No Risk Refused

by Cara Summers

  She met his eyes. “No reason to do that if what he found was the rest of Eleanor’s dowry. Unless he wanted to hide something.”

  “Our minds are running along the same path.”

  Before he could stop her, she ducked low and worked a small rock out of the wall. Then she began to work on the larger one.

  Cam grabbed her wrists. “My turn. We don’t know what we’re going to find.”

  But she had a feeling it wouldn’t be good as she backed up and let him shoot the light into the space she’d cleared. He freed another stone, then handed her the light. “Hold it steady.”

  Fear shot ice up her spine at what he pulled out next. It was small, no bigger than the metal box she and her sisters had buried their dreams and fantasies in. But it was encased in plastic and there were wires that connected two small canisters.

  She swallowed hard. “Definitely not Eleanor’s missing dowry.”

  He met her eyes. “You’ve got good nerves. This is a type of bomb I’ve worked on before. Military issue. That’s good news. It means he’s not cooking up homemade stuff in his cellar.”

  “Great.”

  “More good news—there are no other loose stones. I checked. He only had the time to plant one. And there’s nothing ticking, no lights blinking. Otherwise we’d both be running like hell.”

  “I notice you’re not doing a happy dance. What’s the bad news?”

  “This little puppy works on a remote detonator. All our guy has to do is press a button. But even that’s good news.”

  “In what alternate universe?” she asked.

  Cam’s laugh was soft, and the smile remained on his face when he met her eyes. “I never know what you’re going to say next. But the fact that he’s using a bomb with a detonator probably means that all he wanted to do today was plant it so that he can set it off later.”

  “So what are our options?” She was voting for running.

  “Make sure he can’t set it off. Ever. I’m going to need your help. You game?”

  “Sure.” He certainly was. In fact, she was pretty sure he was having fun. The look he shot her was cocky, confident. And totally Cam. Her heart fluttered.

  “Hold the light steady.”

  She was surprised that she could, that her hand didn’t tremble. His certainly didn’t. She watched fascinated while thunder rumbled and rain pounded steadily on the stones overhead. His movements were as deft and quick as a surgeon’s as he isolated wires and then used the blade of a small professional-looking penknife to cut them.

  When he started to slip the bomb back into place, she said, “Why are you leaving it here?”

  “He’s got eyes on this place. I don’t want him to suspect that we found it.”

  “He’s bound to suspect something if he decides to use that detonator.”

  Cam met her eyes then. “Then he’ll have to try again. And we’ll be ready for him.”

  She stared back down at the device. She knew that the danger was just beginning to sink in when her hand started to tremble. “What did he hope to accomplish with a bomb?”

  “I’m thinking maybe it was his Plan B and that it was born out of desperation. The earring was found in here. He’s not the only one who’s going to speculate that the rest of the dowry is hidden somewhere in the stones.”

  “Even if he did manage to blow up the whole place, it could take days to sort through the rubble. He’s got to be crazy.”

  “That’s one possibility.” He finessed the last stone into place. “Our mission is accomplished.”

  Adair drew in a deep breath and let it out. “What do we do next?”

  Thunder roared and lightning flashed brightly enough that for a moment she could see him quite clearly.

  “Let Daryl and Vi know. Notify Sheriff Skinner so that he can get someone up here to stake out this part of the garden starting tonight. Then we wait.”

  “That’s it?”

  Cam met her eyes. “I know your affection for detailed plans, but aren’t you ever tempted to just go with the flow?”

  Only with you, she realized. They were kneeling together on the smooth rocks that formed the floor of the arch. Even in the dim light that radiated from the penlight she’d set aside, he looked triumphant, like some warrior that had just won a battle. And she wanted him more than she’d ever wanted anything. Anyone.

  And she’d just kissed him under the stone arch.

  Panic streaked its way through desire. The kiss didn’t matter, she told herself again. It couldn’t matter. If any two people were mismatched, it was Cam and her.

