Something in the Water... (12 page)

“That’s all,” she managed to say, wondering at the ease of this…that she could simply sit down with her mother and a cup of tea, and hear all the real-life secrets of the widows of the house, including the identity of her father. “After all these years? Hmm. And maybe you can tell me whether you killed all the men you were supposed to have married,” she muttered, angry at the world and wanting to hurt them all.

Her relatives stared back, stupefied. “Don’t act as if you never heard the rumors that fly all over town,” she said.

“We’d heard kids think we’re witches,” said Gran, mortified. “But now they’re saying we killed some men…?”

Ariel was clutching a sheet around her and a naked man was in her bed. Definitely, this was not the time for any of this. “They call our house Terror House,” she forced herself to say. “And the kids think we’re witches. You’re all widows, who buried their husbands in shallow graves on the mountain.”

“Oh my God,” her mother said.

Great-gran wasn’t as put off by the idea. Ariel could swear she heard her mutter, “I wish that’s what I’d done to him.”

Gran suddenly gasped. “Oh, no!” she exclaimed. “Can you smell that? Something’s burning in the kitchen!”

“The waffle iron!” her mother nearly shouted. “I left batter in it!”

Saved by the bell. Ariel smelled burning blueberries now, and as she watched her mother whirl, her stomach rumbled. “We’ll talk whenever you’re ready,” her mother called over her shoulder. And then she was gone, with Gran speeding after her. Great-gran moved as fast, the broom she’d brought doubling as a cane.

At the last minute, she lifted it, using the handle to push shut the bedroom door, leaving a deafening silence. For a moment, Ariel simply stared, stunned at what had transpired. Suddenly, her life seemed as airy, light and insubstantial as the scarves strewn on the bed. Nothing more than a breeze might have blown it all away. Hours ago, she’d been driving into town, knowing exactly where she was headed and why….

She wasn’t surprised to feel two warm hands settle on her bare shoulders, urging her to turn around. He hadn’t brought the sheet with him, so he was butt-naked. Gorgeous, too. His eyes were intense and so blue that they almost looked violet in the streaming sunlight.

The cold light of day,
she thought. Even with him in front of her, enticingly naked, her mind was still on the previous encounter. Not that speaking with her mother would bring any new answers into life. So what if she learned the man’s name? He’d always been gone and he’d never been a part of her life. That was the impor
tant thing. She was grown now; she didn’t need a father. She needed…

A partner. But this morning, Joanie had brought back all the old feelings.

“You’d better go,” she said.

Surprise registered in Rex’s eyes. “What?”

“You heard all that.” She’d almost laid bare the past and had demanded some semblance of the truth from her flesh and blood. Now, that was a red-letter day. She really was so tired of lies. But how much should she tell Joanie about her husband? Wasn’t a woman supposed to figure out for herself that her husband was a horse’s behind? And even if she told the whole truth, would the woman believe her?

She eyed Rex. How much truth had really been in what they’d shared last night? “You said you had to head out early this morning.” She glanced around, her gaze settling on a travel alarm. “They serve breakfast in about a half hour,” she added. Whatever was left that was still fit to eat. And now, she thought, she didn’t exactly feel like running downstairs to help finish making it. Everybody had been concerned, and she’d lost her temper. But then, they were closemouthed, and it had cost her….

So, maybe a part of her wasn’t really sorry she’d just rocked the boat. She wasn’t sorry they’d caught her in bed with a man, either. She was tired of pretending the sexual part of her life didn’t exist at all.

He was still staring at her as if he’d never seen her before, and that, more anything, made her ache. Last night, he’d felt like what she’d read about in a new-age book, a soul mate. But who was she fooling? Her life in Bliss had always been full of lies and accusations.
Now she wanted to remember last night just as it had felt to her then. It could stay crystalized in her mind as one night that was absolutely perfect.

“Really,” she murmured. “I’d better go change. We…” Her voice trailed off.

Wordlessly, he waited.

“…We can eat together before you go.”

Turning, he went over to his duffel, pulled out a pair of jeans, thrust his arms into a shirt, which had been stacked in the duffel, still wrapped in the launderer’s cardboard. She watched, half in awe, as he strode around the room, then into the bathroom and out again, using the wide arc of an arm to simply sweep the rest of his belongings from the tabletops into the duffel.

