Private Entrance (The Butterfly Trilogy) (26 page)

     But as she took a step toward him, Zeb with his back to her, not knowing she was there, someone appeared on the trail up head, coming from the north entrance of the aviary, a female guest, leggy and blonde, running up to Zeb and squealing, "There you are! I woke up this morning and you were gone!" She flung her arms around his neck and planted a firm kiss on his mouth. Vanessa watched in shock as Zeb, not protesting, kissed her right back.

     Stunned, Vanessa slowly backed down the trail until she was hidden behind large ferns and out of earshot. She did not want to hear what was said between the two.

     What had she been thinking? How could she possibly imagine there could be anything between her and Zeb? They were from different worlds, different races. And she reminded herself that Zeb was a man of strong morals and ethics, that he lived by a strict personal code. How could she explain that the man she had killed was a pimp, that she had done it in self-defense? How to explain the burning of White Hills prison, where the inmates were subjected to cruel treatment? She was glad the blonde had shown up. It stopped her from making a fool of herself.

A
BBY HAD A RECURRING DREAM.

     It started with a knock at the door.
"Ms. Tyler?"

     
"Yes."

     
"I'm from the District Attorney's office." He always had a Texas accent, but his clothes varied. "We've been reviewing your case and we've come to the conclusion that you are not guilty of killing Avis Yocum after all. The conviction has been overturned. You are exonerated."

     But last night, for the first time, the dream had been different:
She opened the door to find Jack Burns standing there, informing her that her conviction had been overturned. He then took her by the hand, and she said, "Where are you taking me?"

     
"To freedom," he said, and when she stepped through the door saw that they were at the beach.

     
They walked barefoot along damp sand, moonlight illuminating their way while silver-crested waves crashed on the shore. Abby realized she was in her nightgown, made of transparent gauze that fluttered against her skin.
The feeling awakened all her senses. She felt sharply sexual.

     
When had Jack shed his leather jacket? Where was his shirt? His skin was wet as if he had just emerged from the water, starlight sparkling on sculpted muscles. She wanted to lick the salt from his skin.

     
He turned suddenly, pulled her to him and captured her mouth in a deep kiss. Breathless, she kissed him back as the surf lapped around their ankles, tugging at them to join the creatures of the sea.

     
Jack stepped back to remove his jeans, slowly peeling them down his legs until he stood magnificently naked in the moonlight. Then he reached down for the hem of her nightgown, sodden with water, and drew it up her body and over her head. His eyes swept over every inch of her nakedness, and then his hands followed, as they explored Abby's every curve and hollow. She touched him, too, the sinewy archer's arms, the hard chest, the jaw that begged to be kissed.

     
Taking her again by the hand, he led her into the chill surf and dived into a massive, crashing wave to surface with Abby in his embrace, their mouths coming together in an electrifying kiss as the undulating ocean lifted them and lowered them, Jack's strong arms supporting Abby, her legs locked around his thighs. He thrust into her, out on the waves, moonlight shining on their hair and shoulders, and the tide floated them in and back, as they rode the Pacific locked together.

     
Pressing his lips to her ear, he murmured, "Swim away to the ends of the earth with me."

     
And she said, "Yes..."

     She had awakened to find her sheets in a tangle and her nightgown up around her waist. She had burned with sexual desire that even now, hours later, continued to glow inside her as she stood at the door to Jack's bungalow.

     He had surprised her by telephoning that morning and inviting her to breakfast. Abby had both wanted to accept and decline. She didn't like the affect he was having on her. No man had made her feel so weak and so alive. But she also needed to know why he was there. She had discovered that Jack Burns had had conversations with Coco, Sissy and, last night, Ophelia. This alarmed her. If he was investigating his sister's murder, then why

     was he talking to
them?

     She knocked.

     The blue work shirt was open at the collar, the sleeves rolled up, and his short hair went this way and that, as if he hadn't combed it yet. She looked at his mouth and wondered if he kissed in real life the way he had in her dream.

     "Hello!" he said, standing aside to let her in. Jack had not seen Abby since the day before at noon, when she had introduced him to Elias Salazar, her head of security. Jack had thought he would run into her after that, but she was a difficult lady to pin down. Besides the demands of running so exclusive a resort, she also had a full social calendar. He had tried to finagle dinner with her but she already had evening plans. He needed to know why she had been investigating his sister, and what Abby had on her. So he had called first thing that morning and invited her to breakfast. To his surprise, Abby had accepted.

     And now here she was, and Jack was thinking she looked as fabulous in the morning as she did at other times of the day when he should be thinking of a way to find out what information she had on his sister.

     He saw her eyeing his gloves. "I've been working on my equipment," he said, and she saw the tall archery bow propped against the wall, the arrows laid out on newspaper on the floor. Abby was surprised to hear classical music coming from the stereo. Brahms or Schumann. She had pegged Jack Burns for a jazz man.

     Jack was staying in the Sierra Nevada cottage. The exterior was like all the other cottages—stucco painted in muted desert tones, purposely designed to be inconspicuous— but the interior resembled a rustic mountain cabin with a large stone fireplace, cowhide furniture, Indian rugs, and paintings of elk and grizzlies. Abby thought that Jack, a rugged man, fit right in.

     She glanced toward the bedroom, where she saw the four poster bed made of rough-hewn wood, the old fashioned quilt thrown back, sheets rumpled. The maid had not yet done the room. Jack's pillow was indented where his head had lain and Abby pictured him in bed and recalled riding the warm ocean current, his hardness inside her—

     "Room service hasn't arrived yet," he said as he knelt on the floor to screw the cap back onto a bottle of pungent smelling liquid.

