Face the Fire (17 page)

“No.” He spoke quietly. “It’s not something I’ll ever forget.”

“And you.” She rounded on Mac. “You watched Ripley wage her war against the dark, and beat it back.”

“I know.” Mac shoved the sensor her angry energy had fried into his pocket. “No one here underestimates what any of you are capable of.”

“Don’t you?” Her eyes scorched each one of them in turn before she stepped back to stand with Nell and Ripley. “We are the Three.” She threw up her hands, and light, bright as fire, shot from her fingertips. “And the power here is beyond you.”

She turned on her heel and strode away.

“Well.” Mac blew out a breath. “Wow.”

“Real scientific, ace.” Ripley tucked her hands into her pockets and nodded at Sam. “You got her stirred up, so you’d better find a way to smooth it out. If you’re stupid enough to do what you did last night, then you’re stupid enough to go after her when she’s shooting live ammo.”

“I guess you’re right.”

She’d nearly reached the edge of the woods when he caught up to her. “Just wait a damn minute.” Sam reached for her arm, then hissed as the electric shock stung his fingers. “Cut it out!”

“Don’t touch me.”

“I’m going to do a hell of a lot more than touch you in a minute.” But he kept his hands to himself until she’d reached her car.

She yanked the door open. He slammed it shut.

“Taking off isn’t going to solve anything.”

“You’re right.” She tossed back her hair. “That’s your usual solution.”

Pain kicked in his gut, but he nodded. “And you’ve just recently demonstrated that you’re so much smarter and more mature. Let’s finish this out away from innocent bystanders. Let’s take a drive.”

“You want to take a drive. Fine. Get in.”

She pulled the door open again, slid behind the wheel. When he was beside her, she eased onto the road.

She kept her speed down as she cut through the village. And the minute she hit the coast road, she let it rip.

She wanted speed, and wind, and the keen edge of danger. All of those things would help carve away some of the anger and help her find her center again.

Her tires squealed as she shot into turns. And because she felt Sam tense beside her, she poured on more speed. She whipped the wheel, and the car shuddered as it clung to the road inches from the edge of the island.

He made some sound in his throat. Deliberately she sent him an icy look. “Problem?”

“No.” Not, he thought, if you considered driving at ninety on a road that curved off into nothing, with a very pissed-off witch behind the wheel, your idea of fun.

As the road climbed, he kept his eyes trained on the
stone house on the cliff. It was, at the moment, his nirvana. All he had to do was live to get there.

When she pulled into the drive, he had to take a few deep breaths to get his lungs working again.

“Point taken,” he said, and resisted wiping his damp hands on his jeans. “You’re capable of handling yourself, even when your control meter’s shaky.”

“Thank you so much.” Sarcasm dripped like acid as she stepped out of the car. “Come inside.” She snapped it out. “That wound needs tending.”

Though he wasn’t sure it was wise to put his flesh and blood in her hands at the moment, he followed her up the walk. “The place looks great.”

“I’m not interested in small talk.”

“Then don’t say anything back,” he suggested. He went inside with her. The colors were rich, the wood polished. And the air alive with warm, fragrant welcome.

She’d made changes, he noted. Subtle ones. Mia ones. Mixing elegance with charm. Exquisite taste with simplicity. Though she strode straight back toward the kitchen, he took his time.

It might give both of them a chance to cool off.

She’d kept the heavy carved furniture that had been passed down for generations. But she’d added plush, sink-in textures. There were rugs he didn’t recognize, but their age told him they’d been rolled up in some attic and had been unearthed when the house had come under Mia’s control.

She used candles and flowers generously. Bowls of colored rocks, chunks of glittering crystals, and the canny little mystical figures she’d always collected. And books. There were books in every room he passed.

When he stepped into the kitchen, she was already taking jars out of a cupboard. There were gleaming copper pots, hanks of drying herbs in their delicate faded tones
and scents. The broom by her back door was very old, the restaurant-grade range very new.

“You had some work done in here.” He tapped his fingers against the surface of the dove-gray counter.

“Yes. Sit down, take off your shirt.”

