Partners

by Nora Roberts

  dead,” she said flatly. “Maybe they are. They could’ve had an accident, and—” She broke off, and he knew her thoughts had followed the same train his had. Laurel turned back to him, her eyes very steady. “You think they were dead before they left Heritage Oak.”

  “It’s more than a possibility, isn’t it?”

  “I don’t know.” Pressing her fingers to her temples, she tried to think logically. “They could’ve taken off, changed their names, gone to Europe or the Orient or God knows where.”

  “Could’ve,” he agreed. “But there’s enough room to doubt that, isn’t there?”

  “All right, yes.” She took a deep breath. “And if we go that route, figuring they were tied with Anne’s death somehow, it’d put Brewster in the clear. But why?” Laurel demanded. “Who’d have had a motive but Louis, and he was out of town.”

  “Was he?” Matt rose, knowing they had to tread carefully around Louis Trulane. “He has his own plane, doesn’t he? Flies himself—or did. You know what the possibilities are there, Laurel.”

  She did. An unexpected arrival, the lovers caught, unaware. A moment’s madness. In a small private plane the bodies could’ve been taken anywhere. Pale, she turned back to face Matt. He was expecting her to argue, or to back out. Of course, she could do neither now.

  “It won’t be easy—maybe impossible,” she added in a calm, professional voice, “to check the incoming and outgoing flights on a night ten years ago.”

  “I’ll get started on it Monday.”

  She nodded. “I’ll work on Curt. We might be able to get the name of the firm that looked for Elise and Charles.”

  “No.”

  “No?” she repeated blankly. “But it makes sense to try that angle if we’re going at it this way.”

  “I want you to back off.” He spaced his words very evenly as he rose. “I don’t want you asking any more questions.”

  “What the hell are you talking about? You don’t get a story without asking questions.”

  “Whatever we get out of this, whatever the outcome as far as the paper is concerned, we’ll split down the middle. But from now on I take over.”

  Laurel tilted her head. “You’re out of your mind.”

  Maybe it was the very calm, very mild way she said it that tripped the last button. Every reasonable argument, every carefully thought-out method of persuasion, deserted him. “I’m out of my mind!” he threw back. “That’s rich.” He paced, deliberately walking away from her so that he wouldn’t just grab her by the collar and shake. “It’s not a game, damn it. We’re not playing who can hit page one.”

  “I’ve never considered my profession a game.”

  “I don’t want you in my way.”

  Her eyes narrowed. “Then I’ll stay out of it. You stay out of mine.”

  “It’s dangerous!” he shouted. “Use your head. You’re the one who’s been threatened, not once, but three times. Whoever’s behind Anne’s death isn’t going to hesitate to kill again.”

  Her brow lifted—that damned, beautiful, haughty black brow. “Then I’ll have to watch my step, won’t I?”

  “You idiot, no one called me and told me to back off. No one threatened me.” There was panic in his voice now, raw panic, but she was too busy fuming to notice.

  “You want to know why, Bates?” she hurled out at him. “Because I’m a woman and obviously would buckle under. The same way you figure if you shout enough and throw your weight around I’ll do the same thing.”

  “Don’t be any more stupid than you have to.”

  “But the one thing they forgot,” she continued furiously, “the one thing you forgot, is that I’m a reporter. And to get a story, to get the truth, a reporter does what’s necessary. Most of us deal with being in jeopardy in one form or another. That’s the business.”

  “I’m not in love with most reporters,” Matt tossed back. “I’m in love with you!” He stormed right past her as he said it, not stopping until he’d reached the table and his cigarettes.

  Laurel stared at him while he pushed aside papers in search of a match. She was winded, as though she’d raced up flight after flight of stairs two at a time. Now that she’d reached the top, she simply forgot why she was in such a hurry in the first place. It wasn’t until he’d stopped swearing and muttering to turn to her that she felt the glow, the warmth, the pleasure.

