Not a bad penny, a loose cannon. Why did Cole have to be her protector? She couldn’t bear it. His very presence unearthed painful memories she habitually kept buried.
And since he’d raised the specter of a hit man, fear dogged her every step. Maine was safe. She’d never given a thought to walking alone from her cabin along the wooded path to the rambling inn and the theater beyond. But tonight at the first scrabble in the murky twilight shadows, she’d sprinted for the theater’s stage door.
Good sense told her she needed Cole’s protection, but why did it have to be at close range?
“If that man’s eyes had laser beams, you’d have a hole in your back. You and our new hunk have a problem?” an amused feminine voice whispered.
Laura recognized the redhead about her own age. An inn guest, she too had recently joined the stage crew. “Vanessa, oh, hi. No, no problem. We…knew each other in high school.”
The friendly woman smothered a laugh with the blue-checked curtains she carried. “Why do I have the feeling that’s as complete as saying Romeo and Juliet met at a party?”
Vanessa’s laughing green eyes and warm candor invited sharing. Laura could use a friendly shoulder, but she had hit the wall with what she could divulge about Cole. “Romeo and Juliet about says it.” A tragedy. She’d rather not think about the ending. “Let’s leave it at that.”
Acting as bait meant she needed protection. She could handle his presence. She couldn’t block her awareness of him, but she didn’t have to talk to him.
By the time the stage crew took a break, Laura had had enough of Cole’s laser stare and overbearing attitude. When his back was turned, she slipped down the backstage stairway. A few minutes to herself would restore her equilibrium.
The lower floor used to be the stable part of the old barn. It contained a hall lined with storage and dressing rooms in the former horse stalls. She inhaled the fragrance of long-removed hay, its essence embedded in the wood.
No one seemed to be working in any of the rooms at present. All was dark except for a bare bulb in the long hall.
Laura sank into the comfort of the old rocking chair from Arsenic and Old Lace. More than one of the gentlemen callers had drunk the ladies’ elderberry wine and died in its embrace.
Morbid thought. Not what she needed as a mood changer.
The wooden stairway creaked. A second tread creaked.
Someone was coming.
Alarm bells rang in Laura’s head. How stupid! She’d done exactly what Cole warned her not to do. She’d gone off by herself. Heart pounding, she leaped to her feet.
Perhaps it was only one of the stage crew. Or Cole.
But perhaps it wasn’t.
Where could she hide?
Chapter 4
As the unknown person continued down the stairs, Laura ducked among the hanging costumes in the nearest storage room. She held her breath and waited. Sweat trickled down her back.
Someone was walking along the hall, just as she had. She could hear the squeak of rubber soles on the cement floor.
As the footsteps approached, she peered between a silk cloak and a velvet doublet.
Vanessa walked by the door, a bucket of paint in one hand.
Laura exhaled slowly, her hand on her chest. Safe enough, but she might not have been. She wouldn’t be so foolish again. Extricating herself from the soft fabrics, she strolled out into the hall.
“Oh, hi, Vanessa. What’re you doing down here?” She tried to sound casual, but could hear a quaver in her voice.
The redhead turned from the doorway where she stood, alarm on her freckled face. She slid a hand from her slacks pocket and pointed. “Extra paint. I left it in here since I don’t know where it goes. What’re you up to?”
Laura shrugged. “Checking to see if we could use any of these costumes. Nothing more modern than Shakespeare’s time, I’m afraid.”
Vanessa gestured toward the stairs. “After you.”
When the two women emerged backstage, Cole’s disapproving countenance zeroed in on her.
Making a show of ignoring him, she grabbed her brush and slapped more stain on the wood.
Back where she started. Worse. Her mini escape had done nothing to lighten her mood, and now she felt foolish and foolhardy.
When the work session ended, Laura scanned the orchestra section for a likely seat where she could view the rest of the rehearsal.
