His voice trailed off to a whisper. In the silence that followed, she heard the irregular beat of her heart, the faint shallow rasp of her breath, and she knew that all she needed was a touch, a gesture, a look, and she would forget all her reservations, would trade them all for pleasure and passion. For him.
But he didn’t touch her. He didn’t give her that gesture or look. Instead, he abruptly straightened, as if startled back into normalcy. “How was that? You like it better?” His words were teasing. His voice wasn’t. It quavered unnaturally.
“I don’t know.” Her voice shook, too. “Maybe we should stick with ‘cute kid.’”
He kept his distance while giving her step-by-step directions for repairing the damaged walls. When she finished, a good deal of the surface of the dingy walls was covered with white patches. Taking the Spackle and tools with her, she joined him in the bedroom, where he’d gotten a head start on the preparatory work. Once he was finished, he sat on the dresser in the middle of the room and watched her work.
“Hannah?”
She slapped a putty knife full of Spackle over a ragged nail hole. “Hmm?”
“Have you ever considered selling half the motel?”
“I can’t sell the place. What would I do with Mom? And who would be crazy enough to buy it?”
“Half, Hannah. Merrilee and Sylvie would continue to live where they are. You would continue to run the place, at least for a while. Later, maybe you could finish school or move to Tulsa or Oklahoma City. You could go ahead and do all those things you’d wanted to do ten years ago.”
Slowly, with her knuckles whitening around the putty knife, she turned to face him. He hadn’t answered her last question—or maybe he had. “Sell half of it. To you.”
He nodded, looking as serious as she’d ever seen him.
Just as slowly she turned back to her work. Go to school. Move away. Have a life of her own that didn’t include twenty-four hours a day of worrying, fretting and working. Meet men. Go out on dates. Make friends. Live a normal life. Those were her dreams and had been since she was fourteen years old. She’d thought they were forever out of reach, but Mick was offering them to her once again. All she had to do was sell half the motel to him.
She should be thrilled, excited, overjoyed, and she did feel a shiver of anticipation. But only a shiver. She couldn’t leave. Merrilee and Sylvie needed her. This place needed her.
It also needed him, or someone like him. Someone with money and know-how, someone who didn’t mind hard work, a crazy woman or an outspoken senior citizen.
“Why would you do that?” she asked warily.
“No matter what happens with the sheriff, I’m out of Blue Water Construction. I like this part of the state, and I like a challenge. I think this place could be something. It’s got potential.”
“It’s got a ten-thousand-dollar debt to Brad, and it’s not worth fifty cents. Any way you look at it, it’s a lousy investment.”
“Brad’s never going to collect on that debt. You paid him.”
“Like I can prove it. I can see myself now, standing in front of a jury and claiming that Brad offered to write off my ten-thousand-dollar loan in exchange for my spending one night in bed with his partner. Who’s going to believe that?”
His answer came in a soft, husky voice. “Every man in the courtroom.”
She faced him again. “You’re serious. You’re willing to buy into this place, to fix it up, to help run it.”
He nodded.
She turned away once more. Her hand trembled as she applied a glob of Spackle to the wall. He was willing to live here, right here, to stay, to not leave. He didn’t want to go back to the city, to the rich friends and that big, gorgeous, unwelcoming house. He wanted to stay here.
That was what she wanted, wasn’t it? Living here wasn’t so bad with him around. In fact, with him around, here was quite possibly the best place she could be. Her future with him here was rosier than she could have imagined—if either of them had a future. “What if you go to prison?”
“Then you’ll have the best possible deal—a partner who provides money and stays out of your way. And if you go to prison, too, Sylvie and your mother will be taken care of. They’ll be able to hire enough help to keep the place going.”
Using her toe, she pulled a footstool over, stepped up and stretched high to patch a crack near the ceiling. The best possible deal, he’d said, and he was right. No matter what happened, he was offering an arrangement better than any she could have dreamed—a partner to share the burdens of the motel and her mother, an infusion of cash to fix up the place, business sense to help increase the occupancy rate and the opportunity to fulfill her nearly forgotten dreams. Best of all, barring arrest and a prison sentence, he would stay. Probably not forever, maybe not more than a year or two, but for a time he would be here. Working with her, living with her—at least, next door to her.
Best of all... She dawdled over the next patch, her thoughts consumed with the brand-new future he’d offered. College, a new job in a career of her choosing, a new home, a new city, new opportunities—those should be the best of all. A month ago, if anyone had made such an offer with the promise that he would care for Merrilee and Sylvie, she would have jumped at it. She would have put the Last Resort and Sunshine behind her so fast her head would have spun. She would have marveled at her incredible good fortune, thanked God and gone.
This afternoon the dreams still held their promise, but she wasn’t convinced they were exactly what she wanted. She tried to imagine herself living in an apartment in Tahlequah or Tulsa, working a regular nine-to-five job, taking classes in the evening, grocery shopping for one, cooking, cleaning and doing laundry for only one. She couldn’t quite focus the image.
“Well?”
She looked at Mick. “I could move away, finish school, live and work in Tulsa or Oklahoma City or anywhere I want, and you would stay here and run the place and take care of my family.”
