Sleeping Beauty (9 page)

"How much wine did you drink last night at dinner?" Lisa asked.

"None. I don't care for it."

"I didn't have any, and neither did your father. Your mother had one glass. Jack finished the bottle. He had a couple shots of Johnnie Walker before dinner. For that matter, I suspect he had a couple before he left home—to fortify himself for the ordeal."

Anne stared blankly at an impossibly bright embroidered fish that was nestled in amongst several lengths of ribbon and a handful of empty walnut shells. She didn't want to believe what Lisa was saying, not just for her brother's sake but because of what it said about her relationship with him. You don't know your brother very well, Lisa had said. Maybe she was right.

"Maybe he drank a little bit too much last night, but you know what my mother is like. She hates it that he's a cop and that he's—"

"Seeing me," Lisa finished when she stumbled. She smiled ruefully when Anne turned to give her an apologetic look. ''It's not like she makes a secret of it. Lucky for me, I have very few sensibilities, so most if it rolls right off my back."

"She doesn't mean—"

"Yes she does." Lisa waved her hand. "Your mother's opinion has never been a big concern of mine."

Which is probably one of the reasons she hates you, Anne thought. Lisa's indifference was much harder to deal with than her antipathy would have been.

"Maybe Jack was drinking to drown out your mother, but that doesn't make it okay. And that's not the only time he drinks, either."

"He'd never drink on duty," Anne protested, shocked that Lisa could think he would.

"Maybe not yet!" Lisa conceded. "But that's the direction he's headed. I've talked to him about it before, but on the way home last night I got a little more firm about it. That's one mistake I'm not repeating."

"No, of course not." Anne walked back to the counter, her expression thoughtful. She wasn't convinced Lisa was right. If she was... Well, maybe there were reasons. Not excuses, exactly, but explanations.

"If Jack does have a drinking problem," she said, laying careful emphasis on the "if," "maybe there's a reason. You know, after Brooke—"

"Don't say it." Startled by the sharp interruption, Anne looked up and met the kindled fire in Lisa's green eyes. "Does it ever occur to anyone that, if Brooke was still alive, she couldn't possibly dominate your lives the way she has since she's been dead?"

The silence was so profound that the sound of a car door shutting somewhere on the street outside seemed loud as gunfire. Looking at Anne, seeing the shock on her face, Lisa closed her eyes a moment and reminded herself that it wasn't Anne's fault Of aH of them, Anne was the only one who bore no blame.

"I'm sorry." She huffed out a sigh and reached over to put her hand on Anne's where it lay on the counter. "Jack and I will be fine. It's not like we're breaking up. I'm just frustrated and worried but I didn't mean to snarl at you. I didn't mean to bring any of this up at all. Chalk it up to PMS and overwork weakening my already scattered brain cells."

"Lisa..."

"No." Lisa shook her head, her smile wavery around the edges. "Let's not and say we did. I really am tired, and I'm probably not entirely rational." She ran her fingers through her hair, dislodging the pencil, which clattered to the floor and rolled under the edge of the work counter. "This is the last time I take a commission firom someone who wants the work last week."

Looking at her friend, it struck Anne that she really did look tired, her usual sparkle dulled. Her mind still reeling with all that had been said, she struggled to conjure up a smile. "That's what you get for letting greed overrule artistic integrity."

"I guess." Lisa looked down at the piles of ribbon and buttons scattered across the work surface and sighed. "Maybe this will all make sense in the morning, but at the moment it looks like Jackson Pollack threw up here. Time to go home."

Anne waited while Lisa found her shoes and the keys and turned out lights. She was vaguely surprised to see that it was only twilight. It felt as if it should be much later. The air was still warm, but it carried the sweet promise of the rain that was supposed to come overnight. The street was almost empty, most of the businesses long since closed, but there was a smattering of cars angled into the curb in front of the bar down the street, a few more parked in front of Luannes on the opposite side.

