Something in the Water... (18 page)

“Yeah. I recognized the name Anderson, got your age and I…”

“Came?”

He nodded. Tears suddenly stung her eyes. He’d come running the second he’d suspected he had a child.

He hadn’t seen her mother for years, but he’d come where he’d heard about her. He’d come for her!

A silence fell. Everyone took a deep breath, then ex changed glances, as if wondering where to go from
here. Ariel felt wrung out, since all this was overwhelming. Moments ago, when she’d come through the door, she’d had no idea how things would play out. She’d imagined tearful accusations, or maybe furious explosions, but not finding her mother blushing and in bed with Angus Lyons. “Will you come up to the house for dinner?” she asked.

He glanced toward her mother. She nodded. Then he said, “Okay. But only if your mother calls Great-gran first.”

“I will,” said her mother, looking tremendously relieved to have the encounter over with. No doubt, she’d been concerned about how things would go from the moment Ariel had knocked on the door. “And we’ll see you there.”

Leaning, Angus Lyons touched her shoulder and his eyes sought hers. “We’ll get to know each other,” he promised.

Ariel almost smiled as she turned away. After all these years of wondering, the whole scene felt absurdly anticlimactic, and yet it was the wondering, perhaps, that had made it so. She’d imagined meeting her father so many times that there were few scenarios for which she hadn’t prepared herself. And what had just occurred was the very best—a normal, sane, mature conversation and a promise to talk again.

“Angus Lyons,” she said as she stepped into the sun light. How could she have imagined the identity of her father? Hugging her to his side, Rex headed for the car, and he must have sensed her mood because he silently
opened the door, then circled to his side and simply drove away, letting her process everything.

As they climbed up Mountain Drive, she blew out a shaky breath. She really did feel weak from the past hour. Studs had gone to jail, the rumor mill had been in formed that she and Studs had never really been an item, and she’d found her mother in bed with Angus Lyons, who just so happened to be her father. If she received just one more realization, she’d doubtlessly go right over the edge. Her nerves felt wired tight. Wound up but with nowhere to go…except bed. Yes, she wanted to go straight upstairs, rip off her clothes and Rex’s, then fall onto the mattress.

Definitely, that would break through this strangely surreal feeling that was haunting her. When he pulled into a parking spot at the house and turned off the motor, she said, “Wait a minute. I’ve got to get my jean jacket.

It’s in the back.”

As he got out, shut his door and locked it, she ske daddled into the lab area and lifted her jacket from the back of the roller chair. And then she frowned.
The slide.
It was still settled in a tray in a wire-mesh wall pocket. Lifting it, she read the label.
Ariel Anderson. AB Negative.
Squinting, her heart suddenly missing a beat, she rifled her fingers through the tray and found what she was looking for.
Lawrence Nathan. AB negative.

And then…Angus Lyons. There was a slide smeared with blood, labeled with her father’s real name.

All the pent-up emotion she’d been holding back came to the surface, and she gripped her jacket and
charged toward the open passenger side door. She stepped down, right into Rex’s waiting arms, but she pushed him away, barely able to believe what he’d done.

Hurt recoiled inside her. She’d been so open with him.

And not just with her body. “You knew,” she accused softly. Why hadn’t he told her? So, that’s what he’d been withholding earlier, on the drive to the Outskirts.

His lips parted, as if in protest, but none came out be cause he was guilty. And scared. She could see that in his eyes now. He was afraid of losing her, and he should be, she decided. As much as she’d loved their sexual relationship, she didn’t go out with liars.

“I…did,” he finally said.

How could he! She hauled off and hit him with the fist gripped around her jean jacket. The muffled thud fell ineffectually against his shoulder, and he grasped her arm when he felt the punch, as if to steady himself, even though it had clearly hurt his heart, not his body.

“How long?” she demanded, staring into his eyes.

“When did you suspect?”

“The first day—”

“The first day!”

“You both took blood tests. The blood type’s unusual, but that doesn’t mean much. Still, there was something about him that was…” His voice trailed off and he shrugged. “Suspicious. He was the only visitor who wasn’t with his family, and when I checked with the motel owner, he’d taken a room that wasn’t finished, paying extra for it, insisting he had to come to Bliss immediately.

“I checked the records for his flights, and since he’d
come from Peru, I realized he’d been close to Szuzi. So, I checked back through all the records for Americans who’ve been to Szuzi, from the year of the outbreak on. The CDC has pretty intensive access to records for things such as flight information. I found no Lawrence Nathan listed, but there was an Angus Lyons. He looks different from his pictures in the old Bliss papers, but I did a Google search for him, and…”

“But you didn’t interview him again until today.”