  Which was why he made the perfect fantasy. That’s what fantasies were about. The impossible. The things you think can only happen in your wildest dreams. But she and Cam were happening.

  “I do like plans. And missions. Right now I have another one for you.” Carefully, she set the flashlight down. “We won’t need this.” Then she tugged his T-shirt out of his jeans. “You won’t need your clothes either.”

  “Sounds like my favorite kind of mission.”

  He helped her pull the shirt over his head. Even in the shadows she saw the excitement in his eyes darken to something else, something that had fire racing along her nerve endings. But when he lowered his head, she angled hers, avoiding his lips at the last moment.

  “No kissing yet. Once we start that, my brain turns to toast.” She gave his ear a quick nip. “I want to touch you first.”

  “Touch away.”

  She ran her hands over his shoulders, then slowly down his chest. There was so much to absorb—the smooth taut skin, the hard muscle beneath. Even the tickle of hair under her palms sent a separate thrill rippling through her.

  “I can’t seem to stop wanting you,” she murmured as he moved her hands lower.

  “It’s a mutual problem.”

  His breath hitched when she slipped her fingers beneath the waistband of his jeans. Their fingers collided, then tangled as they worked on his belt. When it was finally freed, she pushed his hands away.

  “My turn. I’ll let you know when it’s yours.”

  The sound of his jeans unsnapping seemed as loud as the rumble of thunder overhead. And the rasp of the zipper as she eased it down was exciting, erotic and irresistibly enticing.

  “There was no time for me to do this in the cave.”

  “We were busy with other things. Let me have my turn and—”

  The sentence broke off as she slipped her hands beneath his briefs, found him and freed him.

  Their gasps intermingled, then thunder rumbled again.

  “Oh, my,” she breathed. Her experience wasn’t vast, but what she was looking at went beyond anything she’d imagined. She ran her fingers up the length of him and felt the tremor move through him. “When you have toast for brains, you miss things.”

  “There are other things you’re missing. Right now. Say the word.”

  “Not quite yet.” The huskiness of his voice had added one more thrill to the mix as she wrapped her fingers around him. When he groaned, power sang through her bringing fresh pleasure.

  “I have a plan,” she murmured.

  “It better not take long.”

  With a soft laugh, she met his eyes. Then before she could lose her resolve, she leaned in and gave his ear a quick nip, then licked the pain away with her tongue. “I just want to taste you. Try it. You might like it.”

  Cam wondered if he had a choice. Ever since she’d closed her hand around him, he’d lost all the strength in his arms. By the time she’d used her teeth on his shoulder and moved lower to take his nipple into her mouth, he was sure he was losing his mind. Each flick of her tongue, each scrape of her teeth, each flutter of her breath on his skin created sensations so sharp, so intense they took his breath away. Her mouth left a trail of heat that seemed to sear away his flesh right to the bone.

  And all the time, she moved her hand gently on his shaft, up and then down. Up and then down, guiding him into a rhythm that she controlled.

>   Then she was finally where he wanted her to be, but he still wasn’t prepared for what he felt when she flicked her tongue over the head of his penis. The intensity of the pleasure was so great, so consuming. And the ache that it left in its wake was something he’d never experienced.

  The only thing he could seem to move was his eyelids. So he watched her as she used her tongue on him. Moving lower to the base of his shaft and then up again as if she were devouring some delicious treat that she’d been starving for.

  New sensations battered his system. Agonizing. Amazing. When she took him fully into her mouth, he thought his heart would simply burst out of his chest. No other woman had ever aroused him like this. Seduced him like this. Destroyed him like this.

  The power was hers. His entire world had seemed to narrow to the wet heat of her mouth as it drew him in, then released him. And each time she did, he felt parts of himself melting and merging with her.

  He wanted it to stop. He wanted it to go on.

  Adair was drowning in him. How could she have known that a man’s skin could have so many textures, so many flavors? Or that making a man tremble, making him moan, could be so arousing? So amazing? She’d never imagined that she had this kind of power, the kind that brought only pleasure.

