The Virgin and the Vengeful Groom Page 8

  During the day when she was outside, wandering around the graveyard or poking around the sound side, he used the time to organize files, reshuffle a few investments and dig into a few more of old Matthew’s logbooks. Whatever else he was, the man had been no great hand at keeping records. Manifests, weather observations, personnel matters and standard log entries were all set down together in a bold hand in no particular order.

  They shared the front porch whenever there was a breeze off the ocean. Now and then he would read a passage aloud. Or she would. It didn’t mean anything—the sharing. They were both reading about the same people, the same era, after all. Still, it was…pleasant. Which was surprising when he thought about it, so mostly he didn’t.

  Nights were another matter. Tapering off his medications, he’d been cutting the dosage every third day. Which meant he had even more trouble than usual sleeping, only now he didn’t feel quite as free to prowl. Not that she did anything overtly to disturb him. Still, knowing there was a woman in bed only a few feet away was hardly conducive to sound sleep. He told himself it wasn’t Lily in particular. Under the circumstances, any woman would have had the same effect. A man had certain basic needs, and he’d gone without sex for too long.

  The thing was he was beginning to suspect his problem might be a little more complex than a simple need for sexual release. Which was why he reminded himself several times a day that this was strictly business. Strictly a temporary alliance. He cut short the shared reading, tried to keep conversation to a minimum, avoided touching—hell, he even avoided looking whenever he could.

  What he hadn’t quite mastered was the ability to switch off his brain on command.

  What was it they said about the brain? That it was man’s largest erogenous zone? The world’s greatest aphrodisiac?

  Oh, yeah. That he could vouch for.

  They’d started out with a plan. That first day, as tired as they’d both been, they had opened all six boxes and made preliminary plans to inventory the contents. The second day Curt had started with the logbooks and miscellaneous loose papers. Each succeeding day had gone more or less the same, with Lily exploring the house and grounds, then settling down with either a diary or one of the travel columns.

  Curt waited until she settled and then chose his own spot. If she stayed inside, he went out. If she sat out on the front porch, he kicked back in his living room lounger with a pillow for lumbar support. But then, sooner or later their paths would cross. She would pour iced tea and join him wherever he happened to be. If she’d started chattering, he’d have walked away, but she never did. She spoke now and then in that soft, slightly husky voice of hers with the unidentifiable accent, but mostly she said nothing.

  Restful woman.

  Restful in some ways, he amended. Damned unsettling in others.

  “What do you hope to discover in all those old logbooks?” she asked when they met in the kitchen to put together a couple of sandwiches on the fifth day.

  “Whatever’s there. Maybe what happened to the Black Swan. Mustard or mayo?”

  “Mustard, please. I can’t get over Bess. She’s really fascinating. I’m pretty sure she was less than truthful at times, but then, a woman uses whatever weapons she has.” Barefoot, dressed in baggy white pants and a man’s blue cotton shirt, she reached past him to add another layer of banana peppers to her sandwich, took a big bite and groaned with pleasure. He’d noticed that about her, too. There was nothing delicate about her appetite. Which made him wonder whether or not…

  The hell it did.

  “Actually, from the travel articles, I get a feeling she seldom told the truth when a lie would suffice.”

  Curt had read a few of the travel pieces, too. The Central American ones, in particular. Unless the region had changed one hell of a lot in the past hundred years or so—not out of the question, by any means—then damn right, she lied. And while he wouldn’t come right out and say so, he went so far as to ask, “Have you seen any boa constrictors or wildcats around here? According to the piece she did about Powers Point, they’re as common as green flies.”

  Lily nearly choked. Curt whacked her between the shoulder blades “You’re kidding. Real wildcats?”

  “Read it yourself.”

  “Jeeze Louise,” she murmured reverently, and he had to grin at the lady wordsmith’s ability to express herself.

