All That Glitters

by Mary Brady

  She opened the door and he reached in and flipped on a pair of low-energy ceiling lights, and then he waited while she stood in the door gaping.

  He gently pushed her through and closed the door.

  Instantly, the warmth wrapped itself around them. With glee she shed her robe and handed it to him, then dashed into the multihead shower.

  A spray of warm water shot out at her and Addy let out a sigh of indulgence. “Join me?” He smiled and hung their robes on hooks by the door.

  She lathered the bar of soap between her hands and sniffed the bubbles.

  “Flowery. A woman picks your soap?”

  “She chooses everything in the loft that seems as if a woman picked it.”

  “The wall hangings and cushions?” She raised her dark blond eyebrows in question.

  “The sheets and quilt for my bed, even my pillows and the place mats we ate soup on.”

  “But she’s not your mother.”

  “Not in a million years.”

  “Then I don’t need to know. It’s just that, at your age, if your mother picked things out for you on a regular basis, it might be a little too creepy.”

  “At my age?”

  “You know. Upper-corporate-management age.”

  She started to slowly soap her body starting with her arms and then her perfect breasts. Her nipples peaked, and he almost grabbed the soap to do it for her, but the show was too enticing.

  When the bar of soap slipped between her legs, he reached around her and hugged her soapy body against his. Warm and slick she brought him to peak at a dizzying pace.

  Later when they were sitting on the floor of the shower, she turned and wrinkled her nose. “This where you went earlier to get cleaned up?”

  “It is.”

  “Then how did you get a pine twig in your hair?”

  “I went to check the generator.”

  “How much time do we have left?” She turned quickly and put a hand up. “Wait. I don’t want to know. It doesn’t matter, anyway.”

  “You looking forward to sitting around in the dark?”

  She put a hand on his chest. “I’m looking forward to lying down on that big bed with you and nothing but firelight.”

  “You make it sound so sexy.”

  “It will be.”

  All he could muster was a growl.

  She held a hand up in the stream. “Is it my imagination or is the water cooling off?”

  “If we keep changing the hot-cold mix we’ve got about ten minutes to icy.”

  She nodded, got up and soaped up one more time before rinsing and then held out the soap to him.

  When he reached for it she snatched it away. “I’ll do it—for...you.” The huskiness in her voice betrayed her intentions.

  She started down his chest with long strokes of the soap bar. “Why did we have so much hot water? I would have thought you’d have a small water heater here where the fuel had to be hauled up a mountainside.”

  “A small hill. And no stopping for idle chitchat.”

  “Chitchat?” She made a face at him. “All right, a hill, but this tank must be huge.”

  “Not as big as you think. It’s only a hundred gallons. The fireplace is set up to heat it.” He grunted and grabbed her roaming hand, which had begun to soap places he’d better soap himself.

  “So it’s been heating since we arrived.”

  “Essentially.” He put the soap away and rinsed quickly as cool was beginning to stream out of the showerhead.

  She fell silent and he knew what she was thinking as she rinsed her hands. Tomorrow the storm would have moved off. Tomorrow they could go to their separate corners and the next time they saw each other, they would have to come out fighting.

  “It will be hot again tomorrow morning.” He toweled her mass of blond curls, her arms, her shoulders and when he crouched to dry her legs she put her hands in his hair and massaged softly. “Does this mean we don’t have to fight over who sleeps on the couch tonight?”

  “Don’t worry. I can find you some sheets and blankets. You’ll be comfortable there,” he said as he stood.

  She narrowed her eyes and he grinned at her, loosened both their towels until they fell to the floor and pulled her warm body against his.

  The light above them flickered for a moment and then died. They both laughed. Whatever they would be to each other when the storm passed, they would spend tonight in each other’s arms, by the light of the fire.

  “I guess that’s how much time we have left on the generator.”

  * * *

  ADDY SAT BESIDE Zach on the soft gray sofa near the fire finishing the last of the fluffy blueberry pancakes he had made for breakfast by heating the griddle in the fire.

  When she finished the last bite, she placed her plate on the coffee table, snugged the luxurious robe closer to her body, and turned to put the bottoms of her feet against his thigh. The night had passed all too quickly with periods of sleep and glorious episodes of lovemaking. When the morning was full-on with its dreary light they had showered again.

  Zach had checked the generator and reported there was gas, but he couldn’t get a spark of life from it.

  “How’s our storm doing?”

  “Still banging on out there.”

  “How wrong is it for me to be quietly thrilled to have another day of isolation?” The firelight did it’s magic on the angles of his face, on the color of his hair.

  “We are an odd pair,” she said after a while.

  “We are that.”

  He faced her. As he studied her, she wondered if he saw the blue eyes her mother had given her, the small straight nose from her grandfather, her out-of-control hair, or if he saw into her confused and fractured soul.

  “I mean,” she continued, “we would never have spoken more than a few words to each other—ever, if you’d had your way. We would have had a long and detailed interview if I’d had mine. Instead of either one, we had incredible sex.”

