Dead End (17 page)

“Don’t!” Her left hand slid behind his neck and she held on to his hair. “Just don’t say things like that, okay?”

Marc smiled at her and moved his face closer to hers. “Okay.” Some joker knew she was on the right track and wanted to shut her up. The second kiss of the night was coming. A second kiss tended to mean there would be more.

Leaning over her, he touched their lips together, keeping it light but making sure the tip of his tongue let her know this kiss didn’t fall in the brotherly classification.

Reb held still, but her mouth responded to his, and he felt her breath shorten. Still no resistance when he opened their mouths wider and got less subtle with his tongue. She seemed to settle down, turn dreamy. The heel of his left hand, settling beneath her breast, earned him light panting. Reb tasted even better than when he’d kissed her at Clouds End. Soft weight on his thumb tightened his belly and he had to stop himself from stroking her nipple.
Not too fast.
Any moment now she’d remember she’d been mad at him for thirteen years and push him away.

Gaston, shoving his curly, bony little head between Marc’s arm and Reb’s chest was more togetherness than any sexy interlude could endure. But Marc kept right on kissing Reb, even when the two of them made a Gaston sandwich and the mangy nuisance took to licking their faces.

“I don’t want to stop,” Marc said, groaning, and settling his face beside Reb’s head on the rest. “I love your dog, but—”

“He’s right. Our timing’s bad. It always was.”

“It’s not going to keep on being bad.”

She pushed hair away from her face. “There isn’t going to be a future for us. Extraordinary circumstances are throwing us together. They’ll pass, and you’ll move on. You need to go home, and I need to sleep. I’ve got early clinic in the morning.”

And he had to go into New Orleans in the morning. Business was waiting. But that didn’t mean he wouldn’t stay up all night if Reb was the one making sure he didn’t get any sleep.

A rumbling sound reminded him of Gaston. The dog’s “grin” glistened, and that was a growl Marc heard.

“Okay, okay, let’s get you settled.” He got out of the vehicle and went around the hood, but Reb was on the sidewalk by the time he reached her side. He was grateful the rain had eased off. “Please let me take you inside. I’ll look around and make sure everything’s shut tight.”

He sensed how much she’d like to refuse, but she walked quickly to the front door instead and let them in.

Within fifteen minutes he’d been all over the house and found nothing unusual—with the exception of the broken catch on the kitchen window. He used a wedge between the upper and lower sashes and felt satisfied it couldn’t be budged from outside.

“Look, Reb. I don’t have anyone waiting for me.” He’d rarely had anyone waiting for him. That had been his decision. “Let me use a spare bedroom just in case.”

They stood inside the door to the old Victorian house where antiseptic scents reached out from Reb’s consulting room. She appeared to be considering his offer.

“I could leave from here in the morning and run into New Orleans. My partner’s complaining that I’m neglecting business. I’ll be back again by the evening.”

Too much time went by before she let out a slow breath and said, “I don’t think that’s a good idea, but thanks for the offer.”

If she’d agreed to have Marc spend the night, regardless of where he slept, by nine in the morning everyone for miles around would believe they were having an affair. Why suffer all the advice that would follow when she hadn’t had a good enough time to deserve it?

Reb giggled while she shot the bolt on the front door and put on the chain. The house was too quiet and too big, but it wouldn’t seem that way once the natural fear had passed. There were reasons to be afraid, but admitting them wouldn’t help.

“Up to bed we go,” she told Gaston, and he bounded ahead of her. By the time she got to her room, he’d be settled on her quilt.

She hadn’t made many changes since her father died. Somehow she found solace in being among his things, the things she’d grown up with. However, worn leather chairs, tufted ottomans, and a lot of brass could use some updating. Book-laden shelves covered so many of the walls, who knew what color they’d ever been. Halfway up the first flight of stairs she paused to look down into her father’s study, her study now. It opened off the hall, and she could almost convince herself she smelled the faint odor of pipe tobacco.

Reb moved on. The only bad thing about having had a wonderful father was that he’d had to die and leave her with a giant gap in her heart.

Going to bed held no appeal. She sat on the stairs.

