House of Strangers (Harlequin Super Romance) (14 page)

Watching him sleep was a guilty pleasure. For the first time she studied his right arm and shoulder. The scars were neat and straight, the result of surgery. They circled around his upper arm and shoulder and continued until they disappeared over his back. Whatever had happened must have crushed the bones at the point of the shoulder. She winced even to think of the pain he must have endured.

She touched his cheek softly so as not to wake him. She longed to know everything about him.

He let out his breath and turned toward her without waking. She fitted her body against his and let sleep take her again. For the first time in years she felt utterly content.

Her eyes blinked open. Dante! She hadn’t given the dog a thought once she’d begun concentrating on Paul. Had he quietly been destroying the studio out of nervousness or jealousy? He hadn’t been for his walk. He must be miserable.

As much as she hated leaving the comfort of Paul’s body, she slipped out of bed and through the curtains. Dante sat by the outside door with a puzzled expression
on his droopy face. He didn’t move toward her. He must be desperately in need of a walk.

She slipped on her jeans and her shirt without underwear, slid her feet into the rubber boots she kept beside the door, picked up her flashlight and eased the back door open.

Dante dashed through, down the stairs and into the bushes across the alley. She left the door behind her slightly ajar and slipped down silently behind him.

She’d left a warm bed. The night air was cold. She hugged herself and prayed Dante would finish quickly. She didn’t want to call him.

As she walked down the alley after him, she saw headlights pass the opening at the end. A squad car.

“Please don’t let it stop,” she prayed.

A moment later, however, a car door slammed and Buddy Jenkins in full uniform, hands hooked in his Sam Browne belt, walked down the alley toward her.

“Out kinda late, aren’t you, honey?”

“Hey, Daddy. Dante needed a potty break.”

Sometimes when he found her working in the middle of the night, her father would come up and have a glass of tea or a cup of hot chocolate with her. Tonight was definitely not the night.

“Come on, Dante,” she called, and yawned so wide that she nearly dislocated her jaw in hopes that her father would get the hint.

“Aren’t you cold, baby? You ought to go back inside.”

“I’m fine, Daddy. Dante, drat it, come
on!
”

She could tell her father was itching for an invitation. They’d grown close for the first time in their lives after she moved back to Rossiter and began to work with him. He and Travis had disliked one another on sight, a situation that had only worsened with time. She hardened her
heart. “I’d love to ask you up, Daddy, but I’m exhausted. I’m going straight to bed.”

“Oh, okay.”

She hated the disappointment in his voice. Before she could hem and haw further, however, Dante trotted up.

She didn’t really want to get close enough to her father even to kiss him on the cheek. The last thing she needed was for him to catch a whiff of what she’d just been doing and put two and two together.

She grabbed Dante’s collar and almost raced up the stairs. “Sorry, Daddy, but I’m about to drop.”

“Sure, honey. You get some rest.”

He watched until she’d gone in her door, waved to him and shut it firmly against him. She turned the dead bolt as quietly as she could. Dante stood by her with his tail wagging. She patted his head, gave him a mammoth dog biscuit from the cookie jar on the kitchen counter, pulled off her boots and her clothes and tiptoed back to bed.

As she slid in, Paul said, “Damnation, woman, you’re freezing!” He propped himself up on one elbow.

“Dante needed to go out.”

“Do you usually talk to Dante that way?”

“Gee, what big ears you have, Grandmother. I was talking to my father. He was angling for an invitation to come up for hot chocolate.”

Paul flopped onto his back. “He’d probably have shot me.”

She leaned over him. “I was thinking more along the tar-and-feather line. Ever been ridden out of town on a rail? I’ve heard it’s extremely uncomfortable.”

Without warning he grabbed her and flipped her onto her back. They laughed and tussled for a moment, then their eyes caught and held.

This time when they made love they did it slowly, savoring the taste and touch and scent of love.

As they lay tangled together in the afterglow, Paul said sleepily, “I think I’d better go. You don’t need everyone in Rossiter seeing me walking across the square at six in the morning.”

“Thinking of my reputation?” she asked.

“And mine,” he said.

“Yours will be enhanced immeasurably.”

“I’ll have that engraved on my tombstone after your father shoots me.” He kissed the top of her head. “I’m serious. As much as I’d like to stay here forever, I should sneak out like some prowler, slide home in the shadows and pray that your dad’s squad car doesn’t make another pass through the square until I’m safely in my own house.” He slipped out of bed. “You do have a bathroom in this place, don’t you?”

