Mist on the Meadow (16 page)

“And what good would that do?” She pulled
herself to a cross-legged position on the floor. “Those kids
couldn’t have been out of high school.”

“They were seniors,” Wolf said. “In fact the
driver was the quarterback of the football team. First string. The
Bears drafted him out of college.”

“It was an accident,” she said.

“They ran my father off the road. That’s
homicide.” Wolf had to face the facts, no matter who was
involved.

“Your grandmother said—” Marissa began.

“Scandals in the family are meant to be kept
quiet,” he quoted.

“Actually, she said sheltering you from one
scandal brought about another.”

Wolf rose to his feet and Hex scampered from
his spot on the cushion to Marissa’s shoulders. “When did she say
that?”

“I’m not sure.”

A chill raised gooseflesh on his arms. “You
do know she’s dead.”

Marissa put a hand to the cat to quiet him
and rose to her feet. Her eyes glowed with the lamplight and then
Wolf felt her inside his head again. He closed his eyes and took a
sharp breath, the sensation as intimate as a caress.

He hadn’t felt this normal since
before.

“Have you always separated your life that
way?” she asked.

“What way?”

“Before and after the accident?”

“Get out of my head!” Wolf shouted.

Hex hissed and Marissa backed away. “With
pleasure.” She walked to the foyer, retrieved her coat, and walked
out the front door.

* * *

Marissa was still trembling when she pulled
into the driveway of the house where she’d grown up, the house
where Uncle Balt had died the day before. More than ever, she
wished she could talk to Uncle Balt now. She swallowed back the
lump in her throat and fought back the tears.

Hex lay on the seat beside her, eyes closed
in repose.

Now would be a perfect time for a quiet
moment, but Marissa wasn’t sure she could settle her mind long
enough to see one if it presented itself. Wolf’s essence clung to
her, like garlic. Would it always be that way whenever she was
called upon to
know
something?

She’d told him about the accident. Check
that. He’d ripped the information right out of her head. How had he
done that? Either way, she was done with Wolf Harper.

Marissa’s mother opened the front door and
crossed her arms.

“Let’s go, Hex.” She scooped up the cat and
tucked him inside her coat.

“Is everything all right?” her mother asked
when she walked inside.

Nothing would be all right ever again, and
she couldn’t tell her mother. Her own mother. Why had nature chosen
her to have the red hair? To suffer the isolation that came with
this deep, dark secret? “Everything’s fine.”

“You were sitting out there quite a
while.”

Marissa hung up her coat and set Hex on the
floor. The cat scurried for his food bowl. “I was thinking about
Uncle Balt.” That wasn’t a lie.

Her mother sniffed the air. “You smell like .
. . cinnamon.”

The fragrance oozed from her pores like
garlic, only sweeter. She’d been infused with Wolf Harper. She
might as well have kissed him back. Should have given in to the way
her body throbbed beneath his touch.

It was going to be a long, lonely night.

“Would you like a glass of wine?” her mother
asked.

“Yeah,” Marissa replied. She walked into the
living room and squinted at the Christmas tree that glittered in
the dark room.

“Hey,” Max said.

“Hey yourself.”

He nodded to a box in the corner.
“Yours.”

The journals. If Uncle Balt’s journal
chronicled Rosalie’s life, maybe there was something in there about
Marissa’s grandfather and the way her grandparents interacted.
There might be an explanation for the way Marissa’s mind entwined
with Wolf’s.

Her mother handed her a wineglass and Marissa
took a slow sip.

“Finishing up the bottle that Wolf brought
over,” her mother said.

Of course she was. Everything was about Wolf.
Marissa closed her eyes and let the wine slide down her throat. Her
lips pulsed with the near-kiss, which she cooled with another sip
of wine. She looked up when her father walked into the room.

“You missed dinner,” he said quietly.

Marissa nodded.

“You okay, baby girl?”

Her nose tingled and tears threatened again.
For the first time in her life, her parents couldn’t make
everything all better. She drained the glass of wine. “Fine.”

Her father nodded in her mother’s direction
and the glass was refilled.

