Just a Whisper Away

by Lauren Nichols

  It was strange, how their talkative, almost friendly mood changed the second they carried her things into his house an hour and a half later. The house seemed too small, they seemed too aware of each other and suddenly the bone-deep realization that they’d be eating, bathing and sleeping under the same roof hit them both like a thunderbolt. At least, it hit Abbie that way. Sure, she’d thought about it before. But the realization of actually doing it left her with a breathless, cautious feeling.

  “I wish you’d just take the loft,” he said when she’d refused. “You’d have more privacy up there.”

  That might be, but she wouldn’t kick him out of his own bed. “No, you’ve already gone above and beyond the call of duty. The sofa will be fine.”

  “All right,” he said, carrying her bags into his office and setting them down next to a closet. “Then you can put your things in here.” He opened the door, shoved three garment bags and a few jackets to the rear of the rod. “If you need more room, I can take these upstairs.”

  Abbie set her bag of laundry on the floor. “No need. I didn’t bring many clothes with me.” She wasn’t sure what she’d do with her socks, sweaters and underwear, but she’d lived out of suitcases when she was in college. She could do it again. She shifted her gaze from the closet to him, and caught him studying the front of her sweater. Unexpectedly, her breasts went weighty and full. Heat flooded her cheeks, and he looked away.

  “Do you have a washer and dryer?” she asked.

  “In the utility room off the kitchen,” he returned brusquely. “I’ll get the rest of your things from your car.”

  When he came back inside and set her laptop on his computer desk, he nodded toward the doorway again. “I’ll just grab a chest of drawers for your other things. There’s a small one out in my workshop. It’s not stained and finished yet, but it’s clean and you can line the drawers with shelf paper.”

  He did carpentry work, too? Abbie watched him stride across the short hall to the great room, her gaze lingering on his broad shoulders in his hunter green shirt…his muscular thighs in his faded jeans. “Jace?”

  He turned in the archway.

  “Thank you,” she said softly. “Really. I won’t be a bother, I promise.”

  “I know,” he returned. But the skeptical look in his gray eyes said that was wishful thinking—on both of their parts.

  Thankfully, the afternoon flew by.

  While Jace was outside collecting maple sap and storing it in his shed to be boiled later, Abbie arranged her things in her new room and made phone calls. She would’ve liked to have joined him because her curiosity was piqued, but she sensed he needed time alone. Whether he’d invited it or not, his space had been invaded, and the dynamic in his home had changed.

  The first call she made was to her father and Miriam, who were getting settled in their stateroom. “I just called to wish the two of you bon voyage,” she’d said lightly, “and to tell you that if you need to reach me and I don’t answer at the house, call my cell phone. You have the number. I’m thinking about joining the Y and signing up for aerobic classes—maybe doing some swimming. I’m just not good at sitting around keeping the home fires burning.”

  That hadn’t been a lie because she actually had considered joining the local gym, even if it was only temporarily. Her dad had applauded her energies. Then Miriam had called out that they were about to set sail, and they’d said a hurried goodbye.

  The second call she made was to her dad’s housekeeper, Dorothy Carson, who was pleased to have the next two weeks off to fuss over her grandkids, and still collect a paycheck. “But I’ll give the place a good going-over a day or so before your dad and his new bride come home,” she’d replied happily. “Even though you won’t be using the house, dust does collect.”

  Dorothy hadn’t asked which “friend” Abbie would be staying with, but Abbie knew all she’d have to do was put her ear to the ground and she’d soon know the answer. Everyone would. Juicy gossip swept through Laurel Ridge faster than a flu epidemic.

  Her last call was to Stuart. If anything new materialized, she wanted to know about it, and if for some reason he couldn’t reach her cell phone, he needed to know where she was staying. She gave him Jace’s phone number.

  A skitter of awareness moved through her when Jace walked by her open door as she was ending her call, but he didn’t stop to talk, and she decided he was handling the initial awkwardness in his own way. Just as she was. The difference was he seemed to have found a way to approach it in an almost businesslike way. She envied him that talent. For better or for worse, emotion ruled her world.

