The Bliss Factor

by Penny McCall

  “Put me down,” she said, then screamed it over the din of the crowd.

  “We’re not going to hurt you,” one of the muscle-bound idiots told her, “unless you keep squirming. We might just drop you then.”

  “I’ll be sure to tell my lawyer I was threatened as well as accosted. And if one more of you guys cops a feel—” Her tirade ended on a shriek as she was grabbed again.

  There was that moment of disorientation, of trying to find some frame of reference with the world—and her brain and stomach—spinning, and then she was plunked onto her feet. She stumbled a little, coming up hard against something solid, warm, and comforting. And very male.

  Conn. Her body recognized him first, warming, weakening so all she could do was lean into him, lose herself in the feel of him hard and strong at her back. His hands came to her waist, flexed once before inching up her rib-cage, the breath that she had sighed out coming in fast and catching in the back of her throat.

  “Bliss,” he said, his voice low and deep and close to her ear. She shuddered, but even as the need inside her notched up another impossible degree, her mind was already getting in the way. Or saving her, depending on how she looked at it. She chose the latter, stepping forward and turning to face him, though it wasn’t easy.

  “Don’t call me that again.”

  He nodded once, tightly.

  “You’ve been following me the whole time, right? That’s why I felt like I was being watched.”

  “Aye.”

  She checked out the Highlanders, but they’d moved on to abusing telephone poles and tossing rocks that probably weighed more than she did.

  She started walking, maintaining enough distance to see his face—and keep her thoughts clear. “One of those people might want you dead, or at least seriously hurt, and they weren’t going to talk or give anything away with you skulking around.”

  “They didn’t see me any more than you did. And I was trying to make sure you didn’t blunder into trouble.”

  “Blunder?”

  “Blunder.”

  Rae huffed out a breath since, yet again, he’d left her searching for a suitable comeback. “Men,” she said, settling for the generic complaint of women everywhere.

  “This is not about gender. You came back here, hoping to solve the unsolvable.”

  “It’s not unsolvable.”

  “It is at the moment, but here you are trying, because you don’t want to take me home with you.”

  Rae snorted softly. “You’re overestimating your appeal.”

  “ ’Tis not my appeal I’m thinking of, but your fear.”

  Her mouth dropped open, it took a second for anything to come out. “Wow,” she finally said, “you don’t hold anything back.”

  “If it troubles you this much, I will stay—”

  “No,” she said, although she was thinking yes. Connor Larkin was a double threat, physically appealing and philosophically evolved. “We should go. You’re right about me not knowing what questions to ask.”

  And he was right about her level of fear. Taking him home was definitely freaking her out. But she’d made a promise to her parents, and stalling wasn’t going to get her off the hook.

  chapter 7

  “THESE CASTLES ARE TOO CLOSE TOGETHER, NOT defensible,” Larkin said, staring out at the modest neighborhood they were driving through on their way to Grosse Pointe.

  “We don’t have a lot of warfare in Michigan,” Rae said. Union halls and Renaissance festivals notwithstanding. “And if you want to see castles, I’ll show you castles.”

  She shut off the GPS, detouring from the route that led directly to her house to veer north and pick up Lakeshore Drive. Grosse Pointe actually consisted of five separate cities, each with its own identity and wealth strata, the most prestigious of which was Grosse Pointe Shores. And the top of the real estate food chain boasted a Lakeshore Drive address.

  Lakeshore Drive ran along the shore of Lake St. Clair, smaller than the Great Lakes and not considered one of them, but vast in its own right, and definitely prime real estate. Many of the houses overlooking the lake had been built during the Gilded Age by people like the Dodges and the Fords. Those houses were impressive, to say the least, huge and sprawling, some of them on lots so big the driveways had to be marked as private so the riffraff didn’t mistake them for actual roads.

  “These are castles, indeed,” Connor Larkin said as Rae eased the Hummer down to a crawl so he could get a good look at the rambling homes, each more incredible than the last. “But they are still too near one another. Miscreants can sneak up with ease.”