  There was only room for two ice trays in the antique refrigerator. Lily emptied one in her jar of iced tea, refilled it and carefully replaced it. The compressor came on with a whining protest. Thing should’ve been retired fifty years ago.

  Popping the cap on his beer, Curt added a new refrigerator to his mental shopping list. When he was ready to move on, any improvements would only jack up the resale value. Meanwhile, it wouldn’t hurt to add a few creature comforts.

  But not until Lily left. He didn’t want to make her any more comfortable than she already was. Still, he had to admit she handled roughing it pretty well. For a woman. If she didn’t like the setup, she kept it to herself, to the point where he actually went out of his way to provoke her at least once a day. He got a kick out of the cracks in her ladylike facade—the contrast between that polite little voice and the don’t-tread-on-me attitude she had raised to the level of a fine art. The more he came to know her, the more convinced he was that something about her didn’t add up. If there was one thing his years of training had taught him, it was that appearances could be—and usually were—deceiving.

  She had tried to get away with something that belonged to him, he reminded himself. That was just one of the things that bugged him. The fact that while he had a moral claim she had a legal claim only muddied the waters. And then there was this business with Bess. Whose relative was she, anyway?

  It wasn’t even as if he cared about the damn papers that much—at least he hadn’t started out caring. But the more he read, the more he was beginning to understand why he hadn’t been satisfied to stay in Oklahoma for the rest of his life and grow corn.

  Lily’s obsession was a little harder to figure. She claimed some kind of kinship with Bess, on account of they were both women and both writers. But then, unless he was mistaken, there had been any number of successful female writers through the ages. Why Bess in particular? Lily admitted that she’d never heard of the woman before, much less any of her novels.

  The Virgin and the Vengeful Groom by E. Powers?

  Give me a break.

  They were sitting out on the porch, sharing a slight breeze and the last of their sandwiches. Lily, idly pushing her rocking chair with one foot, was frowning down at one of the older diaries. “Hmm,” she murmured. Held the book up to the light and frowned at it some more.

  “Found something interesting?” There happened to be a speck of mustard at the corner of her mouth that he found a lot more interesting than the chart he’d been trying to decipher.

  “I’m not sure. Her handwriting was never great, but in these earlier diaries, it was truly execrable. I wonder what her mama did about schooling.”

  “Execrable. Does that mean what I think it does?”

  Lily glanced up, captured by his remarkable eyes. They were an unusual shade of dark-blue, hard to read even for someone who was good at it. At the moment they held a definite twinkle. So far she had never heard him laugh and had only seen his smile once or twice. He even teased with a straight face. It was a disarming trait.

  “Probably. As euphemisms go, it’s pretty expressive,” she said dryly.

  “Means not so good, huh?”

  “You got it.” She grinned, then stretched, yawned and begged his pardon. They’d both been up since shortly after daybreak, finding it easier to do as much as possible before the heat and humidity grew too oppressive. The late-afternoon breeze was a bonus, but even the breeze was hot, damp and enervating. “Take this word right here…” Leaning over, she pointed out a short series of loops and swoops. “Do you have any idea what it could be? Is this an R or an N?”

&nb
sp; “Looks like an R…that first one’s a C.”

  “Hmm. Then it must be crow, not wren.” Her arm brushed against his, and she held her breath. She was going to have to do a better job of keeping her distance. Not easy to do when her insides were so unsettled. At first she’d thought it was the water. Now she was beginning to suspect it was the man. She’d been having some wild dreams lately, waking up with all sorts of vague longings.

  Oh, it was the man, all right. She wasn’t all that stupid. She might lack experience, but she certainly didn’t lack knowledge. When he went on to say, “Crow’s nest, to be more precise,” she actually shivered. Well, damn. Even his voice brought on a physical reaction.

  A little breathlessly she said, “I’m pretty sure she was no older than, say…twelve when she wrote this. Which means she was still living aboard her father’s ship. You’re telling me some bird built a nest on a ship?”

  “The crow’s nest is a lookout platform, usually at the top of the highest mast.”

