Blood And Bone (3 page)

“Does this work?” she asked.

Des nodded. “Power’s off. The fuse box is in the bedroom. I’ll flip the switch before I go.”

Shayne closed the fridge and noticed the back door next to it. She pulled back the filmy scrap of material used as a curtain and peeked out the window. Overgrown lawn stretched out to the river.

“It was a fishing cabin,” Des said, suddenly standing next to her. She jumped and took a step back. He’d removed his sunglasses and in the dim light his eyes were dark pewter. Like his father’s. They stood out from the defined angles of his face as his gaze moved over her, measuring her.

She tucked her hair behind her ear and swallowed hard. “When’s the last time anyone stayed here?”

“Had a couple of fishermen rent the place last spring. The owner’s been trying to sell it since her husband died last year. She rents it out when she can in the meantime.”

“Not a big market for fishing cabins?” Standing so close to her, his scent, clean and indefinably male, teased her senses.

“She has it priced too high and won’t budge.”

Shayne smiled and tilted her head slightly. “Should you be telling me?”

He shrugged. “Were you interested in buying the place?”

“Not even a little a bit.”

“Doesn’t matter then. The bedroom and bathroom are this way.”

He started down the stairs. She followed, letting her gaze travel the length of him. He wasn’t at all what she’d expected. From the ridiculous shirt, to the worn blue jeans—which, after a lingering look at his butt, she had to admit he wore well—to the beat-up leather flip-flops on his bare feet, he wasn’t like any real estate agent she’d known.

She hadn’t necessarily expected him to wear a suit in eighty-five-degree heat, first thing on a Saturday morning. Maybe casual pants and a golf shirt, though. She’d also expected Desmond Anderson to be clean cut and well-groomed. A sort of male version of a Barbie doll. He’d been raised with the Grey family fortune at his disposal, after all.

“You don’t look much like a real estate agent.”

He glanced back over his shoulder. “I do, however, look like a car thief.”

Shayne fought uselessly against the heat creeping into her face. “I’m from the city. Everybody looks like a car thief.”

He chuckled, dimples grooving the flesh on either side of his mouth, then turned away. She’d never liked dimples on men before. She’d always found them too boyish, but on Des they looked pretty damn good.

He led her to the first of two rooms off the living area. A sagging double bed with a ratty mattress cover and a chipped wood dresser was all that made up the suite. As she stepped inside, she caught sight of herself in the tarnished mirror. The warped glass turned her reflection wide and skinny like a fun-house mirror.

“You’ll need bedding,” Des said. “If you didn’t think to bring any, there’s a store in town.”

And she’d probably end up paying an arm and a leg. She wished he’d mentioned that yesterday and she would have brought her own.

“Is there a TV?”

Des nodded and turned back to the sitting room. He yanked off one of the sheets like a magician performing a particularly complicated trick. “Ta-da. Did you want to see the bathroom?”

“Sure,” she said, hardly listening as she mentally recalculated her budget.

He opened the door next to the bedroom to a small bathroom, equipped with pedestal sink, toilet and claw-foot bathtub.

“Great tub.” She pushed past him into the room and ran her fingers over the cool enamel. “I may buy this place after all.”

“In that case, I think you’ll find the price extremely fair.”

That smoky gaze stayed on her face, boring into her as though he was trying to read her mind. What was he looking for? A warm tingle spread over her skin, and she looked away, feigning interest in the chrome faucets.

What the hell was wrong with her? Had it been so long since she’d dealt with a man outside of a divorce or a murder trial that some hick real estate agent could make her feel like a teenaged wallflower?

Pull it together
. She knew from her research he was only twenty-eight. She had seven years on him, for Christ’s sake.

“There’s some paperwork I need you to fill out,” he told her.

When she lifted her gaze, his smirk had been replaced with a smug grin.

Fantastic.

“Where do I sign?”

Des went out to his car to collect the rental contract while Shayne waited for him in the sitting room, fighting the urge to pace. She’d have to give him her first name. How would he react? Maybe he wouldn’t make the connection at all.

“It’s pretty straightforward,” Des said as he strolled inside.

