Admit One (29 page)

Tears misted Allie’s eyes.

“I looked at a number of restaurants,” he said as he slipped his arms around her waist from behind. “And while Savannah has any number of excellent dining establishments, I found that I didn’t relish the idea of sharing dinner – this dinner, anyway – with you and a hundred others. I had dinner catered, which means that I took the liberty, again, of ordering for you. I hope you don’t mind.”

“Mind?” Was he insane? “I’m…”
overwhelmed
seemed inadequate. Blown away was more like it.

“While you search for the appropriate adjective,” he kissed the side of her neck, making her shiver “shall I pour us a drink? Non-alcoholic, of course.”

“Mason.” She stopped him by grabbing his hand.

He looked down at her, brows raised in question.

“Moved,” she told him. “I’m deeply moved. I would say that you didn’t need to go to all this trouble, but that would undermine my pleasure in the fact that you did. Thank you.” She stretched up onto her toes and kissed him. “Everything is just lovely.”

His eyes lit with pleasure as he searched her face. “It certainly is.”

He kissed her again, this time with more heat. Her hands slid up his chest, the fine cotton twill of his shirt soft over hard muscles, and one of his hands curved around her butt, bringing her flush against him.

Allie gasped. His chest wasn’t the only thing that was hard.

“Mmm.” Placing both hands on her waist, Mason forcibly set her away from him. His eyes were narrowed, and dark with desire. “If I start kissing you in earnest now, I’m afraid that we’ll miss dinner entirely.”

“I wouldn’t mind,” she heard herself whisper.

Mason closed his eyes. He laughed, though it sounded more like pain than amusement. “While you’re very good for my ego, you’re hell on my self-restraint. Now.” Deliberately, he walked toward the ice bucket. “Can I interest you in a drink? I believe dinner will be served in,” he checked his watch “ten minutes.”

Allie took a deep breath. She was torn between feeling frustrated and feeling flattered.

“That would be great,” she told him.

They chatted about inconsequential things until David, in the role of porter, brought in the salad course.

“Caprese,” she said, delighted. Then she arched a brow at Mason. “Okay, spill. Who’d you consult?”

“Consult? Oh, fine,” he said when he saw that she wasn’t buying it. “If you must know, at the barest hint of a request from me for input, Sarah essentially mugged me with a list of
dos
and
do nots.
Apparently she secretly believes I’m an imbecile, as hapless where you’re concerned as a toddler playing in traffic.”

Allie bit back a smile at the image of Mason being subjected to a crash course in Dating Allie 101.

“You’re laughing at me.”

“No. Maybe a little.” He was adorable when he sniffed like that. So very British. “But just so you know, the fact that you were willing to put up with that is very good for
my
ego.”

He dabbed at the corner of his mouth with the napkin. “I suppose that makes it worth the fact that Sarah said
bless your heart
more than once during our discussion.”

After David cleared their dinner plates, Mason leaned back in his seat, eyeing her over the rim of his glass. Gooseflesh prickled along her arms. He looked… intent.

“I hope you don’t mind that I’ve saved dessert for… later.”

Oh boy.

“Not at all,” Allie said, picturing some very interesting parts of Mason’s body drenched in chocolate.

“Good.” He glanced at his watch again. “We should be arriving soon. Before we do, I wanted to say that I hope tonight has been – and will continue to be – a pleasant distraction. But I don’t want you to think that I’m completely brushing your situation under the rug. Your brother has been keeping me abreast of developments as much as he can, but… how are you faring, Allison? The worst of the physical trauma might be gone, but I know, from having experienced it myself, that the emotional… residue from having been violently attacked takes a good deal longer to go away.”

It could have, maybe should have, changed the tenor of the evening, having the reminder of violence brought into the middle of, as Mason inadequately described it, a pleasant distraction.

But Allie understood that Mason wasn’t just after physical intimacy this evening. He – remarkably enough – wanted emotional intimacy as well. And the fact that he’d been through an experience in several ways similar to her own made him a good sounding board.

“I’m fine. Mostly fine,” she qualified. “I’ve had a few bad moments, more than a few bad dreams. But logically, I know that I’m as safe as I can be for now. The evidence suggests that theft was the motive for… the assault.” Allie swallowed. “And given the car I drove, who my family is, it makes sense that I would be a target.”

That smell though, the smell of decay, damp stone and her own blood seemed like it would stay with her forever.

Mason reached across the table, squeezed her hand. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to distress you.”

“No.” She shook her head. “You didn’t.”

Allie studied their joined hands – his large and long and elegantly masculine, hers almost ridiculously delicate by comparison. But she wasn’t quite as delicate as most people – including herself – had always believed. She’d withstood quite a bit in the past few years, some of it intensely painful. But she
had
withstood it and was a stronger person for having done so.

Allie glanced up. She hadn’t intended to tell Mason about the flowers, what they meant, but she felt that keeping it from him at this point seemed… cowardly.

“You know that I was in the cemetery that afternoon delivering flowers to Eugene Hawbaker’s grave. Flowers that I’d received that morning.”

“From your former fiancé,” Mason said, not hiding his displeasure.

“I thought so, at the time, but now… I’m not so sure.”

“I don’t understand. Wasn’t there a card?”

“There was, but it wasn’t signed. However, it… the message made me think it was from Wesley, because it… hinted at information that, aside from myself, only a couple other people had – Wesley being one of them. The night at Stage Left, the night you punched him?”

“I believe I recall the event.”

