by Vicki Hinze
“Here we go again.” No. No, they were not going to rehash old news. “Did your parents disapprove of you marrying someone beneath you financially? Was that it?” Damn it, now she was going to cry again. She just didn’t understand it. She’d never been a weeper. Her father would have been disgusted, her mother mortified. And neither of them would have spoken a word to her for a month. Maybe two.
“You’re right,” John’s eyes glittered, dark and angry. “The subject is closed.” He grabbed the knob and tried to jerk the door open.
It wouldn’t budge.
John tried again. The knob was turning, and the clicking sound proved the slide-bolt was freeing from the jamb. So why wouldn’t the door open?
“What’s wrong?”
“It’s stuck.” Clamping his jaw, he looked at the thing. Didn’t appear swollen and he failed to see any reason it shouldn’t open. But it wouldn’t. His gaze lit on the brass hinges. No problem. If the knob wouldn’t work, the hinges would.
He looked around for something to work with, rifled through the desk drawer and, in the long center one, he found a letter opener. It wasn’t a screwdriver, but it would do.
“What are you doing?” Bess scrambled off the bed and stood beside him.
Crouched down at the door, he removed the lower pin from the hinge, then stretched up to remove the top one. “The door won’t open, so I’m taking it off the hinges.” He couldn’t talk about his parents. He’d never had the luxury of doing that with anyone. And if Bess ever had loved him, she’d have respected that.
“It won’t do any good.”
The top hinge pin popped out. He braced to catch the door. It didn’t shift so much as a fraction of an inch.
“John.” She touched his arm, her hand trembling. “Jonathan, it’s not the door.”
“What?” John darted his gaze to her.
“It’s Tony.” Bess lowered her voice to soften the blow. “I feel him here, and I think he means for us to stay put.”
You’re exactly right, Bess, I do.
John and Bess locked gazes.
Tony?
Yes, Jonathan?
Would you open the damn door, please?
Of course.
Now?
No, Bess. Not just yet.
When?
That depends on the two of you.
Oh God.
Bess, you can stop shaking like a leaf I’m not going to hurt you. Jonathan was right about that. I mean you no harm.
What are you going to do to us, then?
Nothing.
Then why keep us locked in here?
You need a little time together, Jonathan.
Terrific. He’s encouraging again.
What?
Encouraging. I call it nagging, but he takes offense to the word. He “merely encourages,” he says.
That’s right, I do.
So we’re staying here until we’re encouraged. Well, I’m so glad you two cleared that up for me.
How long you’re here, Jonathan, depends entirely on the two of you.
What do you mean?
I’m encouraging you, as Bess suggested.
To do what?
Jonathan, don’t shout at him. He’s a ghost, for God’s sake. Do you really want to tangle tempers with a ghost?
To do what?
Ah, that’s much better. Bess is right. I do strongly oppose shouting. Hattie’s father was a shouter and it upset her immensely.
You know Miss Hattie?
They were engaged, Bess. Tony died during the war.
Bess gasped.
Are you going to faint?
No. No, it’s not that.
Well, what is it?
It’s that real love—like the legend of Collin and Cecelia.
A little different. They got to spend their lives together. For Hattie and me . . . it’s been different.
But you’re here. You’re still here.
I love her.
Yes. And you made her promises that you’ve kept. Bess slid John a reprimanding look. Even dead, he kept his promises.
Bess, don’t be hard on Jonathan. Sometimes promises perceived as broken aren’t.
What?
Sometimes the person who promised is doing his best to keep his word. It doesn’t look like it, and maybe you don’t feel as if that’s the case, but it is. Sometimes there are extenuating circumstances. Wouldn’t you agree, Jonathan?
John looked away, his jaw carved of granite. Maybe. Maybe not. Look, we’ll try to keep that in mind—your opposition to shouting. So what’s the plan?
The plan?
What do we have to do to get out of this room?
It’s really simple. You and Bess should have no difficulty whatsoever. All you have to do is to talk to each other.
