“I think we should try talking to him.”
“Okay. Since you have a stake in this, let me try. Then he can get mad at me if I push the wrong buttons.” Laying the recorder on the hearth, Wyatt moved over to the fireplace and called up the chimney. “Hey, Updegraff, whatcha doing on the roof, buddy?”
There was a long silence. Finally the answer drifted down the chimney. “Ice dams. Checking to see if you have any in the gutters. Can ruin a roof, you know.”
Wyatt turned a questioning glance toward Charity, who shrugged in response. Wyatt leaned toward the opening again. “That’s right neighborly of you, Updegraff. But you’ll have to excuse me, ‘cause I’m just an old cowpoke from Arizona and I don’t know how y’all do things here in the East. How does the, uh, tape recorder fit into that project?”
More silence. Then another answer came through the chimney. “Found it and thought you might want to use it for music, or something. Runs on batteries.”
Wyatt gazed at the melted recorder. “Not anymore. Did you happen to notice we had a fire going here?”
“Of course I noticed!” Alistair’s temper flared. “What do you take me for, an idiot?”
“Well, now, that’s not an easy question to answer, buddy.”
“I am not your buddy. I can see my efforts are not appreciated, so I’ll just leave you to worry about your own ice dams. I’m going home.”
“How’re you getting there?” Wyatt asked casually.
“Same way I got over here.”
Wyatt glanced at Charity.
“The ladder!” she whispered. “I’ll bet he extended it between the two houses!”
“The old guy could kill himself crawling back.”
Charity leapt up. “Maybe we can see from Nora’s bedroom. Maybe we can talk him across, like you see in the movies.”
“I’m beginning to think this is a movie. Let’s go.”
They raced up the stairs with Mac in hot pursuit, barking all the way. When they reached Nora’s bedroom they crowded together at the window and peered upward at the ladder stretched between the houses. Alistair was balanced on the rungs, inching his way backward toward his attic window.
“I’ll be damned,” Wyatt said. “I wouldn’t have thought Updegraff had the cajones to try something like that.”
“Cajones?”
“That’s Spanish for balls.”
“Oh.” Charity didn’t need the added stimulation of that remark while she was standing hip-to-hip with a man who had more cajones than any guy she’d ever known. She should be thinking of poor Alistair, who seemed to be several bricks shy of a load. She should be too distraught to notice the wonderful friction between denim and pink cotton. “Do you think we should say anything to him?” she whispered.
Wyatt’s chest heaved in a massive sigh. “Probably not. If we let him know we’re here watching, it might distract him. But at least we’re here if he does fall. We can do…something.”
“What on earth could we do?”
“I don’t know. I’d lower myself down with a rope, maybe. We’d figure it out.”
Charity felt a rush of confidence, knowing that she and Wyatt would figure it out and Alistair would have the best help anyone could expect under very difficult circumstances. “We need to notify somebody,” she said. “He’s become a danger to himself.”
Wyatt glanced down at her. “And how are you planning to do that? Smoke signals?”
She saw his point. All three of them were cut off from the outside world, at least for the next few hours. And Nora’s neighbor had chosen this inopportune time to go bonkers. “But what if he tries this routine again? He might make it once, but I can’t believe he’d be lucky twice.”
“Once he’s inside, we could knock the ladder down before he has a chance to pull it back.”
“Brilliant!” Charity started for the door. “You keep watch and I’ll get a broom.”
“Hurry.”
“I was a star sprinter in high school.”
She raced back downstairs, nearly tripping over MacDougal as he bounced along beside her, obviously certain this was a game. Yanking open the pantry door, she grabbed the broom and ran back upstairs. She was panting by the time she returned. “Am I too late?”
“Just in time. He’s almost inside.” Without looking at her, he pushed up the window and held out his hand for the broom.
She gave it to him. Unable to turn away from the unfolding drama, she stood in the cold draft of the open window and hugged herself against the frigid feel of damp, chilled cotton against her breasts and belly. Alistair lowered his butt to get it under the window frame.
