by Peggy Jaeger
“Well, it wasn’t like he could drive to the local convenience store to get a new one when he needed it,” I said, eyeing each of the journals.
My toes curled at Frayne’s deep chuckle.
With care, he first tried to untie the journals but, when they proved as resilient as the original, gave up and sliced each one open. He lifted the top covers and bent to see the dates written on the first page.
“These pages are even more faded.” He cocked his head to the original. “Can you shine your phone on them again?”
I did, while he held the magnifier over each page.
“You’re right,” he said. “These are older. Let’s put them in order.”
When we were done, the journals ranged from 1786 with one volume, two for 1787, 1788 with two, and the last one with the 1789 date.
“There aren’t any more after this.” Frayne examined the boxes we’d opened. When he turned his attention back to me, I almost lost the ability to stand upright. “Cathy.” His voice was hushed and filled with awe, his eyes fully dilated now. “This is…unbelievable.”
“If you hadn’t asked Nanny about Robert, these wouldn’t have been discovered until after she died.” I shook my head. “Maybe not even then, because I can see me and my sisters tossing out all this stuff, never going through it, thinking it was just part of Nanny’s hoard.”
His expression changed from wide-eyed with excitement to something entirely different. Something deep and dark and—gulp—wild.
He repeated my name, and before I could blink, a pair of strong arms wrapped around my waist and a torso I knew was as solid and defined as a redwood tree flattened against the front of me.
He dipped his head, those dreamy eyes dark now with desire, and zeroed in on my own like a laser pointer. Hypnotized by the naked need facing me, I took a breath—a physical and a mental one—and pushed up on my unshod toes until my lips pressed against his.
For a nanosecond, Frayne stilled. The notion that he didn’t want this blew across my mind. A beat later and the thought died as his arms tightened and he pulled me fully against his body.
And then kissed me back.
I’d already seen the fabulous body he kept hidden under his clothes. When his mouth claimed mine and took it prisoner, I discovered another secret about him: the man knew how to kiss.
My head dropped back when one of his hands rose from my waist to cup the back of my neck. I might have initiated the kiss, but Frayne assumed complete control of it. And I gladly, willingly, thankfully surrendered. My arms wound around his neck and held on for purchase, and a quick thought filled me that I never wanted to let go.
A groan, deep and savage, heaved up from his chest. He changed the angle of my head with one swift move and bent me even farther back. The forearm, solid and steady across my lower back, was the only thing keeping me upright.
Well, that and the death grip my arms had around his neck.
The edge of the dining room table hit the back of my thighs, hard. A heartbeat later, I was sitting on top of it, those same thighs now spread wide apart with Frayne nestled between them.
His torso wasn’t the only thing rock-hard.
He cupped my jaw. In a rhythm that stoked the fire blazing inside me even hotter, he drew lazy lines back and forth across my cheeks with his thumbs. As tender as his touch was, the action made me squirm on top of the table as each little drag of his fingers ricocheted straight down to my core.
My thighs tightened in response and served to pull him in even closer.
His hands dropped down to my waist and slipped under my sweatshirt, then skimmed up my sides to the bottom of my bra. One finger from each hand slipped under the lower edge. My nipples bulleted to two, aching points as the pads of his fingers, coarse and rough, caressed them.
Frayne kissed my temple and murmured my name right before his lips sucked my earlobe between them.
When I gasped, he lifted me from the table, my legs anchored around his waist. His mouth, drawn like a magnet, found its way back to mine.
In the next moment, my back thumped flat up against the dining room wall. Braced against it, held in place by Frayne’s hands harboring my backside and the exquisite pressure of his body fully pressing into mine, I increased the hold I had in his hair.
“Cathy,” he mumbled against my mouth. “I can’t tell you how much I’ve wanted to kiss you.” His lips slid across my cheek, licked the tiny mole at the corner of my mouth, and then found his way home again.
Oh, I had a pretty good idea since I’d been feeling the same way for days.