Apparently, that was how Rex Houston packed. She guessed working all over the world taught a man to travel lightly and pack in minutes. He paused by the bed and stared down at it, taking in one of the scarves, one other than that which Joanie had touched. She imagined he was considering taking it with him as a souvenir.

She didn’t blame him. Suddenly, she wanted something of his, to remember him by. A picture, maybe. A shirt she could sleep in that held his scent. But he walked to the door and swung it open. “Don’t worry about breakfast,” he muttered as he crossed the threshold, tossing a last glance over his shoulder. “I’ll pick mine up on the road.”

And then he was gone.

“S
HE’LL EAT BREAKFAST
with me before I go,” Rex muttered, repeating Ariel’s words as he reached for a cell phone from the dashboard and dialed the CDC. As the phone rang, he climbed into the mobile lab, pulled the door shut, then stared through the windshield at the house. It was the wrong thing to do. Right now, he…hated her. Loved her, too. Or at least, he loved her as much as a man could love a woman he’d only known for a day.

Someone picked up. “Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Atlanta.”

“Jessica Williams please. Rex Houston calling.”

“Sexy Rexy, huh?” The operator giggled. “It may take a while to get her on the line.”

He sighed. “What’s she doing? Her nails?”

“You’re in a bad mood.”

She didn’t know the half of it. “Take your time. I’ve got all day,” he said. The phone clicked and an instrumental version of “Love Me Tender” began to play. Right now, hearing it made his skin crawl and he could only hope Jessica would hurry.

He wanted to make sure she’d been busy, finding him a nice assignment at the far edge of the world, away
from Bliss, West Virginia. There was no stopping the tide of emotions, although he knew they were out of proportion to the situation. Right now, it was taking everything he had not to go back inside and tell Ariel exactly what he thought of how she’d handled Joanie. Why had she put up with the woman at all? But then, what right did he have to confront Ariel…?

He was nothing to her, right? Nor she to him. Wham bam, thank you ma’am…She’d just made that clear. Yeah, this was just a one-night deal. A blissful daylong interlude where he’d forgotten reason and fallen into a realm of pure sensation, plummeting over the edge and flying through the night with her only to crash….

Well, maybe her accusers were right. Maybe Anderson women bewitched men, singing to them like the sirens of ancient Greece. Maybe they’d called men toward Terror House, after all, breaking them into tiny pieces against the rocky shore. Rex pushed aside the thoughts, not really believing them. But Ariel had definitely…captivated him. She was so like her name, which conjured airy, winged creatures with wands, dressed in filmy white gowns.

He sighed. Where were these thoughts coming from, anyway? They didn’t belong to him. They were too poetic. But he felt strangely out of control and compelled to go back into the house and demand more from her than he had a right to.

Was this what he deserved? Wouldn’t any man understand that you couldn’t just scratch an itch? Everything came with a price, especially sex. Give him science any day, he thought. It was neat and rational. Easy to quantify. Nature always followed rules, regulations and laws the human heart could never hope to understand.

In less than a day, Ariel had gotten inside him like the worst kind of bug, and there was just no cure. Like her, he wanted to undo his past right now, in which case he never would have heard her name. Yeah, he could have lived his whole life without feeling the level of passion to which she’d introduced him. His throat constricted as his eyes flickered over the hill, down the mountainside, toward the dock.

The emotions weren’t only about the sex. Maybe that was the worst thing. He liked her chutzpah. The loyalty she felt for her family, despite her anger at them. That she didn’t rip apart a woman like Joanie, despite the fact that the woman deserved it. But Ariel was nice. Unfortunately, all her best qualities were the exact same ones Rex hated at the moment. His muscles tensed as he studied the front door. Inside, the guests whom he’d enjoyed meeting last night were crowding into the dainty tearoom, with its lace tablecloths and polished silver, serving themselves waffles made with fresh blueberries. Despite the fact that some had burned, the scent had assaulted his nostrils as he’d walked out the door.

Now his stomach rumbled. Was he really going to drive away from here without any promise for the future? Should he go back inside and talk to her? If reasoning didn’t work, he knew he could savage her mouth. He could haul her close, making something wild ignite. Within minutes, she’d be opening the liquid cream of her thighs….

