She’d tied her hair back, his only complaint about her appearance that morning. He liked it best wild and loose, but the binding did leave an intriguing spill of red down the center of her back.
He’d like to lay his lips there—beneath the spill of hair, beneath the soft, thin dress, and onto the smooth skin at the center of her back.
“Good morning, gorgeous.”
She jerked when he spoke and turned away from the door. His opening grin faded instantly, and his eyes went dark at the shock still mirrored in hers.
“What is it? What happened?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” Damn it, her hands were going to shake again. “You startled me.” She angled her body enough to hide the tremor in her hand as she unlocked the door. “Sorry, Sam, no time for a neighborly chat. I have work.”
“Don’t pull that on me.” He moved through the door with her before she could attempt to shut it and lock it in his face. “I know you.”
“No, you don’t.” Her voice wanted to rise, and she refused to allow it. As casually as possible, she set her satchel on the front counter. “You don’t know me.”
“I know when you’re upset. Christ, Mia, you’re shaking. Your hands are like ice,” he said as he snatched one and held it between his own. “Tell me what happened.”
“It’s nothing.” She’d thought she was calm. She’d thought she was steady again. But her legs wanted to give. Pride made her lock them stiff. “Damn it, let me go.”
He nearly did. “No,” he decided, moving closer. “I did that once. Let’s try something new.” He scooped her off her feet.
“What the hell do you think you’re doing?”
“You’re cold, and shaking. You need to sit down. Put on a little weight, haven’t you?”
She sent him one withering look. “Oh, really?”
“It looks good on you.” He carried her to the sofa, set her down. He pulled the bright throw off the back and tucked it around her.
“Now. Tell me.”
“Don’t sit on the—” She bit off a sigh because he’d already lowered himself to the coffee table facing her. “I see you never have figured out the difference between a table and a chair.”
“They’re both in the furniture family. There, you’ve got some color coming back. Good thing I came along to annoy you.”
“Just my lucky day.”
He took her hand again, warming it in his. “What scared you, baby?”
“Don’t call me that.” He had only used that term, she remembered, when he was being particularly sweet. She let her head rest back against the cushions. “It’s just . . . I had a near miss on the drive down. A dog jumped out in the road. The roads were damp with the mist, and I skidded.”
His grip tightened on hers. “I don’t think so.”
“Why would I lie?”
“I don’t know.” He held on until she stopped trying to pull her hand free. “But something’s off. I imagine I could find out for myself if I took a drive up the coast road.”
“Don’t.” Fear grabbed her by the throat so that the single word was thin and urgent. “Don’t,” she repeated with more control. “It isn’t for you, but at this point I can’t be sure it won’t take what it can get. Let go of my hand, and I’ll tell you.”
“Tell me,” he countered, knowing the value of the link, “and I’ll let go of your hand.”
“All right,” she managed after a vicious internal struggle. “Your way. This time.”
She told him, sparing none of the details but keeping her tone even, almost conversational. Even so, she saw his expression change.
“Why aren’t you wearing protection?” he demanded.
“I am.” She lifted the trio of crystals dangling from a star-shaped pendant. “It wasn’t enough. He’s strong. He’s had three centuries to gather his forces, nurse his powers. Even so, he couldn’t cause me real harm. He can only play tricks.”
“This trick might’ve caused you to have an accident. You were probably driving too fast.”
“Please, you’ll force me to pull out the old pot calling the kettle.”
“I didn’t nearly drive off a cliff.” He pushed to his feet, paced away the terrifying image of Mia doing exactly that.
He hadn’t anticipated this kind of direct, frontal attack on her. And, he thought, neither had she. Confidence in their own powers, he realized, had blindsided them.
“You’d have taken extra precautions with your home.”
“I protect what’s mine.”
“You neglected your car,” he said, tossing a look over his shoulder and having the satisfaction of seeing her flush.
“I certainly did not neglect it. I have the standard charms—”
“Standard isn’t enough, as you’ve just discovered.”
Her teeth clenched at being told how to conduct herself, but she nodded. “Point taken.”
“Meanwhile, I’d prefer to give him back some of his own rather than constantly taking the defense.”
She got to her feet. “This isn’t for you, isn’t about you.”
“No point in wasting time arguing that point, as we both know I’m part of it.”
“You’re not one of the three.”
“No, I’m not.” He stepped back to her. “But I’m of the three. My blood and your blood, Mia, spring from the same pool. My power and your power feed from the same source. It links us, however much you might prefer otherwise. You need me with you to finish this.”
“What I need isn’t yet clear.”
He lifted a hand, grazing a knuckle over the line of her jaw. An old gesture. “And what you want?”
“Wanting you sexually isn’t life and death, Sam. It’s scratching a vague itch.”
“Vague?” Amusement brightened his face as his hand slid around to cup the back of her neck.
“Vague,” she repeated and let his mouth come to hers, let it rub teasingly. And entice. “Slight.”
“I was thinking more . . .” He danced the fingers of his free hand up and down her spine. “Constant. Chronic.” Nibbling on her, he eased her closer.
She kept her gaze on him, her arms at her sides. “Desire’s only a hunger.”
