Do Not Disturb

by Christie Ridgway

  “Then let’s go.” Hesitating, he looked around at the paintings again. “You know, there’s something familiar about the child.”

  Angel swallowed. “Cooper.” He couldn’t make the connection between her and Stephen Whitney. Not now. Not tonight, their last night. “Coo—”

  “Uncle Cooper!”

  They both swung toward Katie’s voice. She peeked in the tent opening. “Here you are,” she said. “I was looking for you.”

  “What do you need, Katydid?”

  “Whoa.” The girl was looking past Cooper, her eyes moving from one framed painting to another. “I…I didn’t really pay much attention when Mom showed them to me before.”

  Cooper strolled toward her. “You okay, sweetheart?”

  Katie swallowed. “Who…who is she?”

  “I don’t know,” her uncle said.

  Angel felt a pang of sympathy as she watched the teenager’s face change from curiosity to unhappiness to a frozen nonexpression. “He never painted me,” Katie said.

  Cooper betrayed no emotion except love. He smiled at his niece, hugging her close to him with one arm. “Ah, Katydid. You know what he always said when you badgered him about that. Your dad swore he couldn’t come close to the beauty nature—and your mother—had already created.”

  With that, he guided her out of the tent. Angel silently trailed them, listening to him redirect the conversation to the hot day, the hot night, then to the fact that Judd had called and asked Katie to retrieve the kittens from his cottage and take them back to her house.

  When the little animals had been rounded up and placed in a plastic kennel for the trip, Cooper glanced at Katie and then told Angel he would walk his niece home.

  “I’ll hurry back,” he whispered as he passed her. “Wait for me in bed.”

  Angel went back to her own cottage for a cool shower. Studiously ignoring the little desk and what was sitting there, she re-dressed. Then, carrying her nightgown and robe, she walked out into the still, warm air.

  She slipped through Cooper’s door and minutes later slipped into her nightgown and into his bed. Leaning back against the pillows, she pushed her troubles from her head and promised herself to create a last night he’d never forget.

  Cooper strode down the path through the guest cottages on the way toward his own. And Angel. If she’d disobeyed instructions and wasn’t in his bed this time, he was going to forget good manners and good sense and go after her.

  This was their last night.

  He pushed the ache of that thought away and focused instead on the anticipation. Already his body was growing heavy. He could almost feel her velvet skin against his palms, the weight of her—

  “Cooper!”

  He started. His head jerked right. “Mrs. Withers? Is everything okay?”

  The small light outside her door turned her white hair a flat yellow. “I heard something.”

  “Heard something?” He walked closer. “An animal?”

  “A hum.”

  “A hum?” He frowned, then he laughed, a little embarrassed. He’d been singing “Hakuna Matata” in his head. “I’m sorry. That was me. I hum when I’m, uh…” Happy. He was happy? “It’s a habit.”

  “Not that kind of hum,” she corrected. “An electronic hum, from that writer’s cottage. Miss Buchanan’s.” Her finger pointed in the direction of Angel’s place.

  “Oh. Well. Ah.” A hum?

  A hum. In the next instant, his mind spun back to something Angel had said the first night she’d arrived. And then it spun away on an image of her and that vibrator she’d claimed to have with her.

  Feeling his face flush hot, he cleared his throat and dragged his attention back to Mrs. Withers. “When, uh, when exactly did you notice this hum?”

  “Just a few minutes ago, when I passed by her cottage on my walk before bed. You better go do something about it. There are rules, after all.”

  “Sure, yes. Rules, Mrs. Withers.” Cooper stumbled backward, almost landing on his ass when he tripped over a root. “I’ll take care of it.”

  He nearly ran to Angel’s, his pulse pumping. Did she have something special up her sleeve for their last night? A surprise? On that thought, he knocked once, then turned the knob. She knew he would come looking for her.

  But the cottage was empty of Angel, he realized with disappointment. Her desk wasn’t empty, though. Her laptop computer was sitting there, its screen dark, but still humming away.