We’ve been talking.
As Jonathan said earlier, Bess, truth is truth, and what you’ve been doing is shouting and evading the truth.
I get it.
You do? What does he mean, Jonathan?
We’ll be stuck in here ’til hell freezes over.
That’s absurd. Ridiculous. Tell him it isn’t so, Tony.
I can’t.
What?
Quit shouting. He’s a ghost, remember?
Sorry.
I have every intention of letting you out.
When?
When?
Just as soon as you both get civilized.
Good grief.
Like, I said. ’Til hell freezes over.
Jonathan, I don’t appreciate the innuendo that I’m—
Innuendo? I said it straight out, Bess.
I insist you apologize for it, too.
Civilized! Tony shouted to gain their attention. Both of you!
Now you’ve done it, Jonathan Mystic. He’s furious.
Me?
Yes, you.
I suggest you stop slinging blame and think about my message. I told you it was significant, Bess.
What message?
His “leap upon a mystic tide” one.
I heard it on the radio, remember? Do you know what it means?
No.
Do you, Jonathan? Tony asked.
No.
Then you’ll both stay here until you do.
“You can’t be serious!” Bess spoke aloud. “Tony? Tony, don’t you leave us here.”
John waited for it to occur to her that Tony had gone. John had recognized it instantly, the second he could no longer hear Bess’s voice inside his head. Tony had told John he could arrange three-way conversations, but John hadn’t realized that during them he and Bess would be able to communicate with each other telepathically.
“I don’t believe this!” Bess groused, began pacing and verbally blasting all men.
A minute passed, then two, and then two more. And still she showed no signs of winding down. Surprised, John lay down on her bed and watched her pace the floor, shout curses on Tony’s head—and more than a few on John’s own. Her eyes glittered a blue that put the ocean to shame. Her face flushed a ravishing pink that captivated him. Riled and unmasked, she was just as he’d always imagined she would be: magnificent.
And still so beautiful that looking at her hurt.
Bryce had said she had changed. And, God, had she. Never once in their marriage had he seen her so loose with her emotions. In bed, she’d been warm and passionate, clearly loving and, at times, lusty, but even then she’d held a part of herself back. Out of bed, she’d been all cool and sleek, cashmere and eel-skin. But now, now, she was feisty, fiery; totally adorable—and even more desirable.
And just once before she divorced him and married that sorry Spaniard, John had to see if she’d changed in bed as well as out of it. Just once, he had to see her in his arms, them loving, and her not holding back.
Just once, he had to know that, to her, he held value.
Chapter 8
Well, how long is it going to be before you can get to it, Jimmy?” The tulip-shaped phone receiver
at her ear, Bess glided her thumb along the edge of the little vanilla-scented shell on the desk and looked out of the turret room window at the flower gardens, at the forest and hills beyond them.
“It’s kind of hard to say.”
Covertly, she glanced over at John Mystic. Planted squarely in the middle of her four-poster bed, his head on her plump blue pillows, he lay stretched out, his hands stacked behind his head, his legs crossed at his ankles, and his to-die-for body wrapped in her silk robe. It was the only thing she owned large enough to cover the essential parts of him until his own clothes dried—or until Tony got over his snit and let them out of this room. Jonathan should look ridiculous. But he didn’t.
Lust with a kick. Inwardly, Bess sighed. If the man had an ounce of decency or compassion, he’d have gotten slouchy. “Do you have any idea?”
“I ain’t exactly sure how long it’ll be, Mrs. Myst—I mean, Mrs. Cameron. The rain has me pretty backed up and, with the wind blowing like it is, I can’t be putting your car or anyone else’s up on the rack.”
“But the rack is inside, isn’t it?” The Great White Room was spacious, charming. But with John in it, it seemed small and close and crowded, as if its heavy furniture suddenly had grown too large and its spackled ceiling and paneled walls were closing in on her.
“Yes, ma’am. The rack’s inside the shop, but I have to have the bay door open—Village Ordinance—and it creates a kind of wind tunnel. Could knock your car clean off.”