Thinking about loving her made explosions burst inside him. Without doubt, he could swirl down into the musky darkness of her scent and never come up for air again. Given the way she’d looked at him when he’d left,
she wasn’t finished with what they’d started, no more than he was.

Or was she? Maybe that was just his own desires talking. Right now, he didn’t care much about the goals that had brought her to town. He wanted her to forget about the show she needed to tape, just as he wanted to forget the bug he’d been sent to find.

What most mattered to him now was how she’d slipped between his fingers. She’d sifted right through, like sand from the banks below.

Stepping between the seats, he tucked the cell under his chin, sandwiching it between his ear and shoulder. Lifting a lab coat from a shelf, he slipped it over his shirt, then he reached into the pocket protector for a pen. As he clicked the cap, he grabbed a clipboard and the thick folder Jessica had given him, then he headed for the white tumblers in the back.

“One thing’s for certain,” he muttered. “Romeo’s not infecting this place.” After all, Ariel had just ditched him cold. That was his proof. Too bad the lab carried the scent of her. He wondered how the smell could remain, since she’d only driven the vehicle a few moments the previous day; then he realized the scent was on his skin.

He still couldn’t believe she’d driven away in the mobile lab yesterday, acting as if she owned a vehicle for which the government had paid millions. If he’d pointed out that criminal courts would prosecute her for theft, she’d only have told him that her tax dollars, not the government, had bought the vehicle. She’d have a point, too. And what better use for it than escaping Studs Underwood? From what Rex knew of the man and his
wife, pushing either one into the spring was the least they deserved.

The phone clicked on again. “You still there, sexy Rexy?”

“Yep.”

“I’m still trying to locate her. She’s in the building.”

“I’m still here.”

As the music began to play again, he flicked the off buttons to the tumblers. The soft sloshing sound of the washers ceased. It would take the contents a good half hour to cool. Then he’d open the lids and see what was inside. By heart, he knew every bacterium and virus that would mushroom, blooming in the hot, dark confines. Shaking his head in mute frustration, he tried not to be too angry with Jessica for sending him here.

Oh, the place was beautiful, all right, hills covered with thick greenery and bright flowers; crystal waters peeking through trees. But within two hours, he’d be finished logging the results of all the water samples and he could drive away. By nightfall, he’d be kicking back on the balcony of his apartment, drinking a beer and trying to forget Ariel. By morning, with any luck, he’d be headed for someplace more hospitable, like the Ivory Coast.

Meanwhile, he unlatched a Formica tabletop attached to the vehicle’s side and pulled it downward. Behind the makeshift table was a neatly hidden door, which he now opened. Voilà. A tray containing a mounted microscope slid out. Returning to a space next to the washing tumblers, he unfastened two seat belts that secured a chair to the wall, so it wouldn’t roll along its built-in track while the lab was in motion. He rolled it in front of the tabletop.

There. Instant lab. And he was glad he was in it, too. Better than still in a room with Ariel clad in nothing but a bedspread, her skin reeking with the kind of sex that hooked right into him, begging him to drag her down to the floor and plunder. He shook his head. To get her off his mind, he’d need a trip to some truly compromised little backwater village, preferably one overrun by the kind of bug that could kill a man in under twenty-four hours. Rats infected with the bubonic plague would do. He needed the kind of rush that came with ripping a spacesuit in bio-level four while handling diseases that would eat a man alive if they touched his skin. Maybe that would keep his mind off her.

Shifting the phone to the other ear, he wished Jessica would pick up. He’d tell her there was no bug here. Then he’d remind her that she owed him one and say he was calling in the favor now. Sighing, he glanced at his watch. Only five minutes had passed. The washers had to cool for at least a half hour, minimum.

The phone clicked on. “Still looking.”

“I’ll try back,” he said, seating himself. Ringing off, he tossed the cell next to the microscope and opened the briefing file he’d read on the plane. His eyes sharpened as he read the story once more. An under-equipped lab in South America had discovered what they’d called the love bug after extensively testing the inhabitants of a small village called Szuzi. Usually industrious, the natives hunted, fished and grew produce, mostly palms and yams. But out of the blue, they’d ceased to come to the common markets.

Fearing the worst, nearby villagers, with whom they’d traded regularly, had suspected a plague had
wiped out Szuzi. Or that flooding had washed away the mud huts, as often happened, since Szuzi was located on an inlet fed by a hot spring. Judging from the photos in the file, it was paradise on earth. Like Bliss, he thought, glancing through the windshield again, taking in the stone stairs visible in the mountainside’s sheer drop….