“I was still researching the facts, and I didn’t want to confront him. I wanted to see what he said. That’s how we’re trained to research. Sometimes, we have to play people a little, to find the truth. I’m an investigator, Ariel.

I didn’t know how much he knew, whether he came to see your mother, or knew you were his daughter.”

He was so clinical about all this, she thought. That was the most unnerving thing. “And you didn’t tell me?”

“I was going to,” he said, leaning nearer, his breath hot on her lips, his eyes turning more intense.

“When?” She was reeling again, just as she’d been on the drive to the Outskirts. How could he have lain so close to her and listened to her talk about the past, knowing she’d never known the identity of her father.

“I’m sorry,” he murmured.

“Sorry?” she repeated, stunned. “That’s all you have to say? You knew what I’d been through in this town as a fatherless kid, and you know how people saw my relatives, but when you found out what was really at the root of it all…”

“I wanted to check my facts.”

“Bull,” she said, leaning forward, almost on her tiptoes, to better look straight into his eyes. “Look at me,” she demanded. “And tell me you had any doubts.”

His silence said it all.

“You knew it was true,” she said again.

He nodded. “Yeah.”

“Sex,” she found herself biting out before she could think things through; the end of the week was looming and tomorrow the weekend festival was beginning. “That’s all this was to you.”

His grip tightened on her arm. “That’s not true, and you know it.” The settling of his mouth on hers seemed to say otherwise. His tongue followed, a burst of heat that flashed like the sun in her eyes before she shut them, giving in only momentarily to the sensations. She had to fight not to stretch her arms around him, because she didn’t want this kiss…no, she didn’t want it at all.

But it went deeper. He drove his tongue down, hard, thrusting over and over, as if he was afraid to let her have a breath. Maybe she’d walk away, so he had to use desire to hold her. He was drinking her in as if drowning. He was kissing her, as if for the last time, and she felt almost faint from the assault.

“If anything,” he murmured, “I didn’t tell you because I thought I might ruin our time together.”

“That’s so selfish,” she whispered, looking for the right words. “I…let you
in
.” She emphasized the word
in,
as if to say how deeply.

“I let you in, too,” he said, his voice husky, his eyes glinting with answering anger and hunger, his lips just inches from hers.

“Oh, right,” she muttered, nodding her head up and down, still furious that he’d kissed her like that, so possessively. This was the wrong time. “You let me in by knowing my father was in town all week at the Outskirts Motel. But then…” Her throat constricted. She eyed him a long moment. “You have to play people some times, don’t you, Rex?”

“That’s not what I meant.”

“How did it feel to play me?”

“You’re angry right now,” he said.

“Maybe so. It’s been a long day. But withholding in formation from me on that level…” She shook her head.

“It’s just not right, Rex.” In fact, this was feeling like the worst kind of replay; during a similar summer, her mother had fallen in love, only to find she’d been played for a fool. Just like this, it had been no accident. The lover, who’d come into her life during what had probably been an outbreak in seventy-seven, really had lied to her. He’d come into Bliss with every intention of selling out the townspeople.

“Dammit,” he muttered, hauling her nearer. “I didn’t know what to do. I had a job to do here, can’t you understand?”

“Your job’s done now.”

“And I didn’t feel right intervening in family matters.”

That hurt the most. It shouldn’t have, and she tried to fight the feelings, but she felt a knife of pain slice into her. He hadn’t wanted to intervene? And here she was, the whole week, letting go of herself with him, feeling closer and closer….

Until she’d fantasized that he was her family. She could admit that now. They hadn’t talked about what would become of their relationship after the festival, but she’d imagined them moving to the same city soon; she’d wondered if she could get a job in Atlanta. She hadn’t realized how attached she’d become to him, not really.

But it was only a fantasy. A week of pure bliss.

“I want you to go,” she said.

“Fine,” he muttered, glaring at her. “But not without this.”

His mouth settled on hers again, the firm, implacable lips forcing hers open. The touch was too much and her arms did lift this time, circling his neck while she wondered if this was really goodbye. Memories of how he’d held her, that first night on the dock, came racing back as his hand found her jaw. Using it to steady her, his tongue plunged. She tried to tell herself they lived in different cities and that he traveled all over the world, so he wasn’t even on the continent most of the time. No, it never would have worked, anyway, she told herself as his tongue teased out feelings and heat, making her arch.

