Lady Killer

powerful he felt.

He was amazed that this woman could make him feel things he’d never felt before, when he’d known…well, quite a few women in his life. Every one had been special to him in her way, but this woman…Brooke…She was his birthday and Christmas, the most wonderful Christmas of his life, with an endless supply of packages, each one to be slowly unwrapped and savored, each one revealing something new and exciting and wonderful. Somehow he knew that with this woman, he’d still be finding new packages to open when they were both ninety.

The realization stunned him and tempered his passion with a tenderness and care he was sure he’d never felt before.

And didn’t want to look at too closely-not then.

He carried her to his room-the spare room-not hers, and wasn’t sure why. Some primitive instinct, maybe, that made him want to bring her into his place-a kind of claiming. And that, too, was something he’d never felt before. And didn’t want to look at closely.

He looked instead into her eyes and lost himself there.

“I hope you don’t think-” she began, and he dipped his head and silenced her with a kiss.

“I don’t,” he whispered. This isn’t a time for thinking, love. If I let myself think-

He couldn’t let himself think.

He wanted her. Wanted her as he’d never wanted a woman before. Wanted her with the finest nerve endings in his skin and the deepest marrow in his bones. But it was a strange kind of wanting, because he wanted not to take something from her, but to give it. He wanted to give her pleasure and joy. He wanted to give her happiness. And hope. He wanted to give her all the good things in the universe, tied up with flowers and ribbons, and watch her face while she opened them. He wondered whether he would be able to give her all those things…and then knew, beyond any doubt, that he was the only one who could.

All that was in his eyes when he looked at her, in his mouth when he kissed her, in his hands when he touched her. It was in the unhurried way he removed her clothes and smiled at her shyness and at her whispered, “Guess I’m not such a brazen hussy after all…”

It was in the way he gave himself over to her so she could undress him at her own pace, even though her explorations-sometimes shy, sometimes brazen-made his muscles knot and his jaw creak with their demands on his self-control.

Her skin tasted to him like ice cream melting in the sun, and smelled of old roses. When she tasted his, it felt like the most exquisite torture and the greatest pleasure he’d ever known.

He groaned-could not help it-and she whispered, “Are you going to have your way with me now?”

“I think-” and he could barely form the words “-you’ve got it backwards. You…are having your way with me.”

She tilted her head, and her expression was poignant, eager and sweet. “May I?”

“Yes, love…oh, yes. Whatever you wish.”

And so she straddled him and gave to him the gifts he’d wanted for her: pleasure and joy and happiness and hope. And he watched her face while she gave to him, and knew he’d never be the same again.

Sometime later, when the earth had righted itself and resumed its normal spin, and she’d become reoriented to her place in it; when they lay together in the tumble they’d made of the double bed, talking in sleepy murmurs of the wonders and coincidences of fate, Brooke remembered.

“You were going to tell me something,” she whispered. “Last night…before I…ruined the moment.” And her ear, pressed against his chest, felt his heartbeat quicken.

“Hmm…can’t remember now. Must not’ve been that important.” His voice was a lazy growl, and his hand never faltered in its silken slide up and down her naked back.

But just the same, she knew he lied.

Chapter 9

“I have to tell her.” Tony stared bleakly into his coffee cup, having refused Holt’s offer to buy him lunch at the diner. It had been hours since the French toast he’d had for breakfast, but it-or guilt-still lay heavy in his stomach. “This changes everything.”

“Yeah, it does.” Holt stabbed at a chunk of the meat loaf special. “You couldn’t have waited until all this was over to sleep with her?”

Anger lanced through Tony, driven, no doubt, by more guilt. “Look,” he snapped, “it’s not like I planned it, okay? Hell, do I look like the kind of guy who’d move in on his best friend’s sister, particularly at a time when she’s in dire straits?”

“I don’t know what kind of guy you are, frankly,” Holt said. “I just met you myself, remember?”

“Yeah, well…I’m not. Trust me.” He shifted and added darkly, “Okay, maybe you shouldn’t. She trusts me, and I’m not exactly being straight with her, am I?” He let out a breath. “That’s why I have to tell her. Now.”

Holt picked up his napkin and wiped his mouth with it, then reached for his wallet. “Hold off on that, if you can. Just a little bit longer. At least until Cory and Sam get here.”

“No kidding-they’re on their way?” Tony picked up the check. Even the coffee had turned sour in his stomach. “Where’d you find Cory? Sam track him down?”

Holt nodded. “He’s been somewhere in Africa-the Sudan, I think. Covering the latest uprising, I guess. Anyway, he just got airlifted out a couple days ago by the ‘independent security contractors’ along with the entire U.S. embassy staff and their families. I talked to him this morning. They should be here tomorrow sometime.” He raised his eyebrows at Tony as he slid out of the booth. “What? I figured that was good news.”

“Brooke told me some things. About…herself. Uh…jeez…” The last word was mostly breath. Holt looked another question at him, and he shook his head. “Personal stuff. About what happened to her when she was a kid, growing up. Her sister, too. The reason she got married so young. The reason her sister ran away from home.” He paused, and even thinking of talking about it left a bitter taste in his mouth. “Hell, Kincaid, do I need to spell it out?”

“Her father?” Holt’s voice was soft and dangerous.

“Brother. He was a good ten years older than the twins. An adult, anyway. And they were just kids when…it happened.”

They left the diner, with Holt muttering under his breath what sounded like swearing and blasphemy.

Tony nodded his agreement with the sentiments. “Anyway, Cory probably needs to know, and I guess I’m gonna have to be the one to tell him.” He paused, then added bleakly, “He already blames himself for what happened to his family-the kids getting split up. This is going to just about kill him.”

Brooke had never been so late with her morning chores. It was nearly noon when she turned the chickens out of their house, and they clucked petulantly at her as they stalked past her and through the door. Several of the hens were already on their nests-sulking, she was sure. She cooed apologies to them while she replenished their feeder with scratch and made a point to clean and fill their water bowls with fresh water. She gave the goats, alpacas and horses a little extra measure of grain, and gave the horses a good brushing before she turned them out to pasture.

She went to say good morning to Lady, but the cougar stayed on her rocky battlement and refused to come close to the fence. “Are you mad at me, too, my Lady girl?”

The cougar’s head was low and her shoulders tensed-her stalking stance-as she stared intently past Brooke, toward the lane and the barn and beyond. A chill went down Brooke’s spine. Clearly, something had upset her.

She thought of the SUV that Rocky and Isabel’s “cousin” had seen driving out of the back road, and the look on Lonnie’s face when he’d said, “This ain’t over.” And she walked back to the house, feeling small and exposed and vulnerable, like a rabbit in an open field, sensing the hawk circling high overhead.

She found Rocky and Isabel just coming down the back porch steps.