Though he nodded, he looked as if the idea didn’t set well with him. Which part? Being responsible for someone else’s family? Or maybe, just maybe, her moving away?
“I would have to talk to Sylvie.”
“Do that, but do it before the sheriff decides to arrest me and I wind up spending all my money on a lawyer.”
“If this is a burden...”
He shook his head. “That was a joke. Eagle’s Haven was about to bankrupt the company, but I have some money put aside. Plus, I called a real-estate agent we worked with and put my house on the market. A couple of Sandra’s friends were interested in it a while back. We’ll see if they still are. Anyway, money’s not a problem.”
She dabbed over the last nail hole, then set the Spackle and putty knife down. “Do you know how lucky you are?” There had never been a single day in her adult life that money hadn’t been a very big problem. She could barely imagine what it was like to have enough. She didn’t have a clue how it would feel to always have more than enough.
He gave her a long look that generated more heat than her poor air conditioner could combat. “I’m very lucky,” he said, and she knew beyond a doubt that he wasn’t talking about money.
“Right,” she agreed with a touch of mockery. “You married a bitch, you went into business with a blackmailer and a murderer, and the one and only time you were unfaithful to your wife, you picked a—”
“Beautiful woman who made it worth everything that’s happened since.”
She swallowed her self-insults and, for one brief moment, closed her eyes, willing him to reach for her, to touch her, to give her any excuse to surrender. When he didn’t, she opened her eyes and forced a small, disappointed smile. “Now what do we do?”
She knew the answers she would like from him—You can come over where I can touch you, feel you, smell you. You can let me kiss you, and when I do, you can rub your body against mine. You can take off my clothes and I’ll take off yours, and we’ll forget our troubles together.
Nat
urally he didn’t say any of those things. Grinning, he got to his feet. “Now you paint.”
With nightfall the temperature dropped a scant ten degrees. Even though the air conditioner was doing a decent job of keeping his room cool, Mick had settled outside with a tall glass of iced lemonade from Earlene’s kitchen. His shirt was unbuttoned, his shoes kicked off next to the bed, and he leaned back in the single piece of movable furniture in his room, a straight-backed desk chair.
It was a few minutes after nine. He’d finished the last bit of painting in Hannah’s bedroom nearly an hour earlier, had cleaned the brushes and rollers, then showered. Painting was one of his least-favorite tasks on a job. He’d always been happy to pay the painters and the crews who mudded and taped the drywall whatever price they asked, because the good ones were worth every penny. But he hadn’t minded it so much this time, maybe because it’d been such a small job. Maybe because he’d worked all but the last few hours alongside Hannah.
Maybe because he intended to spend whatever time she would allow—whatever nights—in those Morning Blush rooms. Just as soon as he persuaded her.
Down in the office, she was talking to Ruby. The clerk was a widow, Hannah had told him this evening, whose children had taken her grandchildren to distant homes. She lived alone and was a perfect choice for the job, Hannah had insisted, even though he hadn’t argued. Ruby was a night owl, so the hours were no problem. She liked people, the job got her out of the house, and the small salary she earned supplemented her social security.
She’d gone into Earlene’s background, too, stressing her finer points, minimizing her age. That was when he’d known that she had decided to take him up on his offer. Unless Sylvie objected, she was going to sell half the motel to him.
He had assured her that he had no interest in taking over, only in being a part of the group. Part of her life, was what he’d wanted to say. Part of her family.
Hannah came out of the office and started his way, and he rephrased that last desire. He wanted to be the most important part of her family. He wanted to belong to her in ways no one else could. He wanted the right to touch her, not just the big touches, the seductive ones, but the other kind—his hand on hers, his arm around her, the casual little intimacies. He wanted...
Sweet hell, yes, he wanted.
She stopped in front of him, and he swallowed hard as she asked, “What are you doing out here?”
“Cooling off.”
She smiled faintly. “Cooling off? It’s probably a good twenty degrees cooler inside.”
“I’ve been listening to the night. Watching you. Waiting.”
She took his glass, took a deep drink, then returned it before sitting on the concrete curb that separated parking lot from sidewalk. “Waiting for what?”
He shrugged, and she didn’t press.
After a moment she said, “I talked to Sylvie. She’s tickled pink at the idea of having you for a partner. She doesn’t take to most people very easily, so you should feel flattered.”
“I do.” He grinned. “You should trust your grandmother’s judgment.”
“I do.”
“So, pending the numbers, we have a deal?” He offered his hand, and, after a time, she shook it.
“We do.” She wiped her palm across her forehead, lifted her hair off her neck, then sighed. “You want to go for a swim?”
It was a perfect night for it—no breeze, a nearly full moon, a sky full of stars and a lazy, draining warmth that seeped into a person’s bones. It beat sitting here, where the day’s heat still radiated from concrete and cinder block. It sure as hell beat going into his room alone, while Hannah went to some other room alone. “All right,” he said.
She was on her feet and halfway to her room before he stopped her. “Didn’t you forget something?”
She looked back blankly.
“You said we would negotiate for your swimsuit top the next time we went to the lake.”