  Brat. Smiling to himself, he recalled that he’d returned all her electronic stuff days ago, when he thought she was leaving the first time. She’d never reminded him to take it away again.

  Reaching the desk, he stretched out a finger and ran it over the computer’s black plastic casing. In his house in San Francisco’s Twin Peaks, he had a similar model. This close, the computer’s hum was very loud, almost a buzz.

  He swallowed a laugh, because that’s what listening to the noise was giving him. A buzz. It brought back to him the intoxication of work, of research, of the word of the law. God, he’d loved it. God, he missed it.

  Still stroking the computer, Cooper closed his eyes. He’d confessed it to Angel and it was true—he was idealistic. Whether it was because of his dad’s last words to him—always do the right thing—or because an overdeveloped sense of justice had overdeveloped into a championship of the needy, his work had fascinated him.

  Tomorrow, when Angel left, he’d lose the only other thing that had ever fascinated him as much.

  God, no!

  His hand jerked as he rejected the thought. His fingers must have brushed a key, because the computer emitted a tiny electronic burp and the screen burst to life, filled with words.

  Words that jumped out at him. “Stephen Whitney,” “my father,” “abandonment,” “adultery.”

  Cooper paged through the entire document.

  Betrayal.

  Chapter 19

  Angel couldn’t let it end like this.

  The longer she waited alone in Cooper’s bed, the more certain she was of that. And she was certain that the night was hot, too hot for even the light nightgown she wore. Not too much for the warm temperature, but too much between her and Cooper.

  In defiance of her usually modest nature, tonight she had to be closer to him. She had to be skin-to-skin from the very first instant.

  Determined to have that, she drew the flimsy fabric over her head and dropped it to the floor. Then she sat up against the pillows, buck-naked beneath the sheet. Her pulse was racing and so was her mind—racing over all her previous objections to involvement with men, racing through all the reasons that he was too good to walk away from.

  Yet Cooper hadn’t seemed the least concerned about her imminent departure. He wasn’t making plans for them to be together once he returned to San Francisco and his law firm. Why?

  Because, perhaps, his heart wasn’t involved like hers.

  But despite the evidence, she was beginning to doubt that. Hadn’t he said I want you with me that morning? He’d want her with him tomorrow too. Next week. Next month. She knew it deep in her heart, deep in the place where she’d found her love for him.

  So why would he let her walk?

  Because Angel Buchanan doesn’t need anybody. He’d said that too.

  He was letting go because she’d never let him see how much she needed to be held.

  The sound of the cottage door opening made her jump. Angel’s hands started to shake and she tried to control it by squeezing them together. But then she unlaced her fingers and let them rest, trembling, on her sheet-covered lap. Hadn’t she decided that hiding her vulnerability to him would only get her a goodbye?

  His footsteps came toward the bedroom, thudding slow and steady against the tiled floors. When he reached the doorway, she leaned over and switched on the small bedside lamp. “There you are,” she said. “I—I’ve been thinking about you.”

  She felt his gaze touch her face, flick down to her bare shoulders and then to the s
heet tucked over her breasts. “Oh yeah?”

  She swallowed, the dark note in his voice sounding like a warning. But no! That was her fear talking. “Yeah,” she echoed, trying to smile as she patted the place beside her. “I missed you.”

  Instead of taking her up on her invitation, he leaned against the doorjamb. The lamplight was only strong enough to glance off his cheekbones and his chin, leaving the rest of his face in deep shadow.

  He looked different—leaner, darker, harder.

  Cursing her knee-jerk defenses again, she tried to suppress the shiver snaking down her back. Seeing a villain on every street corner had kept her safe…but it had kept her alone too. She didn’t want that anymore.

  “I’m trying to change,” she blurted out.

  He didn’t move. “Is that right?”

  There was tension in the room, the air was crackling with it, but she couldn’t tell if it was something separate from the sexual awareness and the emotional upheaval that were so tangled up inside of her. “I, uh, I want to be honest with you.”

  “Sounds promising.”