She made her way through the wings to the rough plank stairway leading to the seating. Ranks of old church pews sloped up the barn’s second story. Burgundy carpeting covered the aisle floors, but the rustic charm of the building’s origin glowed elsewhere in the bare boards and beams. The theater’s quaint but not too bucolic atmosphere welcomed and warmed her.
Among the orchestra seats, scattered knots of people chatted or pored over scripts. No tall, dark-haired male arrested her gaze. No compelling blue eyes drew her.
Cole must still be backstage.
Taking a seat toward the rear, she allowed herself a sigh. But was it of relief or disappointment?
A moment later she saw him making his way up the aisle toward her, a cell phone at his ear. As he sidled down the row of seats to join her, he spoke into the receiver in gentle, coaxing tones—in Spanish. She recognized one word, querida, meaning sweetheart. Then he said in English, “Gotta go,” and disconnected.
Impressed at his facility in the language and eaten alive with curiosity, Laura knew better than to ask. An intelligence operative would have a cover story.
But she couldn’t help wondering if the person on the other end was a woman he’d met in Colombia.
“Tired, Laura?” He sat beside her, too warm, too large and too close for comfort.
She turned, ready to do battle. Verbal duels kept the barriers up, kept conversation at a superficial level.
A safer level.
She gave him a sweet, very toothy smile. “No, but if you are, feel free to leave. I don’t notice you doing much of a job of protecting me tonight.”
Cole’s charcoal jeans and T-shirt revived the old bad-boy persona and heightened the aura of male potency. He offered her a smug curl of his lip. “You’re covered. Somebody has kept an eye on you since I left you.”
“Someone was in the woods?” The rustlings, the shadows? That was an agent—officer—guarding her?
His predator’s eyes fixed her with a steady gaze. He leaned against the bench seat, the thin cotton of his shirt stretched taut across powerful shoulder muscles.
She fought to control her erratic pulse. It was merely physical attraction. She could fight it. “Cole, what do you have set up? What are you doing here in the theater? What—”
“Twenty Questions?” The grooves in his cheeks deepened with the softening of his scowl. He covered her hands where she gripped the seat back in front of her like a lifeline. “Take it easy. We’re working this one out. I won’t keep you in the dark.”
The warmth of his hands slid more heat to a part of her body she’d rather ignore. She ought to pull away, but remained still, savoring the contact. “Sorry. I’m a little spooked.”
“Good one. Spooked.” He grinned. “By the way, I checked your cabin’s gas connections. The outside tank valve was tight. The safety valve on the heater itself must be broken. Hard to say if it’s by design or accident. Damned unreliable method for murder, though.”
“The valve’s probably defective. I’ll speak to Stan.”
“Don’t just speak to him. Get it fixed.” He leaned back and propped one ankle on the opposite knee. “Now what’s this damn play about?”
He was trying to divert her, calm her nerves. He was right. This wasn’t the time or place for plotting. But his thoughtfulness and sincerity shouldn’t surprise her.
Once he’d wrapped her in his leather jacket to keep her warm on his motorcycle. At an arcade he’d thrown Ping-Pong balls for an hour to win her a gold charm in the shape of a crown because he said Midas’s daughter should have a crown. It was wit
h the few things she’d been able to bring away with her when she ran from the hospital.
“The play?” he prompted.
“Diner’s a murder mystery, as you may have surmised from the title.”
“Death at the Diner. A dead giveaway.”
She groaned at his pun and smiled back, too aware of him.
He sat with his hands splayed on his knees. How large and masculine the fingers looked, with black hairs curling above the knuckles. As she remembered those fingers sliding across her skin, flames flicked through her veins.
“Unusual assortment of characters,” he said, jerking a nod toward the stage.
She dismissed the spell cast by his nearness. “Diner’s on the order of an Agatha Christie story. It involves a group of disparate people brought together in one place.”
“In this case, a diner.”
“A snowstorm traps them. One by one, they’re murdered, and the remaining characters have to solve the mystery before they, too, are killed.”
“How well do you know these people? Has anyone joined the troupe in the past few days?”
