by Cait London
She shook her head, aligning the incidents that all spelled calculated harm to her friends. She began to chill and shake and Mitchell drew her close, nestling her head against his shoulder. “Anything else?”
“I don’t want to think about this—that we could have someone here who is so evil—”
He rocked her gently. “Tell me.”
“Several cows were shot—wounded. Opal Udell’s favorite little Guernsey cow, more of a pet, really. Lilly Belle was shot with an arrow. The vet who took care of the cows thought maybe it was hunters again, but it was a practice arrow—you know, with a metal-pointed tip and not the arrowhead type. Gerald Van Dyke’s tractor ran over him, crushing him while he was in front of it. His sight and hearing aren’t good at eighty, but—oh, Mitchell, no one would want to hurt Gerald. But you can’t just take ordinary farm accidents and careless hunters and kids with air guns and put them all into a package with a label that says ‘murder.’”
“The nails in Roman’s and my tires weren’t exactly friendly.”
“Lyle Nelson didn’t like his girlfriend dancing with Roman. It wasn’t nice, but that happens, too.”
“Lonny talked to Lyle and his friends, and so did Roman and I. None of them knows how to operate a power nail driver. If they did, they’d be shooting nails into their boots.”
“Oh, my,” Uma heard herself say once more.
“That is partly why I came last night. I don’t want you staying alone. Lonny doesn’t want to panic the town, and it seems that the Warrens have stirred up whoever isn’t happy.”
“That’s so terrible.” Uma began pacing back and forth. She didn’t want to think about anyone in Madrid—she knew all their lives, and there was no reason for anyone to want to kill…
Mitchell rose slowly. “Come up to your office. There’s something I want to show you.”
Upstairs, he leaned against the doorway as Uma pulled away the curtain, then he lifted the vase aside to expose the dark hole in the wall. “I’d say it’s a .45 slug. They didn’t want to hurt you. If they did, the light at the window would have made a perfect shot. They shot somewhere you weren’t, just for a warning. You can call Lonny after I’m gone. He doesn’t need to know that I’ve been here.”
She moved into his arms, needing the safety of his body. She held him tight and Mitchell immediately scooped her closer, tucking her head beneath his chin. “This is terrible.”
Mitchell stroked her hair. “Just one question. Where are we sleeping tonight? Here, or at my place?”
TEN
That night, Mitchell settled into the shadows of a rose arbor and watched Uma as she served guests at Pearl’s garden party. While Oklahoma was settling in for August’s dry season, Pearl’s rose garden, styled after an English maze, was watered, lush and green. Japanese lanterns softly lighted the sprawling redwood deck. Citronella candles had been strategically placed to repel mosquitos.
In the soft glow of lantern light Uma danced with the man who had brought her—her ex-husband, Everett. With heads close together, their conversation appeared very intimate. Everett’s hand pressed Uma’s onto his chest—
Mitchell realized he had just snapped a lathe board on the trellis, and released it from his fist, smoothing the foliage over it. Everett would, of course, know how to be “intimate” with Uma either in conversation or in bed.
Pearl’s glance at him barely veiled her dislike. He smiled briefly at her, just a lazy show of teeth to antagonize her. She turned away, a definite snub, and that was exactly what he wanted while he brooded about Uma.
He rolled his shoulder beneath the light cotton shirt. His muscles ached slightly, unused to the chain saw he’d needed to remove the fallen tree.
It was good, hard work, and he’d enjoyed pitting himself against the old oak—it wasn’t exactly the physical release he’d wanted for today, but it had helped. After trying to get everyone else in town to work for her, Pearl had been reduced to calling him. Apparently, she had used up her share of goodwill with neighbors and friends. She had hovered and fussed over the repair and clipping of her garden. And later, while he’d picked up fallen limbs and packed them into his pickup, Pearl had spied on him from her lace-veiled windows.
It was really Dozer’s garden. His notebook carefully noted the roses’ care, their historical beginnings, if they had been found near homesteads or cemeteries. The layout of the shrubbery was also carefully marked. Pearl knew little about the roses. She only knew how she looked in a summery dress, a large straw hat, and gloves, and holding a basket for gathering bouquets.