  Matt set down the unlit cigarette and stared at her. What the hell had he said? Oh, God, had he just blown everything by laying his cards on the table before he’d covered his bet? And just how was he going to handle this one? He decided to give her a way out if she wanted one.

  “Did I . . . just say what I think I said?”

  Laurel didn’t smile, but folded her hands neatly in front of her. “Yes, I have a witness.”

  His brow lifted. “There’s no one here.”

  “I’ll bribe someone.”

  He hooked his hands in his pockets because he wanted so badly to touch her. “Is it what you want?”

  She gave him an odd look, then took a step closer. “I wonder why I thought you were insightful and observant. It’s a general sort of rule, Matthew, that when a woman’s in love with a man she likes it better if he’s in love with her, too.”

  His heartbeat was very light and fast. He couldn’t remember ever feeling like that before. “Tell me,” he murmured. “Don’t make me beg you.”

  “Matthew . . .” A little dazed that he couldn’t see what must have been glowing on her face, she reached for him. “You’re the only man I’ve made love to because you’re the only man I’ve been in love with. Neither of those things is ever going to change.”

  “Laurel.” But he couldn’t say more because her mouth was on his, giving, just giving. His arms came around her to draw her closer as thoughts spun in his head. So long—it’s been so long. He could hardly remember a time when he hadn’t wanted it to be like this. A time when he hadn’t wanted to have those words still lingering on the air. “Again,” he demanded. “Tell me again.”

  “I love you. Only you.” Her arms curved up his back until she could grip his shoulders. “I thought if I told you before, even an hour ago, you’d think I was crazy. When?” Giddy, she clung to him. “When did it start?”

  “You wouldn’t believe me.” Before she could disagree, his lips were on hers again.

  He took her deep, and still deeper, quickly. If he’d thought he’d loved her to the point of madness before, it was nothing compared to what stormed through him now. His love was met, and matched. Everything was washed from his mind but Laurel.

  She could lose herself in a kiss from him, lose herself in that soft, velvet-edged darkness he’d first taken her to. To know that he wanted her was exciting. To know that he loved her was glory. Words, there were so many words she wanted to say. But they would wait until this first overriding need was satisfied. As she felt her bones melting, she drew him with her to the floor.

  Quickly, quickly. Neither spoke, but each knew the other’s mind. Hurry. Just to feel one another’s flesh. Clothes tangled, untangled, then were discarded. Oh, the sweetness of it, the sweetness that came from only a touch. She could smell the hot muskiness of the day on him with the lingering scent of soap. She wallowed in it with her lips pressed against his throat. His pulse beat there, fast and light.

  He murmured against her ear, only her name, but the sound of it drifted through her softly. The slow, liquefying pleasure made everything she’d ever felt before seem hollow. Then his tongue dipped inside to follow her name.

  A long, lingering stroke, a whispering caress. There was no need to hurry now. Passion was filled with wonder. I’m loved, I’m wanted. Spirits are fed on this alone. She could feel it pouring from him—contentment—even as his heartbeat hammered against hers. Desire, when mixed with such emotions, has more power. And at times, more patience. They’d woo each other.

  His lips moved over her shoulder, down, lazily down, to linger on the pulse point at the inside
of her elbow. She felt the answering beat from a hundred others. Her hand ran through his hair, the curling thickness of it, before she let her fingers stroke beneath to his neck. He lifted his head to look at her and the look held—long, silent—until, smiling, their lips joined again.

  The change happened so slowly, perhaps neither of them noticed. Not yet urgent, not yet desperate, but desire grew sharper. Gradually, quiet sighs became quiet moans. With his mouth at her breast he heard her breathing quicken. His senses were clouded—her scent, her taste, the satin that was her skin. Hunger seeped into them, and the excitement that came from knowing the hunger would be satisfied. His hands journeyed down.

  The inside of her thighs was as warm and alluring as velvet. He let his fingers linger there, then his mouth. Though she shuddered, the first crest came easily, a gentle lifting up and up, a quiet settling. Her body throbbed with anticipation of the next while her mind was filled with him. Head whirling, she shifted to lie over him, to give to him all the pleasures he’d given to her.