“That’s the end of the Liebfraumilch,” her
mother said. “Be sure to thank Wolf again next time you see him,
will you?”

Marissa’s body flushed in response. Yes,
she’d see him again, and next time they’d share more than their
minds. She closed her eyes and sipped more of the wine. As it
cooled her throat, the wine pulled a curtain across that newly
exposed part of her brain.

Alcohol inhibits
, she realized.

“Are you interested in looking over any of
the journals?” her father asked.

Marissa released the catch and opened the
strongbox. Several mismatched books were stacked inside, a couple
with soft leather binding, others with hard covers. She picked one
up and flipped it open. “Fan-flaming-tastic,” she murmured.

“What is it?” Max asked.

“They’re in German.”

“All of them?” her father asked.

Marissa picked up another one and gently
turned the yellowed pages. “Looks like it.”

“Well, here’s your chance to learn the
language,” her mother said. “It’ll give you something to take your
mind off things, and something to remember Uncle Balt by.”

“Speaking of which,” her father said, “the
wake is tomorrow evening, and the funeral is scheduled for the day
after. Can Angela watch the café?”

“What if Angela wants to come?” Marissa
downed the second glass of wine. “I think we can afford to close
for a day.” She tucked the two books back into the box. “Maybe I
should go back to my apartment.”
Maybe she should go back to
Harper Manor
. The wine might have turned off her brain, but her
body still thrummed on Wolf’s frequency.

“You can do what you like,” her mother said,
“but, speaking for myself, it’s nice to have the family close by
right now, as in sitting in the same room.”

Her Mother was right. Marissa needed time to
sort through what happened with Wolf Harper, and he was, without a
doubt, safer from a distance.

Marissa woke at four a.m. In spite of a long,
hot shower last night, she still smelled cinnamon.

She flipped over and turned on the bed lamp.
The journal from the strongbox she’d carried upstairs tempted her
from the nightstand. No matter that it was written in German, she’d
managed to pick out an odd word or two. She’d have to sign up for
classes at the college extension so she could read more.

Hex settled at the end of the bed and tucked
his head beneath one paw. Marissa sat on the edge and opened the
journal.

Baltazar Gustav Gutzman
was inscribed
on the first page.

December 21. Today I am five and twenty, a
birthday my sister, Rosalie, tells me will change my life.

Marissa grinned. She could sympathize. But
wait. Uncle Balt’s birthday was the same day? Why didn’t she know
that? Gooseflesh pebbled her skin. She could read the words. What
had been incomprehensible last night was crystal clear this
morning. Another
Kundigerin
side effect?

“Wow.” Marissa flipped a couple more pages
and Uncle Balt’s entries took on a different tone.

I went into town with Rosalie today. On the
road, a woman approached, quite distraught. Through her tears, she
begged Rosalie to help her, saying that her daughter had wandered
off. Rosalie closed her eyes a moment, took the woman by the hand,
and to my amazement, led the woman to the spot where her daughter
had gone! The child had been fascinated by a street musician and
hadn’t realized her mother had left the square. The woman offered
to pay Rosalie, but Rosalie refused. We continued our walk, and
Rosalie told me I must write our adventure into my journal. I
argued that finding the child was merely sound reasoning, but she
gave me that knowing smile. “You know better,” she said to me.

Marissa checked the clock. Half an hour had
passed and she was usually at the café by five. She had to get to
work, but the entry on the next page was a short one.

I happened upon Rosalie with Friedrich
today. Her cheeks were flushed and their manner of converse quite
intimate. I must remember to talk to Friedrich about my sister’s
reputation, and I must remind my maiden sister to guard her
virtue.

Marissa cocked an eyebrow. These were her
grandparents he had written about. She set the journal down and
glanced at the clock once more. She had a business to run.

A full moon made the frozen snow sparkle.
While Marissa drove to the café, she watched for a quiet moment,
that familiar five-point buck waiting to be discovered, but none
was forthcoming.

