She had no appetite, but she was forced to make a respectable dent in it because Shepherd bullied her—and now he paid the price. He had to walk over her body with the kindling. She couldn’t find the energy to budge, which was apparently fine by him.
“That’s how I like my women. Lazy, prone and biddable.”
She pried one eye open. “I heard you. I’ve heard all your pitiful insults. And I’m going to get up and swat you one. In about fifteen minutes.”
“You mean I can still get away with anything for another fifteen minutes?”
She grinned. Hunkered down by the onyx fireplace, Cole patted his shirt pocket, came up with a book of matches and flipped one into the kindling. The small fire took with a little whoosh and hiss. Lemon yellow flames quickly lapped the dry logs.
The fire was the only light in the room. Outside, the moonless night was a sable black and typical of the desert—the temperature had dropped fast after sunset. She told herself to move her lazy behind and turn on a lamp. But she didn’t. The soft flames reflected off the gleaming black mantel, picked up the aquamarine gleam of the pool outside and made fascinating shadow patterns on the wall. She stretched, disbelieving how luxuriously mellow she felt, particularly after an upsetting afternoon.
After putting away all the food and fixing the misbehaving pump on the pool, she’d called Trafer. The call was necessary; she’d promised to let the boys know she’d arrived safely, but she’d stupidly slipped and mentioned the robbery. The call had turned into a solicitous grilling, concern about her ability to handle stress and yet another pitch for her to check in at a funny farm. Five minutes after she hung up, Reed—obviously coached—had telephoned. Then Dorinsky. By the time the afternoon was over, she’d felt unnerved and strung out.
Cole, though, had changed that around. He’d taken over, cooked the dinner and sergeanted the cleanup—and relentlessly teased her into a lighter frame of mind.
As he walked toward her, firelight played on his lean features, giving his face a wolfish cast and his eyes a dangerous gleam. An illusion of light, Regan was sure. Before she could protest, she found her fingers curled around a glass of wine. The brief cup of his palm sent frissons of sexual awareness tickling down her pulse.
Another illusion. She was sure.
“I’d better not,” she murmured.
“Nonsense.”
“I rarely drink wine, and I already had a glass with dinner—”
“Trust me. The absolute most those two itsy-bitsy glasses of burgundy could possibly do is help you sleep later.” He plucked a pillow from the couch and dropped it next to her on the hearth. He followed, stretching out on his back, as close as two campers on a cold night. “Princess, we need to have a little talk about your vices.”
“Ah...haven’t I heard this lecture before?”
“Probably. But I didn’t realize how serious your problem was. I’ve been watching you all day. You practically bought the store out of milk, filled half the refrigerator with leaves, and if I hadn’t stopped you, you’d have had herbal tea with dinner.” He shook his head. “Honey, you just can’t keep on this way. You gotta get a little sin and corruption and guilt in your life.”
“And Twinkies?”
“I was thinking about sex. But Twinkies is a start. In fact, Twinkies with a good red wine is hard to beat—hey, don’t give me that look.”
Regan laughed, and tried to remember the last time she’d flirted this naturally with a man...the last time she’d had such a simple good time. Cole was like no one she’d dated, no one she knew.
All afternoon she’d kept waiting for him to announce when he was leaving. Cole obviously had to return home. She had no idea why he hadn’t. And she didn’t ask.
No other man, with a simple look or a pat on the fanny, had ever made her feel this...sensitized. Sexy. Female to the bone. Cole was the diametric opposite of every man she’d been attracted to—complex, a closed book, a pragmatic realist and cynic, a deep river with hidden currents that her instincts warned her were dangerous. But she could talk to him. Tell him anything. And when he touched her, however accidentally, she felt a streak of fever, hot and sharp and exhilarating, that blew everything she thought she knew about desire straight off the map.
It wasn’t going anywhere. Regan wasn’t worried about her growing feelings, because Cole was wary enough for two. He played—but only so far. He pulled back from those accidental, incidental touches as if he’d been burned. Slugger wasn’t letting anyone close—much less a woman who’d caused him more trouble than a runaway freight train.