  How warm his flesh was, how firm his body. Her hands wandered down to his hips, skimmed over his thighs. She felt the quiver of muscle beneath her.

  She was floating, but the air was thick and syrupy. Her limbs were weighted, but her head was light and spinning. She felt him grasp her, heard him hoarsely mutter her name. Then he was inside her and the explosion went on and on and on. She had only enough sanity left to pray it would never stop.

  He watched her. He struggled to hold back that seductive darkness so that he would always have this image of her. The light fell over her brilliantly. With her head thrown back, her hair streamed down her back. She knew only pleasure now—his pleasure. He held her there for an instant with perfect clarity. Then the darkness, and all its savage delights, overcame him.

  Chapter 11

  It was dark. Matt had no idea of the time, and cared less. They were snuggled close in Laurel’s bed, naked and warm. Like careless children, they’d left their clothes in heaps in the living room. It was pleasant to imagine they could stay just as they were for the whole weekend—dozing, making love, saturating themselves with each other.

  He knew all there was to know about her, what pleased her, what annoyed, what made her laugh. He knew where she’d come from, how she’d grown up, snatches of her childhood that he’d drawn out of Olivia or her father and Curt. She’d broken her ankle when she was nine, and she’d worked on her high school paper. She’d slept with a one-eared stuffed dog until she was seven.

  It made him smile to think of it, though he wasn’t certain she’d be pleased to learn he knew.

  There was so much he hadn’t told her. Matt could remember the hurt on her face when he’d pushed her questions away. There was so much he hadn’t told her—but she loved him anyway.

  Laurel shifted against him, her eyes open and adjusted to the dark, her body quietly content. “What’re you thinking?”

  He was silent for a moment, then lifted a hand to touch her hair. “I grew up in that painting.” Laurel put her hand in his and said nothing. “Old people stayed off the street at night and anyone else traveled in groups. Too many alleys and broken streetlights. Cops patrolled in pairs, in cars. I can’t remember a night when I didn’t hear the sirens.”

  She was so warm and soft beside him. The room was so quiet. Why was he bringing it all back? Because it never really goes away, he answered himself. And I need to tell her.

  “I worked for a guy who ran a newsstand. One summer we were robbed six times. The last time he was fed up enough to put up a fight. I was out of the hospital in two days, but it took him two weeks. He was sixty-four.”

  “Oh, Matthew.” Laurel pressed her face into his shoulder. “You don’t have to talk about it.”

  “I want you to know where I came from.” But he fell silent again as two long minutes passed. “In the apartment where I lived, the halls smelled of old cooking and sweat. It never went away. In the winter it was cold, drafts through the windows, icy floors. In the summer it was a furnace. You could smell the garbage from the alley three floors down. At night you could hear the street—dealers, prostitutes, the kids who looked for both. I stayed away from the dealers because I wanted to stay healthy and used the prostitutes when I could scrape up the extra money.”

  He waited, wondering if he’d sense her withdrawal. Her hand stayed in his. Laurel was remembering her impression of his apartment. He’d made an art out of comfort. How much he must have hated growing up without the basic rights of warmth and security. And yet . . . he’d brought the painting with him. He hadn’t forgotten his roots, nor was he ignoring that part they’d had in forming him. Neither would she ignore them.

  “I lived with my aunt. She took me in when my mother died and my father took off. She didn’t have to.” He linked his fingers with Laurel’s. “She was the most unselfish person I’ve ever known.”

  “She loved you,” Laurel murmured, grateful.

  “Yes. There was never enough money, even though she worked too hard and when I was old enough I brought in more. The rent would go up in that filthy place or . . .” He broke off and shrugged. “Life,” he said simply. “I swore I was going to get us out of there. One way or the other I was going to get us the hell out. I knew what I wanted to do, but it was like pie in the sky. A reporter, a job on one of the big New York papers and a salary that would move her out to some nice little place in Brooklyn Heights or New Rochelle.

