by Cait London
“I’ve never seen a woman blush all over before.”
“It’s a new experience, shedding my clothes in broad daylight, but a rather delightful one.” She waited and hoped he would share his darkness with her, that whatever taunted him would ease. She gave herself to the quiet day, the flow of the water over her body, to being with the man she loved.
His body shaded hers as he stood beside her. “Who would know that sweet, very proper Uma would enjoy skinny dipping?”
“Mmm. I’ve changed since you came into town. I don’t know that it’s for the best. I’m edgy and I think about you all the time, and a good percentage of that time, I’m pretty darned frustrated with you. I’m used to harmony and peace and safety, and you’re none of those. With you, every day is a land mine of the unexpected. I’ve never, ever liked surprises, and you’re a walking, talking one. And then there’s the sleep that I’m missing, though last night was an experience not to be missed.”
Mitchell bent to take her breast in his mouth sucking gently—just for a brief moment. “There you were—Ninja woman, slinking around buildings and rooftops. Tell me, would you really have ridden that horse? Can you ride a horse?”
“I would have made do. I find that when you’re involved and acting macho…macho Mr. Man, I can do anything. The people that I know usually listen and use logic and we chat and resolve. You’re just too…too…” She wouldn’t let him derail her. Something horrible had upset him. It still hovered around Mitchell with the sunlight and the shadows. “You know what I mean.”
“I’m like Dad,” he said bluntly. “I cut you off the same way he treated her. From the sound of her letters, they loved each other and she really tried to make their marriage work.”
Clearly, Mitchell had been wrestling with open doors to the past and finding what was behind them painful, which explained his need to face the physical reality of a horse, rather than tearing himself apart emotionally. “That’s true. He came to the house one day, a man unable to hold more, and asked if he could talk to my mother, Grace’s friend. Mother knew both sides…Grace had confided in her, and in the end, Fred did, too. He just couldn’t take that simple first step after denying her for all those years.”
“His pride kept them apart. He didn’t give her letters to us. He didn’t want to lose the only part of her that he had left—his sons. She would have come back at any time, and he was ashamed.”
She reached to take his hand. “That was all in the letters?”
“No, I read between the lines. I remembered the things that he had said, and fitted them together with her letters, and I knew how I would feel—down on my luck, knowing that I hadn’t treated a good woman right, ignoring her when she wanted to work, to make things better…and not understanding how to deal with myself, how to apologize and beg her to come back to me.”
That was what had set Mitchell off, realizing that his father’s bitterness had ruined lives…realizing that he’d spent precious years ignoring a woman who desperately loved her sons, wanting only the best for them and ready to fight for them against the man she loved…and Mitchell had shared his anguish with Uma. “That’s pretty insightful.”
“Too bad your Smooth Moves List wasn’t around then. He made all the mistakes with a woman he loved, and eventually she had to do something to try to help him and us. He returned the money she’d sent. And you knew all that, didn’t you?”
“It was for you to work through and to understand. I felt as if Lauren’s house was the right place to soothe you, to give you a softness to open yourself to the truth. When you said you felt Lauren move in the house—”
“Hopefully, when those results on those threads and scraps come back, we’re going to get that—” Mitchell promised roughly. “Her life shouldn’t have ended that way.”
“Any candidates?”
“Mike knows more than he’s saying. I don’t think he’s the one, but he knows something, and he’s afraid. There’s some connection between his addiction to the 1930s outlaw guns and the slugs at Shelly’s house, on the windmill and used on Pete.”
Mitchell eased her to her feet. The water swirled around them, his arousal brushing her lower stomach, his hands beneath her arms. His palms massaged the outer curve of her breasts and he studied the softness flowing within his hands. “Walter Whiteford.”
“Walter? Why?” she asked automatically because her body’s awakening was pushing away clear thought. Only Mitchell had the ability to make her feel so sensual, the sunlight warming her upper body and the water caressing her lower limbs. His sleepy expression belied his tense body, the way he looked lower, past her belly to the hidden nest that waited and warmed for him. His hands opened on her hips, gripping her, his fingers splayed.