  Nor could she have imagined her own greed. She couldn’t get enough of the taste of him. The textures fascinated her, steel wrapped in velvet. Sensations poured into her, filling all the empty spaces.

  When he reached for her, his hands trembled at first, then gripped her and lifted her so that she straddled his thighs.

  “Adair.” His voice was barely a rasp, but when she started to move, he held her still. “Protection.”

  Once the word registered in her brain, she met his eyes. “I’m good. Pill. Still my turn.”

  Then lifting her hips she lowered herself onto him.

  The moment she took him in, enclosed him, he began to move. She felt the storm that she’d been building in him since her first touch break free. His thrusts were desperate, violent. This was what she’d wanted. Dreamed of. Then he drove her beyond what she’d ever imagined into a pleasure so dark, so intense that she was blind from it.

  “Cam.” He was all she knew as he poured himself into her and she shattered.

  * * *

  ADAIR WASN’T SURE how long they lay tangled together against the stones when the ringing of a cell phone forced them back to reality. Cam managed to get to his just as it rang for the third time.

  “It’s Daryl.” Holding it so they both could listen, he said, “Problem?”

  “Not on this end. But the storm ended about ten minutes ago, and Vi’s beginning to worry about the two of you.”

  “We’re fine now that we’ve dismantled a very nice military issue bomb.”

  “No shit,” Daryl said. “Sorry I missed it. But Sheriff Skinner called to check on Vi and he’s on his way up here. Seems that using Edie at the diner as his investigator has paid off. Hazel Gallinger who runs the General Store caught our friend Banes talking to a stranger on one of her security cameras. Skinner wants to know if the guy is MacDonald.”

  “Do me a favor and call him back,” Cam said. “Tell him we need that extra man he offered to send up here tonight. And tell Vi we’re on our way.”

  14

  IT WAS JUST before seven when Sheriff Skinner inserted the security disc from Hazel Gallinger’s store into the DVD player in the main parlor. One of his deputies along with Skinner’s dog were currently on stakeout duty in the stone arch. Another of the sheriff’s men was patrolling the grounds. Daryl and Wes had checked the security system and made sure all the windows and doors were locked.

  While they’d provided Skinner with more details on the bomb they’d discovered and the attacks their latest intruder had made, Vi had fixed sandwiches and tea and wheeled the refreshments in on a cart.

  In Cam’s opinion, they made a pretty motley-looking crew. Skinner looked tired as he pressed a button on the DVD player and then pulled up a ladder-back chair. Daryl had chosen a spot closest to the screen on a love seat next to Vi with Alba snuggled between them.

  As the TV screen flickered on, Cam’s gaze shifted to Adair who sat cross-legged on the floor. While they’d waited for Sheriff Skinner to arrive, he and Adair had used the excuse of getting caught in the rain to fit in a quick shower and change of clothes.

  She wore a T-shirt and jeans and her red hair curled wildly around her head just the way it had when she was a kid. But she wasn’t that kid anymore. Nor was she the young woman who had jarred his hormones into overdrive at his mother’s wedding seven years ago.

  She was so much more.

  He thought of the way she’d held so steady when he’d discovered the bomb. She had courage. He knew that she had to have mixed feelings about letting the wedding go on as scheduled, but he’d studied her face when Daryl had spoken about the hundreds of people that Banes had stolen from over the years. And she’d agreed to the plan even though it might put her dream of establishing the reputation of Castle MacPherson as a prime wedding destination in grave jeopardy.

  She wasn’t anything he’d expected or even thought he wanted. All he’d known was that she would be different for him. What he hadn’t counted on was how different. Or that she would take him so far beyond his expectations—or even his fantasies.

  He wanted—no, he needed more time with her. They hadn’t had much yet. He also wanted to make love with her again. And he had a feeling that he wasn’t going to stop wanting that anytime soon.

