Elizabeth swallowed. “Do what?”
“Kiss you.”
“Oh.” She swallowed again and barely had time to draw a breath before Cullen’s lips brushed against hers. Softly. Curiously. Cautiously.
He lifted his head. “Are you going to slap my face?”
Hardly.
She shook her head.
For the longest moment, their gazes held. Then he kissed her again, and this time there was nothing curious or cautious about the action. His mouth pressed against hers, moving slowly back and forth until Elizabeth’s lips parted eagerly, and she heard herself sigh.
She’d dreamed about this moment so often she hardly dared to believe it was real. But it was. It was! Cullen Ryan was kissing her so passionately she couldn’t think straight. Couldn’t breathe properly. And it was everything she’d thought it would be and more.
All these years, when Elizabeth had held herself aloof from passion, she’d pretended that she wasn’t saving herself for the right man so much as the right moment. The time for love simply hadn’t presented itself. But now, with Cullen’s lips on hers, with his fingers threading through her hair, shaking loose the prim bun at her nape, Elizabeth knew she’d been deluding herself.
She hadn’t been saving herself for the right moment. She’d been saving herself for Cullen. Only Cullen.
He pulled away, his eyes dark and mysterious in the filtered light. “You shouldn’t be doing this with a guy like me.”
“What do you mean?” she asked breathlessly.
“You know exactly what I mean.”
“Cullen—”
“There’s a lot about my past I’m not proud of, Elizabeth.”
“Regret isn’t unique to you,” she murmured.
He lifted a hand to tuck a strand of hair behind her ear. “What have you got to regret?” When she didn’t answer, his expression sobered. “I’m not looking for a serious involvement right now. With anyone.”
Her heart sank a bit. “Who says I am?”
He studied her for a moment. “Then what do you want from me, Elizabeth?”
“I…just want you to kiss me again.”
He looked surprised. Then he laughed a little. “I can do that.”
And he did. He kissed her over and over, until everything faded from Elizabeth’s mind except the heat of his mouth on hers. Until her knees grew weak and she felt all quivery inside. Until her desire for Cullen almost overwhelmed her.
She’d never experienced this before. Never been kissed this way. Never wanted to go that final step as badly as she wanted to now.
Cullen drew away, looking a bit dazed himself. “Wow. You’re just full of surprises, aren’t you?”
“Am I?”
He laughed again. “Damn right. I wasn’t expecting this from you, Elizabeth.”
“What? That I know how to kiss?”
“That you’d want to, I guess.”
“I’m not a prude.”
“I’m beginning to get that message.” He trailed a finger along her jawline, and Elizabeth shivered. “It’s cold out. I should let you go in.”
She wasn’t the least bit cold. “You could come in, too,” she suggested shyly.
“No,” Cullen said firmly. “I can’t. Not tonight.”
“Why not?”
“Let’s not rush this, okay? One step at a time.” He kissed her again, and then he was gone.
Chapter Twelve
Everything changed after that night.
Before Cullen had kissed her, Elizabeth had thought they were cultivating an important relationship. He’d taken a big step in coming to ask for her help, and she’d believed it to be an encouraging sign that after all this time, he was finally realizing she’d grown up. He was finally seeing her in a new light.
But after that night, his whole attitude toward her changed. To put it simply, he started avoiding her.
Part of it, she decided, was his very real belief that he wasn’t the right man for her. But she also suspected he was scared of caring for someone because of the way he’d been brought up.
Elizabeth knew what it was like to feel abandoned. To be so hurt and lonely you felt as though you didn’t have a soul in the world who cared about you. Eventually, you grew defensive. You erected a wall around your heart. You tried in every way you knew how to make yourself invincible to hurt and disappointment.
She knew all about that.
But she was willing to take the risk. She was tired of being lonely. She wanted someone to love and to love her in return. She wanted a home and family. She wanted Cullen.