  He stared at her without a single twitch. She had expected an eyebrow lift, a lips curve or even a shrug, but she got nothing. After a moment he leaned closer. His lips covered hers and roved to take in her bottom lip and when he released it, his tongue swept in and she curled in against him.

  When he broke the kiss, he said, “We are so good at option three.”

  Laughing, she put her feet on the floor again. The light of the storm, leaking in around drawn drapes, was dim and shadowy, and seemed to help hide her original goal from her. One thing was missing today. The utter dislike she had harbored for Zachary Hale. “I cannot even wrap my brain around what I’m supposed to be doing. The rampage inside me about you is gone or at the very least, hidden, and I’m almost relieved.”

  “I can’t say I’ve dwelled on how to get rid of you in hours.”

  “Yup. An odd pair.”

  Without the rampage she could collect facts, weigh judiciously what she was told. Get to the truth.

  She disentangled herself and went to the window and watched the rain pour down in sheets and rivulets.

  If only she could speak with Savanna, grill her again because Addy had questioned her thoroughly until her sister had cried and asked if Addy thought she was making it all up.

  At that point Addy had known her sister truly believed the accusations she was making. Believed in her heart that Zachary Hale was solely responsible for the wrongdoing perpetrated by the investment firm of Hale and Blankenstock.

  After the Afghanistan fiasco, Addy could not let herself be convinced by her sister’s tears. Then Savanna had told her of the files she’d seen over the last few months.

  When Addy had asked her to make copies, Savanna had refused, saying she wasn’t going to get into trouble because of Zachary Hale, but she s
aid the evidence against him had been unquestionably damning.

  Savanna’s plight had fired Addy up into an unrelenting simmer of nervous energy. The inspiring sensation of being on the hunt for a big story had empowered her to charge into a hurricane, to follow a man to his hometown, to invade his private space.

  She turned away from the window. “I still need to know things about you,” she said against the backdrop of the storm and the crackling fire.

  “My great-great-great-grandmother made the quilt we left drying on the kitchen table.”

  “Not that kind of info. Tell me how Hale and Blankenstock got started. I have all the public documents about the start-up, but I have none of the emotional angle, you know, personal interest.”

  “Grandma Hale was born in Maine. Her parents were born here, but her grandparents on her mother’s side were both newcomers. That made her a newcomer. She was both proud and afraid of her heritage, so she wrote Colleen Fletcher’s diary, made it up. It’s not written very well, but it’s racy enough to make cheeks turn red. Some of it’s fact and some of it’s fiction. Said it gave her a better understanding of the woman and her motivations.”

  “Go on.” Human interest, she told herself and then she realized she liked hearing this less polished, less politically correct version of Zachary Hale speak.

  He held out a hand to her and she returned to the sofa to sit beside him. “It turns out Colleen Rose would not accept any more of the treasure than the few trinkets because she didn’t want her father to have any reason to think badly of Bailey. Apparently the treasure was buried here in the cellar at one time. The details are sketchy but when it was moved, Colleen didn’t want to know where.”

  “She didn’t want it, really?”

  “She didn’t want it and she never wanted it found.”

  “Where do the people here look for it?”

  He laughed.

  She gave him a sideways look. “What?”

  “A few pieces were found recently buried deep in the sand in one of the caves on the shoreline. If it weren’t for the hurricane, Chief Montcalm and his police force would still be turning away more potential treasure seekers after that discovery.”

  He trusted her with village tales and family lore, but he wasn’t telling her about Hale and Blankenstock. Was it possible he didn’t see the personal side of the damage the investment firm caused?

  “I have a family story, about someone who invested with Hale and Blankenstock. One woman, who admits she invested unwisely. Put all her savings, her retirement, her mad money, her children’s college funds. She thought she had finally found a way to get by with the money her husband had left behind.”

  He looked at her for a long moment, staring into her eyes.

  “There was an employee of Hale and Blankenstock. She worked at the data processing center. I’m sorry to say, I only saw those employees at the company holiday party and only very briefly.” He paused for a moment. “Savanna Rorch is a relative of yours. You have the same eyes.”

  She wasn’t surprised he remembered the name of an employee he’d spent less than sixty seconds with twice. “My half sister. The story is hers. She lost the money.”

  “I’m sorry for her.”

  He seemed to feel true sorrow for her sister. Did he feel remorse for what he had done?

  “She might have deserved a knock upside the head for her wishful-thinking investment strategy, but she didn’t deserve bankruptcy.”

  “I agree.”

  “You are defying your attorney’s directive by expressing an opinion.”

  “Mr. Hale knew nothing about the questionable investments being made by Hale and Blankenstock” had been the mantra of the publicity firm representing him. His law firm had no comment.

  “Extraordinary circumstances apply.”

