Face the Fire (10 page)

“What I need isn’t yet clear.”

He lifted a hand, grazing a knuckle over the line of her jaw. An old gesture. “And what you want?”

“Wanting you sexually isn’t life and death, Sam. It’s scratching a vague itch.”

“Vague?” Amusement brightened his face as his hand slid around to cup the back of her neck.

“Vague,” she repeated and let his mouth come to hers, let it rub teasingly. And entice. “Slight.”

“I was thinking more . . .” He danced the fingers of his free hand up and down her spine. “Constant. Chronic.” Nibbling on her, he eased her closer.

She kept her gaze on him, her arms at her sides. “Desire’s only a hunger.”

“You’re right. Let’s eat.”

He ravished her mouth, shifting so swiftly from gentle warmth to raging heat that she had no choice but to plunge with him.

Her hands gripped his hips, squeezed, then ran roughly up his back to hook like talons over his shoulders. If he would push her to the brink, she thought, she would push him harder—and further.

She let her head fall back, not a gesture of surrender but one of demand.
Take more, if you dare.
When he dared, she purred in pleasure.

Her scent seemed to pour over him, into him, until his belly ached and his head spun. In one desperate move he
dragged her closer and prepared to fall with her onto the couch.

The front door opened. The cheerful jingle of bells might as well have been sirens.

“Go rent a damn room,” Lulu snapped and let the door slam behind her. It gave her dark satisfaction to watch the two of them spring apart. “Or at least crawl into the backseat of a car if you’re going to act like a couple of horny teenagers.” She slapped her enormous purse on the counter. “Me, I’ve got a business to run around here.”

“Good point.” Sam slipped an arm possessively around Mia’s waist. “We’ll just take a walk across the street.”

It was another old gesture, Mia remembered. Once she would have hooked her arm around him in turn and leaned her head against his shoulder. Now, she simply stepped away.

“That’s a charming offer, really, but I’ll just take a rain check. The business that Lulu so helpfully pointed out needs to be run is mine. And we’re opening in . . . less than an hour,” she said after a glance at her watch.

“Then we’ll make it fast.”

“Another delightful offer. Isn’t that sweet, Lu? It’s not every day a woman gets an invitation for a quick roll before operating hours.”

“Adorable,” Lulu said sourly. She felt sour—and preferred blaming it on Sam rather than on not being able to sleep well since her Saturday-night hallucination.

“But be that as it may . . .” Mia patted Sam’s cheek absently, then started to turn away.

He took her chin in a firm grip. “You’re playing me,” he said softly. “You want to make this a game, then I should warn you. I don’t always play by the rules now.”

“Neither do I.” She heard the back door open, close. “Ah, there’s Nell. You’ll have to excuse me, Sam. I have work. As I’m sure you do.”

She nudged his hand away, then walked over to meet Nell as she came in. “I’ll take that up.” Mia scooped the first box of baked goods out of Nell’s arms. “Smells fabulous.” She sailed up the stairs with the scent of cinnamon rolls floating behind her.

“Um.” Nell cleared her throat. Walking into the tension had been like walking into a wall. “Hello, Sam.”

“Nell.”

“Well, I’ve got . . . more,” she managed, then escaped out the back again.

“In case you haven’t noticed,” Lulu said, “we’re not open for business. So get.”

He could still taste Mia. With his mood hot and ripe for trouble, he walked to the counter and leaned over close to Lulu’s scowl. “I don’t give a damn if you approve or disapprove. You won’t keep me away from her.”

“You did a good job of that yourself these past years.”

“Now I’m back, and we’re all just going to have to deal with it.” He strode to the door, yanked it open. “If you want to play guard dog, there’s something a hell of a lot more dangerous than me you should be snapping at.”

Lulu watched him stalk across the street. She wasn’t sure there was anything more dangerous to Mia than Sam Logan.

