The Bliss Factor (7 page)

Conn laughed outright, long and deep and full of a joy that warmed the cold, empty places inside her. She’d always been a loner, but it suddenly occurred to her that she was lonely, too.

Connor Larkin was a remedy she could not afford. Even if he was the remedy she wanted to try.

“They screamed like helpless women,” he said, shoving her back to her center, even if she couldn’t quite believe it was the well-adjusted place she’d once thought.

“That’s insulting.”

“You, Rae Bliss, are not helpless.”

She wasn’t delusional, either. A man like Connor Larkin would be company, sure, but only for as long as he chose. She needed stability, permanence, or at least the faith that she wouldn’t wake up to find him gone one day because his own wanderlust was more important than what he might feel for her.

“You’re going to find that most women aren’t,” she said firmly, “but thank you. And it’s not Bliss.”

“It could be.”

Bliss
. If he kept looking at her like that . . . A horn blared, she dragged her eyes back to the road, and let it go, at least outwardly. Inwardly it was World War III, reality fighting with fantasy. Reality had gunshots and vehicular assault on its side, but Connor Larkin was right there, and his physical impact was more than enough to make her body forget that kind of visceral fear. Even more frightening, it could make her forget herself. “It’s Blissfield,” she said, her barriers going back up. “I changed my name.”

“Why?”

Good question, she thought, her reasons not as clear-cut as they’d once been. “It made perfect sense at the time.”

“To deny your heritage?”

“That’s not why I did it.”

“Was it not?” he asked, the same question sneaking in around the cracks in her own certainty. “Your parents are good people.”

“Of course they are, but I hated that name.” She shuddered. “Sunshine Bliss. It’s just not me. And that life . . . It’s no way to raise a kid.”

“So they should have sacrificed everything for their child, settled somewhere and been miserable by denying their own desires?”

“Yes—no—I don’t know. And it’s really none of your business.”

He nodded, but Rae couldn’t stop thinking about it. She’d changed her name as a way to distance herself from her parents’ life and all the unhappiness of her childhood. But had she done it to distance herself from her parents, as well? And had it been more than teenage rebellion? Had she wanted to hurt them, to make them understand how much she’d hated being dragged along on their gypsy travels?

“You’re supposed to be from the sixteenth century,” she said, annoyed that he kept putting her off balance.

He looked at her, one eyebrow cocked.

“It wasn’t a time period known for turning out sensitive men.”

He shrugged, and this time she was only too happy to let him blow off the subject. She whipped off the highway at the first exit she came to, made a couple of quick lefts, and got back on going the opposite direction.

Conn twisted around, peering out the back window.

“There’s no one following us,” Rae said. “That’s the whole point. This is the best time to go back to the Renaissance festival and try to figure out why you’re a target.”

And okay, the closer they got to her house the more nervous she became. The Hummer was a whole lot smaller, but there was an intimacy to having him in her home, where she ate and lived. And slept. If she could wrap this thing up today, without the cops’ and her parents’ interference, she could go back to her life and pretend none of this had happened.

Right, and the IRS would suddenly take an understanding approach to delinquent taxpayers. There was no way she’d forget Conn, and that kiss, in her lifetime. The man left an indelible impression. Like a lobotomy.

 

 

“DID YOU SAY SOMETHING?”

Conn smiled a little. “That was my stomach growling.”

“Missed lunch in all the excitement, huh?”

“I rarely eat when there are crowds.”

Rae glanced over at him. “Why not?”

“Women,” Conn said, “then men, then trouble.”

“Come again?”

He frowned. “When was the first time, and how did I miss it?”

Rae’s face flushed, and she glared at him, clearly not comfortable with her sexuality, which was a shame for any woman but especially for one Conn was so attracted to.

“Stop it,” she said. “Whatever’s going on in your mind, cut it out.”

“My mind is not the problem. Yours is. You should spend less time thinking and more time enjoying.”