  The wonderful smells of food cooking woke her just before five o’clock, and Abbie sat up on the sofa, startled that the sun was gone, and darkness was on its way. She never napped…yet she had, probably because she hadn’t slept more than two hours last night. Unsure of how much freedom she should enjoy, she’d been reading in her new room and had dozed off. Now she was ravenous.

  Jace looked up from sliding steaks under the broiler as she walked into the dusky kitchen. “Hi,” he said, his uncomfortable look telling her that he wasn’t handling their proximity as well as she’d thought. Then he shut the oven door and turned off the small TV on the nearby counter, and she realized his uneasiness had nothing to do with their living arrangements. It had been tuned to the All News channel. “I was just coming in to wake you. How was your nap?”

  “Longer than any nap I can remember,” she answered guardedly, praying that he wasn’t sparing her more grisly news. “I hope my mouth wasn’t open.”

  “Might’ve been,” he said with a smile. “I didn’t look that close.” Opening a cupboard, he took a bottle of steak sauce from a shelf. “The baked potatoes are almost done, and our salads are in the refrigerator. How do you like your steak?”

  “Medium,” she replied. “And please turn the TV back on. I’ve been wondering what’s going on, too.”

  His rugged features sobered. “You’re sure?”

  “I’m sure. Is there anything new?”

  He shook his head. “Nothing more than what you told me this morning.”

  Maybe that was a good thing. “Can I set the table? Or dress the salads?”

  “Do whatever makes you comfortable.”

  Moving, she decided, watching the play of taut, toned muscles beneath his shirt. Moving made her comfortable. Lights made her even more comfortable, and she flicked on a couple of switches. Then she went to the cupboard he indicated, handed him two matching dinner plates from the stack of assorted patterns and got busy.

  Thirty minutes later, Jace was clearing the table and Abbie had started the dishes when CNN broke in with an update on what they were referring to as the I-40 Murders.

  Exchanging a tense look with Jace, praying that there’d been an arrest, Abbie inhaled, wiped her hands and moved closer to the set.

  Chapter 7

  The pretty anchorwoman gazed into the camera and spoke. “Though the police are still reluctant to say the Las Vegas and Oklahoma killings are related, they have confirmed that both women died shortly after having sexual intercourse and the killers’signatures were the same. However,” she continued, “on condition of anonymity, a source close to the Las Vegas Medical Examiner’s office has revealed that there’s little doubt that the murders were committed by the same individual. Both bodies showed traces of the powder found on surgical gloves, the strangulation bruises were identical in size and the same type of weapon was used in the postmortem beatings. The source also said that the second murder was more brutal, indicating that the killer’s rage had escalated.”

  Abbie went weak, and the soul-deep guilt she felt for breaking her code of ethics paled compared to the remorse she felt for defending and freeing a monster.

  Danny’s mocking phone call, last night’s terror and the fear that she shared the blame for these new deaths all coalesced in her mind and her eyes filled with tears.

  Jace saw them before she could blink them bac
k.

  He only hesitated for a second. Then he held her close. “Don’t cry,” he said, dropping his voice. “You’re safe here.”

  But her throat was a rock, and she couldn’t tell him that guilt, not fear, was the reason for her tears. Abbie slid her arms around his waist. He was big and solid, and considering their past, she knew he was only soothing her out of obligation. But she held on tightly anyway and took what he was willing to give because her heart was in shreds.

  “Abbie, you can’t know that this has anything to do with you. Your detective friend said Long hasn’t left L.A.”

  She wanted to believe that more than anything. But that sensation at the back of her neck wouldn’t allow it. There were just too many similarities between the recent murders and Maryanne Richards’s death. “It’s him,” she said, her voice breaking. “I know it’s him. And those women are dead because I got him off.”

  “Don’t talk like that. You had an obligation to defend him and you did your job. You’re too smart to be thinking this way. Put the blame where it belongs.”

  “I am,” she whispered.