Regan had no intention of causing him any more trouble, and tonight, there were simply no problems on the agenda. In time, the fire died to a glowing bed of embers, but neither of them had moved. The ebb and flow of conversation came easily to both. Her grandfather used to say that a gentleman never talked about sex, religion or politics. Cole liked all three.
So did she, but their desultory—and inevitable—differences in opinion never aroused either of them to move...until the conversation drifted toward her work. Since he had started the subject, Regan figured he’d made his own bed.
“Why on earth did you think Jake and I had the same job?”
“I just assumed. Because you both dealt in gems.”
She shook her head with a grin. “Gramps was a dealer, a horse trader. I appraise private collections of gems. Believe me, those are two different worlds. For one thing, Jake’s whole interest in a stone was its wholesale value.”
“And yours isn’t?”
“Heavens, no.” She took another sip of wine, her eyes dancing over the rim of the glass. “My business is magic. You’re always teasing me about being an impractical romantic, Shepherd, but the truth is, it takes a romantic who believes in magic to do my job.”
“Sure.”
“I’m serious.”
Mr. Cynic leaned up on an elbow and regarded her with indulgent patience. “I know I’m going to regret asking this, but I’ll go ahead. Tell me what possible relationship magic has with appraising gems?”
“Are you going to listen with an open mind?”
“If the subject is magic? No.” He brushed a feather of bangs from her brow, his touch evocatively light. “But I guarantee I’ll listen.”
“Well, for openers, you need to understand that jewelers and dealers want only perfect stones—or as perfect as they can afford to peddle. Which their goal is to market, retail or wholesale.”
“Okay.”
“But I work only with collectors...and collectors are a different breed of cat. They don’t necessarily care if a stone is perfect. For them, the market price of a given gem is only a partial measure of its value. True collectors will literally shell out zillions of dollars over market value for certain stones. And for good reason.”
“Yeah? What’s this good reason?”
Regan dutifully explained. “Certain gems have emotional powers. The power to heal, the power to affect your life. Magic. And the magic of a given stone determines its value in the world of collectors.”
Thoroughly amused now, Cole shook his head. “You’re telling me some fool would actually pay extra for a diamond he thought had magic?”
“Without a qualm. Which has a direct affect on my job as an appraiser. I need to know the history and lore and background of a stone to judge its value to other collectors. Illusion—magic—is part of my job.”
“Princess,” Cole murmured, “you’re talking Irish blarney.”
A bit. The two glasses of rich, fruity burgundy had definitely loosened her tongue—and a few impulsive inhibitions as well. Most of her appraisals were straightforward evaluations. Every collector, though, had favorite stones, and a few fell headlong into the healing and superstitious lore about gems. It was absolutely true that romantic illusion and magic touched her corner of the gem world. It was absolutely true that that little touch of hocus-pocus had always appealed to her imagination.
It was also absolutely true that she w
as having enormous fun challenging Cole’s hard-core realism.
“You’re skeptical without knowing all the facts,” she scolded him.
“That’s probably what Studebaker tried to tell its stockholders.”
“Studebakers went off the market. Gem lore has thrived since the start of mankind. Take amethysts. For over two thousand years, different cultures have believed that amethysts are a source of courage. Or take garnets. Warriors on two different continents made bullets out of red garnet because of the special powers of that stone. And sapphires—by the fourteenth century, every Catholic bishop wore a sapphire ring, because the church believed the stone curbed sexual feelings.”
“Superstition,” Cole scoffed.
“I’m not denying that. I’m only saying that superstitions can have incredible power over people if they believe in them. And people have credited the healing power of gems for just as many centuries.”
“Healing...?”
