Silver Miracles (3 page)

"So"— she viewed her brother-in-law teasingly— "what fiendishly convoluted plot have you come up with for your next book?" Larry’s mysteries were famous for their diabolically weird twists, and Trinity loved kidding him about them.

"The perfect crime!" Larry wiggled his eyebrows at her. "The killer stabs his victim with an icicle, and when the icicle melts, presto—no murder weapon."

Trinity pretended fascination. "What brilliance! Don’t tell me, let me guess—they find the suspect’s freezer full of icicles."

"Hey, that’s no fair," he protested, his brown eyes laughing at her from behind his glasses. "You’re getting too good!"

"I don’t think that’s too original, hon. You’re slipping. I’m sure I read that plot years ago in a how-to-kill-your-brother-in-law book."

"Damn! I hope my agent doesn’t read that book. Then he’ll know all of my secrets."

"You’re not going to tell me about your next plot, are you?"

"That’s right. You can buy the book when it comes out. I need the royalties."

"Yeah, sure you do." She laughed. "Like another hole in your head. Come on, Larry, tell the truth. You haven’t thought up your next plot yet, have you?"

"No, I haven’t," he agreed cheerfully. "Actually, I haven’t done a good ax murder in a while, and I thought the subject might have unexplored possibilities."

"Ugh, Larry! Sometimes I worry about Sissy and the boys living with you. You are just too weird!"

"Weird but loveable," he amended, then changed the subject. "What have you been up to in the last day or so?"

Larry constantly worried about her living alone and kept close tabs on her, but he tried not to be too obvious about it.

"Oh, the usual. I finally got the fall garden in."

She wanted to tell him about her meeting with Chase Colfax, but she knew Larry well enough to know that she should ease into the subject. He would have a "hizzy fit" if he knew there had been a stranger anywhere near her property. Not to mention what actually happened with that stranger. If she couldn’t explain it to herself, she certainly couldn’t explain it to Larry.

"You had to do it by yourself, didn’t you? You couldn’t have waited for Bob to come down and help." His tone was one of resignation as he named the man who worked for him.

"I don’t need any help. Besides, you know I like to do things by myself."

"What I know is that you’re stubborn as hell. So . . . what else has been happening?" Larry was watching her closely. "Something must have. You’ve been fidgeting like a cat walking over a stack of hot bricks for the last five minutes."

"Did you notice the full moon last night?" Trinity sidestepped the question casually.

"No, I was sleeping, and you should have been, too. Were you sick?"

"No, Larry, I wasn’t sick. Honestly! You are worse than a mother hen. It was just too beautiful a night to sleep, and if you had any soul at all, you would have noticed."

"Sissy loves me," he observed with fake injured pride.

"For some obscure reason, I do, too, but that’s beside the point."

"So what is the point?"

Larry wasn’t a famous author for nothing. He had a rare insight into people that never ceased to amaze her.

She gave up. "I met someone down by the pool last night."

"What?" Larry nearly came up out of his chair. "Why didn’t you tell me this right away?"

"Here . . . give me that baby before he comes to bodily harm," Trinity demanded, taking Joshua out of Larry’s clutches and sitting back down at the table.

"It wasn’t any big deal," she stated, feigning a nonchalance that she didn’t feel. "He said his name was Chase Colfax." She had no intention of telling him the true nature of their encounter.

"No big deal!" Larry exploded. "Good grief! Half of east Texas has been trying to meet Chase Colfax, and you calmly tell me you met him down by the pool!"

"Well, yes." She was a little bewildered by Larry’s words. "He said he bought the Karnes place for some sort of temporary headquarters."

"And it never occurred to you to wonder what kind of headquarters? Wasn’t his name at all familiar to you? Where have you been these last few months?" Larry banged his fist on the kitchen table, causing Joshua to jump in her arms.

"Which question do you want me to answer first?" she asked dryly, appeasing Joshua with some plastic measuring spoons.

"Honestly." Larry shook his head in disbelief. "It’s no wonder I worry about you. You wake up in a new world every morning!"