“You mean, besides you?”
He cut her a calculating look.
Sarcasm was no more shield from his persistence than from his sensuality. She sighed. “You can’t seriously suspect any of these people. Most of the actors and stage crew are regular guests or employees. Nearly everyone arrived at the resort long before Markos was spotted in Boston.”
He fixed her with his wolf’s stare. “I suspect everybody. Markos can pay big bucks for your scalp. Can you be certain nobody here would accept money to set you up?”
His soft tone didn’t remove the sting from his words.
A frisson of fear, like walking into a spiderweb, crawled over her skin. How could she suspect any of these people, whom she considered as friends? But she had no choice. “All right. What do you need?”
“Just connect names with faces for me. I have a list for background checks.” He leaned forward as though absorbed in the scene. “And, Laura, don’t go downstairs again without me.”
She flinched at the image of Markos’s thug Kovar leaping out at her from a rack of costumes. Did she have the strength to place herself in jeopardy?
She had to if she wanted her life back.
A young man rolled on stage on a bicycle, followed by a perky young blonde, a trench-coated man and a woman. “That’s Burt Elwell, a local boy. He’s our only handyman since his uncle Jake hurt his back.”
“Ah, the young dude with the hots for you.”
Surprised he remembered Burt’s waving to her, she gave him a disgusted look. “I don’t know why I’m even responding to that idiotic observation. He’s twenty. He has the hots for all females between fifteen and forty.”
Cole snorted.
Laura wouldn’t consider jealousy as Cole’s motive for his attitude. No, his surliness stemmed from his protective mode. But her heart fluttered in spite of her rationale.
“That’s supposed to be a motorcycle,” she whispered, “but we don’t have one yet. He plays a rebel biker.”
“The mountain bike suits the kid better,” Cole growled.
“You must have met the owner, Stan Hart, when you arrived. There he is in the cook’s apron behind the diner counter. Martin Rhodes, a retired dentist, is the detective, and a local teenager named Heidi plays his daughter. The elderly woman with the orange bouffant is Doris Van Tassel. She and her sister Bea were the leads in the last play, Arsenic and Old Lace. They come here every summer. You probably suspect them, too.” This was getting ridiculous.
When he didn’t respond, she moved on to the observers in the front row of seats.
“I’ve met the stage crew,” Cole said, when Laura pointed out Vanessa and the stage manager seated beside her.
The director, white-haired and regal, strode to the stage apron. “Let’s get this blocking right, people.”
“Rudy Damon once directed several plays on Broadway. He’s a college professor now. He and Stan renovated this old barn for summer productions about five years ago.” Laura gazed up at the solid beams and gracefully curved gambrel roof. “This and the inn are the only structures left of what was a prosperous farm a hundred years ago.”
“I see somebody trying to get your attention. Who’s that at the edge of the stage? In that big yellow caftan, she looks like a ripe melon.”
A laugh bubbled from Laura. Oh, Lord, he did always make her laugh. His incisive wit had been one of the first things to attract her. “Oh dear, you’re right. My father the diplomat calls that type of bosomy woman a powder-puff pigeon.”
She waved back to the older woman, whose choices in fashion often didn’t suit her short, plump stature. “That’s Bea Van Tassel, Doris’s sister. She’s doing publicity and some light stage crew work.”
Bea tripped down the steps from the stage and swept up the aisle toward them as they left their seating row. “Yoo-hoo, Laura, did you like the chowder I left for you?”
Laura smiled and patted the woman’s arm. “Oh, yes, Bea, thank you. It was delicious. I’d love the recipe.”
The woman wagged a parchment-skinned finger at her. “Sorry, dear, it’s a family secret,” she said in a modulated stage voice that belied her seventy-plus years. “But I’ll bring you something else later in the week.”
She looked brightly up at Cole. “You’ve just joined us, I believe, young man.”
Laura’s stomach clenched as she realized she didn’t know how Cole was explaining his presence. Leaving it to him, she introduced them.