“All right.” Bess suffered a shaft of disappointment. To get past it, she focused on the sweet-smelling, yellow daffodils in a slender cut-crystal vase atop the chest of drawers, at the two heavy-stemmed water glasses beside it. “But please, as soon as you can, okay?”
“Yes, ma’am. As soon as it’s time. You can count on it.”
“Thanks.” She cradled the receiver, grabbed her hairbrush from the dresser, then walked over to the turret room. Dragging the bristles through her hair, liking the grating friction against her scalp, she looked outside. Wind whipped through the pines, blowing blustery sheets of rain that had leaves dancing and the window panes spotting. Miss Hattie’s impatiens were taking a beating. Feeling a little bruised herself, Bess lifted her gaze to the gloomy, swirling clouds. Turbulent. But not a bit more so than she felt. This entire situation rattled her. It was just too bizarre.
Panic welled in her stomach. Hoping the sound of her own voice, the feel of her own senses, would reassure her she was all right and would keep panic at bay, she pressed her cheek to the cold glass. “Still raining like crazy out there, John.”
No answer.
She glanced over at him. “Are you napping?” His eyes closed, his expression relaxed, the arrogant jerk reeked of peace. “We’ve been stuck in here for hours. “How can you nap?”
He let out a heartfelt sigh that really irritated her and pulled himself up on an elbow. “It’s not easy with you spewing fire and brimstone. Why don’t you give it a rest?”
“Because I’m angry. And I’m hungry and thirsty. And I’d really like to see the inside of a bathroom again, preferably in the near future.” Because she’d lost control of her emotions in front of him, because she’d damned patience and grace to obscurity forever with her outrageous tirade, she’d also embarrassed herself half to death. But she refrained from mentioning it. No sense being redundant and, if the fire burning her face fairly gauged, only a blind man would miss knowing it without being told. Jonathan Mystic, smirk intact, obviously was not a blind man.
She slapped her brush onto the desk. It landed with a thunk and, catching a whiff of the potpourri, she lifted the shell. Why the little thing had a soothing effect on her, she didn’t know. But considering her agitation, she’d take any soothing she could get from wherever she could get it. Lord, but she was tired. Fear of Tony zapping her and John to Pluto, or doing something equally horrid and unprecedented, had her anxiety hovering at skyscraper level. Never in her life had she undergone such a potent adrenaline surge. It’d thoroughly depleted her energy reserves. Her lids were drooping and her limbs felt like lead. To recharge her batteries, she needed sleep in a bad way. Right now, she couldn’t tell if her own behavior ranked passive, aggressive, or repressive. Forget trying to analyze Jonathan’s. Tony’s, however, was easy. Definitely aggressive. And manipulative.
She stifled a sigh. Sad, but that embraced all the emotion she could muster. “Aren’t you at all concerned about being held prisoner, Jonathan?”
“Of course I’m concerned.” He didn’t so much as crank open an eyelid.
“Well, would you just spare a minute to look like it?”
“Quit snipping at me, Bess. I didn’t lock us in here.”
He was right. “I’m sorry.” Skirting the rug that earlier had tripped and landed her in her husband’s arms, she walked over to him. “Can we please just get civilized so we can get the heck out of here?”
“I’ve been civilized. You’re the one who’s called Tony everything under the sun and paced grooves in Miss Hattie’s floor. I’ll bet she won’t appreciate what you did to the sill, trying to open the window either.”
“It’s just a little gouge.” Good grief, could her face get any hotter? “I’ll have it repaired—if we ever get out of here.” If Tony had meant that they had to solve his puzzle before leaving this room, they’d die of old age staring at these walls—or of starvation. Surely he hadn’t been serious. He couldn’t have been serious. Could he?
“You need sleep.” John folded a hand over his chest. “When you’re tired, you’re always cranky.”
“I am tired.” She was cranky, too. And getting crankier. Rubbing the instep of her left foot with the arch of, her right one, she debated asking Jonathan for a foot massage then decided against it. He sounded prickly and more rejection from him she didn’t need. “I told you I didn’t sleep well.”