“To your left just past the arch into the workroom.” She started to get up.

“No, stay.” He caressed her cheek, picked up his clothes and went in search of the bathroom.

He came back fully clothed and sat on the edge of the bed so he could take her in his arms and kiss her. “Good night, country girl,” he whispered.

A moment later she heard the dead bolt turn, the door open and close after him, then his footsteps on the staircase.

She stretched contentedly. It was amazing how different sex could be when it was just sex—no matter how great—and when it was love.

Her eyes opened wide. Not love. Not with Paul Bouvet. He was a man without roots. There was nothing for him in Rossiter. She’d suspected for some time that he had a secret agenda. She just didn’t know what that agenda could be.

P
AUL WAS UP
in the air dusting crops by the time Ann got to his house the next morning, so she didn’t see him all day. She thought of him every time she moved. She worked with a stupid grin on her face even when the first batch of scamoglio plaster she’d mixed for the stairwell turned out looking more like cow poop than marble.

When she got home, she found a florist box on the landing from a very chic Memphis florist. After she let herself and Dante in, she tore the paper off the box to find a dozen pale-peach roses.

“At least he has more imagination than to send red,” she said to Dante. She picked up the card. “I considered buying these from your downstairs neighbor, but I thought it might raise a few eyebrows. Love, Paul.”

The love part was undoubtedly what men like Paul always said the morning after the first night with a woman.

“He’s not talking love-love, Dante,” she said. “I kind of wish he were. He’s talking thanks-for-a-great-roll-in-the-hay love.”

She decided the crown molding should have set well enough to be pulled apart, so she spent the next hour carefully removing it from its mold and cleaning up the small imperfections with dental tools. The work was sufficiently absorbing to keep her mind off Paul.

At five-thirty she called her mother and invited herself and Dante to dinner. She refused to sit in her apartment
waiting for Paul to call or show up at her door. She’d had one great night. That did not make a commitment.

Two nights with Paul, and she knew she’d be lost forever. She’d vowed no more hunks, no more unknown quantities, no more risky relationships. Then she’d allowed herself to fall for a man who embodied all three.

Well, she’d let her mother investigate his background at Sunday dinner.

W
ITH TREMBLING FINGERS
, Karen Lowrance tore open the envelope from the private detective Trey had hired. She scanned the single sheet of information, and with every word she grew more and more frightened. Across from her Trey eyed the report avidly, but kept silent.

The report said that Paul Bouvet was the son of a Frenchwoman named Michelle Bouvet, present whereabouts unknown. Father unknown, although Paul had dual citizenship when he came to the U.S. with his mother, which meant that the father must have been an American. Although both the French and American governments undoubtedly knew more, neither was being cooperative. Because the detective had no information as to precisely where in France Paul Bouvet had been born, he could not locate his birth certificate to ascertain the name of the father listed thereon.

“Damn!” Karen said. “I should have told him to look in Paris.”

The report added that should the client want more information, a trip to France might be necessary. Such a course might not be productive and would be both time-consuming and expensive.

“I’ll just bet it would,” Karen muttered. She poured herself another small shot of bourbon, then set it down on
the table beside her and ignored it. She needed a cool and sober head to plan how to proceed.

The report further stated that this Michelle Bouvet had brought him to the United States when he was five. They’d lived with her sister, Helaine, and her American husband, Charles Humber, in Queens, New York. Bouvet’s mother had disappeared a year later. There was still an open missing-persons file on her.

Seven years later Charles Humber had petitioned the courts to declare Michelle Bouvet legally dead and to allow him to adopt Paul formally. Since Paul had been living with the Humbers most of his life, and since apparently Mrs. Humber was Ms. Bouvet’s closest relative, the petition was granted. Paul Bouvet, however, had retained his mother’s name.

Karen passed over his school records, his appointment to the Air Force Academy and his subsequent service.

Close to the end of the report, a sentence caught her eye. “Because of injuries received in the accident, Mr. Bouvet can no longer fly transports, but maintains a Class III commercial pilot’s license.”

He owned the house in Rossiter, which he was currently renovating, a nearly new silver BMW and a Cessna 182 aircraft currently hangared at Morrison Airfield.

