Kitabı oku: «Mistletoe & Mayhem: Mistletoe & Mayhem / Santa's Sexy Secret», sayfa 3

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THE SMELL assaulted her as soon as she opened the front door and stepped into the foyer. It was the same unidentifiable scent that filled the house every time that Irene cooked. Lazarus lay in a heap at the bottom of the stairs. He twitched his tail once in greeting, but otherwise gave no sign of life. Jodie could do nothing but sympathize. Dogs had a keen sense of smell, and no doubt he knew that he’d be going hungry tonight.

“I lost the coin toss,” Sophie said in a lowered tone as she appeared in the archway to the dining room.

“What happened to your lucky streak?” Jodie asked.

Sophie shrugged. “It was bound to run out. What we need is a two-headed coin.”

“What we need is to tell Irene she can’t cook.”

Sophie frowned. “She’s having enough trouble trying to accept that Billy stole all our savings. I hate to disillusion her any more.”

Setting down the mail and the package of rope, Jodie took the older woman’s hands in hers. “I know. But when you open the bed-and-breakfast for business…”

Sophie sighed. “We’ll sit down and have a talk with her after the Mistletoe Ball next Friday. She’ll be basking in the glory of having brought it off, and that will cushion the blow.”

Jodie squeezed Sophie’s hands. “I wish I’d had a sister like you when I was growing up.”

“Well, you’ve got me now,” Sophie replied. “Why don’t you ask Shane if he can get hold of a two-headed coin? He seems like an enterprising young man to me.”

“You’ve known him less than a day, and you’re on a first-name basis with the handyman?”

“Mr. Sullivan sounds a little formal when he’s going to be joining us for meals.”

The thought of Shane Sullivan sitting down to one of Irene’s culinary creations had Jodie’s lips curving. She doubted he’d be taking many of his meals with them in the future. Then wrinkling her nose, she asked, “What could possibly smell that bad?”

“She’s calling it meat loaf.”

Lazarus moaned.

Jodie knelt and ran a sympathetic hand over him, then when he turned, began to scratch his stomach. He’d been nearly dead the night she’d found him lying along the road, and Doc Cheney, the town vet, hadn’t been sure he’d make it.

“What does that dog have to complain about?” Sophie asked. “If he doesn’t like the meat loaf, he can eat his canned dog food. We’re stuck.” She glanced down at the pile of correspondence. “Anything interesting in the mail.”

“No,” Jodie said as Sophie began to sort through it. Thank heavens she’d stuffed the letter in her pocket. “Just some circulars.”

“Oh, you’re home,” Irene said as she breezed into the foyer. Flour streaked her hair and seemed to hover in a little cloud around her. “You just have time to change before dinner.”

“Change what?” Jodie asked.

“Your clothes. Shane is joining us for dinner.”

“We have to dress up for the handyman?” Jodie asked.

Irene shooed her toward the stairs. “He’s a guest, too. And he’s worked very hard all afternoon. Haven’t you noticed all the mistletoe he’s hung?”

Jodie glanced up to see that mistletoe indeed now hung from the chandelier, as well as from every archway and door that led off from the foyer.

“We put it in every room,” Irene explained. “There was quite a bit we didn’t use for the ball, and we didn’t want it to go to waste. What do you think?”

“Very…Christmassy,” Jodie managed to reply.

Irene beamed a smile at her. “After you change, I could use your help in the kitchen. You could let me know what you think of my new gravy recipe.”

“Actually, I was planning on starting on my snare trap,” Jodie quickly improvised. “In the attic. Remember?” Grabbing the rope, she hopped over Lazarus and started up the stairs.

Once in her room, Jodie locked the door, set the rope down on her bed, then pulled the letter out of her pocket. It was Billy’s handwriting all right. She hadn’t been wrong about that. Staring at it, she sank down on the foot of her bed.

She hadn’t lied to the sheriff. Billy hadn’t tried to contact her after his arrest. But he’d given Irene a note for her shortly before the police had arrived at the house to take him away. In it, he’d asked her to believe in him, to believe in his love for her, and he’d promised she’d get her money back.

Even now, she could remember how much she’d wanted to believe him, how she’d clung for two months to her fantasy that he would keep his word. She’d checked the mailbox each day hoping for a letter until the day the bank had foreclosed on her house.

What did he possibly think he could say now? Tearing open the envelope, she unfolded the letter.

