His heavy parka, a sweater beneath, her cape, probably another sweater—way too many clothes between them. He thought about telling her he wouldn’t faint if she let go, but hey, if he didn’t milk this for all it was worth, he’d have to turn in his guy card.
They didn’t have far to walk. Not nearly far enough. He could go for blocks with his arm tucked into her.
“This is it,” she said at the yellow curb.
“Restricted zone. Nice if you can get it.” He took a second look at the old derelict of a station wagon. With a crooked bumper and dented grill, it looked eager to get a couple suckers on board. “This?”
“What? Big tough guy like you is afraid of a little adventure?”
“Adventure’s my middle name.” He stepped toward the passenger side, and she let him go when she was sure he’d made the curb. “I’d hold your door for you, but I see it’s already open.”
“Good. I see you’re still conscious.”
They settled in.
“You’re sure this is safe?”
“At least I won’t be falling asleep at the wheel.”
“Ooh, low blow. Except I wasn’t at the wheel.”
She turned her head and stared at him with that look that women owned, the one that said, “Come again?”
“Well, okay, I was, but I was parked at the time. So I was perfectly safe.”
“So is this. Annie drives it every day.”
Dull interior, worn seats, stained carpet. “Candle business isn’t so hot, huh?”
“Some people might take that as an invitation to hit you with their opinion of insurance companies who deny claims for silly reasons.”
“Please. I was on death’s door already today.”
“There was no proof that Annie’s husband didn’t take her Suburban and go on a long trip, leaving her with the payments. So this is all she could afford.”
“Get it? Candles, hot.”
“I got it.”
“Didn’t want you to think I froze any brain cells out there.”
“I’m not so sure it’s working.” She snickered and said, “‘Oh, Lawd, he’s dead, and I foun’ him. Musta froze—’”
Mason leaned across the seat and angled his head for a perfect landing on Jade’s soft, slightly parted lips.
Oh, man. He’d meant the kiss to be quick, to be a fun way to hush her sassy mouth. He wasn’t prepared for the slam that hit him dead center in his chest. Felt like a goddamn sledgehammer. How could a man ever be ready for something like that?
While Jade had been working hard to scare him out of her life, she’d crashed past all his self-preservation alarms and swept into his heart.
“Mason?”
She pulled back only inches, her eyes wide and curious. He could feel her breath on his face, warm, soft. Trusting. Intimate. He wanted more. God help him, he did.
“You’re thinking too hard.” Jade’s hand slipped up, tentative at first. Her fingers caressed his cheek. So soft. So trusting. Her tongue darted out and tasted him on her lips.
He knew in his heart she wasn’t guilty of anything. And if she wasn’t, then he wasn’t really stepping over any ethical boundary, right?
Please, God, he wanted to be right. He wanted to sweep her off her feet, take her to bed, make love to her every night for the rest of his life. It would be wonderful, too. Right up to the point where she found out he had a secret of his own, that he’d been lying to her all along.
Sorry, love, I didn’t think you’d mind that I’ve been lying to you since the second we met. Not about everything. Just the basics. Just who I am, what I do for a living, what I’m doing here. You know, simple stuff.
“You stopped breathing again.”
He grunted. “Good thing you’re driving then.” Drawing on all his reserves, which were pretty low at the moment, he pulled back gently and settled himself next to the door. He busied himself with the seat belt, saying, “Might need this.”
Jade was slower to recover, he noticed. It seemed like forever before she pulled out of the lot, glancing at him often, studying him, trying to read his intentions, probably. Good luck with that; he wasn’t sure what they were himself. He knew what he should be doing, though—steering the conversation, doing his goddamn job.
People were apt to talk freer in closer, more intimate surroundings. Reveal more. Let their guard down some. This front seat was a helluva lot more intimate than that castle-with-revolving-doors she lived in.
“What did you say? Annie’s husband left with her car?”
“Abe. He was with Doug. Don’t pretend you haven’t heard. It won’t hurt my feelings any.”
Abe. Biblical; odds were, a local. “I admit, I’ve heard some talk around town.”
The residential neighborhood they drove through was quiet, lined with tall trees and brick homes, porches and awnings. A few dusk-to-dawn streetlights. In a nod to the lumber industry, he supposed, most houses were embellished with dentil molding, elaborate gables, even ornamental soffit carvings.
“You want to tell me what happened so I can quit guessing?”
She spared him a glance. “Sure you can handle it?”
“Big tough guy like me?”
“Gabby says you were hypothermic.”
“Doc said pre. They warmed me up with coffee.” God, he hoped it was decaff. “Try me.”
Jade sighed, long and low, girding her loins. “You met Courtney, right?”
“Yeah, in the kitchen. Seemed nice.”
“Her husband was with them. He disappeared, too.” Jade glanced his way to see if he was going to interrupt. “You’re not going to take a flying leap out the door or anything, are you?”
“No, no, that would hurt. I’ll pass.”
“They were good friends, bought a boat together. We’d had a recent ice storm. They decided to go to the lake and check on it.”
“Three full-grown men just up and disappeared?”
