by Anne Stuart
“Certainly. And I’ve taken care of the adoption papers.”
She raised an eyebrow. “You have?”
“Blanchard drew up some generic papers for you to look over. You may want to change some provisions—for instance, you may want her to spend time with her biological father, or have your parents have visitation rights if anything happens to you.”
“Jesus, you’re gloomy.”
“Language, Rachel,” he chided gently. “You know how much I hate it when you curse. And I’m just being responsible.”
“And I’m not?”
“I didn’t say that.” He was very patient. “I’m just saying that this is a simple matter that needs attending to, and since you’ve been avoiding it I’ve gone ahead and taken care of it. Just tell me what changes you want Blanchard to make and I’ll tell him. I already assume you want to ensure that Sophie has no contact with my brother. What about your family?”
“You know that my parents have nothing to do with me and prefer their safe little fundamentalist world in Oklahoma where they can concentrate on two obedient children. As for Jared, he died in a plane crash three years ago, still never having even met Sophie.”
“So you see, it’s even more important that Sophie be taken care of,” David said. “I promised Blanchard you’d take a look at it and sign off. Otherwise he’s going to charge us double, and you know how obscenely expensive lawyers are. Unless, for some reason you’ve changed your mind?”
“I haven’t changed my mind, David.” She was getting a headache. “I promise I’ll look at it after dinner. For now could we just stop talking about the papers, about serial killers, about your brother, about anything depressing? And that leaves out the weather as well.”
David smiled his charming smile, the one that had first attracted her, touching her cheek. Caleb had touched her cheek earlier, pushing her hair out of her eyes, and it had been electrifying. David’s touch was soft, affectionate. Safe. And that’s what she wanted. Safe.
“Of course. It’s been a miserably long day for me as well, and I think we both need to relax. We’ll have that glass of wine, and you can tell me what my father had to say when you had lunch with him.”
Shitsticks. “You get the wine,” she said in her sweetest voice. “I’ll start dinner and then come join you.”
He took his dismissal with relatively good grace, putting the papers into her unwilling hands. She wanted to go back into the darkroom and see if there was anything she could salvage. She wanted to rip the adoption papers in half and stomp on them. She wanted to grab Sophie and run like hell, not from the danger Caleb kept warning her about, but from temptation and frustration and sheer boredom.
She headed into the kitchen, grabbing the vegetarian casserole she’d taken from the freezer and putting it in the oven. The details of David’s diet were so complex that she could only face cooking once a week, and she usually spent a whole day concocting all sorts of unsavory things with soy and grains, all thanks to the cookbook David had given her as a wedding present. The one time she’d tried something new he’d protested, even though she’d adhered strictly to his dietary demands. “Too spicy,” he’d said, and she’d ended up tossing it.
Back in San Francisco, when they were dating, she found his regimen charming, and there were enough inventive restaurants in the city that she never noticed how limited her choices were. If she took Sophie and ran away for a few weeks she could eat anything she wanted, without having to worry if the smell of cooking chicken was going to turn a quiet evening into a major event.
But Sophie was right. David had already insisted on coming with her. It would be no escape at all.
Sophie was sitting at her usual spot, in the family room, cross-legged in front of the wide-screen TV, working on her homework while mournful girl singers crooned in the background. Sophie had the ability to study anywhere, and in fact, found dead silence distracting. She had her golden head buried in a book, but a moment later she looked up, sensing her mother’s eyes on her. “Hey,” she said, grinning.
“Hey, baby girl,” she replied, and the knot in her stomach loosened. No matter what mistakes she made, no matter what anyone else did, as long as she had Sophie then things couldn’t be that bad. “Lentils for dinner tonight.”
“Barf. Do I get a frozen dinner?”
“Even better, sweetheart. You get sushi. I had Sakura deliver it before I went into the darkroom. David gets so bothered by the smell of meat cooking that I thought this would be a good compromise.”