She dropped the page on the ottoman that served as a coffee table and began to worry one of her long fingernails with her teeth. When it split, she bit it off with an oath. Now she’d have to get a new acrylic tip.

“Okay, Mama. I’ve been forbearing long enough. I want to read that report. What the hell is the problem with this guy? Is he going to blow up the cotton gin or something?”

She’d hoped to have proof, but the DNA results hadn’t come back yet. Still, she was ninety-nine percent certain
that Paul Bouvet was, in fact, her husband’s bastard son. The dates were right. He must have been conceived just before Paul came home to Rossiter and married her.

Paul Bouvet was only a year or two older than her Trey. And much smarter, she suspected. Trey was a good son, a loving husband and father. He was even a fairly good businessman, as long as he stuck to cattle, cotton and soybeans.

Get him outside his area of expertise and he was hopeless. He’d grown up in a world of privilege and family that left him ill prepared for the real world. So far his greatest challenge had been to keep a high enough grade-point average in college to stay in his fraternity house. And he’d barely accomplished that.

Even with the men who worked for him, he had absolutely no people skills. Karen couldn’t count the times she’d had to smooth over Trey’s shoot-from-the-hip decisions. She was still very much an active partner in Delaney Farms. If Paul Bouvet sued for a portion of the estate, she’d lose nearly as much as Trey.

There was still a possibility she was wrong. Any jury in the world would laugh her out of court if she said she’d recognized her husband in this stranger at first glance.

If she told Trey her suspicions now, he’d either panic and do something irreparably stupid, or he’d fall all over himself making his new
brother
welcome.

Neither was acceptable.

She made a decision to keep as much as possible from him until the DNA results came back, even if she had to lie. According to her doctor, the testing should take no more than a week. If Paul Bouvet’s DNA and Trey’s DNA proved that David Delaney had fathered both of them, then she’d have to tell Trey and try to make him understand how dire the consequences could be for them all.

“This report is worse than useless,” Karen said, tossing the remaining pages onto the ottoman.

“Mother, I feel as if I’ve gone along with this blindfolded, but if there’s a problem, then we have to face it together. Did Daddy have debts we don’t know about? Did he commit some crime that hasn’t come to light? Frankly, I can’t believe if he was playing fast and loose with the SEC, they wouldn’t have investigated us a whole lot sooner than this. Is this guy some kind of hit man? Did Daddy borrow money from the mob?”

“Don’t be ridiculous.”

“I’m not being any more ridiculous than you are. And what’s this business about his toothbrush? There’s only one reason you’d want that.”

“Trey, you’re going to have to trust me for a few more days. I’ve got some investigations of my own going.”

“Not good enough. What? Is this some long-standing feud from way back in Ireland six generations ago?”

“Now you really
are
being ridiculous.”

“Then some personal feud.”

That was a little too close to the truth for Karen. “All right,” she said. “We’re not only dealing with possible financial repercussions of something your father may or may not have done before he died, we’re also dealing with the possibility of scandal that could compromise the entire family.”

“And you expect me to sit by without knowing any more about it than that?” Trey shoved back his hair in exasperation. “You and Grandmother handled the business after father died. I didn’t start running things on my own until after college. By then all the estates were probated, the tax audits done. How come this is coming out of the woodwork after all this time?”

“I honestly don’t know.” Karen leaned her head back
against the sofa. “That’s the only thing that gives me hope I might be wrong. Why wait this long?”

“I’ll give you twenty-four hours, then you have to tell me.”

“Give me a week.”

“Mama!”

“A week, Trey. By then either this will have all blown over or we’ll have to start making plans to get rid of this man.”

“I’ve never heard you talk like this,” Trey said. “You sound as if you’re talking about killing him.” His voice had risen dangerously.

“Of course I’m not.” It might yet come to that, but Trey would not be told if it did. “He must be made to feel uncomfortable in Rossiter. He might even wind up in the hospital.” She dropped her head into her hands. “For the first time in my life, I wish another human being would simply vanish off the face of the earth. Quickly.” Then she looked up and laughed at Trey’s horror-stricken face. “Oh, darling, I’m kidding. I got carried away.” She reached across and touched his cheek. “Don’t worry until we know more.”

“How can I not worry, Mama?”