If Marc were with her…Yes, if he were with her, the night would become that seductively mysterious thing she usually pretended she didn’t need—a time and place for intimacy, for two bodies entwined and reaching for more and more. The air was close, humid; they would grow damp together and bind themselves in twisted sheets.

They would make love, and from what little experience she’d had with Mr. Girard, that would be no insipid kind of loving. He would be heavy, but agile, and he’d know how to please her. Sharp pleasure surprised her now, a reminder of what a clever man like Marc could give her.

She wanted him, had wanted him since she first began to discover the difference between males and females and why those differences could be so good.

Reb stood and went on up the stairs. Marc had wanted to stay, and she had no doubt he’d have ended the night in her bed—if he didn’t start it there. The choice had been hers.

The decision had been the right one.

She tensed the muscles in her belly. It could be time for Dr. O’Brien to stop doing the right things.

A shower made her feel better once it was over. While she’d stood beneath the steaming water and spread soap over her skin, she’d been able to think only of Marc performing that little job for her.

She was becoming a case.

Reb was certain he would have been real efficient with the lotion she liked to smooth on.

A cool cotton nightgown felt wonderful. When she’d combed through her wet hair and left it to air-dry, she applied a dab of perfume, then felt silly because there was no one to smell it but her.

She opened the bathroom door and jumped. A tearing sound reached her and kept on going for several seconds. Thuds, objects hitting a hard surface, followed.

Reb drew back. Locking herself in the bathroom might buy time for her to attract attention from the window. Outside was a sheer drop, and she didn’t kid herself that she wouldn’t do a lot of damage if she jumped.

The noise stopped as abruptly as it had started.

Gaston wasn’t barking. Reb’s heart neared a normal rhythm once more. Her pooch wasn’t the world’s greatest noisemaker, for which she was grateful, but if there was an intruder in the house he’d be raising the alarm.

Opening the bathroom door again took courage, but Reb managed to do it. Nothing appeared to be amiss in the bedroom. Neither was Gaston evident. She frowned and called, “Gaston!” He frequently decided to pop downstairs for a snack at night, and she had no doubt that’s where he was now.

The dress she’d worn was fine and could be used another time before it went to the cleaners. She swept it up and went to the walk-in closet. “Oh no, not that, darn it.” The light was off in there, but she could see clothes piled in a jumbled heap on the floor and garments on hangers hanging at a crazy angle from the rod behind the door. That rod had pulled out once before and was supposed to be fixed for life.

Pushing the closet door wide open, Reb climbed over piles of soft debris and reached for the light pull. One of these days she’d actually get around to having a better, brighter lighting fixture put in. Purses and upended boxes of photographs lay in a tangle. The number of sweaters spread around reminded her of how badly she needed to give things away.

Another creak stopped her. She began to turn around, just in time to see another shelf pulling away from its screws into the wall. That was the high shelf where she kept gifts she bought in advance, boxes, and paper for wrapping. Vases and ornaments she hadn’t had the heart to throw away were also pushed up there. All of it slid toward her, and she threw up her hands to shelter her face and head.

The light went out again. Something barreled into her with enough force to drive her to the ground among her clothes. She felt weight, and smoothness, and she felt mortally sick. A hand that smelled of latex forced her head back and poked fingers into her eyes.

Reb screamed, and she fought. She managed to turn onto her knees.

A rounded, hard thing connected with the side of her head, and she slid forward. The fittings from the wall seemed to break entirely free and cascade over her, and her head was hit again…Reb tasted bile, and the edges of her mind leaked darkness.

“Any particular reason why you were driving around Dr. O’Brien’s block, Mr. Girard?” Spike Devol asked. “Around and around, from what I can gather.” He’d come in response to Marc’s call—placed after he’d made sure no uninvited guests remained in the house.

Reb had refused to see another doctor, or to lie down. She sat in the kitchen with one hand wrapped around the mug of hot tea Marc had made for her and the other holding an ice pack to her head. He had appreciated her in a thin white cotton nightgown, but he’d made sure a wraparound robe was added before the deputy arrived.

“You may not believe in premonitions, Spike; I do. I dropped Reb off, and I couldn’t just drive home and rest easy. I took a couple of turns around the block. Three. And on the third pass the front door was wide open.”