He chewed the inside of his lip, deep in thought. Not about the husbands, though; about how he was doing a credible job of being just the right amount of surprised and curious. He stomped down the little birdie that said this was going to come back at a very inopportune time and bite him in the ass.
“That’s what they say,” Jade continued, not so hesitant to talk anymore since what she’d said so far hadn’t sent him running. “Depending on who’s talking, they A) ran off to South America to live the good life; B) got whacked in a drug deal gone bad; or C) bought a lot of life insurance that was too big a temptation for three small-town wives, so we stuffed their bodies into the car and drove it into the river.”
“These are your neighbors?”
Jade snickered. “For a guy who stops breathing real easy, I’m surprised you didn’t jump after all.”
“Door’s stuck.” He adjusted the vent to blow heat his way. “Forget about them. What do you think?”
Jade sighed. She slumped a little in her seat, so little, it was almost undetectable, but Mason noticed. He noticed lots of things about Jade. Little things, big things.
Very quietly, she said, “I think something bad happened.”
She drove carefully. The main part of West Bluff was built in a flat pocket along the river, surrounded by hills that had fed the lumber boom. Unlike up on the bluff, streets here crisscrossed in a rigid grid, with terribly imaginative names like Steeple Drive and Methodist Street routed into vertical markers at the intersections.
Feeling a little punchy from lack of sleep, he wondered aloud, “Can a Baptist live on Methodist Street?”
“Around here it’s not so important what church you belong to as long as you attend. So, yes.”
The station wagon creaked and rattled like any old car, but the heater worked just fine. Warm again, Mason tipped his seat back. His head rolled to a comfortable spot on the headrest, and his eyes drifted shut. No way he could keep up this pace. He might as well just admit it. Get it out in the open.
He might not be thinking clearly. Christ, t
wice in, what, less than two weeks?
“I’m exhausted. I can’t take it anymore.”
After a beat, Jade quietly said, “I can put an end to it. I mean, if you want. If you need help.”
Hair stood up on the back of Mason’s neck, a warning before a deadly strike. “In light of our conversation, that sounds…ominous.”
They rode another block, crossed Bible Boulevard.
Then Jade got it, and laughed. “No, not like that. Geez, I grow herbs, remember? Some are very relaxing. Lavender. Valerian. Agrimony if you need something stronger, though that might make you sleep like the dead.”
Not something he wanted to hear.
“Passion Flower.”
Mason lifted his head. “Now that sounds interesting.”
“Doesn’t work like it sounds. It’ll put you to sleep.”
“Heard you have poisonous ones, too.”
Not a car in sight, but Jade signaled a right turn anyway. “Somebody in the family put those in a couple generations ago. Call me sentimental, but I have trouble killing anything, so I let them be.”
Trouble? As in, Trouble, but I manage?
“Come on, live dangerously, Kincaid. Your sore throat’s gone, isn’t it?”
After another cup of whatever she’d brewed for him, he had to admit that it was. He yawned and settled back again. “You could put the big drug companies out of business.”
“Doubt it.”
He held his hands up like a scale in motion, seeking balance. “I don’t know. Natural remedy. Man-made chemical concoctions that cost an arm and a leg, and often as not, don’t work. Sounds like a no-brainer to me.”
“You think I want the FDA looking my way? Red tape? Lobbyists? Uh-uh. No way. No thanks. If I had to deal with all that, it’d be years before I could give you something to help you sleep tonight. That didn’t make sense, I know, but go with it.”
What could he say? No? How would he ever explain why he said no?
Oh, sorry, I was going through all your things in your entire house, and I found out you’re a witch, and I think it’s possible you may have killed your husband, so—
Nah, he didn’t think that.
I think it’s possible you may have drugged your husband so someone else could kill him—
He couldn’t prove it, but there was no way Jade ever killed anybody or arranged to have it done. Just didn’t wash.
I think you may have given your husband the wrong thing, or too much of something by accident, and he died, so if you don’t mind, I’ll pass.
Maybe he could buy that. Accidents happened. A wife could get scared and think it was better to hide the body. Right?
And that explained the other two, how?
Jade drove on autopilot, working things out in her head while Mason got some much-needed sleep.
Six years ago, she’d waited for the hospital to call and say they had her husband. Today, just when she was sure the original spell was weakening, reversing even, they called and said Mason was ready to come home.
Funny, in a cosmic sort of way. If it was a slightly warped, six-year-old spell come to fruition, it had to be the slowest one on record.
She was falling for him; no sense denying it. She’d thought she could be oh-so-modern about this, take it for what it was, for as long as he could stay, then move on.
Ha! Her reaction to seeing him in pain, real or not, had spoken to her loud and clear. For the second time in her life, she was hooked. Clearly, utterly hooked. Just as she’d wanted to be. Just as she’d wished.
Only this time, this relationship came with built-in problems. If the spell that started it all continued to reverse, Mason would leave for good. If it didn’t, and he stayed, she’d always wonder if he would’ve chosen to be here on his own. Especially since he said he never wanted to marry. Where did that leave her? She wanted a child. Would he have one without marriage? Did she want that? In this community?
Poor little thing—might as well stick a pointy black hat on her head and hand her a crystal ball when she sent her off to school.