“Now,” Charity urged in a breathless whisper. “Do it right now.”
“I love it when you talk dirty.” With a grunt of effort Wyatt swung the broom handle against the ladder just as Alistair glanced over at them.
“You fiends!” the little man screamed, grabbing for the ladder. But he wasn’t quick enough. With a solid thump the ladder landed far below him and submerged itself in the snow, leaving a perfect imprint where it fell.
“You did it!” Charity knocked the broom out the window as she hugged him enthusiastically.
“We did it.” He smiled down at her as he wrapped her in his arms. “Track star.”
“I’ll get you yet!” Alistair cried. “You haven’t seen the last of Alistair Updegraff!”
“We can always hope,” Wyatt said. Keeping one arm around Charity, Wyatt pushed the window closed and pulled down the shade. Then he carefully took off Charity’s glasses. And then he kissed her.
9
HE SHOULDN’T be doing this, Wyatt thought as he lost himself in the sweet coffee and muffin taste of Charity’s mouth. Less than an hour ago he’d decided she needed somebody else, anybody else. But logic had failed him when she’d come so eagerly into his arms.
She was so delicious he couldn’t seem to get enough of her. He kept changing the angle of the kiss to delve deeper, and she responded. Lord, how she responded. She’d been breathless from her run up the stairs, but now she was gasping with a different rhythm entirely as she pulled his head down and whimpered against his mouth.
He tossed her glasses over on Nora’s bed so he could have the use of both hands. First he released her hair from its confinement and splayed his fingers through the silky mass as he kissed her lips, her chin, her nose, her flushed cheeks.
“I…lied about…being a track star,” she gasped.
“Did you?” He thrust his tongue deep into her mouth, not caring at the moment if she was a serial killer. He slipped both hands beneath her sweatshirt and slid them up the smooth warmth of her back.
She screeched.
He leapt back as if she’d slapped him. “What? What’s wrong?”
“Your hands are freezing.”
“Oh.” He looked down at his hands. “Sorry.” Gradually the haze of passion that had made him a self-centered bundle of testosterone receded.
She stepped toward him. “Let me warm them up. I—”
“Listen, I think we need to talk.”
“Talk?” She looked bewildered and a little hurt. “But you said I should decide what I wanted. I’ve decided, Wyatt, in case you couldn’t tell.”
He vaguely remembered saying something like that, but that was before she’d spilled her guts about her history with men, beginning with her father. “I guess I’m a little worried about your reasons for deciding we should make love, that’s all.”
Hurt gave way to indignation. “We’re back to that? You think I have some plan to snare you into marriage? Well, you can take that attitude and shove it right up your—”
“No.” He closed the gap between them and took her by the arms. “I don’t think that at all. I think you expect me to leave.”
“And the sooner the better. Who needs you?”
“Look, we’re both still wet, and we have to keep that fire going downstairs. Let’s get into some dry clothes and continue this discussion where it’s
warmer.”
She shook herself out of his grip. “You can discuss all you want. I’m through with this little game. I wouldn’t make love to you if you were the last man on earth.”
If he left it at that, with Charity furious, he’d accomplish his goal of not breaking her heart. Anger was a good shield for her, and besides, he was no shrink. If he tried to explain why he wasn’t good for her she’d probably resent the hell out of being psychoanalyzed. He would if somebody tried to do that to him. Not that he needed it. He knew exactly what he wanted and where he was going. Of course he did.
She squinted up at him. “Do you have any dry clothes?”
He noticed the squint and walked to the bed to retrieve her glasses. “Come to think of it, no, I don’t.” He handed her the glasses.
“You notice these aren’t rose-colored,” she said as she put them on.
“I never thought they were.”
“I know perfectly well that you’re a traveling rodeo man. I would have been perfectly able to handle the conditions of our short relationship.”
“Maybe you’re right about not discussing this. We’ll only get tangled up in an argument again.”
“We’re already tangled up in an argument. And you started it.”
