Midnight Rose (4 page)

She’s young, enthusiastic. Doesn’t seem like the kind to take any sass.”

“Yes, to all of that.” A defeated smile touched his lips as he let his head rest against the back of the chair. “What can I say?”

She leaned forward on her chair and touched his knee. “We could give her some time, you know.

You’re stronger than you think. I’m not suggesting it will go away, this…whatever it is you’re feeling. But maybe if you see she’s working well with Jude, maybe you could somehow look the other way.” “I know my limits. It’s hers I can’t read.” He leapt to his feet, too restless to sit any longer. “There’s something between this woman and me. Instantly. I was sideswiped by it.” He paused and cast her a desperate glance. “It’s not just…you know. Physical.” God, this was difficult. He felt like he was talking to his grandmother.

There was a time in the early 1960s, before she’d married, when Martha had been young and attractive in a simple, wholesome way. Gideon had stopped a time or two and watched her working beside him in the greenhouse, reaching out to her with clairvoyant fingers, trying to sense her wants, her desires.

Wondering if she’d ever tasted ecstasy, and what she’d do if he reached for her.

Of course, he never did; the purity of their friendship surpassed any romantic musings that crossed his mind. She’d known even then that he held a dark secret. She’d met the steady stream of nightwalkers that moved in and out of his life, and the darkness hadn’t frightened her.

Martha was extraordinary then, and more so now, for standing by him. Even when she married that dolt David Shelton, who couldn’t understand her friendship with Gideon and ultimately left her because of it, her devotion hadn’t wavered. Even when Gideon fell in love with Caroline fifteen years ago. And when that impossible love delivered Jude—and more anguish—Martha had remained staunchly supportive, never questioning, hovering always near like a guardian spirit made of flesh and blood and bone.

The human remnants within him loved her as deeply as he could love anyone. The survivor in him warned him to not love her too much; at the most she would remain by him another fifteen years, and then her life would end, and Gideon’s would go ever onward.

Right now she was saying something about self-control, about focus in that dry, matter-of-fact parental tone, and Gideon looked at her and laughed. He couldn’t help it.

Martha stopped and glared at him. “What’s so funny? I thought you were desperate. If you don’t want my input, don’t—”

“Ah, Martha, wait.” He knelt in front of her and grasped her warm, leathery hand between his cool ones.

“You’re right. You’re always right. I have to think of Jude, and something tells me he needs this woman.

I’m too busy to even worry about her—I have three conventions to attend this month alone, letters and e-mails to answer, and a whole slew of articles to write. I don’t have to be in the same room with her at any given moment, do I? I can be the reasonable, self-disciplined exemplar I’ve been for the past thirteen years. Nothing’s changed.” Martha squinted at him. “But you don’t sound convinced. Just give her a trial run, and most importantly, watch Jude. In a week, if things don’t seem significantly different with him, I’ll think of a way to let our Ms. O’Brien slip away.” “Right.” He allowed her fingers to slide from his and straightened. “Has Delilah called lately?”

She scowled. “Vexatious creature. She called last week, and I forgot to give you the message.”

“Conveniently,” he murmured.

“I can’t pretend to like her. She has radar, you know. The minute you get antsy, here she comes. She makes Jude uncomfortable, Gideon. She makes all of us uncomfortable.” “But she’s a necessary evil.” He moved away from her, shame rifling the edge of his conscience. “She doesn’t have to come here. I can meet her somewhere else.” He drew a breath and envisioned Delilah, all creamy, porcelain blonde, lush desire and rapier-sharp intent. Pure selfishness laced with malice. He stepped carefully with her, and took from her what he needed, to their mutual satisfaction. And right now he needed so desperately, he could hardly think. Her blood on his tongue, her limbs twined around him, the scalding heat of her body when he drove himself into her and pushed them both into orgasmic release. He could be as rough as he wanted with Delilah, and it was never violent enough.

He was a vampire. Chastity did not suit him.

“Do me a favor,” he said, staring out the windows at the placid, cerulean water of the swimming pool.

“When Delilah calls again, put her through.”

Dusk fell like a wave of mist over Sister Oaks, the strangest fog bank Kate had ever seen. She stared at it in the failing light, watching it undulate around her knees in slow, swirling wisps as she crossed the lawn.

The same mist that had danced around the strong, bare legs of the midnight swimmer.

Glancing up at the house, she noted that several balconied windows on the upper floors glowed with golden warmth. Gideon was up there somewhere. She hadn’t seen him leave the house. A glossy black sedan, the only vehicle parked in the four-car carriage house near the mansion, hadn’t moved today. She assumed it was his.

