Medium Rare: (Intermix) (11 page)

He scooted to the side slightly. After a moment, she settled beside him, balancing on the edge of the sofa cushion until another burst of wind sent leaves racketing against the living room window. She slid back next to him then, trembling slightly.

“Just wind,” he said in what he hoped was a reassuring voice.

“Knock wood,” she murmured.

He wondered what that comment meant exactly, but the warmth of her body against his side was distracting. The smooth curve of her breast pressed lightly alongside his bicep. If he moved his hand a few inches to the right, he could rest it on her naked thigh.

A rush of heat hit his groin as most of his blood headed south. To remove his hand from further temptation, he shifted his arm across the back of the couch and told his nether regions to cool it.

“Try the port,” he suggested. “It’s pretty good.”

Rose picked up her glass and sipped dutifully, but the trembling was still there in her fingers. Evan didn’t think it was because of him.

“So how long have you lived here?” He slid his arm a little closer to her shoulders.

“What?” She blinked huge emerald eyes at him, then swallowed. “Oh. A couple of years.” She glanced out the window again, rubbing her arms.

The movement tightened her shirt across her lush breasts and his nether regions began to ache once more.

He decided to distract himself. “So tell me about your grandma. The one who left you the house.”

“Grandma Caroline?” She frowned. “I don’t remember her very well. Most of what I know I got from my folks.”

“So is this the ancestral home?” He glanced around the living room, which seemed large enough to contain his whole apartment with room left over to sublet.

She nodded. “Sort of. My great-grandmother built it. She moved here from Dublin.”

“Dublin, Ireland, or Dublin, Texas?” He took another sip of port. “And what about your great-grandfather? Didn’t he have any say in the house?”

“Ireland.” She leaned back against the couch again, her hair brushing against his hand, feather-soft and smelling of lavender. “My great-grandfather wasn’t in the picture so far as I know. He may have been dead.”

“May have been? You’re not sure?”

“Nobody ever mentioned him much. I gather he wasn’t responsible for anything except Grandma Caroline. She was a baby when Great-grandma Siobhan emigrated to Texas and built the house.”

Another load of leaves hit the windows with an unsettling smack, rattling the glass. She slid back against his arm, staring wide-eyed at the swirling fog.

Pleasant though it was to have her warm body jammed more fully against him, Evan felt he should try to keep the conversation going. “So was there a grandpa to go along with Grandma Caroline?”

She frowned up at him, wrinkling her brow. “Grandpa Brian. They were my mother’s parents.”

“Did he live here, too?” He cast a glance around the room—comfortable, warm, and totally feminine. He couldn’t see the average guy spending more than a couple of weeks here without setting fire to a stack of sofa cushions.

She shrugged. “For a while. They got divorced when my mom was little. He moved away to the North somewhere—I think Ma lost track of him. She grew up with Grandma Caroline.”

“So your mother grew up here, but your grandmother left it to you instead of her.” He watched the fog swirl around the windows again, silvered from a distant streetlight. “Seems . . . unusual.”

She looked up, her smile twisting slightly. “Are you investigating, Evan?”

He smiled back, watching the wisps of honey-colored hair float across his arm as she moved. “Not much to investigate. Your mom and your grandmother didn’t get along, but your grandmother wanted the house to stay in the family.”

For a moment, a veil seemed to drop over her eyes, leaving her face blank. “Right. She wanted the family to keep what it had.” She turned away, staring out the window again.

He surreptitiously moved his hand down the back of the couch to rest lightly upon her shoulder. Her skin felt like warm silk, smooth and creamy. “So you didn’t mind moving here?”

She didn’t seem to notice that he was touching her. Or maybe she didn’t care. “I needed a place of my own. I had a dinky apartment out in Castle Hills. So yeah, I was perfectly okay with it.”

“But your folks aren’t?” Her skin seemed to vibrate beneath his fingers like a plucked string. Evan told himself to grow up.

She sighed, turning toward him. “I think my dad feels like Grandma Caroline was sending my mom a message when she left me the house. And he didn’t like it, so that sort of runs over onto me, or, anyway, onto the house and me while I’m living here.”

“A message about . . .”

She shrugged. “Being a Riordan, I guess. Grandma Caroline took her maiden name back after she divorced Grandpa Brian, just like Great-grandma Siobhan did. Riordan women are independent.”

He shook his head. “But you’re a Ramos.”