“David can…” Sophie stopped herself. “David can eat his lentils, while I get sashimi. Did you get Ahi tuna?”
“Would I neglect your favorite? You’re the only thirteen-year-old I know who loves sushi. Save a piece for me, would you? There is only a certain amount of lentils that a normal person can eat in a week. I can’t imagine how David can survive on them.”
“Well, if he ever flips out and starts hacking people up with an ax he can use the lentil defense. Not as good as the Twinkie defense but it will do. The grains made him do it.”
Rachel laughed. Not even for a moment did she stop and wonder how Sophie knew about the infamous “Twinkie defense murder” in San Francisco so long ago. The depth and breadth of Sophie’s knowledge sometimes astounded her. “I’ll mention it to him if he starts to crack at the seams.”
She expected Sophie to reply with another wise-crack, but her daughter’s grin had faded. “You’ll notice long before that, won’t you, Ma? If anyone starts to get twitchy you’ll see it, right?”
“Don’t let this doom and gloom atmosphere get to you, sweetie. I’m sure the crazy man is halfway to San Diego by now. Or up in Canada. He’s long gone.”
“That’s not what Sheriff Bannister says. Or Caleb. They say there’s bad stuff going on, and to be very, very careful.”
Funny, that was essentially what Stephen Henry had told her, in between his endless self-praise and egocentric reminiscences. And that’s what her instincts told her, those treacherous, irrational instincts that were pushing her in Caleb’s direction.
Her brain knew better. Caleb’s bantering and flirtation were a way to get at his brother, nothing more. It would almost be worth taking him up on his sexual offers just to see the look on his face.
Almost. She pulled the chilled bottle of chardonnay out of the wine cooler. David was waiting for her in his study, looking at something in his drawer when she walked in, and he closed it carefully, locking it.
“Something interesting in there?” she asked, taking the sofa and setting the tray down on the walnut-inlaid table.
“Nothing but confidential student material,” he said easily. “Ridiculous to lock it up in my own house but you know how touchy the lawyers can be about confidentiality. They wouldn’t let me take the records home unless I swore on the grave of my mother that I’d keep them locked at all time.”
“Then you should.” She leaned over to struggle with the wine opener.
“Here, let me do that,” David said, rising from his desk and moving around to the sofa. “It seems as if we’ve had no time together recently. We need to get out more. We could take a weekend, go up north. I know my father would be more than happy to have Sophie stay with him.”
For some reason the idea, which would have seemed like a gift from heaven a week ago, no longer sounded so appealing. “But what about my idea of taking Sophie away? Maybe I could do that first, leaving you some time to visit with your brother.” She ignored his doubtful expression. “Besides, it sounds as if the campus is in turmoil after the murder, and I’m sure you’re needed. What if he strikes again and you’re not here? I think I should just take Sophie away for a bit. You and I could go later.”
David smiled tenderly. “If you go then I’m going, too. I hate to admit it but I’ve really gotten dependent on your presence—it would feel so empty here without you. But there’s no need for you to go anywhere. I don’t think there’s going to be any more problem with the killer. He’s
long gone—I sense it in my bones.”
She kept the disbelief from showing in her face. Maybe the killer was gone. She just couldn’t bring herself to believe it. “And just how reliable are your bones?”
He poured her a glass of wine, a little more generous than the one he did for himself. “Sometimes very reliable. They told me you were the woman I’d been waiting for. And they were right about that, weren’t they?”
She wanted to say something flippant, some light, sexual innuendo, but she knew David wouldn’t like it. “Absolutely,” she said, taking a sip of the icy chardonnay. She’d missed having wine with her meals.
And she had to stop mocking David’s diet. Indeed, she respected his refusal to eat or wear things that came from animals—no leather shoes for him, and Caleb’s leather jacket must have been an appalling affront to his sensitive soul. But then, it was quite clear that Caleb’s very existence was an affront to David, no matter how he tried to hide it.
