The Temptation of Savannah O'Neill (4 page)

And suddenly he didn’t want to witness Savannah being led away in chains, not if it meant the girl had to witness it, as well.

“I don’t think it was high-schoolers,” Savannah said, staring daggers at the two cops with poor eating habits. “They’ve never tried to break into the house before.”

“Well,” one of the cops said, brushing his hands together and readjusting his girth in the small chair. “It was only a matter of time before some kid got bold enough to try it.”

“I’m sure it’s another prank,” the thin cop said.

“A prank!” Savannah nearly yelled. “You guys have looked the other way for years, and we’ve accepted that as part of the price of living here and being an O’Neill. But someone tried to break into my daughter’s room. It’s the hardest room to get to from the outside and it’s not even accessible from the back courtyard.”

The rage and fear in Savannah’s eyes were real and hot enough to bend steel.

“We’ve dusted for prints and we’ll see what it turns up,” Thin Cop said.

“And then?” Savannah asked, practically spitting fire. Matt could understand her ire. These men were not taking her seriously; their disdain was practically written on the walls. Suddenly, Margot’s comment about the O’Neills being a target around here took on painful ramifications.

“And then, if possible, we’ll make some arrests,” Thin Cop said.

“And what will you be doing in the meantime? To help protect us as citizens of Bonne Terre? Which, I can’t believe I need to remind you, is your job.”

“Look, if you want a man out front, you’re going to have to take that up with Chief Tremblant—”

“Which I will,” Savannah said, standing with the little girl clinging to her like a monkey. “Now, I’d—”

“We’d like to thank you gentlemen for your hard work.” Margot stepped in, like a gracious host or a bomb expert.

“You know,” Fat Cop said, his beady eyes glued to Savannah as if she were the one guilty of breaking into her daughter’s room, “word in town is you’ve hired some stranger to do work around here.”

Matt opened his mouth, but Savannah was there before him. “What are you getting at, Officer Jones?”

“If you don’t want trouble, don’t ask for it.” His tone oozed a sexual patronization that made Matt want to put his fist in the big man’s face. “Seems to me you O’Neills have had a hard time learning that lesson. Maybe that’s why we’re not bending over to make sure y’all are safe and sound. You could take better care your damn selves.”

Enough was enough, and Matt stepped out of the shadowed doorway.

“I’m not here to hurt these women,” he said and all eyes swung to him. He met the cops head-on and could feel Savannah staring at him with his whole body.

What he said, of course, wasn’t totally true, but Matt was living in the dark edges between truth and perception. But he wasn’t here to hurt them like this—scaring children and mothers in the middle of the night.

“Then you’ll have no problem telling me your whereabouts last night,” Fat Cop said.

“Room 3 at the Bonne Terre Inn. All night.”

“Any witnesses to that fact?”

“I ordered a pizza at midnight.”

“Break-in was at two.”

“I took my box out to the garbage around that time. I waved to Mrs. Adams at the front desk.” He put his fists on his hips to keep them from going to work on the guy’s nose and smug grin. “I’m not here to hurt anyone,” he reiterated, glancing sideways at Savannah to see if she got the message.

She stared at him, her eyes thick blue wells of anger and worry. For a moment, a millisecond, he saw the girlfriend of the man—boy, really—who’d died, whose blood was all over Matt’s hands.

The room dipped around him. Time collapsed and that point-seven seconds nearly got him.

“Come on, Jim,” Thin Cop said, putting a hand on his partner’s beefy shoulder. Matt focused on them as hard as he could, shoving away his memories of the girlfriend and her pain. “We’re going to find out it was Owen and his friends, we both know it. Let’s leave these people alone.”

Officer Jones gave Matt a long look then turned to Savannah. “You. Both of you—” he glanced at Margot, raking the two women with his eyes “—you’re just like Vanessa.”

Savannah went white and Matt didn’t think, he simply acted, stepping in between Savannah and the policeman.

“It’s time for you to go,” Matt said.