Instead, he walked to the windows, looked out over her gardens. “It’s like an illustration out of a book of fairy tales.”

“I enjoy flowers. Sit down, please. We both have work to get back to, and I’d like to see to this.”

“I did what I could with it last night. It just has to heal.”

She merely stood, staring at him, a jar the color of poppies in her hand.

“All right, all right. Maybe you’ll rip a bandage off your petticoat.”

With little grace, he shrugged out of his torn shirt and sat at her kitchen table.

The sight of those raw wounds knotted her stomach. She hated seeing anything, anyone, in pain. “What did you use on it?” She bent down, sniffed. Wrinkled her nose. “Garlic. Obvious.”

“It did the trick.” He’d have sawed his tongue in half before admitting the wound was throbbing like a bad tooth.

“Hardly. Be still. Open up,” she ordered. “I’ve no intention of hurting you until
after
I’ve healed you. Open.”

He did what she asked and felt her magic slide inside him, even as he felt her fingers, coated with soothing balm, slide over his abraded flesh.

He could see it, the warm red of her energy. Taste it, sharp and sweet, like the first bite of a succulent plum. The heavy scent of her, of poppies, clouded his senses.

Drifting, he heard her quiet chant. Without thinking, he turned his head, rubbed his cheek against her forearm.

“I see you in my sleep. I hear your voice inside my head.” As he slid along the silk of her power, he spoke in
Gaelic. The language of his blood. “I ache for you, even when I’m with you. Always you.”

When he felt her slipping out of him, he struggled to hold on. But she slid away, and he was left blinking in confusion and swaying in the kitchen chair.

“Ssh.” Her fingers were gentle as she stroked his hair. “Take a moment.”

As his mind cleared, he fisted his hands on the table. “You took me under. You had no right—”

“It would’ve been painful otherwise.”

She’d never been able to stand back from someone’s pain. Turning from him, she capped her jars carefully, gave herself time to settle. Easing his pain had brought on her own. His Gaelic words had bruised her heart.

“And you’re hardly one to throw rights in my face now. I can’t fully erase the wounds. That’s beyond my capabilities. But they’ll heal quickly enough now.”

He angled his head to look at his shoulder. He could barely see the marks, and there was no discomfort. The surprise of that had him studying her. “You’ve improved.”

“I’ve spent considerable time exploring and refining my gifts.” She replaced her jars, then simply lowered her hands to the counter. “I’m so angry with you. So . . . I need the air.”

She crossed to the door and walked outside.

She went to the pool, watched the fish dart gold beneath the lily pads. As she heard him come up behind her, she cupped her elbows with her hands.

“Then be angry. Spit and swear. It won’t change a thing. I have a part in this, Mia. I am part of this. Whether you like it or not.”

“Impulse and machismo have no part in this. Whether you like it or not.”

If she thought he would apologize for what he’d done,
she was going to have a long wait. “I saw an opportunity, a possibility, and I took a calculated risk.”

She spun around again. “It’s my risk to take. Mine, not yours.”

“So damn sure of everything. You’ve always been so damn sure. Don’t you ever consider there might be another way?”

“I don’t question what I know here.” She pressed fists to her belly. “And what I know here.” And to her heart. “You can’t take what’s mine to do, and if you could—”

“If I could?”

“I wouldn’t permit it. It’s my birthright.”

“And mine,” he countered. “If I had been able to end it last night, Mia, it would be done.”

She was more weary than angry now. “You know better. You
know
.” She pushed at her hair, wandered away down a garden path where spearing blades of iris fanned out, waiting for the blooming time. “Change one thing, potentially change a thousand others. Move one piece of the whole indiscriminately, and destroy the whole. There are rules, Sam, and reasons for them.”

“You were always better at rules than I was.” There was a sting of bitterness in the words, and she could taste it even as he did. “How can you expect me to stand to the side? Do you think I can’t see you’re not sleeping or eating well? I can feel you fighting off the fear, and it rips at me.”

She’d turned back as he spoke. How well she remembered that dark anger in him, that restless passion. It had drawn her to the boy. And, God help her, it drew her to the man.

