Tim? A bit of her anger returned. She’d never asked Tim to follow her into town. Just as he hadn’t asked for her to shoot him. Her anger left on a hiss of breath. If she didn’t get her mind and heart to stop bouncing around, she’d get dizzy from it.
Pulling away, JoJo met her aunt’s gaze. “I am sorry, Aunt Melda. Truly I am. I never meant for Tim to get hurt.” That was the absolute truth. Memories of Tim lying on the infirmary bed, blood soaking his shirt, his face a pale green, his chest shuddering with each breath, flooded her mind. By the time she and Dr. Rawlins had gotten him back to the clinic, he looked dead. And JoJo felt the world shatter to pieces at her feet. She’d thought she’d killed him, and it wasn’t the idea of taking a life that bothered her as much as that idea of taking his life. Timothy Hanlon’s life. As if his life, his presence was as important to her as her next breath. It had shaken her to her very core. And when he’d sat across from her in the carriage and made light of his own death… Well, she’d nearly fallen apart right there. She didn’t know if she wanted to shake some sense into him or kiss that fool smile off his too handsome face. She’d settled for trying to ignore him the rest of the ride to the mansion, but she couldn’t keep her mind from travelling back to him. To the attractive rumble of his voice, the way the sun glinted off his auburn hair, his earthy, compelling scent, how easy and charming he was. The man’s smile could steal her wits, just as his handsome face stole her attention. Tim Hanlon was an honest to goodness, good man. There wasn’t a mean bone in that man’s body.
Which made it all more difficult to drug him, lock him in a closet, or deny him the company he so obviously wanted, while he was recovering from the bullet wound she put into his arm.
“Joanna,” her aunt’s voice pushed through her thoughts and into her ears. “I know you don’t mean to get into trouble. But that doesn’t stop trouble from finding you. Please, dear, just stay in the house—go into town with Tim or your uncle, during the day, mind you—and stay away from the lures of whatever it is that is angling to trap you.”
“But Uncle Thomas is so busy, and Tim, well…I don’t think he’s going to be up to a trip into town any time soon.”
The mention of her uncle’s busyness seemed to pull something down over Aunt Melda’s face. Her expression turned down, and her almost black eyes seemed to dim. “Your uncle…well, he’s been very driven lately. He’s got something on his mind that keeps him from focusing on much else…including me.”
Shocked by her aunt’s intimate admission, JoJo gripped the woman’s fingers and squeezed.
“But he’s given you so many wonderful gifts; the conservatory, the macaws—”
“All trinkets meant to lessen his own guilt for a short time. Don’t get me wrong, I love the conservatory and the beautiful macaws, but there’s just no substitute for the love and affection of the man I married.” Aunt Melda’s voice left her mouth in a mere whisper, a murmuring of words heavy with anguish.
Floored by the depth of her aunt’s pain, JoJo bit back a sob. “Oh, Aunt Melda…” What could she say to the woman? She was only just nineteen, she had no wealth of experience in life or love. She couldn’t give a lick of advice to her aunt.
As if realizing what she’d just shared, Aunt Melda’s expression slammed closed. She let go of JoJo’s hands and stood, straightening her dark blue skirts. JoJo stood, too, facing her aunt.
“Please, ignore everything I’ve just told you. I shouldn’t have said a thing. And you should think twice about leaving this house without Tim or your uncle to accompany you,” she demanded, then leaned forward, pinning JoJo with a sharp glare. “There are too many bad men in the world, Joanna. Morgan’s Crossing may have some upstanding people in it, but…there are some lowdown people, too.”
What is she getting at? JoJo couldn’t put her finger on it, but it seemed as though Aunt Melda were warning her about something. Did she know about Hess?
Before she could ask her aunt about what she knew, the woman spun on her heel and left the room, the door swinging shut on her quickly retreating form.
Chapter Twelve
The following morning, Tim found Joanna in the dining room. He walked into the room, immediately noticed her at the table, and immediately forgot why he’d come into the room in the first place.
