Jude Deveraux (30 page)

He
laughed, and when he disrobed in what had to be less than a quarter of a
second, they laughed together. He stretched out beside her, and even though she
could see and feel his rampant desire for her, he lay still so she could look
at his body. Years of exercise had kept him in trim fit, but there were many
scars on his body. She traced one with her fingertips and looked at him in
question.

'Knife,'
he said, then kissed her neck.

Her
hands on his back found another scar. 'Bullet,' he said.

There was
another scar down by his hip. 'You don't want to know,' he said, then he put
his mouth on hers and there was no more talking.

They
made love for hours on the old mattress. There was the first frantic meeting of
bodies, a bit awkward, but wonderfully pleasurable, and when they came
together, Eden nearly laughed with the joy of it.

Jared
collapsed on her, and for a second she thought he'd gone to sleep. She dug her
heels into the mattress, then heaved him over onto his back and stretched
herself out full length on top of him. 'Come on, old man, you have work to do.'

'No,'
he said, eyes closed. 'I'm too tired. I want to sleep. I am an old man and I'll
never be able to do this twice in one night.'

'In
that case . . . ' Eden said as she made to roll off of him.

But his
hand caught her and pulled her back on top of him. His eyes were still closed.
'Maybe I could,' he said tiredly. 'Maybe you could bring me back to life.'

'Me?
And how would I do that?' Her hand moved downward.

'That's
a start. I have a couple of other scars that you haven't found.'

'Oh?'
Her hand went lower. 'Here? No, I feel nothing. What about here? No, no scars.
What about here?'

Jared
gasped as her hand closed over him. 'Keep looking,' he said huskily.

An hour
later, they fell back on the mattress, not touching. Their skin glowed with
sweat. The rain was slowing down, and at last Eden felt sleepy.

Rolling
onto his side away from her, Jared reached under a cardboard box and withdrew a
bottle of wine and two paper cups and filled them. 'No sleeping,' he said.

Eden
turned onto her side, facing him, pulled her legs up a bit and closed her eyes.

Jared
pulled a blanket over her, then held out the cup of wine. 'You're going to sit
up and talk to me.'

'In the
morning,' she murmured.

'Do you
know the reading-out I got when I was pulled off your case?' he asked. 'I was
told that if I'd just talked to you more and —

She
opened one eye. 'And what?'

'Drooled
over you less,' he said, tight-lipped.

'I like
that,' she said sleepily. 'Not many men have drooled over me.'

'You
can't lie to me, Palmer, I've read your file, remember? As far as I can tell a
whole lot of men have 'drooled' over you. You've always dumped them.'

'Scared,'
she said, still smiling.

'In my
opinion, I don't think you're afraid of anything in the world except your
daughter.'

That
made her open her eyes. 'Afraid of my own daughter? That's ridiculous.'

Jared
handed her the cup of wine, and reluctantly she sat up, pulling the blanket up
under her arms. He was sitting there naked, seemingly oblivious to the fact
that he was so exposed. But then, he did have a beautiful body. 'How did you
get — ' she began, but a look from him cut her off. Sighing, she took a drink
of the wine. 'Okay, so what do you want to know?'

'I
don't know,' he said, an eyebrow raised. 'When I saw you tonight you were
crying like you'd rather not continue living, so maybe from that I guessed that
something was wrong. But I saw some of the tapes of what your daughter was
saying to you, so I know some of what's going on.'

Eden
looked down at her cup of wine and tried to compose herself. She tried to keep
her face calm. 'I assumed that the cameras had been disconnected. But if they
haven't, that means the case is still open.'

'One of
the agents watching your house was strangled.'

'Melissa,'
Eden said and started for the door.

Jared
just managed to catch her wine before she dropped it. Setting both cups down,
he pulled her into his arms, but she tried to push away from him. 'There are
two other agents out there,' he said softly, his lips against her ear. 'No
radios, no sounds at all. And you can bet that they're on the lookout. Eden,
sweetheart, someone wants something from you to the point that they'll do
anything to get it. I need to find out who and what.'

She
pulled away to look at him. 'Is that what this is all about?' she asked. 'You
made love to me just so I'd tell you my secrets?'

The
look on his face was enough of an answer.

'Okay,
I apologize,' she said, sitting back down and pulling on her clothes. When he
gave her a questioning look, she motioned her head toward the outside. She
didn't want a couple of FBI agents bursting in on them. 'Are there any cameras
in here?'

'What
do you think?'

'Okay,
again I apologize.'

'I want
you to tell me everything that's happened since I left. No matter how
insignificant it is, I want to hear about it. Understand?'

'There's
been nothing except some really hateful personal things.' She turned away, not
looking in his eyes. 'No one has mentioned the necklace or ... or anything that
could remotely be something anyone would kill for. Except Minnie. She might
kill me just for the pleasure of it.'

'Minnie?
Her beef is with me, not you.'

Eden 
looked   at  him   in  
astonishment.   'She thought you were her boyfriend.'

Jared
shrugged. 'Hazards of the business. Happens to me a lot.'

His
statement was so vain, yet at the same time so honest, that she laughed. 'It's
nothing to you, but Minnie wants a husband and a father for her child. And she
wants a place to live. I think her deal with Brad is that . . . ' Trailing off,
she looked away.

'Go
on,' Jared said. 'What happened?'

'I'm
sorry, it's just that . . . '

'I
know,' he said, his jaw held tightly in position. 'You can't think of Granville
without what? Great pain? He dumped you, so you had a tumble with the
second-best man. Thank you, I enjoyed it, and I can assure you that I won't
tell him.'

