by Nora Roberts
He’d take his pick—but the pretty young blonde? She was top choice.
He’d left the camper at the campground a good twelve miles away, all legally set up.
And if they only knew what he’d done inside that home away from home. Just the idea made him want to chuckle.
But the excitement grew, a hot ball in the belly, when the rear door of the restaurant opened.
The hot little blonde, just as he’d hoped.
And all alone.
He slipped out of the car, on the dark edge of the lot, with the rag he’d soaked with chloroform held down at his side.
He liked using chloroform, going old-school. It put them out—no muss, no fuss—even if it tended to make them a little sick. It just added to the process.
She walked along, firm, young tits bouncing some, tight young ass swaying. He glanced back toward the restaurant, making sure no one else came out, started to make his move.
And headlights sliced over the lot, had him jumping back into the shadows. The little blonde waited for the car to turn toward her, then opened the passenger door.
“Thanks, Dad.”
“No problem, honey.”
He wanted to kick something, beat something, when his desire drove off, left him yearning and hot.
Tears actually gathered in the corners of his eyes. Then the door opened again.
Two more came out. He saw them in the light above the door, heard their voices, their laughter as they talked.
Then one of the boys came out. He and the younger of the women linked hands, strolled off together.
The young girl turned around, walked backward. “Have fun tomorrow! Drive safe.”
The lone woman started across the lot. Not young like the others, not so pretty—not blonde like his desire—but she’d do. She’d do well enough.
She hummed to herself as she opened her purse to dig out her key.
All he had to do, really all he had to do was step up behind her. He deliberately gave her that instant to feel fear, to have her heart jump as she turned her head.
Then he covered her face with the cloth, gripped her around the waist while she struggled, while her muffled screams pushed hot against his hand. As she went so quickly, almost too quickly, limp.
He had her in the back of the car, wrists and ankles wrapped in duct tape, more tape over her mouth, a blanket over her, within twenty seconds.
He drove out of the lot, through town, careful to keep to the posted speed, to use his turn signals. He didn’t even turn on the radio until he passed the town limits. He opened the windows to cool his hot cheeks, flicked a glance in the rearview at the shape under the blanket.
“We’re going to have some fun now. We’re going to have one hell of a good time.”
FOCUS
The spectator ofttimes sees more
than the gamester.
JAMES HOWELL
Twenty-one
By the time Sunday morning rolled around, all Xander wanted in this world was to sleep until the sun came up. Three road service calls Friday night had pulled him away from practice for a Saturday-night gig, and dragged him out of bed. Twice.
They’d rocked the bar in Union, good exposure, good times, good pay—but he hadn’t flopped into Naomi’s bed until two in the morning.
He met Tag’s five A.M. wake-up call with a snarl.
“I’ve got it,” Naomi told him.
With a grunt of assent, Xander dropped back to sleep.
Mildly disoriented, he woke, alone, three hours later. He thought, Naomi, and scrubbed his hands over his face. Christ, he needed a shave—not his favorite sport. Then he remembered it was Sunday, and didn’t see why anybody had to shave on Sunday.
The sun shined through the glass doors. Through them he could see the blue lines of water, the quiet spread of it beyond the inlet. A couple of boats—early risers—plied the blue.
He wasn’t a fan of boats any more than he was of shaving, but he appreciated the look of them.
But at the moment, he’d appreciate coffee a hell of a lot more. He got up, pulled on his jeans, saw a T-shirt he’d left there at some point neatly folded on the dresser.
Grateful he didn’t have to wear the shirt he’d sweated through the night before, he pulled it over his head—and discovered that whatever she washed stuff in smelled better than whatever he washed stuff in.
He’d had to tap Kevin and Jenny for the favor—then persuade Naomi to drive with them to Union for a couple of hours. He’d liked seeing her there—and more, he’d liked knowing Kevin would make sure she got home, got in the house, locked up safe until he’d made it back.
She’d given him a key and the alarm code, though he wasn’t sure if it had been for the single night or what. He didn’t think she was sure either.