She released a moan against his lips, but the kiss captured it. Her mind tumbled into somewhere too dark to fathom. They whirled like stones in a polishing cylinder, brightening until they glowed like midnight moon. One moment, they’d been fighting. Now she wanted Rex in bed. And yet he’d lied to her. She twisted away. His eyes looked glazed, his mouth damp and slack. “I gave you my body,” she found herself whispering thickly. “Everything,” she repeated.

“I gave you my heart,” he said, dragging a frustrated hand through his hair, thrusting it away from his face.

“By lying to me?” She shook her head. “What we had was great, Rex, but you should go,” she said.

And then she watched him wordlessly circle the front of the mobile lab, get in and start the motor. A long, tanned arm stretched and he grasped the door handle, slamming shut the passenger-side door. That was the thing about Rex Houston, she thought, as she watched him drive away. He was used to traveling light, which meant he could leave things behind, such as his suit cases. Or a woman he’d met.

She pictured him in the driver’s seat then. She was sure he never glanced into the rearview mirror as the lab unit lumbered over the top of Mountain Drive. No, Rex Houston would never look back.

“W
ELL
,
AS YOU CAN IMAGINE
,
we were scared half to death when Matilda’s book was stolen,” Great-gran said. She was standing behind a shelf in the Andersons’ booth at the Harvest Festival, wearing a pale blue dress and talking directly into the camera, which Don held steady.

“Then to find out the sheriff had stolen it!” exclaimed Gran, smoothing down the skirt of her airy yellow dress, the hem of which was blowing in the wind. She circled a row of jars containing mixtures of tea leaves, then glanced at the rows of booths dotting the crowded fairgrounds, containing everything from cotton candy to prize goats and pigs. “Why, we were up all night long,” Gran continued, “putting the finishing touches on all our jars.”

And they had been. After Sheriff Durham had taken one of Studs’s prints off the recipe book and returned it, Ariel had gone into action, gathering with her relatives and Angus in the teahouse kitchen, mixing and measuring tea leaves meant to cure everything from back pains to menstrual cramps. She’d tried to forget Rex, swearing to herself that he didn’t matter. She did what she’d always done, pushed aside the pain. She was
a doer. Always had been. When the kids had ridiculed her in the past, she’d drawn pictures, ridden horses and planned a future. Besides, she wanted to get to know Angus, and there had been so much to be done before the festival in the morning. It had been long past midnight when Ariel had gone to bed…alone.

“Usually, we’re all done with the preparations at least a week before the festival,” Gran was explaining now.

Ariel’s mother shook her head. “But this year our book was stolen! And just so the sheriff could fix a love potion and work things out with his wife! He could have simply asked for the tea!”

“Tea sounds good to me,” said Angus, who was puttering about the booth, arranging jars. Smiling toward the camera, he lifted one. “Matilda’s love tea,” he announced.

Ariel’s mother took it from him. “Why, I think I’ll fix some,” she teased.

Jeb Pass and Michelle sauntered into the view of the camera. “We might take a cup, too,” Jeb said.

Michelle laughed. “And make it strong.”

“I’d like a pouch of leaves for arthritis, if you ladies have got it,” said Pappy, who sidled next to them. “Mine’s not bothering me now, but it will, come winter.”

Marsh appeared, carrying some cotton candy. “I’d like something to help beef up muscles,” he announced.

He glanced around the booth. “You all look like you’re dressed for summer. No black?”

Great-gran tittered. “So, you noticed?”

“I think the whole town noticed how you’re dressed, ladies,” said Pappy.

“Well,” said Great-gran, “here comes Eli. He’s my husband, and he always hated a dowdy dress. Blue’s his favorite color. He says it matches my eyes.”

“So, you’re back together?” asked Pappy, surprised.

“Time will tell,” Great-gran said, clearly not sweating it.

“Now, about that love tea…” began Michelle.

Ariel’s mother grinned. “For you, we’ll even use springwater. It’s been one of those special summers, so the tea should have extra potency.” She looked over at Great-gran. “Of course, Great-gran swore last night that she has bottled water left over from the outbreak of seventy-seven, but she can’t remember where she put it.”

“That would make a potent tea, for sure,” said Angus.

Ariel turned toward the camera, glad she’d chosen to wear her new pale blue suit to tape the footage, knowing she looked exactly the part she was expected to play. Jack Hayes and Ryan were going to love this.

Even though her heart was breaking, she smiled.

“Thanks to Atlanta’s Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, this has been a particularly wild season for Bliss, West Virginia. Just recently, a CDC researcher, Dr.

