Til Death Do Us Part

by Beverly Barton

  She glanced over at Roarke, who had sat down on the bed and braced his back against the headboard. Why didn’t the man button his shirt? Was he deliberately tempting her by giving her a partial view of his magnificent chest? Marvelously muscled. Gloriously hairy. And brutally scarred. She had to ignore him, to pretend he didn’t arouse her.

  She smiled secretly, remembering the nerve it had taken for her to undress down to her panties in front of him. He had no way of being sure she’d done it on purpose. She’d closed the closet door more than halfway. She had never in her entire life set out to purposely arouse a man. But she’d rather enjoyed putting on a striptease show for her husband. By the time he’d hung up the phone and she’d come out of the closet to find him by the bookcase, he’d gained some control over his body. But his nostrils had been flared, his sex semierect, and a fine sheen of perspiration glistened over his upper lip.

  She loved knowing that he was attracted to her, that he wanted her as she wanted him. But just as she knew how he felt, he knew the same about her. It was as if they were in a game of wills, to see who would give in first—before the appointed two weeks were up. In retrospect, she realized she’d been foolish to make such a decree, considering how sexually aware she’d been of him since the moment they’d met. But in fairness to herself, her reasoning had been sensible. She’d wanted to give them both time—admittedly, especially herself—to adjust to being married, before they consummated their union. Although her sexual experience was limited to a brief relationship with Paine Emerson, she had dated over the years and been attracted to several men. But never—ever—had she felt anything to compare with the way she felt every time she looked at Simon Roarke.

  For the next few hours, they gave each other plenty of space, keeping to themselves except when they shared dinner in the sitting room. While eating, they limited their conversation to business, discussing the forklift accident, the computer tampering and Morgan Kane’s expected arrival the next day. Cleo spoke briefly to Blake and relayed the messages to Roarke. Margie Evans had been released from the emergency room with a sprained wrist and minor bruising. And maintenance’s initial finding was that someone had definitely tampered with the brakes on the forklift.

  Roarke remained in the sitting room while Cleo returned to the paperwork waiting on her desk. He opened the armoire that hid a thirty-five-inch television. Slumping onto the sofa, he clicked the remote to ESPN and lowered the sound to just barely audible.

  Cleo studied the information on McNamara Industries’ orders for the past month until her vision began blurring. Pinching the bridge of her nose, she braced her elbow on the desk and rested her head.

  A piercing scream shook Cleo from her restful meditation. Then she heard a second scream, followed quickly by a third. My God, who was screaming? And why?

  Cleo rose so quickly that she knocked her briefcase onto the floor. Roarke flew out of the sitting room, dashed over to the nightstand and removed his Beretta. He met Cleo at the bedroom door and pushed her behind him as he eased the door open.

  “I’ll go find out what happened,” he told her. “You close this door and lock it. And don’t open it to anyone you wouldn’t trust with your life. Is that understood?”

  She nodded her agreement. The moment Roarke stepped into the hallway, she closed and locked the door. Waiting impatiently, she paced the floor. She heard voices in the hallway, but couldn’t distinguish the speakers.

  Someone tapped softly on her door. Gasping, she jumped, then shivered. “Who is it?”

  “It’s me, dear, Aunt Beatrice.”

  Cleo unlocked the door. Hurrying inside, Beatrice threw her arms around her niece and held her close. Cleo returned her aunt’s hug, then grasped Beatrice’s hands. “What’s going on? Who was doing all that screaming?”

  “Oralie,” Beatrice said. “She swears she saw a man peeping in the windows.”

  “Downstairs?”

  “Yes, in the front-parlor windows. And the hysterical fool wouldn’t stop screaming.” Beatrice huffed disgustedly. “Perry and I didn’t see a thing. Oralie was working on her needlepoint and Perry and I were listening to a Mozart concerto.”

  “Where’s the rest of the family?”

  “They’re all downstairs,” Beatrice said. “Or they were a few minutes ago. They followed Simon down the stairs. Daphne and Trey are trying to comfort their mother. I think Marla poured Oralie some sherry.”

  “Where’s Roarke?”