Then he turned his attention to the file again, wondering what had happened. Members of a research team had emerged after a week’s work with tall tales of how uninhibited the natives had become, and they’d isolated a virus they felt to be responsible. The samples had been lost on the way out of the rain forest, and all that now remained were some badly drawn sketches. Given the prominence of some of the researchers, that seemed odd. Was it possible they’d fallen under Romeo’s spell, as well…?

The phone’s ringing drew him out of a deep reverie, and he checked his watch. More than a half hour had passed. Hell, where had he gone? The zone, he thought. That far-off place his mind escaped to when he was working. Or where he’d stored the memories of last night, which now seemed almost like a dream. He clicked the phone on, rose, and headed for the tumblers, opening the lid of the first. Within minutes, he’d have the proof that nothing viral had mushroomed in the heat. “Yeah,” he muttered, suddenly realizing he hadn’t yet said anything. “Houston speaking.”

“I heard you called.”

It was Jessica. “Just putting in a call to make sure you’re booking my flight to somewhere more interesting.”

“Demanding, are we?”

“For this,” he said, “you owe me.”

“Find anything?”

He could almost feel the old, smooth, silvered wood of the dock beneath his feet, and see how the moon and starlight had played on Ariel’s skin. Had he been there with a woman he didn’t even know, embracing her more intimately than he ever had anyone?

“Found plenty,” he said, forcing his attention on work again. “Just not a bug.” Shifting the phone from ear to ear once more, he added, “I’m just looking at the first slide.”

Taking it from the immersible rack, he slid it under the microscope. And stared. His breath caught.

“What have you got, Rex?”

He wanted to lie. He wanted out of Bliss in the worst kind of way, but professional ethics made that impossible. “It’s not the virus, Jessica,” he whispered. “But it’s trace.” Just a hint of material, the casing of the virus. He glanced at the picture drawn in Szuzi and his pulse quickened. “It looks like something similar to the South American bug.”

His mind started clicking. Bliss had a long history of periods when the town had gone silent, usually only a week or two, starting in 1790. While Szuzi’s written history was hardly as sophisticated as in the States, their oral tradition easily vied with American textbooks for accuracy, and they’d lost time, too.

“Judging by this sample,” he said, looking into the microscope. “The bug’s not live. No one’s being currently infected.”

“You’re sure?”

He shook his head. “Not so far. But I have to go through all the samples.” Then he’d look for the connection between Szuzi and Bliss. Bugs of any kind always had to travel. Still holding the phone, he stared harder
into the lens, studying the dark, looping chains of the organism—or what was left of it, after it had died. “Judging from the molecular setup, I don’t think it destroys the cells it enters.” When many viruses invaded, their own genetic material took over the cell, and after they died, only a dry husk was left.

“Look at the rest of those samples,” Jessica said. “Call me as soon as you find something that’s still alive.”

If he did. “Will do,” he said, already reaching for another slide, not knowing whether to laugh or cry. If he found a live, traveling virus, the World Health Organization would be here by nightfall. If he found substantial evidence the population was infected, the military would arrive and quarantine the entire population. He grimaced, hating to think of Ariel’s career being affected in any negative way.

But whatever the outcome, it meant he couldn’t leave Bliss.

R
EX HESITATED
,
THEN KNOCKED
on Ariel’s door, his heart skipping a beat when her husky voice sounded. “Who is it?”

“Rex.”

There was a long pause. “Come in.”

She didn’t sound particularly happy to hear it was him, and when he swung open the door and entered, he realized she didn’t look all that thrilled, either. The first thing he noticed was the notes for her human-interest story spread over the bed, as if she’d set to work the second he’d left. Unwanted annoyance coursed through him, even though he knew she’d meant to plan her story throughout the week, talking to people, targeting those
she most wanted to show on camera. Still…hadn’t their night meant anything to her?

Maybe it had, he realized, because her crystal eyes were red-rimmed, the irises swimming. The covers were mussed, the piled pillows marked with indentions as if she’d flung herself into bed and wept. Her long hair was usually so straight that she could have ironed it, but now it was crimped, curly looking, and disheveled beyond hope.