Rex Houston, was lured to Bliss—”

“I’m the one who called him!” Elsinore Gibbet stepped next to Ariel, nearly edging her out of the frame.

She was wearing a peach dress and straw hat, the brim of which was decorated with flowers, and she was being squired around on the arm of Carl DeLyle, who looked dapper, himself, wearing a three-piece, gray-and-white striped seersucker suit.

Carl DeLyle patted her arm. “What would Bliss do without you, sweetie?”

They looked so happy together that Ariel felt a sudden surge of emotion. Her mother and Angus were just as happy, and Great-gran and Eli. Pappy and his wife were back together, and Jeb and Michelle couldn’t keep their hands off each other. Only days ago, that same happiness had been hers. Tears pushed at her eyelids, but she shoved aside the thoughts. Rex’s leaving didn’t change her professional circumstances, after all.

She faced the camera again. “So, my family would like to thank Elsinore Gibbet and Dr. Houston.” She plunged into a spiel about the history of blackout periods in Bliss, then said, “After Miss Gibbet called the CDC and Dr. Houston arrived, he tested the water and interviewed all the citizens. And that…” She smiled as Angus stepped beside her. “Is how I came to find out the identity of my own biological father….”

“B
RILLIANT
,” J
ACK
H
AYES SAID
days later, hitting a but ton on the remote in his hand, then Play again. “Truly, it’s a wonderful piece,” he said, standing and preparing to leave the conference room.

But it wasn’t. “Rex should have been in it,” she apologized. That was the only thing that kept the story from going right over the top, into excellence.

Loosening the brown-and-silver tie he wore with his three-piece suit, Ryan shook his head. “Are you kid ding? Jack’s right. It’s great.”

“It’s got humor,” agreed Jack. “Small-town quirki
ness. He smiled. “Loads of sex. And I’ve got good news for you.”

She raised an eyebrow. “Hmm?”

“NBC picked it up. They want to use the long version on a news-magazine show. Also, they may edit it down for a two-minute spot at the end of the NBC nightly news.”

Her heart lifted, but only for a moment. And…then what? she thought. More stories, more editing, more traveling. More pastel-colored suits that made her look like a bona fide talking head. For the first time, the idea made her feel weighted down and burdened instead of excited. Usually, she imagined herself striding through airport concourses, pulling a roller bag behind her, running to catch a plane to a new location for a shoot. Now, she imagined an endless life on the road….

And for what?

Inside her, something had changed. Although things hadn’t unfolded as she’d planned, her confrontation with the past really had set her free. Studs had gotten out of jail on bail, but until his trial for theft, he was no longer able to function as sheriff. If he was convicted, which he would be, he’d never return to office. News of what had transpired had swept through Bliss like a brush fire, and now, especially with the history regarding Angus out in the open, including his separation from his father, the Andersons’ reputation around town would surely improve. The human-interest piece would do exactly as she’d hoped, too. It would put Bliss on the map.

“Good going, kid,” Jack said again, patting her shoulder as he passed. “And I can’t believe Angus turned out
to be your dad. When I called him to tell him about your interest in him, that was the last thing on my mind.”

“I’ll bet,” she said. That piece of her life still felt anticlimactic. But then, not knowing the identity of her father had led to fantasies about him and an incredible buildup. It was going to take them years to deflate. But they liked each other. Not that he wasn’t larger than life, of course, she thought with a smile. After all, he was quite an adventurer. A worthy object of her fantasies.

He’d been all over the world, and now, it seemed, he had plans to take Ariel’s mother with him.

“So, sugar cakes,” said Ryan as soon as Jack left the room. “It looks like you’re moving to another department. Jack gave me carte blanche to offer you the pro motion into production. You’ll be working with a woman I think you’ll like. And you’ll be able to begin pulling together other stories. Whatever you want.

You’re the idea man now.” His voice lowered. “And you’ll be on another floor….”

Which meant they could date. Probably why he’d just called her by the unlikely nickname of sugar cakes. She stepped back a pace as he stretched a finger, meaning to catch the edge of her jacket, and she studied him for a long moment. He was good-looking, with sandy-brown hair and soft brown eyes that usually carried hints of amusement, and he had a square jaw that she’d always thought of as “very Kennedy.” Definitely, he was the kind of guy she’d imagined might…lend her respectability.

And that’s what she’d needed, just a week ago when she’d driven into Bliss, hoping for this exact moment—
a triumphant return and a situation where they might start seeing each other. But now, every inch of her body seemed touched by sizzling hot handprints. Respectability paled, as far as she was concerned, next to hours of heat and heavy breathing. Desperately, she needed to feel that again…the tingling at her core, the wild, disjointed thoughts shattering into sharp shards as Rex plunged into her depths.