It didn’t matter to her that they were young and that statistics worked against them. What mattered to her was that they would have each other.
But, Cullen, of course, didn’t see it that way. He saw their burgeoning feelings as some kind of trap.
Oh, he’d called her the next day as he’d promised, but even then, the conversation had been strictly business, with no reference whatsoever to what had happened between them the night before. And his tone had been stilted and reluctant. Elizabeth had known at once that he was pulling away. As the weeks went by, it became even more obvious.
But in spite of his aloofness, Elizabeth remained active on the case. She’d received a copy of the autopsy report, and she’d pored over the pages time and again, searching for something that she and Cullen might have missed. She studied the crime-scene photos and the witness interviews, and during the week of spring break, when the campus was all but deserted and she had some free time on her hands, she made a chart, listing all the suspects, their possible motives and their whereabouts, if known, on the night she’d discovered Bethany’s body.
She went over that list now in her mind. First was Geoffrey Pierce, not because she believed him to be the chief suspect, but because his actions that night had inspired a certain unease. He hadn’t seemed the least bit shocked or disturbed to see the body of a young woman hanging in his brother’s solarium. And he had a scientific background, which spoke, not only to the test tube she and Cullen had found in the cooler room at the mortuary, but to the procedure that had been performed on Bethany.
Next came Lucian LeCroix because, whether Elizabeth wanted to believe it or not, Cullen was right. No one in Moriah’s Landing really knew much about him. Elizabeth suspected that Cullen, given his initial dislike of the man, had made a few calls to some of his old buddies in the Boston Police Department, trying to dig up whatever he could on Lucian, but if he’d heard anything suspicious, he hadn’t seen fit to share.
She put Ned Krauter, the undertaker, on the list for obvious reasons. And because he was creepy. He talked to dead people. Not a motive that would hold up in court, to be sure, but Elizabeth wasn’t willing to leave any stone unturned.
Beside Paul Fortier’s name, she drew a tiny star, signifying a very strong suspect. He’d known Bethany, and though they’d found no evidence so far indicating a personal relationship between the two, Elizabeth didn’t discount the possibility. Plus, Fortier had acted as if he had something to hide that day in the lab, not to mention the blood he’d been working with, and the tear in his lab coat, which seemed suspicious. Without any physical evidence or eyewitness testimony linking him to the murder—in other words, without probable cause—neither the blood nor his records could be confiscated so they remained in the dark as to the nature of his experiments. But even if the blood had been Bethany’s, he would have long since disposed of it.
As an afterthought, Elizabeth included Leland Manning’s name on the list. Manning was a long shot, but like Ned Krauter, there was something about him that unnerved her. And again, his scientific background came into play, not to mention his bizarre theory about witches. Had someone drained Bethany’s body of blood for experimental purposes? For some dark sacrifice? Or simply for sick pleasure?
“Checkmate!”
The delighted voice jolted Elizabeth out of her reverie. She glanced down to see that her four-year-old brother, Brandon, had thoroug
hly trounced her at chess.
She frowned. “That’s impossible.”
“No, it’s not. I won!” he cried gleefully. “I won! I won! I won!”
“All right,” she admonished. “It’s not nice to gloat.”
“Sorry,” he said, chastised, but his eyes gleamed with pleasure, and Elizabeth couldn’t help smiling. He was adorable, with his glossy black hair and light blue eyes, so striking against his dark coloring. Not only was his IQ several points higher than hers had been at his age, but he’d gotten all the looks in the family as well.
“Can we play again? I bet you’ll win this time.” All the charm as well.
Elizabeth reached over and mussed his hair. “Afraid not. It’s way past your bedtime. If you’re not under the covers in two minutes, Annie will come up here and have both our hides,” she said, referring to Brandon’s nanny.
He heaved a sigh. “Okay. But will you read me a story?”
“Why, you little con artist,” Elizabeth accused him, tucking him in. “I gave you a choice between a story and chess, and you chose chess. And besides, you’re perfectly capable of reading a story on your own.”