  “Oh.”

  While Lily stared down at the book in his hands, Curt stared at the top of her head. The sun brought out reddish glints in her dark hair, loosed the faint scent of wildflowers he’d noticed before. She had two distinct cowlicks. Even more than the rich color, the silken texture and the enticing scent, that small imperfection slipped under his guard.

  Quickly looking away, he cleared his throat. “Pretty common term. I’m surprised a famous writer like you wouldn’t have recognized it.”

  “Yes, well, this famous writer still has a few king-size gaps in her education.”

  “Don’t we all,” he murmured, surprised and oddly touched that she would admit it. While she wasn’t quite as arrogant as he’d first thought, she had more defenses than he would have expected in a successful novelist. “Wanna know my big weakness?” Other than dual cowlicks, that was. “Spelling. No logic to it.”

  “Sure there is, didn’t you ever hear of phonics?”

  “Yeah, and I keep wanting to know why it’s not spelled the way it’s pronounced.”

  She laughed aloud. He grinned, surprising himself. Probably surprising her even more, from the look on her face. She murmured something about dictionaries and computer spell-checks and went back to wrestling with cramped penmanship, faded ink and archaic wording, and the moment passed.

  Unfortunately, his growing fascination didn’t. Nor was it likely to unless something happened to relieve the increasing tension. Living with Lily, even on a temporary basis, was turning out to be a major complication in the life he’d been determined to simplify.

  You’ve simplified it, all right, man. Simplified it beyond all comprehension.

  They made it through the first five days by tiptoeing carefully past land mines. Curt made a point of not inquiring about her past, her love life or anything of a more personal nature than whether she liked her eggs fried crisp, sunny-side up or mangled.

  Lily deliberately refrained from asking about his scars, his sparsely furnished house and why he disliked being shut in as much as she did. Why, instead of buying a window unit and cooling at least one room, he kept all the windows wide open day and night, when it was even hotter outside than it was inside. It hadn’t rained since she’d been there, but she had a feeling those windows would stay open, rain or shine.

  Not that a little water could do much damage. It was a bare-bones kind of house. She rather liked it. Having experienced every type of domicile from a packing crate in an alley to a rat-infested slum—several of those, in fact—to any number of luxury hotels when she was on tour, she wasn’t at all critical. And while she loved her own apartment—her homemade home, as she thought of it—Curt’s house had a certain basic appeal. One of the earliest lessons she could remember learning was that what you don’t have, you can’t lose.

  Evidently, she wasn’t the only one who felt that way.

  Lily never pried, but she had always been observant. It was a useful trait, vital when it came to knowing in advance which way to jump when trouble was headed your way. As a writer, the trait was invaluable. She studied people, tried to work out their motivations, the carrots and sticks that enticed or threatened. It hadn’t taken her long to notice that Curt went out of his way to avoid small enclosures and crowds—anyplace where he might find himself cornered. She’d seen that same watchfulness in the eyes of smart cops and smart crooks.

  He could be a cop, but she didn’t think so. A smart crook would have probably found a more comfortable hideout. One with air-conditioning, at the very least.

  The trouble was that she had stopped thinking of him as grist for her writer’s mill and started reacting to him as a devastatingly sexy man with a droll sense of humor and far too many shadows behind his lapis-colored eyes. That just might be a problem if she let it become one.

  So she wouldn’t. She simply wouldn’t. Lily the writer might wonder whether or not he was seriously involved with a woman. Lily the woman simply closed that particular door in her mind.

  Lily the writer might wonder about his mysterious past. She loved mysterious pasts. She could dream one up at the drop of a hat for any stranger who happened to catch her eye, and Curt Powers positively radiated mystery. Mystery number one being all those scars he made no effort to hide.