“I understand you and your sister wowed them in the last production,” he said, shaking her proffered hand gently.
Clear blue eyes twinkling, Bea smiled. “You’ll do, young man. And you’ll love it here. This is such a beautiful place. And not a bad little theater for its location. These productions give me a chance to relive my glorious youth.”
“Bea and her sister used to perform on Broadway,” Laura put in. “They started out in the chorus line and eventually had starring roles.”
“We had a good run,” the other woman said. “Of course, that was decades ago. We retired before Rudy Damon’s day.”
“This director?” Cole asked. “I’ve never heard of him, but I’m no theater expert.”
“Oh, yes, he was in demand a few years ago. The white hair makes him look older than his years. Unlike some people.” She beamed and patted her sausage curls, as black as shoe polish. “He had a hot streak before his last two plays bombed. No producer would take a chance on him after that.”
Laura patted Bea’s shoulder. “That’s a sad story. If it’s any consolation, it looks like he’ll have a hit with Diner.”
“How could he not, with Doris up there?” She waved a hand at the stage, then gazed at Cole with interest. “What sort of work do you do?”
Laura could hardly wait for his answer.
“I’m a travel writer.” Cole’s gaze was contemplative. Laura tried and failed to picture an authorial pipe dangling from his mouth. “I pen those articles in the travel section of the Sunday paper about the latest vacation hot spot.”
Bea’s smile widened. “Stan must hope you’ll write an article about Hart’s Inn Resort.”
“You never know.” He gave her a boyish grin.
“Are you ready to go?” he said to Laura. His warm hand splayed against her lower back urged her to movement.
When they hit the cool night topped with a dome of stars, he dropped his hand and walked at her side.
So much for distance, thought Laura. Sitting beside him in the darkened theater had heightened her consciousness of him to the point that now she felt bereft at the loss of his touch. And he’d made her laugh. Like old times.
Double whammy.
Cole observed Laura’s furrowed brow. Probably suspicion and worry at what he planned to do. He’d caught a glimpse of her amazement at his cover story. Good. Let her stew a moment.
He was stewing, too, inhaling her s
ummer-apple scent and itching to touch her softness again. Walking in the dark was too reminiscent of stolen kisses and a stolen weekend.
They left the theater barn behind and crossed the empty parking lot. When they came abreast of the three-story clapboard inn, Laura spoke, her amused gaze heating him another degree. “Travel writer?”
He shrugged. “It’s a good cover. But Hart will wait a long time for any article of mine. The armpits of the world I usually visit end up in classified reports, not the travel section of a newspaper.”
She cocked her head, looking as if she wanted to ask more, but kept her silence.
“What was that about the chowder?”
She laughed, a lighthearted peal that belied her deep fears. “Bea thinks I’m thin. She’s trying to fatten me up.”
“You look good. Not skinny,” he said, flicking a gaze down her body. Ripe curves and a golden tan, Midas’s daughter all grown-up in living flesh. He could picture every millimeter of that creamy skin. The memory heated his blood and ignited irritation at himself for remembering.
“Thanks.” She smiled at him as they approached her cabin.
All it took was to be near her, and his cool resolve flew away like dust beneath his spinning wheels. Clearing up most of the past didn’t chill the slow burn inside him.
He had questions that needed answers. Answers about her choices back then. Answers that might drive away the demon voice of his old man. You’ll never amount to nothing, boy. You’re just like me. No-account.
He gave himself a mental shake. He was no good at understanding their so-called relationship, but he had to try. “Look, Laura, I’ve been thinking.”
She turned from unlocking her door. “Always a dangerous thing.”
Dangerous, maybe. He’d see if it was fatal. “Ten years is a long time to hold a grudge. But I can’t let go of this ache in my gut until the past is totally settled.”
She gaped at him, her eyes as big as pie plates. Even in the dim outdoor lighting, he could see her face go chalky. “What do you mean?”
“What do you think I mean? Why were you so quick to believe Valesko’s lies?”
Guarding Laura Page 5