  Sighing, Jace brought her with him as he eased back against the kitchen counter, stroked her hair. His compassion for her was getting all mixed up with the primal feelings he’d been fighting all day. Standing here with her legs tucked between the spread of his, absorbing her warmth and her weight, was like a time travel moment. Suddenly it was that college summer again, and he was tugging her back toward the Ferris wheel at the county fair. He saw the high color in her cheeks, saw her shake her head no and insist that the wheel was too high and too fast. He’d teased her until she’d finally agreed to face her fears.

  She’d clung to him like dew to clover that night, sweet and scared and vulnerable at first, then finally, laughing and excited. That night there’d been no hint of the tough L. A. lawyer she would become…just the girl he’d wanted for his own since she’d walked up to him needing help with her term paper. He’d felt strong and protective, and so turned-on, if it hadn’t been for shirttails, the whole world would’ve known he was irreversibly hot for Abbie Winslow.

  Now, unable to stop the beginnings of arousal and acutely aware that the temperature in the kitchen was rising, Jace eased her away a few inches and met her watery brown eyes. He wiped her tears with his thumbs. “Let’s go for a ride.” He needed to break this up before his emotions got out of hand. Because suddenly he realized that something in him had been waiting for the opportunity to hold her again, and that wasn’t good. He was losing his objectivity, remembering too much of the good stuff and shoving the bad to the back of his mind.

  “Where?”

  “Just into town to the Quikky Stopp. I have to fill my gas tank. If you smile for me, I’ll buy you a cup of fake cappuccino.”

  “I don’t need cappuccino,” she said, tears in her voice. “I need absolution, Jace. I need to feel good about myself again, and I need to get rid of this clawing anxiety that won’t let me sleep and keeps my nerve endings vibrating like tuning forks! I need—” She stopped abruptly, then flushed deeply and glanced away.

  And everything in Jace said, “Uh-oh,” because he was intimately acquainted with that clawing feeling, too.

  The dizzying scent of pheromones filled the air, filled his nostrils, filled his mind. He didn’t know if she was aware of it, but as she’d spoken her hands had slid down from his shoulders to his forearms, and he swallowed, watching her thumbs move aimlessly over the hair below his turned-back cuffs.

  “How can I help?” It was getting hard to breathe naturally, and his kitchen was shrinking to the size of a postage stamp.

  She shook her head as though she didn’t know. But she knew. They both did.

  Jungle drums pounded in Jace’s head, and he lowered his gaze to the fluttering pulse at the base of her throat. Then he returned to the fire in her brown eyes. If he’d had doubts before, he now knew for sure that her thoughts were swimming in dangerous waters, too.

  That’s when the heat took over. That’s when he lost every speck of discipline he had, and brought his mouth down on hers.

  They dove hard and hungry into the kiss, snatching the moment as though there would never be another like it. He filled his fists with her hair, shoved his tongue inside her warm wet mouth, stopped to breathe and dove in again.

  Time fell away. Common sense followed. They tried to deepen kisses that couldn’t go any deeper, tried to grip and touch and explore all at the same time. Their lower bodies began to move, began to remember, began that sexy undulating dance that had driven him to the brink fourteen years ago.

  Jace’s heart raced. He was in that time machine again, back on the Ferris wheel, back in the gazebo, imagining her long smooth legs wrapping his hips. He thrust his tongue into her mouth again, and a shudder racked through him when she began to suck.

  A thought echoed back to him, hazy at first, then shattering the moment.

  He was back on that Ferris wheel…back in the gazebo.

  And that was nowhere any man with an ounce of pride ever wanted to go again.

  Gasping, he broke from the kiss, struggled to bring himself out of the moment. Where was his mind? They had almost two weeks to go, and with a start like this there was nowhere to go but forward. Neither of them wanted that.

  By the time her stricken, what-have-we-done look met his, he knew Abbie had come to the same conclusion. “It’s okay,” he said, everything he owned still thumping like a drum. “It was only a kiss.”

  Shaking her head, she combed her hair back from her face and whispered, “No, it wasn’t. That was foreplay. Thank you for stopping.”