Earlier, while stacking storm-damaged rubble into his truck, Mitchell had purposely insinuated that he could be induced to move faster—if he were invited to the party. There would be dancing, as Pearl had noted when she’d told him to clear away the redwood deck first, so that she could arrange the benches and side tables. After a night of making love with Uma, Mitchell did not want to think of her dancing in Everett’s arms. Mitchell wanted Uma in his arms, and he wanted to take her home later.
He’d wanted to feel emotions when he came back to Madrid, to know what stirred him, and he’d gotten a dark wallop of jealousy, something he hadn’t expected.
Pearl’s expression had been furious and haughty when he’d asked if he was invited. “Oh. Yes. Of course, you’re invited. Please shower first and…and try to wear something nice, will you? Nothing with—uh—spots or holes,” she’d said in a tone that would freeze the still damp roses.
Pearl had been careful to place him far from her at the catered dinner, and Uma had been seated by Everett.
Who does she want? Mitchell wondered as he studied her dancing in Everett’s arms, a charming ex-husband who was deliberately keeping her very busy.
Mitchell shrugged mentally; if he were Everett, he’d work to keep male poachers from Uma, too.
The crowd was small and elite, from the best long-established families in Madrid and surrounding countryside. Shelly moved by Mitchell, dressed in a prim black and white maid’s uniform, and holding a serving tray she had no doubt polished. She looked distracted, her smile distant but pleasant. Mitchell had seen her carry in plastic-covered trays to the Whiteford home—to the back door, of course.
She was probably working through two problems—Roman’s entrance into her daughter’s life, and the danger in Madrid. She had spent the day working at Pearl’s, and when Mitchell had seen her, she’d looked dazed—but then, Roman telling her that he was staying the night, sleeping on her couch, might do that to a woman who’d managed her own life and her daughter’s.
Uma had also been drafted to work the party, and probably not for pay. Neither woman seemed to mind the hushed orders from Pearl as she bustled about in her designer roses-on-silk hostess gown. Uma’s apparent function was to circulate and to act as a sub-hostess, making certain that everyone was comfortable and well fed. Mitchell, desire humming through him now, didn’t like seeing the woman he wanted being treated like a servant.
Nor did he want to see her in Everett’s arms, with that friendly, intimate laughter between them.
Across the garden, Uma’s dress was cool and long, light yellow with a delicate cream pattern. Tiny tormenting buttons ran from her bodice to her ankles, concealing what Mitchell had held and kissed and caressed the previous night.
“Having a good time?” she asked pleasantly while her smile said she knew he wasn’t.
Okay, maybe he wanted a commitment from her, something he’d never considered from any other woman. “No. I’d rather be in bed with you. I’m feeling about as wanted as a mongrel at a pedigree show.”
Her eyes widened and her color began to rise; there was that delicious quiver that told him she responded to him beautifully. She was wearing that prim little knot on top of her head, the tendrils catching the garden night’s dampness and curling along her skin—skin he wanted to taste.
The perfect richly gleaming pearl studs in her ears reminded him of another precious intimate pearl within her tha
t he had not yet—
“That certainly was to the point.” Her words were prim, but her voice was low and husky and drenched with the heat of last night.
Mitchell noted with satisfaction that the pulse in her throat had quickened, a visible reaction that he’d affected her. He needed the reassurance that last night had really happened. He wasn’t certain how he felt about missing her, or why he felt alone as he walked back to his house this morning with the neighbors watching him.
“Some electricity problem last night. Just had to reset the breakers,” he’d called to Charley Blue Feather, who was watching Lars Swenson’s antics with a pitchfork, driving it into the mole runs. “Was yours okay?”
Mrs. Riley’s hair was in huge pink curlers as she placed her jar of sun tea on her front porch. “Mine was just fine, Mitchell. But I’ll remember that you’re handy the next time there’s an outage.”
Edgar MacDougal finished zipping up his pants; he strolled into his house after a smirk at Myrtle Hawthorne, who was already dialing Lonny. The brown look of MacDougal’s wife’s rose bushes said he wasn’t changing his habit.
