Edge of Midnight (4 page)

Still. Who was she, now?

Not that this burning itch of curiosity would be mutual. On the contrary. Liv hated his guts. She thought he was the embodiment of all evil in the known universe. Rightly so. And getting disdained, spurned, scorned, or otherwise dissed by Liv Endicott, well…damn.

That would suck like a vacuum cleaner.

Liv clenched her fists and tried to breathe. Her belly muscles were so rigid, she had to deliberately unknot them to let her lungs expand. That coffee she’d drunk some time ago churned in her belly, threatening to rush back up the way it came. She might be better off without it, but barfing made her cry, and the firebug who had torched her bookstore might be watching through a pair of binoculars.

Giggling evilly to himself. Licking his slavering chops. Watching her out of his cold, beady little reptile eyes, like a Tyrannosaurus rex.

She scanned the buildings around her, their outlines blurred by the haze of smoke. He could be watching from one of those windows. She shivered. She would not let him see her snivel like a hurt little girl.

T-Rex had left the bouquet on top of the kerosene, right out front. No attempt to hide what he’d done. He’d even attached a letter. For Olivia, with love, from You Know Who, was printed on the front. Same font he’d used for his previous e-mails. The ones she’d tried to ignore.

Evidently, T-Rex didn’t respond well to being ignored.

Well, hell. She was paying attention now. He’d gotten the big reaction he was looking for. The police were completely disgusted with her for contaminating the crime scene. She hadn’t thought about practical details like fingerprints, etc., when she’d ripped the flowers apart and stomped them into the ground, shrieking at the top of her lungs. She’d put on quite a floor show. Her parents had been mortified.

Ah, well. Nobody was perfect.

She forced out a breath. Her mind kept churning out platitudes about the virtues of non-attachment. All things must pass, blah, blah. The stuff she’d so recently stocked her Self-Help, Spirituality and New Age sections with. Big sellers, all that woo woo stuff. It made her want to smack someone. Who cared about the illusory nature of reality when you were staring at the ruins of your lifelong dream?

She wasn’t evolved enough not to feel like total crap about it.

And she was so angry. She wanted to hurt the guy who did this. Hurt him bad. Make it last. Make him sorry his parents had ever met.

This, from a woman who caught spiders and put them in the yard because she couldn’t bear to kill them. Even the big, freaky, hairy ones.

God, it hurt. She’d invested so much of herself into this place. Everything she had, and a whole lot more besides. She’d never cared so much. Ever, in her life. About anything.

Except for one notable occasion, her inner commentator piped up.

Oh no. Uh-uh. No way was she going to let herself think about Sean McCloud. One charred disaster at a time, thank you very much.

She scuffed through the ashes, mind churning. Who was this guy? What did he have against her? She had no natural enemies. She was Miss Compromise. Sweetness and light. What you reap is what you sow, wasn’t that how it worked? Wasn’t there a goddamn rule?

That New Age fluff she’d been ordering had done a number on her brain. Or maybe she’d done something horrible in a past life. She’d left a swathe of destruction in her wake. The Countess Dracula, or some such. She’d just get her inner evil countess to hunt this guy down and serve his balls up to him on a plate. Here ya go, buddy. Open wide.

If he didn’t get her first. She shivered, despite the August sun, and the heat waves that rose, shimmering, from the smoking coals.

She dashed the tears away with grimy hands and blinked madly, staring at the mess. All those months of work, reduced to nothing.

It had felt so good, bringing her dream bookstore into reality. Like she’d finally come home. Books & Brew was her baby. Her idea, her investment, her risk. Her own miserable, incinerated failure.

Be grateful it happened at night. The fire didn’t spread. The staff was home. No one got hurt, she reminded herself, for the zillionth time.

A hand clapped down on her shoulder. She jumped. “Don’t worry,” came a familiar voice. “It’s no big deal. It’s all insured, right?”

It was Blair Madden, the VP of Endicott Construction Enterprises, and her father’s right-hand man. Blair had never possessed much of what you might call tact, but this was a bit raw, even for him.

Liv turned. “Excuse me? No big deal? Don’t worry about it?”