It took a moment of hard stare-down between Matt and Officer Jones but finally the cop nodded, slicked back his thinning hair and slid his hat on. “We’ll be in touch,” he
said, barely looking at the women standing around the couch. Instead he took a careful step toward Matt, who tensed, every muscle suddenly eager for a fight.

“I’ll be watching you,” the man murmured.

“That’ll be fun,” Matt said with a smirk, guaranteed to piss off the cop. And it did. Luckily, his partner got a hand around the guy’s arm and led him out of the house before violence erupted.

“Oh, my,” Margot said, once the cops were gone. She collapsed onto the blue velveteen couch, a puddle of white linen and silk. “That was more than I needed this morning.”

“I didn’t like those police officers,” the little girl said, lifting her head from her mother’s neck.

“You and me both,” Margot said, holding out her arms and the girl climbed from mother to great-grandmother.

Savannah didn’t say anything, just glared at him as if it were his judgment day.

“It wasn’t me,” he said, even though he knew it didn’t matter. She either believed him or not.

“I know that,” Savannah answered, her voice rough and husky, no doubt from swallowing so much anger, and his shoulders went down, his back got loose with relief.

He noticed her robe, purple silk with Asian style hand-painted flowers gliding over her breasts, tied tight at her trim waist. No wonder Fat Cop was leering—Matt was in danger of doing it himself. The prison warden from yesterday was long gone and in her place was something far more dangerous.

A woman with a lit fuse.

Christ, he wanted to touch her.

Her hair was down. Her face clean and clear of makeup, her skin like the inside of a seashell. And her eyes…well, her big blue forthright eyes were killing him.

“What happened?” he asked.

“Around two this morning, Katie started screaming.” Savannah sighed, rubbing her forehead. “I ran in there and saw someone jumping out her window.”

“Oh, my God,” he whispered, imagining that to be a parent’s worst nightmare. “Was she…is she hurt?”

“No.” The redheaded girl spoke up, pushing back long tangles of hair to reveal freckles and blue eyes. “I’m not. I was just scared.”

“Do you know why anyone would try to get into the house?” he asked, studying Savannah carefully for any indication that there was a safe somewhere filled with jewels.

Savannah shook her head, looking slightly lost.

“Is there anything of value—”

“That’s hardly any of your business,” Margot said, and he tore his eyes away from Savannah to look at her, stunned to see that without the careful application of makeup, her face really showed her age. “Nor is it polite conversation at 7:00 a.m.”

Matt ducked his head. “Sorry,” he murmured. “I apologize.”

“I do, too,” Margot said graciously after Savannah shot her a stern look. “It’s been a rough morning. But it probably
was
those teenagers.” Margot sighed, resting her head against the back of the settee. “The officers are right, it was only a matter of time—”

“Those officers were idiots,” Savannah snapped. “Someone broke into my daughter’s room and they acted like it was nothing.” Savannah’s voice broke and she turned away from her daughter as if to hide her runaway emotions.

Something dented in Matt’s chest, a foundation trembled and he wanted to reach out and touch the fragile elegant bones of her wrist. Hold her hand.

Ruthlessly, he looked around the room, turning himself off to the emotions, embracing the chill that lived inside of him.

Do not get attached to these women,
he told himself.

“Thank you,” Savannah said and he swung around to look at her, made speechless for a moment by her beauty, by the look in her eyes. “For what you said to those officers.”

There was something slightly different in her, a fierceness transformed. It was as if a light had gone on in a dark house. His conscience, quiet for so long, muted and grieving, woke up.

Don’t do this,
he thought.
Don’t look at me like that. Don’t let me in, I’m only here to hurt you.

“No problem,” he said.

“Who are you?” a small voice asked, and he turned to see the girl giving him the once-over.

Matt’s lip lifted at the quicksilver change in topics. “My name is Matt, I’m going to help fix the back garden.”

Katie’s eyes narrowed and she harrumphed, looking as skeptical as a young girl could, which, actually, was pretty damn skeptical.

“He’s going to be staying here. In the sleeping porch. At night,” Margot said, and she might as well have shot off a cannon into the silent room.