My dearest Jodie,

I haven’t written to you before because I didn’t want to put you in danger. But I’ll have your money for you soon. Please don’t tell anyone about this note. My life could depend on it. Yours, too.

I never lied to you about my feelings for you.

I’ll be in touch.

Billy

Slowly, she lowered the note to her lap. Damn Billy Rutherford. What she wanted to do was rip his words into shreds. But she would keep the note because it would inspire her more than one of Sophie’s calendar slogans ever could. She wasn’t going to be that big a fool again. Ever. She glanced at the note again.

“My life could depend on it. Yours, too.”

A ripple of fear moved through her. It was probably a lie. She doubted that Billy could tell the difference between the truth and a lie anymore.

Carefully folding the paper, she slipped it back into the envelope. It was only then that she recalled what Shane had noticed. It didn’t have a stamp. Had Billy delivered it himself?

Rising, she began to pace back and forth. It meant that Billy was definitely back in Castleton. It must have been him in the attic, and he hadn’t gotten what he was after. “I’ll have your money for you soon.” That meant he had to come back.

She was reaching for the phone next to her bed when she snatched her hand back. If she told the sheriff now, she could picture exactly what would happen. He’d have his distant cousin Shane watching her like a hawk, and she might miss the one chance she had of catching Billy by herself. She couldn’t allow that to happen. Turning, she began to pace again. Catching Billy would allow her to kill two birds with one stone. She could change her image in the town forever, and she could get the money back that Billy had stolen from his aunts. They needed it. Because if they couldn’t make their bed-and-breakfast work, they could lose Rutherford House.

Pausing, she sank back down on the foot of her bed. The money was probably in the attic. Otherwise, why go there? So she’d set the trap. In her mind, she pictured Billy swinging back and forth from the rope she was going to string up in the attic. Once he was in it, she’d make him cough up the money and then she’d call the sheriff.

“CLYDE, I can’t thank you enough,” Jodie said as she followed him out onto the porch. “I never could have figured out how to weight it properly.”

“No problem, ma’am.”

And it hadn’t been. Jodie drew her coat more closely around her as she watched the skinny young man climb into his battered pickup truck and back down the driveway. In less than an hour, he’d adapted a trap designed for use in woods or jungles to something that would operate very efficiently in an attic. Clyde was a talented young man. What he needed was someone to give him a push into an engineering school; that just might get his mind off joining one of the militia groups he was always researching on the Internet. Tomorrow, she’d see his advisor at the college. And later in the week, she was going to have a talk with Nadine Carter and see if she could convince her to come back to school.

And tonight? Drawing in a breath of the crisp, cold air, she glanced up at the sky, polka-dotted with stars. Then crossing her fingers for luck, she wished on the biggest one. Please, let her catch Billy Rutherford III in her trap tonight.

But someone else might catch him first.

With a frown, she sank down on the top step and glared at the garage. In the moonlight, she could see that the space beside Sophie’s car was still empty. The red convertible had disappeared shortly before Clyde had arrived.

Jodie resented the idea that, just because there was now a man about the house, he would be the one to nab Billy. It struck her how much she really wanted to be the one to turn Billy over to the authorities. How much she didn’t want Shane to beat her to it.

Her eyes widened at the thought. Where had it come from? She’d never before thought of herself as the type of woman who had to compete with a man. And she wasn’t. There were plenty of reasons why she wanted to be the one to turn Billy Rutherford over to the police—and they had nothing to do with Shane Sullivan. In fact, she was going to put him out of her mind.

Just then a car pulled into the driveway and the headlights pinned her. Shane. She could just make out the red convertible in the moonlight. The urge to get up and run was almost overpowering, but she couldn’t bear the idea of him getting that look of amusement in his eyes at her expense. It wasn’t until he parked the car that she noticed the top was down and Lazarus was sitting in the passenger seat.

Lazarus, the dog who could barely get himself out of a prone position except to eat? And who in the world rode around with the top down in the middle of winter? She was still staring as the man and the dog started toward her.

“How did you bribe him to go with you?” she asked when Lazarus plopped his head into her lap.

“He followed me to the car,” Shane said.

“You never follow me to my car,” she said, leaning closer to scratch the dog behind his ears. “And I pay your vet bills.”

“Evidently, he prefers convertibles. There’s no accounting for taste.”