  She turned and placed a hand on his shoulder, closed her eyes and inhaled his scent. “I’ve been telling myself for the past two days you are not the villain at Hale and Blankenstock. You are not the swindler. The man I met here in Maine is not the man I manufactured from the information available.”

  He didn’t speak.

  “And please don’t say that I’m not the hardnosed reporter. I am. I truly am. I just like to think I can learn from my mistakes, though I might not be very good at that yet. I was convinced, and I thought with good reason that you were a bad person.” She rearranged the collar of her robe and hunkered down inside its warmth.

  “When I was chasing you,” she continued, “one of the men at the bar told me you weren’t the man I thought you were. And then you didn’t act like the man I thought you were.”

  She put a hand to his cheek. “And then you kissed me and I kissed you back. From then on I... Well, I had to admit to myself I could be wrong.”

  “And a part of you wants to sing with joy at the thought.”

  “An aria if I could.”

  “And another part screams in agony.”

  She let out a soft snort. “The part whose career depends on you being the bad guy.”

  Maybe she was the bad guy in all of this. She pulled her robe closed tightly and stood.

  * * *

  “ADDY, DON’T GO.” Zach stood blocking her exit and captured her hand in his.

  Her hand went limp as she sighed. “Zach, I don’t know what I’m doing.”

  He picked up her other hand and turned her to face him. “I’d laugh out loud if it wouldn’t hurt your feelings.”

  She wrinkled her nose. “Hurt my feelings. Hmm.”

  He squeezed her hands. “There are things I used to understand. Most of them had to do with integrity and justice. In fact, most things were crystal clear. I used to get up in the morning and know exactly what I’d be doing each day. Right down to the dishes I’d wash after breakfast.”

  “Wait.” Her lips curled in a smile. “You washed dishes.”

  He grinned with relief at her humor and pulled her into his arms. She came easily and put her head on his chest.

  “I liked breakfast to be my time of day. The part that never had to change unless I wanted it to.”

  “I guess I ruined that.”

  “Changed, not ruined.”

  She let out a long breath of relief and he could feel some of the tension between them lift.

  “My grandfather told me my good nature would get me into trouble one day.”

  “And that day is here?”

  “In spades.” He didn’t now why he was saying this, going against what Hunter Morrison had told him about not speaking with anyone about what had happened at Hale and Blankenstock.

  Except that he trusted her. God help him, he trusted this woman.

  She pulled him back down onto the couch and sat silently looking at him. Her warring thoughts raced across her features until she came to a hard fought for decision.

  “Listen, Zach. About this weekend, I need to consider anything we said and did from yesterday on as off the record. If I want to use something you say here on Sea Crest Hill, I’ll clarify with you.”

  “I’m sure Hunter Morrison doesn’t think ‘off the record’ is safe enough.”

  “He’s far away in Boston.”

  “You’re very good at prying out peripheral information. He’s here. Has a small office in town and works out of Chicago.”

  She smiled in acknowledgment. “Like I said, I won’t use anything you’ve told me since I arrived on Sea Crest Hill.”

  “Circumstances might change your mind in the future.”

  “It’s the best I have.”

  She watched him for a reaction. He had trusted her to help him and she had not let him down and she had trusted him right back.

  “When did you first know?” she asked, her gaze not wavering.

  “Three weeks ago I
heard the first rumblings.”

  “That something was wrong or that there was a Ponzi scheme going on at Hale and Blankenstock?”

  He let the irony bubble out in a laugh. “I still don’t know that there is investment fraud of any kind at Hale and Blankenstock.”

  “How can you say that?”

  “All I have are allegations and since I didn’t do it, and there is no other person at the firm with the power to do it besides myself and Carla Blankenstock, I’d have to accuse a woman I’ve called a friend for fifteen years.”

  Her expression lightened toward a smile. “Well, there’s perspective for you.”

  “I have to guess exactly when it started because all the records have been confiscated. My attorney is working on getting what he can. It might have begun as long as five years ago.”

  “Why then?”

  “That’s when Carla Blankenstock started to behave differently, to pull back from our friendship. She explained it at the time as her husband wanting her to keep her married life and her business life separate.”

  “And you didn’t believe her?”

  “I believed her up until three weeks ago when I questioned how she was offsetting the risk of one of the portfolios. She gave me a vague answer about a few stock options. I didn’t like the sound of that and started looking into her side of the business.”

  “You found clients and Carla Blankenstock did the investing.”

  “The arrangement worked well for us for a long time.”

  “It’s said you set the business up in such a way that you could take advantage of Ms. Blankenstock, so that you could blame her.”

  He grimaced. “The Carla Blankenstock I knew when we started the firm was no one’s fool.”

  “Is she now?”

  “I don’t have any proof of that, but she changed after she got married.”

  He wondered if the change had all been Carla. He had been accused of being aloof, removed from the dirt and grit of the real world.

  “What is it, Zach?”

  He looked into the fire.

  “It was me.”

  CHAPTER EIGHT