“I know.” Those beautiful eyes, framed with long, sooty lashes, stared up at her solemnly. “But I love the way you read, ’Lizbeth. It makes me have the nicest dreams.”
How could she resist that? “Well, okay.” She walked over to the bookcase to select a title. “But just for a few minutes. And then it’s lights out. No arguments.”
He signed a cross on his chest. “I promise.”
Elizabeth made a production of searching through his books. “What’ll it be tonight?” As if she had to ask.
“Indiana Jones!” he shrieked.
She cut him a glance. “Don’t you ever get tired of hearing about all those dark, creepy places crawling with spiders and snakes and goodness knows what.” She faked a shudder.
He laughed, a little-boy sound that belied his often-serious disposition. “I like dark, creepy places. I’m going to be an archeologist when I grow up.”
Don’t let Mother and Father hear you say that. Elizabeth smiled encouragingly. “You can be anything you want when you grow up. You just have to follow your own dreams. Not someone else’s. Okay?”
He nodded, anxious for her to begin the story. On impulse, she leaned over and kissed his cheek.
He rubbed the spot with his fingertips. “Why’d you do that?”
“Because I wanted to. And in case you fall asleep before we finish the story.”
“Good idea. But don’t worry. I won’t fall asleep,” he assured her.
Elizabeth couldn’t help but smile. She was barely into the second page when he began to nod off. She tucked him in, kissed him again, and then turned off his light before tiptoeing from his room.
Downstairs, she noticed a light underneath her mother’s office door, and wondered if both her parents had come in while she’d been upstairs with Brandon. If so, they hadn’t seen fit to come up and say good-night to their young son, but that was no surprise. Bedtime stories and good-night hugs were part of the nanny’s duties.
Elizabeth wondered, as she’d wondered a thousand times before, why her parents had had children only to delegate their care to strangers. But she knew the answer only too well. Marion and Edward Douglas were both brilliant; their offspring would do amazing things for humankind. But Elizabeth hadn’t exactly been willing to mold herself to their expectations. She suspected that was why they’d decided to have Brandon so late in life.
Hesitating, she walked over and knocked on her mother’s door.
Silence, and then an impatient, “Yes?”
“Mother, it’s Elizabeth. May I come in for a minute?”
“Elizabeth? Is something wrong?”
Elizabeth opened the door and stepped into her mother’s office. Even at her age, she felt a bit intimidated. This room had been a forbidden place to her as a child, as had her father’s study, which was located in the back of the house. She could probably count on both hands the number of times she’d been allowed inside this office, and now, as she gazed around, she realized she hadn’t missed a thing. The word sterile came to mind. Nothing on the walls, on the desk, or in the bookcases to give away even one little hint of her mother’s personality. It was all about her work.
Marion Douglas was seated behind her desk, and in the glow of her computer screen, she looked hardly more than twenty herself, certainly not old enough to have a grown daughter. In her mid-forties, she was still a beautiful woman, with hair a little darker than Elizabeth’s and eyes more green than hazel. But there was still a strong resemblance between them, and it struck Elizabeth again how odd it was that they could look so much alike and be so different.
Brandon, on the other hand, didn’t resemble Marion or Edward. He had his own unique looks, his own special personality, and Elizabeth thought it was a pity that her parents didn’t seem to appreciate just how wonderful their son truly was. He was not only a genius, but a sweet, good-natured child. A blessing.
“Elizabeth?” Her mother sounded annoyed. “Is something wrong?”
“No, nothing’s wrong.”
“Then what are you doing here?”
Did she need a reason? Elizabeth tamped down the old hurt. “I came to have dinner with Brandon.”
“Oh.” Her mother shrugged. “Well, I assume Doris took good care of you.”