He couldn’t take his eyes from her. The circles beneath her eyes were gone, and her golden gaze flicked to him for a moment before returning to her plate. A plate piled high with eggs and strips of bacon. As she ate, he continued to watch her. She was wearing a dress in a light blue that seemed to bring out the rosy in her cheeks. Her hair was tied back with a white ribbon, but wispy, red curls escaped their confinement to frame her face.
Lovely. And she has no idea how beautiful she is.
“Are you going to stand there gawking or are you going to get yourself something to eat?” her husky voice sent waves of heat into his belly.
He smiled and shrugged, only feeling a little guilty about getting caught staring. Moving his arm was a mistake—pain shot through him, dousing the warmth he’d felt. He grimaced and placed a bracing hand beneath the sling he’d had a heck of time tying on that morning.
Dropping her fork onto her nearly empty plate, she narrowed her eyes at him and pushed back her chair and stood, coming around the table to stand beside him. “Here,” she said, taking a plate from the sideboard. “You tell me what you want and I’ll get it for you.” She left him little chance to object, walking to the high buffet along the side of the room where four steaming platters sat. “Bacon, eggs, fried potatoes… I think this one is…some sort of meat pie. I don’t know, it looks suspect to me.”
Grinning, he followed Joanna and stopped behind her. Despite the bacon on the buffet just in front of him, it was the smell of Joanna’s hair that turned him inside out. Suddenly, he wasn’t hungry for food. He wanted to kiss her again, take her lips and taste them again. Feel her press herself against him again.
A groan escaped before he could stop it, and she tensed. “Smell something you like?” she breathed, a note of something heavy in her voice.
Swallowing, Tim moved toward the end of the buffet, putting some distance between himself and what he really wanted to devour. “Yes…” he began, swallowing again when she turned her eyes on him. Need slammed into him, and he fought the urge to grab her and make good on what his mind had conjured. “The bacon. It smells divine. I’ll have some of everything, please.” Why did his throat feel like he’d tried to drink wet cement?
She quickly dished out a mountain of food and walked back toward the table. Tim followed, not daring to argue with how much she’d put on his plate. He did argue, however, when she put his plate on the opposite end of the table. As far from her as possible.
Subtle, Joanna. He knew it meant that she wanted him to stay away, but he couldn’t. Even if it made her downright livid.
With his good hand, he retrieved his plate and put it down at the place right beside Joanna. She tensed but said nothing, only scraping her fork against her own plate to gather the remnants of eggs still there.
Tim sat slowly, mindful of his arm, and of the woman gathering storm clouds over her head next to him.
“So,” he began, “what should we do today?”
She dropped her fork again and turned to spear him with her gaze. “What should we do today?”
He nodded, trying his best not to smile at her obvious irritation. “Yes. We. Uncle Thomas was quite clear that you and I were to spend the next week together.” He did smile then, the slow grin spreading ever wider with the look of terror on Joanna’s face. “You did shoot me, you know.” It was a low blow, but he couldn’t help it. He wanted to keep her close, and not just because on her own she was a trouble attractant, but because he couldn’t stand not being with her. She was a drug; far more potent than any sleeping draught she’d spike his drinks with. He’d had a single taste of her, and it wasn’t enough.
She was intoxicating, and he found he didn’t mind his nee
d for her.
“I know I shot you! You don’t have to keep reminding me,” she snapped.
“Oh, yes I do. It seems to be the only thing that makes you mind. Is it really such a bad thing; having to spend time with me?” he asked, unable to keep the hurt from his words.
Her gaze snapped to his, but her expression seemed to soften.
She sighed. “No. Not really. I just…”
“Wanted to hide from me?” he interjected, feeling a mite annoyed that she’d abandoned him the day before. Sure, he hadn’t meant to kiss her, hadn’t meant to chase her away. But she didn’t have to spend the rest of her day in her room. Avoiding him.
She lifted her chin. “I wasn’t hiding from you. I was tired. I needed some sleep.” The flush that rose over her cheeks told him she wasn’t telling the whole truth.