Other than taking it one day at a time, she didn’t know what to do. She couldn’t just turn off these feelings she had for him. She had a few choice words for uncooperative spirits, though.
While Mason slept with his head against the window, Jade stopped at her post office box, picked up more mail orders for botanicals, then headed up the hill to Mystic Manor. If it’d been any warmer out, she’d have let him have another hour of sleep, parked in the driveway, but on the heels of a recent flirt with hypothermia, pre or otherwise, she thought better of it.
Turning off the engine didn’t wake him. Neither did letting her seat belt retract with a snap against the post, nor closing her door. She walked around Annie’s relic and stared at Mason’s head, his cheek mushed against the glass.
So peaceful. Experiencing none of her inner turmoil.
That didn’t seem fair, so she tapped on his window. “Coming?”
Nothing. She tapped again. Then, grinning, she knew what’d get him up.
“Oh, Lawd, he’s dead, and I foun’ him. Musta—”
She’d expected his eyes to flutter open, maybe a confused look, at the most a crooked, self-deprecating grin. But Mason woke up growling, she imagined, like a bear who’d just had his hibernation cut short.
By the time he grabbed the door handle, Jade was off and running, shrieking, laughing so hard she couldn’t see patches of ice, so she stayed off the walk as she charged through shin-high snow toward the back door.
She didn’t have a prayer of outrunning him, and even though it was no surprise when he dropped her in a tackle, the air whooshed out of her, and she fell face-first into the snow and came up sputtering.
For a guy who’d just been carted off to Emergency, Mason had a powerful grip. His arms were around her, so strong. His hands on her, so mobile, though she couldn’t feel them as much as she’d like through her cape and sweater and long underwear.
“What are you doing?” she laughed.
“Checking for broken bones.”
She elbowed him in the ribs. Between her cape and his parka, it was ineffective, it only made him laugh, so she grabbed a handful of snow and washed his face with it.
“Now you’ll pay,” he said, pinning her flat on her back with his entire body.
“I’m sooo scared.” When she looked up into his steel blue eyes and saw the promise of just how she’d pay, she trembled with anticipation.
“Damn, woman—” He made a production of spitting out every flake of snow. “I think you froze my mouth.”
“Didn’t want you to fall asleep again.” Not until she was through with him, anyway. If they didn’t get inside, they’d melt a patch in the yard.
“I could have frostbite.”
“Nah, you’re too hot.”
He did a double take, then grinned. “You think I’m hot?”
“I meant body heat.”
He wiggled on top of her. “You’re aware of my body heat?”
“Stop!” she said, laughing and making light of it because she wasn’t ready to admit it out loud. “I can’t feel anything through all these clothes.”
“Well, then! I’ll fix that.” He surged to his feet, scooped her up in his arms, carried her through the door.
The kitchen was warm, toasty, redolent with the aroma of something simmering on the stove. Out of the corner of her eye, Jade caught the glow of two candles, one red, one white, so she knew Annie was up to something, had cast some kind of spell, but Mason’s hands talked louder. He set her on her feet, and they were all over her, skimming her out of her clothes.
“Long johns?” he said when he pulled her sweater over her head.
“Turnoff?”
“Hell no. Just makes me want to work harder.”
She laughed against his mouth as he tugged her undershirt out of her tight jeans, struggled with the button at her waist, and tried to undo his belt buckle all at the same time. And then the laughter
was gone, replaced by heat and impulse and instinct so basic that, after six years, it scared her.
“I haven’t done this in forever,” she whispered. Afraid she’d scare him off; afraid she wouldn’t.
“I think it’s like riding a bike. But we can go slow.” He stripped off her basic white shirt and stared at her breasts. “Oh, not fair.”
Jade looked down at herself. Black lacy bra, low-cut, her chest rising and falling in shallow breaths. “What?”
He crushed her lips with his. “Not sure about the slow part,” he murmured. He chuckled low in his throat and said, “Bet you thought I was freaking out on you again.”
“You do, and they’ll never find your body.”
“For the record, it wasn’t me I was worried about. It was you.”
Jade tilted her head back and looked up at him. “Me?”
“I was afraid it was too soon. That I hadn’t given you enough warning. That you should at least have some time to think it over first.”
“And now?”
“Time’s up.”
Six years wasn’t so long that Jade didn’t remember one important thing. Probably the last sane thought she’d have for the next hour.
“Condom,” she gasped against his lips.
“Yeah, sure.” Mason’s lips trailed kisses over the corner of her eye, down her neck. He slipped one bra strap off her shoulder. “Oh shit.”
“You really have to stop that!” Jade tried to step back, but he wouldn’t let her, held her tight.
“Sorry. Sorry. Ah, condom,” he repeated, as if the word didn’t make sense. “You don’t have any?”
“I wouldn’t trust anything as old as I’d have around. You?”
“Didn’t think they went with a tux. I mean, Christ, what if I reached in my pocket for the ring and one fell out in front of the minister? Condoms were the last thing on my mind.”
“So I heard. I believe scuba diving was number one on your list.”
“It was a wreck.”
“It was your honeymoon.”
Witch in the House Page 17
