Not Victoria. “You weren’t standing up on the rail trying to take pictures or anything, were you?”
Autumn didn’t mind Fran and Rennie’s questions, but darned if she was going to let Victoria interrogate her like she was stupid enough to climb up on the bridge rail and fall off.
She shook her head and stepped back toward Rennie.
Rennie put a bracing arm around her, joining his bulk with Fran’s to form a protective shield against inquisitive eyes. “Autumn’s got more sense than that, Victoria. Besides, she didn’t bring a camera tonight.”
“Then how did she happen to fall?” Victoria persisted.
Safe between Rennie and Fran, Autumn could answer without terror. “I don’t know what happened. I was standing here looking at the fireworks and then I—I fell.” She remembered the hard blow to her back, put a hand round to feel her fanny pack twisted to one side but still there. “It felt like someone bumped into me.”
There hadn’t been a tug, like someone trying to wrench the pack away. Maybe they’d reached for it but misjudged, shoved her off instead. “I remember somebody hitting against my back. Hard. I guess they pushed me off balance.”
That had to be the answer.
She added with more assurance, “Someone ran into me, and I staggered and went over the rail before I could catch myself.”
Nothing else would fit. The jab to her back had been too fierce for an ordinary brush of bodies. Someone had been running and had slammed into her accidentally.
It wasn’t likely someone had been after her fanny pack. And if they were, guess they’d think better of tackling someone on a bridge next time.
Victoria opened her mouth, but Autumn circumvented more questions. “I’m all right now.” She managed a credible semblance of a smile. “Thanks to Rennie and Fran. We’re blocking traffic. Maybe we’d better move out of the way.”
Rennie didn’t remove his arm from her shoulder. “You must be shook up. Sure you can walk?”
“Yeah.” Her legs still quivered, but she’d walk under her own steam if it killed her.
“Okay. Good.” To the others he said, “Autumn and I are going back to the cabin. She’s had a shock and I’m tired. We’re going to skip the rest of the festivities.”
Autumn stopped short. “No, I’m fine, really I am. Don’t leave on my account, Rennie.”
“You may be fine but I’m not.” In the gray light beneath the strands of twinkling lights, his harshness gave way. “You scared the stew out of me. Look.” He held out his hand. “I’m still shaking. If you’re as calm as you seem, you’re damned well a robot. We’re going back to the cottage, Autumn. We can come back later if we feel like it.”
“But I’m—”
His arm tightened on her shoulder, and he whispered at her ear, “Besides, we have some business to take care of. The hotel. Remember?”
“Oh.” Laney’s things. Conscious of Fran’s curious eyes, she said, loud enough for the others to hear, “Okay. Maybe you’re right. Maybe I am a little unsteady.”
Fran’s eyes narrowed at his brother instead of Autumn. “I’ll take Autumn back.”
“You can’t. We brought my car instead of yours. Besides, I'm going back to the cabin anyway.”
“Then I’ll come with you.” Fran took a belligerent stance.
Rennie shrugged. “Suit yourself.”
“Oh, good grief. Stay and enjoy yourself, Fran,” Autumn cut in.
How ridiculous that he might think Rennie wanted her. She would have laughed. Except that she felt too rocky and too annoyed at Fran’s possessiveness. She wasn’t a prize he could snatch away from his older brother. “There’s no need to break up the party because I’m going.”
Fran didn’t like Rennie taking her off, but Victoria, bless her, added her entreaties. “Come on, Fran, Autumn will be fine. Don’t leave me by myself.”
Fran hesitated, but in the end couldn’t hold out against Victoria’s pretty coaxing. “All right, go on with Rennie.” He glowered at his brother. “But you’d better take care of her.”
Autumn didn’t need anyone to take care of her, and opened her mouth to say so, but Rennie took her arm. “I kept her from falling over the wall, didn’t I? Don’t worry about Autumn.”
As they started toward the car, her last glimpse of Fran revealed him sulking.