“If I wasn’t afraid, I’d be stupid,” she pointed out. “I’m not stupid. You can’t go behind my back this way. You can’t challenge again what comes for me. I want your word.”

“You can’t have it.”

“Let’s try to be sensible.”

“No.” He took her arms, yanked her against him. “Let’s try something else.”

Hot, and nearly brutal, his mouth took hers. And it was like a branding. She’d pushed and scraped at his feelings even as she’d eased his wound. She’d opened him, tangled herself inside him only to leave him empty again. Now he needed something, would take something back.

His arms pinned hers, leaving her unable to struggle or accept. Leaving her helplessly trapped in a kiss that was all hunger, little heart. The thrill of that, her own pleasure in it, shocked and shamed her.

Still, she could have stopped him. She needed only her mind for that. But it was so crowded with him, just as her body was crowded with need.

“I can’t stand it.” He tore his mouth from hers to race his lips over her face. “Be with me or damn me, but do it now.”

She lifted her head until their eyes met. “And if I told you to go? To take your hands off me and go?”

He ran his hand up her back, into her hair. Fisted it there. “Don’t.”

She’d thought she wanted him to suffer. Now that she could see he was, she couldn’t bear it. For either of them.

“Then come inside, and we’ll be with each other.”

T
hey made it to the kitchen before they dived at
each other. Pressed against the back door, she let her system rage under his hands.

Oh, to be touched again, stroked by hard hands so foreign and familiar. The wild and wicked freedom of it gushed into her, flooded away questions, worries, doubts. To be wanted like this again, devoured by desperation. To have her own needs matched by equally insatiable ones.

She pulled his tattered shirt aside and filled her own hands with hot, smooth flesh. She bit at him, craving the taste. Fueling herself on it, she whispered half-crazed demands as they stumbled out of the kitchen.

Something fell, a musical tinkle of glass, as they bumped a table in the hall. Little shards of what had been a crystal faerie’s wings were crushed to glittery dust under his feet.

She couldn’t breathe, couldn’t think. Her lips skimmed over the wounds on his shoulder. Neither of them noticed when the marks faded away. “Touch me. Don’t stop touching me.”

He’d have cheerfully died first.

He filled his hands with her—curves, slender lines, felt
his own primitive thrill when she quivered against him. His blood surged, a primal beat, when her breath caught, then released on a moan.

He slid his hands up her legs, groaning at the glorious length of them, at the heat that gathered around the witch mark that rode high on her thigh. With no thought of finesse, he tugged impatiently at the thin barrier of silk.

“I have to—” And plunged his fingers into her. “Oh, God. Sweet God.” His face was buried in her hair when she erupted. “Again, again, again.” Savagery took over so that he fixed his teeth on her throat, driving her while her body bucked and shuddered.

Impossibly hot, wonderfully wet, gloriously soft. He found her mouth again, swallowed her sobbing breaths.

They dragged each other up the stairs. With fast and urgent fingers, he fumbled with, tore at the tiny buttons that ranged down the back of her dress. Snapped threads, exposed flesh.

“I need to see you. To see you.”

The dress slithered to the floor and was left behind. At the top of the steps, he started to pull her to the right.

“No, no.” Nearly sobbing with desperation, she dragged at the button of his jeans. “This way now.”

She circled him to the left, shivering when he snapped open the clasp of her bra. When he filled his hands with her breasts. Soon his mouth, hot and hungry, replaced his hands.

“Let me. Just let me.” Half mad with her, he pulled her arms over her head. Feasted.

Mia let her head fall back and relished the helpless and heavy sensation of being ravished. Alive—she was so brutally alive. Even as her heart raged against his greedy mouth, her body wept for more.

When he gripped her hips, her arms locked around him in taut, possessive ropes. The bed was steps away, but it
might have been miles. His eyes, pure green, burned into the dark smoke of hers. For an instant it seemed the world went still.

“Yes,” she said. “Yes.”

Then he drove himself into her.

