“Who told you such an outrageous story?” Apparently, he wasn’t supposed to notice how fast she’d dipped that curvy figure out of sight. He could pretend when he had to.
“I never kiss and tell. But I picked it up from a lot of sources. There was a tall, gray-haired woman-your insurance agent? I heard her talking about making sure all your math computers were extra-protected at home, that maybe you needed more coverage or security for your work in progress. Then one of the kids-I think Jason-was telling the other boy who works for you about how you were going to cure ‘really, really bad diseases’ with math. How you were working for somebody in secret-”
“Sheesh,” he said disgustedly. He popped a cold shrimp in her mouth, handed her a sweating-cold chardonnay, and slipped into the water himself. The lukewarm water hit his battered, knotted muscles like a balm. Still, he turned a scowl her way.
“It’s all right, Griff. Don’t worry. I’m just a lowly teacher. I didn’t understand anything, really.”
“You managed to add two and two and come up with different answers than almost anyone knows around here.”
“Why is it a secret?”
Another reassurance, he thought. She wasn’t just smart. And nosy. She could be downright relentless-so relentless that he couldn’t think of a single way to avoid answering her. “If someone was working on, say, a hopeful new medicine-a drug that could cure a serious type of disease-then that medicine could conceivably be worth a lot of money. So it might make the most sense, security-wise, for the computations and analyses, and all the trick problems associated with mathematically testing the possibilities, to be done off-site. It’s mostly computer work. Calculations, probabilities, that kind of thing. There’s no reason it has to be done in an office or inside company walls. In fact, it’s probably better done in a private facility, where there are no distractions in sight, no one tempted to steal it.” He looked at her. “Particularly if no one has a clue where such work is being done.”
She took a bite of the cracker mounded with caviar, grimaced, gulped down some wine, and aimed for the tray of cheeses. “It’s just hard to grasp,” she admitted. “That your ice-cream parlor is such a front.”
“It’s not a front.” She’d offended him again. Not just because his ice-cream deal was real, but because a “front” implied gangster-type behavior. Like he had something to hide that was wrong.
“Okay, okay, bad choice of words,” she said gently. “It’s still difficult to grasp. You’re so adorable, it’s just really hard to think of you as being geeky. Major geeky.”
Okay. He’d had enough of her playing with him. He’d stuffed down enough food, had quenched his thirst, was de-stressed from the frustrating day. He had more than enough energy to tackle her now. “You said you’d had quite a morning, that something happened…”
“It did.” There, that wicked grin of hers faded out. She leaned her head back, sank in water to her neck. “I talked to Mr. Renbarcker-the man who owned the mill back when?”
He listened-to how she’d managed to discover Webster Renbarcker was in town, how she’d located him, what he’d had to say. He watched her face, watching her expression lift on hearing what a good man her father was, what good care he’d taken of the sick mill owner.
“And that’s just the thing, Griff. Mr. Renbarcker was positive my father would never have set a fire. My dad loved the mill, loved him, loved us. Mr. Renbarcker talked about how my dad was prepared to stay to the end, that he’d socked away a financial safety net… So it doesn’t make sense that my dad felt such despair when the mill closed. He knew it was going to close. He knew how sick Mr. Renbarcker was. There was nothing to throw him into a depression. If anything, he no longer had to feel responsible, but was finally free to go on and do something else.”
By sheer strength of will, Griff refrained from adjusting the shoulder strap of her suit that had accidentally sneaked off her shoulder. On the serious subject at hand though, he felt he had to caution her. “Your dad still could have accidentally set that fire, sugar.”
“Well, the first thing that mattered to me was clearing his name, getting that cloud off his reputation, that he’d be a man who’d set a fire for money. But the second issue, about whether he could have accidentally set it-that’s just a plain no. My dad was a total perfectionist around his wood shop. We girls were never allowed near the varnishes or chemicals. He didn’t have a careless bone in his whole body. There could be no accidental fire, not with my dad.” She sighed, leaned her head back. “But I realize that I can’t prove that.”
