Smoke in Mirrors (17 page)

Definitely personal,
she thought. More personal than anything she could remember experiencing in a very long time. Maybe in her entire life.

He pushed her back until the edge of the counter pressed against her spine. He moved one leg between hers. His mouth shifted, deepening the kiss. She was melting faster than the contents of the open freezer drawer.

All she cared about was heat. Lots of it. She lived for heat. She needed it. Craved it. She wanted to go up in flames. She had been so cold for so long she wasn’t sure she would ever be able to get enough of the red-hot energy Thomas was generating.

She heard a soft
plop
and was vaguely aware that she had dropped the package of soybeans back into the freezer. She wrapped her arms around Thomas, seeking escape from the cold draft.

He muttered something unintelligible and kicked the freezer drawer shut with one booted foot. Then he put a strong, muscular arm around her lower back just above her hips and cradled her head in his other hand. His
mouth slid down her throat. She shoved her fingers into his hair. She shivered, but not because she was still cold.

His hands shifted again, closing snugly around her waist. He gripped. Lifted. And then her feet were no longer touching the floor. She thought that he intended to carry her back out into the front room. Instead, he set her on the edge of the counter and moved between her thighs. His mouth never left her body.

He was making love to her right there in the kitchen. As if he just couldn’t wait to get her to a bed. No one had ever been in this much of a hurry before. She had never been so eager, either. It was unbelievable. It was also almost unbearably erotic.

Recklessly, she tightened her thighs around him. He got his hands under her sweater. And then they were on her bare breasts. What had happened to her bra? Somehow he had gotten it unfastened without her even being aware of it.

The man really was very good with his hands. She couldn’t wait to see what else he could do with them.

Her blood beat more heavily in her veins and the fire got hotter.

Without warning, it all came to a crashing halt.

Thomas went very still, as if he had hit a wall. Bemused, she opened her eyes and found him watching her with grim intensity.

“Do you,” he said with grave precision, “happen to have anything handy that would be useful in a situation such as this?”

She blinked, trying to reorient herself. “Such as?”

“Condoms.”

“Oh.” Reality slammed through her. She felt herself flush. “No, I don’t.”

“Pills?”

“No.” She was probably an embarrassing shade of pink by now. “I certainly didn’t anticipate needing anything here in Wing Cove.”

No need to tell him that she hadn’t needed anything since her engagement had been abruptly terminated.

“I came prepared to pop a couple of locks today.” He gave her a rueful, sexy smile and leaned his forehead against hers. “I didn’t come prepared for this kind of excitement.”

“Oh.” She couldn’t think of anything intelligent to say. She was badly rattled and she knew it.

He straightened and took a step back. “Well, as neither one of us appears to be what you’d call farsighted or visionary, I think we’d better concentrate on dinner, don’t you?”

She managed to resist a terrible impulse to grab him by the collar and scream something idiotic along the lines of,
You can’t stop now. I’m hot enough to thaw the contents of that freezer.

Thankfully, common sense prevailed. Of course they had to call a halt. Good grief, what on earth was she thinking? This wasn’t love or romance. This was lust. Triggered, no doubt, by the adrenaline overload they had both experienced this afternoon.

“Dinner. Yes. This is crazy.” She took a deep breath and realized she was still sitting on the kitchen counter. “Not to mention extremely unsanitary.”

“Maybe. But it does settle one burning hypothetical question.”

She shoved several wild tendrils of hair behind her ears and hopped down from the counter.

. . . And nearly landed ignominiously on her rear when her knees threatened to dissolve. She had to grab the tiled edge to steady herself. This was mortifying. Absolutely mortifying.

She took a deep breath and pulled herself together with an act of will.

“What burning hypothetical question is that?” she asked.

“When I picked out that bed you’re using, I definitely was thinking about myself.”

Forget the steamed soybeans in their pods and the dazzling display of deceptively casual culinary skill with which she had planned to wow him tonight. She jerked open the refrigerator and reached inside for the plastic container filled with the remains of the potato salad she had made yesterday. She grabbed the leftover hummus and some lettuce, too.