She nodded, ticking examples off her fingers. “A sapphire is known to have colossal powers of healing. Garnets give a man energy, virility, vitality—they’re a sexual stimulant. Rubies are dangerous stones to mess with, but in the health realm, used in the right way, there is no stronger gem for treating heart problems. Wear amber, and you’re protected from witchcraft. Jade, if you seek wisdom. Topaz if you crave peace and your soul is troubled. Although truthfully, topaz is known far more for its power with love—”
“Regan?”
“Hmm?”
“You’re full of it tonight.”
“I haven’t convinced you yet? People have died for gems. The Timur Ruby. The Star of India. The Ruby of the Black Prince, the Midnight Star Sapphire. On every continent, in every culture, through every period of history, there have been certain stones...” She hesitated, and suddenly dropped the lecture. Her voice softened, turned serious. “Okay, I’ve been teasing you. And it’s not like I believe in Doug Henning and Santa Claus, but real things have happened that can’t be explained. I know you’re a realist, Cole, but do you always find it so easy to separate truth from illusion? Haven’t you ever come across anything that was bigger than you could understand?”
Something stilled in his face. A memory of pain, a quick razor sharpening in his eyes, a tightening in his jaw. “There are whole realms of things I don’t understand. And never will.” His voice was empty. “But there is no magic, princess. Not in this life.”
The room was darker now, the bed of orange embers all that was left of the fire. Cole had shifted so close that she could see his eyes shutter out emotion like a midnight chill.
And in the darkness, near enough to feel his warm breath, Regan suddenly ached for him.
Possibly she was incapable of sound judgment right now. Any time, Regan knew, she could have another memory blackout or anxiety attack. But at that moment, she had the poignantly sharp intuition that slugger needed far more protecting than she ever had. If her spirit was wounded, so was Cole’s. Always, she’d had the strength of her dreams and her belief in love to sustain her. Cole gave himself nothing. However gentle he’d been with her, he was ceaselessly ruthless with himself.
And the tug of her heart was as powerful as love. When that emotion had seeped up on her, she didn’t know, didn’t care. She wanted to lie with him, to ease his hurts, to warm him, to somehow give him back a belief in the dreams he’d lost. Cole was so terribly wrong. There was enormous, wonderful magic in life. Magic as real as her own heartbeat, and it happened every time she was near him.
She touched his cheek, her eyes vulnerable with fierce desire and tenderness. Cole made a rough sound, looking at her. He lifted a hand as if he were going to push her away. But he didn’t.
With exquisite slowness his fingers sifted through her hair, trailed down to her exposed white throat. His thumb discovered her fluttering pulse. The muscles in his jaw tightened. He sensed what she was feeling. He sensed what she wanted.
Embers crackled in the hearth. Spit. Spear bright. She saw his gaze travel the length of her body, linger on her breasts, her hips, as possessively as if she were bare and they were already lovers.
Blood raced through her veins like hot silver. Anticipation, elemental and unfamiliar, locked all the air in her lungs. She wasn’t sure she would know what to do, and was afraid. Then not. Cole had emotion to let out like a river dammed up for far too long.
But he wouldn’t hurt her. She knew that; she trusted him, and waited on the agony of a pulse beat for his kiss. His gaze drifted to her mouth. She felt a heat and tension vibrate between them, sensed something reckless and rough and volatile in his eyes.
And then he jerked to his feet as if there were a rocket in his behind, swearing low and hard.
“Dammit. When the hell did it get so dark in this room?”
CHAPTER SEVEN
There were three table lamps in the room. Cole turned on all three and then the overhead. Zap went the romantic ambience. The desert sun at high noon could hardly compete with the sudden glare.
“It’s late. You need to catch some sleep and so do I. Neither of us had a lick of rest last night.” Moving faster than an escaped convict, Cole grabbed the two empty glasses and the wine bottle and clipped toward the kitchen. “I’ll bolt both doors and close up shop.”
“Okay,” Regan murmured in confusion. Her whole body felt bee-stung, itchy and shivery and painfully aware of him. With her arms wrapped around her chest, she followed him as far as the doorway. Against the dark oak cabinets, his face looked haggard with strain. He glanced at her, quickly, and only once.