No family.
The wine-and-junk-food-induced hallucination had been wrong about that, she thought. She had family. She had a child. Lulu glanced up the stairs where Mia had gone.

She had a child, she thought again.

He canceled his first meeting. A man had priorities.
He drove up the coast road. Through sheer will he held his temper and his speed in check.

But he could do nothing about the shock and horror that careened through him when he saw the skid marks. Inches, he thought as he got out of his car on rubbery legs, just inches more and she’d have been into the guardrail. The right speed, the right angles, and her little car would have toppled right over it and down the unforgiving face of the cliff.

He followed the pattern, scanning the road, scenting the air for anything that lingered. He knew she liked to drive fast, but she’d never been reckless. To go into a spin such as the one indicated by the tire marks smeared over the pavement, she’d have had to be doing ninety.

Unless she’d had help.

Cold fingers ran over his spine because he was certain now that was what had happened. Something had shoved that spin along, pushing her toward the edge.

If she hadn’t been strong enough, smart enough, fast enough, she might not have come out of it whole.

He studied the roadbed where a black scar marred it, like an old, festering burn. It oozed, like oily blood, as he watched. And as he watched, he felt the dark energy that emanated from it crawl over the air.

Mia had been more shaken than either of them had realized, he thought, to have left this.

Going back to his car, he popped the trunk, selected what he needed. With his tools in hand, he took a long look up and down the road. It was deserted. A plus, he thought, as what he needed to do would take a little time.

He circled the scar three times with sea salt, and the ooze smoked where it spilled into the ring. With his power cold and clear inside him, he used a birch wand for cleansing. As he sprinkled both bay and cloves for protection, the scar bubbled and hissed. And began, slowly, to shrink.

“No one who passes now need fear. You can do no more harm here. Dark back to dark as light breeds light. Safe
passage here by day and night.” He crouched as the scar closed in on itself. “I will guard what is dear to me,” he whispered. “As I will, so mote it be.”

He returned to his car and drove over the shadow of the scar toward Mia’s house.

He’d needed to see it, and had resisted. But he couldn’t afford to wait for her invitation now.

It was so much what it had been, he thought as he studied the gorgeous ramble and spears of stone. And so much more. More Mia, he realized as he again got out of his car.

The flowers, the budded shrubs and great trees. The gargoyles and faeries. The breeze stirred wind chimes and strings of crystal into constant music. The white tower of the lighthouse stood like an ancient sentinel, guarding both island and house. And she’d planted purple pansies at its feet.

He followed the winding path of stepping-stones around the side of the house. The sea beating on the rocks drew both his mind and his heart toward the cliffs and made him remember how many times he’d stood on them with her. Or come upon her standing there alone.

But as he walked he glanced around, then stopped, staggered.

Her gardens were a world. Arches and arbors, slopes and flows. Stone paths softened by moss spreading through the cracks meandered through rivers and floods of flowers. Some were tender with spring, some already reigned.

Not just blooms, he realized, but the green. There were so many tones and textures of it that each spill or shimmer of pink or white, yellow or blue against it added a wonder.

There were pools of water, the glint of copper from a sundial, the charm of a dancing faerie twirling in the shrubbery. He could see benches tucked here and there,
some in sun, some in shade, inviting visitors to sit, to enjoy.

He couldn’t imagine what it would be like when the young plants burst into full summer bloom, when the vines finished their climb up the arbors. Couldn’t conceive of the color and shape, the perfume.

Unable to resist, he wandered along some of the stone paths, trying to imagine how she had done it. How she had turned what had been a pretty, if pedestrian, garden, a stretch of manicured lawn, and the single formal terrace he remembered into a celebration.

And he wished, foolishly, that he could sit and watch while she tended one of her beds.

The house had always been beautiful, he thought now. And she had always loved it. But he remembered it as somewhat staid, and very formidable. She had made it a place of pleasure and beauty, warmth and welcome.