“I wouldn’t read too much into that little display of hormones on parade, if I were you.” She slammed the refrigerator shut and put the containers on the counter. “We were both overstimulated from our big, scary adventure. Too much adrenaline, like you said earlier.”

He watched her, a disturbing intensity in his gaze. “Blame it on the adrenaline if you want. But whatever it was, it wasn’t fake. Right?”

She pretended she had not heard him while she washed her hands at the sink. The project provided her with the perfect excuse to keep her back to him.

“Leonora?”

“What? I’m trying to put a meal together, in case you hadn’t noticed.”

“You weren’t faking it a few minutes ago, were you?”

“Oh, for goodness’s sake.” She picked up the knife and sawed violently at the loaf of crusty bread she had bought in town yesterday.

“Give me that much, at least,” Thomas said. “My male ego is on the line here.”

She glanced quickly over her shoulder. Sexy laughter gleamed in his eyes. He did not look like a man with a
serious ego problem. She very much doubted that he needed her to assure him that her response had been genuine. She had been nothing if not blatant.

On the other hand, his wife had run off with his business partner. That kind of thing had to leave a mark.

“For the record,” she said, “I’m a terrible actress. I don’t fake anything well.” Then she went back to work on the sandwiches.

“I wasn’t faking anything, either,” he said softly.

She thought about the feel of his heavily aroused body between her thighs.

“I noticed,” she said.

By the time
they sat down to eat at the table near the window, the atmosphere in the kitchen had subtly altered. The charged sensuality still shimmered in the invisible currents of air that swirled around her, but there was something else, too. She was aware of a cozy, comfortable, intimate warmth. It felt good to have Thomas sitting here across from her.

She suddenly regretted that she had fed him leftovers.

The fog lifted
while they did the dishes. Thomas got his coat from the closet. She followed him outside, hugging herself against the chill of the clear, starry night.

He paused and looked past her into the hall of the small house. “I’ve got a lot of work to do in there. I’m going to replace the windows and redo the bathroom from the plumbing out. The flooring is good, though. Solid oak. Just needs to be refinished.”

She followed his gaze. “Do you plan to stay on here in Wing Cove after this is all over?”

“Depends. I came here after Bethany died because I could see that Deke was in trouble. Figured I’d stick around until he came out of his depression. But I’m not tied to Wing Cove. I can do my work anywhere. Wrench isn’t fussy, either. What about you? You tied to that job down in California?”

“Not anymore. I can go back if I want, but I’ll see how I feel about it when the time comes.” Hard to explain, even to herself, but this journey to Wing Cove felt like a turning point in her life. She couldn’t make out the shape of the changes that were coming but she knew things would be different after this venture. “The only thing I’m tied to is a person. My grandmother. If I move, she’ll move.”

“Sure.”

Thomas took a step closer and kissed her. He did not put his hands on her. She could have pulled back. But she didn’t.

He ended the kiss.

“Didn’t think it was just the adrenaline,” he said, looking satisfied.

He went down the steps, got into the SUV and drove away into the night.

She went to bed and lay awake in the darkness for a long time, thinking about how it had been to have Thomas there that evening. This situation was already complicated enough as it was. It would be extremely reckless to add a torrid affair to the volatile brew.

She forced herself to refocus on the business that had brought her to Wing Cove. When that got her nowhere, she spent some time mulling over what she and Thomas had seen in Alex’s cabin.

Eventually she slipped into a restless sleep.

. . . And plunged straight into a dark dream.

She walked down a long, shadowed hall lined with old, dark mirrors. Somewhere in this corridor the truth was trapped inside a looking glass. All she had to do was look into the right mirror and she would get the answers she had come here to find.

She stopped in front of an ornate, Rococo-style English looking glass and saw Meredith inside, looking out at her.

You can’t sleep yet,
Meredith said silently.

She whirled around and found Alex Rhodes watching her from inside the depths of a garish fun-house mirror. He gave her his sexy smile, inviting her to join him in some private joke. But the smile was all wrong. As she watched his features became twisted and distorted. His yellow eyes glowed.