“Trust me. I promise I’ll find some way to get that man out of our hair and our lives.” She picked up her glass. “Maybe put him in a body cast for a couple of months until we’re ready to deal with him.” She laughed shortly.

“I’ll try to find out more about him when he comes over for dinner Wednesday night.”

Karen sat bolt upright. “You invited him for dinner? At your house with Sue-sue and the children?”

“You said get close to him.”

“Not that close. To have him in your own house? Sometimes you don’t have the brains God gave a goose.”

“Ann’s coming, too. Want me to cancel?”

Karen closed her eyes. “No. Let them come. Just don’t let him get too chummy. And keep your eyes open.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“Now go on home, honeypot. Mama’s worn to a frazzle.” She closed her eyes against the headache that pounded in her temples.

She vaguely remembered hearing Trey say as he left the room, “Don’t worry, Mama. I’ll fix it.”

As he closed the door, she whispered, “Dear God.
Michelle.
To finally know her name after all these years…”

A
NN WAS CAREFULLY
coping the last piece of crown molding for the dining room when Paul drove in. She recognized the growl of his engine and her heart turned over.

Dante, who’d been lying on the cool tiles of the hearth, got up and trotted to the back door to greet Paul. Half-a-dozen workmen were in the house. Besides that, there still weren’t any curtains at the windows, so she hoped Paul wouldn’t do something like put his arms around her and kiss her. “Drat,” she said as the saw slipped and took a small nick out of one edge of the molding.

“Hi.”

She heard his voice behind her. Her body came alive, but she didn’t turn around.

“Hey. You about finished crop dusting?”

“Yeah.”

She heard his footsteps behind her, but she also heard one of the workmen’s boots tromping down the staircase. She looked over her shoulder and gave Paul a small shake of her head. He raised his eyebrows, but got the message.

When he was much too close for comfort, he said softly, “I know this town is limited for takeout, so I went by the market this afternoon and picked up picnic stuff. Could I interest you in dining al fresco on my sleeping porch?”

“What kind of picnic?”

“A little wine, a little pâté, a little French bread, a few grapes—stuff like that.”

“I really—”

“Don’t even try to say you really shouldn’t take the time.”

She nodded. “All right. I’d love to. What do we sit on?”

“Aha. I picked up a couple of wrought-iron chairs and a table today. If I can get one of the guys to help me, I’ll have everything set up on the porch by the time you go home, clean up and get changed.”

“Are you implying I’m grubby?”

He laughed. “You have plaster on your nose.”

“It’s the scamoglio. This batch turned out pretty well. Want to see?”

She laid the newly coped piece of trim carefully on the dining-room floor and led him to the front hall. “Ta-da.”

“I’ll be damned if I can see where you’ve redone it.”

“It’ll look fantastic with a couple of coats of clear bees-wax on it.” She hugged herself. “I am
so
good at this.”

“Humble, too.” He started to reach for her again when one of the painters walked between them carrying a ladder.

“Hey,” said the man.

“Hey,” said Ann. “Cal, can you help Paul carry some stuff upstairs before you leave?”

“Sure. I’m on my way out. Let’s do it.”

Ann smiled at Paul. “Voilà. How’d you get the stuff in your car?”

“It’s in boxes. Has to be put together.”

“Oh. I think I’ll leave now. I can finish the molding tomorrow morning when I can see better.” She grinned. “Bye.”

“Bye.”

Paul spent the next hour putting together his table and chairs, setting them up on his porch, adding the tablecloth and napkins and china and wineglasses and candlesticks he’d bought to help the mood. Then he quickly changed the linen on his mattress. The second day of his camp-out he’d bought a microwave and a small refrigerator, so he put the wine on ice and had a hurried shower.

He felt like an adolescent. He knew the way he wanted the evening to end—with Ann sharing that mattress with him.

He’d just put the single peach rose he’d saved from the bunch he’d given her into one of the four wineglasses he’d bought when he heard the back door open and Ann’s voice call.

He went to the landing and leaned over the railing. “Come on up. Can we trust Dante around pâté?”

“Only if you keep it out of his reach,” she said.

She looked scrubbed and shining. She wore some kind of gathered skirt printed with wildflowers and a white shirt that buttoned invitingly down the front. He saw no sign of a bra. His pulse quickened.

His other purchase for his indoor campsite had been shades for the tall windows on the north side so that he could change clothes in the morning without parading in front of the people in the Wolf River parking lot.