She chose to ignore his remark. “The phrase ‘
come again’
means I didn’t understand what you said, so please repeat it.”

“Oh, uh,” Conn said, scrambling to remember his place in the conversation, which meant getting his mind out of his breeches, “women, then men, then trouble. When I go into the crowds—”

“The women get all worked up, their husbands or boy-friends get jealous, and you get in a fight?”

“Not me, them. Marital strife is an ugly business.”

“So you going hungry is a public service,” Rae said.

“Aye.”

Rae shook her head, smiling at him. “I’m sure my mother would bring you lunch.”

“Annie and Nelson have their own concerns. I attempted to hire one of the food purveyors to deliver my midday meal, but that created other problems.” Even when he’d paid a young man, the duty had been usurped by a woman, which invariably became sticky, so he chose not to even give the appearance he was favoring one of the young women over another.

“Women can be like that,” Rae said, seeming to understand.

She eased the Hummer into the center of the road, bounded by yellow lines, turning when traffic cleared into a narrow parking lot surrounding a building made mostly of glass. The sign proclaimed it a Scottish establishment.

“I will take the eggs,” Conn said to Rae.

“They stop serving breakfast at ten thirty.”

Hmmm, Conn mused, no Scotch eggs. “Perhaps an oatcake would be good, then, but not haggis. I like the Scottish—”

“They’re very bloodthirsty,” Rae put in.

“Precisely. But their common nourishment leaves something to be desired.”

“The only thing this place leaves to be desired is nutritional value.”

She pulled around the building, stopping next to a large sign displaying their options and rolled her window down. Conn leaned across her so he could see all the pictures on the board, but then looked at Rae instead, his eyes meeting hers, their mouths a whisper away, before he said, “You choose.”

Neither of them believed he was talking about the menu.

Rae’s lips parted, her breath slipping out on a soft moan. Conn leaned in, slowly, savoring the beat of his heart thudding against his ribs, the feel of his blood rushing through his veins, slow and hot, those seconds of anticipation, remembering the taste and feel of her mouth, and already knowing this kiss would put that first one to shame—

“AnIakeoror-er?”

Rae jerked back and sucked in her breath.

Conn stayed where he was, in front of Rae, searching for the source of that garbled voice, yet finding no one.

“It’s the speaker,” Rae said, a bit breathless but her voice even enough that Conn fought harder to compose himself.

He managed it, barely. “Aye, someone is speaking,” he said, “but where is he?”

Rae sighed. “What do you want?”

Conn searched her face, not as composed as he’d thought he was.

“To eat.”

He grinned.

“Never mind,” she said, brushing him back with her hand so he had no choice but to flop into his seat.

The voice blared out again, still garbled, still disembodied, but he caught something about orders. The place must be run by soldiers, which made sense since the Scottish were perpetually at war with one another when there was no other enemy to be found.

“We’ll take a Big Mac,” Rae said, talking to the sign, “a fish filet, a chicken sandwich, a chocolate shake, fries, and nuggets.”

“How many?” asked the invisible solder

She slid a glance in Conn’s direction. “Do they come by the gross?”

Ten minutes later, money had exchanged hands and Rae had plopped two paper sacks into Conn’s lap, placed a drink in the cunning holder built into the vehicle, and pulled onto the road again. Conn knew he should be paying attention to their journey, but their attackers weren’t coming after them anytime soon, so his stomach took precedence.

Conn mowed through the sandwiches and fries, slurped down the shake, then paused to study one of the small brown lumps of food in the last container. “What is it?”

“A Chicken McNugget.”

He shrugged, popped one in his mouth, then devoured the rest and searched for more. To his disappointment the bags were empty, but by then they were back at Holly Grove. Rae parked the Hummer in the public lot, and they walked in, bypassing the tourist entrance for the participants’ camp.