Allie smiled at his droll tone, but it faded quickly. “That night, Wesley grabbed me because I caught him off guard. He was… flirting with me, for lack of a better word, talking about the good times we had together, and did I ever think about them.” Allie took a deep breath, forced herself to meet Mason’s patient gaze. “So, I told him sure, I thought about them. And I also told him how I thought about the way he’d all but stood me up at the altar, and how I’d been so devastated, so distraught that I’d gone to Charleston to see Sarah, and that she – not Wesley – was the one who held my hand when I miscarried the baby that I’d been preparing to tell Wesley about at Christmas. I had a onesie with his law school alma mater on it already wrapped.”

Mason didn’t speak for several moments. “I’m only sorry I didn’t break his jaw when I had the opportunity.”

Unbelievably, Allie laughed. “I don’t know why, but that is the best thing you could have said.”

“I’m relieved to hear you say so. Darling.” He took her other hand in his, his eyes full of compassion. Not pity, but compassion. It made the words much easier to hear. “I know how inadequate it is, but I am so terribly sorry. I can’t imagine that sort of loss.”

“I was… a pretty big mess for a while,” she admitted. “It seemed like everything sort of piled on, all at once. But the reason I’m telling you this now is because Wesley came to see me. After I was attacked. He swore he had nothing to do with sending the flowers – which had come accompanied by a little card adorned with a teddy bear and offering congratulations. I thought it was his way of getting back at me for either not telling him originally, or telling him at an inopportune moment and causing a scene.” She shrugged. “But his denial was very convincing.”

“Wait a minute. You’re saying that someone sent you a bouquet, along with the sort of card one would send to a new parent?”

Allie swallowed, then nodded.

“That’s… bloody diabolical. What sort of depraved arsehole would… are you
certain
it wasn’t Norbert?”

The outrage so clearly stamped on his face made her feel a shade better. “Not certain, no. But after thinking it over, I don’t know what he would have stood to gain by doing it, and gain is Wesley’s chief motivator. He basically doesn’t act unless he thinks it will benefit him in some way. I probably should have considered that before I leaped to conclusions.”

“But… who else would stand to gain by torturing you emotionally?”

“I don’t know.” And it was that thought, more than her assault, the fact that her property had been stolen, that kept waking her in the middle of the night. Being the victim of a violent theft was bad enough, but at least it didn’t seem so personal.
This,
however, was personal. Extremely so. “Will ran a search of the credit card that was used for the purchase,” she told him “and found that it had been stolen. The account owner was an elderly woman who hadn’t missed it yet.”

“Which still doesn’t help you determine who, or why. You’re certain no one else knows about your miscarriage?”

Allie shook her head. “Sarah wouldn’t have breathed a word. Will didn’t know until I told him, and I haven’t said anything to anyone else. Not even Bran, or Josie. I was in Charleston when it happened. The hospital staff whom I came into contact with knew, of course, but I can’t imagine any of them having either really twisted senses of humor or a personal vendetta against me.”

Mason’s lips pressed into a tight line. “Does Will believe that this is simply a coincidence? The emotional and physical attacks occurring almost simultaneously?”

“Will tends to keep his own counsel,” she said. “But from what he’s said, there’s no evidence to link the two things yet.”

“I’m not an officer of the law, but it strikes me as rather… implausible.”

It had struck Allie that way, too. “If there is a connection, Will will find it. He’s not one to leave a stone unturned, especially when it comes to his family.”

“I don’t like this,” Mason said.

“Nor do I. Believe me.” Allie pressed her fingers to her temple. She was developing a slight headache.

“I’m sorry,” Mason said, immediately contrite. “Apparently I
am
an imbecile, bringing this up this evening.”

“No,” Allie assured him. “This has been wonderful.
You
have been wonderful. And I’m glad that you asked. I think it’s just… have the waves gotten rougher in the past several minutes?” she asked, glancing around.

Just then, David came into the cabin wearing a bright yellow rain slicker. “We’ll be docking soon,” he said, dripping water on the floor. “But the Captain wanted me to tell you that the storm they were predicting blew in a lot sooner than expected, so be prepared to get wet.”

WILL
trudged through the rain which had just begun to come down along River Street, turning the otherwise pleasant early evening into the kind of swampy heat that presaged the coming of summer. People huddled under canopies or darted across the cobblestones – a treacherous proposition when wet. The forecast hadn’t called for rain until the overnight hours, so it had caught folks unaware.

He glanced up at the sign on the storefront just to make sure he had the right spot, since it was a while since he’d been to Savannah and he hadn’t exactly been interested in hunting antiques the last time he’d been here. More like whisky and women.
Pinch of the Past
was spelled out in gold letters, with
Tobias Abernathy, Proprietor
printed underneath. The most knowledgeable Civil War era antiques and antiquities dealer in the Coastal Empire, or so he’d been informed by Victoria’s assistant.

Will, having lived most of his life with more antiques than he could shake a stick at, had never had cause to pay a visit.

Until now.

Shaking off his umbrella – Will liked to be prepared for every contingency, and therefore kept two of them in his car – he leaned it near one of the Chippendale benches positioned on either side of the heavy mahogany doors. Gaslight flickered from a lantern over the entrance, warding off the premature gloom. Wiping his shoes on the mat, he carefully stepped inside.

And was thrown back into childhood.

More so than Victoria’s store, this place immediately made him uneasy. The somehow intimidating pieces of ornate furniture, the fragile fabrics not designed for kids. The small, delicate goo-gas that sat around collecting dust and cost more than most people made in a month. The air of timelessness, the weight of formality. The chill of parental disapproval.

His palms started sweating before he caught himself. This was not his mother’s parlor, and he was a fully grown man. He’d overcome this… aversion in his own home, so it was silly for him to feel out of place here.

Still, he kept a safe distance from anything breakable as he made his way toward the desk in the back.