Pink Topaz

by Jennifer Greene

  Catering to delusional fantasies was bad enough...but then she’d looked at him. Slowly that vixen smile had disappeared. He’d seen the naked emotion in her eyes, the open yearning, the total trust on her face. He could take her. She wanted him. He could make those fantasies real.

  If guilt hadn’t ripped through him sharper than the lash of a horsewhip. Making love to her would be wrong. Lynching wrong. Regan was as pure as a promise and twice as vulnerable. The lady was a die-hard believer in love; Cole had long stopped believing there was any in him. To risk hurting her, after all she’d been through? She needed a relationship with him the way she needed the kiss of a diamondback rattler.

  “Shepherd, what on earth are you doing?”

  “Locking the back door.”

  “This takes five minutes?”

  Cole strode back into the kitchen, scraping his mind to remember what they’d been talking about. Journals. Something about her grandfather keeping journals. And suddenly he frowned. “You’re saying that Jake wrote down information about those specific stones? Why on earth didn’t you say so before this?”

  For a long moment Regan’s eyes searched his. Cole had the unnerving feeling that she wasn’t going to let the other thing go—but she seemed to decide to cater to him. “It never occurred to me that you wanted to know. They’re just diaries, Cole. If you’ve ever read a diary, they’re usually unbearably boring to anyone but the person who wrote them. I can’t imagine that the journals could matter to anyone but me.”

  “No? Princess, did you hear nothing we talked about this morning? Every ounce of trouble you’ve had points in one direction—the fortune you have in those gems. If Jake wrote about the stones, maybe he mentioned names. People who knew—who know—about those little rocks. At the very least, let’s take a quick look at the things—”

  “It’s not quite that simple,” Regan said slowly.

  “Sure it is.” Something, Cole figured, needed to become simple—and soon. His feelings for Regan had him tied up in knots. Her feelings for him were likely to cause him a heart attack. In the meantime, the princess was running around with a dragon on her tail. If searching through some old journals struck Cole as grasping at straws, it was at least doing something real to help her. God knew, he hadn’t done anything else.

  “It’s honestly not that easy, Shepherd.”

  “Then we’ll make it easy. Where are these diary things?”

  She looked at him. “They’re in the safe. Which, if you’ll remember, I offered to show you this morning. You nearly raised the roof.”

  Cole remembered. He’d told Regan that she took trust way, way too far. He was half a stranger—no one she should trust with her safe. For all she knew, he could successfully sideline as a cat burglar.

  She’d laughed—the same way she laughed every time he’d tried to warn her away from caring about him. And that same demure, naughty sparkle of humor was back in her eyes again now.

  “This is a completely different situation than this morning,” he said irritably.

  “How is it different, slugger?”

  “Because you know damn well I’m not going to raid your safe.”

  “You mean I can trust you?”

  Cole locked the front doors and trailed her into the library, thinking that the perverse woman was trying to make him suicidal. And succeeding.

  Regan bent over to switch on a red-globed lamp. His gaze riveted on the stretch of cloth on her fanny, then on the swing of her long legs as she brushed in front of him.

  “What are you doing?”

  Regan reached for the thermostat near the overhead light switch. “The whole house is climate controlled by computer. Didn’t you notice how comfortable the temperature was when we first arrived? Jake loved electronics. It’s such a fancy system that I can even call it from Chicago and change the temperature so that when I get here the air-conditioning is already on.”

  “Sweetheart, that’s real nice, but—”

  “Gramps thought so, too. More relevant, he couldn’t imagine why anyone would look twice at a thermostat. If, though, you move the dial to a particular set of numbers in sequence, it opens the safe. Ingenious, hmm? And Jake set up this other security thing—you can call the system via modem from Chicago, and check to make sure no one’s broken into the safe. For the record, no one ever has.” She turned with a smile, and caught Cole’s eyes on her mouth. “The safe’s open.”

  He whipped his gaze away from her mouth, but he didn’t see any safe.

