The Raintree Box Set: Raintree: InfernoRaintree: HauntedRaintree: Sanctuary

by Linda Howard

  She laughed lightly. “What do you mean, you don’t know? Don’t the ghosts tell you anything?”

  “Some things we’re not meant to understand.”

  She nodded, oddly accepting. This conversation shouldn’t seem so normal. Shouldn’t she laugh? Or cry? Dance, or close herself away from the world that had just changed forever? Instead, this seemed very, very natural.

  “Signs from above,” she said next.

  “Be more specific.”

  Hope lifted one hand and gestured in a casual way. “You see a rabbit cross the road, in a place where you’ve never seen a rabbit before. Maybe seeing a rabbit at a certain time of the day in a particular place is a sign. It’s good luck or bad luck, or an indication that you’re going to win the lottery or get hit by a bus.”

  “You really haven’t studied this at all, have you?” Gideon teased.

  “No. But I still want an answer.” She took a long sip of coffee and waited for one.

  “There are signs all around us, but we don’t usually see them.”

  She squirmed a little, trying to get more comfortable. “Not even you?”

  “Not even me. We overlook miracles every day. Then again…” Gideon shrugged slightly. “Sometimes a rabbit is just a rabbit.”

  The length of the day and waning adrenaline was making Hope’s eyelids heavy. They drooped, but she wasn’t ready to stop. Not yet. “Reincarnation.”

  “Definitely.”

  “You sound so sure.”

  “That’s why I used the word definitely.”

  She slapped him lightly and too comfortably on the arm. “Don’t tease me. I’m tired, and this is all new, and I still…” No, she couldn’t say she still wasn’t sure. She’d seen too much tonight not to be. Her hand remained on his arm, and it felt natural. Gideon was warm, and strong, and she liked the feel of his flesh right there, at least for now. It was soothing and spine-tingling at the same time. “If we come back again and again, and we meet the same people over and over, why don’t we remember?”

  “Where’s the fun in that?”

  “Fun?” Had he lost his mind? Life wasn’t fun. Oh, there were occasional amusing moments, but for the most part, life was hard work.

  “Yeah,” Gideon said. “Fun. We get to make mistakes, learn how to survive, discover beauty, discover the thrill of taking a risk. We experience emotions fresh, with new eyes that haven’t already been tainted or jaded by time. We face wonders with the excitement of something new and unknown, and fall in love with hearts that haven’t yet been broken and battered.”

  “Talk about a risk,” she said. Hearing Gideon talk about falling in love made her antsy. She leaned forward, placed her mug on the coffee table, reached beneath the back of her blouse, muttered a low “excuse me,” unsnapped her bra and slid it off through her left sleeve.

  “If you need help, all you have to do is ask,” Gideon said.

  “I’m fine,” she said, wiggling back into place on the couch. And ever so much more comfortable. “Angels.”

  Gideon leaned back and settled in, much as she had. “Yep.”

  “Fairies?”

  “I’ve never seen one, but that doesn’t mean they don’t exist somewhere. I’m not really sure.”

  She reached out a finger to touch the silver talisman on Gideon’s chest. “Lucky charms?” she said softly.

  He looked her in the eye, and her heart stuttered. Gideon did have amazing eyes. If she were in the market for a man, which she most certainly was not, he would do quite nicely. Not only was he beautiful in an entirely masculine way, he cared about his job. He fought for people who could no longer fight for themselves. He was justice and strength and sex…and occasionally he glowed in the dark.

  “Sometimes,” he finally answered.

  She removed her hand from his chest and flicked her own charm out from beneath her blouse. “When I was getting ready this morning, I felt like this thing was staring at me. I’m still not entirely sure why I put it on.”

  “Do me a favor,” Gideon said gently. “Don’t take it off.”

  Hope nodded, then returned to her previous and very comfy position. Everything she had ever dismissed as fantasy was apparently all real. She should be screaming in denial, but instead she felt oddly calm.

  “You say the Raintrees have been around for a long time.”

  “Yeah.”

