Fire Raiser (22 page)

Evan nudged Holly in the ribs. “You asked.”

THE ONLY PAIR OF PANTS Cam had with him with even a remote chance of making it up over Holly’s ass were part of a navy blue Armani suit. The three inches separating them in height were all in his legs. She sat on the edge of the bathtub and rolled up the hems, cussed under her breath, rolled them up some more, cussed a little louder, and—Armani or no Armani—thought seriously about finding a pair of scissors.

From the other side of the bathroom door she heard Evan say, “I’d never get it buttoned. You got any sweaters in there?”

“This one might work—it’s pretty big on me.”

Holly shouldered into Cam’s dark green dress shirt and tied the tails around her waist. Turning up the cuffs to her wrists, she surveyed her reflection—gold rings, diamond bracelet, and all—and winced. The lipstick, car keys, leather folder with her driver’s license, and her needle-and-alcohol-wipes kit that had been in her skirt and jacket pockets were transferred to the pants. Perched again on the tub, she unrolled a pair of socks, then looked at Cam’s sneakers. A dozen layers of socks wouldn’t make them fit. “Screw it,” she muttered, deciding to go barefoot, and opened the door.

Oh, my
.

Three shirtless men were arranged ornamentally around the room. Two of them were trying not to look at each other. Holly could scarcely decide where to look first.

Jamey was all lean, luscious muscle covered in nut-brown skin that just begged to be drizzled in sage honey. Cam, more lightly built but just as powerful, was peaches-and-cream dusted with cinnamon. Very nice indeed, the both of them—but while sweets were all very well, she preferred the main course. Taller than either of the younger men, stronger through the shoulders and arms, sun-bronzed and solid—if Jamey made her think of honey-smeared baklava and Cam was peach pie, Evan was . . . prime rib. Flank steak . . . rump roast . . . tenderloin. . . .

A WOLF WHISTLE TURNED all three of them toward the bathroom door. Lounging there, shoulder against the doorframe, looking preposterous in Cam’s clothing, was Holly—smiling as if she’d invented them.

“I do purely love the sight of a long-legged man in blue jeans. And now here’s three of ’em, right before my poor dazzled eyes. I declare, a girl could get spoiled.”

Lachlan watched Jamey blush and Cam stick out his tongue at her. Both of them grabbed for their shirts like teenaged girls caught in just their bras.

“Oh, don’t hurry on my account,” Holly drawled. “In fact, take your time.”

“You know what you are, McClure?” Evan asked. “You’re a dirty old broad.”

Cam snorted. “She’s been a dirty old broad since she was fifteen years old.”

“And I’ve loved every scenic second of it,” she shot back. “But this, I have to tell you, will rank right up there among the culminating moments of my life.”

“Yeah?” Evan started toward her, still shirtless. “And the ones that rank above it are . . . ?”

“Careful, Holly,” Jamey laughed suddenly. “Appease the beast.”

“The beast knows very well they all have to do with him.”

“Yeah?” Lachlan said again, looming over her now. “Name one.”

She curled her fingers into the low-slung waistband of his jeans. “First orgasm you ever gave me. I think I’m still shaking from that one.”

“Jesus!” Cam exclaimed as his head emerged from the neck of a black long-sleeved t-shirt. “Don’t you two ever stop?”

“I do my best,” she said in deliberate echo of what Evan had said earlier that night, and he leaned down to kiss her. A few moments later, she drew back a little. “Get dressed, or I won’t be held responsible.”

The plum cashmere sweater would indeed be large on Cam. It fit Evan like bark on a tree. Having stashed her clothes and shoes in Cam’s suitcase, Holly was happily ensconced in the desk chair by now, ogling at her leisure.

“Black does absolutely nothing for you, Cam. What were you thinking? And I don’t know how you could have made a mistake like that charcoal shirt, although I like what it does to Jamey’s eyes. In fact, he should wear your shirts more often.”

“Lady love,” Lachlan said, “you’ll excuse my saying so, of course, but right now you’re in no position to give fashion advice.”

Jamey snorted. “What is this,
Project Runway
?” When all three stared at him, he blushed. “I confess. I watch that show. I conform to the gay fashionista stereotype. Pillory me later. Is everybody set?”

Evan gave them all a once-over, his gaze lingering at Holly’s bare feet. She looked down, and grimaced.

“Mine are big,” she said. “His are bigger.”

Evan took a pair of balled-up socks from her hands and tossed them to her cousin. “Do something to these, will you?”

Cam thought about it for a second, then squeezed the socks between both hands. Lobbing them back at Holly, he smiled a smile of pure sweet wickedness.

“All right, what’d you do?” she demanded.

“Something. Just like he said.”