     Abby was intrigued by the archery equipment. It looked at home in this replica of a fur trapper's cabin.

     "I make my own arrows," Jack said as he gathered up pliers, knife, sandpaper, wax, and paint. "It relaxes me. I love the smell of the cedar, the feel of the wood between my fingers. Cresting them with my own colors. Doing my own fletching."

     "Cresting? Fletching?"

     He closed the toolbox. "Painting rings around the shafts and sticking the feathers on."

     When he saw how she looked at the bow, as she had the day before when he had come back from shooting in the desert, he had a sudden idea. Jack had been at the resort for two days and three nights and had yet to obtain her fingerprints. The opportunity was perfect.

     Still wearing the soft work gloves, he retrieved a polishing cloth and picked up the bow. "Have you ever held one of these?" he asked, carefully wiping the wooden grip.

     "I've never even
seen
one," she said.

     "Let me show you." He pulled something out of his pocket and handed it to her. "If you're right handed, put this on your right hand."

     She slipped the glove on. "It's missing some fingers."

     "You only use three fingers to draw a bow string. On the end joints, here," he said, touching her lightly.

     Abby felt a jolt and wondered why she was doing this.

     But Jack was handing her the bow and she took it. Abby found it to be surprisingly light, about two pounds, even though it was nearly as tall as herself. "It's so big!" she gasped.

     
Jesus
, he thought. She made it sound sexual.

     Maybe this was a mistake, Jack thought, recalling his dream about making love to her on a desert mesa. The dream had been so real he had to remind himself he had
not
touched her in intimate places, had not kissed her to breathlessness. Even now, he could still hear her ecstatic cry echoing in the deep, red canyons. "Okay," he said, "it's sixty pounds of draw weight. You'll need help."

     Standing behind her, Jack placed his hand over hers and hefted the bow so that their left arms were aligned and parallel to the floor. Then he reached around for her right hand and hooked her fingers over the string. Abby felt
his chest against her back. Jack inhaled the fragrance of her hair, inches from his face. He was instantly aroused.

     "Don't pull with your arm, pull with your back." His voice was low, his lips close to her ear. Abby was stunned by the intimacy of the moment—romantic classical music on the CD player, the living room suffused with golden desert sunlight, and Jack Burns's hard body against hers. It felt just like it had in her beach dream. Would the rest feel the same?

     "You have to maintain a high level of tension or the arrows will fly inconsistently," he said, drawing her arm back, his fingers around hers on the bow string. His chest was now firmly against her back, their arms lined up and touching, his arms encircling her in an embrace.

     As he drew the string toward her face, he said, "People prefer different anchors, you have to find what is comfortable for you." His fingertips lightly touched her cheek. "Here," he murmured, "or here," and he touched her chin. Her skin was warm, reminding him of the secret fire he suspected deep within her.

     They aimed at the garden wall. Abby could barely speak, his closeness was so intoxication. "Isn't this dangerous?"

     "It's safe. We're just going to hit that wall." Her scent was sweet and delicate, not like a perfume but as if Abby were a flower grown in one of her own gardens. Why the hell was he doing this? Jack wanted to know more about Abby Tyler, but not
this
much more, the feel of her against him, the scent of her hair, the warmth of her skin. This was dangerous knowledge.

     He should stop now. He
could
stop now—her prints were on the polished bow grip. Instead, he said, "Just push against the handle with your palm, fingers relaxed," warm breath on her cheek.

     The bow wobbled and Abby suddenly laughed. Jack laughed with her as he found himself enjoying the moment, forgetting for an instant why he was there. "When you want to let go, you simply relax the fingers. Don't 'pluck' the string."

     They released the string together. The arrow shot into the garden and Abby's right arm flew back in recoil. She fell against Jack and for an instant he held her in an embrace, holding her tight against him, her face upturned to his. And then they heard the arrow strike the stone wall and
Abby snapped her head around, saying, "Did we hit something?" and Jack dropped his arms, stepped away to be free of her.

     He was angry with himself. Why had he let this happen? Once her prints were on the grip, he should have just taken the bow back, saying how it was too much draw-power for her, that she should start out on a lighter bow. Instead he had gone ahead with the demonstration. Why? He knew why. It was an excuse to be close to her. To touch her.

     Taking the bow by the upper and lower recurves, careful not to contaminate the grip, he laid it on the bed. He had Abby's fingerprints at last. A full, clean set.

     "Well," she said, stepping away from him, suddenly flustered, wondering what had just happened. She looked at her watch. "Room service is late. I hope we aren't having trouble in the kitchen again."

     Jack was anxious for her to leave now. The minute she was gone, he was going to call Guest Services and get himself a seat on the first available flight out. Get the bow to headquarters, have the grip dusted for prints, run the prints through the FBI database—

     "That waterfall should be running."

     "What?"

     "The waterfall in your garden. It should be going."

     "I turned it off," he said. "It was distracting me."

     She became thoughtful, then said, "That had never occurred to me. I always thought the sound of trickling water was relaxing. I wonder if other guests have found the waterfall or fountain in their garden distracting."

     She reached into the pocket of her beige linen slacks and brought out a slender, micro-cassette recorder. She spoke briefly into it—"Note: meet with Gordon re private fountains and waterfalls, on/off switches"—then she restored the small machine to her pocket and said with a smile, "I like to make improvements when I can."

     He shifted his weight. He wanted her to leave. He wanted her to stay. "You designed this place?"