“But that’s all right, isn’t it? You didn’t come thinking you’d find information that would lead you to a court of law. I think you came to prove in your own mind what happened. That the fire wasn’t your father’s fault. And it sounds as if you’re doing exactly that.”
“I am. And it couldn’t feel better. I always believed my dad was a hero. That’s what he was, Griff. A terrific man. You’d have liked him, honestly.”
“I don’t doubt it.”
What a night it had turned into. The sucking heat of the day had finally eased. The sky was deepening, darkening. Even the birds had gone silent, and stars buttoned the sky with fancy silver studs. It was a night to romance her, not dwell on troubling subjects…but he liked it that she trusted him enough to talk about this. “Lily, I’m really surprised that you three sisters were separated.”
“There wasn’t a choice. No one could take all three of us.”
“I understand how suddenly adding three children could be a financial burden for a foster family. But I’ve lived here for several years now, long enough to know folks. Even if you had to be separated, fostered in different homes, I’d think an effort would have been made for you to stay in Pecan Valley. Your home. Instead of being shifted all over the country. I’d think normally, that a social service agency or court would think it best to keep you around people who knew you, where you didn’t have to be uprooted from schools and friends and all.”
She considered. “I don’t know. As a little girl, I didn’t think of it as a question. It’s just the way it was. But Sophie and Cate and I all felt the same. Because of that fire, we not only lost our mom and dad, but each other. It was…traumatically lonely. I’m not kidding.”
“I don’t doubt it-and that’s just the point. This is a community that comes together. Yeah, there are weird folks, just like anywhere else. Plenty of problems. But it’s hard for me to believe that the authorities didn’t try and keep you three together.”
“Maybe they did, and I just didn’t know. Anyway, that’s water over the dam. And there’s something else I want to bring up with you.”
“Okay. Shoot.”
“It’s a little…awkward.”
“That’s okay.” He didn’t know what she was going to say, but he was increasingly troubled. Nothing was adding up. There seemed no explanation-or source-for the buzz of gossip blaming Lily for the current fires, for her being “like her dad.” There seemed more and more unanswered questions about the fire from her childhood-and no explanations at all for why there’d been two arson fires since she came back to town.
The more that happened, the more Griff felt he was missing something. That Lily was missing something. And that, if this situation escalated any further, someone could be hurt-or killed, just like in that long-ago fire.
They had to figure out what was going on.
He leaned forward, thinking to turn off the jets of water. They’d both been in the tub long enough to be waterlogged. He was thinking about fires and problems, thinking about what awkward thing she was going to spring on him-when suddenly, in a swoop of water and slick, warm arms, she slid against him. Bared her neck to press her wet, soft lips against his.
An explosion couldn’t have startled him more.
Slinky as a mermaid, she folded herself against him, water lapping the tops of her breasts when she slip-slid onto his lap. Her left hand slowly stroked up his arm, feeling the slope of his s
houlders, then sliding around his neck. Her next kiss was a naked offer. An invitation.
His brain was sucked under so fast he couldn’t remember how to breathe. “Hey,” he managed. “What started this?”
“You were frowning,” she said. “And I decided you’d had enough to frown about today.”
“I can’t argue with that.”
“I’m sick of trouble and worrying. I’ve been knee deep since I got here. I’m tired of it.” Her voice didn’t sound remotely tired. She nibbled down his neck as she continued to…discuss.
“Me, too.”
“So I think it would be a good idea to do something that erases all that trouble and stress from our minds.”
He did, too. He’d even had seducing her in mind, if not tonight, then imminently soon. He just didn’t expect…well. His wholesome, fresh-faced teacher was skidding strokes down his chest, through wet hair, over appendix scar, past navel, down, right into his trunks. Her slim hand found him, painted agony down the length of him with her fingertip, then closed around him. Tight. Snug. Owning him.
“Why,” he murmured, “am I worried right now?”
