by Anne Stuart
She zipped up the bag, shoving it away from her in distaste. The jeans were American, the t-shirts French, the aspirin was actually paracetamol from England. He was as well traveled as he claimed to be. Or at least his possessions were.
She wandered toward the back of the house, through the dining room and butler’s pantry to the large, old-fashioned kitchen. Constanza had steadfastly refused to let Sally refurbish it, insisting she liked the old ways. The heavy iron sink still stood separate, the aging refrigerator let out a soft hum. It took Carolyn a moment to realize just what that humming noise signified.
The refrigerator had been turned on and stocked. There was fresh fruit, coffee beans, heavy cream, and orange juice. And a six-pack of Alex’s favorite dark beer.
She slammed the door shut and moved to the sink. The water gushed forth obligingly, when it should have been turned off for the winter.
The telephone was dead—at least Alex hadn’t lied about that. Though he had a cell phone in his Jeep—he could have found out whether there was a way off the island without disappearing.
She moved back into the front parlor, sinking down in one of the linen-covered chairs. The light was strange, and she realized she’d never been on the island in any time other than high summer. She wasn’t used to the way the spring light cast long, eerie shadows across the water.
She closed her eyes, and she could see him. Alex—the real Alex—young and strong and healthy, a lithe, beautiful creature as irresistible and untamed as a unicorn. How could she have resisted, even having felt the sting of his torments and teasing over the years? She’d watched him that summer, bare chested and tanned and smooth skinned, wearing only a ragged pair of cutoffs, and she’d dreamed about him.
Her knowledge of the basics of sexuality had been woefully inadequate back then. Alexander MacDowell had been the center of her first romantic fantasies, and her first full-fledged sexual fantasies. Dream sex had been idealistic and delicate, a worshipful experience consisting of closed-mouth kisses and disembodied pleasure. She shuddered to think how she would have reacted to the reality of it all. But Alex had disappeared, giving her just a taste of what real sexuality was, leaving her more shattered and vulnerable than ever. He’d had more than his share of older, wiser girls—he didn’t have to prey on his own family. If he’d stayed, if he’d lived, he probably wouldn’t have touched her again.
Though she hadn’t been family, she reminded herself. She had belonged to nothing and no one. Not even Alexander MacDowell.
She tried to summon up the remembered golden beauty of the lost boy, but the interloper kept forcing his way into her imagination. Instead of Alex’s sexy, youthful pout she could only see the stranger, with his elegant, Cossack eyes and wary beauty.
Maybe he was an actor, hired by a mastermind to bilk Sally of her millions. Or maybe he’d been hired for a kinder motive, to give Sally peace of mind during her final days, weeks, and months. To give her back her beloved, long-lost son so she could die in peace.
Even Carolyn couldn’t quibble with a motive like that—she would have done anything to make Sally’s passing easier, even if it meant lying, stealing, or putting up with a dangerously seductive con man. But for some reason, she couldn’t quite believe that altruism was behind the imposter’s arrival.
He had to be working with someone close to the family, someone who would be privy to all the private goings-on, the layout of the houses, the nuances of relationships between the three disparate MacDowell siblings, the family memories, family secrets. Alex was smart enough, subtle enough, and brass-balled enough to try to carry off such a masquerade, but he needed help. It was all well and good in a detective novel or a romance, but in real life posing as someone else should have been just about impossible to carry off.
There was no way he could convince her, even if he’d managed to bamboozle the rest of the MacDowell family. Even the usually paranoid Warren had accepted him with barely a protest. Obviously, the imposter was damned good.
Would she have believed him if she hadn’t seen the real Alex die? She liked to think that she wouldn’t, that she would have known immediately, instinctively, that this wasn’t the bane and delight of her adolescence, come back to haunt her.
Except for the fact that he seemed to arouse most of the same emotions within her. Rage, frustration, and an overpowering, unwilling fascination.
“What are you thinking about?”
She hadn’t even realized he’d pulled up outside the house. He was already climbing out, her overnight bag in one hand, a large paper bag in the other.
She roused herself to look down the walkway as he approached. “I was thinking you were going to come up with some kind of excuse to keep me on this island.”
“Actually, I think I would’ve enjoyed having the place to myself for twenty-four hours, without anyone watching me like a hawk, waiting for me to trip up,” he said pleasantly. “Unfortunately, no one’s flying out tonight, and every hotel, motel, and bed-and-breakfast on the island is closed down or has no vacancies available.”
“Every one, eh?” She didn’t bother hiding her disbelief.
He reached the top of the steps and set down her suitcase. “Almost every one. There are a few rooms available at the Red Cow Tavern, but I think you’d be happier here. There’s so much room in this old place that we don’t even need to see each other till we leave tomorrow.”
“What about the plumbing? The electricity? The house has been closed for the winter.” She waited for him to start stumbling over words and excuses.
He didn’t. “Constanza said she’d have someone come in and turn things on for us. Bring in a few supplies in case we need them.”
She should have known it wouldn’t be that easy. “Then what’s in the grocery bag?”