  “So I ran copy and studied until my eyes hurt. There were other ways,” he murmured, “quicker ways, to get the kind of money I wanted, but that would’ve destroyed her. So when the scholarship came I took it, and I got out. When I’d come back during the summer, it was so hot I’d forget what it was like to live in that place in January. By the middle of my senior year I had nearly enough saved to move her out—not to a house in Brooklyn Heights, but to a decent apartment. By that summer I’d have gotten her out. She died in March.”

  Laurel turned her head so that her lips could brush over his skin, lightly, easily. “She would’ve been proud of you.”

  “If I’d have taken another way, she might still be alive.”

  “If you’d have taken another way,” Laurel said slowly, rising on her elbows to look at him, “you’d have killed her yourself.”

  His eyes glinted in the filtered light of the moon. “I’ve told myself that, but other times I think I might’ve given her even six months of comfort.” He caught Laurel’s hair in his hand, feeling the fine silk of it. “She used to laugh. Somehow, she’d always find a way to laugh. I owe her just for that.”

  “Then so do I.” Lowering her head, she kissed him. “I love you, Matthew.”

  “When I’ve thought of you, and me, I’ve wondered how the hell I was going to work it.” He cupped the back of her neck. “We couldn’t have had more different beginnings. There were times I thought I wanted you just because of that.”

  When she lifted her head, he was surprised to see her smiling. “You ass,” she said lovingly.

  “So beautiful,” Matt murmured. “I’ll never forget that picture Curt had of you, the one he kept on his desk in our room.”

  Surprised, Laurel started to speak, then stopped. He’d said she wouldn’t believe it; now, with emotions swamping her, she didn’t want to tell him he’d been wrong. She wanted to show him.

  “I could see you at one of those long, lazy garden parties in a silk dress and picture hat,” Matt said softly. “It made my mouth water. And I could see you with someone bred for the same things.”

  “I hate to repeat myself,” she began, but he didn’t smile. “You’re thinking of Louis,” Laurel said flatly.

  “No.” He started to draw her back to him. “Not tonight.”

  “You listen to me.” The humor and the softness had fled from her eyes as she pulled away. “The way I feel about you has nothing, nothing, to do with the way I feel about Louis. I’ve loved him since I was a child and in almost exactly the same way. Both he and Mario
n were an integral, vital part of my childhood. The fairy-tale part. Every girl’s entitled to one.”

  He remembered her grandmother saying essentially the same thing. The muscles in his shoulders began to relax. “I think I understand that, Laurel. It’s today that concerns me.”

  “Today my heart aches for him, for both of them. Today I wish I could help, knowing, at the same time, that what I have to do might hurt them beyond repair. If my feelings had been different, don’t you think that sometime over the last ten years, I’d have gone to him? I wonder why,” she said heatedly before he could answer, “when I waited all these years to fall in love, I had to fall in love with an idiot.”

  “The luck of the draw, I guess.”

  “Well, I’ll tell you one thing, Bates, I’m not going to explain myself to you on this again. Take it or leave it.”

  He let out a deep breath and paused as if weighing the pros and cons of the ultimatum. In the dim light he could see the angry glare in her eyes, the agitated rise and fall of her shoulders. She might’ve been molded in a softer manner than he, but no one matched wits or wills so well.

  “Will you marry me, Laurel?” he asked simply.

  He heard the quick hitch of her breath, saw the surprise rush into her eyes. For a moment, there was quiet. “It took you long enough,” she said just as simply, then dived onto him.

  ***

  Laurel awoke with the sun streaming over her face and Matt nibbling on her ear. She didn’t have to open her eyes to know it was a beautiful day. Sometime during the night the rain had come to wash the heaviness from the air. Without opening her eyes, she stretched and sighed. Matt’s lips moved to her jawline.

  “I love the way you wake up,” he murmured. He slid a hand down to cradle her hip.

  “Mmmm . . . what time is it?”