“And a Riordan. Some days more one than the other. Dad’s family came at the turn of the century to escape the Mexican revolution, so I’ve got wild Irish and revolutionary Mexican both fighting it out in my veins.”

He could feel his own pulse getting a little wild. If he didn’t stop staring into those deep green eyes soon, he’d end up doing something that might get him in deep ethical doo-doo. Then again, he’d never had that kind of problem before.

“What are you?” She raised an eyebrow.

“Excuse me?”

“Your family. Where do your people come from?”

For a moment he had a niggling memory of his dream.
Tell me about your people.
“Illinois. Galesburg and points south. If you mean my ancestors, Germany on my mother’s side and Wales on my dad’s.”

“Welsh. Another Celt like me.”

He shrugged. “Well, I’ve got that phlegmatic German thing going, too. So maybe it all balances out.”

She licked her lips, absently, and he felt the jolt all the way to his toes. In another minute . . .

“I probably should get going,” he mumbled. “It’s late.”

She glanced at the window. The fog still swirled against the glass, like silver smoke.

“I don’t think so, Evan,” she whispered.

She turned back, and suddenly he was basking in emerald light.

Chapter 12

Rose listened to the wind saw around the front porch, wondering whether she was being really clever or really dumb—or if it really mattered. Did she want to go to bed with Evan Delwin, or did she just want to keep him here until the fog went away, hopefully taking the evil thingy with it?

You’re a clever girl, Rose. You’ll think of something.

She took a quick survey of the room to make sure Skag wasn’t hovering somewhere. The wind blasted the windows again, and she jumped.

Right into Evan’s arms. She hadn’t entirely meant to do it, but she wasn’t going to push him away now that she had. His arms felt too good.

He held her lightly, one arm around her shoulders, one hand stroking her hair reassuringly. “It’s okay. Just the wind again.”

She stared up into his clear amber eyes, feeling heat flow from his hands down her arms.

“Are you really frightened?” he asked.

His breath brushed against her forehead, her skin warming to match the heat deep inside her. She nodded since speaking didn’t seem possible just then.

“Why? It’s just a few gusts of wind. No big deal.” His hand moved slowly over her hair, then down to her shoulder, leaving more heat behind. “Not even at lake warning levels yet.”

“I don’t like wind,” she whispered. Particularly not when the wind probably had a malevolent origin. She closed her eyes and concentrated on his touch.

“Rose?” he murmured.

“What?” She opened her eyes, glancing back toward the windows again.

“Nothing.” His lips spread in a grin. “I just wanted to hear your name.”

“Evan.” She smiled. “You’re right. It helps.”

Her lips were a millimeter from his. She had perhaps a nanosecond to decide whether to pull back or not, but he didn’t let her think even that long. He lowered his mouth to hers.

His hand moved to her shoulder, pulling her closer. His lips were smooth and soft, moving gently over hers, opening her to him. He tasted of port and warmth, and she found herself sliding her tongue against his while her body began to throb.

Slowly, she skimmed her fingers through his thick, dark hair, then down, shaping his back and shoulders, his waist. Only a last lingering thread of rationality kept her from dropping her hands further to explore the rest of him.

It’s Evan Delwin, for the love of heaven. What are you doing?

Even while her mind screamed for her to stop, she felt his arms closing around her, pulling her into his lap. Her brain ceased to register anything more than the hard surface of his chest pressing against her breasts, the shape of his erection against her thighs, his body moving against hers.

His lips drifted down the side of her throat, leaving liquid heat and need where he touched. His hands moved along the sides of her body, stroking lines of fire along her breasts, her belly, her hips.

“Rose,” he murmured against her ear, “Rosie.”

A deep ache began throbbing low in her body, and she cupped her hands on either side of his face, pulling his mouth back to hers.

His lips moved against hers again, his tongue slipping in. She tangled her fingers in his hair, rasping her own tongue along his.

Her heart rate accelerated almost painfully. Her clothes felt too tight, and there were far too many of them. She wanted to pull them off and toss them at her feet. No, she wanted
him
to pull them off and toss them—anywhere.

She moved her hands to his chest, fingers tugging at the buttons on his chambray shirt. His hands moved to her waist, jerking her T-shirt free and moving to the button on her shorts.

Something hard hit the window with a shuddering thump that seemed to echo throughout the room.

She jerked back from his embrace as Helen galloped into the room beside them, snarling at the curtains.

“What the hell?” Evan flipped his shirt back over his chest, but not before she’d seen a sizzling expanse of muscle and dark hair.