“You’ll sign those papers, won’t you, Rachel?” he said, taking a cautious sip of his wine. He took her hand in his, running his thumb over the back. He had soft, delicate hands—someone who used his intellect for a living, not his body. He had a fair amount of strength in his hands despite his scholarly life, though he never used his strength when they made love. She might have even liked a little more forcefulness….
“We should sleep together tonight,” he said softly, almost reading her mind. “It’s been too long.”
In fact, it was just four days ago that he’d come to her room, but apparently he was going with selective memory, and the least she could do was match it. “I’d like that.”
And then realized, with absolute horror, that that was the third lie she’d told him today.
12
Rachel was curled up in the oversized armchair in the family room, watching television while Sophie worked on calculus. CSI was on, but she wasn’t in the mood for graphic crime scenes, particularly when they had one not five miles away, still cordoned off by the police and now the FBI. They’d TiVo’d Lost—castaways on a mystical island worked well enough to distract her—right now reality was highly overrated.
David was in his study, working. He’d barely touched his wine and the tomato-and-cheese casserole, but his lingering glance when he excused himself made it clear he hadn’t forgotten his plan for that night.
She could easily count the number of times they’d made love. She’d simply assumed that David hadn’t much of a sex drive, and that was a good match for her. She had no particular interest in grand passion or long, energetic nights of sex, particularly when it seemed more like exercise than anything else.
It had been different with Jared, but then, she’d been so damned young. Sixteen, and in love, and even his glance could send erotic shivers down her spine. She’d gotten over that quickly enough when her parents kicked her out of the house and they’d lived together. She’d enjoyed the sex, even if Jared was too fast and totally uninterested in cuddling afterward. But in truth, she hadn’t missed it once he abandoned her and his baby.
So why did David suddenly decide he wanted to make love when he’d barely touched her the last two months? Was it to make up for the debacle four nights ago, the one they were going to pretend hadn’t happened? Was it to prove something to her or himself? Or did it have something to do with the greatest threat to his sense of manhood, Caleb, coming back to town?
It didn’t matter. She just knew it had nothing to do with actual affection or desire, and she had no idea how she was going to derail him without hurting his feelings. She could always make up some excuse with Sophie, and he’d go along with it, asking no questions, but it was bad enough she was lying like a felon. She didn’t want to drag her daughter into it as well. Especially when it had to do with avoiding sex.
She heard the commotion at the front door, and for a moment she didn’t move. Sophie lifted her head. “You want me to go see who’s here, Ma?”
“David can answer it. I’m sure it’s for him.” There would be nobody to visit her. In the few months she’d been in town she’d been singularly unable to make friends. Everyone was either old or younger, and uniformly conventional. Even though Rachel tried her best, the young women of Silver Falls could see through it. Maggie Bannister was the closest thing she had to a friend, and she wasn’t the type to just drop in for a cup of coffee. Not at this hour.
A deep voice carried to the family room at the back of the house, and Sophie made a comical face of despair. “It’s Stephen Henry.” And then she perked up, as another voice followed. “And Caleb.” She jumped up from her seat on the floor, shoving her hair behind her ears, the silver barrettes from India beginning to slip.
Rachel wisely kept her mouth shut, just in case David heard the words she really felt like using. She didn’t want to move—with luck they’d just go into the living room with David and she could pretend the television was too loud to hear anyone arrive.
No such luck. “My father and brother are here, darling,” David said, putting his head in the door. “Why don’t you two come join us?”
Sophie used every excuse under the sun to keep away from the Old Goat, as she called Stephen Henry, so Rachel readied her excuse. “Sophie’s got a lot of homework.”
“That’s all right, Ma,” her daughter said with surprisingly good cheer. “I was just finishing up anyway.” She’d already moved past David, heading toward the living room.
“That’s nice,” David said, waiting for her slower, more reluctant approach. “I knew she’d like the old man if she took the time to get to know him.”