  Again she crossed the room, this time to the far bookcase. Crouching down, she touched something at ankle height and the bookcase—actually the entire wall—swung open.

  Inside was no small household safe, but a long, narrow room. Three feet by eight, Cole guessed, and packed stem to stern. A light and ventilator fan automatically switched on when the door opened. One shelf had a rumpled desert hat, a china-faced doll missing a nose, and a neat stack of old photograph albums. On another shelf, Cole saw the black velvet pouch of gems...but the whole rest of the space was filled with moth-eaten old journals, dozens and dozens and dozens of them—thicker than tomes and each handwritten.

  “I warned you that it wasn’t simple,” Regan said. “I knew when I came here that it would take some time to go through them—”

  “Some time?” Cole figured that was the understatement of the year. It was going to take somebody weeks to go through those suckers.

  Cole had dropped the subject of the journals and sent Regan off to bed. The wine had done its job. By the time she’d stumbled down the hall, she could barely hold her head up. After two days with almost no rest, she was bound to sleep like the dead tonight.

  Not him. By midnight he’d turned out the lights in the spare bedroom, but he was as wide awake as a hoot owl. And twice as restless.

  She’d kissed him goodnight. It wasn’t any passionate assault or claim to seduction, just the quick brush of her warm lips. But the picture of her face was lodged in his mind like a headache. Her skin had been paler than pearls, her hair swept silky smooth behind her ears. The scent of her shot desire straight to his loins, and the look in her sleepy eyes held a woman’s perception and awareness.

  The kiss was over before it began, which, Cole guessed, had been Regan’s intent. Kisses were no big things. Affection between friends was natural. He could stop worrying that anything was going to happen between them.

  But the way she looked at him told a different story. She wanted him. God knew why. He’d warned her he wasn’t the kind of man who stuck around. With meticulous care, he’d laid out his character for her—selfish, uncommitted, unprincipled, lazy. Regan had an ideal of a romantic hero. Cole had no ideals. He didn’t want the role of rescuer. And if he saw the beguiling invitation in her eyes one more time, he knew damn well he was going to take it.

  Cole leaned back his weary head. He’d thought about gems and journals and thieves and Regan’s scary little mind flip-outs a dozen times. Even assuming he wanted to protect her—even if there was some remote, rational reason he should feel responsible for a green-eyed blonde he barely knew—he had no answers for her confusing multitude of problems. In fact, he was accomplishing absolutely nothing by sticking around. Not for her. And definitely not for him.

  Suddenly he saw the reflection of her bedroom light cast a yellow glow on the patio. A slim shadow crossed the courtyard, tiptoe quiet, and disappeared through the glass doors into the kitchen. Moments later, she walked back with a glass of something white in her hand. Milk. The bedroom light went off.

  How you could even be awake is beyond me. Now, dammit, princess, stay in bed.

  Her light popped back on at two. She slipped out the front door that time, causing adrenaline to shoot through his system. Pacing from window to window, Cole watched her wandering around outside, barefoot and wearing nothing more than a long white robe that drifted around her ankles. There were coyotes out there, sleeping snakes, cacti that would tear her tender feet. Did she look around? N
o. Cuddling her arms around her chest, she lifted her face for the brush of cool night air. For a moment her silhouette was trapped in moonlight. She looked beguiling and beautiful and magically ethereal. She looked young. She looked unguarded and fragile and so damn alone that she took his breath.

  You think you're under my skin, don't you? You think I can't walk away? Dammit, Regan, would you get the hell back in the house and go to bed?

  She came back into the house, and apparently went to bed. For an hour. Lights popped on all night. The library light at three. The kitchen again at four. The living room at five.

  Cole poured in the water, measured double the required grounds of coffee, clicked on the coffee machine and found himself a mug. The machine obediently began percolating murky brown mud.