  “Simon went outside to check the grounds. He asked me to come up and explain to you what happened and stay with you until he returned.” Beatrice walked over and closed the bedroom door, then locked it. “I told him that Oralie had a delicate disposition and was prone to hysteria. But he said he wasn’t going to take any chances where your safety was concerned.” Beatrice patted Cleo’s arm. “My dear, you are most fortunate in your choice of a husband. Considering the unusual circumstances, he is the perfect man for you.”

  “Yes, I believe he is.” Cleo walked into the sitting room and looked out the row of windows. She had planned to wait until morning to tell her aunt about McNamara Industries’ problems, but since it was unlikely anyone would get a good night’s sleep after Oralie’s outburst, Cleo decided there was no point in delaying. “We’re having trouble at the plant.”

  “What sort of trouble?” Beatrice joined her niece, draped her arm around her shoulders and pulled her away from the window. “Simon said not to show yourself in front of the windows. Your silhouette would make a perfect target.”

  “He thinks of everything, doesn’t he?”

  “He’s been trained for it, you know.” Beatrice led Cleo over to the sofa and they sat side by side. “What’s going on at the plant?”

  “Someone tampered with the computer and deleted several big orders. Those orders were never shipped.”

  “How long has this been going on?”

  “Only since Uncle George died.”

  “I see.” Beatrice sighed loudly. “Daddy had no idea what a hornet’s nest his will would stir, did he? Since Trey is an executive with access to the computers, I assume he’s the chief suspect.”

  “One of the suspects, anyway,” Cleo said. “But it’s possible that whoever’s behind the problem is paying an employee to delete the orders.”

  “What about Hugh and Daphne? He’s weak enough to be influenced by her greed.”

  “There’s more going on than computer tampering.”

  Sitting very still, her sharp green eyes studying Cleo’s face, Beatrice laid her hand over her niece’s. “Something more dangerous?”

  “There have been three accidents at the plant since Uncle George’s funeral. One today.” Cleo hesitated, not wanting to upset her aunt. But she knew she couldn’t keep the truth from Beatrice. “We’re fairly certain that someone tampered with the brakes on a forklift. Margie Evans was injured. A sprained wrist and some bruising. And…well, when the forklift went out of control, I was directly in its path.”

  Beatrice grasped Cleo’s wrist and looked anxiously into her eyes. “You weren’t hurt, were you?”

  “Roarke shoved me out of the way. I got a few scrapes from the fall on the concrete floor, but that’s all.”

  “What does Simon intend to do about these problems?”

  “He called another Dundee Security employee tonight and the man will be here by morning,” Cleo said. “Mr. Morgan Kane will train a small security force for McNamara’s and, under Simon’s supervision, he will head up an investigation into the computer tampering and the accidents.”

  “While Simon guards you.”

  “That’s right.” Cleo shivered. “I hate this being suspicious and afraid, this second-guessing everyone and everything.”

  Beatrice wrapped her arms around Cleo and drew her niece’s head down into her lap. She stroked Cleo’s shiny red hair, so like her own. “I have every confidence in your husband. He’ll protect you.”

  Lying contentedly with her head in her aunt’s lap, as
she had done so often when she was a child, Cleo wished that she could spare Beatrice the truth. But they both had to face reality. And the sooner, the better. “What makes this whole thing so difficult is knowing that someone in the family has to be behind everything—the problems at the plant and the attempt on my life.”

  A loud knock on the bedroom door brought Cleo and Beatrice up off the sofa. Side by side, the two walked into the bedroom.

  “Yes?” Cleo called out.

  “It’s me, Roarke.”

  Cleo rushed to open the door. The moment her husband appeared, she let out a sigh of relief. “Did you find anyone?”

  “Not a soul,” he said. “I don’t think there was ever anyone peeping in the windows. Mrs. Sutton’s imagination must have gotten the best of her.”

  “That’s happened before,” Beatrice said. “Besides, she’s been a nervous wreck ever since Daddy died. She made a nasty scene at the reading of the will.”