“You’re right. Let’s eat.”
He ravished her mouth, shifting so swiftly from gentle warmth to raging heat that she had no choice but to plunge with him.
Her hands gripped his hips, squeezed, then ran roughly up his back to hook like talons over his shoulders. If he would push her to the brink, she thought, she would push him harder—and further.
She let her head fall back, not a gesture of surrender but one of demand. Take more, if you dare. When he dared, she purred in pleasure.
Her scent seemed to pour over him, into him, until his belly ached and his head spun. In one desperate move he dragged her closer and prepared to fall with her onto the couch.
The front door opened. The cheerful jingle of bells might as well have been sirens.
“Go rent a damn room,” Lulu snapped and let the door slam behind her. It gave her dark satisfaction to watch the two of them spring apart. “Or at least crawl into the backseat of a car if you’re going to act like a couple of horny teenagers.” She slapped her enormous purse on the counter. “Me, I’ve got a business to run around here.”
“Good point.” Sam slipped an arm possessively around Mia’s waist. “We’ll just take a walk across the street.”
It was another old gesture, Mia remembered. Once she would have hooked her arm around him in turn and leaned her head against his shoulder. Now, she simply stepped away.
“That’s a charming offer, really, but I’ll just take a rain check. The business that Lulu so helpfully pointed out needs to be run is mine. And we’re opening in . . . less than an hour,” she said after a glance at her watch.
“Then we’ll make it fast.”
“Another delightful offer. Isn’t that sweet, Lu? It’s not every day a woman gets an invitation for a quick roll b
efore operating hours.”
“Adorable,” Lulu said sourly. She felt sour—and preferred blaming it on Sam rather than on not being able to sleep well since her Saturday-night hallucination.
“But be that as it may . . .” Mia patted Sam’s cheek absently, then started to turn away.
He took her chin in a firm grip. “You’re playing me,” he said softly. “You want to make this a game, then I should warn you. I don’t always play by the rules now.”
“Neither do I.” She heard the back door open, close. “Ah, there’s Nell. You’ll have to excuse me, Sam. I have work. As I’m sure you do.”
She nudged his hand away, then walked over to meet Nell as she came in. “I’ll take that up.” Mia scooped the first box of baked goods out of Nell’s arms. “Smells fabulous.” She sailed up the stairs with the scent of cinnamon rolls floating behind her.
“Um.” Nell cleared her throat. Walking into the tension had been like walking into a wall. “Hello, Sam.”
“Nell.”
“Well, I’ve got . . . more,” she managed, then escaped out the back again.
“In case you haven’t noticed,” Lulu said, “we’re not open for business. So get.”
He could still taste Mia. With his mood hot and ripe for trouble, he walked to the counter and leaned over close to Lulu’s scowl. “I don’t give a damn if you approve or disapprove. You won’t keep me away from her.”
“You did a good job of that yourself these past years.”
“Now I’m back, and we’re all just going to have to deal with it.” He strode to the door, yanked it open. “If you want to play guard dog, there’s something a hell of a lot more dangerous than me you should be snapping at.”
Lulu watched him stalk across the street. She wasn’t sure there was anything more dangerous to Mia than Sam Logan.
No family. The wine-and-junk-food-induced hallucination had been wrong about that, she thought. She had family. She had a child. Lulu glanced up the stairs where Mia had gone.
She had a child, she thought again.
He canceled his first meeting. A man had priorities. He drove up the coast road. Through sheer will he held his temper and his speed in check.
But he could do nothing about the shock and horror that careened through him when he saw the skid marks. Inches, he thought as he got out of his car on rubbery legs, just inches more and she’d have been into the guardrail. The right speed, the right angles, and her little car would have toppled right over it and down the unforgiving face of the cliff.
He followed the pattern, scanning the road, scenting the air for anything that lingered. He knew she liked to drive fast, but she’d never been reckless. To go into a spin such as the one indicated by the tire marks smeared over the pavement, she’d have had to be doing ninety.
Unless she’d had help.
Cold fingers ran over his spine because he was certain now that was what had happened. Something had shoved that spin along, pushing her toward the edge.
If she hadn’t been strong enough, smart enough, fast enough, she might not have come out of it whole.
He studied the roadbed where a black scar marred it, like an old, festering burn. It oozed, like oily blood, as he watched. And as he watched, he felt the dark energy that emanated from it crawl over the air.
Mia had been more shaken than either of them had realized, he thought, to have left this.
Going back to his car, he popped the trunk, selected what he needed. With his tools in hand, he took a long look up and down the road. It was deserted. A plus, he thought, as what he needed to do would take a little time.
He circled the scar three times with sea salt, and the ooze smoked where it spilled into the ring. With his power cold and clear inside him, he used a birch wand for cleansing. As he sprinkled both bay and cloves for protection, the scar bubbled and hissed. And began, slowly, to shrink.
“No one who passes now need fear. You can do no more harm here. Dark back to dark as light breeds light. Safe passage here by day and night.” He crouched as the scar closed in on itself. “I will guard what is dear to me,” he whispered. “As I will, so mote it be.”