Warmth suffused her cheeks. The office seemed to vanish, and in her mind’s eye, she was bucking, her legs circled tightly around Rex’s waist. Feeling her nipples constrict, she tried to tamp down an unwanted rush of heat. The sudden need for Rex was almost painful. Only he would know what she wanted right now…know exactly what to do. He’d cup her breasts and squeeze with just the right amount of pressure, until she was gasping for breath.

Yes, she needed him—pulsing, hard, engorged. She could feel him enter, burning as she opened for him….

“Ariel?”

She snapped to attention. “Hmm?”

“I was saying Jack gave me carte blanche with regard to your next career move. After I take you upstairs, to meet your new boss, you can work on whatever you like.

You’ll have a healthy expense account for travel….”

As he explained the package, she began to drift again, her core melting, her senses splitting into hair-like filaments.

“Ariel?” he said again.

“I think I might want to do a follow-up to the Bliss
story,” she said, swallowing hard, realizing what she wanted to do.

“Where?”

“Atlanta.”

“P
UBLIC RELATIONS
wants to know why you aren’t in this piece.” Clicking a button on the remote, Jessica muted the sound on the videotape and straightened in the chair behind the desk. She glared at Rex, whose gaze shifted to the picture.

Ariel looked so damn happy. He really couldn’t stand it. She was standing in front of the teahouse booth at the Harvest Festival, grinning and holding up a jar of specialty tea. It was illogical, but he hated that every man in America would be staring at her, dressed in that fancy blue suit. Of course, she looked professional, but he spied lace beneath her silk blouse. Besides, legs to die for were exposed, and even if she was dressed, he knew exactly what lay beneath every stitch.

A slender, tall, willowy body that called out for his hands, he thought. One touch and he knew she’d be quivering for him, moaning as he unbuttoned that blouse with his teeth. He’d rip down her stockings. Maybe he’d just dig a hand into the hosiery and tear it to shreds. Her panties, too. Then he’d shove up that pretty, delicate silk blouse…just shove the bra over her breasts, not even bothering with the straps, so he could clamp down his mouth onto one of those sweet buds and suckle….

“Rex?”

He looked up to see Jessica tossing her auburn hair
the way a lion might his mane. It was one of her power gestures. Now she let the hair swirl softly around her shoulders as she glared at him, coming in for the kill.

“I demand an explanation, Rex.”

Maybe there was no use in lying. “I…met someone.”

Her lips tilted as if she might smile. “Her?”

He hated that Jessica now knew he’d bedded Ariel Anderson. It was his private business, but he said, “That’s why I called and asked to be on the next plane to Timbuktu.” He paused. “You did send me to investigate a love bug.”

She took a deep breath, then nodded. “Public relations would have been thrilled to see you on this spot. A net work has picked it up, and they’re going to use it on a news magazine and maybe cut it for a human-interest spot on NBC nightly news. They say it humanizes the CDC.”

“Good for her,” he said. He was glad for Ariel, but that didn’t make him rest easier about the way they’d left things. And yet, it seemed right. After all, they’d been under the influence. Even if their blood had tested clean, what Jeb Pass had said was exactly right. Viruses mutated. Most probably, they’d been infected, but tests hadn’t picked up the virus, something he’d discussed with Jessica.

“I want to work in the lab with the samples,” he said now. “The equipment’s better than in the mobile unit, and we may be able to find evidence of a mutation.”

Then he’d have proof that the sensations he’d experienced were only a biological response to something be yond his control. Then he could let go of his memories.
No woman could make a man feel that good, not by natural means. Unwanted pleasure pooled in his belly and his groin tightened.

“First things first,” Jessica said.

He raised an eyebrow. “Hmm?”

She slid a ticket across the desk. “A ticket to Tim buktu,” she said. “Or Szuzi, as it were. I want you to get more samples.”

P
ARADISE
, R
EX THOUGHT
, except for the one annoying fly he batted from his face as he capped a last tube of water and put it into a tray. And the heat, he added silently. Steam rose from the trees and waters. He looked around the cove. It was utterly silent except for a vaulting waterfall rising a good fifty feet from aqua water below and plummeting in a rush of white water over boulders.

Arches of lush green leaves tumbled all around him, creating a gorge, and grapevines, moss and monkeys hung in trees with fronds larger than a man; wild orchids bloomed, too, nestled in joints of branches. Some looked like the famed ghost orchids, almost transparently white, the petals as thin as air.