Tell Me What Is Priceless (Siren Publishing Classic) (4 page)

Blaze shook her head and turned her attention to answering a few buyer’s questions before shutting the computer down. She played with the dogs for a little while and then went in to braid her hair. When Zar showed up, she went out to meet him.

Zar’s smile was sincere and inviting. “You look nice.”

“Thank you. So where are we going?”

“I have a house up in the woods. It’s a scenic ride, and I figured we could get lunch on the way. I have one short stop to make first.”

Blaze waited as he pushed the bike out of the driveway and then slipped between him and the sissy bar. Zar pulled her hands around his chest. “I don’t trust the bar. I prefer that you hold on. Have you ever been on a motorcycle?”

“I used to drive one.”

“Perfect, then you won’t lean the wrong way.”

“I wasn’t aware that you leaned a Harley. You lean a rice rocket.”

“Good point. You still have to lean, but it isn’t such a dramatic lean. Of course, most people don’t race their Harleys,” he said, pulling out onto the road.

Blaze had forgotten about the uselessness of trying to talk with the wind shattering her words. She found herself in silence, looking at the passing landscape. Zar’s back flexed against her chest, and Blaze was surprised to find herself unconsciously taking in the feel of him. Zar slowed for a red light and turned to her. “Do you approve?”

“Approve of what?”

“The feel of my chest muscles. You are tracing them with your fingertips. It is driving me insane.”

She felt her face growing hot and shrugged. “Sorry.”

“Don’t apologize. It feels nice.” Zar released the brake and began to move again. It was a short while later when they pulled into the parking lot of a small shopping mall. Zar slid off. “I will be right back.” He headed through a door with an overhead sign that announced
Imaginative Goods
.

He came out a few moments later and slid back against Blaze’s body as he started the bike. The road twisted as it rose up into the hills ahead. Blaze watched as the trees became thicker and the houses fewer. The comment she had made to Nan about him being a serial killer kept returning to her mind. When Zar pulled into a parking lot, Blaze realized that she hadn’t seen a car or a house for miles.

Zar shut the motor down, flipping the kickstand before slipping off. “I am going in to pick up lunch. You can come in if you want. Are you all right?”

“I was just noticing how deserted this area is. What is this place?”

“They are friends. They do a good dinner crowd and also catering for events. They have a beautiful outdoor eating area that overlooks the valley below. There are other people living in this area, but they like their privacy. Does this make you nervous?”

“I guess not,” she replied in an unsure tone as she nervously unbraided her hair. She took a small brush from her purse and worked the tiny knots out of the strands. “I’m gonna walk around. My knees are a little stiff.”

“I’ll be right out.” Zar headed into the restaurant.

When he returned, she was more nervous than she had been before. Zar handed her the bag and got the bike going again.

Blaze was tense as she leaned against his back, and when he touched her thigh, she jumped. Zar pulled the bike over to the side of the road, taking the bag from her as he got off. Blaze watched him for a moment until he turned and held out his hand. “Where we are going?” she asked. “I mean the view is beautiful, but it’s a car pull-off with some rocks to sit on. I thought you said we were going up to your house.”

“I was going to take you there, but you are so jumpy I thought we could eat here and then go home. I can feel the tension radiating off you. I gather the idea of me taking you up to some secluded spot really bothers you. I can understand why. There are a million psychos in the world, and you don’t know me well enough to know I’m not one of them.”

Blaze slid off the bike, considering him. “Zar? Why me? You’re a handsome, very sexy man. Of all the women in that bar last night, why choose me?”

“If I tell you my reason, you will call for a cab. Let’s just eat and enjoy the rest of the day.”

“I want to know.”

He set the bag down on a rock and turned to her. “I don’t know how to explain this without sounding whacked out. That is the last thing I want you to think of me right now. I’m not a serial killer, and my mind is intact. I just have some odd qualities that unnerve people. I wanted to go up to the house because it’s a quiet place where we could sit and talk. It’s my place, and I wanted to share it with you. Sitting on the side of the road is not what I had in mind. Trust me a little? I can’t imagine that a serial killer would bother to spend three hundred dollars on lunch.”