  “When your ancestors married normal people, why weren’t the…the…Crap, I don’t know what to call it. I don’t believe in magic, but for lack of a better word, it’ll do. If your family has some kind of genetic magic, why hasn’t it been phased out as you’ve bred with the common folk?”

  Something about the word bred made them both squirm. From the beginning there had been sexual energy between them, even when she hadn’t been entirely sure he was a good guy. Still, it was too soon for energy of this sort. She never should have leaned close and touched that charm on his chest, and he never should have looked her in the eye that way.

  “Raintree genes are dominant,” Gideon explained.

  “So, if you have kids…” She opened her eyes and turned her head to look at him, curious once again. “Do you?” she asked. “Are there little Gideon Raintrees out there somewhere drawing in lightning and talking to dead people?”

  “I don’t have any children,” he said, his voice more solemn than before.

  “But when you do…”

  He was shaking his head before she had a chance to finish the sentence. “No. It’s hard enough to raise a kid in this world without teaching her that a part of who she is has to be hidden away. I won’t do that to a child.”

  “Her,” Hope repeated, closing her eyes again.

  “What?”

  “You said her. Not it, not him. Her.”

  He hesitated, briefly. “I have a niece. She’s the only kid I’ve been around for a while. That’s why I said her.”

  She didn’t believe him, but there wasn’t any real reason for her reservations. Just instinct. But she didn’t believe in instinct, did she? She believed in fact. Concrete, undisputed proof. That had been pretty much blown away tonight.

  “You shaved,” she said, turning the conversation in an absurdly normal direction.

  “I woke up feeling like the drug Tabby used was still there. It wouldn’t wash away.”

  She should’ve heard him moving around in the bathroom, but the house was so big…and she’d been so distracted…“I like it.”

  He snorted, and she smiled.

  “I’m gonna sleep now,” she said, her mind and her body falling toward oblivion. She was much too tired to even think about driving home, and if she did, she would only get there in time to take a quick shower, grab a bite to eat and start a new day. Here, she could sleep for an hour or two. “We’ll have to get up in a couple of hours and start the Clark investigation.”

  “It was Tabby,” Gideon said. “The blonde who killed Sherry Bishop and stabbed me.”

  “Yeah,” Hope answered, her speech slightly slurred. “I believe you.” And she did believe him. Every word he said was true. What a kick in the pants that was. “Tomorrow we have to find a way to prove it.”

  Chapter 9

  Gideon lifted a sleeping Hope gently, and she didn’t even stir. He could leave her on the couch, he supposed, but the leather wouldn’t be pleasant to sleep on for very long. He laid her in his bed, instead, and she immediately rolled onto her side, grabbed a pillow and sighed.

  She could sleep in her clothes, but, like the couch…not very comfortable. He unfastened her trousers, waiting with each second that passed for her to wake up and slap him. But she was a deep sleeper, or else the day’s events had exhausted her. She slept on, barely moving while he removed her once-crisp gray trousers and tossed them aside.

  The blouse would have to stay. He really wasn’t up to getting her completely naked and then turning away. Without the bra, which still sat on the living room couch, she would be comfortable enough.

  When
Hope was down to blouse and panties, he covered her with the sheet and walked on bare feet to the window. Before closing the drapes, he stood there for a few minutes and watched the waves crash onto the beach.

  He’d told her more than he’d ever told anyone else. One woman had seen a glimpse—a tiny glimpse—of what he could do, and she hadn’t been able to get away from him fast enough. That had been a long time ago. He’d run into her once, a couple of years after the split, and she had apparently forgotten all about the reason for their breakup. People did that. If they couldn’t explain what they saw, they simply forgot. It was an amnesia meant to protect the mind from things that could not be accepted, he imagined, no different than forgetting the details of a car crash or any other traumatic event. Happened all the time.

  Would Hope forget everything come morning? Maybe. She was a no-nonsense woman who wasn’t given to believing in anything that rocked her neat little world. He could most definitely rock her world—in more ways than one.