Rennie noticed, too. “Francisco’s annoyed. He thinks I’m after his girlfriend.”
“I’m not his girlfriend.” She stole a sidelong glance at him, but he’d reverted back to his usual self, uncaring as to whether or not she was anyone’s girlfriend.
Her tiny sigh was inaudible.
They fell in with a crowd walking toward the nearby hotel where they’d parked the car. Once Rennie got John and Laney’s bag out of the trunk, they went into the lobby.
At the elevator, they joined others waiting to go up. A man, vaguely familiar, stepped on at the last minute. Kind of skinny. Average looks. Not handsome but not ugly. So ordinary it would be hard to do a decent portrait of him. That bland face would be impossible to shoot.
The holiday scarf placed him. He’d been in the pizza place by himself. Another tourist visiting Helen for the Alpenlights except without a wife or kids or anyone else to eat with.
“Push two,” Rennie said in the hushed tone reserved for elevators full of strangers.
She was in front of the controls.
He held up the key’s tag where a big 216 jumped out.
She hit two. No one else said anything. Looked like they were getting off on the second floor, too.
Except for the ordinary man from the pizza place. He stayed on the elevator and chewed his gum.
****
Heading back to where he’d parked, Sam Bogatti soon had the van moved over to the hotel. Traffic was congested, but that was okay. Things were looking up.
After the screw-up at the bridge, he’d almost gone back for the van so if the photographer and her man drove off, he could follow them. But he’d trailed along on foot a little way. Lucky he had, else he wouldn’t have seen them get their luggage.
They were staying at this hotel, and he’d seen exactly which room she’d be in tonight.
Yeah, his luck was changing.
With that nasty surprise at Sarita’s when he’d looked at those photos and seen Bernie’s house of cards come tumbling down, plus the failure tonight to close the books, he could use a change.
Whatever his knife had hit, it had stopped him cold.
Sam couldn’t understand it, and that bothered him. He was a craftsman who did things according to certain rules and expected things to turn out accordingly.
Worry about it later.
So when after thirty minutes he turned into the hotel lot, he parked far away from their Lexus.
No sense in tempting fate.
Okay, decision time. Gun or blade.
A lot of people were here in town, maybe moving up and down the hotel halls.
But not in the room. There’d just be the photographer and her man. He’d wait till the hall was empty.
Knock, shoot, and get out.
Yeah. He’d tried it quiet with the blade, but that had crapped out. And with two of them, he’d have to be quick. Fat chance he could get by with doing the woman without taking out the man.
Had to be the gun.
Figure out scenarios.
Like what would happen if Autumn Merriwell came to the door alone. If her boyfriend came to the door alone. If both of them came together.
If she opened the door and the man was in the bathroom, he might get by with one hit.
Get real. More than likely, her man would open the door, or he’d be in bed where he could see Sam when the woman did the honors.
Plan on taking out two, and then he wouldn’t be caught off guard, like what happened tonight on the bridge.
What the shit could have blocked his knife?
Let it go. Concentrate on getting the job done.
He looked at his watc
h. Say an hour. That would give him a chance to get acclimated and incidentally, give them an opportunity to fall into bed and have their jollies.
This would be their last chance.
He wasn’t an unkind man. This was simply business. He needed to get the job over with so he could head home.
Jeez, he wanted to be home.
Don’t think about it. His wife would still be there tomorrow, and his kid would have another hockey match next Friday night. He’d be back for that one.
His gum was hard and tasteless. He discarded its gray wad, using the wrapper before storing it in his litter bag, and put a fresh stick in his mouth. Too bad it wasn’t a cigarette; he sure could use one after that frigging washout on the bridge
Then he reached back behind his seat for the case containing his Ruger and its silencer.
****
After depositing John and Laney’s bag in their delightful and, compared to the rustic cabin, luxurious suite, Autumn and Rennie left.