  Her stomach knotted. Did she detect a remoteness in his voice or was it just her suspicious nature imagining the worst?

  She thought of Cooper with Katie, with his sisters, the way he supported them, touched them, dispensing easy affection and genuine love. She remembered the warmth in his eyes when he’d looked at her earlier that day. I want you with me.

  There was nothing to be frightened of, not with Cooper. He wouldn’t hurt her.

  “I’m waiting,” he reminded her. “What was it you said? You wanted to tell me something…or was it show me something?”

  Show him something! Yes. Her heart. How much she loved him. The future they could have together. “Show you something,” she agreed.

  “Sounds even more promising. Why don’t you drop the sheet?”

  She blinked. “What?”

  “Drop the sheet. It’s nearly up to your ears. You’re acting like I’ve never seen you before.”

  “Well…I…” Heat bloomed on her skin. Surely he realized she wasn’t the most natural nudist in the world. But it was symbolic, wasn’t it, laying bare her heart?

  Edging away from the circle of lamplight cast across the bed, she took a deep breath and let the sheet slide. It slithered over the top slope of her breasts, caught briefly on her nipples, fell to her waist.

  The night air was warm, she knew it was, but her revealed flesh prickled with a million goosebumps. Her nipples tightened in a rush, contracting to hard, aching points. She dug her fingers into the covers to stop from throwing her arms over herself.

  “Pretty,” Cooper said. “Now let’s see the rest.”

  The tone of his voice plucked at her stretched nerves. There was sex in the rawness of it, an edge that was exciting. Disquieting.

  “You trust me, don’t you?”

  She did. And she was willing to do whatever it took to demonstrate that. Taking a breath, she made another surreptitious move away from the lamplight. Then she shoved the sheet to her ankles.

  The overhead light blazed on.

  Angel froze, paralyzed by the sudden brightness. “Wha—?” Her hands grabbed for the covers.

  But he had them quicker, and with a jerk, whipped them off the bed and threw them onto the floor. “How does it feel?” he asked, his voice hoarse. “How do you like being exposed?”

  Angel rolled, but he was faster again. Before she could fling herself from the bed, he was on it too, holding her shoulders to the pillows. “What are you doing?” Her voice sounded unnatural. Weak.

  “I’m letting you know how it feels to have your flaws laid bare to the light.” His gaze flicked down her naked body. “Not that I can find any on the outside.”

  She tried to get up again, but he pushed her back onto the pillows. “What’s your problem, Cooper?” she demanded.

  “My ‘problem’ is you. The real you.”

  Oh God. She sagged against the cushy feathers, wishing she could believe this was a nightmare. “What…what do you know?”

  “I believe it’s finally the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. I was in your cottage. I read the story on your laptop.”

  Stomach rolling, Angel closed her eyes and nodded. “It’s true,” she said, forcing the words from her tight throat and dry mouth. “All true.”

  “Did you think you could get away with it? Waltz in here on a lie and then waltz out with our secrets?”

  She didn’t know what she’d thought. Or rather, she’d been deliberately not thinking ever since she’d taken her fingers off the keyboard that morning. After overhearing Beth, she’d run to her laptop and written her exposé of Stephen Whitney in a white-hot, righteous heat. She’d written it in pain and she’d written it in anger. For all of them.

  “So you’re Stephen’s daughter.”

  Angel opened her eyes and met Cooper’s cold gaze. She reached for the anger again, trying to grab for it with both hands. Anger had always been there for her. It had been her protection too. “Yes, I’m his daughter.”

  “And the rest of it…?”

  “I found out this morning. Beth was talking to Judd, and she said—”

  Angel broke off as Cooper shot up from the bed. “I don’t want to hear it,” he ground out.

  “All right.” She swallowed hard, refusing to give in and wrap her arms around her nakedness.

  “I don’t want to see you again either.”

  “All right.”

  He grabbed her robe from the nearby chair and tossed it at her. “Here.”