Looking at the cafe reminded Anne of her lunch with Neill Devlin. It seemed a long time ago.

"All set,'' Lisa said as she locked the door. She turned and, though the light was poor, Anne could feel her searching look. "I didn't mean to upset you."

"That's okay." Anne glanced past her at the light spilling through the window of the cafe. "Maybe I haven't been paying enough attention lately—to a lot of things." Because she could sense that Lisa was still worried, she gave her more. "You know, it just occurred to me that I didn't pay my share of the lunch bill today. I was in such a hurry to get back to work that I forgot all about it and left Neill stuck with the check."

Lisa's smile was slow. "Good heavens, you'll have him thinking that Hoosiers don't pay their own way. Something like that could do irreparable damage to the reputation of the entire state."

"Maybe I should go over to The Blue Dahlia and settle up with him." Anne felt a little curl of excitement in the pit of her stomach.

Neill pushed his chair back from the table and looked at the words displayed on the laptop computer's screen with baffled surprise. Where the hell had this come from? He hadn't been thinking about starting another book, not this soon and maybe not ever. And, if he had given another book any thought, it certainly hadn't been this. What the hell was he doing writing a western? He didn't even write fiction, for chrissake.

But the words were there, neat black text on a white screen, unmistakably the opening scene of a novel— a man, alone and wounded, left for dead by the man who'd been his partner. Now he stood surrounded by sky and prairie, with nothing but wits and luck to keep him alive. And there was a woman, not pretty, but with strong features marked by the struggle to survive in a land of stark beauty and little mercy. Their paths were going to intersect, though Neill wasn't sure just how or when.

"I'll be damned," he muttered, pushing the chair back and standing up. The light had faded while he worked, and he switched on a couple of lamps to banish the gloom before getting a beer out of the tiny refrigerator in the kitchenette. He twisted off the top and took a healthy swallow, his eyes settling on the glowing screen across the room.

When he was packing for the trip, he'd thrown the computer in more out of habit than anything else. The laptop was the high-tech equivalent of the yellow notepad he'd relied on when he first started writing, but, other than the half-formed thought of turning the trip into some sort of travelogue, he hadn't planned on doing any writing. In fact, after finishing this last book, he hadn't been at all sure he had another book in him. He sure as hell hadn't given any thought to writing a novel.

Neill took another swig of beer and grinned. It was good, he thought, looking at the first couple of paragraphs. Maybe he wasn't quite ready to send Larry McMurtry running for cover, but he'd made a good start on...whatever it turned out to be. It had been a long time since he'd written something for the pure pleasure of it. Too long.

He was debating whether to write some more or fix himself a sandwich from the groceries he'd bought earlier when someone knocked on the door. Dorothy, he thought, come to remind him of some not-to-be-missed old movie showing on cable at two in the morning. He'd been known to get hostile with people who interrupted him when he was working, but he was feeling so good about his unexpected venture into nineteenth-century Wyoming that he was smiling as he set down the beer bottle and went to answer the door.

The smile shifted, warmed, became subtly more intimate, when he saw Anne standing on the little concrete step outside his door. He'd thought about her, debated the best way to go about seeing her again. He'd pretty much settled on catching her at work, coaxing her into having lunch with him again. And now, here she was.

"Hi.''

"H-hi." Anne had to clear her throat to get the word out "I... Dorothy told me what room you were in."She had to resist the urge to fidget with the collar of her shirt. On the short drive over here, she'd nearly managed to convince herself that she knew what she was doing. That conviction faltered badly when she found herself standing outside his room, and it was only stubborn pride that had made her knock on the door. And now he was standing there, looking large and very male, and she had to admit that, when it came to this man, she didn't have the slightest idea of what she was doing.

"Come in." Neill stepped back, gesturing an invitation.

Anne hesitated, nerves fluttering in the pit of her stomach. But she could hardly stand on the doorstep and thrast a handful of money at him, even if that was the only reason she'd come—which, of course, it wasn't. Besides, Dorothy knew where she was, and he knew that she knew and, oh God, she was losing her mind.