“You spent that on what’s in the bag? What are we eating, gold?”

“There is a very good and expensive bottle of wine. Lunch is a tub of salad and a thermal platter of lobster with vodka sauce over angel hair. There is also some cheese and candied fruit for a snack if we get hungry later. Plus, a little surprise for you. I don’t want to eat it here, and I don’t want to talk here. Make your choice. Do you trust me or not?”

“I don’t know you well enough to say I trust you. I’ll give you the benefit of the doubt because your eyes say a lot. I like the way you look directly at me. It’s honest.”

“Then get back on and let’s go,” he said, handing her the bag. “We are almost there.”

Blaze shifted the bag to her hip and settled back against the sissy bar as he got on. She had to be insane to be going up into the woods with a man she had known less than twenty-four hours. She was committed to it now, and she wrapped her free hand around Zar’s chest.

Zar turned to check the road, flashing her a smile as he took off. The trees seemed denser as they progressed up into the mountains, and when he turned off onto a side road, her heartbeat increased. He hadn’t been kidding about the place being in the woods.

“No trespassing” signs were posted at the turnoff of a small paved circle, and Zar pulled the bike in, shutting it down. “We walk from here. It’s not that far, but the hog doesn’t like the unpaved road. They are touchy machines. Are you all right with this?”

“Yeah,” she replied, although her heart was racing with uncertainty.

The path before them was just wide enough for a small truck or SUV, and they were surrounded by trees. The sound of birds filled the air, and the leaves overhead rustled with the indication of playing squirrels. Zar took the bag with one hand and lightly touched her palm with the other. She turned to his questioning gaze and smiled, lacing her fingers through his.

They walked in silence, the rough-cut road leading them into a clearing. Blaze let her eyes roam over the small log cabin accented with decorative twisted shrubs. Off in the distance there was nothing. The side of the mountain dropped off about a hundred feet from the house. The view was spectacular, and when her gaze met his, he was watching her. “Incredible, isn’t it? Let’s go eat,” he said as he led her around the house to a small area set with cobblestones.

They sat at a picnic table overlooking the valley below. “I got this from a man I did some construction work for. He ran into some financial problems, and he paid me with the property. I built the house and everything else. I usually come up here on the weekends when I want to be alone, or not.”

Blaze watched as he displayed the bottle of wine and unscrewed the cap. “I thought good wine had a cork?”

“It did. I had them remove it and put a top on so I didn’t have to go find a corkscrew. My, you’re suspicious. Would you like to see my credit-card statement?”

She lowered her gaze, wincing guiltily. “I’m sorry. I live in a world where women become prey to men with warped minds. I suppose I’m affected by it. It has been a long, long time since I went on a date. When I was dating, AIDS and mass murders were less of a threat. So will you tell me now why you picked me?”

He set the tub of salad on the table and then the pasta, taking out two plates. “You’re not going to let that go, are you?”

“I want to know,” she repeated, peeling the top off both tubs as he poured them some wine.

“I see things, Blaze. I saw something special in you.”

“You see what things? Do I have little orbs floating around me or something?”

He set the bag to the side and laughed. “No, I’m just unnaturally observant, and I read body language very well. Your body speaks to me, and so do your eyes. You have very intense and expressive hazel eyes.”

“So I have been told.”

“Well, last night, I was watching you. Your smile is bold and truthful, with none of the dishonesty I associate with a lot of the people I meet. I didn’t see falseness in your actions and later in your words. I suppose you could say that you intrigued me.”

“Fair enough. Do you always sound so cynical?”

“I’m not cynical. I just watch and learn. Is it bad to be a good judge of character?”

Blaze twirled her fork in the food, considering his question. “No. So tell me why you are not settled down with two-point-five children and a dog? Did some little witch undermine your acute senses and break your heart?”

“You shouldn’t use that word in that context. It irritates me that people automatically think of witches as bad people. There are many different forms of worship in this world, and the word witch is often used indiscriminately.”