Yes, Elizabeth thought. The housekeeper had done her job well. The meal had been perfectly cooked, perfectly served at the perfectly appointed table in the perfectly decorated dining room. She and Brandon had sat alone at the large table while the dour-faced Doris served them. Elizabeth had enjoyed the meal in spite of their austere surroundings simply because she loved spending time with her brother.
But she couldn’t help thinking what it was like for him when she wasn’t there. When he sat alone at that table. Just as she had once sat alone.
She took a seat across from her mother’s desk, refusing for once in her life to be intimidated by Marion’s brusque manner. “I need to talk to you about something.”
“I’m busy—”
“This won’t take long.”
At her insistent tone, her mother looked up from the computer screen with a frown. “What is it?”
“How well do you know Leland Manning?”
“Manning?” Her mother stared at her for a moment. “Why on earth do you want to know about Leland Manning?”
Elizabeth shrugged. “Because I ran into him the other night, and the incident reminded me of something I overheard you and Father talking about once. Some sort of scandal associated with Manning.”
“I’m sure I don’t know anything about a scandal.” Her mother turned back to her work, but in the glow of the monitor, Elizabeth saw that her features had tightened. That her mouth had thinned with displeasure.
“Yes, you do,” Elizabeth persisted. “It involved that secret society of scientists to which both Manning and his protégé supposedly belonged. Is it coming back to you now?”
Her mother hesitated, busying herself at the keyboard. Then she turned off the screen, and her face suddenly looked its age in the harsh glare of the desk lamp. “I don’t know anything about a secret society. It sounds like something you must have dreamed up, Elizabeth.” But her tone sounded strained, as if Elizabeth had struck a nerve.
“Do you remember what happened between Manning and the other scientist? His name was René Rathfastar, I think.”
It was as if a switch had been flipped, not just on the computer screen, but on Marion Douglas’s face. Her features seemed almost frozen. “Why all these questions?”
“I told you. I ran into Manning the other night, and now I’m curious about him. And about Rathfastar. They had some kind of falling out, right? Rathfastar moved to Europe, to Brussels, wasn’t it?”
“I really wouldn’t know.”
Her mother’s expression was fascinating to watch. Elizabeth had never seen so many conflicting
emotions flit across Marion’s face. “He was in a terrible car accident. Do you know if he survived?”
“How would I know that?”
“Mother, you and Father and Manning—and Rathfastar, if he’s still alive—all work in the same field. You must remember what happened between them. You must have heard whether Rathfastar survived that car crash. Why are you being so evasive?”
Marion’s eyes flashed with sudden anger. “The only thing I can tell you is that Leland Manning is a very cunning man. He is not at all what he pretends to be. A word to the wise, Elizabeth. Stay as far away from that megalomaniac as you possibly can.” She turned her monitor back on then, and instantly grew absorbed in something on the screen. Her face became a blank slate, the emotions once again tucked away into a compartment where they couldn’t interfere with her work. Elizabeth knew further questions would be useless.
Outside the office, she paused, unsettled by the conversation and by her mother’s prevarication. Why had she been so unwilling to talk about Manning and Rathfastar? And about the secret society, for that matter? Unless, of course, she and Elizabeth’s father were both members?
But Elizabeth found that hard to believe. Their work was their lives. She couldn’t imagine either of them being affiliated with any organization which might jeopardize their reputations and their research.
Then why had her mother been so evasive?
And in another flash of memory, something came to Elizabeth that had been niggling at her for days, ever since she’d seen Leland Manning.
Five years ago, just after Elizabeth had moved on campus at Heathrow, her mother had left rather suddenly for a conference in Brussels.
“YOU ALL BY yourself tonight, Dr. Douglas?” George shone his flashlight beam inside her car, as if expecting to see someone pop up from the back seat.
“Just me tonight, George.”
He flicked off the light. “Well, you take care, you hear? This place is like a graveyard tonight. Everyone gone but you and me. You need anything, you give me a shout.”
“I will. Thanks, George.”
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