Jodie glanced up at him. “It’s a taste for French fries that lured him into your car. I can smell them on his breath.”

Shane grinned at her. “What can I say? We were hungry.”

Her eyes narrowed. “How can you be? You ate two slices of Irene’s meat loaf. I saw you.”

“It’s nice to know I’m not losing my touch.”

Jodie’s eyes narrowed. “What do you mean?”

“You only think you saw me eat two slices.”

She studied him for a moment, intrigued. “What did you do with them? I know you didn’t feed them to Lazarus. He draws the line at Irene’s cooking.”

“A little sleight of hand,” Shane explained. “I worked my way through college as a weekend party magician.”

“You did not!” Jodie said.

He raised a hand. “Scout’s honor.”

“You weren’t a Boy Scout, either.”

His smile widened. “No, but I really was a party magician.” Before she could move, he reached behind her ear and when he withdrew his hand, it was holding a French fry.

“How did you—” The scent of it had her mouth watering.

“Here,” he offered.

She hesitated for only a minute. “Thanks,” she said as she popped it into her mouth, then chewed slowly. Even cool and slightly soggy, it tasted wonderful.

“More?” he asked bringing a paper bag out from behind his back. “Lazarus indicated you preferred cheeseburgers.”

She had reached for the bag before she could stop herself. But she didn’t open it. “Dogs don’t talk, and magicians don’t really make things disappear. Where did you put the meat loaf?”

“Where you put yours—in the plant stand.”

“You saw me?”

“Magicians are always looking for new tricks. Sophie ditched hers under her jacket.”

Jodie couldn’t prevent a laugh. Then tilting her head to one side, she studied the man standing in front of her. Though the moonlight was bright, it left his face shadowed, mysterious-looking. In another age, he could have been a powerful magician. A wizard, perhaps. Fascination warred with caution. She really didn’t know anything about Shane Sullivan, she reminded herself.

Then she recalled the look on Irene’s face when he’d taken that second slice of meat loaf, and in spite of her resolve, she felt something inside of her soften.

Just then her stomach growled.

“I think you better eat that cheeseburger,” he said.

“Irene and Sophie were still up when I came out here. I don’t want—”

“No, don’t turn around,” he cautioned. “They’re watching us right now through the window.”

“They…Do you think they saw the cheeseburger?”

“No. I think they’re more interested in whether or not the mistletoe you’re sitting under will work.”

She glanced up, then back at Shane.

“It had to happen sooner or later. They pretty much had me booby-trap the whole house today.”

Jodie felt the heat flood her face. “You think they want you…they want us to…”

“I think they feel guilty about introducing you to their nephew, but they’re not willing to give up on matchmaking altogether.”

The moment his hand closed around hers and drew her to her feet, something began to tighten in her center. Her gaze dropped to his mouth. He was going to kiss her. The heat in her cheeks suddenly burned through the rest of her body.

“So why don’t you show me how to get down to the lake? Hank Jefferson says the ice fishing is very good, and I have a flashlight in the car.”

He released her hand and turned away, but it was several seconds before she could make her feet follow after him. He’d had no intention of kissing her, yet for a moment, she’d wanted more than anything for him to do just that. She had to get a grip on herself. She had to…stop looking at him. Shifting her gaze to the car, she said, “You put the top down.”

“It’s one of the unwritten rules when you own a convertible,” Shane said, extracting a flashlight from the trunk.

“But no one puts their top down in the middle of winter.”

“Not true. Santa always has the top down on his sleigh.”

Jodie laughed as she turned and led the way around the side of the house. “Okay. I guess I never thought of it that way.”

Falling into step beside her, Shane said, “Lazarus isn’t coming with us.”

“He doesn’t believe in exercise.”

A few seconds later, Shane pointed his flashlight down a path that wound its way through the trees, and for a while they walked in silence.

“The Rutherford sisters are really into celebrating Christmas,” Shane said as the trees pressed closer, blocking out the moonlight.

“Tell me about it.”

“You’re not quite as enthused, I take it?”

She shrugged. “Not the way most people seem to be.”

“Rough childhood?”

“No. Nothing like that. I just always used to wish for one thing—that my father would be home on Christmas morning.”

“Was he?” Shane asked, taking her arm as the path narrowed.

“Usually not. He’d always send a really wonderful gift and a note saying how much he missed us. But it wasn’t the same.”

“No.”