“All I meant is that it’s replaceable.” Blair took his hand off her bare, dirty shoulder and wiped it discreetly on his perfectly creased tan pants. “It’s not like it was a cultural landmark. Keep it in perspective.”

“Livvy? Good God! You’re still here?”

Liv winced at the razor tone of her mother’s voice. Amelia Endicott climbed out of the Mercedes idling on the curb and minced toward them, careful not to smudge her sandals. “You shouldn’t be out in the open!” she scolded.

“I’ll come when I’m ready, Mother,” Liv said.

The older woman’s hackles rose, visibly. “I see,” she said. “As always. You have to do things your own way. You must suit yourself.”

“Yeah, right,” Liv muttered. “As always.”

It took energy, opposing her mother. The woman had run her childhood like a dictator, picking her clothes, her schools, her friends.

Except for that one very memorable summer.

Yeah, right. Mother had cast the Sean debacle up to her for years as an example of what happened when Liv didn’t listen to her. For once, she’d actually had a point. It stuck in Liv’s craw even now.

She’d finally forced her parents to accept that she was an adult who made her own decisions. Enter T-Rex, with a can of kerosene, and suddenly her parents felt justified in bundling her into a suffocating gift box again. Tying her up with a big silken bow. Olivia Endicott, groomed to be a credit to the family name, if she would only: 1) lose that pesky fifteen pounds, 2) wear the right shoes, 3) dress like a lady, 4) marry Blair Madden, and 5) work for Endicott Construction Enterprises.

Blair chose this inopportune moment to throw his arm around her shoulder. She jerked away before she could control the reflex.

Blair folded his arms over his chest, affronted. “I’m just trying to help,” he said stiffly. “You’re being childish, you know. And bitchy.”

I’m under a wee bit of stress, in case you haven’t noticed. She bit the sarcastic words back. “I’m sorry, Blair,” she said. “I just can’t stand being touched right now.”

Her mother’s eyes flicked down over Liv’s body, mouth tightening. “I can’t believe you are out in public dressed like that.”

Liv looked down at her baggy pants, the shrunken tank top. She’d rushed to the fire right after she got the call, not bothering to change out of her jammies. She hadn’t had a belly flat enough for that look when she was twenty, let alone thirty-two. No bra, either. Woo hah, she could throw ’em over her shoulder like a continental soldier. And as for her pants, well…best not to focus on her big butt at all.

But the scolding made her chin go up. “I’m decent,” she said. “The important bits are covered. Nobody’ll faint from seeing my jammies.”

Certainly not Blair, she refrained from adding. He’d been badgering her for years in a half-joking-but-not-really way about giving into the inevitable, and marrying him. Sometimes, when she was lonely, she was a tiny bit tempted. Blair was smart, nice, hardworking. Her parents would have frothing fits of joy. And it would be company.

But there was no heat between them. Absolutely none.

Of course, her criteria of “heat” was based almost exclusively on her memories of Sean McCloud. Maybe she’d just imagined all that wild intensity, that giddy excitement. She’d been not quite eighteen, after all.

She swallowed, her throat raspy from smoke and suppressed tears. Maybe a marriage without heat would be more stable. After all, all she had to do was look around to see the damage heat could do.

“You’re making a spectacle of yourself,” Amelia said. “I’ll see you at home, when you condescend to come.” She flounced back to her car.

“I’ll take you home,” Blair said. “You’re aware that you have to be accompanied everywhere now, right? You should pack your things.”

The look on his face abruptly reminded her of why she kept saying no to Blair’s proposals. Pompous bossiness was so unsexy.

“Pack?” she asked. “Why am I packing? Where am I going?”

“You can’t stay at your place, Liv,” he lectured. “It’s too remote, up on the hill, and you don’t even have an alarm. You’ll be staying at Endicott House, where we can keep an eye on you. Bart’s contacting a security firm to provide you with full-time bodyguards.”

“Bodyguards?” Her smoke-roughened voice broke on the word.

“Of course.” His chest puffed out. “I’m going to tell Bart and the police where we’re going. Stay where I can see you, for God’s sake.”

She stared bleakly after Blair. Bodyguards? Full time?