“You look beat.”
“I am.” But she didn’t feel the least tired when he looked at her. His gaze was intense and intimate and kindled her senses all over again. The muscle in his cheek clicked like a tiny trigger. And then he turned away.
“I’ll take care of the lights. And you have those gems locked up, don’t you?” He jammed the glasses in the dishwasher, then jerked open the refrigerator door and slammed the bottle of wine on the shelf.
Cole was apparently determined to chat. Regan was too busy studying him to pay much attention to the conversation. “Yes, they’re locked up. I told you that Jake had a safe. They’ve been in there since before we went to the store this morning.”
“I know what you told me. It just strikes me as a miracle that the thief never found your safe, and thinking about you walking around with the stones before that is enough to give a man hives. I don’t suppose you ever considered leaving them in a lockbox in a nice big Chicago bank?”
“I brought them here because I needed them with me.”
Cole’s head whipped around. “Need? What’s that supposed to mean, that you needed them with you?”
The gems were the last thing on her mind. A soft shiver chased up her spine as she watched Cole battering around her kitchen. Lord, slugger, we barely touched. It was just a nip of magic, not a bite.
“Regan? What’d you mean about needing the stones?”
Apparently he was going to pursue an innocuous conversation or die trying, so she answered the question. “The gems are unusual, which I told you. Even so, Jake wouldn’t have left them to me unless they had some personal meaning for him. He didn’t travel much in recent years, but way back he always kept journals of his trips. The diaries are here, and I’m hoping to find the specific stories behind those stones....Shepherd, you’re running out of cupboard doors to slam. Could we possibly talk about it?”
“Talk about what?”
“Nothing happened,” she said gently.
Cole hauled in a lungful of air. He took another look at her standing in the doorway—her clothes all rumpled, her shirt dipping a big shadow at her breasts, her eyes alluring with sensuality and a woman’s intimate warmth—and was tempted to slam another cupboard door.
He didn’t. He stalked around the corner to shoot the dead bolts on the back door. And then wished he hadn’t, because he abruptly felt trapped on the wrong side of the lock. There was no one in
the house but him, her...and an erection that a bath in ice wasn’t likely to wilt.
All day he had found altruistic reasons for sticking around. Early that morning, the talk with her had been necessary—who else was going to drill some straight horse sense into her if he didn’t? As far as taking her to the store, obviously he couldn’t let her drive alone. She’d gone into one of those ditsy dizzy spells right on the road, and doubtless believed he hadn’t noticed. And later, when he was installing the new front door lock, he’d heard her on the telephone. It killed him that Regan needed some real help and her sole source of emotional support seemed to be three old codgers who kept telling her she was wacko. She’d been shaken after those calls, shaken and low and distracted. He’d known damn well she wasn’t going to eat unless he made something, so that had been excuse for lingering a little longer.
They were all good excuses. They were all worth diddly-squat. Against his better judgment, against all the principles of his adult lifetime, he’d suckered into playing hero for a day.
It wasn’t working out. He wasn’t helping Regan. Hell, he had no idea how to help her, and the reasons he’d stayed—if he was honest with himself—missed heroic by a mile.
Cole reached for the back of his neck. He could still remember her laughing in the store. He loved the sound of her throaty, chuckling laugh. Push against her independence and God, she was touchy; but even caught in an impossible mess, she never lost her gutsy sense of humor. She was sassy and she was fun and she’d had a damn good time giving him the devil about that magic nonsense tonight.
So had he. Lying next to her, watching that slow vixen smile light up her whole face, Cole had felt every nerve and muscle buck with sexual awareness. Regan...moved him. Touched a fierce chord of longing that tempted him beyond all reason. He wondered how her soft white skin would feel under his hands, how she’d taste. He wanted to take her on a wild, sweet ride; he wanted to pleasure her until she couldn’t stand it, until she forgot every damn thing she’d been through. He imagined how her firm breasts would fit his palms, how fast he could peel off her shorts, how she’d feel with him buried inside her.
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