There was enough pressure to hold or release her as she wished. Uma held his upper arms, feeling the power in them, the security, preparing to hold her anchor in the coming passion.
“He’s been wanting to buy the ranch. When I turned him down this last time, he was furious, and I didn’t like what he had to say. I think Mike can use some pushing, and Lyle, too. You’re the most exciting, feminine woman I’ve ever known. I don’t want to talk any more now.” His expression tightened as he looked downward, watching his body slowly enter hers.
“I love you, Mitchell.” She couldn’t stop the words from flowing into the sunlight and shadows, around the water that rippled gently against their bodies, over the treetops and down to the willows swaying into the water.
He paused, his eyes closed as he completed the lock of their bodies, lifting her to wrap her legs around him, taking her weight.
“Uma,” he whispered unevenly, and the deep sound of his voice tore at her senses, enveloping her.
She knew instinctively that Mitchell had never given himself to another woman like this, with such aching hunger, both tender and earthshaking…
Dani: proof that Walter had been unfaithful; he’d bragged about his relationship with Shelly to Pearl. Living proof of his infidelity could not be tolerated.
Pearl had to move quickly. Her daughters were coming home from Walter’s sister for just a few days before that New York shopping spree she’d promised them. Then she’d herd them off to boarding school. Then the election for mayor—Walter was already on the town’s council; it was a logical next step.
She’d burned with excitement all day, working herself up to fever pitch, making herself strong.
She had to clean up Madrid to her satisfaction, remove the woman who had borne Walter’s child, and the woman who had slurred Pearl’s ancestry. Uma was also the Keeper in Madrid, and she’d known Pearl when she was a sniveling child, protected her. But Pearl didn’t want people to remember her that way. She’d removed evidence before, and in her own mind, she thought of herself as a methodical cleaning woman.
Clyde, her coming-out personality, had served his purpose, an insulating buffer from which she would emerge as powerful and in charge of her life. She’d needed to step into Clyde to shed her burdensome, lifetime inhibitions.
While Walter snored in his room, his nightly drinks laced with drugs, she paced her small feminine retreat, her anger brewing.
The fool. The Toad, as she thought of Walter, now that she was stronger, didn’t see what was happening. He didn’t recognize Mitchell Warren as a political threat. Madrid wanted Mitchell’s influence on big business. He had been a top executive, and as such he could manage a town—or as Farley Parks, an old-timer, was spouting at the coffee shop, “A man doesn’t get that high up without something in his noggin.”
If the Toad could not pull votes as Madrid’s mayor after all she had done for him, he was disposable. She couldn’t carry him forever. If he was showing poorly just before the election, she would simply do away with him and step into that office herself. Sympathy went a long way in Madrid, and she knew how to use that.
She knew also how to use Uma, one of the most important people in the fabric of Madrid.
Pearl shrugged as she rocked
her back against the wall, fueling her hatred of Uma. “How dare she malign my bloodline! How dare she!”
She studied her manicured nails, admiring the glossy finish. Uma had a weakness—her softness, her need to nurture and help, her selflessness. Pearl smiled tightly, then began priming herself as poor, helpless, defeated Pearl, battered by life and needing her close friend. She wiped the tears from her eyes, sniffed, and called Uma.
Uma’s voice sounded distracted, as though she was working on her computer.
“I’m so sorry, Uma,” Pearl burst out, throwing herself into the role. “I shouldn’t have spoken about the Warrens that way. I miss you so. Please, please, forgive me.”
Her sob was perfect, caught right in her throat, her voice bordering on the hysterical edge that Uma had never ignored. She smiled coldly as Uma said, “Pearl, what’s wrong?”
“I just can’t manage without my friend. I’m horribly sorry. I was just so upset by all this work, and the charity bazaar is coming up. Please, please forgive me.”
She studied her nails while Uma’s familiar soothing voice cruised over the telephone. “Oh, good. You’ll come, then? First thing in the morning? Oh, how can I ever thank you?”