“Dr. O’Brien said she opened the door herself.”

Marc looked at her and had an urge to hit some heads himself. “I know, but don’t ask me how she dragged herself down here to do it.”

“I didn’t completely lose consciousness,” she said. “I was groggy, but I wanted to find Gaston, only Marc found me first.” Her wan face moved him. Every few minutes she called the dog.

“You should be checked over,” Spike Devol said.

“I’ve got a couple of bumps on my head. They’re nothing. I’m more shocked than anything. Please, can this wait while I look for Gaston?”

“If you won’t allow me to take you to emergency, I must advise you to stay where you are,” Spike said. “I’ll call in some help. We’ll find your dog.”

Marc decided he was older than Spike. Maybe not by much, but despite his apparent ease in his job, Spike surely wasn’t comfortable around women. That didn’t have to be anything to do with his age. Could be they just made him nervous. Smart man. He liked Reb, Marc could feel that, but not exactly what “like” meant in this case.

Her eyes filled with tears. “I’ll go search for him,” Marc said hurriedly. Reb never used to be the crying type. “Spike will look after you for me.”

She sniffed, and smiled at him. Spike showed no reaction at all—and that said everything about how much he didn’t want Marc looking good to Reb, or assuming responsibility for her.

Marc didn’t get a chance to ride off on his white horse. One mostly apricot poodle trotted into the kitchen and leaped on his mistress’s lap as if she wouldn’t notice he looked as if he’d rolled in dust bunnies.

If she did notice that dust, it didn’t stop her from hugging the critter until he squealed. “Where have you been, Gaston O’Brien?” she said, kissing his dirty face over and over. “You have scared your mama half to death.”

Marc glanced at Spike, who looked at the floor, but not without a faint smile.

“You’ve been in the attic, you naughty dog,” Reb crooned to the animal. “That door’s supposed to be kept closed.” Gaston turned his wet black nose toward Marc, who could have sworn the dog sneered at him.

“Ever thought you might prefer a dog’s life?” he said to Spike in a neutral tone.

Spike grinned at that and raised one blond eyebrow. “I don’t like to interrupt the reunion,” he said, “but we’ve got to get serious here. From what I gather, you think someone hid in your closet and hit you over the head when you entered.”

“She doesn’t think,” Marc said. “She knows. I went up to the attic, Reb. I didn’t see anything, but I could have left the door open.”

“I hadn’t realized you were with her during the event,” Spike said.

“I wasn’t,” Marc said, and let the sarcasm go.

The deputy pulled out a second chair. He sat beside Reb and set his notebook on the worn maple tabletop. “So, you dropped Dr. O’Brien off and—”

“I’m sick and tired of asking you to call me by my first name,” Reb said. A spot of red appeared on each cheek. “You remember for an hour or so, then go back to treating me like a traffic stop. We’ve known each other as long as you’ve been in Toussaint, and I don’t take it as a mark of respect that you call me doctor. You sound prissy. So
don
’
t
do it again if you want me to speak to you at all. And the same goes for Marc. You know his first name. Darn it, Spike, we aren’t strangers. We…” She closed her mouth and the two red spots spread.

Spike shifted in his chair and his gunbelt creaked. He cleared his throat and said, “No offense meant.”

“None taken,” Marc told him. Reb worried him. She wasn’t herself, and he figured she was even more shaken up than he’d thought.

“I’ll be proud to call you by your given name,” Spike said to Reb, so earnest that Marc felt uncomfortable. “Now, Marc dropped you off and—”

“I didn’t just drop her off. I did say that, but I meant I brought her home. I checked around the house to make sure everything looked okay before I left.”

Spike’s very blue stare nailed Marc. “Why did you think there might be something wrong?”

“I apologize, Spike,” Reb said, as if she’d just come to her senses. “I was rude.”

“You couldn’t be rude,” Spike told her. “You’re having a bad time. I was asking Marc why he checked the house over before he left.”

“Because I told him about the glass in Gaston’s food,” she said.

Explaining the incident gave the deputy a reason to scribble rapidly in his notebook. He wasn’t pleased that he hadn’t been called at the time.