilar,” Brook said unsteadily. “Like they tried to kill me?”

  Ricki wanted to deny it. She always wanted to minimize Brook’s tendency toward “drama.” But she shut her mouth before she said anything. Maybe she hadn’t listened to Brook enough, had ignored or dismissed Brook’s complaints. Now, she cast her mind back to several conversations between Brook and herself that had washed over her head at the time … and maybe shouldn’t have.

  Sam was saying, “… will know more later, but it looks like Pilar was the target in this case.”

  Was the same true of Brook and the foreman’s cottage fire?

  Something in Ricki’s face must have revealed her thoughts because Brook frowned at her. “Thanks, Sam. I’ve gotta go,” Ricki said into the phone. “I’ll check back with you.”

  She clicked off and remained silent, thinking.

  “What?” Brook asked.

  “Pilar was drugged and it’s likely she died of an overdose. Looks like traces of oxycodone were found in her champagne glass.”

  Brook blinked at her mother. “Drugs? Oh, my God.”

  “You bumped into Georgina and knocked her purse over and she was furious with you. And I remember you said there were drugs in her purse.”

  “And a gun. You said the pills were for her husband and to stop making too much of it.”

  “I know.”

  They stared at each other and Brook drew a sharp breath. “What are you saying, Mom?”

  “I’m not sure. But the Major has cancer and must use some form of painkiller.”

  “You think Mrs. Kincaid killed Pilar?”

  “Or someone with access to the drugs,” Ricki said, lowering her voice and pulling Brook away from the house. “Don’t repeat what I’m saying. I don’t have all the answers. I was just remembering what you’d told me.”

  “You’re not scaring me. If that old bitch did something—”

  “Brook,” Ricki broke in, exasperated. “Don’t make me regret treating you like an adult.”