When his shoulders lifted and his mouth pulled up into a smile, I knew I’d given voice to the words.
“Good to know I’m not the only one.” He nuzzled my nose, his heart-stopping grin playing across his face. The dimples I’d only had fleeting glimpses of were deep and darling. The urge to slide my tongue into them was almost unbearable.
Just like the day in the museum basement, I lost all capacity for rational thought when he smiled at me. My heart stuttered, and a tiny tug reverberated through my chest. With his eyes cleared of the haunting shadows and filled now with such intense craving, I knew I was seeing the real Mac Frayne. To know I’d been the one to clear away those sad thoughts he wore like a shield, was empowering.
Then he put his mouth on mine again, and I stopped thinking. I might have even stopped breathing. The only sensation I could experience right then was touch. His. On my skin; across my mouth.
His heart pounded through his shirt, thumping against me. Mine matched his, beat for blessed beat. The only thing separating me from finding the release my body sought was the inconvenience of our clothing. In my head, I did a quick calculation on how fast we could lose what we were wearing.
It wasn’t nearly fast enough.
Off in a quiet corner of my mind, a familiar noise rumbled from the next room. When the realization hit that it was the door to the garage opening, my body went stone still. Frayne lifted his head and peered down at me, his forehead trenched with concern.
“Cathy—?”
“Hey sis, where are you?” Colleen called out.
Wordlessly, I uncrossed my legs from around his waist, slammed them to the floor, and pulled my hands from his hair. I was more than a little wobbly when my feet hit the ground.
Confusion mixed with naked lust danced on Frayne’s face. When I stumbled, his hands wound around my upper arms to support me.
I shoved against him, but it was like trying to move a brick wall. He didn’t budge. When Colleen’s voice rang out again, he blinked, pulled back, and dropped his hands, understanding in his gaze.
I bolted around him and tried to put as much distance as I could between us before Colleen waltzed into the room.
“Oh, here you are.” Her gaze ran from me to Frayne, her left eyebrow riding up to her hairline in a slow glide of suspicion. I could only imagine what we looked like. My cheeks were screaming with heat and probably resembled two ripe apples in the middle of my face. Frayne slid his hands into his jeans pockets, but his careless slouch couldn’t quite pull off the nonchalance I figured he was aiming for.
Before Colleen could pepper me with a thousand questions, I drew first blood.
“Why are you here? Don’t you have the afternoon off?”
“I did. Nanny had other plans.”
“What?”
With her trademark eye roll, my sister said, “She called me at the crack-ass of creation this morning and asked me to make sure you looked—her words—approachable tonight.”
“Oh, sweet baby Jesus. Tell me she didn’t.”
Colleen lifted her hands. In one she held her makeup kit, a see-through bag filled with hair products and equipment in the other. “No can do, sister mine, because she did. And you know when Nanny asks you to do something—”
“It’s not a request, it’s an order.” I slid a side eye at Frayne.
“You’re going out,” he said, with a nod.
If I weren�
��t so embarrassed about what had just happened, the tightness in his voice would have done wonders for my ego. Before I could respond, Colleen, in typical middle child fashion, butted in.
“She’s going to a speed-dating mixer organized by the local matchmaker.”
If the floor had opened up right then and there and swallowed me whole, I wouldn’t have minded a whit.
Silence bounded around the room. The tiny hairs on the back of my neck shot straight up when Frayne inhaled deeply. I couldn’t tell if he was trying to suppress a laugh or if he was surprised by Colleen’s words. I lifted my head and turned to him.
It wasn’t amusement on his face.
“There really are such things?”
“Speed dates?” Colleen asked.
He tossed her a puzzled squint. “Matchmakers.”
“In this neck of the woods there are.” My sister has no verbal filters and because she doesn’t, tends to talk more than she should.