The . . . arrangement would be easier if he could leave a few essentials at her place. He wasn’t sure of his ground there—brand-new territory.
He’d never lived, even half lived, with a woman before. He’d been careful not to. His space might not have been as big as Naomi’s, but he liked his space all the same.
Yet here he was, getting out of her bed again, wearing a shirt she’d washed, and thinking about hitting her up for coffee.
This thing between them had a lot of moving parts, and he’d yet to figure out how they all fit.
But he would, he told himself as he walked out to find her—and coffee. He always figured out how things fit.
He heard her voice, pitched low, so he changed directions from the pursuit of coffee and walked to her temporary work space.
She had the windows wide open and the dog sprawled under her makeshift worktable.
The sun flooded her hair, turned it into a hundred shades of gold and bronze and caramel as she used a long tool to cut some mat board while she muttered to herself. Nearby a big, slick printer hummed while it slid a poster-size print into a tray.
It took him a minute to realize the poster-size print was of his hands holding the Austen book.
He saw himself again, already framed and matted and tipped against the wall. That shot she’d taken in the early morning, with the sunrise at his back and his eyes on her.
She had other poster prints—his book wall, his hands again, sunrise over the inlet—clipped to the arms of some sort of stand and a stack of smaller prints in a tray.
The dog’s tail thumped good morning, and since hope sprang eternal in Tag, he uncurled himself and brought Xander a ball.
Distracted, Xander laid a hand on the dog’s head and just looked at Naomi.
Immersed in her work, immersed in sunlight, slim hands competent with her tools, dark green eyes focused on her art. That long, slim body in a pale blue shirt and khaki pants that stopped above her ankles, her feet bare.
So this was what it was, this was how it fit. How his half fit anyway, he thought. It fit, all those moving parts, because he was in love with her.
Shouldn’t the universe have given him a heads-up on that? He needed a little time, needed to adjust, regroup, needed to—
Then she glanced over, and her eyes met his.
It blew through him, that storm of feeling, all but took his breath. For an instant he wondered how people lived this way, how they could carry so much for someone else inside them.
He crossed to her, yanked her up to her toes, and took her mouth like a man starving.
This. Her. His life would never be just what it had been as of that moment. And he would never be only what he’d been.
Love changed everything.
Thrown off balance, she gripped his shoulders. He made her head spin, her heart race, her knees weak. Overcome, she held on, rode the hot, fast wave with him.
When he eased back, she laid her hands on his cheeks, let out a long breath. “Wow, and good morning.”
He rested his forehead to hers a moment while tenderness twined with heat.
“Are you all right?” she asked him.
No, he thought. He might not com
e down to all right again for years.
“You should always wear sunlight,” he told her. “It looks good on you.”
“I think you should always sleep in.”
“No one in the actual world considers eight on a Sunday morning sleeping in.”
To give himself a moment to settle, Xander turned to the prints. “You’ve been busy.”
“I’ve got orders. The gallery, the Internet, Krista.”
“So you were right about the hands.”
“Oh yeah. Many hits on my website, and a nice bunch of orders for downloads and prints and posters on that and the book wall. I have to order more supplies.”
He looked around at boxes and stacks. “More.”
“More. I can’t set up in here as efficiently as I will when they have my studio done. I might break my own rule and nag Kevin on that. But for now I can make do. You got in late,” she added, and took the finished poster print out of the tray.
“Yeah, I got here around two, I guess. Woke the dog up.”
“I heard him—and you.”
“Sorry.”
“No, it’s reassuring that he barks and runs down like he’d rip an intruder to shreds. Though I suspect he’d run the other way if it was someone he didn’t know. You all sounded good last night.”
“Yeah, we had it down.”
She clipped the poster in place, moved over to her tray. “What do you think of these?”
He started to tell her he’d look after coffee, as the need for it reared up strong, but he saw the print of the band, one with the tools, the broken windshield. Taking the stack, he paged through.