S
AVANNAH LOOKED DUMBSTRUCK
.
She blinked. Blinked again. Matt resisted taking a step back, away from her.

“I’m sorry?” she finally said.

“He’s staying,” Margot repeated, showing a whole lot of that steel under her magnolia exterior. “I know, I know.” She waved her hands in Savannah’s face as it grew stormier by the second. “You told him to stay at the Inn, but I told him he could stay on the sleeping porch and frankly, after what’s happened, I think it’s a damn good idea to have a man around here.”

“What?”
Savannah cried. “This is not the Wild West, Margot.”

“No, but it’s our home and I’m eighty and Katie’s eight and you’re a damn librarian. We’re about as defenseless as it gets.”

“We could get a gun,” Katie said and both Savannah and Margot spun to stare at her. “I’m just saying,” she added sheepishly.

“We’re not getting a gun,” Margot said. “Matt is sleeping on the porch. End of story.”

“Can I talk to you?” Savannah said through her teeth. “Privately.”

“No, you can’t. You’re too wrapped up in the past and the last man who stayed here.”

Savannah went stiff and pale as ice and Matt had to
fight himself not to show a reaction. What last man? And what did he do?

“You can’t see that this is a perfect solution to our problem,” Margot said.

Savannah spun toward Matt, not even pretending to smile or be gracious. “Can you give us a minute?”

“Sure.”

“Stay right there,” Margot said, pointing a finger to the floor in front of Matt’s feet. He wouldn’t have moved even if the earth opened up and tried to swallow him. “Look, we’re targets around here. The police don’t much care for us for a bunch of different reasons, not the least of which is they’re giant dickheads—sorry, Katie.”

“It’s okay,” Katie said, as though she was taking in the greatest show on earth.

“The police chief is good to us, but she’s got a whole town to take care of. So, we’re pretty much on our own,” Margot said. “Savannah’s got a problem with men staying here—”

“Don’t you dare, Margot,” Savannah snapped.

“Because we’ve been alone a long time.” She held up one elegant finger. “By choice, mind you. Most of the time men are only good for two things, and one of them is buying me drinks.”

Matt choked back a laugh. What in the world had he stumbled into?

“But…I’m scared,” Margot admitted. “We all are.” The air in the room seemed to change, a heavy darkness filling the corners, creeping along the floor, the specter of what might have happened last night. Margot’s eyes, suddenly damp, turned to Savannah. “I think if Matt were to stay, maybe we could all sleep instead of worrying who was going to break into our house, or might come looking for us in the night.”

Savannah and Margot looked at each other for a long time, the kind of silent communication he understood some people had with each other. He turned away, the moment suddenly too intimate to bear witness to, especially when he was lying to them.

“Do you want to stay here?” Savannah asked him.

“I want to help,” he said, keeping his real motivation to himself. His quest for justice was his little secret, the heartbeat that kept him moving, and more access to this house and its secrets would only be a good thing. “It’s why you hired me. And if I spent the night, I could get a lot more work done.”

“We can’t pay you more,” Savannah said. “But with the money you’d be saving—”

“It works out fine. Truth is,” he said with a shrug, unsure of where these words were coming from and why he was saying them, “I don’t sleep much. So, it really doesn’t matter.”

“Fine,” Savannah said, squeezing her hands together, but not before Matt saw them tremble. “It’s settled. Matt, welcome to the Manor.”

K
ATIE SPENT THE MORNING
on Savannah’s lap, which didn’t bother her mother one bit. Savannah was actually dueling with the instinct to somehow chain her daughter to her side.

If something had happened… She squelched the thought, as she had a thousand times already this morning, and pressed a kiss to her daughter’s head. The sun was sliding past high noon and fear and worry were beginning to chase each other in small circles in her stomach.

What nightmare would tonight bring?

She already knew she wouldn’t be sleeping. Probably
not for the next few nights. And not only because of the break-in.

There was a man in her house.

Margot played dirty. She always did. Going behind Savannah’s back that way and giving Matt the sleeping porch—classic Margot maneuvering. But Savannah couldn’t argue this time. Because Margot
was
right. Things were different around the Manor. The pranks, if they were high school pranks, had turned ugly. Suspicious. Having someone keeping watch was smart.