Well, damn!

She turned to check the front windows. A crack ran down the entire length of one of them, smaller cracks radiating from the center.

Helen danced in front of the lacy sheers, barking frantically now.

“Helen, cut it out,” Rose murmured, moving beside her. The fog still swirled, silvery and dense, just beyond the glass. She leaned forward.

A large black object ricocheted off the window next to her, shuddering the glass in the wooden frame.

She jumped back into Evan’s arms. “Holy crap!” Wind rattled the window at the side of the room and she heard a muffled thump against the wall, then another. “What is it? What’s happening?”

“Something’s hitting against the front of the house, the walls and windows.” He stepped closer, peering out at the fog, then jerked back when another black lump hit the glass with a dull thud.

“Holy shit. Birds,” he muttered. “Some kind of birds.”

Rose leaned forward, trying to see out. “Birds? I can’t . . . what kind of birds?”

He shook his head. “Large and black. You have any problems with grackles?”

“Just cleaning off droppings.” She took a breath, trying to get her heart rate under control. “Those look bigger than grackles.”

Another bird thudded hard against the glass, and Helen began barking again in quick, sharp yips.

“Cool it, Helen.” She swallowed hard, edging closer. “They’re going to break the glass if they keep this up.”

“Yeah, they could very well.” He pulled out his cell as more thumps sounded on the walls around them.

Rose resisted the impulse to pull her arms around her head and duck. Her heart thumped hard. “Who are you calling?”

“Animal control.” He looked down at the phone, his mouth twisting. “Damn it! All of a sudden I’ve got no signal.” He flipped the cell phone closed again. “Try turning off the lamp. Maybe that’s what’s attracting them.”

“You mean like moths?” She shook her head, then took another deep breath and reached toward the light switch. A series of muffled thuds against the walls resounded dully as she switched it off. She winced and moved closer to the center of the room.

In the darkness, Helen’s growl became a high whine. Rose glanced down at her. The dog’s eyes glowed with fire. “Quiet, Helen,” she whispered. “Please.”

“It’s just birds,” Evan murmured comfortingly. “They’ll get their bearings in a minute. No big deal.”

She felt his arm slide around her shoulders in the darkness as more thumps sounded from the walls around them.

Rose swallowed against the tightness in her throat.
No big deal.
Right.
“They don’t seem to be getting their bearings yet.”

“It’s okay. You may get a couple of broken windows out of the whole thing, but that’s minor.” His voice sounded overly hearty in the darkness.

She caught her breath. Broken windows. And once the windows were broken open, whatever waited outside in the fog could have free entry to the house. She gritted her teeth to keep them from chattering.

“We need to put something over the windows. Now.” She trotted from the living room toward the hall closet, telling herself not to run.

“Something? Like what?”

“Like the old shutters my grandma used to have across there.” She threw open the closet door, running her hand along the wall, searching for the stack of shutters left there when she’d hung the curtains. “Plywood would be better but we don’t have enough time to find some in the attic.”

“We don’t? Why don’t we?” Evan sounded confused.

Because the fearsome thingy on the front porch wants to get in. And it’s about to.
She took another deep breath. “Because we don’t. Are you going to help me or what?”

“I assume ‘or what’ isn’t a serious option.” He stepped into the closet behind her, then helped her slide out the first two shutters.

She grabbed one end, leaving him to pick up the other as they staggered into the living room. The shutters seemed to weigh a lot more than they had when she’d taken them down—probably the extra pounds of dust that they were currently strewing across the floor.

“Don’t these go on the outside?” he panted.

She shook her head. “These are indoor shutters. I took them down when I put up the curtains.”

She started to lift the first shutter, but Evan took it out of her hands, fitting it into the hinge slots as another bird racketed against the glass. “You still have the pins for the hinges?”

Rose felt like snarling. Of course, she didn’t have any pins! She hadn’t anticipated a bird attack, for Pete’s sake! She pulled open the drawer to Grandma Caroline’s escritoire, hoping against hope that it might contain something that would work.

The drawer was full of nails. She stared for a moment, then grabbed two. “See if these will fit.”

He pushed the nails in place. “They do. Just.” He picked up the second shutter, pushing the nails in to secure the hinges.

Rose reached up to slam the shutters closed and latch them in place. From behind the shutters she heard the sound of splintering glass. “Come on. Let’s get the next two.”

In reality, it probably took them no more than ten or fifteen minutes to get all the shutters installed on the living room windows. It only seemed like several hours.

