Hot Rocks

by Nora Roberts

  really very sweet.”

  “And there’s this one other thing.” He took a step forward, into her, which put her back up against the wall. Still, when his mouth came down, the kiss was slow and smooth, almost dreamy. She felt her knees unlock and go halfway to dissolve before he lifted his head. “If I didn’t do that, I’d be thinking about doing it. Figured we’d get more done if I got it out of the way first.”

  “Good.” She ran her tongue over her bottom lip. “Finished?”

  “Not hardly.”

  “That’s good, too. Coffee,” she decided before they started rolling around on the floor of the disordered room instead of setting it to rights. “I’ll just get that coffee.”

  She walked back toward the kitchen, with the dog prancing happily beside her. It helped, for the moment, to keep busy. Grinding beans, measuring coffee into the French press. He’d gotten her nerves up again, she realized. He was just leaning against the counter, watching her. That long body relaxed, but those eyes focused. Something about him made her want to rub up against him like a cat begging to be stroked.

  “I have to say something.”

  “Okay.”

  She got down two of the mugs that had survived the kitchen rampage. “I don’t usually . . . Hold on, let me figure out how to say this without sounding incredibly stupid and ordinary.”

  “I don’t think you could sound either. Ever.”

  “Boy, you really push the right buttons. All right.” She turned to him while the coffee steeped. “It’s not my habit to make dates, even casual ones, with a man I’ve just met. With a customer. In fact, you’re the first.”

  “I’ve always liked being first.”

  “Who doesn’t? And while I enjoy the company of men, and the benefits thereof, I also don’t, as a rule, wrap myself around one after dinner like sumac around an oak.”

  He was certain he’d remember the moment she had for a long time. It would probably come back to him on his deathbed as a major highlight of his life and times. “Would I be the first there, too?”

  “At that level.”

  “Better and better.”

  “You want cream? Sugar?”

  “Just black’s good.”

  “Okay then, to continue. I also don’t—and this has been a pretty hard-and-fast rule of thumb—contemplate sleeping with a man I’ve only known for twenty-four hours, give or take.”

  He was scratching Henry between the ears, but he never took his eyes off her face. “You know what they say about rules.”

  “Yes, and though I agree with what they say, I don’t break them lightly. I’m a firm believer in the need for structure, Max, in rules and lines. So the fact that I’m considering breaking a rule, crossing a line, makes me nervous. It’d be smarter, safer, more sensible if we backed away a bit, at least until we get to know each other better. Until we give things a chance to develop at a more reasonable and rational pace.”

  “Smarter,” he agreed. “Safer. Sensible.”

  “You have no idea how hard I’ve worked to live by those three attributes.” She laughed a little, then poured the coffee. “And the problem here is I’ve never been as attracted to anyone as I am to you.”

  “Maybe I’m a little looser when it comes to rules and lines, and not as worried about being sensible in certain areas.” He took the mug she offered, then set it on the counter. “But I know I’ve never looked at another woman and wanted her the way I want you.”

  “That’s not going to help me be smart.” She picked up her coffee, stepped back. “But I need some order. Let me put my house back together, as best I can, and we’ll see where things go.”

  “Hard to argue with that. We share some of these domestic chores, we ought to get to know each other.”

  “Well, it’s one way.” He’d be a distraction, she concluded. A lot more of a distraction than Jenny and a lunchtime Big Mac.

  But what the hell.

  “Since I’ve got some muscle on hand, let’s start with the living room. The sofa’s pretty heavy.”

  In Remember When, business was brisk. Or at least browsing was. It hadn’t taken long for word to get out about Laine’s latest trouble, or to bring out the curious to pump for more details. By one, with the new shipments logged, tagged and displayed, sales rung up and gossip exchanged in abundance, Jenny pressed a hand to the ache in her lower back.

  “I’m going to take lunch at home where I can put my feet up for an hour. Will you be all right on your own?”

  “Sure.” Angie held up a protein bar and a bottled, low-fat Frappucino. “Got my lunch right here.”

  “You don’t know how sad it makes me, Ange, to hear you call that lunch.”

  “Weighed in at one-nineteen this morning.”

  “Bitch.”

  While Angie laughed, Jenny got her purse from behind the counter and her sweater from the hook. “I’m going to nuke leftover pasta primavera and finish it off with a brownie.”

  “Now who’s the bitch?” She gave Jenny’s belly a pat, hoping as always to catch the baby kicking. “How’s it going in there?”

  “Night owl.” She stuck a loose bobby pin back in her messy topknot. “I swear the kid wakes up and starts tap dancing every night about eleven, and keeps it up for hours.”