“We can’t even play hide-and-seek,” Katie moaned, looking out the window over Savannah’s printer to the courtyard below. “That man is there.”

Savannah tried not to look, but Matt was a magnet and she had all the willpower of iron shavings.

The gray T-shirt clinging to his back was nearly black with sweat, and his dark brown hair was wet and thick against his strong neck. Through her open window it seemed the wind carried his scent to her, sweat, sunshine and wood.

The urge to close her eyes and inhale, to stick out her tongue just a little bit and taste the air that had touched him nearly overcame her.

She’d been in control of these sudden cravings, this outrageous lust that had taken root in her body, but at some point midmorning, Matt had put on glasses.

Glasses.

Which added a spice to Matt that was infinitely appealing. At least to Savannah. The librarian in her liked bookish men. Bookish men with the shoulders and biceps of men used to doing hard work.

This was worse than inappropriate. These ridiculous feelings she had for him were flat-out wrong. Wrong
because he worked for her and wrong because he was a stranger and wrong because…well, just wrong.

He was going to be staying here. Downstairs. A hundred yards from where she slept. It had been years since someone other than Katie and Margot had shared this house with her.

She didn’t know if she was grateful for his presence or sick over it.

“Yes, he is there,” she said. And oddly, the thought was comforting. As well as really unnerving. And a little exciting.

He was a guard dog. A big one. And considering the events of the morning, she’d even say he was a good one.

“I thought he was going to punch Officer Jones in the face,” bloodthirsty Katie said, her eyes sparkling. “Pow.” She illustrated a hard little punch with her closed fist.

Savannah caught it and kissed the little knuckles, hard and smooth like diamonds under flesh. “It was a bit intense, wasn’t it?”

Savannah had thought the same. As she’d stood there, watching Matt, a stranger to them, jump to their defense, she’d actually wished he
would
hit Officer Jones. Officer Jones who apparently still hadn’t gotten over his high school dumping at Vanessa’s hands.

We just can’t get a break,
she thought. The O’Neill curse was riding them particularly hard this summer. The vandalism, the break-in.

Again she looked at Matt, wondering somehow if he was here to balance the scales for them. Something sweet for all the bitter they’d been eating.

Honest to God help.

It seemed unimaginable.

They’d been alone, the three of them, for so long.

There had to be a catch. The universe didn’t send blessings to the O’Neills without payment of some kind.

“I’m going to go get something to eat,” Katie said, scrambling off Savannah’s numb knees.

“Good idea,” she said, clearing her screen of the computer games they’d been playing. Work, she thought, it was time to focus on work. To clear away every other distraction and chase information across the World Wide Web.

Knights Templar, she thought. Warriors and protectors. She’d start there.

But her gaze strayed outside. To Matt.

Her blood was beginning to buzz, the O’Neill curse manifesting itself in her the way it always did. Curiosity. God, it killed her every time. She could bury it, channel it into her job. Research every natural disaster in the southern hemisphere before the 1700s. Find every voodoo use for frog blood.

But right now she wanted to go out there and research their new handyman. Why was he here? Why did he want to stay? To help?

She shook her head, gritted her teeth and fought down her urge to go outside and watch him. Talk to him.

Chaining herself to her work, to her desk and the small oasis that was her life, Savannah, as she always did, suppressed what was O’Neill in her.

But she had to wonder, feeling herself pull against the self-imposed bonds, how long could she hold out?

I
T WAS LATE AFTERNOON
. Matt could tell by the thickness and heft of the sunlight hitting what remained of the greenhouse—a cement pad. That’s it.

He stripped off his gloves and wiped his dripping forehead with the sleeve of his shirt. Useless, considering the saturation of that sleeve. The whole shirt, actually.

Good God, it was hot. So hot the air was thick in his throat and prickles of heat crawled up and down his legs under sweat-soaked jeans.

His socks were wet. It was disgusting.