Frayne shook his head. “Amazing.” He turned his attention back to me. His head was tilted in his I’m-going-to-ask-you-a-question posture and there was no way I wanted to get into a discussion about Olivia Joyner, so before he could ask, I said, “You know, we should notify Leigh James about those.” I pointed to the journals. “They’re the very definition of historical artifacts. They’re priceless and should be placed in the subbasement where the temperature and atmosphere are controlled. Plus, as curator, Leigh really needs to know about them.”
“I thought you didn’t want to tell anyone until we’d gone through everything.”
“When it was clothes and yearbooks, I didn’t think it would matter. But these”—I indicated the journals again—“are fragile, and I’m afraid they’re going to deteriorate in this climate. I’d hate if anything happened to them. Besides, in addition to being temperature controlled, the museum has a powerful magnifier that’ll make it easier for you to read them.”
Frayne stared at me a moment, and I could tell he was weighing what I’d said.
On one hand, having the documents here at my house where he had total and unobstructed access to them without any time constrictions, such as the museum’s closing hours, was one thing. But along with that, I was bending several rules by keeping everything here. Even though no one at the society knew of their existence, it didn’t make keeping them a secret the right thing to do.
With a nod, Frayne said, “You’re right, of course.”
The lack of enthusiasm in his words told me everything I needed to know about how he felt.
“What are you guys talking about?”
I explained about the journals.
“Isn’t Leigh still home on bed rest?” Colleen asked.
“Yes.”
“Then she’s not gonna come running over here to scoop everything up and take it over to the museum tonight. Why don’t you keep it all here for now and let him”—she pointed to Frayne with her makeup bag—“go through it while I get you ready. Call Leigh tomorrow. One night won’t make any difference. I mean, it’s not like the paper’s gonna fall into a pile of ash. If it could survive years in Nanny’s icky storage locker, another day won’t hurt it.”
Sometimes it was scary how much sense she could make, considering most of the time she spoke before a thought ever bloomed to fruition in her head.
“Cathy?”
I looked at Frayne. Quiet expectation oozed from him.
With a shrug, I said, “I guess one more night won’t hurt. I’ll call Leigh myself tomorrow. But,” I added as I walked back toward the kitchen, “I don’t want to take any chances.” I pulled an unopened pair of dishwashing gloves from under my sink. “I remember reading somewhere the oils found on skin can cause damage to antique paper. Wear these.”
His lips pulled into a tiny smirk that made my fingers tremble when I handed them over.
“Great minds,” he said. “I was about to ask if you had any for the very same reason.”
I wanted to ask when the thought had bloomed—when he first kissed me or when he had me against the wall. I kept the question to myself.
“So now that’s all settled,” Colleen said, “can we get started?”
An hour later, I took one last look at myself in my cheval mirror and nodded.
This was about as good as it was gonna get.
Colleen had brushed, straightened, styled, and then sprayed my hair into a look I was never able to achieve on my own no matter how hard I tried. My curly, kinky, mostly frizzy hair looked nothing like it usually did, but was jet straight, not a curl, a kink, or a frizz in sight. She’d rubbed a balm oozing of tropical coconuts through it and then with a flat iron I swore was heated to a volcanic ash-producing temperature, pulled sections through it until steam floated around my head and my hair was tamed.
“Your hair has never been this long,” she said, brushing the ends that now drifted above my waist. “When it’s curly, it’s so much shorter. And since you wear it pulled back or up most of the time, no one ever sees how long it really is.”
“I smell like a pina colada,” I said, sniffing the ends.
Colleen laughed. “Not exactly a bad thing.”
She’d then proceeded to do all sorts of amazing things to my face.
I was thankful each day all three of us had been blessed with my grandmother’s genes and skin. It made keeping my makeup profile low since I didn’t need much to cover up any imperfections or wrinkles. Under Colleen’s expert hand though, my eyes now popped, my lips were so luscious even I wanted to kiss them, and my skin glowed with dewy freshness.
“If you ever decide to give up wedding planning,” I told her while I tugged the one and only little black dress I owned over my hips, “you could make a killing in cosmetology.”