“Now, that’s not fair. I’m only—”
Mac whined, for the first time making his presence known since the window had closed.
Wyatt glanced over at the dog sitting beside the bed, his head cocked to one side as if trying to figure out what the problem was. “I don’t think he likes it when we fight,” Wyatt said.
“I’m sure he doesn’t.” She swung abruptly away from him and stomped over to a double dresser. “It’s touching how concerned you are about the dog’s feelings.” Wrenching open a drawer, she flipped through the garments stacked there before slamming the drawer and opening the next one. “By all means, let’s be careful about the dog’s feelings. Let’s not make things difficult for the dog, for heaven’s sake.” She pulled a garment from the drawer and threw it at him. “Take that downstairs and put it on. And take the dog.” Her voice caught. “I’m sure you’ll take good care of him.”
“Dammit, Charity, I care about your feelings!”
“Sure you do! That’s why you announce you’re not interested, then change your mind, then change your mind again!” Her eyes filled with tears. “All of that shilly-shallying around is probably to save my feelings, isn’t it?”
“In a way, yes.”
“Then stop thinking about my feelings. Because you’re making a complete mess of things.”
She had a point. He hadn’t bungled an encounter with a woman since eighth grade, and even that hadn’t been this bad. “See you downstairs,” he said as he left the room.
At least she hadn’t given him another fur-trimmed silk bathrobe, he thought as he unbuttoned his clammy shirt on the trip down the stairs. The deep blue sweatshirt with orange lettering was from Aunt Nora’s alma mater, Syracuse University. It was softened from years of washing and seemed way too big to have belonged to Nora.
Wyatt hung his shirt over the back of the sofa and pulled the sweatshirt over his head. Then he went to work on the fire under the turkey roaster. The room had already begun to fill with the aroma of cooking turkey, and the scent prompted inconvenient memories of cozy holiday dinners and laughter around a family table. But his parents were getting older. Aunt Nora was getting older. Eventually Wyatt would face holidays alone. He’d never contemplated where his carefree existence would eventually take him. He didn’t want to contemplate it now, either. If he wasn’t careful about this sentimental stuff, he’d wind up doing something really stupid this weekend.
ALISTAIR HUDDLED in front of his brick fireplace, an afghan around his shoulders while he sipped some bracing Earl Grey. Desperate for the consolation of tea, he’d used a coat hanger to dangle a saucepan over the fire until the water became reasonably hot. He’d never liked scalding tea, anyway. He’d covered the bottom of the pan with aluminum foil to prevent soot from blackening its exterior.
The Earl Grey helped him get over the shock of the past hour. He’d known he was dealing with coldhearted criminals, but he hadn’t imagined the depth of their depravity. This was a true crime novel in the making if he’d ever seen one.
His tape recorder plan had been working splendidly, until the conversation below filtered up to him. Horrified yet fascinated, he’d leaned over the chimney to hear better. And what he heard! They’d disemboweled Nora and put her entrails in a plastic bag! But a puff of smoke had made him start to choke, and he’d dropped the string holding the recorder.
At least he’d learned that they planned to freeze the entrails in the snow outside. He had to find that plastic bag and save the gory evidence for the authorities. A modern autopsy lab would be able to identify the entrails as Nora’s, and Alistair would testify who had put the bag there in the first place. Alistair shuddered to think what they’d done with the rest of the body. Maybe they hoped to dispose of it piece by piece. After all, they had been sawing in the laundry room the night before. Diabolical schemers.
He had but one avenue left. He wasn’t the physical specimen he’d once been, but whatever strength he had would have to suffice. The effort might temporarily cripple him, but it was a necessary sacrifice. He had to tunnel over.
SHIVERING from cold and smarting from Wyatt’s rejection, Charity flung the damp pink sweat suit into the tub with the other wet clothes and found a white one. She also took the time to borrow some underwear she came across in a bag in Nora’s drawer, the tags still attached, and was surprised at the seductive quality of it. Apparently Nora’s practical clothing had hidden a secret desire for feminine frills.