She eyed the socks, then pulled them on. “As long as they don’t set me to dancing maniacally like the princess in the fairy tale, I’m good with it.”

“You actually trust me?”

“Hell, no. But I remind you, darling dear, that whereas Evan seems to have figured out certain things of a—shall we say—floral nature, Jamey remains unaware of—”

“Warm and dry,” Cam interrupted in haste. “Silent. Impervious to punctures. Sorry, didn’t have time to include a pedicure.”

“Unaware of what?” Jamey asked. Everyone, particularly Cam, ignored him.

“I suppose,” Evan asked, “it’d be too much to ask you to keep her from tripping over her own two feet?”

“It would.” Watching as she bent to fold up the hems of his pants again, Cam intoned, “ ‘I grow old . . . I grow old . . . /I shall wear the bottoms of my trousers rolled.’ ”

“Nobody likes a smart-ass,” Evan informed him. “Especially a
literate
smart-ass.”

Holly straightened up and smiled her sweetest at him. “You just wait. First pair of scissors I see—”

“My best Armani suit? Don’t you fucking
dare
!”

Thirteen

FOR A WHILE Lachlan actually thought they were going to get away with it.

As Lulah and Nicky went after the brass locks on the third floor, with Holly trailing along looking as useless as she probably felt, he and Cam and Jamey made their way downstairs to take care of the cars. Weiss, still in the ballroom doorway bidding good-bye to his guests, had his back turned to them, and that was good. Gib, Erika, and Troy were right ahead of them, and that was bad.

Just how bad, Lachlan wasn’t going to let Cam open his mouth to let everybody else find out. He glimpsed the younger man’s clenched profile, groaned inwardly, and put a grin on his face wide enough so that a even casual observer could have counted his molars.

“Hey, Gib! There you are! Holly’s upstairs—Lulah’s had it with baby-sitting, wants to get herself spa’d tomorrow, so she’s spending the night—Holly said be sure to find you and say goodnight for her. Let me hold that umbrella, Erika. Troy, get the door for your mother. Geez, I hope this rain lets up or all the outdoor barbeques tomorrow are gonna end up as picnics on the rug. Where’s your car? Troy, do me a favor and help Jamey load his motorcycle into that red pickup over there. Thanks. Cam, here’s the keys to the Beemer—you and Jamey head back to Woodhush, we’ll be there in a while. Don’t let the kids con you into milk and cookies—the sugar rush will keep them up until dawn.”

He knew very well where he’d gotten this overflow of frivolous chatter. No one could live with Holly as long as he had and not pick up the knack of piling on the words until anyone within range simply collapsed from the weight of them. Sending Troy off with Jamey had earned him a barrage of icicles from Erika’s pale blue eyes. Gib looked mildly confused. Cam was still seething—but after a brusque nod he set off to find the black BMW.

Lulah had been right about the mud. Cars, trucks, and SUVs spun their wheels and slewed across the lawns until tires found purchase on the gravel drive. Lachlan grinned to himself, relishing in advance the fun of an official four-wheel-drive vehicle he could steer right past everybody else with or without lights and siren. Cutting more gouges in Herr Weiss’s manicured grass would be a satisfying bonus.

“Watch out, Erika, that’s more like a sinkhole than a puddle.” He slid a hand around her waist to steady her, and saw her gaze flicker to Gib to make sure he was watching. Lachlan resisted the urge to grimace. Evidently suspecting him and his of Witchcraft didn’t interfere with using him to tweak her husband. “There you go—Troy will get back in a second, I’m sure. Watch your head—whoa, don’t slip!” He used both hands at her waist to boost her up into the passenger seat of the family Bronco, then really laid it on by saying in a more intimate voice, “Oh, you’ve gotten splashed all over your legs,” and touched a finger to the mud-spatter on her knee.

She reacted exactly the way he’d known she would. She took her time swinging her legs into the car, and thanked him in a tone even cozier than the one he’d used on her. Not that she smiled; she was a woman who took good care what she smiled at, as if humor was rationed. Then again, maybe she was just scared of getting wrinkles.

Gib was already behind the wheel and firing up the engine. The look he gave Evan was not one of brotherly love. Lachlan pretended not to notice it as he said, “I’ll go find Troy,” and escaped. Yes, he knew the kind of woman Erika was. He’d almost married someone just like her—the memory was uncomfortable even at ten years’ remove—and his mother had been the same type. Out at the front counter, she sold sweet femininity and wide-eyed deference—and really great pie, he reflected with some regret—to the big brave smart how-do-you-ever-think-of-such-things men. Scarlett O’Hara wouldn’t melt in her mouth. But back in the warehouse, her stock was a flashing of tits and a swaying of ass and the implication that more would be forthcoming if the guy could scrape together the price of admission—whatever it might be at any given moment. If not, he was welcome to come back when he could afford her. And if he did manage to come up with the scratch, imagine his surprise when he had to keep paying and paying and paying.