Pearl replaced the telephone and began to dance around the room, clapping her hands. “Uma and Shelly and Mitchell…Uma and Shelly and Mitchell…”
EIGHTEEN
At eight o’clock the next morning, Uma swung into the work she had promised to do with Pearl, helping clean her overstuffed closet. While Uma wondered how any woman could manage to buy so many clothes, Pearl rummaged the garage for more packing boxes.
The small room that Pearl labeled her “retreat” was softly lit from the sunlight passing through the window’s ruffled sheers. A delicate table stood next to a cream-colored velvet chaise longue laden with mounds of the clothing and shoes that Pearl had decided to donate to charity. The lid to a small secretary stood closed, and across its top were stacks of decorating and fashion magazines.
In contrast to her cozy “retreat,” Pearl’s walk-in closet was massive, and mirrors lined her huge private bathroom.
Uma glanced at the deadbolt on the door and decided that if Walter was in the vicinity, locks might not be a bad idea, even for his wife. She remembered how shattered Pearl had been when she’d returned from her honeymoon. She’d been terrified, but she’d stayed with Walter against Uma’s advice. Until Pearl had had enough, no one could help her.
Uma yawned, feeling sated after a night spent with Mitchell. The walkie-talkies that Roman and Mitchell had insisted that Dani use in case of trouble had remained quiet throughout the night.
She smiled softly as she folded a summer lawn dress and placed it into a cardboard box marked “Dressy.” Shelly had that simmering, bubbling, blooming look of a woman well loved and wanting more. Roman had that quiet, tense expression of a man just waiting to get her alone.
The night had been quiet and that odd, cool stillness had come to Uma in the early morning, just as it had when Christina had died and when Lauren had been killed…as if all the world had stopped, waiting.
She hugged a raw silk jacket close to her. Whoever stalked Madrid knew the lives there; Uma prayed for just one clue, that if Mike knew anything—Walter…Mike…Walter…Uma breathed quietly as she remembered how excited Pearl had been when Walter had personally loaned a financially strapped Mike money in return for the mortgage of his house and Clyde’s Tavern.
Uma held the jacket close to her and looked out at the bright sunlight and listened to the slow dragging beat of her heart. A crow landed heavily on the branch outside the window; the branch bobbed with the weight, sunlit leaves shimmering as the bird seemed to peer at Uma through the glass.
Her hand passed over the jacket, smoothing it, and paper crackled within one pocket.
Uma reached into the pocket and pulled out a crumpled snapshot. She opened it carefully to find Walter standing by Shelly. It was one of Lauren’s first photographs with her new camera, and Uma remembered it had been in Lauren’s things, in her albums. Excited, she’d taken pictures at one of Pearl’s parties, capturing Walter and Shelly as they had talked. Walter’s head was inclined toward Shelly, his body position intimately close. Uma remembered the picture because Shelly’s expression had shown subtle distaste.
The picture had been crushed; Shelly’s face and body had been punched with holes.
Pearl entered the room, a glass of sweet tea topped with a wedge of lemon in each hand. “Mine is the one with the peppermint sprig. My great-great-great-grandmother Matilda used to serve—”
When she saw Uma’s expression and the picture in her hand, Pearl walked to the small secretary and placed the tea on top. She calmly reached to an ornate picture frame and removed a key, unlocking the closed front door of the secretary.
“I see you’ve found the proof,” she said quietly.
“Proof of what?” Uma asked as she found herself facing the large automatic in Pearl’s hand.
Above it, her friend’s face was a cold mask. Her careful makeup seemed etched on her face, almost cartoonish in contrast to her pale skin, her eyes glittering. The usual soft, vulnerable shape of her mouth had tightened as she spoke with command. “Let’s take a drive. We can talk later. Just remember, dear, that if anyone stops us, you could cause them to die just by betraying me. And yourself, of course. I’m a very good shot.”
She lifted the glass of tea with the lemon wedge. “But first, you must drink this. I couldn’t be so rude as to ignore my duty as a proper hostess.”