Jodie glanced at him, but she couldn’t tell anything from his expression. “I must sound ungrateful. Sheriff Dillon said that you don’t have any family to spend Christmas with.”

“That puts us in the same boat this year. And it has to be especially rough for you—losing your house.”

“Actually, the hardest thing about it was facing the fact that I’d been so stupid about believing Billy.” She paused and glanced at Shane again. “I’m not sure how to explain it. That house meant everything to my mother. She needed the security. But to my father it was a prison. He could never stand to be in it for very long.”

“He felt the lure of the open road,” Shane said.

“Exactly. And I would have done almost anything to go with him.”

“Yes.”

She could hear the understanding in his voice. It prompted her to go on. “My mother would never agree. She said I couldn’t until I finished school. Then he went off one day and didn’t came back. When we got the news of his death, she never left the house again. She simply pined away until the day she died. Having the bank take the house over gave me a chance to get away from those memories. The day I moved out, I felt…”

“Free?” Shane asked.

“Yes.” They had stepped out of the woods, and the snow-covered ground stretched in front of them to the edge of the lake. “Does that sound crazy?”

“No.” Shane shook his head. “It’s part of what your father felt every time he went off to seek adventure.”

“You sound like you know what it feels like.”

“In a manner of speaking. But I’m still curious as to why you’re living with Irene and Sophie. Why didn’t you just rent an apartment?”

“I figure I owe them.”

Shane turned to her. “Why?”

“It’s my fault they lost their life savings.”

“You blame yourself because they trusted their nephew?”

“They only trusted him because I did. Before I mortgaged my house, they’d refused to give him any money. Paying them rent each month and helping them open their bed-and-breakfast is the least I can do.”

Shane said nothing as they walked toward an old log that had fallen along the edge of the lake. When they reached it, he switched off the flashlight and sat down. “You better eat that cheeseburger before it gets any colder.”

Joining him on the log, she fished it out of the bag and unwrapped it. It was still warm, and she could smell just a hint of onion. Her mouth was open when she paused.

“What’s wrong?” Shane asked.

“I think I’m forgetting to Beware of Greeks Bearing Gifts,” Jodie said. “There’s got to be a catch to this.”

“It’s not poisoned. I promise.”

She shot him a look. “Neither is the bait you’ll use when you go ice fishing. But you won’t be putting it on the line just because you think the fish are hungry. You lured me out here with food to pump me for information, didn’t you? And so far, I’ve cooperated fully.”

Shane threw back his head and laughed. The sound was rich and full. Jodie smiled as she bit into the cheeseburger.

“Why is it that you’re so suspicious of me?” he asked.

“Because you’re not what you seem to be.” The French fries were salty and tasted of grease. Wonderful.

“No one is what they seem to be,” Shane said.

“Alicia Finnerty is,” Jodie pointed out around another bite of cheeseburger. “And Sophie and Irene are. And Sheriff Dillon…Well, maybe he’s not a good example.”

“He’s a good example of what I’m saying,” Shane said. “And as far as Ms. Finnerty and Sophie and Irene go, I’ll bet they have a side of themselves that they don’t present to the world. Some secrets they’re hiding. So do you, I’ll bet.”

Jodie thought of the letter from Billy that she was still carrying in her pocket and glanced at Shane. When he’d caught it and handed it to her, he’d noticed that it didn’t have a stamp. Did he suspect she’d heard from Billy?

“Tell you what. If you’ll tell me one of your secrets, I’ll tell you one of mine,” he said.

His eyes were dark and mysterious in the moonlight. It was even easier now to picture him as a wizard. She thought briefly of Merlin offering knowledge to Arthur. Of the snake in the garden offering much the same thing to Eve. She tucked the cheeseburger back into the bag. “I’ve already told you several.”

Shane nodded. “Fair enough. It’s your turn to ask,” Shane said. “Ask me anything at all.”

A breeze moved the branches overhead, shifting the shadows, and she could see the challenge in his eyes. The words were out before she could prevent them. “Is your name really Shane?”

“Yes,” he said, shifting his gaze to the lakeshore.

“Were your parents big fans of the book?”

“They never said.”

There was a flatness to his tone she’d never heard before, but when he turned to her, he was smiling. “It was a tough name to grow into. It cost me several black eyes in grade school. Until I learned that it’s hard for people to mock you if you turn the tables and laugh at yourself first.”

“Some people never learn that lesson,” Jodie said.