"You know that’s not true," she corrected defensively. "I’ve been busy. Mrs. Janis wanted her quilt order finished the day before she gave it to me, and I have been working nonstop on it— besides everything else I do around here. Anyway, just exactly who is Chase Colfax and why has everyone been trying to meet him? And," she tacked on as an afterthought, "why can’t they meet him?" It had seemed incredibly simple to her.

"He comes from somewhere up north," Larry began heavily, "and he has taken Texas by storm. He started in Houston, getting involved in offshore drilling and establishing a huge new oil refinery on the Gulf Coast. Now he has moved his way up to Dallas. He’s been there for a while, and, by all accounts, he has Dallas eating out of the palm of his hand. I think he has out-Texaned the Texans, being three moves ahead of them in their own field—energy—and they are fascinated."

"Okay . . . but what’s he doing here, and what is all the uproar about?"

"He’s in the area to set up a monstrous coal-gasification plant."

"Oh, no! Not strip mining?" Trinity exclaimed, thinking of how the surface method of mining could destroy the land, turning once-fertile fields into a stark, barren landscape.

"Yeah, but don’t worry. The main area of activity will be at least thirty miles away, and it won’t be coming in this direction."

"Well, I suppose it will be a boon to the area . . . Jobs, housing, and all of that," she said uncertainly, trying to be fair but hating the thought. "What else do you know about him?"

"You listen to me, babe"—Larry pointed a bony finger at her—"stay away from him!"

"For someone who expresses himself so brilliantly on paper, you can sure be vague at times," she said wryly. "Why don’t you just spit it out! Don’t be shy. What are you trying to say?"

"Let me put it another way, my dear. He eats little girls like you for breakfast."

"Larry, I am twenty-five years old," she stated with loving exasperation. "Just because I was sixteen when you married Sissy doesn’t mean I stayed that young girl you first knew. I have a little girl of my own now, you know."

Without a doubt, he knew very well. Larry and Sissy had given up their home in Europe when they had heard that Trinity was pregnant and alone and her dad sick, coming home to lend their considerable moral support and help.

"You can save your protests. I know good and damned well that you’re a full-grown woman—too independent for your own good and with a courage that scares the hell out of me. Even though I don’t like to admit it, you can take care of yourself—in most cases. But this man is different."

"Why? How could you possibly object to someone you’ve never met?"

"They say he has gray hair?" Larry returned abruptly.

It was a statement and a question and a condemnation all rolled up into one, and Trinity was even more puzzled. Nevertheless, she couldn’t help but remember. "It’s really more silver-white—like the color of last night." She seemed to have no control over the softness that crept into her voice at the memory, but she could have bitten her tongue off when she saw Larry’s eyes narrow.

"Whatever the hell color it is." he growled. "It’s prematurely gray. Do you understand? Premature! Chase Colfax has seen everything there is to see, has had everything he ever wanted to have and has done everything there is to do—and he’s only thirty-six."

Trinity couldn’t help but ask, "Is he married?"

"No!" Larry glared at her. "And he has a deadly reputation where women are concerned. His affairs are short and sweet—he gets bored very easily and walks away without a backward glance."

"Is he going to settle here?"

"I have the terrible feeling I’m not getting through to you." Larry groaned, rubbing his hand across his pleated forehead.

"Just tell me what you know," Trinity wheedled.

"No! He won’t settle here. He never settles in any one spot. He usually stays in one place just long enough to get moving whatever project he is currently involved with, makes more money than you and I will ever see in a lifetime, and then he moves on. And I don’t think he’s too anxious to make friends here. The old Karnes place is heavily guarded."

"Guarded?" Trinity was astonished. "Against what?"

"Against anyone who might intrude upon his privacy. He only ventures out in public when it is advantageous to him. He’s not exactly reclusive, just selective. He commutes back and forth to his Dallas headquarters by helicopter."

"Helicopter?"

"Yeah, he’s had a heliport built south of his house. Haven’t you heard him go over?"

"I guess not."