  “You love it.”

  “I do.” Smiling now, Jenny tugged on the sweater. “Every minute of it. Best time of my life. Be back in an hour.”

  “Got it covered. Hey, should I call Laine? Just check on her?”

  “I’ll do it from home,” Jenny called back as she walked to the door. Before she reached it, it opened. She recognized the couple, searched around in her mental files for the name. “Nice to see you. Dale and Melissa, right?”

  “Good memory.” The woman, thirtyish, gym-fit and stylish, smiled at her.

  “And as I recall, you were interested in the rosewood armoire.”

  “Right again. I see it’s still here.” Even as she spoke, she walked to it, ran her hand over the carving on the door. “It keeps calling my name.”

  “It’s such a beautiful piece.” Angie strolled around the counter. “One of my favorites.” The truth was she preferred the modern and streamlined, but she knew how to pitch. “We just got another rosewood piece today. It’s a gorgeous little davenport. Victorian. I think they’re made for each other.”

  “Uh-oh.” Laughing, Melissa squeezed her husband’s arm. “I guess I have to take a look at least.”

  “I’ll show you.”

  “I was just on my way out, if you don’t need me . . .”

  “We’re fine.” Angie waved Jenny away. “Isn’t it beautiful?” she said, aiming her pitch at Melissa as she ran a fingertip down the glossy writing slope. “It’s in wonderful condition. Laine has such a good eye. She found this in Baltimore a few weeks ago. It arrived only this morning.”

  “It’s wonderful.” Leaning down, Melissa began opening and closing the small side drawers. “Really wonderful. I thought a davenport was a kind of couch.”

  “Yeah, but this kind of little desk is called that, too. Don’t ask me why; that’s Laine’s territory.”

  “I really love it, whatever it’s called. Dale?”

  He was fingering the price tag and sent her a look. “I’ve got to think about getting both, Melissa. It’s a pretty big chunk.”

  “Maybe we can chip it down a little.”

  “We can work on that,” Angie told her.

  “Let me take another look at the armoire.” She walked back over, opened the doors.

  Knowing how to pace a sale, Angie hung back while Dale joined his wife and they began a whispered consultation.

  The doors were closed again, opened again, drawers were pulled out.

  “Do we get what’s inside, too?” Dale called out.

  “I’m sorry?”

  “Box in here.” He took out the package, shook it. “Is it like the prize in the cereal box?”

  “Not this time.” With an easy laugh, Angie cross
ed over to take the box. “We had a big shipment come in this morning,” she began. “And we were pretty busy on top of it. Jenny must’ve gotten distracted and set this in there.”

  Or had she? Things had been hopping for an hour or two. Either way, Angie considered it a lucky break the drawer had been opened before the piece was missed.

  “We’re just going to talk this over for a few minutes,” Melissa told her.

  “Take your time.” Leaving them to it, Angie went back to the counter. She unwrapped the package and studied the silly ceramic dog. Cute, she thought, but she didn’t understand why anyone paid good money for animal pieces.

  She found soft, fuzzy stuffed animals more companionable.

  This was probably Doulton or Derby or one of those things Laine was still trying to teach her.

  Since, from little snatches of conversation, Melissa seemed to be wearing Dale down all on her own, Angie gave them a little more space by walking the statue over to one of a few displays of figurines and bric-a-brac to try to identify the type and era.

  It was like a game to her. She’d find it in the file, of course, but that would be cheating. Identifying pieces in the shop was very like identifying character types in the bar. If you spent enough time at it, it got so you knew who was who and what was what.

  “Miss?”

  “Angie.” She turned, grinned.

  “If we took both, what sort of a price could you give us?”

  “Well . . .” Delighted with the prospect of greeting Jenny with news of a double, she set the ceramic dog down and went over to bargain with the customers.

  In the excitement of closing the deal, arranging for delivery, ringing up the sale, she didn’t give the little dog another thought.

  CHAPTER 5

  Max learned quite a bit about Laine over the next few hours. She was organized, practical and precise. More linear-minded than what he’d expected from someone of her background. She looked at a task, saw it from beginning to end, then followed it through the steps to completion. No detours, no distractions.

  And she was a nester. His mother had the same bent, just loved feathering that nest with pretty little—what did his father call them?—gimcracks. And like his mother, Laine knew exactly where she preferred every one of them.

  But unlike his mother, Laine didn’t appear to have a sentimental, almost intimate attachment to her things. He’d once seen his mother weep buckets over a broken vase, and he himself had felt the mighty heat of her wrath when he’d shattered an old decorative bowl.