  Somehow, “you’re welcome” didn’t feel like the right reply. “If I hadn’t, you would have.”

  But she didn’t look all that certain, and the mindless lump in his jeans got hopeful again. Jace’s gaze drifted down to her mouth. It was red and puffy, and his end-of-day stubble had left a mark on her chin. He blew out a breath, searched for conversation that would bring them back to the moment before they’d lost their minds. “Do you want to talk about the newscast?”

  Her voice sounded small. “No. I’m afraid if we do any more talking tonight…”

  He finished her thought silently. They’d end up on the kitchen table.

  “I’ll just finish the dishes,” she murmured, going to the sink.

  “I’ll get them.”

  “No. You cooked.” Sliding her hands into the sudsy water, she rattled some silverware around, then turned on the tap, rinsed them and put them in the drainer. “When I’m through here, I think I’ll phone Powell again.”

  “Yeah, that’s a good idea,” he replied lamely. Then, glancing toward the down vest he’d shrugged off, he said, “I think I’ll head out to the Quikky Stopp, anyway—fill my tank.” Abstinence throbbed sick and heavy in his gut. He needed to get some air. “Sure you don’t want a cappuccino?”

  “Positive.” She spared him an uncomfortable glance, and he knew that he wasn’t the only one who needed some time to regroup.

  “Okay,” he said through a breath. “Then I’ll see you in little while.”

  She nodded. Then she went back to rattling dishes around and he headed for the door, leaving the vest right where it was.

  An hour later, Jace lay in the darkness, listening to the wind soughing through the tall pines and hemlocks surrounding the house, every nerve and muscle in his body attuned to her movements downstairs in his office. He knew she was trying to be quiet. But he had good ears and a fertile imagination he couldn’t turn off. She’d showered a few minutes ago, and now he could hear the low hum of her hair dryer. The steamy fragrance of peaches and something flowery had drifted up to the loft the moment she’d opened the bathroom door.

  Swearing softly, he flipped his pillow over to the cool side and tried to ignore the renewed activity spiking south of his navel. He could still taste her, still feel the way she’d fit so perfectly in the saddle of his hips.

  The phone on his nig
htstand rang. Jace snatched up the handset quickly, checked the caller ID, then pressed the Connect button and sighed. He’d called Ty earlier to tell him Abbie was moving in for a few days, but he’d kept it short, saying only that the problem she’d had on Saturday was still ongoing. His brother had asked a lot of questions, but with Abbie napping only a few dozen yards away, Jace had left most of them unanswered. “What?”

  “Just calling to ask if you need the number of a good psychiatrist,” Ty said casually. “I found a few that look promising in the Yellow Pages.”

  “Very funny.”

  “Is it? What’s going on with you?”

  “I’m trying to sleep,” Jace grumbled, “but nosy people keep bothering me. Now, if you’re done with your comedy-club routine, I’ll tell you what you want to know. But it’s just between the three of us, for now.”

  A few minutes later, after sharing the abridged version of Abbie’s story, Jace returned the handset to the nightstand. During the conversation, he’d gravitated to the side of the bed and he sat there now, staring down at the oak flooring. Even though Ty was worried that Abbie’s presence would put Jace in jeopardy, he’d admitted that he’d do the same. So now Abbie had another ally—two tough guys who were willing to keep her safe if the need arose.

  Would it? Was that sensation at the back of her neck reliable? Or was she too filled with guilt and fear, and tied too tightly to the murder in L.A., to see things clearly? She’d spoken to Powell tonight. But even after he’d reminded her again that both greeting cards had been postmarked in Los Angeles, and a stakeout team had seen Long in his apartment on the night of the Vegas murder, she still doubted Powell’s off-the-cuff theory. She’d admitted that someone else could have copycatted the L.A. killing because the gruesome details of the Richards girl’s death had been in the papers and on the news. But she still looked far from convinced when she hung up.

  Jace wasn’t sure what to believe, but he was uneasy enough over Abbie’s intuitive feelings to give them at least some credence. That brought him back to something he’d though about before, but would never say to her.