She turned away and continued down the endless hall of mirrors, searching for the truth.

They sat in
the dark room with the glowing monitor and looked at the little plastic bags on Deke’s desk. Wrench was flopped on his back on the floor, legs in the air. Thomas draped his arm over the edge of the chair and absently rubbed the dog’s stomach.

“I can’t get past a vision of the two of you breaking into Rhodes’s house.” Deke shook his head, looking amazed and maybe even a little amused. “I’d like to have been there to see you both hustling your rears out the back as he was coming in the front door.”

“Trust me, you didn’t miss anything.”

“Black velvet and a weird mirror, huh? Guess it goes with those phony yellow eyes of his. Interesting.”

“I don’t know what he’s up to, but he’s in this thing deep,” Thomas said. “He made the move on Leonora. Mentioned Meredith’s name to her. Probably trying to see how she’d react. The only thing I can figure is that he knows about the million and a half bucks.”

“That money is safely back in the endowment account, thanks to Leonora.”

“Yeah, but Rhodes wouldn’t have any way of knowing that, would he?”

Deke’s amusement faded. “He was in town at the time Bethany died.”

“I know. But I can’t see any connection. Except the drug rumors.”

Deke picked up one of the bags and looked closely at the blue-green powder in the corner. “If this stuff is some kind of illegal shit we probably should be careful about how we deal with it. Don’t want to give Ed Stovall an excuse for arresting us.”

“Can you get it tested quietly?”

“Sure. I know someone in the chemistry department. A grad student. He’ll do it, for a price.”

“We need to check out Rhodes, too.”

“That,” Deke said, “I will handle personally. I just hope I have more luck than I did with my other research.”

“You didn’t find anything new on the Eubanks murder?”

“Nothing more than what was reported in those clippings. Sebastian Eubanks, widely held to be a couple of bricks shy of a full load, was presumed to have been shot by a burglar he surprised in the mansion one night. No one was ever arrested. End of story.”

Thomas gripped the arms of the chair. “Leonora is talking about playing lady spy. Mentioned signing up for some stress counseling from Rhodes. Said it would be a good way to get close to him. Maybe pick up more information.”

Deke studied the bags. “Might work.”

“I don’t give a damn if it would work or not. She’s not going to do it. Not if I have anything to say about it.”

“The thing is, you don’t have anything to say about it,” Deke pointed out.

Thomas looked at him.

Deke held up a hand. “Remember what that therapist you dated for a while told you. You’ve got control issues.”

“This isn’t a control thing. It’s common sense.” Thomas shoved himself up out of the chair and walked to the nearest window. He yanked the curtains open. “I don’t want her alone with that son of a bitch for five minutes. Rhodes is up to something. I can feel it. He may be dangerous.”

Crystalline silence descended. It lasted only a few seconds but that was more than enough time for him to realize how much he had given away. Deke wasn’t the only one taken by surprise.

“Sure, I understand,” Deke said. “Can’t be too careful around a guy with fake yellow eyes.”

He thinks I’m jealous.
Thomas tightened his grip on the curtain.
Hell, he’s right.

All he had been able to think about last night after leaving Leonora was how much he hadn’t wanted to leave her. When he had gotten back to the house he’d spent a couple of hours in his workshop, drilling holes in some boards he planned to use for shelving. The effort to distract himself from memories of the superheated kiss in her kitchen had been spectacularly unsuccessful.

When he had awakened this morning he had taken Wrench up into the woods on the bluffs where the dog could run free of the leash. The two of them had prowled through the dripping trees for over an hour while Thomas had come to terms with the new reality in his life.

He wanted Leonora more than he had wanted anything else in a very long time.

With acceptance came the need for planning and action. So, okay, he had control issues. So what? He worked damn hard at staying in control. He’d practiced diligently since the nights when he’d been a kid trapped
in a bedroom with Deke, listening to the noise of their parents quarrelling, both of them afraid to go to sleep because they might wake up and discover that their father had moved out.