Rising Heat (39 page)

And yet, if I failed to get the answers that the editor-in-chief wanted, would it mean my job? Why did Angela think that I could succeed where everyone else had failed? Or was it just a setup? A test? When it came right down to it, I realized that I would have to make a decision; a decision I didn’t take lightly.

If I wanted to be a serious journalist, I had to learn to ask serious questions; questions that often made the interviewee just as uncomfortable as I would be asking those questions. But that’s what a journalist did, wasn’t it? Wasn’t that how you got to the truth? The problem with that line of thought was the Blake Masters was already a billionaire, one who had amassed his fortune not only through an inheritance but through his business acumen and acquisitions. Could an article about his past truly destroy him?

I knew I had made mistakes in the past. No, nothing as serious as being involved in a murder, but if I had, how would I feel if I were thought guilty even if no charges had been filed? No, that was a stupid line of thought. Murder was a lot different from stealing a tube of lipstick from the local drug store, or ditching school, or smoking pot behind the gymnasium. Besides, I supposed there were plenty of guilty people walking around out there, charges not filed and trials not brought to court because of a simple lack of concrete evidence. A circumstantial trial might be hard to prove.

And I had to keep that uppermost in my mind when I was around Blake. Not his looks, not his charisma, and certainly not his charm. Not his sexual appeal, those hard, rippling muscles. Murderers could hide in plain sight. They could—

A faint knock on my closed bedroom door startled me. I heard Blake calling my name a couple of times. I sat up, the water sloshing around me as I frantically glanced up at the towel rack. He wouldn’t dare come in, would he?

“You okay in there, Misty?”

His voice was louder this time. Was he in my
room?
I gasped as my heart pounded in trepidation. I swallowed then stammered a reply. “I’m all right, why?”

“You’ve been in there for almost an hour,” he said. “I was just beginning to get a little concerned, thought I’d better come up and check on you.”

“I… I’m fine,” I choked out, my heart still racing.

“Okay, just checking. Come on down to the living room when you’re done. I made a salve you can rub on your muscles.”

“All right,” I called back, my heart still pounding. I hadn’t noticed a lock on my bedroom door, but before I left the room, I would look to see if there was one. I didn’t like the idea of Blake walking in on me. What if he had walked into the bathroom, seeing me doing what I was doing… even though I was alone, I felt the heat of a flush rising in my cheeks. The thought didn’t even bear considering.

I realized the water wasn’t nearly as warm as it had been, was pretty tepid actually, so I slowly sat up, surprised. I’d thought the warm water would loosen and soothe my muscles, but actually, I felt incredibly stiff and sore. Especially my left shoulder blade.

I rose carefully, not wanting to slip. With the water dripping from my body, I reached for the towel rack. I pulled off a large, soft and fluffy towel. No cheap and substandard bath towels for Blake’s properties, no indeed. The one I wrapped around my glistening body was almost as large as a beach towel. I enveloped myself in it and then began to dry myself off. The bath mat beneath my toes was soft and cushy, and I didn’t want to drip too much water onto it. By the time I’d towel-dried, the steam had receded from the mirror. My muscles protesting the movement, I bent over and remove the plug from the bathtub. As I listened to the water gurgle down the drain, I once again gave myself an appraising look in the mirror, this time from the shoulders up.

I was relieved that I didn’t have any visible signs of injury, but as I turned slightly, trying to look over my shoulder at my back, my eyes widened in alarm when I saw the large bruise forming on that sore shoulder blade. I reached a hand up and over my shoulder, but couldn’t reach it. It was about the size of a baseball. I wondered if I had done more than bruise it. Were there tendons or ligaments or anything I could’ve pulled?

Before stepping out of the bathroom to explore the closet for clothes once again, I wrapped the towel around myself, tucking it over my breasts. I wasn’t taking any chances. I opened the bathroom door a few inches, glanced out, and didn’t see anybody. Nevertheless, I was nothing if not cautious. I poked my head around the door jamb to make sure that Blake was no longer in the room. He wasn’t. He had left, closing the bedroom door behind him.