  “Well, Mr. Sutton said he’d given his wife a sedative and put her to bed. And Trey sent Marla to their room. The rest of them are downstairs waiting for us. They’re demanding a family meeting.”

  “They’re what?” Beatrice screeched.

  “For what reason?” Cleo asked.

  “They want to hire a night watchman for the grounds,” Roarke said. “Daphne told me that she’s felt uneasy ever since someone took a shot at you, and now that her mother has seen someone lurking about outside, the sensible thing to do is hire protection for the family.”

  “They’re trying to throw suspicion off themselves,” Beatrice said. “I wouldn’t put it past Daphne to be at the root of all our problems.”

  “I think we should meet with them,” Roarke said. “Cleo, you tell them that you think hiring a night watchman for the grounds is an excellent idea and you’ll see to it immediately. Then we’ll have Kane put one of his security people on the job.”

  “Do you think that’s necessary?” Beatrice asked.

  “If they’re bluffing, we’ll call their bluff,” Cleo said.

  “And we’ll be putting one of our own men in place and not someone they hire.” Holding the door open, Roarke nodded. “Shall we join the family powwow?”

  “By all means.” Cleo marched into the hallway, her head held high.

  AN HOUR LATER, Roarke and Cleo returned to her suite, the immediate family emergency settled, if not to everyone’s satisfaction, at least to Roarke’s. As long as Cleo continued allowing him the power to make all security decisions, he felt relatively certain that he could keep her safe. And her safety was his top priority.

  Daphne and Trey had protested Roarke’s hiring the night watchman for the grounds, telling him plainly that he was a newcomer to the McNamara-Sutton family and had no right to take charge. Cleo backed Roarke a hundred percent, and since she held the purse strings, the others begrudgingly acquiesced to her wishes.

  Daphne had pursed her red lips in a little-girl pout and huffed loudly. Roarke suspected he was the first man she’d been unable to twist around her little finger, and so was frustrated at not being able to get her way and seduce him into her bed.

  “It doesn’t matter to me who hires this security person,” Perry Sutton had told them. “Oralie insisted that I speak to y’all about hiring someone and I promised her that I would. She refused to take her sleeping pill until I agreed.”

  Roarke locked the bedroom door as he did every night. Cleo retrieved her gown and robe from the closet, then headed toward the bathroom.

  “I’m tired. This has been a long, difficult day,” she said. “I’m going to take my bath and go to bed.”

  “Go ahead,” Roarke told her. “I think I’ll watch a little TV. I’ll keep it low so it won’t disturb you.”

  She paused in the bathroom doorway. “Simon?”

  “Yeah?” Dammit, he wished she wouldn’t call him “Simon” when they were alone. But he could hardly demand that she call him “Roarke.” What could he tell her? That her using his first name aroused him?

  “Thank you for taking this job. For marrying me,” Cleo said.

  Before he could reply, she hurried into the bathroom and closed the door. Every time she said something sweet and sentimental like that, the hairs on the back of his neck stood up. A warning? He was beginning to worry that Cleo just might possess the power to get through his defenses and make him feel something more than sexual desire. He couldn’t let that happen.

  Roarke picked up the remote and stretched out on the love seat, hanging his feet over the edge. He found a special on A&E about World War II.

  No matter how tired he was, he intended waiting until Cleo was sound asleep before he took his shower and joined her in bed. It was difficult enough lying there beside her when she was asleep, but he couldn’t bear it when he knew she was awake and could possibly turn to him and ask him to make love to her.

  While one part of his brain registered the events on the television special, another part went over the entire day’s events. As the minutes ticked by, he wondered how long it would be before she emerged from the bathroom, fresh, clean and warm from her bath. She’d taken a dark green silk teddy and robe into the bathroom with her. Did she intend to sleep in nothing but a lace teddy?

  “Roarke!” Cleo’s overly calm voice called out from the bathroom.

  He jumped to his feet. “Is something wrong?” He rushed into the bedroom, stopping outside the closed bathroom door.

  “I—I can’t get out of the bathtub. There are spiders crawling around on the floor. And—and I’m pretty sure that they’re brown recluse spiders.”