She
looked at him for several seconds. 'I see why your wife ran off with another
man.'

'I
don't see anything bad about you at all,' he snapped, 'except your refusal to
tell me what I need to know.'

She
looked down at her wine. Light was beginning to come in through the cracks
between the old boards. Dawn was approaching. What was she going to think of
herself when she was away from him? There was no future with a man like Jared
McBride. He was a mover, a vagabond, a ... a bum? He wasn't a man to settle
down in one spot and plant fruit trees. And he certainly wasn't a man to
elevate one's social position in a snobby town like Arundel. No, there was no
future with a man like Jared McBride.

'You
want to quit looking at me like that?' he asked as he pulled on his clothes.
'I'm not something that you found under a rock.'

'I'm
sorry,' she said. 'I didn't mean — '

'It doesn't
matter, and stop apologizing,' he said as he buttoned his shirt. 'I want to
know what happened with Minnie.'

Eden
had to take a deep breath to give herself strength as she quickly told Jared
the gist of what Minnie had said to her.

'I don't
know about what she said about Granville, but she made everything about her and
me up. I never gave her any encouragement.'

She
knew he was telling the truth, but that still didn't keep Minnie's anger from
running around inside her head.

Eden
took a deep drink of her wine. It was now morning, and she'd never had an
alcoholic drink in the morning in her life. But then she'd never made love with
a man she knew she had no future with. She'd never been a one-night-stand type
of woman. She looked at Jared, remembering his hands on her body.

'Cut
that out!' he snapped. 'I can't concentrate when you look at me like that.
Remember when I told you that that ancestor of Mrs. Farrington's had killed his
wife and her lover? I was right, wasn't I?'

'Yes,
but that was — '

'Human
nature. It's something I've had to deal with a lot. Minnie is lying about
Granville. If he called his former girlfriend, then it was for a reason other
than getting back with her. What exactly did she say?'

'What
does this have to do with some spy swallowing my name?'

'If
Minnie lies about one thing, she'll lie about another. I can see that she might
think I was interested in her. That could have been an honest mistake. Happens
to me all the time. And too, I was trying to make you jealous so — '

'Why
would you want to do that?'

Jared
ignored her question. 'Tell me again what she said, word for word.'

Eden
did the best she could, but it had been an emotionally charged conversation, so
it was difficult to remember clearly.

Jared
leaned back on the mattress, his hands behind his head. 'Granville could have
called the woman about something legal. It sounds to me as though Minnie's
mother is as fanciful as her daughter. They've both made up men who are hot for
them. What else did she say?'

Eden
put down her empty cup and looked at her hands.

'That
bad, huh?' Jared asked softly.

She lay
down beside him, not touching him. 'Minnie said that I was a slut when I was a
teenager and I haven't changed since.' She took a deep breath. 'From the
evidence of tonight, maybe she's right.'

'Angels
live in heaven, not on earth.'

'What?'
Turning her head, she looked at him.

'Did by
chance your parents tell you that it was
your
fault that you were
raped?'

'Oh,
yeah,' Eden said. 'If I hadn't been wearing my ankle-length skirt, if I hadn't
been walking in the woods, if I hadn't . . . et cetera. It was all my fault.'

'So
you've tried to prove them wrong, haven't you?'

'Am I
going to have to pay you for this therapy session?'

'No,
it's free,' he said seriously. 'I was curious why you let your daughter walk
all over you.'

'I do
no such thing!' she said. 'Under normal circumstances, Melissa and I . . . '
She took a breath. 'Yeah, I invented Doormat Mom. Think I could get a trophy
from somebody?'

'Maybe
for sex, but not for being a doormat.'

'Really?'
she asked, turning toward him. 'Have there been a lot of women to compare me
to?'

'Do you
think that now is the time to start in about my sex life?'

She lay
back down. 'Sorry. Okay, so Minnie is lying and Brad still loves me.' Beside
her, she felt Jared stiffen. 'Sorry, I — '

Rolling
away from her, he stood up. 'This is getting nowhere. What else happened that's
made you so upset?'

'Daughter,
boyfriend, life. That about covers it.' Yawning, she stretched, and when she
opened her eyes, Jared was looking at her with interest. She blinked at him a
couple of times.

'No, we
can't. Besides,' he said nastily, 'your boyfriend might show up soon.'

'Jared
. . . ' she began.

He put
up his hand. 'We can sort out our personal problems later. I need to do some
checking on this Minnie. Give me her full name.' He pulled a pen and a little
pad of paper from under the box where the wine was.

'Minton
Norfleet.'

'If I
stayed here awhile I think I could guess people's names.'

'It's a
custom around here.'

'Yeah,
made up in an attempt to exclude outsiders. Having one of
the
names lets
you know who belongs and who doesn't.' He closed the pad and looked at her.
'Everyone in this town knows your history. Do you really think they'll accept
you?'

'But
they have. When I lived here before — '

'When
you lived here before, you were protected by the Grande Dame of Arundel. No one
would go against her. What will they think when you marry the prize catch of
the town? Will they say what Minnie did?'

'It
doesn't matter what anyone says because I don't think Brad will want me now,'
she said softly. She was looking down at her hands and didn't see the anger
that flashed in Jared's eyes.

'Now
that you've been sullied by me?'

'I
didn't mean that,' she said. 'There were other things before all this
happened.' She waved her hand to mean their lovemaking.

'He
dropped you so you were free to get off with the hired help. Is that it? But if
he would take you back — '

'You're
so right. All this was completely calculated. Preplanned. I knew you were
skulking around out here, living in my well house like some feral cat, so I
made up a reason to come out here and jump on you.'