  When her eyes slid to his, he got that same feeling he’d gotten when they’d been making love—that his whole world was suddenly becoming very narrow. Very centered. The feeling had his stomach skittering and something tightened around his heart.

  “This is one of the aisles in Hazel Gallinger’s store,” Skinner said.

  Cam focused on the TV screen.

  “She was in Edie’s Diner when I came in to ask about any strangers in town. She said she saw two early this morning.”

  Skinner leaned forward to tap a finger on the screen as a man entered. “She noticed the Banes guy right away because of his fancy shoes and shirt. The next guy came in a few minutes later.”

  Adair felt the hairs on the back of her neck stand up as the second man entered the store. The screen only showed his back, but he had a camera hanging from a strap over his shoulder. And the hair was the right length for MacDonald. She waited, wanting to be sure.

  He strolled up the aisle and when Banes turned to him, there was surprise on his face followed by a frown.

  “Not a stranger to Banes,” she murmured.

  “That would be my guess,” Skinner said. “And Banes doesn’t look happy to see him.”

  The two men stood face-to-face. It was the shorter man who seemed to be doing all the talking. Then Banes glanced at his watch and nodded. The other man turned away from Banes and the moment he did, Wes Pinter said, “Mustache, fancy beard. That’s the guy who attacked me.”

  “That’s also the man who introduced himself to me as Nathan MacDonald.” Adair turned to meet Cam’s eyes. “And that’s the man we saw arguing with Lawrence Banes at Tinker’s Falls.”

  Daryl leaned forward and spoke to the sheriff. “A beard and a mustache, especially one that people remember, is a great disguise. If you’d be willing to lend me that disc, I can get a good enough image off it to send to a tech I know. He’ll run it through a facial recognition program minus the beard. Then we might know who we’re dealing with.” He turned to Cam. “It may match up with that old photo I have of Gianni Scalzo’s partner.”

  Skinner ejected the disc and handed it over. “Banes claims that he has no idea who might have tampered with his brake lines. He’s going full steam ahead with the wedding. By the time I left his room, he was pestering Dr. Barnhill for a phone so that he could to talk to Bunny.”

  Bunny again. Adair frowned and found herself looking at Cam. She wanted to talk to him about the fact that Banes h
adn’t once mentioned talking to Rexie. Something about that was still rubbing her the wrong way. She wanted his take on it, and she just wanted time to be with him. Everything had happened so fast between them. And time was slipping away. After tomorrow, after he and Daryl and the sheriff were able to arrest Banes, they’d probably have to go back to Washington. She and Vi would have their hands full with the fallout from the wedding disaster.

  All her life she’d focused on mapping out plans for her future. No one had ever made her want to live so totally in the moment. In the now.

  “I wish we had a better handle on what the hell is going on here,” Skinner said.

  Adair shifted her focus back to the conversation.

  “All we’ve got are theories or suppositions.” Cam stretched his legs out. “If MacDonald is the guy who’s been poking around in the castle for the past six months, I’d say his goal is the sapphires. Something must have convinced him that they exist and they’re here. Maybe it started out as a hobby. But now he’s convinced they’re in the stone arch, and he’s determined to get them before the hills come alive with other fortune hunters.”

  “If he’s Scalzo’s longtime partner and he cut Scalzo’s brake lines, the partnership is obviously on the rocks. The question is why?” Daryl said. “And why now? They’ve been together for years. Why have a falling-out the day before a wedding that promises to net them millions?”

  “He could be both our nocturnal visitor and Banes’s partner,” Adair said. “The Maitlands signed the contract for the wedding about six months ago, the same time Vi started to have her sleep disturbed and brought Alba home. If MacDonald is the man behind the scenes, his job could be intelligence gathering, right?”

  “That has always been my assessment,” Daryl said. “What are you thinking?”

  “Maybe MacDonald decided to take the jewels on as a private project and didn’t inform Banes,” Adair continued. “Then the earring shows up and Banes gets wind of it and MacDonald doesn’t want to share. They argue. MacDonald tries to eliminate Banes.”