“Dinner, my precious. If you can stand my company long enough to partake of it.” She knew what it was—she could smell it. It had been more than twelve years since she’d had fried clams from the Red Cow Tavern, but the aroma was unmistakable.
Alex had been the only one in the family who’d shared that particular weakness. Just two days before he’d disappeared, he’d showed up at her door at midnight, a bag full of greasy fried clams and french fries in his fist, and he’d lured her onto the roof overlooking the inlet to feast in companionable silence.
“How long has it been since you’ve had fried clams, Carolyn?” he said. “Whole-belly clams, the kind that would make George turn green?” He could have found that out from anybody. There was no way he could know about the midnight feast—no one had known about it but the two of them.
She realized belatedly she was hungry, hungry enough to eat fried clams with him, hungry enough to let the questions go. There’d be other ways, other times to trap him. Besides, hostility wasn’t getting her anywhere. Maybe she could be halfway pleasant and trip him up that way.
“There’s beer in the refrigerator,” she said evenly. “I’ll get plates and silverware—”
“Don’t bother,” he said. “Why don’t we eat out on the porch roof, using our fingers? There’s no proper MacDowell around to drill us on etiquette.”
She could feel her face freeze. He couldn’t know, unless he was Alexander MacDowell come back from the dead. Unless someone else had been watching, listening.
She wasn’t going to start doubting herself at this point. It didn’t matter that the man looked down at her out of Alex MacDowell’s eyes, that he smiled with Alex MacDowell’s luscious mouth. It didn’t matter that he knew things no one else could possibly know.
And most of all, it didn’t matter that he left her feeling angry, confused, and irrationally yearning.
Alexander MacDowell was dead. And this man was a charming liar.
“The porch roof sounds just fine,” she said after a moment.
Chapter Eight
THE MOON H
AD risen across the inlet, sending a path of iridescent silver light over the water. The empty food containers lay scattered over the flat porch roof, and Carolyn pulled her knees up to her chest, hugging them, as she stared out over the night.
It wasn’t that late—daylight savings time wouldn’t start until next week, and the night poured down around them, carried on a breeze that held only a faint bite. A reminder of the snow that lay melting on the hills of Vermont.
“I think I’m going to be sick,” she said with utmost calm. “I’m not used to all that grease.”
He was leaning against the house, his long legs stretched out on the shingled roof, a beer in one hand, a faint smile on his moon-shadowed face. “You’re not used to indulging your appetites, Carolyn. Greasy seafood is one of the glories of nature. And you’ve barely touched your beer. Don’t you drink, either?”
“Not much.”
“You just pop your tranquilizers and pray I’ll go away, don’t you?”
She didn’t bother to deny it. The heavy meal sat like a warm rock in her stomach, more pleasant than she was willing to admit, the imported beer was strong and yeasty, and the scent of the ocean was all around her. She felt restless, uneasy, oddly threatened.
“I’m not going away, Carolyn.”
“You did before.”
“So you admit there’s a possibility I really am Alex MacDowell?” he said lazily.
“No. I’m just not going to bother about it tonight.”
“Very sensible,” he said. “But then, you’re a sensible young woman, aren’t you? Loyal, smart, friendly, reliable.”
“Man’s best friend,” she said. “You make me sound like a lapdog.”
“Oh, I think you definitely have a bitchy streak.”
She let herself smile. “No one in the family would agree with you on that.”
“Maybe they don’t know you as well as I do.”
She stared at him in amazement. “You really do have an astonishing amount of gall. You think you know me better than people who’ve been around me for the past eighteen years?”
“They don’t really look at you, Carolyn. They don’t listen to you; they don’t waste one moment thinking about you. You’re part of the furniture to them.”
“Maybe,” she said, refusing to rise to the bait.
“I think about you, Carolyn. I look at you every chance I get.”
“Yeah, and if I’m a piece of furniture to you, it’s probably a bed.”
He threw back his head and laughed, and the sound was soft and warm on the night air. “No one else sees this side of you, do they?”
“Nobody else threatens me.”
“Why am I a threat? What am I going to take away from you? You think I’ll take your place in Sally’s affections? That now she has her son back she no longer has any need for you?”
That was exactly what frightened her, and she would have jumped off the roof before she admitted it to him. “Spare me,” she said dryly.
“You don’t need to worry. Oh, you’re right—Sally’s affections have certain limitations, but there’s enough available for both of us.”
“I don’t really care,” she said, an obvious lie. “I’m tired and I’m going to bed. I want us to make the first ferry out tomorrow morning.”
“I already reserved a space for us. I figured you probably wouldn’t be giving me a reason to sleep in.”
“You figured right.” She scrambled to her knees, moving past him to the open window that led into the front bedroom. “I’ll see you in the morning.”
She should have known she wouldn’t escape that easily. He put his arm across the open window, barring her way, and she sat back on her heels, staring up at him in stony silence.
“Answer me one question, Carolyn,” he said. “If you don’t eat or drink or have sex, what do you do for fun?”