  “The miscreants aren’t as big a problem as the neighbors.” Rae nudged her speed back up to the limit and continued on as Lakeshore Drive turned into Jefferson Avenue, leading to the more realistically priced areas of the Pointes.

  She lived in one of the older neighborhoods, and she wasn’t just talking about the median age of the homes. Most of her immediate neighbors were elderly, and most of them considered her an upstart because she hadn’t sprung from five generations of Grosse Pointers.

  Blue blood might come along with big piles of money, but there were side effects. Rich people called themselves eccentric. Some of them, as far as Rae was concerned, were downright crazy.

  All of them were nosy.

  Rae swung the Hummer into her driveway, which widened out behind the house to a paved courtyard with a detached three-car garage at the far back corner of her lot. Only one of the three bays had been converted to an automatic overhead door. She hit the button on the opener before she remembered that the Hummer didn’t fit inside the narrow opening.

  “This is a . . . surprise,” Conn said, peering into the gloomy interior with its century-old wood floor and pretty much nothing else. “Why is the inside not as welcoming as the outside?”

  “It’s the garage,” Rae said dryly.

  “Garage?”

  “Carriage house. At least it used to be.”

  “Ah, the stable.”

  Not for the kind of horses he was thinking about, but she nodded anyway.

  Conn angled out of the Hummer, Rae did the same, then almost climbed back in when a voice bellowed, “Blissfield!”

  Rae closed her eyes, striving for patience—which was in short supply considering how often she’d dipped into that well in the last few hours. Apparently exhaustion was setting in, too, because she turned with a polite smile and said, “Mrs. Vander Snooty,” which was what she called the woman with the imperious and obnoxious voice. Behind her back. “I mean Mrs. Vander Horn,” she corrected herself, wincing in anticipation of the tongue lashing she was about to get.

  Fortunately, Mrs. Vander Horn’s tongue was busy hanging out. The woman had to be close to eighty, but she was having the predictable female reaction to Connor Larkin, including, apparently, the urge to loosen various articles of clothing, since one hand rose to toy with the fussy bow at the collar of her lavender silk blouse.

  “Mrs. Vander Horn, Connor Larkin,” Rae said. She should have known even a simple introduction would be trouble.

  “Well met, madam,” Conn said.

  “Is that a crack about my age?”

  “It’s a crack about his age,” Rae said, and while Mrs. Vander Horn didn’t get it, Conn did because Rae looked over and he was smiling slightly, just one corner of his mouth quirked up enough to tell her he understood her play on words.

  Even that meager a smile was enough to have Mrs. Vander Horn forget her indignation. She sidled over to Rae and said, “If I were ten years younger, I’d give you a run for your money.”

  If she’d been ten years younger she’d have jumped him already, bad hip and all. “Is there something I can help you with, Mrs. Vander Horn?”

  “You can tell me who the stud is.”

  “He’s not a stud, he’s a friend of my . . . friend. He’s in town for a few days, and I said he could stay here. As a favor.”

  “I’ll bet you did.” Mrs. Vander Horn put an anc
ient tarnished brass opera glass, which she wore on a chain pinned to her heather plaid suit jacket, up to her eye and walked around him, taking a good long look. “Wait until Hildebrandt gets a look at him.”

  “Mrs. Hildebrandt lives next door,” Rae explained for Conn’s benefit. “Mrs. Vander Horn lives directly across the street from her.”

  “Best you keep your distance from her,” Mrs. Vander Horn put in. “She’ll have you for dinner. And breakfast. If she has any appetite left after she gets done with the lawn boys.”

  “Lawn boys?” Rae asked, curiosity getting the better of her common sense.

  “Do you know she hired my lawn service?” Mrs. Vander Horn said, dropping her opera glass to squint at Rae. “And I’ll be damned if they don’t do her yard first, every time. She says it’s because they like her more than me, but I’ll bet you my granddaddy’s fortune she bribed them. And now every week she comes out on her front porch and sits in that damn white wicker fruitcake chair, swigging lemonade with a vodka kicker and watching the young men mow and trim with their shirts off . . .”