They took each other where they stood, and took hard and fast. The race through pleasure, toward bliss, stole breath and reason as they mated with a kind of willful violence. Her nails scored his back, his fingers dug bruises on her skin, and still they pushed each other for more. Their mouths met, a wild and frenzied feeding, and their bodies plunged relentlessly.

The climax raked her like claws. One long swipe that sliced through her system and laid her bare. Helpless against it, she surrendered. And felt him plunge after her.

Sweaty, weak, quivering, they held each other up. They swayed there, slick, bruised flesh to flesh. Lowering his forehead to hers, Sam struggled to draw in air. His body felt as if it had fallen off a mountain and landed in a pool of hot, melted gold.

“I’m a little dizzy,” she managed.

“Me, too. Let’s see if we can get to the bed.”

They stumbled through the haze and fell on Mia’s ancient four-poster together. Lying flat on their backs, they both stared, dazed, at the ceiling.

It wasn’t, he realized, precisely the sexual reunion he’d envisioned for them. His fantasy had involved seduction, sophistication, and a great deal more finesse on his part.

“I was in a little bit of a hurry,” he told her.

“No problem.”

“You know the weight I mentioned you’d put on?”

“Hmmm.” The sound was a low warning.

“It really works for me.” He shifted his hand just enough to skim the side of her breast. “I mean, it really works.”

“You filled out a bit yourself.”

He let himself float, studied the mural on her ceiling. In the night sky, stars glowed and faeries flew. “You moved your bedroom.”

“Yes.”

“Good thing I didn’t follow the impulse to climb up the trellis the other night.”

Because the image brought her back to nights he’d done just that, she sighed.

It had been a long time, a very long time, since her body had felt so loose, so
used
. It made her want to curl up like a cat and purr.

She would have done so once with him. Once they would have turned to each other and, tangled together, would have slept like kittens after a romp.

Those days were over, she thought. But as romps went, they’d done very, very well. “I have to get back to work,” she said.

“So do I.”

They turned their heads, looked at each other, and grinned. “Do you know the beauty of owning your own business?” she asked him.

“Yeah.” He rolled over until his mouth hovered a breath from hers. “Nobody can dock our pay.”

But that didn’t mean you got off scot-free.

When Mia strolled back into the bookstore, Lulu took one look at her and knew. “You did it with him.”

“Lulu!” Hissing, Mia scanned the area for customers.

“If you think it’s not going to show, and people aren’t going to gab about it, then sex gave you instant brain damage.”

“Be that as it may, I’m not going to stand here and
discuss it at the cash register.” With her head high, she started toward the stairs and was immediately waylaid by Gladys Macey.

“Hello, there, Mia. Don’t you look pretty today?”

“Hello, Mrs. Macey.” Mia angled her head to read the titles of the books Gladys had picked up. “You’ll have to let me know what you think of that one.” She tapped a finger against a current bestseller. “I haven’t read it yet.”

“I’ll be sure to do that. I heard you had dinner over at the hotel.” Gladys beamed into Mia’s face. “Sam Logan’s making some changes over there, I’m told. The food as good as ever?”

“Yes, I enjoyed it.”

Then Mia looked over her shoulder at Lulu. Considering Lulu’s voice and Gladys’s ears, there was no doubt the opening comment had been heard and digested.

“Would you like to know if Sam and I had sex?” she asked pleasantly.

“Now, honey.” Gladys gave Mia a motherly pat. “Don’t get all dandered up. Besides, it’s hard to look at you and not see right off you’ve got a nice, healthy glow about you. He’s a handsome boy.”

“Troublemaker,” Lulu muttered under her breath, and proved that Gladys’s ears were well tuned.

“Oh, now, Lu, that boy never caused any more trouble than any of the others around here, and less than some.”

“The others didn’t come sniffing around my girl.”

“Well, they certainly did.” Gladys shook her head, calling back to Lulu as if Mia was invisible—or deaf. “There wasn’t a boy on the island who didn’t sniff around her. Fact is, Sam was the only one who had her sniffing back. I always thought they made a pretty couple.”