“Jesus, Naomi, these are great. Really great. Dave keeps saying how he can’t decide what to use, which for what. On and on until you want to punch him.”
“That’s why I printed some out. You’ve all seen them on the computer, but sometimes prints help the choice.”
“I don’t think so. They’re all great. You did some black-and-white.”
“Moody, right?” As if checking for herself, she looked over his shoulder. “A little dangerous. You should all pick one for yourselves. I’ll frame them for you. And you should pick one to go in Loo’s.”
“Yeah, maybe. Yeah. This black-and-white for Loo’s, because it fits the atmosphere better.”
“I agree.”
“Dave’s going to develop a nervous tic trying to decide.” He set the prints back in the tray. “I need coffee.”
“Go ahead. I’ve got a couple things to finish up, then I’ll be down. You could let the dog out,” she added. “It’s too nice a day for him to be inside.”
“For anybody. We could take a drive along 101. GTO or bike, your choice.”
“If we did that, took the convertible, I could take some equipment. And the dog.”
“We’ll go by my place and pick it up.”
Even as Xander started out, Tag raced ahead of him.
He’d take the day off—from work, from shaving, from thinking about what to do, or not, about being in love.
He knew people who fell in and out of love more regularly than they came in for an oil change. But he wasn’t one of them.
He’d fallen into his share of lust, even into serious like, but this ground-just-shifted-under-my-feet feeling? A whole new experience.
He’d just let it all sit for a while, he decided. Make sure it wasn’t some sort of momentary aberration.
Halfway down the steps Tag let out a low growl and bulleted the rest of the way to the door. He snapped out two sharp barks, then looked back at Xander as if to say, Well? Let’s take care of this.
“Yeah, yeah, I’m coming. Why didn’t I go for coffee from the jump?”
Xander opened the door, saw the black Chevy Suburban pull beside Naomi’s car. And walked out as a tall man with light brown hair stepped out.
He wore sunglasses, a dark suit and tie—and a nebulous official air that said cop to Xander.
Not a local badge, but some sort of badge. And it pissed him off that Naomi would have her Sunday spoiled by more questions about Marla.
The man looked at the dog who stood by Xander’s side, then at Xander.
“Who the hell are you?”
“You’re the one who drove up here,” Xander countered just as abruptly, “so I get to ask who the hell you are.”
“Special Agent Mason Carson. FBI.”
Mason took out his credentials, held them up—and wasn’t subtle about the hand that flipped back the suit jacket to rest on the butt of his service weapon.
“Now, who the hell are you?”
“It’s all right.” Xander set his own hand on Tag’s head. “He’s okay. Xander Keaton.”
The sunglasses might have blocked Mason’s eyes, but Xander knew they narrowed and assessed.
“The mechanic.”
“That’s right. Naomi’s in the house. Upstairs finishing up some work. I’d appreciate it if you took your hand off your gun. I haven’t had coffee yet, and it’s starting to piss me off.”
Since Tag sidled over to sniff at Mason’s FBI shoes, Mason gave his head a rub. “Do you usually have coffee here?”
“It’s gotten to be a habit. If that pisses you off, it has to wait until after coffee.”
“I wouldn’t mind coffee.”
Tag raced off, raced back, ball in his mouth, dropped it at Mason’s feet.
And when Mason smiled, Xander saw Naomi.
She didn’t smile all the way often enough, in his opinion, but when she did she shared that same slow build to blinding with her brother.
“She’s going to be really glad to see you.”
Xander waited for Mason, who wasn’t so official he couldn’t throw a ball for a dog, then started back into the house.
“If we drive north,” Naomi began as she came downstairs, “I could get some . . . Mason. Oh God, Mason!”
She flew.
Mason caught her, swung her around, then swung her around again.
That, Xander thought, was a connection, a bond, a love that went as deep as they ever get.
She laughed, and he heard the tears in it, saw them sparkle in the jubilant sunlight that pumped through the open door.
“What are you doing here? Why didn’t you tell me you were coming? You’re wearing a suit! You look so— Oh, oh, I missed you.”