“Partnership or power trip?”
said Holly’s voice in his head, and he smiled to himself, shaking rainwater out of his eyes.

It wasn’t easy finding anything more than ten feet away in this downpour, but the outdoor floodlights picked out Lulah’s old Ford with its brand new candy-apple red paint job and
Woodhush Farm
in small, tasteful black script on the driver’s side door. Kirby had wanted her to put flames down the sides, or a row of galloping horses; Bella had urged lots of big five-pointed gold stars like on Daddy’s car. Evan felt an unexpected yearning to be with his children, to forget his disgust with all this adult bullshit in laughing at their innocent mischief. The mischief would linger—Holly and Cam were proof enough of that family trait—but the innocence? Kids grew older and grew up; he couldn’t protect them. No parent ever could.

As he approached Lulah’s truck, where Troy was leaping down as Jamey slammed the gate shut, he felt renewed anger that Erika wasn’t even trying to protect her son. So he paused, and waited for Troy to get to him, and put a hand on the boy’s shoulder. “Look, if you ever need a place to hang out and chill for a few days, you come see us at Woodhush, okay?”

Troy looked startled. Then he looked grateful. Lachlan smiled at him and watched him disappear into the rain.

“Nice kid,” Jamey remarked.

“Yeah. Hey, is there a way to interpret any existing laws to arrest his mother for malicious stupidity?”

“Evan!” Jamey looked scandalized. “You’re the sheriff. I’m the district attorney. We can arrest anybody!”

CAM DRUMMED HIS FINGERS on the steering wheel of his cousin’s BMW. Somebody ahead of him was stuck in the mire. He hated traffic jams. He was pissed off anyway—that Ayala woman was lucky she wasn’t demanding to be taken to the ER for crotch-rot (nothing so benign as prickly heat would do)—and a glimpse of the son helping Jamey load the motorcycle hadn’t improved his temper. People had been looking at Jamey like that all his life. Anybody who
didn’t
look at Jamey had been dead for three days.

He hit the button that activated the sound system, wanting some background noise. Half a song later, he freely blasphemed Holly’s tastes in music when Don Henley advised that
You get the love that you allow.

“Christ on a crutch! What wouldn’t I give to hear ‘Brick House’ about now—” He jammed his index finger punching the damned CD player off, and swore again as he cradled his injured hand.

“You have wonderful hands.”

Not now—he didn’t want to think about Jamey and the wisteria—

“I always loved to watch you play the piano. I’ve missed that. I don’t think I’ve ever seen anything more elegant—like magic sparking from your fingers when you make music—”

An unpleasant bark of laughter escaped him. Those few hours ago, Jamey hadn’t even known—

“Your hands talk all the time, even when you don’t say a word out loud. They’re good hands. Strong and kind. They’ve never hurt anyone—”

Jamey hadn’t known then what his hands could do, how the magic really could spark through his fingers and bespell things, touch wool or linen or cotton or leather to banish, restore, reweave, warm, soothe, unravel, chill, preserve, destroy—

Silence, he was supposed to be working out ways to spin silence into the silk covering the walls of Westmoreland, use his magic for something of greater consequence than drying rain-soaked clothing. He had never been called on to do this kind of work before. Here he was, almost thirty-eight years old, and he’d probably been part of fewer Workings than Holly, who had no magic at all except her blood.

Coming home had started off okay—watching the familiar landscapes from the back seat of the courtesy van, recognizing most of it, surprised by some of the changes. There’d been that weirdness when he’d tried to take a nap, the not-quite-fiery prickles on his skin that he hadn’t wanted to admit felt like magic. Seeing Holly and meeting Evan had been good, too. But then Jamey showed up. And Holly pestered him, and he hadn’t had enough to drink, but it turned out he
had
swallowed enough vodka to let Jamey kiss him—

Somebody even more impatient than he leaned on a car horn. He barely restrained himself from following suit.

He felt like an onion somebody had decided needed peeling. Without his permission. With a very dull knife. Brittle outer skin being sliced off; thick layers gouged into, snapping off all the way to the core; fine membranes teased off with a sharp fingernail; poked and prodded for weaknesses—

Another horn galvanized him. He swung the Beemer out of the line-up and onto the grassy side of the road. A quick Y back-and-fill, and he was driving in the opposite direction, between the row of trees and the row of unmoving cars, around the gentle curve back toward Westmoreland. Coming right at him across the grass through the rain was a big green SUV with a gaudy display of police lights on the roof. He swerved and stopped the car, and hit the window button on the armrest.