"Well, maybe he approaches from the other direction, I don’t know. But that helicopter and the strip mining aren’t the only things that have people buzzing. He has a red Lamborghini that can almost fly it’s so fast." Larry shook his head admiringly at the idea of the car, but then concluded, "He really hasn’t been in these parts that long, but believe me, he has made his mark. Everyone is dying of curiosity about him."

A loud knock on the front door interrupted their conversation, and, rising, Trinity walked with lissome grace through the living room, carrying Joshua on her hip.

Trinity tended to surround herself with the things she loved, and her living room was no exception. Wild flowers of all sorts were scattered across the pattern of the durable material covering the bulky old couch and chairs, which were placed around the room for ease of conversation rather than chic order.

Flourishing green plants filled every corner of the room, and on the floor, the earth-brown rug Trinity had braided was splashed through with the deep orange hue of a sunset. Leaf-green sheer curtains draped the windows, revealing the view beyond them, so that the room seemed filled with the outdoors. It was an easy, comfortable room, and it showed the effort she had put into it.

Opening the door, she found Chase Colfax standing on her front porch, leaning against the door-jamb, displaying a sophisticated elegance that hadn’t been apparent the night before.

It was something of a shock to see him so soon after she and Larry had been talking about him—and in broad daylight, too. But here he was, and, if possible, more severely masculine than he had seemed by moonlight.

His features were really too harsh to be called handsome. However, no one would dare argue with the term "devastating" to describe the man now standing in front of her.

His expensive attire of a dark-blue pin-striped custom-made suit toned with a lighter blue shirt and a deep-burgundy print silk tie was in sharp contrast to her own casual outfit of faded jeans and front-buttoned camisole.

He had one hand inserted casually in his pants pocket, drawing back his jacket and exposing a close-fitting vest. The narrow pinstripes of the beautiful material emphasized the long, muscled strength of him and sent the blood pounding through her veins.

It was happening again! His sensual magnetism was reaching out to her without his saying a word.

She hadn’t even noticed that Joshua had a handful of her hair bunched in his tiny fist. Chase noticed, though, because he reached out and carefully freed the silky strands, leisurely brushing the back of his hand against her bare skin as he did so.

Her stomach clenched at the simultaneous soft touch of his hand and the sharp-edged sound of his voice asking. "Who is this?"

Before she could answer, a strident noise impinged upon her consciousness, interrupting her train of thought.

"What is that noise?" she asked. Not exactly what you would call a clever greeting to a man who had kissed her so completely just hours before, she reflected humorously.

"It’s some heavy machinery working out by the road," he explained with an unreadable expression on his face. "I’m having an access road built to my land from this side. They’ll be working out there most of the day."

"I see." She didn’t really. Why would he do a thing like that? "Come on in."

He stepped through the door, looking around him with interest. The farmhouse, old and solidly built, contained good-sized rooms with nice, high ceilings. The front room needed to be large, because it was the only place Trinity could set up her seven-foot-by-eight-foot quilting frame, which she had built herself. It caught his interest, and Chase walked over to view the quilt on which she was currently working.

"This is nice," he observed, touching the exacting needlework that took Trinity such long hours. "You can hardly see the stitches!"

The sight of Chase’s long fingers stroking the beautiful quilt so delicately brought strangely erotic images to her mind of the evening before, when his hands had caressed her body with the same care. Trinity found, to her consternation, that she was having trouble keeping her mind on the subject of quilts.

"That’s the whole idea. You are only supposed to see the effect, which is lights and shadows. It’s like art, only you use fabric instead of canvas and oils."

"Are you making it for yourself?" Chase returned his full attention to her.

"N-no. I sew them for other people. It’s a skill that not a lot of people have in this day and age . . . or want to take the time to learn. It’s a shame, too, because when you make a quilt, you are really stitching history."

"What is this pattern called?"

How peculiar, Trinity thought, that such a hard man would be interested in quilting. But his interest seemed quite genuine.

"Flowers in a basket," she replied, jiggling Joshua on her hip as she spoke. "It’s a marvelous design based on diamonds, triangles, squares and rectangles. The way you put the different shapes together forms a floral pattern."

"But doesn’t it take a long time to make?"