Now her parents could monitor her night and day. Make sure she was constantly living up to the Endicott standard. She might as well just embalm herself right now, and save everyone else the trouble.

“Hey, Liv,” a low male voice said from behind her.

Oh, God. She knew that voice. She couldn’t turn. Her muscles wouldn’t move. It was like that time she’d gone rock climbing. She had looked down in the middle of a steep bit and frozen solid, fingers numb. Her bones, all rubbery and flexible. Her insides, vast and empty.

He didn’t speak again. Maybe stress had driven her to auditory hallucinations. And there was only one way to find out, so move.

She commanded her muscles to obey, and turned.

Oh boy. It really was Sean. Her insides tightened. She felt faint.

Holy crap, just look at him. He occupied so much space. The air around him seemed charged. He was so tall. So incredibly…big.

Had he really been that big fifteen years ago?

Certainly she herself hadn’t been. The thought stung like a spider bite. To think that with her bookstore trashed, her dreams in ruins and T-Rex to stress about, she was still uptight about her oversized bum.

And her tank top did nothing to control the jiggle and sway of her boobs, which were likewise bigger now, if somewhat, well…lower. Plus, the poochy side pockets on her pants had been designed by the devil himself to make her hips look even wider than they really were.

She tried to speak, but her voice was rough and hoarse from all the smoke. She coughed, and tried again. “Hi,” she squeaked.

She didn’t want him to see her like this. Wounded, bereft. It was too much like the last time he’d seen her. Except that then, the smoking ruin had been her heart. And he was the arsonist who had torched it.

They stared at each other. She felt empty-headed, exposed.

She’d pictured running into him after she’d decided to come back to Endicott Falls. Many times. But in her fantasies, she’d been thinner. Boobs hoisted high in a power bra. Romantic, swishy white skirt and poet’s blouse, showing a faint, tasteful hint of sexy cleavage. Eat your heart out, you brain-dead chump being the subtle non-verbal message.

She’d be bustling around in her crowded bookstore, looking trim, taut and fabulous. Hair swept up in a tousled twist. Skilfully understated makeup. Elegant gold earrings. Busy, happy, fulfilled Liv!

“Sean who?” she’d say. Then her eyes would widen, recognition dawning as she looked past the beer paunch, or whatever other defects he’d developed that had rendered him harmless. “Oh! I’m terribly sorry, I just didn’t recognize you!” she’d say, oh so sweetly. “How are you?”

This was not the current scenario. Her eyes kept dropping, darting up, trying to reconcile this man with the Sean of her girlhood memories. He’d been dimpled, laughing, gorgeous. A sinuous young panther on the prowl. The embodiment of dangerous male sexuality.

That succulent golden boy had become a grim, inscrutable man.

Faded jeans and a green T-shirt showed off a long, powerful body that seemed thicker, denser than she remembered. His face seemed carved out of something hard. Longish hair blew loose and shaggy around his face in the hot gusts of air. Sun glinted off the bronze ends. A diamond stud flashed bright rainbow fire in his ear.

His eyes were keen, shadowed. No twinkle. No dimple. No flash of white teeth. He looked tempered, and tough. Harmless, her ass.

He looked about as harmless as a long, sharp knife.

She had to tear her eyes away and look at her feet before her lungs would unlock and suck in a shuddering gasp of badly needed air.

Wow. He had a flair for the dramatic entrance. Deliberate or not, it was effective, how he’d framed himself in a fire-blackened brick arch of the turn-of-the-century brewery she’d converted into her bookstore.

Backlit by sun slanting through the arch, wreathed with billows of smoke, he was like a rock idol taking the stage. Accepting the adulation of his screaming fans as his right and due. He smiled at her, and she crossed her arms over tingling breasts. No, not like a rock star.

More like a fallen archangel, guarding the gates of hell.

“What are you doing here?” she blurted. “I thought you’d left. Everyone said—” She stopped, realizing how much her words revealed.

Bleak amusement flashed in his eyes. “My brothers and I keep Dad’s old place up behind the Bluffs for occasional weekends, but we all live in the Seattle area now.” He hesitated. “So don’t worry.”