Keeping the lid on an intimate relationship in Madrid was impossible; Mitchell didn’t want Uma touched by gossip—he knew the damage gossip could do, and he’d never cared before.
He sniffed at the damask-scented bloom brushing his shoulder, and blamed his uncertainty on the perfume as Uma said, “You’re scowling, Mitchell. You look so fierce.”
He knew his smile down at her wasn’t nice. He shrugged the bloom from his shoulder and ignored the clinging petal. “Maybe I had plans for tonight that didn’t include a crowd or an ex-husband…. someone here could be Pete’s killer. And the person behind all the so-called accidents.”
Uma scanned the crowd and shook her head. “I doubt it. Lauren barely knew these people, though she helped Pearl with these parties. These are the contributors to Pearl’s charities.”
“Lauren didn’t like them, did she?”
Uma turned to him, frowning. “Not especially. Why?”
He shrugged, unable to explain the sudden insights that had come to him since he’d been living in Lauren’s house.
Uma took his hand, clenching it urgently. “You feel it, too, don’t you? That Lauren is still here, waiting? That she wants to tell us something? Oh, I can’t tell you how many times I’ve felt that. As if she’s not ready to rest yet. I feel her moving strongly in that room where her things are. More than anything, I want to help her rest, Mitchell. Tell me what you feel.”
He couldn’t; it wasn’t logical. Since he’d lived in the house, some of his feelings seemed illogical…and feminine, like making certain the decor would not be too cold and sterile, but more welcoming and soft. Now he thought of lighting the rooms, how the shaded glow would affect the wall’s colors. Brown, sturdy, and bold had always been reliable, and yet now whispers of “comfortable” and “welcoming” curled around him.
He served Uma a diversion, a fortune cookie saying, “One can only see what is real or one can be put in the nut house.”
“Ohhhh! You are so—”
“Yes?” He allowed himself a pleased smirk. She’d been well satisfied, and he knew it. Sexually, he knew. He hadn’t had time to study the intimacy she’d written about in her book—probably one element of which was holding her hand on his chest as they danced. But then, he hadn’t danced with her, had he? When he had the relationship-intimacy elements in his armory, his bargaining position to get Uma into his bed would definitely be better. “So how is it going with old, dependable Everett?”
“You’re in a nasty mood. I’d already told Everett that he could pick me up tonight. I needed him to help carry the petit fours I’d made.”
“I imagine I can carry a tray of petit fours just as well as any man.”
“But I had already asked Everett,” Uma returned firmly. “You realize that this is a situation that has to be handled gently.”
“Why?” he asked bluntly. To him, the situation was simple. He was now Uma’s lover; Everett was no longer in the picture.
“Because that is how I am going to handle this, Mitchell,” she said in a firmer tone.
The scene on her porch had been awkward, Everett carrying food from her house when Mitchell had arrived. Since he was obviously dressed to go out, and there was only one soirée in the whole town of Madrid, Mitchell had no choice—he had followed the woman he’d made love to last night…and her ex-husband…to the Whitefords. The feeling that he was a tagalong wasn’t one he wanted repeated.
The dinner and dance and socializing party was a mix of upscale clannish bankers and wealthy investors. They now knew that Pearl’s “yard man” had been a vice president of a national building and supply chain, and they weren’t certain how to approach him—how to bridge the gap from years ago, when they’d looked down on his family to getting what they wanted from a man who could be influential in Madrid.
He could have eased into the chatting groups and made that bridge easier for them, if he’d wanted to. He much preferred watching Uma; so did Everett. Mitchell had never needed reassurance and now he did, working his way through that fragile zone. He tried to appear casually disinterested in Uma’s relationship with Everett, but every nerve in his body tensed. He casually lifted a rose and sniffed its fragrance. “Have you told him about last night?”
She misunderstood his underlining of the changed situation. “No, Lonny wants to keep everything quiet. He thinks everyone would be panicked and the—whoever—would slip away. Everett would definitely be upset. He’d probably want to sleep over—oh, don’t scowl like that. He has before, in the guest room when a tornado went through and damaged the roof on our house.”