Martha Shelton drove a commonsensical white econo-box; Kate remembered it from their first meeting in Richmond. It was parked in the circular driveway when she rounded the corner, stolid and unimaginative, a comical incongruity in the mansion’s hulking shadow.

Swiping a violet-tipped weed from the boxwoods, Kate twirled it between her fingers as she walked, playing and replaying the morning’s wild hallucination in her mind.

Whatever had happened to her in that library was not paranormal, or ghostly, but purely physical. A dip in blood sugar, maybe. Or a surge of PMS. She still felt lightheaded if she moved her eyes too quickly.

Getting sick now would be a fine accompaniment to the self-doubt that had nagged her all afternoon, and she prayed it wasn’t some sort of spring flu.

Experimentally, she skimmed the memory of his kiss and a jolt of desire fired her through her like a distant lightning bolt.

Spring flu doesn’t make you go all wet and wanting.

None of it was her fault. Still, she couldn’t shake the feeling she’d done something wrong in Gideon’s presence. So they’d shared a few harmless, flirtatious exchanges…big deal. Anyway, he’d started it.

Whatever had irked him, it was his problem and she could definitely keep her distance. She was there to focus on Jude, and winning him over was a much greater concern than his father’s state of mind.

She hesitated at the front door, unsure of whether to knock. Everything about this house seemed impenetrable; she felt like an intruder as she twisted the knob, leaned her shoulder against the wood and pushed. The door gave with a heavy groan, and she stepped inside and closed it with a firm thrust of her backside. Her gaze landed on the disconcerting hunt scene hanging above the landing.

The hound to the left had moved. All four paws were now firmly planted on the ground. She narrowed her eyes, took a few steps closer. Several times in the past twenty-four hours, she’d studied the painting.

All the hounds should be leaping with teeth bared, legs barreling beneath them, slobber flying from their jowls. But this beagle…it wasn’t possible. It was standing still, nose raised, alert. Jaws closed. Eyes limpid.

It was some kind of trick. She dashed up the steps to the landing, headed toward the canvas with palm outstretched—

“What are you doing?”

“Mary, Mother of God!” She slapped a hand against her thundering heart and sagged back against the wall as Jude descended the stairs from the east wing. “Oh, Jude, you scared me to death.” For the first time, a smile of genuine humor played around his mouth. His lips were full, beautifully formed, like his father’s. He studied her with black, liquid eyes, and in the silence Kate stared right back at him.

He didn’t look quite so Eddie Munster-ish now that he’d rested. He wore a gray waffle knit shirt, jeans and tennis shoes. Looked just like any other kid, except prettier and significantly paler. His complexion appeared nearly translucent in the glow of the entry chandelier. She glanced at his hands. Tiny blue veins tangled beneath the papery thin surface of his skin.

“You don’t look like a teacher,” he said finally, as though he’d reached a monumental conclusion.

“You don’t look like a thirteen-year-old,” she replied.

The furrows between his dark, winged brows deepened. “Are you saying I look like a little kid?” She shook her head gravely. “More like a man trapped in a kid’s body.” That response seemed to mollify him, and he moved past her to start down to the foyer. Then he paused and said without turning around, “You like that painting?” “Not really.” She glanced at the now placid, tri-colored hound, which appeared absurdly out of place amid the magnificent brutality of the foxhunt. “It creeps me out.” “Me, too. It moves. The figures move.”

Kate couldn’t exactly argue his matter-of-fact observation, so she said nothing and followed him down the stairs, leaving the beagle and all its mysteries behind for now.

“You play chess?” Jude asked as they walked through the living room and past a gleaming ivory chessboard poised on a game table.

“No. You?”

He shrugged. “Sometimes. My dad taught me. I could probably teach you.” A tiny frisson of hope leaped in her chest. “How about now?”

“Right now I have to take my medicine.” He nodded toward the kitchen stairwell.

Kate followed the direction of his gaze and was startled to find Gideon standing at the top of the stairs.

He melded with the shadows, all darkness and silence.

Like a ghost.

A ghost holding a black, odd-shaped bottle in his hand. “Ready, J?” he asked, but he was looking at Kate.

Jude sighed. “Can I have water with it this time?”

“Nope. Can’t be diluted.” Moving toward them with that easy, confident grace that had so fascinated Kate last night, Gideon reached them and tenderly brushed his fingers through Jude’s dark hair. His lashes hid his expression as he examined his son’s face. “How’re you feeling?” “Okay. But that stuff is so gross. I think it makes me sicker.”