Nodding in satisfaction, I stepped out of the bathroom and headed for the closet. The jeans I had worn were caked with dirt and dust. Besides, there was a tear in one knee. If I found no adequate substitutes in the closet, I would have to shake them out and put them on. I didn’t find another pair of jeans my size, but I did find a pair of leggings and an extra-large man’s sweatshirt, which I supposed would suffice for hanging around in the cabin for the remainder of the day.

I slid my feet into my flats without socks and then headed to the bedroom door. As I left my room and strode along the balcony hallway toward the stairs, I glanced down into the open space below. Blake sat on one of the sofas. A newspaper was spread out on the coffee table in front of it. Beside it was a bowl.

One of the floorboards creaked beneath me, and Blake glanced up. For a second, my eyes met his. I felt instantly flustered. Just the memory of what I had done to myself in the bathtub made me feel self-conscious. There was no way Blake would know what I’d done, but I was afraid that somehow, maybe even telepathically, he would figure it out. I scolded myself as I headed down the stairs, taking the steps slowly. There was a spot on my left thigh that contracted tightly with each step. Maybe I landed on a stone when I fell. Ugh. How embarrassing.

At the bottom of the stairs, I turned to walk into the living area. Blake leaned back on the couch, newspaper forgotten as he gave me an assessing gaze from top to bottom.

“You feeling better?”

I tried to shrug, then stopped when I felt the pain in my shoulder, barely managing to quench the grimace. “I thought a warm soak would help more than it did. I think I’m going to feel every bump, rock, and pebble I hit when I landed and rolled,” I said, trying to sound flippant.

He slowly shook his head, his expression somber. “I apologize again for your tumble,” he said. “I should’ve been going slower.”

I paused near the end of the couch. “It’s not your fault, Blake. It’s not the first time I’ve fallen off something, and I doubt it will be the last. I’ll be all right.”

He gestured toward the bowl, filled with an odd concoction. It looked like a blend of coffee and… vegetable oil? I pointed at it. “What is that?” I took a step closer, bending down to look at it more closely, and then turned to him. “It looks like melted licorice, but it doesn’t smell like it.”

I noticed the look he gave me. “I grew up in Dallas,” I explained. “I know a little bit about horses. My dad used to make his own liniment too, but this doesn’t smell like liniment.”

“It’s my great-grandfather’s recipe,” Blake commented. “It’s got lavender oil in it, as well as some rosemary and arnica.”

I was impressed. “Looks a lot better than the salve my dad used to make, and it smells a lot better too.” I glanced from him to the bowl and then back again. “I can rub some of this into my muscles tonight before I go to bed—” I grew distracted by the thought. No pajamas, either. I sure hoped Angela was going to appreciate all the trouble I was going to just to get this darned interview.

He shook his head. “Better not wait that long or it’s not gonna help much.”

I glanced at him, puzzled. “I can’t put that on now,” I protested. “I’ll get it all over these clothes! The furniture—”

“Don’t worry about the clothes,” he assured me. “There’s a closet full of them upstairs, isn’t there?”

“Well yes, but—”

“No buts,” he said. He stood and moved away from the couch, heading down the hallway. He returned several moments later with a small stack of bath towels. A plush white bathrobe, its belt nearly dragging on the floor, hung over one arm. He laid the towels on the couch cushions, the bathrobe against the back.

“There, problem solved,” he said, pointing to the spot on the couch he had just vacated. “Go ahead and sit down. No need to be shy. I saw you grimacing with practically every step you took down the stairs. I know that you think you hid it, but you didn’t.”

I stared at him, wide-eyed. I had thought I’d done a good job hiding my aches and pains. I eyed the sofa, now covered with towels, then back at him. I narrowed my eyes and spoke without thinking. “What exactly are you suggesting? That I disrobe, rub the ointment over me, and sit naked on the couch?”

He grinned. “You want to?”

I nearly choked. “No!”

He laughed. The sound of that laugh made my stomach clench. The smile on his face and the laughter in his eyes made him seem less serious, more carefree. I wondered what he had been like as a teenager before tragedy struck. And what about after? I pulled my thoughts away from murder and focused on the present. I was just about to speak when he lifted a hand.