With a sigh for her rapidly receding sanity, Anne walked past him into the room.

"I hope this isn't a bad time," she said, acutely aware of the click as the door closed behind her.

"Well, I did have an appointment with destiny, but I think I can reschedule."

"Do you think that's wise?" she asked as he walked past her into the room. "Isn't there some rule about destiny only knocking once?"

''That's opportunity. I don't think destiny knocks. I think it just hits you right between the eyes."

"Sounds painful." Standing just inside the door, Anne tried to figure out what to do with her hands. Shoving them in her pockets seemed contrived, and crossing her arms over her chest would be even worse. They hadn't always seemed so...in the way, had they? She settled for linking her fingers together in front of her.

"Can I get you something to drink? I've got beer and water—not exactly an abundance of choices!"

"I'm fine, thanks!" Her eyes skittered around the room, looking everywhere but at him. They lit on the glowing screen of the laptop and widened in dismay. "Were you working?"

"Not really." Neill shrugged. He wasn't ready to label what he was doing as work. "Just something I was dabbling with." Reaching down, he saved the file and then closed the lid. The soft whir of the computer's fan, barely noticeable a moment ago, seemed to leave a large silence behind when it stopped.

"If you're sure. I wouldn't want to interrupt."

In her tidy white shirt tucked into trim jeans, with her honey-gold hair still caught up in that neat little bun and her fingers linked together in front of her, she looked as prim and proper as a kindergarten teacher.
Or maybe a student expecting a scolding from the principal,
Neill thought with a tangled mix of amusement and lust.

"I don't bite," he said softly. "Not unless you ask me to."

Startled, Anne's eyes shot to his face. He looked as if he would like to nibble on her, she thought, and, despite the butterflies doing a jig in her stomach, she wasn't sure she would object if he did just that. Flushing, she looked away and rushed into speech.

"I forgot to pay you today." Out the comer of her eye, she saw his brows go up, and she felt her color deepen. "For lunch, I mean. My share of the bill." He started toward her, and her thoughts scattered like baby chicks spilled from a farm wife's apron. "I...I didn't want you to think that I was...that I expected you to... That I...oh."

Anne hadn't realized she was moving until the door came up against her back. Neill stopped in front of her. The light was behind him, casting him in silhouette, and she felt her breath catch a little as she stared up at him. She'd never been so conscious of her own lack of inches, never felt so vulnerable because of it. It flashed through her mind that she'd been crazy to come here. So what if Dorothy knew where she was? She was too far away to hear a scream.

"Maybe we should get this over with," Neill murmured.

"Get what over with?" Anne asked, staring up at him with huge eyes.

"This," he whispered, and, bracing one hand on the door beside her head, he lowered his mouth to hers.

His mouth was warm and firm, holding the faint yeasty tang of the beer he'd been drinking. She'd been kissed before. She was nearly sure of it. Frank kissed her after every date. Standing on the front porch of her little cottage, he would put his arms around her, holding her as gently as if she were made of bone china, and then he would kiss her— gently, carefully, never asking more than she wanted to give. Never asking anything at all, in fact.

Neill didn't ask, either. He simply took. And as the ground fell out from under her feet, Anne could only give.

He'd wondered how she would taste, had allowed himself to imagine, but the reality was so much more. Her mouth was soft, welcoming, eager. She tasted of lip balm and jelly beans—an innocent combination that suddenly struck Neill as wildly erotic. He hadn't planned on this—on kissing her, on wanting so much more. But she'd stood there looking at him with those big gray eyes, like Red Riding Hood in her grandmother's bedroom, and he'd suddenly felt just like the Big Bad Wolf, wanting to devour her in one gulp. He contented himself with nibbling on her lower lip, taking advantage of her shallow gasp of surprise, his tongue sliding inside, finding hers.