“I eat healthy things, I drink in moderation, and I have sex when I find someone worth sleeping with.” She didn’t bother to hide her defiance.
“But your standards are impossibly high, aren’t they? How long has it been since you found someone you couldn’t resist?”
“It hasn’t happened yet.”
Mistake, her brain screamed. He moved his arm away from the window, no longer barring her way, but instead he reached up and touched her face. His fingers were warm against her night-chilled skin, sliding over her cheekbone, into her wind-tangled hair. She didn’t move, afraid to fight him. Afraid a struggle would just precipitate something she couldn’t control.
“You look at me like I’m a rapist,” he said, his voice a mere breath of sound as his thumb gently touched her lips. “You look like you’re staring into the face of a murderer.”
“Are you?” Her question was hushed, raw.
“Neither one,” he said. “Will you let me kiss you?”
“Can I stop you?”
“No.”
She didn’t resist as he drew her down to meet his mouth. She told herself it wouldn’t do any good to struggle. She told herself she wanted to see how his kiss compared to what was surely the most significant kiss of her entire life, when seventeen-year-old Alexander MacDowell kissed her in her bedroom the night he died. She told herself she was curious, she told herself . . .
His mouth was hot, wet, open against hers, unexpectedly intimate. She tried to pull back, startled, but she was off balance on the roof, and she tumbled against him.
For one brief moment she wondered whether she was going to fall off the porch onto the cement walkway below, but he caught her quite easily, pulling her across his legs, folding his long body around hers and cradling her on his lap.
“This is better,” he murmured. “Now we can do it right.”
“I don’t want—” The words were caught between their mouths as he kissed her, his big hands cradling her face. She made no effort to pull away; she lay against him, letting him hold her, letting him kiss her. She closed her eyes to the moonlight, closed her eyes to the unsettling nearness of him, and simply let him kiss her.
It was nothing like that desperate, life-shattering moment in this very house, eighteen years ago. It was everything like it.
His mouth was open against hers this time, and when he used his tongue she didn’t recoil in shock. She didn’t want to breathe, to take his breath into her mouth, but she couldn’t help it. He didn’t just clamp his mouth over hers, he teased her lips, slowly, nibbling at them, as if he had all the time in the world. He slid his hand down her neck, covering her breast with a gesture so casual and so sure that she almost hadn’t realized he’d done it. He kissed the side of her mouth, running his tongue over her lower lip, and then drew back, just a fraction of an inch.
“I can feel your heart pounding,” he whispered. “Aren’t you going to kiss me back?”
“No.”
He laughed softly. “Then I guess I’ll have to let you go.”
It took a moment for his words to register. A moment to realize he wasn’t going to kiss her again. His hand still covered her breast, and she could feel the pounding of her heart against his skin, but he made no further move on her. He just looked at her with cool curiosity, his wide, sexy mouth still damp from hers.
She didn’t want to move, she realized with sudden dismay. His body was hot and strong beneath her, wrapped around her, and she could feel him, hard, beneath her hips. He wanted her, despite the calm expression on his face, wanted her quite badly. He just wasn’t going to do anything about it.
Thank God, she told herself, not moving. Thank God he wasn’t going to force any more kisses on her, wasn’t going to put his hand inside her blouse, inside the thin lacy bra and touch her. Thank God he wasn’t going to take her into the house, onto the double bed where he’d spent his teenage years, and do what she’d dreamed about when she couldn’t c
ontrol her dreams.
It wasn’t him. No matter how much his slanted blue eyes reminded her of him, no matter how devastatingly sexy his mouth was, no matter how stupidly vulnerable he made her feel, he wasn’t Alexander MacDowell. She had to remember that.
She scrambled away from him, practically falling through the open window into the narrow front bedroom that had once been Alex’s. He made no move to follow her; he just sat back on the porch roof, staring out at the night sky.
She could taste his mouth. She could feel his hand on her breast. She could feel him, surrounding her, invading her.
“Run away, Carolyn,” he said lazily from his vantage point. “I promise I won’t come after you.”
“Running away is more your style.”
“Maybe,” he said. “If I really am Alexander MacDowell.”
There was a lock on the bedroom window. She could slam it down and lock it, trapping him on the roof for the night. It was cool now, but it would get a lot chillier before morning.
But she was a grown-up. A mature adult, immune to temper tantrums, immune to the insidious effect the imposter was trying so hard to have on her.
“At this point I really don’t give a damn,” she said wearily.
“Of course you don’t,” he said. And the amusement in his voice made her slam the window behind her.
THERE WAS A LOT to be said for self-discipline, he thought, stretching his legs out in front of him. For strength of character, for the ability to control one’s raging appetites. Right now he couldn’t think of a single thing in favor of it, but he was sure that sooner or later he’d be downright thrilled with his own restraint.
It was a funny thing about women, he mused. Some women were incredibly sexy, sure of themselves and their appeal, luscious and liberated and irresistible. They were his favorite kind of women, warm, welcoming, smart, and funny. Women you could laugh with, drink with, sleep with, talk with.