And standing in the midst of Mia’s personal Eden, with the fragile scents, the trill of birds, the thunder of the surf, he understood what she had created, and what he had never found.

Home.

He had had the luxurious, the adequate, the tasteful, and the efficient. He had looked for, but had never found, his place. Until now.

“A hell of a note, isn’t it?” he murmured. “To realize she had hers, and mine, all along.”

Since he didn’t know what to do about it, he went back to his car to finish what he’d come to do. He would add his own charms of protection to Mia’s, and make her—and hers—doubly safe.

He’d just finished when he spotted the island’s patrol car coming up the road. Watching it, he dropped a small silk bag of crystals back into his coat pocket. His initial
pleasure at the prospect of seeing Zack flipped over to irritation when Ripley got out of the car.

“Well, well, isn’t this interesting.” Simmering, and delighted to be so, she tucked her hands in her back pockets and swaggered toward him. The bill of her cap was angled low over dark glasses.

But he didn’t need to see the whole of her face to know it was hard as stone.

“Here I am, on routine island patrol, and what do I find but a nefarious character. And find him skulking around on private property.” Smiling fiercely, she unhooked her cuffs from her belt.

Sam eyed them, eyed her. “Not that I don’t have a soft spot for a little bondage now and again, Rip, but you’re a married woman.” When her lips peeled back to show her teeth, he shrugged. “Okay, bad joke. But so are those.”

“The law isn’t a joke, hotshot. You’re trespassing, and I imagine I could make an attempted daylight B and E stick.” The cuffs jingled in her hand. “Either way, trying is just going to make my day.”

“I didn’t go in the damn house.” He’d just been considering it. “And if you think you’re going to arrest and cuff me for trespassing—”

“Goody. I can add resisting.”

“Cut me some slack.”

“Why the hell should I?”

“I didn’t come up here to poke around.” Though he had poked, a bit. “I’m just as concerned about Mia as you are.”

“Too bad being a lying sack of shit isn’t against the law.”

“How about this for truth?” He leaned over until they were nose to nose. “I don’t give a rat’s ass what you think of or about me. I’m going to make damn sure this house and the woman who lives in it are protected, especially after what nearly happened to her this morning. And if you
think you’re going to get those fucking cuffs on me, sweetheart, you’d better step back and think again.”

“It’s not your job to protect this house. And if I want these cuffs on you, city boy, you’ll be flat on the ground eating dirt while I secure them. What the hell do you mean, ‘after what happened this morning’?”

He started to spit something back at her, but then his gaze narrowed in speculation. “Mia didn’t tell you? She tells you every damn thing. Always has.”

Ripley’s color came up a little. “I haven’t seen her today. What happened?” Then the color drained away again as she gripped his wrist. “Is she hurt?”

“No. No.” His temper ebbed, leaving only frustration. He raked his fingers through his hair. “But she could’ve been. Nearly was.”

He relayed the story, appreciating when Ripley swore impressively and stalked around the front yard as if looking for something handy to kick.

It reminded him why he’d always liked her.

“I didn’t see any skid marks.”

“I vanished them after I cleansed the area,” he explained. “I thought it would upset her to see them again. God knows, it bothered me.”

“Yeah, well.” Her voice dropped to a mutter. “You’re right.”

“Excuse me? I don’t believe I caught that.”

“I said you’re right. Don’t milk it. You took care of things here?”

“Yeah. Just added a layer over what she’s done. She’s stronger than she was,” he said half to himself. “And she’s thorough.”

“Obviously not thorough enough. I’m going to talk to Mac about it. He has all sorts of ideas.”

“Yeah, he’s full of them,” Sam said sourly, then shrugged his shoulders when Ripley scowled at him. “I
liked him. So congratulations and best wishes on your marriage, and all of that.”

“Gee, thanks, that was so heartwarming.”

That made him smile. “Maybe it’s just hard for me to imagine Let-It-Rip cozied up in connubial bliss.”