While she rubbed her makeup brushes with a clean cloth, she chuckled. “I’ve had to repair too many faces—brides, mothers, and attendants—over the years when emotions got the better of them and tears were wreaking havoc. No bride wants to look like a raccoon in her pictures. Learning how to do all this”—she swiped her hand across my bathroom counter where she’d set up the tools of her trade—“was a necessity of the job.”
“Well, for whatever reason, even I can admit I look good.”
“You always look good, Cath. But tonight,” she said, stepping behind me to zip up my dress, “you want to look alluring and approachable. That’s the reason you’re going to this thing, isn’t it?” She swiped her hands across my shoulders and then squeezed them.
“In all honesty, I don’t know why I’m going. I’m terrified.”
“Of what?”
I shrugged and stared at her reflection in the mirror.
Good question.
“I don’t know what to expect or what’s expected of me, and that’s got me a little anxious. I hate walking into something without knowing what’s going to happen.”
She squeezed my shoulders again and grinned. “You not being in total control of a situation is something I’d pay cash money to see.”
I tossed her a stink eye in the mirror.
Her grin grew. “What’s going to happen is that, hopefully, you’ll have some fun, flirt a little, and unwind for once. Maybe even meet a guy you could see yourself spending some time with. There are worse things, you know, than all that.”
What would she have said if I’d admitted I’d already found a guy I wanted to spend some time with, but he came with so much emotional baggage I needed a luggage carrier to cart it all?
Knowing my sister and the fact she could talk about a subject for hours, it seemed wise to keep the thought to myself.
“Well…” She started packing up all her beauty products. “My work here is done. I got you camera ready. What happens next is on you. And BTW, Nanny says to tell you she wants a full rundown tomorrow morning when you pick her up for Mass. ‘Tell Number one I want all the deets, as the kids say these days,’ she told me before she hung up this morning. So, prepare to be grilled like a raw steak.”
&nbs
p; On that pleasant note, she kissed my cheek and waved.
I stood, rooted, as I heard her say something to Frayne and then laugh before the kitchen door closed.
“What have you gotten yourself into?” I murmured, shaking my head. After a quick check of my watch, I pulled a small clutch from my bedroom closet and went back downstairs, carrying my kitten heels in one hand.
Frayne was at the dining room table, his glasses one deep breath away from falling off the tip of his nose and the ridiculous yellow gloves on his hands. A wave of such intense desire washed over me, I must have inhaled audibly from its power, because he lifted his head, his gaze connecting with mine over the rim of his glasses.
Surprise turned to confusion and then morphed into a hooded, wicked, smoldering stare. Unshod, my toes curled into the carpet for support. Frayne’s gaze never left mine as he rose in one fluid motion, tugged the gloves off, then tossed them on his now-empty chair. He shoved his glasses up on his head, pushing the moppy fringe back from his face, letting me see the full force of the desire drenching his eyes.
Holy Mother.
I stood rooted, paralyzed, as he moved toward me. My clutch in one shaking hand, my shoes in the other, I couldn’t have moved if Lucas Alexander had barreled into the room, gun drawn as he chased a criminal, and ordered, “Get down!”
Frayne reached out and caressed a stand of my hair between his thumb and index fingers.
“Your hair is so long when it’s straight.” His voice was a whisper.
“I-I’ve been meaning to get it cut. Shorter, you know? But”—I lifted a shoulder—“no time.”
Nanny’s disapproving voice shouted in my head, For pity’s sake, Number One. Get a grip.
“Don’t,” Frayne commanded, his brow grooving. “Don’t ever cut it. It’s beautiful.” He dropped the tendril, took a tiny step closer. “You’re beautiful, Cathy.”
My heart pounded against my ribs. There was no way on earth he couldn’t hear it. His gaze held so much intent as his finger came up to stroke my jaw, move up my cheek, and then slide around my neck.