Evan rolled down his window, already yelling. “What the fuck—? Cam? Are you crazy?”

“Everybody’s stuck! I’m going back up to the house and wait until the rain stops! If I have to, I’ll get another room for the night!”

Lachlan drew breath to argue, then narrowed his gaze. “You know, that actually works! Let me get this thing out of the way and I’ll drive back up with you!”

So it was that Evan parked behind a clump of rhododendrons and dogwood that by daylight wouldn’t hide a damned thing but that by night, in punishing rain, rendered the SUV invisible. Cam waited, drumming his fingers again, thinking about silence.

“Take it around the side drive,” Evan said as he got into the BMW. “Lulah’s truck isn’t parked close enough for a quick getaway, and moving it would look odd. I want something a little more accessible, just in case.”

“ ‘Quick getaway,’ ” Cam muttered. “Oh, excellent.” As he steered the car across the sodden lawn, he kept glancing up at the house he would soon bespell. Aware now of what was hidden within the walls, remembering the oddity that had chafed at his mind earlier, he leaned forward and squinted at the rows of narrow windows. Some were lit, most were not. All were veiled by the same cobwebby sheers as in his own room. But there was still something he couldn’t quite—

“Cam! Pay attention, will you?”

He veered further from the main road and stopped the car in the middle of the front lawn. Wiping a circle in the windshield condensation, he said, “It’s the windows. Something in them? Behind them?” He chewed his upper lip, then exclaimed, “Count them! Can’t you see it? Look—my room is in the front, right up there.” He drew the layout in the moisture still on the windshield. “Three windows in the sitting room, two in the bedroom, one in the bathroom. The suite below is identical. So are the second-and third-floor suites on the other side. Six windows on each floor for the guest rooms, two to light the main staircase and hallways—”

“No, there are nine windows on the right-hand side of the building.” Evan seemed to hear what he’d just said. And repeated the important word, very softly. “Nine.”

JAMEY WAITED FOR THEM BESIDE Lulah’s truck. When the black Beemer drove slowly past him, he jogged through the rain behind the car, following the service road. He was ready with the pertinent question when Cam and Evan got out.

“What happened to being sneaky? Dark clothes, pretending to leave the premises—”

“Traffic jam,” Evan explained. “If anybody asks, we’re waiting here until the rain slacks off, and spending the night if necessary.”

“Who thought
that
up?” he demanded as they crunched across waterlogged gravel to the kitchen door.

“Me,” Cam offered tersely.

The door opened, spilling light onto the walkway. A pair of weary young women emerged, wearing the Westmoreland livery—pale blue shirt, black slacks, purple vest, silver nametag—to huddle together under an umbrella. Cam leaped to hold the door for them, oozing charm.

“Ladies, allow me. Be careful where you step. In fact, may I drive you over to your housing? That umbrella’s no protection at all. You’re going to get drenched.”

“
Nein, danke
,” said the blonde, eyes downcast.

The other girl was staring at the dimples as if she’d never seen the like before. Cam said something in German that made her laugh. She eyed his long, lanky frame, cast a yearning glance at the car, and was in the middle of something that sounded like an acceptance of his kindness when the other girl snarled at her for a good ten seconds. Cam backed off, apologizing, and they went on their way.

“Ursula was amenable, Hadwisa was not,” he said mournfully. “And though the kitchen has closed for the night, I was offered cocoa—”

“I’ll bet,” Jamey muttered, leading the way inside.

“—before Hadwisa reminded Ursula that the dormitory would be locked and alarmed at midnight and everybody else was already in bed.”

“Nice work,” Evan approved, pausing to let his eyes adjust to the dimness of the kitchen. “How good is your German?”

“I know enough not to get arrested. In fact, I can not get arrested in seven or eight languages.”

“Congratulations,” Jamey said. “Can you do something useful, like dry us off?”

The requested service was performed, the runoff soaking into a mat by the back door. As Cam worked on Evan’s boots—it wouldn’t do to leave muddy footprints on the carpet—Jamey scanned the kitchen. Nothing out of the ordinary. All the usual accoutrements of a restaurant: massive Sub-Zero refrigerators, pristine metal counters, two huge Wolf stoves, pots and pans and utensils gleaming in tidy rows. Whiteboard with the next day’s specials scrawled in red; cautionary signs about handwashing and hair nets and so forth, the usual Health Department placards in English and Spanish with computer-printed additions in other languages. Jamey recognized German script and Russian Cyrillic characters, but the three others defeated him.

“Polish, Hungarian, and Romanian,” Cam said at his shoulder, startling him.