  She turned to Conn. “Would you be interested in making a little spending cash?” she said, her gaze locked on his chest, definitely picturing him shirtless. And probably sweaty. “Hildebrandt will be so jealous she’ll pop an artery.”

  “It is unseemly for mature women to feud,” Conn said, a sparkle in his eye—which only Rae caught since Mrs. Vander Horn had drawn herself up to exclaim, “Mature!” her dignity affronted.

  “Elderly.”

  “Elderly!” Her hand came up.

  Rae stepped in front of him. It didn’t seem to deter Mrs. Vander Horn. Conn did.

  “If you strike Lady Blissfield,” he said, his hands settling warmly on her shoulders, “I will have to invade you.”

  “Lady Blissfield?”

  “He means me,” Rae said, trying not to think about the way his fingers were kneading the back of her neck. It felt so good she wanted to collapse against him so she could feel that warmth all over, lean into that strength again, just for a moment or two—

  Mrs. Vander Horn snorted. “You can’t talk to me like that, young man. Nobody talks to me like that. And don’t think I didn’t miss the threat. I should call the police.”

  “Okay,” Rae said, feeling utterly calm and relaxed, which was amazing, even better that she could handle this officious old bat the way she’d always wanted to. At some point she’d regret this, probably the second she didn’t have Conn’s warmth and strength to borrow from anymore. But for the moment she was letting old Vander Snooty have it with both barrels. “When the police come out I can tell them all about how I watched from my kitchen window while you vandalized Mrs. Hildebrandt’s prize roses. Right before the flower show.”

  Mrs. Vander Horn Hoovered in a breath, her mouth going wide before she pressed her lips so tightly together they all but disappeared. “I did no such thing. And if I did it was an accident.”

  “Tell it to the cops. I’m sure they’ll understand. I don’t imagine I could say the same of Mrs. Hildebrandt.”

  The old woman narrowed her eyes at Rae. “Fine, but you’re on my list.” And she took herself off in a huff.

  “List?” Conn said, his voice a deep, quiet, soothing rumble. “I presume this list is not a good thing. I can still invade her.”

  “She would probably enjoy that,” Rae said.

  AFTER THEIR RUN-IN WITH THE OLD DRAGON ACROSS the street, Rae had shooed Conn inside the house, “Before any of my other half-baked neighbors can escape their keepers and ask questions,” she’d told him.

  Baking people? And who was keeping them prisoner? Conn didn’t follow most of that so he stopped paying attention. At least to what she was saying. He’d been doing that a lot since he met Rae Blissfield. But then, that could be due less to her confusing conversational style and more to other distractions. And he wasn’t just talking about the physical. To be sure he could have spent hours exploring the nape of her neck, the ripe fullness of her lips, the small of her back where it nipped in at her waist then curved out below. Her skin was warm and perfumed and so sensitive he could all but feel her shudder, hear the way her breath sighed out as he touched her. She was a woman a man should take his time pleasuring. A woman who would return that pleasure a thousandfold.

  But she would not give in easily. Rae Blissfield had already proven her strength, keeping her head during the kind of peril she should never have had occasion to experience. She’d shown herself to be intelligent, finding a solution to that peril that neither risked their lives nor caused her to go against her own dislike of violence. Even her insistence on going back to the faire, of trying to find a solution to his problem, showed a dogged determination that was to be admired and respected, as was the grace with which she’d accepted failure.

  And there was an accord between them, an unspoken meeting of the minds that appealed to him more than he’d have believed possible. No, Rae Blissfield would not surrender willingly, but he would not find himself bored in the pursuit. And, although he understood it to be a weakness for any number of reasons, there would be a pursuit.

  But not tonight.

  Rae had been through enough that day. She was only trying to help him, after all, so he followed her from room to room in her house, knowing she wanted to race through the task and get away from him, but unable to do anything except take his time. There was so much to see and experience, and hurrying just wasn’t in his nature.