She eased the door to her parents’ trailer open, and when she was sure they weren’t inside she went in. When she came back out, she was wearing her own blouse and jacket, along with a pair of Annie’s walking shoes and blue jeans. Her body was pretty amazing when she was wearing a skirt. She looked even more incredible out of it, long legs, slender curves, and the kind of unconscious grace she’d clearly inherited from her mother in a package that made him feel a thousand degrees hotter than friendly.

“So,” she said into the awkward silence, “where do you live?”

The last thing he needed was to take her to a place that included a bed—or what passed for a bed—but he walked by her, circled around the end of the Airstream her parents called home, and stopped at the lot next to it.

“This is where you live?”

“Aye.”

“In a tent.”

“As you see.”

“It’s smaller than my bathroom. Shorter, too.”

“But I can carry it on my back.”

The look she sent him over her shoulder told him she didn’t consider that much of a recommendation. She dropped to her knees and crawled between the front flaps of the tent, Conn following her denim-clad bottom—a little too closely for her preference, because when she looked over her shoulder and saw him right behind her, she flipped around and tried to scoot backward. She came up short against the far side of the tent. Conn kept going and ended up with his hands braced on either side of her, his knees between her thighs—all of him between her thighs, and his face already lowering toward hers. His lips brushed hers, once, twice, settled, but before he could sink in, before Rae could do more than begin to respond, she scrambled out from beneath him.

She distanced herself from him as much as possible, and her eyes were wide and a little panicked when they met his. He watched, fascinated, as she regained control of herself. Conn did the same, one jangling nerve at a time, but he did it—even though he wanted to take over for her when she lifted one cheek and rubbed.

“I think I sat on a boulder. How do you sleep on this thing?” She poked at the thin pad lying over a waterproof ground sheet, a sleeping bag laid out on top.

“It’s not sleep on my mind at the moment.”

“Right, we’re supposed to be hunting for clues,” she said, deliberately misunderstanding him.

It was close quarters when he was in there alone, so Conn chose not to tempt fate, watching Rae through the front opening. There was just his bedroll, a lantern, and a small chest that held his clothing and personal items, most of which he assumed Annie had packed into his duffel. Rae opened it unapologetically and dug through. She found nothing.

She moved to the bedroll, searching it systematically, although she was careful to put everything back the way it was, just as she’d done with his chest.

“You’re very orderly,” he said. “You would make a good chatelaine.”

“I have a career, thank you very much, and it doesn’t involve cooking or cleaning.”

“Taking care of a home is dignified work.”

That took her off guard. “I’m not saying it isn’t. I just prefer not to be dependent on a man.”

“Any man who thinks his woman is at his mercy, or underestimates her strength, is a fool.”

“That’s a nice little fantasy,” Rae muttered. She sighed heavily and plopped onto his bedroll. “Most men aren’t that evolved. Most women, either,” she added, but absently, her eyes fixed on the ceiling of the tent. She got to her knees again, reaching up to tug at one of the seams. When she ducked back into view, she had a big smile on her face and a map of the faire grounds in her hand.

“Mean anything to you?” she asked.

It looked vaguely familiar, but then, he’d seen hundreds of those just since he’d lost his memory.

Rae unfolded it. Most of the merchant booths were X’ed out, but a couple dozen had circles around them. Jewelry designers and purveyors, metal workers, silk screeners, places that sold prints and posters. “How about now?”

“I don’t recall making the marks.”

“They have nothing in common, so I’ll need to check them out, ask some questions.”

“I?”>

“Me. Alone. You stay put. And make sure my parents don’t see you.”

“They sent us away for a reason.”

“Yes, and that reason is stranded in Pontiac.” And hopefully they were still alive. “This is the best opportunity we’re going to get to find out what’s really going on.”

“How will you do that? You don’t know what questions to ask.”

“I’ll snoop. I have the advantage of being able to see what’s out of place because I know the shtick.”

“Shtick?”

“The con . . .”

He popped up an eyebrow.

“It means confidence game. That’s where someone gets you to trust them but they’re really lying to get something from you.” Yeah, that made her feel better. “The point is, I grew up in places like this.”