“They get a lot of black eyes. What about you? Is Jodie your given name or a nickname?”

Jodie wrinkled her nose. “It’s my given name. My dad’s name was Joe. Mom was Dee. But I never got in a fight over it.”

“It sounds like your parents loved you very much.”

When she looked into his eyes this time, she saw a bleakness that hadn’t been there before. Then suddenly it changed to something else, something she couldn’t put a name to. But it made her very aware of how close they were, so close that she could feel his breath on her skin. Her gaze dropped to his mouth. His lips no longer curved in a smile. All she had to do was lean forward, just a little, and she could know what they would feel like pressed against hers. Not soft. No, his mouth would be hard. And his taste as dark and mysterious as his scent. Her eyes widened at the drift of her thoughts. She couldn’t possibly be thinking of kissing Shane Sullivan. But she was. She most definitely was. And the moment she shifted her glance to his eyes, she knew that he was thinking of kissing her, too.

And he was going to do it. He moved slowly to lay his hand along the side of her face. She had plenty of time to pull back, and in spite of the firmness of his hand, he might have let her. But she didn’t move.

And then his lips brushed against hers, so gently that she barely felt them before they withdrew. The second time they lingered longer, but the pressure was still soft, so soft she felt herself sinking into it. The breath she’d been holding slipped out on a sigh as he slowly traced her lips with his tongue. She felt her arms go lax, her eyelids drift shut, as the pleasure seeped through her.

It wasn’t at all the kind of kiss she’d expected from Shane Sullivan. It was exactly the kind of kiss she’d always dreamed about.

“Mmm,” she murmured when he withdrew a second time. She had to have—

“More?” He whispered the question, and she felt his breath against her lips before his mouth at last returned to hers. A tremor moved through her, followed by a wave of heat that burned through her body right down to her toes. His lips continued to mark their magic as he coaxed hers apart with his teeth and his tongue.

This wasn’t anything like her dreams. They’d never been this vivid, and the sensations had never been this intense. Each nip of his teeth on her bottom lip had her head spinning. Each quick flick of his tongue made her tremble. She felt as if she were burning up with a fever, inside and out.

His hand lay along the side of her face as his mouth moved on hers. He touched her nowhere else, and yet she wanted him to. She wanted his hands on her breasts, and even more, she wanted him to touch the heat that had settled at her very center and threatened to explode. Her fingers closed into fists as the greed built within her.

When he drew back, she stayed where she was. Not because she wanted to. More than anything, she wanted to throw her arms around him, drag his mouth back to hers so that she could reach for…whatever had seemed just out of her reach. But the messages from her brain didn’t seem to be getting to her body.

“Well, well…” he said.

She blinked and then stared at him. Well, well! That’s all he had to say? A joke from her childhood drifted through her mind as the anger brought strength to her body. Well, well—the story of two holes in the ground. With all her heart, she wished there were one nearby she could push him into. Her heart was still hammering, her breathing was still ragged, and he looked completely unmoved. At least he wasn’t laughing. If he dared, she would make do with the lake and shove him into that.

“Why did you do that?” she asked.

“It was a mistake,” Shane said.

She stared at him, appalled that she could feel tears begin to fill her eyes. She was not going to cry. She hadn’t cried in a long time. Even Billy hadn’t made her do that.

The thought gave her the strength to pull herself together. “Don’t make it again,” she said as she rose. Then she turned and moved toward the path.

The moment she did, Shane wanted to curse—her or himself, he wasn’t sure which. And he wasn’t sure why. All he was certain of was that it had been a mistake to bring her down here to the lake. In the moonlight, her skin looked as pale and delicate as the finest silk. He’d been wanting to touch it since he’d pulled that French fry from behind her ear.

But a moment ago, he’d wanted to do more than touch her, more than kiss her. For one frightening moment, his mind had drained of everything but her. He’d forgotten everything else, including his plan in bringing her down to the lake.

To find out about that damn letter.

Not only hadn’t he gotten her to talk about it, but after what had just happened, his prospects didn’t look good.

What in the world was she doing to him? Shane Sullivan always got his man. He’d never allowed a woman, any woman, to distract him before. Never.

If he wanted to catch Billy Rutherford, he was definitely going to have to find a way to handle Jodie Freemont.

But a woman had never driven him so wild with a kiss before.

It was something he thought about a long time before he followed her back to the house.