“Excuse me.” Mia held up a finger. “I’d like to remind both of you that the boy and the girl who did the sniffing are now full-grown adults.”

“But you still make a pretty couple,” Gladys insisted.

Giving up, Mia leaned over, brushed her lips over Gladys’s cheek. “You have a sweet heart.”

And a wagging tongue, she thought as she walked up to her office. Word would spread like a rash over the island that Sam Logan and Mia Devlin were at it again.

Since she didn’t know how she felt about that, but could do nothing to circumvent it, Mia put the matter in a corner of her mind and went back to work on her proposal.

By four, ignoring the stares, she sailed across the street and into the hotel, where she dropped the envelope containing her proposal at the lobby desk, with a request that it be delivered to Mr. Logan as soon as possible. Then she sailed out again.

To make up for the time she’d lost, she closed herself in the stockroom and concentrated on business. She organized, rearranged, and put together a list of inventory that needed replenishing. The solstice always brought a flood of tourists to the island. It paid to be ready for them.

Armed with the stock list, she rose. Then quickly sat again as a wave of dizziness swamped her. Foolish, she berated herself. Careless. She’d had nothing but a half a muffin all day. She got to her feet, thinking she’d pick up a bowl of soup in the café. And an image swam into her brain.

Evan Remington stood by a barred window, smiling. And his eyes were as empty as a doll’s. But he turned his head, slowly, so slowly, and those eyes began to glow red and filled with something that wasn’t human.

She had to force herself not to run, to pull her calm around her like a cloak. As the image faded, she left her work behind.

“I have an errand,” she told Lulu as she breezed out of the store. “I’ll be back when I can.”

“Going and coming,” Lulu muttered.

Mia walked straight down to the station house, pausing when she had to exchange a word with an acquaintance. The streets, she noted, were already full of tourists. They strolled and shopped, cruised the island looking for the perfect picnic spot, a new vista. They would crowd into the restaurants at night or go back to their rental houses to cook up fish brought fresh from the docks.

Shops were running spring-into-summer sales, and the pizza parlor was offering two free toppings with the purchase of a second large pie. She watched Pete Stubens drive past in his pickup with his beloved dog riding shotgun.

Ripley’s young cousin Dennis flashed by on the opposite sidewalk, hanging ten on his skateboard. His Red Sox jersey flapped like a flag.

It was all so normal, she thought. So easy and right and real.

She was going to do everything in her power to keep it that way.

Zack was at his desk when she walked in, and immediately sprang to his feet. “Now, Mia,” he began.

“I’m not here to pin your ears back.”

“That’s a relief. Nell already took care of that.” To prove it, he rubbed them. “I would like to say we weren’t going behind your backs. We were just looking into a situation. It’s my job to deal with trouble on the island.”

“We can debate that later. Can you check on Evan Remington?”

“Check on?”

“Make sure he’s where he’s supposed to be. What the progress of his treatment is, the prognosis, his recent behavioral patterns.”

He started to ask her why, but the look on her face told him to answer first, then ask questions. “First I can tell you he’s still locked up and he’s going to stay that way. I make
it my business to call a couple of contacts of mine every week.” He angled his head. “I assume you don’t consider that little chore out of my scope.”

“Don’t get snotty. Can you get progress reports?”

“I don’t have access to his medical records, if that’s what you mean. I’d need a warrant, and cause to request one. What’s the problem?”

“He’s still part of this, padded cell or not.”

Zack was around the desk in two strides, and had his hand wrapped firm on Mia’s arm. “Is he a threat to Nell?”

“No.” What was it like to be loved so utterly? she wondered. Once, she’d thought she knew. “Not directly. Not like before. But he’s being used. I wonder if he knows it?”

It was essential to find out.

“Where’s Ripley?”

“Out doing her job.” His grip tightened. “Is she in trouble?”

“Zack, both Nell and Ripley have done what they were meant to do. But I need to talk to them. Would you tell them both to come up to the house tonight? By seven if they can.”

Now Zack’s grip lightened to a caress and ran up to her shoulder. “You’re in trouble.”

“No.” Her voice was clear and calm. “I’m in control.”