She faced him, her heart beating double-time, her mouth dry. She had to clear her throat before she could speak. “Is it a lease?”

He shook his head. “A weekly rental. You can stay as long as you need to, provided you pay the rent, but you’ll have to give a week’s notice before you leave. I need the first two-weeks’ rent today and a damage deposit. You have to fill in the top portion of the contract and initial here.”

She reached into her purse for her checkbook. “Is there somewhere we can sit?”

Des pulled a sheet off a round colonial dining table, its scarred surface in need of refinishing. She set her checkbook face down on the table and accepted the contract from him. As she filled out her personal information, he wandered to the window.

Thank God.

After she’d completed the paperwork, she wrote out the checks. Des turned from the window and moved back to the table. Cool sweat dotted her skin when he lifted the contract. As he read, he shook his head slowly. She returned her attention to the check, pretending not to notice.

“I can’t believe you actually went through with it,” he said, a mix of incredulity and disgust lacing his voice.

Frowning, she scribbled her signature on the last check. “I’m sorry?”

“I can’t believe you actually rented a house to get to me.”

Her knotted stomach dropped to her shoes. He knew who she was, probably had all along. She slid the checks across the table and met his hard stare.

“It’s not like that.” She tried not to cringe under his furious glare. “I needed a place to stay, and I didn’t know you worked there.”

“It didn’t occur to you, when you called Grey Family Realty, you might end up speaking to a member of the Grey family?” His grip on the contract tightened as if he was about to tear it up. Instead, he tossed it back on the table, badly creased but still in one piece.

“I didn’t know it was your family’s business until the receptionist answered the phone. The woman at the Pinecone gave me the number for a realtor, but didn’t tell me the name of the company.”

“What a load of crap.” He snatched up the contract and the checks. “I knew that line about the festival was bullshit.”

“No, really—”

“Well, I hope you did need the house, because if you thought using it as an excuse to get to me would work, it didn’t.” He strode toward the door, but Shayne ducked in front of him, blocking his path.

“Look, whatever misconceptions there were, couldn’t we start again?”

“You can do whatever you want.” He stepped around her and continued to the door. “Stay away from me. Stay away from my family.”

He stormed out, the screen door banging shut behind him. A moment later the station wagon coughed to life.

“Well, that could have gone better.” She moved to the front window in time to catch a glimpse of red taillights before they disappeared into the trees. The clanging of his car rattled in her ears long after he had driven out of sight.

Des yanked open the door to the realty office, Shayne Reynolds’s rental file still gripped in his free hand. He would have loved nothing more than to tear the contract into pieces and tell her to go to hell, but financial debt didn’t leave a whole lot of room for pride. The commission on this deal wouldn’t be much, but every little bit helped.

Heather, the receptionist, turned a beaming smile on him as he approached her desk. Her expression dissolved the moment her eyes met his. She dropped her gaze to her open appointment book and pretended he wasn’t there.

Good. He just wanted to process the paperwork and go home. Shove all thoughts of Shayne Reynolds out of his head. She hadn’t been what he was expecting. She was younger and a hell of a lot better looking, for one, and he liked her dry humor in spite of himself. For a second there, while he’d been showing her the house, he could have almost forgotten who she was, and why she was there. When she’d blushed in the bathroom, he could’ve almost believed she was interested in him. Maybe even enough to provide him with a pleasant diversion while he was stuck in this crap town.

Oh, she was interested in him, all right. Interested in digging into his past and profiting from his mother’s and brother’s murders.

He shoved open his office door and stopped in his tracks. “What are you doing here?”

“God, Des, you look pissed.” Kate leaned back in the chair behind his desk.

Just when he didn’t think things could get any worse. He glanced at his watch. Not quite eleven. Still plenty of hours left in the day for it to continue its lightning-fast descent downhill.

“I am,” he growled. “So get out.”

His cousin smoothed her blonde hair pulled into a tight knot at the back of her head, then crossed her arms over her chest. “Are you still mad at me about Julia?”

The mere mention of his sister’s name gave his insides a good twist. “Yes, but right now I have other things to be mad about. Get out of my chair.”