When they were settled in the Lexus, she said, “You don’t have to take me back to the cabin. I’m okay now. We can go back to town if you want to.”
The sound of distant merriment made the silence pronounced. His eyes flicked at her and away. The weak outside lights carved hollows, changed his face to a mask. “It’s been a long day. A cup of hot chocolate in front of a cozy fire sounds a helluva lot better than being forced to dance the Chicken Dance in front of a bazillion people. Doesn’t it to you?”
Hot chocolate in front of the fire with him? Heaven.
Autumn could almost forget the lingering shoulder ache. Even her helplessness at dangling over the Chattahoochee’s waters cutting through the boulders. Her terror.
Almost.
She shivered.
“It’s okay.” He took his free hand, squeezed her arm at its fleshy top beneath her shoulder. “It’s over and you’re safe.”
“You always did know what I was thinking.”
“Not always. You’re good at hiding your feelings.”
She should be. She had learned early to hide them during those first long weeks after her parents’ deaths.
That was why she’d adored the Degardoveras on sight. They vented their emotions unabashedly, laughing and shrieking and crying whenever the impulse seized them, and they didn’t mind her occasionally venting hers either. If she could be more like them, warm and boisterous and outgoing, perhaps Rennie would feel differently about her.
Who was she kidding? She was a timid cold fish pretending to be a woman. Her accident tonight had proved what a clumsy coward she was.
By now, she ought to know better than to let one moment beside a waterfall raise her hopes. Particularly after that debacle in the bathroom when he’d viewed everything she had to offer and politely turned his back. He hadn’t even felt comfortable enough to joke about it.
As Rennie brought in chunks of wood for the stove, Autumn went upstairs to take off her coat. She laid her fanny pack down on her bed and stopped short.
The heavy fabric was slit.
She fingered the hole, then opened the zipper to take out her wallet. It was gashed, the leather pierced. When she opened it, a big gouge in the flap stood out. Even a credit card was dented.
Like someone had stuck a knife in it.
No. Couldn’t be. But what else would have caused it?
She took the pack and her billfold down to show Rennie.
Bent over at the stove, he whistled his tuneless song and prodded a piece of wood with the poker.
“The weirdest thing, Rennie. Look at this.”
The pleasant whistle stopped. “Lose your money?” He shut the door and propped the poker in its place. “Was it a pickpocket after all?”
Then he saw the slit in her fanny pack. When he took the wallet, any good humor had disappeared. He inspected it, touched the slit leather.
She bit her lip. “Something hit me in the back when I fell. I figured someone had run into me. But now, this seems kind of like, whatever it was that hit my fanny pack, must have cut it.”
He opened her wallet.
Oh, no.
She kept her photos on her cell phone except one. Rennie’s senior high school picture hid her driving license in its front window. She could see him first thing when she opened her wallet.
Why had she kept that photo, old and out of date as it was? But it should have been safe. No one ever looked inside her wallet. Certainly not Rennie, who’d been gone for years.
He saw his own face but made no comment.
“What do you think?” she asked hurriedly, to draw his attention away.
He fanned out her charge cards and took his time answering. “I think credit cards are good for something besides credit. And I think you’re lucky you had your butt pack on. Whatever sliced this went right through. It could have sliced you as easily.”
Nausea swelled. She put a hand to her mouth.
“Hey.” As on the bridge, he put a brotherly arm around her. “It’s okay. Nothing happened. It’s over.”
“I was scared.” She hugged him, holding him tighter than necessary.
“I know. I was scared, too.” He laid the wallet on a nearby table and shifted her around so that he could enfold her in both arms and pat the back of her shoulder at the same time. “And I wasn’t the one hanging off the bridge by my fingernails.”
Emboldened, she buried her face in his shirt and let her hands slide down to rest on his hips. As his hand drifted up and began kneading her neck, she tightened her hold on him. His heat penetrated through her scarf to her throat, through his sweater to her breasts, through their two pairs of slacks.