  He waited, mug in hand, like a horse straining at the starting gate at the Derby. Even when he heard the click of Regan’s sandals, he never looked up. It was conceivable he would have killed for caffeine. Not likely, considering that he avoided and abhorred violence in any form, but definitely possible this morning.

  “Heavens, you’re up early. Rough night, slugger?”

  “I’ve had better.” Before the machine stopped dripping, he hauled out the glass pot and splashed the black brew into his mug. He gulped three fast sips. “I’m leaving today, Regan. After lunch.” There. It was done and said.

  “Good idea,” she said cheerily.

  “I have to go.”

  “Of course you do.”

  “It’d be different if I’d planned on being away this long, but I didn’t,” he said defensively. “Extra work is piling up on my brother. The King Air needs to be back in Chicago, and—”

  “There’s nothing you have to explain, Cole. In fact, if you hadn’t brought up the subject, I was going to send you home myself.”

  That made him pause. “You were?”

  “Yes. One way or another, you were leaving today.” She flashed him a smile. “In the meantime, though, I have in mind making breakfast. Which would be lots easier if I could coax that gorgeous body into moving away from the cereal cupboard….”

  He moved, quickly. He also gulped another three slugs of coffee, but the caffeine failed to clear the confusion in his groggy brain. She was kicking him out. He didn’t need to invent excuses for leaving; she wanted him gone.

  He should have been thrilled.

  So why was he suddenly worried?

  Regan, intent on making breakfast, was flying around the kitchen at the speed of sound. She’d cuffed up the collar on a red shirt, done something dark and mysterious to her eyes and pulled back her hair with a multicolored scarf trailing fringe. The look was early gypsy. Sexy early gypsy.

  Exhausted, sexy early gypsy. The streak of blush on her cheeks couldn’t completely disguise the translucent pallor of her skin, and her eyes looked huge and hauntingly over-bright. Whether she knew it—and Cole wasn’t sure if she did—Regan was running on adrenaline, racing on artificial energy that couldn’t last forever.

  She put two china bowls on the table and filled them with a fiber cereal—one of those horrible brands that tasted like air—and she whirled around.

  Cole ducked out of her way and told himself to shut up. She was happy he was leaving. He was happy he was leaving. Everyone was happy. “So...” he said lazily, “I wore out my welcome as a houseguest, did I?”

  “Hardly.” She poured papaya juice into two red crystal glasses and added sterling to the table. “I’ve loved having you here. I’ve loved being with you. Probably more than you’re comfortable with, slugger, which is one of two good reasons why you need to leave. Could you reach for the napkins behind you?”

  He reached for the napkins. “What do you mean about these ‘two good reasons’?” he asked warily.

  She whisked in front of him with a knife. “Before this, you were worried about leaving me alone. You think I didn’t realize that? But that reason no longer exists. I did a lot of thinking last night ….” She sliced strawberries on top of both cereal bowls, then splashed in milk. “I’ve been so positive that my gems were a secret that I never connected them to the burglar. I was wrong. You were right. No matter how many years those stones were hidden, someone, somewhere, sometime always had to know about them. And I’m going to dive into those journals as quickly as I can to find out who.”

  “Okay,” Cole said cautiously. It was reassuring to hear her talking rationally. It was just so rare that she talked rationally—on his terms—that he felt suspicious.

  “Thanks to you,” she continued, “I’m now aware that I need to do something to protect the stones—and myself—until I’ve figured this confusing mess out. So...I will. You don’t have to worry about leaving a babe in the woods. I know what I’m facing now.” She juggled the milk and strawberries and cereal back to the refrigerator.

  He confiscated the knife before she cut herself, and then reopened the refrigerator door to retrieve the dry cereal. “You’re going to be the epitome of common sense and caution from now on, right?” he asked dryly.

  “Right. And the second reason I think it’s a good idea for you to leave is that if you stay any longer I’m probably going to jump your bones.”

  The paring knife blade nicked his thumb. Startled, he sucked on the offended appendage.

  “You have to be careful. That knife’s really sharp,” Regan said helpfully.