Nora’s bras were all the underwire type, which Charity had previously disdained because she’d always thought they were designed by a man with a breast fetish. An underwire bra was better than none, she reasoned, but after putting it on, she wasn’t so sure. The construction emphasized her bustline and gave her some impressive cleavage. Of course, no one would be able to see that as long as her sweatshirt remained on. And it would.
The panties were cut high on her thigh and banded with peek-a-boo lace. Charity had never owned such sexy underthings, and wearing them had the disturbing effect of reminding her of the pleasures to be provided by a man’s hands and a man’s mouth. And not just any man, either. The one waiting for her downstairs. Her womb tightened in response to that thought.
But Wyatt believed she was the bait in a matrimonial trap set for him, and as long as he believed that, pride would keep her from making a fool of herself, no matter what type of underwear she wore.
She fastened her hair on top of her head, took a deep breath, and started downstairs. Partway down she could smell the turkey roasting and suddenly she realized how hungry she’d become. The turkey wouldn’t be done for quite a while, so she and Wyatt needed to find something to snack on. That would take up time and energy for both of them, which was a good thing.
At the foot of the stairs she paused and glanced into the living room. The sight that greeted her made her former anger at him disappear, and she clutched the newel post while she stared in speechless admiration. Wyatt, shirtless, his skin glistening with a sheen of perspiration, was doing push-ups in front of the fireplace.
Charity swallowed but didn’t look away. She should have. The smooth precision of Wyatt’s movements and the bulge of his considerable muscle mass made her knees wobble and her heart race. And the position itself reminded her so much of a different activity in which Wyatt’s movements might be similar. She was in deep, deep trouble.
Wyatt finished the exercise and pushed himself to his feet. Then he turned and caught her staring at him. “I have a set of exercises I have to do every day to keep in shape for bull riding,” he said, reaching for a towel he’d thrown over the arm of the rocker. He wiped the sweat from his face and draped the towel around his neck.
“Don’t—” Charity stopped and cleared he
r throat. “Don’t let me interrupt. I was just going in the kitchen to find us something to eat.”
“Great idea. Smelling this turkey cooking is making me hungry.”
Appetite. Wyatt seemed to have a healthy one in all respects, Charity thought as she hurried down the hall toward the kitchen. He appreciated food, laughter, exercise…and sex. After living most of her life immersed in intellectual pursuits, Charity hadn’t thought much about her physical appetites. Now it seemed to be all she could think of.
In a few minutes she returned to the living room with a tray containing cheese, crackers, apples and a jar of cashews. MacDougal was asleep in his basket by the fire, and Wyatt, still bare-chested except for the towel draped around his neck, was shaving with a straight razor.
Charity stood transfixed by the scene, which could have been lifted right out of the seventeenth century. Wyatt sat on a chair positioned in front of an end table, where he’d propped a hand mirror and a decorative antique washbasin from the guest bedroom. The tangy scent of shaving cream wafted toward her, and she knew the fragrance would always be linked in her mind with Wyatt performing this masculine ritual.
His deft motions as he dragged the razor across his cheek and flicked the shaving cream into the basin indicated he was used to this method. Charity wasn’t, and she watched in fascination, the tray forgotten in her hands.
“I’m also an expert with legs, if you’re ever interested.” He spoke without interrupting the steady rhythm of his task.
She’d been caught staring again, probably in the mirror he was using. Embarrassed, she set the tray on the coffee table with more than necessary clatter. “Isn’t that special.”
“So I’ve been told.”
“I can’t imagine why you’re bothering to shave.” Actually she could imagine, and the reason made her blood race through her veins. But of course he didn’t want to risk being trapped.
He finished and wiped the last bits of shaving cream away with the towel before standing and turning toward her. “Habit,” he said, tossing the towel aside and reaching for his discarded sweatshirt. He pulled it over his head, eliminating Charity’s view of his muscled chest. “Guess we’d better check the bird.”
Stuck With You Page 10