  She shoved her arms through the sleeves, then wrapped it securely around her body as if it could hold her composure together too. Though she knew the temperature hadn’t changed, the night suddenly felt as cold as Cooper’s eyes, and she shivered as her bare feet touched the tile.

  He leaned against a long dresser, watching her. “Now get out. Get the hell out.”

  She shivered again. “Don’t worry, I’m going back to San Francisco.”

  He sucked in a harsh breath, looked away. “In the morning. I don’t want you on that road in the dark.”

  “Hah.” With a huge leap of imagination, the sound she made could be called a laugh. “You’re still the protector of the innocent and weak?”

  He shot her a look. “I’ve always known you’re neither, believe me. But promise you won’t leave until it’s light.”

  “You’d take my word?”

  “If you give it.”

  A strange calm was descending on Angel, as if this were a dream. Maybe she could pretend the past three weeks weren’t real. Later, if any memories popped up to plague her, certainly she could banish them with the same disdain that Cooper was using to banish her.

  “All right,” she said. “I’ll wait until morning.”

  His hands were braced on the dresser behind him. As she hurried past, the skirt of her floor-length robe brushed his leg.

  He flinched. “We took you into our lives. You betrayed us.”

  In the doorway, Angel paused, trying to deflect her hurt. “Well, there you go,” she finally said. “Now you know how that feels.” Then she squared her shoulders and moved on.

  The next morning, Cooper stood in the retreat’s gravel parking lot and helped the last of the guests into the monastery’s van, then waved it off. The morning was another hot one, blazing hot, with a stiff, dry wind that was waving the pine branches and rattling the leaves in the oak trees.

  As he turned to walk back to the retreat, his gaze found Angel’s car, lingered. Stacked in the backseat, he recognized the suitcases he’d trundled to her cottage that first night.

  Despite everything, he almost smiled at that memory, remembering her chatter, her dismay upon seeing her utilitarian accommodations, the way she’d tried to protect her hairdryer from confiscation.

  If only he could turn time back. He’d been wanting to do that since the very first chest pain, of course, but now he found himself wanting to retu
rn to a time that was after the heart attacks and the surgery.

  But before he’d discovered Angel Buchanan’s true colors.

  Identity.

  Whatever.

  He heard footsteps on the gravel and turned. There was Angel, her hair kicked up by the wind and floating around her shoulders, her heaven-blue eyes wary. As their gazes met, her feet faltered. She stared at him too, and he swore he heard a sound, the quick ftthht of a striking match. The very air seemed to catch fire.

  With a jerky movement, she broke their gazes and beelined for her car as if he weren’t there. He told himself to ignore the combustion too. His feet scraping on the gravel, he strode off in the opposite direction. All the goodbye necessary had already been said. Right?

  Right. He didn’t want to have any more to do with her. He didn’t want to spend any more time near her.

  Then, he might remember how she burned in his arms. Then, he might remember how she made him laugh. Then, he might remember that his bastard brother-in-law had left her to run, fearing for her life.

  His fingers curling into fists, he spun around again. He watched as she stowed her laptop and briefcase in the passenger seat, then slammed the door. In tight-fitting black pants and a matching sleeveless top, black high-heeled sandals on her feet, she was city-chic.

  He stalked toward her, his imagination placing her on a San Francisco sidewalk. He’d recognize that gilt hair from fifty paces, and he’d hurry through the crowd to catch her. In his mind’s eye, he saw himself grip his briefcase tighter and jog around strolling tourists and the business types slowed by the cell phones against their ears.

  There were a million details in his head, the complexities of his current court case, the back-to-back filing dates that could give an attorney fits, the ever-present organizational decisions of co-owning a law firm. But when he glimpsed Angel, their heavy weight lifted. When he was near enough to smell her sophisticated fragrance, his world brightened. His perspective righted itself—living first, work second—when he touched her shoulder.

  Now she whirled to face him, and imagination and reality collided. Damn it! What was wrong with him? Why had he allowed himself this close to her again? This was the woman who had taken advantage of him and his family.