“Did you sleep through supper, too?” He knew he should leave well enough alone, but the urge to push her, to make her open up, was too strong to ignore.
Her flush deepened. “No. I had Aunt Melda send up a tray.”
“Too tired to come downstairs? Or too scared?” he drawled.
As if struck by lightning, she tensed, then she shot to her feet, nearly upending her chair. She gazed down at him, fire in her eyes. The rise and fall of her chest told him he’d hit a nerve, and the ‘O’ of her mouth as she panted, made him want to forget himself and become someone else; a man who stole kisses. A man who could steal her heart.
“I’m not scared of anything,” she effused, her voice thick and trembling.
He met her gaze, drawing every bit of his emotion into his expression. Her eyes widened and her mouth dropped open further. Lord, but he needed to kiss her.
As if sensing his intent, Joanna backed away. “If you’re determined to make me spend time with you, I guess I’d better figure out something to keep you busy.”
He could think of many things, all of which involved her.
She must’ve read his thoughts because she backed up another step, her hands flying to her shuddering chest. “I think Aunt Melda has some games in the drawing room.”
“I like the conservatory.” He knew he was a cad for suggesting they spend time in the room where he’d kissed her the day before, but he liked it when she was a little off kilter.
She snapped her mouth shut and narrowed her glimmering, gold eyes at him. “Fine. Finish your breakfast then meet me in the conservatory.”
He grinned at her, feeling the glory of victory. She, unimpressed by his hard-fought win, grunted her annoyance, then turned on her heel and practically stormed from the room.
He chuckled to himself then turned his attention back to his plate. Picking up his fork, he determined to not choke as he ate as fast as his mouth could chew.
Chapter Thirteen
JoJo tucked the chess board beneath her arm and smoothed her skirts with her free hand.
“It’s just a game. He’s just a man in need of company. He does not make you nervous. Don’t be silly, his kiss wasn’t that wonderful…” She blushed, then muttered under her breath as she made her way from the drawing room to the conservatory on the other end of the house. Thankful for the time to think without Tim so near, she forced her mind to focus on staying calm, practical.
“It wasn’t that wonderful,” she repeated, more to convince herself than anything else. What a liar, you are, Joanna Lynn Stopay. That kiss was…everything. Heart thudding against her ribs, she stopped dead in the corridor. The door to the conservatory was less than a yard away, but she couldn’t make her feet move. Couldn’t make her throat work to swallow the lump forming there. Couldn’t make her breathing slow. Couldn’t make her mind stop thinking of Timothy Hanlon, his heat and the taste of his kiss, the roughness of his unshaven face, how the bristles on his chin tickled her, raising gooseflesh along her neck.
At nineteen, she’d seen her fair share of handsome men. She’d let them court her, escorting her to barn dances and holiday parties. But she’d never thought to let them kiss her. They didn’t inspire that kind of…passion. They bored her, convincing her that no man on earth would ever hold her attention much less make her want to kiss him.
Boy, was she wrong. Tim was like no man she’d ever met before. He was handsome, charming in a quiet way, and he could kiss her socks off. Just remembering it made heat flood through her, her belly flipping like a hotcake on a griddle.
Shaking herself, she pulled her shoulders back and shoved her chin into the air. “Don’t let him get to you, he’s just a distraction.” Her voice was stronger, but it was still laced with disbelief, as if her own body knew she spoke untruths. She forced her feet to take one step, and then another, and then another, until she was at the doorway to the wide open, domed conservatory.
She stepped across the threshold and was immediately met with humid, fragrant air. The room smelled of wet citrus, exotic woods, and blooming flowers—it was a heady scent that made her drink deep of the intoxicating room. The moist air against her hyper-sensitive skin was a new sensation, but it wasn’t so uncomfortable that she couldn’t enjoy it. It thrilled her, and she found herself wondering what it would feel like to have Tim’s hands on her, just where the sensitive skin pulsed. Her own hand found the flesh of her cheek, her fingers trembling, and she ran the tip of her nail from her chin to her ear. The excited goosebumps made her shudder.