She threw herself into her work once she
arrived, furiously baking coffee cakes and muffins and rolls,
anything to take her mind off the smell of cinnamon that continued
to pervade her senses, in spite of the fact she hadn’t begun the
cinnamon rolls yet. Was the scent stronger this morning?

A knock echoed through the empty café. Five
forty-five. Angela and Becky wouldn’t arrive until seven. Marissa
cast a glance at the front door

That explained why the scent was stronger.
Wolf Harper hadn’t shaved and his coat was skewed, as if he’d
missed a button but continued on anyway. He was huddled into the
coat, the collar raised against the cold.

Marissa licked her lips, her body pulsed in
anticipation. Her legs carried her to the front door even while her
brain asked her what the hell she was doing.

“Can I come in?” he asked through the glass
door.

“We don’t open until seven,” she replied
while her fingers turned the lock. She opened the door with
trembling hands.

“I couldn’t sleep,” he said.

Marissa closed her eyes and inhaled the
overpowering aroma that wafted from him. “Want to talk?” A husky
tone had crept into her voice.

Wolf locked the door behind himself. “That
seems superfluous around you.”

She crooked a finger to invite him into the
kitchen. “Would you like a cup of coffee? Something to eat?” She
picked up a bite size Danish and held it to his lips. Wolf
hesitated only a moment before he bit into it and licked the
frosting from her fingers, sending flames all through her body. A
timer buzzed and Marissa held one of those fingers up to signal him
to wait. She tucked her hand into an oven mitt and moved a pan of
muffins to the cooling rack.

Wolf’s hands snaked around her waist. She
turned to face him while she pulled off the oven mitt, then rose up
on her toes and tested his lips. Quickly at first, and then again,
and then his hand cradled her head and the kiss grew longer,
deeper.

Marissa pushed his coat off and it fell to
the floor. Her fingers fumbled with the buttons on his shirt and he
slipped her apron over her head.

“What do you put in your baked goods?” he
asked, short of breath.

“Same thing everyone else does.”

“So why am I so hot?” He stared at her for a
moment. Lust gleamed in his chocolate brown eyes.

He didn’t wait for her answer, sealing her
mouth with another kiss. She yanked at the belt around his pants.
His hands slid beneath her shirt and pulled it over her head in one
fluid motion. Wolf stared at her bra, at the nipples that strained
to feel his tongue.

“There has to be something in the recipe that
doesn’t belong.” He cupped her breasts in his hands.

His pants crumpled to his ankles and his
erection stood up inside his boxers. Marissa dropped to her knees
and slipped the elastic down. She let her tongue glide over his
length and he moaned.

“No you don’t,” he whispered. He stepped out
of his pants and lifted her in a seemingly effortless move to her
tiny office where he set her on the desk. With a quick squeeze
across her back, he undid her bra in a well-practiced high school
move. He bent down and nipped at her breasts before suckling them
into his mouth. Marissa squirmed to take him into her. Deep inside.
His hands eased her out of her pants while he slipped her to the
edge of the desk and smothered her with wet kisses.

And then he was inside of her. Marissa arched
her back as her body, more than ready to receive him, responded
with a surge of pleasure. She wrapped her legs around him and
leaned back, riding the waves that buffeted them along, but this
wasn’t like anything she’d experienced before. Beyond the physical
connection, Wolf Harper was in her head, lighting up her brain.

She marveled at his complete possession of
her, even as her body thrilled beneath his touch. Wolf uttered a
feral groan and exploded with one final surge, which triggered a
sympathetic response within her own body. He collapsed forward, his
arms wrapped tight around her.

“What the hell just happened?” he asked while
he gasped for breath.

Complete and total possession,
she
thought.

He pulled away and stared at her, as if he’d
read her thoughts. And why wouldn’t he? Wrapped together the way
they were, they were one person, mind and body.

She leaned forward to give his lower lip a
quick nibble. “We had to find out, didn’t we? After what happened
last night.”

“Is it a
Kundigerin
thing?” He
withdrew slowly.

“I don’t think so,” she replied.

His back half-turned, Marissa’s breath caught
in her throat when she saw Wolf remove a condom. How possessed did
she have to be to ignore everyday precautions?