Uma took the glass and slowly ran her thumb down the outer beads of perspiration. An icy drop formed and plopped to the lush silver carpeting as suddenly she heard Lauren whisper again, “I’ll always be with you.”
When Uma hesitated, Pearl lifted the deadly muzzle of the gun. “Drink it. It’s got just a little of my special ingredient that Walter is getting to love so much…just a little something to relax you.”
I’ll always be with you…
“Why?” Was it possible that Pearl had something to do with Lauren’s death?
“Oh, not here, darling. I can’t explain here. You must know that there is a proper time and place for everything. If you want to know all the details of my little plan, you must be a good little girl and drink what Mommy has prepared for you. Surprises must be planned, you know, so drink and relax, and yours will come, all in due time. Oh, don’t worry, I’m not going to kill you now.”
“You’re not going to stop here, are you? With me?” Uma asked.
Pearl smiled tightly. “It depends how good you are. If you’re a bad girl, Mommy will punish your friends. I suggest you drink that…you don’t think I’ll shoot, do you? Think about the bullets in Shelly’s house, that scar I put on her head…think about Rosy and the barbed-wire necktie I gave her…think about your computer crash and all those little distracting accidents that Shelly has had this year. A magnet in my purse was all it took to ruin your computer files, dear. The perfect hostess as always, you were getting tea for me, leaving me alone in your office.”
“Shelly? You did all those things to Shelly?”
“I managed them. And then they just happened. I just turned on the stove when she wasn’t looking, cut her gas line—you remember her car fire? But she really did them to herself, like by turning that key.”
Because Uma feared that Pearl as she was now could actually carry out her threats, Uma drank slowly. She waited for just the right distraction, but Pearl leaned against the secretary, focused on her. “It’s just a little something to take the edge off, dear, don’t worry. I need you. But then, I’ve always needed you—and that’s your weakness, the eternal need to nurture and help. I’ve never had to worry about maternal urges. They must be a bother. You’re absolutely stuffed with maternal urges.”
The drink was taking effect; Uma’s body began to feel heavy. “Pearl, you have daughters. Don’t do this.”
Pearl shrugged and thoughtfully stroked the nuzzle against
her cheek. She took the glass from Uma and placed it carefully on a coaster. “They’ll do as they’re told. I did.”
Uma tried to ask, “Proof of what?” but the words weren’t clear, only a sheer fuzziness that deepened as Pearl wrapped her arm around Uma’s waist and managed her out of the room and down the hallway. “That’s right, dear, lean on me. Everything is going to be fine. Just be a good little girl.”
Uma gripped the curved walnut banister as they slowly made their way downstairs. She wanted to fight, but her body was too heavy, her mind suddenly unclear—
Then Pearl was easing her into a car seat, strapping her in. “Safety first,” Pearl said cheerfully. “Buckle up.”
Cold metal circled Uma’s wrist, clicking shut and imprisoning her, and then the other locking her hands together. A heavy cloth dropped over her. Uma felt the seat recline beneath her, until she was almost lying down, and she could feel the car easing out of the garage. Beneath the heavy cloth, she could barely breathe, the heat suffocating. “I want to go home. I want Mitchell.”
“Well, of course you do.” As she drove, Pearl patted Uma’s knee. “We’ll be there in just a minute. I want to show you something very special. Comfy?”
Uma felt herself helped out of the car and into a building, and then she was on a small creaking cot. “There, there, dear. Take a nice nap,” she heard Pearl say in the distance. “I’ll be back soon with Shelly. Won’t that be nice? All of us together? With no interruptions? And then we’ll have that little chat I’ve been promising you.”
Sunlight slanted across Shelly’s face, nudging her slowly awake. She opened her eyes to see that shaft of sunlight gleaming on Roman’s shoulder—
Shelly flattened to Roman’s bed, the wall on one side. Roman, his head propped on one hand was on the other side, studying her. In the shadows, his hair was rumpled, a dark stubble covering his jaw. He toyed with a strand of her hair, bringing it to his lips. “’Morning, sleepyhead.”