The faint cedar cologne mingled with his body oils, and the soft rise and fall of his breathing accompanied hers.
Her heartbeat heightened, pulsed in her ears as she became conscious of something else. Something dark and wanton within her. Something solid and tense and excited between them.
She couldn’t move, could hardly breathe.
Not again. She couldn’t make a fool of herself by mistaking his reactions.
This happened all the time, didn’t it? A pretty girl, cleavage, the curve of a leg.
Anything like that turned men on. Some men got hard brushing against silken fabrics. And his hand was wrapped in her scarf, cupping her neck, massaging her shoulder.
Rennie’s chin lifted to rest on the top of her head. Her breasts lay against him, their weight pulling at her, draining her will.
Why didn’t he do something? Push her away, pull her closer, raise her face and kiss her?
Lord, she wanted to kiss him.
But she couldn’t move, and he didn’t.
The two of them stayed perfectly still, arms tight about each other, bodies melting against each other, his chin resting on her hair so that her forehead nestled in the hollow of his neck. His skin felt fiery hot.
Not as hot as her breasts where they pushed into his chest. Not as hot as his sex through the corduroys where he pressed against the top of her thighs.
“Are you all right?” The words above her ear were distant. Taut. Strange. Rennie’s voice, yet not his voice.
“No,” she whispered, and her whisper cracked from the longing that rose up and filled her throat and vocal cords.
He moved his chin then, and she could tell from the direction it moved that he was looking down at the top of her head. “What’s wrong? You aren’t hurt?”
“No.” Again the croak.
She lifted her face, intending to tell him she was fine, but his eyes met hers and she was drowning in their dark liquid and with an incoherent mutter, he bent down and she stretched up until their mouths met and merged.
Soft, damp, warm. Everything she wanted.
She belonged here in his arms. She belonged.
From the time she was eleven years old, she had dreamed of kissing Rennie. Under his mouth, she floated in a white haze of surprised pleasure and aching desire that erupted into full-fledged need. Her lips opened to
take his tongue, and it pushed into her mouth as if it had every right, hot and eager to explore each area, yet restrained, slow, prolonging its investigation and the urgent promise.
Sex with him would be like that.
Some faraway corner of her mind knew it. The blood rose and threatened to drown her mind.
Sex would be slow and sweet and exquisite, building up to a blinding, crashing climax.
Barely realizing what she was doing, she cupped her thighs around him, pushing against him, molding her breasts and stomach into him until she was ready to do anything, promise anything in order to make him a part of her.
Rennie pulled his mouth away. He exhaled with a suddenness that reminded her of the pricking of a large balloon.
She deflated as quickly as one.
When he removed his lips, he didn’t let her go. He took her head in one hand and turned it and laid her cheek against his chest and held her there.
His heart beat furiously in her ear pressed to his shirt, the ebb and flow of his blood joining hers as he clung to her, compressed her to him. His free hand massaged her back and hips. She heard him swallow, felt his throat’s constriction on the top of her head through her hair.
“This—I—this won’t do, Autumn.” His voice rasped. Not Rennie’s voice. Not casual or calm. Then he gently nudged her back, away from him, removing the heat he generated.
They generated.
“We can’t.”
She came back to earth.
Chapter 11
She wanted to scream. But that wasn’t her way.
Reluctantly, silently protesting, Autumn let Rennie push her away until they stood face to face, two feet apart.
She gasped for breath, swallowed.
Her mouth, her breasts, her body. All hot and trembling and aching for him. Rennie.
Who had wanted her for a moment before he caught himself.
“We can’t, Autumn,” he repeated.
“No. I know.” And she did. Whatever emotional needs Rennie harbored could never be satisfied physically. Rennie wouldn’t make love to a woman unless he committed himself, wanted to live with her. Marry her.
And he didn’t love Autumn.
He started to take a step toward her, but stopped. His mouth twisted as if he tried to speak but no words came out.
Intimate Portraits Page 11