“I was wondering if you would respond to that connotation,” she said with a teasing smile. “It’s not one I use except to gauge a reaction. I have done some reading on the different versions of worship. So who was she?”

Zar finished chewing in a thoughtful fashion and took a sip of his wine. “Her name was Angelica. She was twenty, bright, and very beautiful. Her name fit her right down to her green eyes. We dated for about a year, and I asked her to marry me. My business was thriving, and I had just been named into the Young Millionaires Club. I had a bad accident, and I was in the hospital for a while. She stayed at my side, soaking in the publicity as the ever-vigilant bride-to-be. I didn’t realize that at the time, of course. I thought she was there because she loved me. I called home one night to ask her to bring me a chocolate shake, and she was breathing heavily when she answered the phone. Angelica didn’t exercise, and when I questioned her, exercising was her explanation. I called in an investigator, and once my suspicion was confirmed, I called off the wedding. I had Angelica removed from all parts of my life, both physical and legal. She was furious, and rumor got back to me that she was in search of a hired killer. She had connections of her own from her family, but she asked the wrong people. I called her into the hospital and warned her that if anything odd should happen to me, both she and her friend Hector would die very painfully. She knew that I was good for my word, and she cut her losses and disappeared. Obviously, I’m more cautious now.”

“Wow, that’s an interesting tale. Something straight out of a horror-romance flick,” Blaze commented with an unintended note of sarcasm in her voice.

“Maybe I misjudged you. I don’t know why I though you would understand. Instead, you patronize me as if I am making it up. Finish your lunch and let’s head back,” he said, shaking his head in obvious annoyance.

Blaze reached across the table and took his hand. “I have no reason not to believe you, but you have to admit that it’s a strange story. I react to things that make me uncomfortable with sarcasm.”

He took her hand and kissed it, watching her for a reaction. Blaze blushed slightly. “I’m sorry if I hurt your feelings. It’s really nice up here, and I would like to get to know you. Stop trying to get rid of me by offering to take me home. If you don’t want to be with me, then let’s go. Otherwise, I will tell you if I want to go home,” she said with a smile. “So is this your hideaway for a sweet weekend? Love ’em and leave ’em?”

“More sarcasm?”

“Yes,” she replied. “Obvious sarcasm.”

“Is that how you want it? A weekend and then we end it? It’s not what I had in mind, but..?”

“You have me at a disadvantage. As I told you last night, I’m not really looking for anything. I have been down the road of the three sixes, and I’m not looking for that again.”

“What are the three sixes?”

“The way I figure things, a relationship has a pattern. You date, fall in love, and get married. Then come the three sixes. After six months, you stop really kissing, and the heat of intensity fades slightly. Six more months and the word domestic gets lost in a man’s vocabulary. The woman is fine with this as she cleans, cooks, and does all the things that she used to get help with. Add this to a full-time job, and it gets tiring. Then the final insult of the third six settles in, and the word foreplay becomes nonexistent. Raging, passionate sex slows down, and her responsibilities grow exponentially. It is the start of the decline of the marriage. I was married for almost twenty years, and the decline leveled off but never got any better. It was not bad or good, it was just a life with another person, combined with guilt, anger, and laziness.”

“And you call me cynical. Are you really down on men or just marriage?”

“Neither, really. I just see it in my friends’ marriages, and I was in it myself. We had no children, so that was not the excuse for why our marriage faded. We just grew apart, as the saying goes. He had a car accident that left him with severe nerve damage. The pain mentally crippled him. I felt guilty because I had considered divorcing him a few times before the accident. Afterward, I couldn’t leave him. He was in pain and had trouble doing things for himself. I lived in a place of complacency, keeping myself busy, while I told myself that I could do a lot worse. He tried to make me happy when he wasn’t bitter about always hurting. A doctor offered him an experimental relief surgery, and David took it. His breathing tube got kinked, and he died on the table. I was left with a lawsuit and a life without him. In retrospect, I did love him. I was just looking for a man who no longer existed. We had both changed.”