The sound of a bird’s wings flapping brought her up short. What am I doing? She groaned, closing her eyes to block out the fantasy images of Tim’s mouth against her throat. She opened her eyes again, just as one of the yellow macaws flew down from its perch near the ceiling and caught a butterfly in its beak.
She gasped, feeling much like the butterfly, snapped in the razor-sharp beak of unwelcomed, newly awakened desires. Now wasn’t the time for such silly things, such foolish things. She needed to put her attention, her focus, her energy into figuring out what Dalton Hess was planning. Just the man’s name in her mind lit the match of her anger, and she let the heat of it fill her.
Dalton Hess would get what was coming to him, and nothing, not even a handsome man and his breath stealing kisses, would get in her way. JoJo moved along the pathway through the foliage, headed toward the fountain in the middle of the large room. There was a wrought iron table there, along with four chairs, meant to host small tea parties or whatever else her aunt wanted.
Unbidden, an image of Tim, laying in the clinic bed, pale and bloody, rose into her thoughts. Guilt slammed into her. For all her determination to not let Tim distract her, she knew she had to fulfill her obligation to spend the next several days with him—staying out of trouble as her uncle, and now her aunt—wanted. Not that they have any idea that a viper is coiled in their den, waiting to strike out and kill someone.
JoJo rounded the last bend in the path and came face to face with Tim, his smile making the blood in her veins thicken. Suddenly very conscious of her every movement, she paused to take a deep breath, then continued toward the table where he was standing. He didn’t move as she approached, and she felt the heat of him envelope her. She glanced up at him, taking in the dark bristles along his strong jaw—the same bristles that had brushed along her cheeks as his lips devoured hers just the day before.
Stop thinking about that kiss! She forced her mind to focus on her task; putting the chess board on the table. She’d worry about everything else she was feeling later.
Out of the corner of her eye, she watched as Tim came around the table and stood across from her. She couldn’t stop herself from looking up. His smile had transformed into a subtle grin, but not so subtle that it didn’t make her want to smile back. She didn’t, though. “Chess?” he asked, his eyebrow raised in question.
“Yes, do you play?” She opened the mahogany box containing the chess board and the pieces.
“My school teacher, Mrs. Watkins, made sure to teach us—but that was years ago,” he replied, eyeing her fingers as she drew out the ivory pieces, then the ebony ones.
She pause
d in setting up the board to meet his gaze. “Are you any good?” she prodded him, for some reason, wanting him to lose a smidgeon of his easy demeanor.
He laughed, the sound rushing through her. She swallowed a gasp.
“I don’t know. I’ve only ever played my sisters, and we never actually finished our games. They usually got distracted by each other, the one playing getting pulled into some scheme or conversation by the other.”
She couldn’t help it, she smiled. “I don’t suppose you’ve had much practice playing, then. My brother, Joe…he taught me. We’d play every Saturday and Sunday night.” Memories of her brother surfaced, but they were happy memories…ones that didn’t bring the pain her other memories did. She felt her smile widen.
He tipped his head and returned her smile, his blue eyes twinkling. “I want to make a deal with you,” he announced, his eyes darkening in a flash. She stilled her hands and her breath caught. She could only blink, as if her whole body waited to hear what he’d say next.
“Deal?” she finally forced out through suddenly parched lips. She licked her top lip, then her bottom, and her belly clenched when his gaze landed on her mouth, and stayed there a heartbeat too long.
“What deal?”
His gaze moved up to meet hers, even as an unwanted heat followed after it.
“We play a game of chess. If I you win, I leave you alone all week,” he offered, and her heart thudded erratically, wondering what he’d want for his victory.
“And if you win?” she asked, irritated at the huskiness in her voice.
A slow, lop-sided smile spread across his face. “If I win…” he drawled, his gaze again landing on her mouth. She just stopped herself from gasping.
He’d win a kiss from me? A thrill of hot excitement bloomed through her. If he won a kiss, she’d gladly give one, no matter what her mind said. And she didn’t care if she hated herself afterward.
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