“You slept like a rock, darling.” He grunted, punched his pillow, then returned his arm to his chest. “You were in bed with me, remember?”
“I didn’t say I didn’t sleep, Jonathan.” Lord, did the man have to notice everything? And why wasn’t he uncomfortable, lying there swathed in pink silk? He should be disturbed, his male ego wounded. Instead he had the audacity to look totally at ease and . . . cute.
Her stomach furled and she cast a pleading look at his clothes. Still and lifeless, they hung on hangers snagged to the turret room drapery rod. She stared at his shorts, silently ordering them to get dry now so he could get his sexy self back into them and stop lounging in her bed, on her pillow, nude beneath her robe, with her silk caressing his skin . . .
Her heartbeat sprinted from a crawl to a canter. The flutters in her belly grew stronger and a groan eased up her throat. She swallowed it back down. He was making her crazy. Violating her territory, her senses. Making her remember things better forgotten. She fisted her hands and clamped her jaw. “I said I didn’t sleep well, not that I didn’t sleep. There’s a difference.”
“Oh.” Clearly ignoring her stiff tone, he patted the mattress beside him. “Well, come take a nap with me, then we’ll get civil.”
Why bother? The man was too slow or too stubborn to know he’d been verbally swatted. Stubborn. He might be many things, but slow didn’t rank among them. And she was tired; beyond tired, actually. Thanks to the non-slouch in her bed, she’d gotten little sleep last night and, between worrying about him on the cliffs, the storm, and Tony’s surreal antics, she’d spent the entire morning in trauma. It might only be late afternoon, but it felt like the back side of midnight. Maybe if she slept a few minutes she would feel better.
Fighting a yawn, she crawled over John, brushing his stomach with her knee, then settled off his side, dead certain she’d never nod off for so much as a wink. Not with him so close, radiating heat and looking more tempting than a quart of Double Chocolate Fudge ice cream. Not a wink, not a chance.
He turned off the lamp. Though only late afternoon, the storm had the room filled with dusky shadow
s. “You know, you always do that.”
She scrunched the pillow and tugged at the hem of her sweatshirt. July in Maine didn’t resemble it in New Orleans. The room was downright chilly. Tempted to slide under the comforter, she opted to freeze. When he looked scrumptious and smelled so sweet—Lord, but she loved that Obsession cologne of his—and when she wasn’t scared witless, creating a warm cocoon with John Mystic definitely wasn’t a smart move. “What do I always do?”
He forked his fingers along his scalp, ruffling his hair. “Crawl over me rather than walk around.”
She hadn’t thought about it, but she always had done that. “Does it bother you?”
“No. But it used to be a lot more fun.” He grinned mischievously and cracked open his left eye. “You used to take your time up top and visit a little.”
She had. Yet more heat spiked up her neck to her cheeks. She quickly turned away, stared at the vanity in the corner. Her hip smarted, where she’d banged it on the boxes in his room: a firm reminder to keep her mind on the business at hand—which certainly did not include complicating matters further by again getting physically involved with John. It was disconcerting, not being terrified and being in bed again with a husband she hadn’t made love with in six years. But it wouldn’t be making love. It . . . wouldn’t.
Her head was convinced. Abstinence and avoidance definitely rated wise on its choice list. However, her body rebelled. Before it would agree, it needed a deep and serious dose of convincing. The magic kept challenging her logic, and her senses rioted, plaguing her with an acute awareness of his every nuance. And that knocked her further off-kilter, upsetting her even more. Only John could portray a woman’s fantasy of masculinity while wearing a dusty pink woman’s robe. Only he could smell like the earth and man and the sea and something so uniquely him that a woman craved burying her face at the cove of his neck and inhaling deeply. Only his sounds and sights and scents could make a woman yearn to touch him so desperately that the thought alone had her fingertips tingling and her blood heating and rushing through her veins.