  “Forget the knife. What the hell did you just say?”

  “About jumping your bones?” She flew by with another blinding smile. “If I were you, I’d be looking scared, too. If there was one thing Jake taught me, it was to go after what I really wanted with no holds barred. I admit I don’t have vast experience throwing myself at a man and I know you’re love shy, slugger...but if I set my mind to it, I think I could give you a heckuva good chase.”

  The epitaph of ‘love shy’ alone was enough to render him speechless. Her blithely delivered threat of his seduction came close to causing him a stroke.

  “It’s all right,” she said soothingly. “No need to panic. I’m not going to chase you—because you’re going to leave. And that was the decision I came to last night, that your leaving is best. As much as I’d like to know how far this thing between us could grow, it just isn’t the right time or place. I have some problems to solve. For now, you’re safe.”

  “Thank you for reassuring my mind.”

  “No problem. Honest communication is a good way to clear the air, don’t you think?”

  Cole tugged on his right earlobe. “I think that you’ve been having a damned good time, princess.”

  “The best time in ages,” she affirmed. “I made your face turn red, didn’t I? That has to be a first.”

  He said slowly, thoughtfully, “And is that what you were thinking at two in the morning? How can I guarantee Shepherd leaves? Aha. We’ve pretty much established that he has a holy terror of sticky emotional complications—”

  “It did occur to me—” she began. But her jaunty smile suddenly slipped.

  “And if I stuck around, it would get harder for you to hide what was happening to you. The loony tunes scene. Nightmares all night, then hallucinations and shakes during the day. And it’s getting worse, isn’t it?”

  She averted her face, but the sudden straight line of her spine tore at Cole’s heart. “Just go home, slugger,” Regan said quietly. “A little time alone in the desert, and I’ll be fine. I admit I need some rest—”

  “You need more than rest. And I am going home. But not until we settle this.” Breakfast was all made. No one was touching it. “You aren’t the only one who spent half the night wide awake last night, princess. When I head back to Chicago, I want to take some things of yours with me.”

  “What things?”

  Cole spotted the brown bottle of herbal vitamins on the counter. “That, for one. You had those vitamins in your purse on the plane. And any cosmetics that you use every day—I want to take those back, too, and get them analyzed in a lab. I come from a pol
ice background—I told you—so it wouldn’t be any big sweat for me to make a phone call and find a good lab. Not that you couldn’t do it locally, but who could you ask but Langston? And he’s an incompetent jerk.”

  “Shepherd?”

  “What?”

  “I don’t have any idea what you’re talking about.”

  Her hair shimmered in the sunlight when she shook her head. For that instant she was distracted, yet Cole saw the fragile translucence of her skin, the catch of anxiety in her eyes. The impulse to haul her into his arms was almost overwhelming—but he nipped it. Last night he’d concluded that he had only two ways to help Regan. By getting the hell out of her life. And by handling the one and only thing that the princess was honestly afraid of.

  “I’m talking about you,” he said quietly. “You aren’t going nuts and you never were, and it’s time you believed it. Something is wrong. You said you’d been to a doc. I’m no doc and I don’t know anything, but there has to be a reason for the way you’ve been feeling. Maybe you’re allergic to something in the vitamins. Maybe there’s a chemical in your cosmetics that reacts on you. People react to things in different ways, sometimes completely innocent things. What harm could it do to have the stuff analyzed and find out?”

  All night, that problem had nagged him. She’d said her doc had diagnosed stress. Cole didn’t claim to have a medical degree, but he’d grown up on the streets of Chicago. He knew strung out when he saw it. The streaks of energy, the shakes, the no sleeping—all her symptoms—would have made sense if he’d caught her popping speed. All he could catch Ms. Priss popping were glasses of milk. And vitamins.

  Around four that morning, the ugly suspicion had reared its head and refused to disappear. She had a rat running around her life who’d gained access to the inside of her Chicago apartment. She acted drugged. She took those vitamins religiously every day.