  Oh, yes, Lily the writer was an expert at reading people. She had learned in a hard school, graduating magna cum whatever. It was Lily the woman who was in trouble. The deeper she delved, the more attracted she was, and she didn’t even know what made him tick. She did know that while he might think all his old wounds had healed over, he still had some inner healing to do. She’d seen children who’d been severely beaten, their fragile bones snapped like twigs. Even when the physical injuries healed, the internal scars remained. After all these years she still had scars of her own.

  Curt Powers had a few secrets to go along with those scars of his. She would bet her last dollar on that.

  “You mentioned a deadline,” Curt reminded her on the morning of day six. The sun had barely risen over the dunes. Just back from his morning swim, he’d encountered her on the front porch, egg sandwich in hand, taking advantage of a warm, sluggish breeze.

  “I mailed back my contract yesterday. Technically I don’t have to start my next book until it’s countersigned and returned.”

  “You’re the one who mentioned a deadline. If you need to get back, don’t let me stop you.” He felt compelled to needle her for no real reason other than the oppressive heat. That and the fact that she was beginning to seriously get under his skin in a way that was damned hard to hide. Especially in swim trunks.

  “Look, if you want me to leave, just say so. No, you don’t even have to do that. Just help me carry those damned boxes out to my car, and I’ll get out of your way!”

  It was the heat, he told himself. It was getting to her, too. That and the sexual tension that was never far from the surface. Swearing softly, he raked his fingers through his damp hair. “Sorry. Just trying to make polite conversation.”

  “Buy an instruction book,” she snapped.

  “Or quit trying.” His rueful smile was a tacit surrender. Point to you, madam.

  After the first day, he had gone back to his routine of rising early, working out before the sun got too hot—not that there was much of a differential here on the Outer Banks where the temperature was influenced more by the surrounding waters than by the sun. Then, after he tortured his muscles as much as he dared, he would head for the beach, hit the surf and swim until he could barely drag himself back home.

  Next came a shower—first hot, then cold. Then he would dress and get back to those yellowed, crumbling, mostly boring old papers, working wherever she wasn’t, trying to focus his mind on exploring his roots instead of exploring what he’d like to be exploring. Namely the woman Lily O’Malley.

  Having survived all these years without roots—at least without knowing about his own—he was somewhat surprised to find himself increasingly determined to learn more about the an
cestor who had sailed the high seas in an age when nuclear subs were considered science fiction.

  When the entire twenty-first century had been science fiction.

  If there was a clue in one of those boxes as to the final resting place of the old man’s ship, it was either written in code or buried in one of Bess’s mawkish novels. He didn’t even know why it mattered, but then, he’d always been a sucker for a challenge. It was one of the reasons he’d joined the SEALS.

  “Sorry,” Lily said quietly. “I’m so hot I can’t even breathe. Could we please start over?”

  Standing there in his trunks, with a wet towel draped strategically around his hips, he was tempted to tell her what he’d like to start. Instead, he said, “Sure.”

  “Nice swim?” She forked a finger between the pages of the diary she’d been reading and tried to look as if she cared.

  “Not particularly. Water’s too warm.” It came out as a snarl, so he stretched his lips into a smile that was about as convincing as the towel around his waist.

  She’d piled her hair up on top of her head. It was beginning to slide down, tendrils sticking to her damp face and that shallow valley at the back of her neck that was more tempting than the cleavage on any other woman.

  Stand down, sailor! He was beginning to breathe hard again. Twenty minutes of body surfing, a jog across a quarter mile of soft sand and his pulse rate hadn’t even shifted into second gear. One look at the woman daintily blotting egg yolk from her mouth and he was all messed up again. Could perpetual horniness be a side effect of cutting his medication too fast?

  “By the way, did you know you have mice?” she asked.

  “So?”

  “I just thought I’d mention it, in case you were tempted to leave food out. Mice like paper, too—at least they like to nest in it.”

  He was tempted, all right, but it had nothing to do with food or mice or paper. He continued to watch for a minute, towering over her while the salt slowly dried on his skin. She went back to her reading—didn’t even glance up.