  “How about we move it along,” Rae said, “if you’re done getting up close and personal with the walls.”

  “Why the urgency?” Conn asked, running his fingertips over the faded green cloth covering the walls in what Rae called the spare bedroom.

  “It’s been a long, eventful day. I’m tired.”

  Without doubt, Conn thought, being wound so tightly must be exhausting.

  “Flocked,” she said, sighing eloquently, giving up the attempt to impose her timetable on him. “The wallpaper.”

  “Then this is wool?” he asked, curiosity getting the better of chivalry.

  “No.”

  His gaze shifted to her face, and he forgot about sheep and why anyone would dye their wool such an ungodly color and fasten it to walls.

  Rae’s expression went even more tense, her eyes dropped to his hands, slowly brushing across the textured bits of the wall covering, and her teeth sank into her full bottom lip.

  Interesting. And arousing.

  “Will you stop that already?” she snapped, wiping surreptitiously at her upper lip.

  He could have—he should have—if only because she’d requested it of him, and he owed her a great debt. He could not. In his defense, there was just too much to experience. He’d seen a lot at the faire—automobiles, tiny devices for communicating or making music—but he’d never seen a house like this stuffed with so many wonders, both seen and felt. The way the little box of moving pictures raised the hair on his arms when he passed his palm in front of it, the shapes and textures of her furniture, the fine carpets and quarried stone covering her floors.

  “What manner of craftsman made this?” he asked, brushing his fingertips across the incredibly smooth, impossibly thin sheet of what she called aluminum covering her refrigerator.

  She didn’t respond—not with words, but when he turned to look at her he found in her eyes the answer to a different question. Touch me, her eyes said, take me. Right here, right now.

  She covered her weakness with animosity. “I know this is your first time away from Holly Grove, but you must have seen a television before, and there’s a refrigerator in my parents’ Airstream.”

  “Not like this one.” He opened the door. “Your parents had food in theirs.”

  “Some things,” Rae said, “are timeless.”

  “Aye,” he replied, knowing she meant his stomach, and thinking of an entirely different hunger, “but I think we should dine instead. I would enjoy some Scottish chicken.”

  She sighed. “
I’ll get my purse.”

  “YOU MOWED THROUGH EVERYTHING EDIBLE IN THE house, listened to music, and watched television,” Rae said several hours later—once she’d exhausted her repertoire of heavy sighs, eye rolls, and polite hints that it was getting late. Conn had ignored all the histrionics so he could avoid the inevitable reality that he was going to be sleeping alone—likely somewhere uncomfortable, but alone was the real problem.

  He wasn’t sure what it was about Rae Blissfield, but he wanted her. Bad. It was that simple. His memory loss, coupled with his friendship with her parents, made it very complicated. And made her untouchable—at least in most of the ways he wanted to touch her.

  It made no sense at all. She could have taught a bow-string lessons, she was strung so tight. She had never opened up to herself, let alone anyone else, and she kept him at arm’s length, except when he’d rubbed her shoulders. He’d only wanted to relieve some of the tension there, but for a moment, just a second really, he’d felt her begin to relax against him. And what had been a gesture of aid and warmth had turned hot and selfish, just wild enough to scare him, and very little scared him. If she’d give him the least encouragement . . . And if he kept thinking like that he would surely test the waters again, which he had no business doing. A man who didn’t even know himself had no right becoming involved with someone else.

  “And my water bill is going to be astronomical,” she was saying, “because you flushed the toilet about a hundred times . . . Yeah, I know, Porta-Johns. I’m exhausted. Can we go to bed? And by bed I mean me. You’re sleeping on the couch.”

  “My second choice,” Conn said, but he kept his eyes off her.

  The couch turned out to be comfortable enough, if a little solitary. It was too short, as well. He tossed and turned all night. And dreamt, although he had a pretty good idea they hadn’t been dreams at all, but flashes of memory. Each had been more disturbing than the last, and each one was stronger, longer, harder to step away from.