  “Stay right where you are,” he told her.

  “Please, Simon. Help me!”

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  NOT EVEN AS a child had Cleo been the type of female who was afraid of insects. Much to Aunt Beatrice’s dismay, as a preschooler Cleo had been fascinated by grass-hoppers and ladybugs and had often handled them with great delight. But spiders were something else altogether. She’d been taught that black widows and brown recluses could be deadly. Pearl had told horror stories about how her own little brother had almost died from a severe reaction to a brown recluse bite.

  Cleo stood in the middle of the huge whirlpool tub, her wet, naked body shivering, her nerves jangling. She hadn’t noticed anything unusual when she’d entered the bathroom earlier. Nothing out of place.

  How could half a dozen spiders have crawled into the bathroom? They couldn’t have. One? Unlikely, but possible. Six? Out of the question. Someone had to have placed them inside the large, fluffy towels stacked on the white-wicker shelves at one end of the tub.

  Cleo shuddered, remembering how she’d reached out and picked up one of those towels and seen a brown recluse clinging to the terry-cloth surface. The tiny, brown spider had wriggled its eight legs. Cleo had gasped and dropped the towel, but not before she’d noticed the dark, violin-shaped mark on its back near the head. Pearl had been the one who’d taught her how to instantly recognize the poisonous creature.

  Within minutes she had noticed other identical spiders crawling over the stack of towels. That’s when she had called for help.

  Roarke opened the bathroom door, stepped inside and closed the door behind him. Cleo crossed her arms over her breasts, but felt rather silly thinking about modesty at a time like this.

  “Be careful,” she cautioned him. “They’re crawling all over the floor. I’ve counted six of them.”

  His gaze traveled the length and breadth of the twelve-by-twelve-foot bathroom, noting the location of all six spiders. “Stay in the tub. I’ll get you out.”

  He had thought of little else but Cleo’s naked body lying beneath his. And her little striptease in the closet earlier had certainly added fuel to the fire. For half a second, he looked at her, absorbing the fine lines of her body, the delicate, slender beauty of her feminine curves.

  His sex grew hard and heavy. Dammit, he couldn’t help how his body reacted, could he? After all he was a man, and Cleo was a lov
ely, desirable woman.

  He crossed the bathroom and stopped at the edge of the tub. Deciding to do the gentlemanly thing, Roarke reached toward the wicker shelves, intending to pull out a towel and wrap it around Cleo.

  “Don’t,” she screamed. He glared at her, his expression questioning her sanity. “The spiders crawled out of the towels. There could be more inside them.”

  He nodded his understanding, then glanced down at where a spider inched close to his right foot. Without hesitation, he raised his foot and smashed the thing.

  “Let me get you out of here, honey,” he said. “Then I’ll come back in here and take care of these little pests.”

  Roarke lifted her out of the water and into his arms, bringing her naked body up against his chest. In his walk to the door, he ground another spider beneath his feet. Cleo clung to him, shivering, as much from fear as from the chill. After closing the bathroom door behind them, Roarke dashed over to the bed and set Cleo on the edge, then lifted the quilt coverlet and draped it around her shoulders.

  When she looked up at him with her big, trusting green eyes, he could not resist the urge to kiss her. He brushed his lips quickly across hers.

  “Stay put. I’ll be right back.” He headed toward the bathroom.

  “Please be careful.” She clutched the quilt in both hands, savoring the warmth and protection it provided.

  He rewarded her concerned plea with that self-confident little grin of his that she had grown accustomed to over the past week. Then he disappeared into the bathroom.

  Fidgeting nervously as she sat on the edge of the bed, Cleo wondered if she shouldn’t do something. Call the exterminator? Phone the police? Warn the rest of the family that their home had been invaded by poisonous spiders?

  No, there wasn’t any need to alarm the rest of the household when she felt certain the spider infestation was limited to her private bath. And if she called the police, what would she tell them? One of my relatives is trying to kill me and I think they planted half a dozen potentially deadly spiders in my bathroom? And she’d wait for Roarke’s assessment of the situation before she made a call to the exterminator this late at night.