“I’m just kidding. I need to take care of a few things in my office,” he said, gesturing over his shoulder toward the closed door not far from the bottom of the stairs. “Go ahead and get changed out of your clothes in the bathroom under the stairs. Get comfortable on the couch and rub the ointment into your muscles. I promise you’ll feel better. Later on, after I fix dinner, I’ll light a fire. It still gets chilly here in the evenings, and you need to keep your muscles warm.”

I was only half listening to what he said. He was going to fix dinner? Light a fire? With me sitting on the couch in nothing but a bathrobe? Was that really a good idea? We were out in the middle of nowhere, alone in a secluded cabin. I could only rely on his decency as a gentleman to keep his distance. Oh Lord, I thought. That sounded like something my grandmother would say. Then again, I recalled what I had done in the bathroom and wondered if I really wanted him to be a gentleman.

Before I could respond, he turned and headed across the large expanse of the living area and paused momentarily before the closed door to his office before glancing over his shoulder.

“Let me know when you’re decent,” he said. “Then I don’t have to worry about coming out and catching you unawares.”

With that, he opened the door to an office. I got a brief glimpse of a large oak desk and part of a wall lined with books before the door closed softly behind him. I stared at the door for several moments, then down at the now towel-draped sofa, then the bowl of liniment on the coffee table. With a sigh, I reached for the bathrobe and then headed for the bathroom under the stairs.

As I opened the bathroom door, I caught a whiff of new wood. It was a small space and I wondered if the bathroom had only recently been converted from a storage closet into a small bath. It didn’t have a shower or bathtub, just an old-fashioned toilet with a tank mounted up on the wall like in the old days. A slim chain with an ivory handle attached to it hung from the tank. Quaint. A glistening porcelain sink also looked like an antique that had been refurbished with old-fashioned replica handles of ivory and faux silver fixtures. Above the washstand hung an oval mirror inside a thick teak frame. On the wall opposite the toilet and the washstand stood a small towel rack. A pale blue towel set hung from it.

I closed the toilet seat lid and placed the bathrobe on it before stripping, admiring the skills and taste of the interior decorator for this place. It was rustic in design, and I had no doubt that many of the pieces of furniture or other objects in the cabin were certainly antiques, but the place still had a modern feel that carefully and perfectly linked the past with the present.

I slowly pulled the sweatshirt over my shoulders, wincing at the pull of my increasingly tightening muscles. I ended up having to sit down on the toilet to peel the leggings off, groaning softly as I did so. I stood naked for a moment, unable to see below my shoulders in the mirror over the washstand. I felt winded, surprised by the effort it had taken to get my clothes off. The bathrobe was a good idea, but I still felt self-conscious at the thought of being in a room with Blake with nothing but its thin material covering my body.

Nevertheless, I was nothing if not practical. I knew that the liniment would soothe my aching muscles and help prevent them from stiffening up much more than they already were. And Blake
had
gone to the trouble to make it smell nice so I wouldn’t smell like a horse.

Leaving my borrowed clothes folded neatly on the floor, I stepped from the bathroom and walked back toward the sofa. I sat down on one of the towels, glanced once at the still closed office door, and then pulled the bowl of liniment closer to the edge of the coffee table. I picked it up, smelled it, and closed my eyes with a sigh at the heavy scent of lavender and rosemary that wafted toward my nose.

Balancing the bowl on my left thigh and holding onto it, I tentatively dipped my fingers into the thick liquid. It wasn’t quite a paste, but it wasn’t liquid either. Almost like the consistency of a salt scrub without the salt, but not as runny as a massage oil. While I certainly didn’t have need of liniment on a daily basis, and it had been years since I had used any, I wouldn’t mind getting the recipe for this from Blake. One never knew when something like this would come in handy.

Dipping my fingers into the bowl, I placed my right foot on the coffee table and began to rub the liniment into my calf, then move slowly upward toward my thigh. The gentle kneading and the wonderfully relaxing aroma of the ointment soothed me. Soon, I was lost in thought. I had taken care of both my legs and had rubbed it onto each of my shoulders, trying to figure out how to rub it onto my back, which I couldn’t reach. Not only were my muscles stiff, but every time I twisted my head in one direction, I felt a twinge of a nerve that shot pain from my left shoulder blade up along my neck and along the back of my skull.