  He finally closed the drapes and returned to the bed, crawling in beside Hope. Her warmth and softness called him closer, and he answered that call. All along he’d known that if he slept with her, she would have to request a transfer, but that didn’t have anything to do with the way he wanted her.

  There was a double bed in the spare bedroom on the third floor, and that was it as far as alternate sleeping arrangements were concerned. The room was used for storage, mostly, but Echo stayed here infrequently, and Mercy had visited with Eve on rare occasions, so he did keep it ready for guests. Only a glutton for punishment would fill a beach house with a selection of comfortable and welcoming guest rooms, and since Gideon preferred solitude, his lack of accommodations made perfect sense.

  The single guest bed was without sheets at the moment since Echo had stripped the bed Monday before leaving for Charlotte, and it was also piled high with the files he’d brought home about the unsolved murders. He didn’t feel like taking the time to clean off the bed in the name of being gentlemanly. His own bed was warm and soft, and he was drawn to Hope the way a man is drawn to his woman.

  His woman. Hope was many things, but she was most definitely not his. And still he draped his arm across her waist and pulled her close before he fell asleep.

  She’d slept so deeply that she didn’t remember so much as a sliver of a dream. Hope burrowed into the soft mattress, trying to escape the chill. The air conditioner must be turned up high. Unusual, since her mother was usually such a stickler about conserving electricity.

  The air was chilly, but she felt oddly and comfortably warm. The alarm hadn’t gone off yet, which meant she could sleep a little while longer. A few more precious minutes.

  Then, with a suddenness that made her twitch, she remembered where she was. Raintree’s house. She’d fallen asleep on the couch, but this was no couch. It was Raintree’s bed. She very carefully rolled over to face the man she’d been sleeping with. The reason she was so warm was that Gideon’s mostly bare body was all but pressed against hers.

  Still half asleep, she remained as still as possible while she studied him. They were close, closer than she’d ever thought to be with this man she had initially suspected of possible criminal misconduct. Now she knew he wasn’t a dirty cop. He was just different. Very, very different.

  He looked fine in the morning, none the worse for wear after being wounded and drugged last night. In sleep he was a little rough around the edges, unguarded, and beautiful in the special way only a handsome man could be. But if Gideon knew he was beautiful, he didn’t act that way, not like some men she knew. He just was.

  Moving cautiously so as not to wake him, she lifted the sheet that covered them both and peeked beneath. His thigh was almost healed. Last night it had been sliced deep, and now all that remained was a nasty-looking scratch. She shouldn’t be surprised. Nothing connected with this man should ever surprise her again.

  “Don’t worry,” a gruff voice rumbled. “Nothing happened.”

  Hope lifted her head slightly to see that Gideon’s eyes were trained unerringly on her. They were sleepy still, hooded and sexy and electric.

  “I was checking your wound,” she said primly.

  “I thought you were checking to see if I had my drawers on.”

  She slapped the sheet down, and started to roll away and leave the bed, mainly so Gideon wouldn’t see how she was blushing. Her cheeks actually grew hot, and it was such a girlie reaction.

  Before she could roll away, Gideon snagged her with one strong arm and pulled her back against his chest. “Don’t go anywhere just yet,” he said, his voice still sleepy and gruff and sexy as hell. Hope knew she could escape easily, with a gentle shove and a roll. Gideon’s grasp on her wasn’t binding; it was simply persuasive. Heavy and warm and comfortable. She didn’t shove or roll. Instead, she laid her head on the pillow and stared away from Raintree while he held her close.

  Jody hadn’t often slept over at her apartment. Twice, maybe. And even then, it had been a mistake on his part. He’d fallen asleep and awakened early in the morning to make his escape. But she remembered liking this part. She very much enjoyed being held, flesh to flesh, the connection sexual and yet also much more. This was what she missed by living alone, by dedicating herself to her career and always looking at every man who so much as smiled at her as if he might turn into an ogre and bite her in the next instant.

  She didn’t think Gideon would bite her, but that was a potentially dangerous supposition on her part. He was a man like any other, a fact that was quickly becoming evident as he held her close.

