His Partner's Wife (14 page)

Natalie swallowed and brushed her hair back from her face
with one hand, the, movement lifting the hem of that damned tee a couple of
perilous inches higher. He forced his gaze to her face, seeing that her
downcast eyes looked puffy and damp.

"Why don't you sit down?" he suggested.

She looked vaguely around. "I should put something
on."

"You're fine. I'd see you in less at the beach."
Right now, to see her in less he would have given any body part demanded
except… He slammed a door on that one, shocking even himself at this raw lust
for a woman he'd never regarded sexually before.

Her tongue touched her lips, and he saw her swallow.
"Oh," she said again, and backed a few steps into the bedroom.

Relief, he told himself intensely. Damn it, this was just
relief. Or adrenaline. Somehow it had gotten out of hand. His brothers ribbing
him this evening had put the idea in his head. They'd primed him to notice, big
time, that Natalie was a sexy woman with incredible legs, voluptuous hips, a
pretty mouth, and a mass of hair any man would want to tangle his fingers in.

He almost groaned.

Find her bathrobe,
he
thought desperately. But how could he, now that he'd assured her she was fine
in that oversize shirt and nothing else? She'd be humiliated if he suddenly
tried to cover her up.

The lamplight touching her face, he could see that she was
blushing although her chin was high. Her voice was small when she said,
"There wasn't anybody in the house, was there? And I scared you, and
brought half the Port Dare Police Department rushing over here just because I
heard a bump in the night." She was talking fast now, not giving him a
chance to break in. "Or maybe I didn't hear anything. I could have been
having a nightmare and thought it was real. John, I'm so sorry! It was partly
Geoff, seeming so sure I wasn't safe here. But I can't blame him. It was me.
I…"

He laid a hand over her mouth. Natalie gazed mutely up at
him over it.

"There was somebody in here."

Her mouth moved against his palm, but otherwise she was completely
still.

"The family room window is broken. Looks like he used a
rock from the edging around the flower bed. One of them is lying right there.
He tapped the glass, made a hole just big enough to get his hand in and unlock
the window. It's wide-open."

A small shudder rippled through her.

He let his hand drop. "Tell me what you heard."

"I…" She backed up blindly until she came to the
bed, where she sat so suddenly it was as though her legs had given out. "A
thump. No, two thumps. That's all."

He followed her, noticing with a brief, raised brow the
chair that sat beside the door—smart, he thought approvingly. Sitting beside
her on the edge of the bed, John tried not to notice her thighs.
"Where?" he asked patiently.

"Where…" She sucked in another, shuddering breath.
"I think, in the study."

John swore.

She seemed not to notice, and her brow creased as she
concentrated. "As if he'd bumped against the wall. Staggered. Or … or was
carrying something cumbersome and misjudged distances."

"Like a cardboard box," John said thoughtfully.

"Or…" She swung a pleading look his way. "Did
you go into the study? Tell me there's not another body."

"No body," he said positively. "I can't swear
one of the boxes in the closet hasn't been taken, but I'd have seen a body."

"Oh." She slumped with relief, then stiffened
again. "Could … could there be one somewhere else in the house?"

"No body," he repeated patiently. "We checked
out the whole house. What do you think, your place has become a dumping ground
for the mafiosi?"

Natalie let out a choked laugh. "Well, you have to
admit finding the corpse of a total stranger in your house is a little odd.
Followed by somebody breaking in during the night a week later."

Oh, yeah, he thought sardonically. "Odd" about
covered it. Tonight's episode left him considerably less satisfied with the
"burglar turning on burglar" theory about the murder.

He nodded toward the door. "Did you have the chair
under the knob?"

Her hair fell over her shoulder when she nodded. "I
felt really silly when I braced it under there, but it just made me feel more
secure."

"Smart," he said.

"As it turned out—" she gazed doubtfully toward
her maple dining chair "—I don't know how well it would have held under a
determined assault."

"I don't, either, but at worst it would have slowed our
guy down."

She nodded again, saying nothing this time. The silence felt
less comfortable than it once might have, maybe because John was trying so hard
not to stare at her thighs.

Hearing voices from just downstairs, he said hastily,
"Maybe you should find that bathrobe before half the Port Dare P.D.
strolls into your bedroom."

She gave another tiny laugh and slipped off the bed, heading
for the closet. John took one hungry look at her incredible legs and then
squeezed his eyes shut.

"Is something wrong?"

"What?" His eyes snapped open.

She was shrugging into a terry-cloth robe and looking
inquiringly over her shoulder at him.

"Oh." He pulled himself together. "No. Just
thinking."

"About?"

"You. We can go two ways here. If you want to grab some
stuff, we can head for my place. Or you can go back to bed, and I'll get some
shut-eye on your couch."

"But…" Her eyes widened and she said in alarm,
"Maddie and Evan aren't home alone, are they?"

"Connor's with them. I expect he'd bunk down there if I
call."

"What would you prefer?" she asked simply.
"Whatever is easier for you."

He rubbed the back of his neck, thinking. "If you're
okay with it, why don't you just go back to bed. We can get your statement in the
morning. Tell me where to find a pillow and blanket, and I'll stretch out
downstairs on the couch."