She still wasn’t taking the time. She was over to one side, talking to Caleb a mile a minute, while Stephen Henry sat in state by the gas fire, a glass of whiskey in his hand.
The room looked welcoming for a change, with the artificial fire burning. Every light was turned on, filling the space with a cool glow. Even the Mayan death masks on the wall, which usually creeped her out, seemed suddenly benevolent. She never could figure out why David even had them, though admittedly they went well with the austere interior and the geometric lines of the room and the furniture.
Stephen Henry was already holding forth. “I hope you don’t mind, my boy, but I asked Caleb to help himself. You wouldn’t begrudge your da a drop of the finest, now would you?”
He was doing his Irish poet thing now, Rachel thought, dismayed. And then his eyes caught Rachel’s, and she could see the same, inexplicable warning that had been there earlier in the day.
She must have imagined it, because a moment later it was gone. “Come sit beside me, Rachel,” Stephen Henry commanded. “I had Caleb bring me over since it had been so long since I’d seen dear Sophie, but like most women she’s already smitten with the black sheep of the family. I don’t know how he does it.”
“Sophie.” Rachel raised her voice. “Come here and talk to Stephen Henry. You haven’t seen him in ages.”
Sophie rose immediately, good manners a second nature to her. Stephen Henry would never guess that her daughter found him infinitely creepy, but Caleb clearly had a pretty good idea.
“You go entertain Caleb, Rachel,” Stephen Henry said grandly as Sophie sat near him, just out of reach. “You two are practically strangers, and now that he’s decided to rejoin the family you should get to know each other. I promise you he’s not nearly as wicked as he pretends to be.”
“Isn’t he?” Rachel said in a neutral voice. David had taken a seat beside Sophie, and for a moment she thought she saw her daughter stiffen. But a moment later she laughed at something Stephen Henry said, totally at ease.
She could make an excuse, go in search of coffee or dessert or anything to make this unexpected visit go as planned. But Caleb was watching her, and she could still hear the challenge in his voice. David was watching her as well—if she refused everyone would make a big deal out of it, when it was nothing more than a slight aversion to the man.
Who was she kidding? She had an aversion to
how she reacted to Caleb, and that wasn’t precisely his fault. Though he seemed to be doing his best to manipulate her.
“Can I get anyone coffee?” she asked brightly. “Something to drink?”
“We’re fine, Rachel,” David said, as if talking to a stubborn child. “Go talk with Caleb while my father and I catch up on Sophie’s last few days.”
It shouldn’t have bothered her so much, leaving her in the company of the two men. She’d be five feet away, watching them all the time. This was the man she loved and trusted, the man she married, the man she intended to eventually be the legal father to her daughter. Just not right now.
As for Stephen Henry, he was nothing more than a self-important pain in the ass, and even if he had wandering hands Rachel would be watching, and she wouldn’t hesitate to clobber him with the nearby fire poker if he did anything inappropriate.
“Sit down, Rachel.” Caleb’s voice was full of amusement. “I promise you, I’ll kill the old man myself if he touches her.” She looked at him for a long moment before taking a seat just out of reach, shielded from her husband by the back of the chair. “And I’m wondering just why you’d think he would?”
“Why would you think he would?” she said.
“Because you’re watching him like a chicken hawk. Or are you just looking for excuses not to talk to me?”
She turned back to him. He was wearing the worn leather jacket that would be an affront to David’s nothing-with-a-face policy, and he was the one looking at her like he was a hawk and she was a darting field mouse.
The hell she was. When it came to her daughter she was a panther, and she’d rip his throat out before anyone hurt her.
“I don’t think I like that smile,” he said. “It looks far too evil to me. What were you thinking?”
“What I’d do to you if you did anything to hurt my daughter.”
To her surprise he grinned. “Good to know. You’re not going to believe this, but comparatively speaking, I’m quite harmless.”