“Fine.” She pushed against the edge of his desk and the chair rolled back on chrome casters. “What else has you so angry?”

She stood and left his chair. He sat, dropping Shayne’s file on top of the pile of new listings in his in-box. He considered flipping through them, but what was the hurry? Ian always kept the best ones for himself. “Why do you want to know? So you can run back to Heddi? Is she expecting a report?”

His grandmother was ill and no longer had the strength to torment her family in person. Now, she sent Kate to do her bidding instead.

“Maybe.” Kate settled into the chair opposite his desk. “Could your mood have anything to do with your renting to that writer?”

For a moment, he could only gape. “How could you possibly know about that?”

“You should know by now, nothing gets past Heddi.”

He snorted. “Especially when she has so many people who can’t wait to keep her informed.”

Kate’s green eyes narrowed. “I take it that’s a dig at me. Julia stole more than a quarter million dollars. Did you honestly expect me to cover that up?”

“No, but while she was working for you, I expected you to keep an eye on her. Make sure she stayed out of trouble. You know what she’s like.”

“Yes, I do. And as long as she has you to clean up her messes, she’s going to keep making them.”

“What should I have done?” Des snapped. “Let Heddi charge her? Send her to jail? She has problems.” That was putting it mildly. Julia was a wreck, but when an eight-year-old child watches her mother’s murder, then spends the rest of her life being raised by a woman like Heddi, what could anyone expect?

“And she knows how to use them. She’s partying with her accomplice somewhere in the Caribbean, and you’re stuck here, working two jobs to pay the money back.”

He gritted his teeth. “If this is what you wanted to talk about…”

“It’s not.” Kate’s features softened and she asked almost hesitantly, “Have you heard from Julia? Is she okay?”

“I haven’t talked to her since the night she took off.” She’d been giddy and apologetic, rambling and evasive, all at once. He’d known something was up. When Kate arrived at his door the next day, he hadn’t even been surprised. “But where Julia’s concerned, no news is good news.”

Kate nodded, then leaned forward. “What were you doing with this Reynolds woman?”

Des shrugged. “She needed a place to rent, I found her one.”

“How could you have done business with her?”

“A commission’s a commission. What do I care where it comes from?” Besides, it served her right. Now, she was stuck with that dump, while her rent went to paying his way free. He liked the irony.

“Did you tell her anything?”

He rolled his eyes. “I was two when they died, what could I tell her?”

“You must have said something to her.” The sharp impatience in Kate’s tone scraped his last nerve raw.

“Only enough to get the contract signed.” He leaned back and laced his fingers behind his head.

She pursed her lips and tapped one pink nail against the chrome armrest. “I see, and what does my father have to say about this?”

“I doubt he even knows. Ian isn’t as well-informed as you and Heddi.”

“I’m not surprised. Where is he? I need to speak to him.”

“I haven’t seen him today.”

“Of course you haven’t. Honest to God, I don’t know how this place stays in business. I’ve never seen a workplace so disorganized.”

Why won’t you go away?
“We do all right.”

“You could do better. Look at the way you’re dressed. And when’s the last time you had a haircut?”

He sat up, dropped his hands down and gripped the arms of his chair. “Kate, I’m about ten seconds away from physically removing you from my office.”

She continued as if he hadn’t spoken at all. “How does anything get done when no one knows where the manager is? Though we can all guess, can’t we? He’s probably off with one of his
women
.”

“He’s not all bad. He helped me get my real estate license and gave me a job here. Not everyone would have done that.” The theory being Des could make more than he could designing web pages and pay back faster the money Julia had stolen. An excellent plan except Des was a terrible real estate agent, probably because he hated every waking moment of it.

“Don’t kid yourself.” Kate’s voice was thick with derision. “He helped you because it helps him. With you working here, he has more free time to bang whichever bimbo he’s got on the side.”

“Don’t hold back, Kate. Tell me what you really think.”

She glared at him for a long moment, then stood. “Look, do yourself a favor. Stay away from that writer. Talking to her makes Heddi uneasy.”