Our house. Everett had shared her life, and he was perfect for her. Mitchell didn’t fit into the domestic picture, and as a Warren, he didn’t fit into tonight’s crowd…and he wanted to pick up Uma and carry her out into the night.
“I meant something a little more personal than that bullethole. Have you told Everett about us—together? Last night?”
Her color rose and she looked away, the soft light glowing on her skin, the sweep of her lashes. “I’m trying for the right moment. This is a difficult situation.”
“I will, if you want.”
She turned to stare up at him, her eyes flashing silver. “You wouldn’t dare.”
“Just try me.”
“Someday, you’re going to learn that I don’t like being pushed,” Uma said firmly.
“It’s better out in the open, clean and neat. The guy isn’t going to be happy and right now, neither am I.” Mitchell wasn’t too certain about Uma now, as those gray eyes met his.
Uma tapped her foot and seemed to be counting under her breath. “That’s how you would do it, would you?”
“Seems appropriate and less complicated. Unless you’ve changed your mind.”
“Women are more tactful. This isn’t a black-and-white issue. You’re thinking like a man.”
“The last time I checked, I was a man. Maybe you noticed last night.”
That delightful color returned to her cheeks and Mitchell couldn’t resist stroking that warmth. She impatiently brushed away his touch, and just as he expected, when she was flustered, Uma responded with a typical fortune-cookie statement. “When teased, it is wisest to wait for one’s best time to return the favor.”
Everett was working his way to them, stopping to chat with Walter Whiteford, a tall, slender man with a potbelly that said he liked beer. Mitchell recognized the look of a man intent upon corralling a woman as Everett started toward them again.
His arm circled Uma and she sent a warning frown at Mitchell. Everett’s smile was cold. Could he have known that Mitchell was with Uma last night? Could he have fired that shot?
“Nice night,” Everett said coolly, as the men’s eyes met and locked.
“It’s okay.” Mitchell picked an old European rose, “Autumn Damask.” The blossom carried the light pink shade of Uma’s bl
ush; its double and ruffled bloom was as lush as the manner in which she gave herself to him, and the fragrance reminded him of her body. He carefully, meticulously eased it into Uma’s hair. Maybe it was a possessive reaction, but that was how he felt.
Everett frowned slightly, then picked another rose, “Maggie,” which was a fuller, richly red bloom, a perfect match to the heat deep within her. He handed it to her. “My dear.”
Mitchell pushed down the sharp shudder of jealousy; Everett showed his teeth in a wolfish smile.
Uma frowned at one and then the other. “Mmm. Thank you, Mitchell. Thank you, Everett.”
Mitchell looked at Everett. “I really hate it when she does that ‘mmm’ thing. It could mean anything.”
“I know what you mean. The fortune cookie sayings aren’t that easy to translate, either. One counters the other.”
“I’m right here, boys,” Uma said, softly enough to make the roses in her hair barely tremble. “Mitchell has a habit of overlooking that, but I didn’t expect it from you, Everett—”
“Why, so you are here,” Mitchell drawled, after wanting to hold her all night.
“Dance?” Everett smoothly offered Uma, with an intimate smile that Mitchell could have crammed down his throat.
But he wouldn’t; he was being “civilized.”
She looked confused, glancing from Mitchell to Everett and back again, and she wasn’t choosing Mitchell’s company that quickly. “I…”
Just then, Mitchell spotted Lonny’s patrol car across the street and Shelly arrived with a tray of petit fours. Mitchell decided that the party didn’t need him and he didn’t need it. Uma fit in perfectly; she always had. The old fences were still there; he still didn’t fit in her crowd.
“Excuse me. You two kids enjoy yourself. It’s time I left the ball,” he said as he took the tray from Shelly and with it high, eased over the Whiteford’s hip-high wrought-iron fence. If he couldn’t have Uma tonight, he’d at least enjoy her petit fours. He walked down the yard’s slope and across the street to where Lonny waited. Lonny’s jowly face was illuminated by the flashlight he held as he read a book.