All the while, the dull thumps continued from the front porch—birds throwing themselves against the walls, the door, the windows. Now and then, she heard glass splinter, but the shutters kept everything outside.

Or anyway she hoped they did.

When they’d covered all the windows, she stood in the middle of the room, hugging herself. The thumps seemed to be decreasing, little by little, but she still heard them. Whatever was out there hadn’t given up yet.

She reached back to switch on the lamp again. A little light probably wouldn’t make much difference one way or the other.

Evan stood in a corner watching her. “You want to tell me what’s going on here, Rosie?”

Anxiety churned in her stomach. She really didn’t want to tell him anything. “I don’t know what made this happen. Truly I don’t.”

“But you knew to put up the shutters.” His amber eyes seemed to burn in the dimness of the darkened room, almost like Helen’s glowing eyes in the other corner.

“Of course.” She managed a decent imitation of indifference. “I didn’t want a living room full of dead birds. I figured the shutters would keep them out.”

He watched her for another moment, eyes narrowed. She found herself wishing he’d put his arms around her again, but she was fairly certain he wouldn’t.

“Maybe I should go home now,” he said slowly.

She listened for a moment longer. No more thumps came from the porch. No more bird bodies struck the windows. She stepped to one of the side windows and peeked around the edge of the shutter. The moon shone brightly through the clear night sky. Not a wisp of fog remained.

Rose exhaled. She hadn’t realized she’d been holding her breath. “Whatever you want, Evan.”

He walked toward the front door. “I’ve still got your kibble in the back of my car. I’ll carry it in for you.”

“I’ll help.” Amazingly enough her voice sounded almost normal, despite the fact that her pulse still pounded like a jackhammer.

She started to follow him out onto the porch, then collided with the wall of muscle that was his back.

He stood frozen in front of her, one arm extended to keep her back.

Rose looked down. “Holy Christ,” she whispered.

The porch floor was covered in dark bodies. Those nearest the railings gleamed in the moonlight.

“Ravens,” he murmured. “They were ravens. I didn’t know they even had that many ravens in all of San Antonio. Hell, I didn’t know they had any.”

She swallowed. For a moment, she couldn’t say anything at all. The birds lay two and three deep around the windows, like sleek black cobblestones lining her front porch. “Holy Christ,” she whispered again.

“A lot of them.” He shook his head. “It sounded like a lot, but I didn’t realize how many.”

She concentrated on breathing. Something had flung scores of ravens at her windows, trying to get in. Now the broken, twisted evidence lay two-deep on her front porch. And whatever it was would probably try again, maybe with something bigger and nastier.

Behind her, Helen stood in the doorway, growling.

“You want some help cleaning this up?”

Cleaning up. She hadn’t even thought about that until now. She couldn’t leave the porch in this state, could she?

Helen growled again.

“No, thanks. I’ll take care of it tomorrow.” Preferably in full daylight. With no fearsome thingies hiding in the bushes.

“You’re sure? There’s a lot of birds here.”

Rose closed her eyes. “It’s okay.” Maybe if she repeated it often enough, he’d believe it.

He watched her for a moment, then shook his head. “This is the damnedest thing I’ve ever seen, Rosie. You should call animal control. Find out why a flock of ravens chose to commit mass suicide on your front porch.”

“Right.” And she’d share this with somebody official when Porky and Petunia fluttered across the evening sky.

She watched Evan heft the massive bag of kibble out of the back of his SUV, then held the door for him to stagger inside. He dropped it in the kitchen.

Helen looked at it with minimal interest, then padded back to the living room, restlessly.

He raised an eyebrow. “You sure you don’t want me to stick around? In case anything else happens?”

She shook her head. “Thanks for your help. We’ll be fine.” She managed a weak smile.

He looked as if he felt like arguing, but then he shrugged. “Well, I guess I’ll take off, then. Thanks for a very interesting evening.”

“Any time.” She watched him walk back down the steps, trying, as he did, not to step on any of the raven bodies that lined her porch.

As the sound of Evan’s SUV faded in the distance, she walked back into the living room. Skag floated in front of the fireplace. “‘Interesting evening.’ Apparently, Delwin has a gift for understatement.”

Rose folded her arms across her chest. “Care to explain what happened here tonight? I’m dying to hear it—perhaps literally, given the events of the past couple of nights.”

He blew a ferocious cloud of cigarette smoke. “You were attacked. That much should be obvious.”