He returned to his car and drove over the shadow of the scar toward Mia’s house.
He’d needed to see it, and had resisted. But he couldn’t afford to wait for her invitation now.
It was so much what it had been, he thought as he studied the gorgeous ramble and spears of stone. And so much more. More Mia, he realized as he again got out of his car.
The flowers, the budded shrubs and great trees. The gargoyles and faeries. The breeze stirred wind chimes and strings of crystal into constant music. The white tower of the lighthouse stood like an ancient sentinel, guarding both island and house. And she’d planted purple pansies at its feet.
He followed the winding path of stepping-stones around the side of the house. The sea beating on the rocks drew both his mind and his heart toward the cliffs and made him remember how many times he’d stood on them with her. Or come upon her standing there alone.
But as he walked he glanced around, then stopped, staggered.
Her gardens were a world. Arches and arbors, slopes and flows. Stone paths softened by moss spreading through the cracks meandered through rivers and floods of flowers. Some were tender with spring, some already reigned.
Not just blooms, he realized, but the green. There were so many tones and textures of it that each spill or shimmer of pink or white, yellow or blue against it added a wonder.
There were pools of water, the glint of copper from a sundial, the charm of a dancing faerie twirling in the shrubbery. He could see benches tucked here and there, some in sun, some in shade, inviting visitors to sit, to enjoy.
He couldn’t imagine what it would be like when the young plants burst into full summer bloom, when the vines finished their climb up the arbors. Couldn’t conceive of the color and shape, the perfume.
Unable to resist, he wandered along some of the stone paths, trying to imagine how she had done it. How she had turned what had been a pretty, if pedestrian, garden, a stretch of manicured lawn, and the single formal terrace he remembered into a celebration.
And he wished, foolishly, that he could sit and watch while she tended one of her beds.
The house had always been beautiful, he thought now. And she had always loved it. But he remembered it as somewhat staid, and very formidable. She had made it a place of pleasure and beauty, warmth and welcome.
And standing in the midst of Mia’s personal Eden, with the fragile scents, the trill of birds, the thunder of the surf, he understood what she had created, and what he had never found.
Home.
He had had the luxurious, the adequate, the tasteful, and the efficient. He had looked for, but had never found, his place. Until now.
“A hell of a note, isn’t it?” he murmured. “To realize she had hers, and mine, all along.”
Since he didn’t know what to do about it, he went back to his car to finish what he’d come to do. He would add his own charms of protection to Mia’s, and make her—and hers—doubly safe.
He’d just finished when he spotted the island’s patrol car coming up the road. Watching it, he dropped a small silk bag of crystals back into his coat pocket. His initial pleasure at the prospect of seeing Zack flipped over to irritation when Ripley got out of the car.
“Well, well, isn’t this interesting.” Simmering, and delighted to be so, she tucked her hands in her back pockets and swaggered toward him. The bill of her cap was angled low over dark glasses.
But he didn’t need to see the whole of her face to know it was hard as stone.
“Here I am, on routine island patrol, and what do I find but a nefarious character. And find him skulking around on private property.” Smiling fiercely, she unhooked her cuffs from her belt.
Sam eyed them, eyed her. “Not that I don’t have a soft spot for a little bondage now and again, Rip, but you’re a married woman.” When her lips peele
d back to show her teeth, he shrugged. “Okay, bad joke. But so are those.”
“The law isn’t a joke, hotshot. You’re trespassing, and I imagine I could make an attempted daylight B and E stick.” The cuffs jingled in her hand. “Either way, trying is just going to make my day.”
“I didn’t go in the damn house.” He’d just been considering it. “And if you think you’re going to arrest and cuff me for trespassing—”
“Goody. I can add resisting.”
“Cut me some slack.”
“Why the hell should I?”
“I didn’t come up here to poke around.” Though he had poked, a bit. “I’m just as concerned about Mia as you are.”
“Too bad being a lying sack of shit isn’t against the law.”
“How about this for truth?” He leaned over until they were nose to nose. “I don’t give a rat’s ass what you think of or about me. I’m going to make damn sure this house and the woman who lives in it are protected, especially after what nearly happened to her this morning. And if you think you’re going to get those fucking cuffs on me, sweetheart, you’d better step back and think again.”
“It’s not your job to protect this house. And if I want these cuffs on you, city boy, you’ll be flat on the ground eating dirt while I secure them. What the hell do you mean, ‘after what happened this morning’?”
He started to spit something back at her, but then his gaze narrowed in speculation. “Mia didn’t tell you? She tells you every damn thing. Always has.”
Ripley’s color came up a little. “I haven’t seen her today. What happened?” Then the color drained away again as she gripped his wrist. “Is she hurt?”
“No. No.” His temper ebbed, leaving only frustration. He raked his fingers through his hair. “But she could’ve been. Nearly was.”
He relayed the story, appreciating when Ripley swore impressively and stalked around the front yard as if looking for something handy to kick.
It reminded him why he’d always liked her.
“I didn’t see any skid marks.”
“I vanished them after I cleansed the area,” he explained. “I thought it would upset her to see them again. God knows, it bothered me.”
Books by Nora Roberts Page 210