“It doesn’t make you sicker.” He started to uncap the bottle, then glanced at Kate. “Dinner’s ready. You don’t have to wait for us.”

His firm tone told her she didn’t have a choice. When she reached the top of the kitchen stairs, she glanced back and saw Gideon lift what looked like a dropper toward the glow from a nearby lamp. A thin amber substance filled the tube, shining wetly in the light.

Jude made a face, took the dropper from his father’s hand, and sucked down whatever was inside it.

Then he gagged and leaned over with all the dramatic fervor of a child film star. “God, Dad! I’m dying!”

“It’s not that bad,” Gideon said evenly.

Kate smothered a smile. For all their extraordinary appearances and circumstances and hardships, they were just like any father and son she’d ever met. Simultaneously at odds and tethered at the heart.

“How come you’re having dinner with us tonight?” Jude wanted to know when Gideon sat across from him at the kitchen table.

“Why?” He set a roll on his bread plate and one on his son’s. “You’ve got a problem with that?” A phantom smile crossed the boy’s face. “No. I just thought you had a date. Mrs. Shelton said—” “Mrs. Shelton was mistaken.” Gideon glanced at Kate beside him and reached for the linen napkin folded artfully at his elbow. “No date tonight.”

“Want to know what my dad does for a living?” Jude asked Kate in the pregnant silence that followed.

She avoided Gideon’s gaze. “Something with plants, right?”

“He invents flowers.”

“Horticulture,” Gideon added. “Specifically rose-breeding. I take it you saw the greenhouse this afternoon when you walked the grounds, Ms. O’Brien.”

“I didn’t go inside, though.” She started to take a bite of her baked potato, but then set down her fork, mildly irritated. “You know, while my name is, technically, Ms. O’Brien, I’d feel far more comfortable if you and Jude would call me Kate.” Jude raised his brows. “That’d be weird.” “No, it wouldn’t.” Gideon stabbed a chicken leg and forked it onto Jude’s plate. “If she wants to be called by her first name, you can extend her that courtesy.” “Can she call me Mr. Renaud?”

Kate choked on a sip of iced tea.

Jude ignored his father’s warning look and smiled at his chicken leg.

The rest of the meal passed with polite conversation, but Kate was ever aware of Gideon’s electric presence beside her, and of Jude’s watchful gaze across the table. The two of them were more enigmatic a pair than any she’d ever met, and she longed to sit back in her chair and study them more closely. She couldn’t quite pinpoint what made them so different, beyond their striking good looks and the intensity they both radiated.

But there was something…and now wasn’t the time to examine it.

Betty had left for the weekend directly after preparing dinner, so when they finished eating, Kate rolled up her sleeves and rinsed the dishes before setting them in the multi-featured dishwasher. Behind her, Gideon and Jude cleared the table, then the boy slipped outside to entertain himself under the protective cover of night, and Gideon crouched in front of the dishwasher to examine the controls.

“Hell of a contraption,” he said after pressing several buttons. He finally hit the right one and the machine hissed to life. Rising, he leaned on the counter and watched Kate dry her hands on a towel.

She reached for the lotion pump near the soap dish, trying to ignore him as she worked the lotion into her skin, but his gaze was hot on every inch of her. A wave of warm discomfort crept up her neck, and finally she glared at him. “Am I supposed to say something?” He straightened. “No. I’m sorry. I just want to know more about you.” “Fire away,” she said with forced confidence.

“Why aren’t you married?”

“I was. But he turned out to be gay.” The surprised look on his face tightened her posture, an automatic response to a fading injury. “I didn’t make him that way, you know. He never told me he was bisexual to begin with.” Gideon opened his mouth to respond, then seemed to think better of it. “How about a cup of coffee?” It sounded suspiciously like a peace offering for the morning’s conflict, although she still didn’t know what had caused the tension in the first place. Hesitantly she agreed, and found two mugs in the cabinet beside the refrigerator while he retrieved the pot from the coffeemaker.

“Tell me something, Kate,” he said, pulling out a chair to sit at the table. “What made you give up life in a big city for complete isolation out in the middle of nowhere? There’s no social life out here. Nothing.” Sitting across from him, she held out her cup while he poured the coffee. “You make my new position sound so appealing.” “It wouldn’t appeal to someone whose needs are met by an urban lifestyle.” His expression was somber, the steam from his mug curling beneath his chin like caressing fingers. “Your needs weren’t being met in Richmond.” “No. There was nothing there to hold me.”