  Now was the time to leave the bed, if she was going to make her escape. If she stayed here, in his bed, if she didn’t leave right now, she knew darn well what was going to happen. She was a fully grown woman of sound mind, twenty-nine years old and unattached. And at this moment, with her world still spinning out of control thanks to all she’d learned last night, she wanted to be held. Not just by any man, but by this one. Gideon Raintree, who talked to ghosts and inhaled lightning and occasionally glowed in the dark.

  He shifted her hair aside and laid his mouth on her neck. A decided shiver worked its way through her body. Was it electricity or just him that made her tingle? Something paranormal or something extraordinarily normal? She couldn’t make herself care, at the moment. This felt so good….

  “I want you,” he said softly.

  Hope licked her lips. I know. I want you, too. The words danced in her head, but nothing came out.

  “I’m not sure that’s such a good idea, but there you have it.” His hand slipped beneath her blouse to caress her bare skin, and she closed her eyes and melted. Her brain told her this was a very bad idea. But her body disagreed. Her body wanted the same thing Gideon wanted, though her wanting wasn’t as obvious as his. Physically, at least.

  Could he feel her shiver? She hadn’t let a man touch her this way in a very long time, so long that this felt new and exciting and powerful.

  Eyes closed and body trembling, she drank in Gideon’s warmth and imagined what might be yet to come, if she allowed it. If she wanted it. She didn’t have to say a word. She just had to turn in his arms, lay her mouth on his and kiss him. That was all the answer he needed, and all she was capable of giving.

  His hand raked down her belly and came to rest over the soft flesh beneath her belly button, just as it had in her mother’s shop when he’d pressed her against the counter and taken her by surprise. Knowing what he was about to do, she grabbed his wrist and pulled his hand slightly away.

  Hope felt the disappointment in him, felt his resignation. She turned slowly so that she was facing him, his wrist still grasped in her hand. “No cheating this time,” she whispered. And then she kissed him.

  She should have known that he would be a great kisser. One touch, one sway of his lips over hers, and she lost the last of her doubts. She threaded her fingers in his hair and pulled him closer as her lips parted wider and she flicked her tongue against his. There were a
hundred reasons why they shouldn’t be here. She barely knew him; he was her partner; she’d distrusted him from day one; he was who he was.

  But none of that mattered. She wanted him to kiss her, longer and more completely and with the abandon she felt unraveling inside her.

  He unbuttoned her blouse while they kissed, and together they discarded it. Now she could hold him and truly be skin to skin. It was such a wonderful sensation that she couldn’t help but remember what he’d said last night about discovering new and wonderful things in life. This was new. The way she wanted him, the way she spiraled out of control, the way her body was drawn to his…it was all new and beautiful.

  Gideon gently rolled her onto her back, and she lay against the mattress, yearning and oddly content for someone whose heart and blood were pounding so hard they pushed away everything else. He took a nipple into his mouth and drew it deep, and she almost came off the mattress, the pleasure was so intense. Inside, she clenched, ready in a way she had never been before. She grabbed at Gideon, held on while he moved his attentions to the other breast. He moved as if they had all the time in the world, but she could tell that he was as close to spinning out of control as she was.

  They couldn’t afford to lose control completely. “Do you have a condom?” she asked hoarsely. If he said no…he couldn’t say no. Surely he wouldn’t say no.

  “Yes,” he answered, and she breathed a sigh of relief.

  “Good.”

  Gideon had such wonderful hands. They were masculine, well-shaped and strong. His fingers were long, and like everything else about this man, they were beautiful. His hands were tanned, too, thanks to hours spent on the beach. She didn’t see the sun often. Her fair skin had a tendency to burn, and besides, tanning meant leisure time, and when was the last time she’d taken a real vacation? She couldn’t even remember.

  Gideon’s sun-kissed hand skimmed over her pale flesh, and she watched him, fascinated and aroused by such a simple sight. He touched her as if she were made of porcelain, learning her curves as he went, learning the feel of her skin and inflaming her senses until she felt as if she were floating above the bed, soaring and grasping and wrapped in magic.