“Because I’m a very scary woman? A woman who’s about to take away all your choices. All your stress. All your responsibility. It’s going to be hard for you to deal with it.”
“It’s already hard.”
“Yeah. I noticed.” The smile she shot him wasn’t Lily’s. The arch of her brow, the sneaky smile, then the way she slipped the bathing suit straps off her shoulders-this wasn’t a woman he could trust. This wasn’t anyone he’d let into his life before. This was a woman who could start fires in a man that, just maybe, no one in heaven or hell could put out.
“Lily-”
“Uh-uh. No talking. I like talking to you. I even love talking to you. But right now, this isn’t about you, Griff. It’s about me. This is the summer when I get to stand up and take what’s mine.” She lifted her head just after taking a small nip out of shoulder. “You don’t have to be mine next year or next week or tomorrow. Just right now.”
Okay, okay. He knew she was talking big. It wasn’t her normal nature to do one-nighters, to throw all caution to the wind, to not give a damn about consequences. And although he wasn’t exactly infamous for mentioning consequences to a woman he wanted, he invariably took care of things so there weren’t any. Right now, though, they were in the hot tub, and if anything was supposed to happen or going to happen, he assumed it’d happen in the bedroom, where he had protection.
Where he had control, for that matter.
Right then, he could have used some control.
Somewhere a phone rang. Somehow she coaxed him out of the water, onto the flat deck surface, where their wet, slick bodies cleaved from chest to thigh, belly to belly, lips to lips. At some time, the sky had lost all color, gone silky black and dangerously concealing. And his blood seemed to be pumping from a hot, dark well.
He couldn’t catch his breath. It was the woman who was supposed to feel that way, not the guy. Sure as hell, not a guy like him, who’d enjoyed women from the day he was born-so the problem was her. The difference was her.
The danger was her.
She kissed. Rubbed. Danced against him with her breasts, her pelvis, the hum in the back of her throat. She reached something…lonely inside of him. Something needy and sharp. Something beyond sex and pleasure.
The deck was hard; he shifted so his weight wasn’t driving her into that bruising surface. It was just a matter of twisting them around, but he heard her guttural laugh when she climbed on top. It was a chuckle of power. Maniacal female power.
Yet he saw the innocence in her face. The flush of shock and pleasure when he tightened his hips, stroked upward with infinite care until she was seated tight on him. Then came the ride, unlike any other. Her eyes turned soft and lost, focusing on him, only on him.
You’d think she’d never done this.
You’d think he hadn’t. He sure as hell couldn’t remember anything like this, ever, not the need-clawing with feral desperation. Not the emotional connect-like he’d die if he couldn’t have her, couldn’t be with her, like this, forever. Not the scalping blade of pleasure-ripping through him, tearing fast, shredding any knowledge he’d had of release in the past.
He called her name.
She called his right back.
Yearning swept over him like a tidal wave-her scent, her sounds, her taste, her textures, sending him into an uncontrollable tumble of sensation. She rode that wave with him, rocketing them both on the same shore of wildly intense release.
When it was finally over he closed his eyes, aware he was breathing like a freight train, loud and heavy. Maybe he could move for a tornado, but he doubted it.
His hands moved before the rest of him. His hands instinctively started making long, slow, soothing strokes on the body on top of him. Lily was draped all over him.
“Are either of us alive?” he murmured.
“Oh, I am. And I don’t know why I ever bothered having sex before you. Why didn’t you tell me it could be this good?”
“Because I didn’t know you? Because I didn’t know it could be this good either?”
“Yeah, right. I’ll bet you tell that to all the girls.”
“I’ve never told anyone that. Ever.” Which was true. And should have been enough to scare the socks off him. Whatever was happening with Lily scaled mountains he’d never before climbed.
“Hey, weren’t you paying attention? I just seduced you. And personally, I think I did a fabulous job of it.”
“You sound mighty smug.”
“I feel mighty smug.”
“You should. You were the sexiest, most extraordinary lover I’ve ever imagined or dreamed of.”