He hadn’t done this kind of labor since he’d worked for that civil engineer during college. His shoulders and back weren’t really enjoying it, but the effort felt good. Clean, somehow.

There were worse ways to wait for Vanessa to show up, and it sure as hell beat watching the four walls of his condo close in around him.

Scrap still needed to be carried out to the curb, but now he could get to work on making sure the back wall was safe—the farthest corner had slid apart into a loose heap.

There was a kid living here, for crying out loud. And this courtyard was like a death trap.

He felt eyes on the back of his neck and he sighed. Seriously, that little girl was getting to be a pest. Not that she did anything, or said anything. She simply watched him.

It was creeping him out.

“Katie—”

“It’s Savannah.” Oh, man, was it ever. Even the sound of her voice sent blood pounding through his veins. He turned and saw her in the shadows under the cypress. “Has Katie been bothering you?”

He smiled and shook his head. “She’s just curious.”

“Curious.” Savannah actually smiled. “Is that another word for pain in the butt?”

“I was thinking precocious.”

Savannah nodded, calm and cool as if it wasn’t a million degrees outside and suddenly Matt felt every drop of sweat on his body. “Everything okay?” she asked. “You…ah…finding stuff?”

He looked down at the ancient sledgehammer and even older hand tools that he’d found in the shed. An upgrade would be needed if he was going to get this courtyard done with the skin of his hands intact.

“Sure,” he said. “But I think tomorrow I’ll go into town and get some supplies.”

“You’ll need money?”

He shook his head, guilt eating away at him. He was lying, and now he was taking their money. “Margot gave me a deposit.” Not that he would ever cash the check.

She paused, standing there as if there was something more she wanted to say. It made him nervous, the way she simply stood, watching him, as though she saw right through his bad smoke screen. As though she knew why he was here.

And frankly, he was dying to ask about Vanessa. The questions were beating against his teeth, but it was too soon. Savannah was so suspicious already, and there was no way he could bring the subject of her mother up and make it seem natural. He needed to bide his time, wait for his moment.

“What’s your plan out here?” she asked.

“Well, I’m going to start on the stone wall next.” He wiped his forehead and pointed over to the corner where the wall had crumbled.

“You’re bleeding.”

He glanced down at his arms and found a hundred little cuts and slices that he hadn’t even felt until this moment. “It’s fine. Glass.”

Savannah looked as if she were going to argue, but then she nodded.

The silence was thick. Uncomfortable. The tension more dense than the humid air.

“There’s nothing to steal here, you know that, right?” she asked and he nearly dropped the shovel.

“I’m sorry?”

“If you’re thinking about robbing us, I’m just letting you know, in case you missed it, there’s nothing worth stealing. Hasn’t been for years.”

There was something very sad behind her eyes, behind her words and he tried to resist it. “You always this forthright?”

“Saves time,” she said, shrugging, and stepped over to the rock slide that made up the closest corner of the wall. She kicked at a small stone, sending it clattering across its larger brethren.

“I’m not here to rob you,” he assured her. Forthright, sure. And suspicious as all get-out.

“Then why are you here?” she asked, watching him through her thick fall of hair. Straight as glass that hair, like a curtain, and he got the distinct impression that she spent a lot of time watching people from behind it.

“I thought we already covered this,” he asked, not wanting to go back over his lies. Not wanting to talk to her at all, actually. It made him feel slimy, less righteous and more like a liar. He didn’t need that.

“Right.” She nodded and climbed up on another rock and turned to face him. Her daughter had done the exact same thing a few hours ago. This was a new side to Savannah, something he didn’t expect. Something playful. Young. “You’re a good Samaritan here to help Louisiana one crumbling courtyard at a time.”

Her wit matched her sharp beauty and he liked that. Liked that more and more about her, but wondered what softness, what sadness that sharp wit protected. “Something like that. You want to help me move some of those rocks?”

She shook her head, climbed up higher. “It’s what we’re paying you the big bucks for. You know, people leave their homes because they’re running from something.”

Matt’s sweat dried up and went cold. “I assume you’re talking about me?”

“A lot of the world—it’s basic human nature.”