The blankness was replaced with a slow, lazy smile. “Keep it. I don’t need it.” She disappeared into her room and the door closed.
Mick grinned. He wished he could interpret her statement to mean that she was ready to take Sylvie’s advice. Most likely, though, it just meant she had another swimsuit to wear. Still, the mere suggestion of Hannah naked in the moonlight was greatly appreciated by certain parts of his body.
He was changed and waiting in the truck by the time she came out. She wore shorts and a T-shirt, with a beach towel slung around her neck. There were no telltale ties peeking out from the shirt, which meant she probably wore something sleek, one-piece and modest. So much for ogling her nearly naked body, he thought with real regret.
She directed him back to the same spot. While he removed his shoes and shirt, she kicked off her thongs, stepped out of her shorts and dove into the water, still wearing her shirt. Biting down hard on a groan, he watched her surface, a pale glow of white and gold, and strike out toward the lake middle. Just what he needed—a quiet night, miles from his self-control and Hannah in a wet T-shirt. Torment me, he’d said the last time they were here, and tonight she’d taken him up on it. They hadn’t been here five minutes, and already he was hot enough to make the water steam. Already he was hard enough to hurt.
He watched her for a while before diving in, but this time he kept his distance. He didn’t catch up to her, didn’t swim close enough to reach out and touch her. He stayed several lengths away, swam until he was tired, then returned to the dock, where he found a comfortable place to sit and watch.
After a while she joined him, rising up from the lake like some sort of midnight fantasy. Water slicked her hair back from her face and made her shirt heavy, pulling it taut over her naked breasts, her flat belly and the curve of her hips. It ran down her legs and dripped from her fingers to pool at his feet, cool and sensual.
The shirt was her oldest and thinnest. Wet, it was damn near transparent. In the moonlight he could make out the shadows that circled her erect nipples, the shallow indentation of her belly button, the curls that sheltered the most intimate part of her.
He had seen her naked, had teased her about swimming that way. He’d appreciated her in a bikini and had regretted that tonight she’d chosen something more concealing. But this...this was the sexiest, most sensual, most provocative of all. This concealed and revealed. It was as innocent as a summer day, as wicked as a steamy June night. If he could have only one memory of her, it would be like this—beautiful, sexual, full of promise.
After standing there long enough for his mouth to go dry, his skin to turn hot and his body to turn to stone, she picked up the beach towel. The shorts on top fell to the dock, and something fell out of the pocket, landing with the rustle of plastic. She scooped it up, hiding it in her hand as she wrapped the towel around her. “Sorry for the shirt,” she said, though it was clear in her voice that she wasn’t, “but someone made off with half my swimsuit. This was all I had to wear.”
She was in the process of sitting when he grasped a handful of towel and yanked her toward him. She stumbled, tried to catch herself and landed on his lap—on his erection. The instant she felt it, she became still. He kept her that way with one arm around her shoulders while, with his free hand, he worked her fingers open to reveal the item she’d palmed. It was condoms, a string of four, each individually wrapped, the same brand she’d provided last weekend. “What about last night?” His voice was gruff, strained.
Hers was breathless. “Wh-what about it?”
“You were trying very hard not to go to bed with me again. Remember?”
She nodded.
“Have you changed your mind? Or did you decide to try very hard to drive me out of mine?”
She opened her mouth to protest and deny, but no words came out. Her expression shifted, softened, making her sigh before answering very quietly and properly, “I’ve changed my mind.”
Why? That was the obvious next question. Why had she pushed him away last night only to draw him closer to
night? But the answer, he feared, was as obvious as the question: his offer to buy the motel, to pour his money into it, to take over the responsibility for her mother and her elderly staff and to let her go away and seek the life she’d always wanted. Maybe she wanted to ensure that he wouldn’t change his mind. Maybe she wanted more generous terms than she suspected he would offer. Maybe she felt she had to repay him. Maybe she was just so damn grateful.
Any of the possibilities were reasonable. All of them were painful. Later he could deal with reason and pain. Right now he wanted only passion, and so he didn’t ask.
With his eyes open, he touched his mouth to hers. As kisses went, it wasn’t much—just the brush of mouth to mouth—but it made him feel arousal, desire, strange sweet pleasure. For eleven years he’d kissed no woman but Sandra, whose kisses had grown steadily less passionate, less loving, until they had stopped altogether. But this simple kiss shared with Hannah made him remember what it was like to be wanted.
It made him remember what it was like to love.
Her tongue touched his lips, slid between them and into his mouth, sending a jolt through his system. His muscles tightening, his breath catching, he welcomed her, but just as quickly she withdrew. She freed her mouth of his, freed her towel from his hand and moved to her knees, spreading the towel neatly over weathered boards.
Then she touched him.
Her fingers grazed his arm, brushed the back of his hand, then wrapped tightly around it, drawing him onto his knees, too. Her touch spread a heat through his body that no Oklahoma summer could match. His blood was thick, his skin dry enough to sizzle when she brought her body into contact with his, when her wet shirt touched and cooled, then transferred his heat to her.
The Overnight Alibi Page 17