"He won't come back, will he?"

John knew who "he" was without asking. With regret
and a certain ferocity, he said, "I wish he would. But, no. The etiquette
book for crooks suggests no more than one visit in a night."

He loved her chuckle, especially under the circumstances.

Her eyes were shadowed but her mouth still soft from the
smile when she came toward him. "Okay. I feel safe with you here. Tomorrow
I'm going to order a security alarm."

"And you're coming home with me again until it's
in," John said, tone inflexible. "No. Don't argue. Or at least, not
until we've had breakfast."

"Okay," she said again. When he stood, she made an
abortive move toward him, but was suddenly fiddling with the belt on her robe,
her gaze downcast. Had she nearly kissed him on the cheek again?

He had a vivid flash of the night she'd surprised him with a
kiss. Darkness beyond the kitchen, quiet, her bare toes curled around the stool,
the rush of air as she neared and the scent of her hair and the texture of her
skin up so close and the soft brush of her lips.

If she'd done it tonight, he would have had a hell of a time
keeping from turning his mouth to meet hers.

Until he cooled down and figured out what to do about this
unexpected lust for a woman he considered a good friend, it was probably just
as well if she didn't kiss him.

"It sounds like Hugh's coming," Natalie said.
Footsteps neared in the hall. "Um, I'll just go back to bed."

He was between her and it. No wonder she sounded tentative.
She couldn't quite say,
For
crying out loud, will you get out of here?

"Yeah. Sure." Somehow his feet weren't moving. The
bed was two steps away. She was right here in that short T-shirt and maybe
nothing on under it. He had to curl his fingers at his side to keep from
reaching out to plunge them in her hair. If she lifted her mouth he'd ravage it
with his. He could get rid of Hugh in short order and…

From the doorway, his little brother said, "What's the
plan?"

He gazed contemplatively from Natalie to John, blue eyes
missing nothing, thoughts unreadable. John cursed himself for the hoarseness
still in his voice. "I'm going to see if Connor can spend the night, and
I'll bed down on Natalie's couch. Tomorrow, she's getting out of this place
again."

Hugh's brows twitched, but he nodded. "Then I'll hitch
a ride home with Wently and Jacobson." He gave Natalie a surprisingly
gentle smile. "Sleep tight."

"Thank you," she said again. He lifted a hand and
disappeared from the doorway.

John picked up the telephone beside her bed and dialed home.

When his brother answered, he told him the situation.
"Can you stay with the kids?"

"And make 'em the best dang pancakes they've ever had
in their life," Connor promised. "Rest easy, and no rush tomorrow.
Give Natalie my best."

When John passed on the message, tears sprang to her eyes.
"All of you have been so nice." She dashed away the dampness on her
lashes.

"Hugh's right." John went to her, rested the back
of his hand against her cheek, and felt her nuzzle it. "Go to bed. Sleep
tight."

She blew her nose and insisted on getting him the pillow and
blankets. A moment later, the bedroom door was shut firmly in his face.

He checked to see that the broken window had been
blockaded—it had, crudely, with an ill-fitting piece of plywood the men had
found who knows where—and that the house was otherwise locked up, turning off
lights as he went. Stretched out on her living room couch, which wasn't quite
long enough for his six foot two frame, John was left to stare at the dark
ceiling, ignore the sexual ache that he couldn't conveniently turn off, and
brood.

Were these feelings artificial, an outgrowth of his
brothers' razzing and the scare he'd gotten tonight? Or was he in real danger
of falling for Stuart Reed's widow?

And even if he was, what, if anything, did he want to do
about it? He liked Natalie. He could talk to her. He'd miss her more than he
liked to admit if any advance he made blew their friendship.

Whether she gently rejected him, or kissed him torridly
back, nothing would ever be the same again. Change could be good, but it was
more likely to be bad. He didn't want to risk losing her friendship just so he
could scratch an itch.

Adjusting the pillow, he tried to get comfortable. He
clunked his heel against the end table and swore. His exasperation with the
too-short couch was tempered by the knowledge that tonight, hyperalert for any
sound, sexually aroused, in turmoil about what he felt, he wouldn't have been
comfortable in a king-size feather bed.

An itch.

The convenient if vulgar explanation for his hard-on played
in his mind.

Even the ferocious itches from chicken pox passed, John
thought grimly. This one would, too, unless it was more complicated than that.
If so… He swore again, quietly, the word lingering in his ears.

If so, he might lose the only woman friend he'd ever had.

Chapter
7

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^
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J
ohn met his partner
at the curb in front of Natalie's house the next morning and
told him the tale of the night.

Baxter, still standing on the driver's side with his car
door open, rapped his fist on the roof. "Son of a bitch! I knew it!"

"It's not nice to say 'I told you so.'"

His partner gave him a feral grin. "If you'd just
accepted my superior wisdom in the first place, I wouldn't have to be saying 'I
told you so.'"

John made an obscene suggestion regarding the superior
wisdom, to which Baxter only laughed.

"What say we go do what we should have done in the
first place and take this house apart?"

"Maybe our friendly visitor last night left with what
he was after," John suggested, playing devil's advocate.