  Laine swept up shards of this, pieces of that, dumped broken bits into a trash can with barely a wince. Her focus was on returning order to her space. He had to respect that.

  Though it was a puzzlement to him how the daughter of a drifter and a grifter executed a one-eighty to become a small-town homebody, the fact that puzzles were his business made it, and her, only more interesting.

  He liked being in her nest, being in her company. It was a given that the sizzle between them was going to complicate things along the way, but it was tough not to enjoy it.

  He liked her voice, the fact that it managed to be both throaty and smooth. He liked that she looked sexy in a sweatshirt. He liked her freckles.

  He admired her resilience in the face of what would have devastated most people. And he admired and appreciated her flat-out honesty about her reaction to him and what was brewing between them.

  The fact was, under other circumstances, he could see himself diving headfirst into a relationship with her, burning his bridges, casting caution to the wind or any number of clichés. Even given the circumstances, he was poised to make that dive. He couldn’t quite figure out if that was a plus or a minus.

  But side benefit or obstacle to the goal, it was time to get back in the game.

  “You lost a lot of stuff,” he commented.

  “I can always get more stuff.” But she felt a little tug of sorrow at the wide chip in the Derby jug she’d kept on the dining room server. “I got into the business because I like to collect all manner of things. Then I realized I didn’t need to own them so much as be around them, see them, touch.”

  She ran her finger down the damaged jug. “And it’s just as rewarding, more in some ways, to buy and sell, and see interesting pieces go to interesting people.”

  “Don’t dull people ever buy interesting pieces?”

  She laughed at that. “Yes, they do. Which is why it’s important not to become too attached to what you plan to sell. And I love to sell. Kaching.”

  “How do you know what to buy in the first place?”

  “Some’s instinct, some’s experience. Some is just a gamble.”

  “You like to gamble?”

  She slid a glance over and up. “As a matter of fact.”

  Oh yeah, he thought, he was poised and rolling up to his toes on the edge of the cliff. “Want to blow this joint and fly to Vegas?”

  She arched her eyebrows. “And if I said sure, why not?”

  “I’d book the flight.”

  “You know,” she said after a moment’s study, “I believe you would. I think I like that.” The O’Hara in her was already on her way to the airport. “But unfortunately, I can’t take you up on it.” And that was the Tavish. “How about a rain check?”

  “You got it. Open-ended.” He watched her place a few pieces that had survived the break-in. Candlesticks, an enormous pottery bowl, a long flat dish. He had a feeling she’d put them precisely where they’d been before. There would be comfort in that. And defiance.

  “You know, looking around at all this, it doesn’t seem like a simple break-in. If that can be simple when it’s your place. It sure doesn’t strike me as a standard grab-and-run. It feels more personal.”

  “Well, that goes a long way to relieving my mind.”

  “Sorry. Wasn’t thinking. Actually, you don’t seem particularly spooked.”

  “I slept with the light on last night,” she admitted. “Like that would make a difference. It doesn’t do any good to be spooked. Doesn’t change anything or fix anything.”

  “An alarm system wouldn’t hurt. Something a little more high-tech than the canine variety,” he added, looking down at where Henry snored under the dining room table.

  “No. I thought about that for about five minutes. An alarm system wouldn’t make me feel safe. It’d just make me feel like I had something to worry about. I’m not going to be afraid in my own home.”

  “Let me just push this button a little more before we let it go. Do you think this could’ve been somebody you know? Do you have any enemies?”

  “No, and no,” she answered with a careless shrug as she scooted the ladder-back chairs back to the table. But she heard Willy’s words in her head: He knows where you are.

  Who knew?

  Daddy?

  “Now I’ve got you worried.” He tipped her face up with a finger under her chin. “I can see it.”

  “No, not worried. Disconcerted, maybe, at the idea that I could have enemies. Ordinary shopkeepers in small Maryland towns shouldn’t have enemies.”

  He rubbed his thumb along her jaw. “You’re not ordinary.”

  She let her lips curve as his came down to meet them. He had no idea, she thought, how hard she’d worked for nearly half her life to be ordinary.

  His hands were sliding over her hips when her phone rang. “You hear bells?” he asked.

  She drew back with a little laugh and pulled the phone out of her pocket. “Hello? Hi, Angie.” As she listened, she shifted the chipped jug a half inch on the server. “Both pieces? That’s wonderful. What did . . . ? Uh-huh. No, you did exactly right. It’s called a davenport because a small desk was designed for a Captain Davenport back in the 1800s and it stuck, I guess. Yes, I’m fine. Really, and yes, this certainly perks me up. Thanks, Angie. I’ll