She gave him a smile, but she pushed off his chest faster than lightning. “Okay. This being sweet to each other has gone on long enough.”
He didn’t think so. She was up in a sudden flash, with a smack and a laugh and a race for the shower, making major noises about what an exhausting day he’d had, so she was headed back to the B and B so he could get some real rest. Griff felt as if he’d been doused with cold water.
Lily was totally fine. Funny. Warm. It was just…mountains had just moved, so how come she hadn’t noticed? Why wasn’t she guiding conversation toward “what it all meant”, and what should happen next, what she wanted, what he wanted, all that female talk that always-always-followed making love.
The truth was, he wanted that chatter. He never had before, but he did now.
As fast as she climbed out of the shower, he started trailing after her, trying to talk her out of going back to the B and B. “Why can’t you just stay here?”
“Because, first off, I don’t have any fresh clothes. More important, you’re starting your day tomorrow with a lot to do related to your fire and your ice-cream business and all. And third, you had a seriously awful day today, and you really need sleep. You think you’ll sleep if I’m here?”
“I don’t want to sleep.” He heard the plaintive boy tone in his voice, but hell. Why did he have to be mature all the time? “We could just sleep,” he promised.
She just looked at him-en route to the car. By then, the dishes were done, the towels all hung up, the cover back on the hot tub. It was irritating that she took better care of his stuff than he did. And he was still shadowing her heels like a lovesick puppy.
In the car, she finally got around to mentioning what was wrong. “Griff,” she said softly, “I feel responsible.”
“For what?”
“For the fire at your ice-cream place.”
“Huh? Did you forget something? You were with me. There’s no way in hell you could be responsible, sugar.”
“Maybe not technically. But this was the second fire since I came home. Of course I didn’t set them. But they both have a personal link to me. The first, because it was the mill. And the second could be-I’m mighty scared-because you’ve taken me on publically as a friend.
Which makes me feel guiltier than a Judas. I don’t know why there’s a link to me, but there seems to be. And sheesh, I’m miserably, miserably sorry-”
Because it only took two stupid shakes to get to her B and B, he was stuck pulling in the drive. Louella had left the porch light on, undoubtedly for Lily. Moths were dancing in the light. Heat seeped in the shadows. Cicadas were singing from every bush. He walked her to the bottom of the wide old veranda, and when she wouldn’t let up on how guilty she felt, he just swung her in his arms. He kissed her.
Then kissed her again.
Then kissed her again.
Then just wrapped his arms around her and held on. He felt her silky hair against his cheek and neck, inhaled the warmth and smallness and sweetness of her. There was the oddest intimacy in just…holding. He could feel the shape of her breasts beneath the sundress, had an absolute, clear recollection of the breasts he’d laved with his tongue, their plumpness, the taste, how she’d arched her back with a cry at a certain, tiny bite. All those fresh memories came on lush in his head. Everything about her naked body, how he’d felt inside her. How she’d-
“Griff? Are you falling asleep up there?” She lifted her head, smiled at him from the shadows.
“I just don’t want to leave you.” There’d never been a simpler truth.
“I’ll see you tomorrow. Or the first moment you have time. But right now, go home, get some serious rest. That’s an order.”
“Lily.” He said her name, heard the promise and wonder in his voice. He wanted to tell her he’d fallen in love, but he could see from her expression, her eyes, that she wouldn’t believe him. Not now. Not yet. So he just left it like that, with her name spoken into the night air. He pressed his lips to her brow, and then climbed into his EOS and drove back home.
On the quiet road, the windows open to feel fresh wind on his face, he thought about what she’d said. Lily had no factual basis to believe the two recent fires were linked to her-but he believed the same. Something was wrong. Badly wrong.
People were whispering about Lily, had been from the moment she arrived, and the gossip had taken an extra-dark turn that day. It stopped when he’d turned his head or turned around, but he’d heard tail ends of it through the daylight hours-that “someone” had said how Lily was “like her dad”. That fire setting was “in the blood”.
Irresistible Stranger Page 9
