Mist on the Meadow (21 page)

“The café’s closed today,” the policeman
said.

“This is Marissa Maitland,” Wolf nodded to
his passenger, but Marissa was already out of the car.

“You’ll have to wait outside,” the policeman
told her.

Wolf stepped out of the car and pulled
Marissa close to share body heat, his arm across her shoulders.

“What happened?” she asked.

The policeman signaled a man in street
clothes. “This is Detective Gibson.”

She repeated her question.

“We got a call about a gas smell,” Detective
Gibson told her. “One of your patrons. They said they tried the
door, then read the sign that you were closed, but as they turned
to go they smelled gas, so they called the fire department.” He
shot a glance at Wolf before he continued. “The FD arrived on the
scene and gained access with the key in the Knox Box. They found a
high concentration of natural gas showing on their monitors and
went to open the rear entrance to ventilate the café when they
noticed the door had been tampered with. Have you had any recent
problems with your gas lines?”

“No,” Marissa replied.

“How’s business? Any financial issues?”

Marissa furrowed her brow. “Business has
been very good. We’re not making a fortune, but we’re not having
any problems meeting the bills. Why?”

Wolf watched the detective makes notes with
each of her answers. “Do you have reason to believe someone might
want to put you out of business?”

Marissa broke free from Wolf’s embrace. “No!
Why are you asking?”

Again, the detective assessed Wolf. A
fireman approached and handed the detective a piece of paper.
Detective Gibson nodded and addressed Marissa once more. “The
firemen said the gas line going to the stove was tampered with, but
not disconnected.”

“What does that mean?” Wolf asked.

“If you disconnect the line completely, the
pilot light would go out.”

Wolf nodded. “And?”

“If you don’t, if you loosen the connection,
the line releases gas into the room—a room with an open flame. The
pilot light.”

“Boom,” Marissa muttered.

“Exactly,” Detective Gibson said. “Anyone
you know that might want to do that?”

Marissa’s eyes glittered when she looked at
Wolf.

“Nothing we can prove,” Wolf said
quietly.

“Let us prove it. What do you know?”
Detective Gibson asked.

Wolf’s heart hung heavy. Would his cousin
stoop so low? Or his uncle? And then there was Elliot. “Someone
threatened her last night,” he said.

Marissa took a step back and glared at him.
“And you didn’t tell me?”

“Didn’t you already think I was stalking
you?”

The detective’s eyes passed from one to the
other of them, and then he wrote something in his notebook. Marissa
turned to leave, but the detective held up a hand to forestall her.
“I need a name.”

“
Elliot Bederman,”
Wolf said.

The detective scribbled in his notebook.
“There’s not much you can do here at the moment,” he told them.
“But I’ll need to ask you some more questions. Why don’t you go
home and get warm. Where can I reach you?”

“You already have my cell number.” Marissa
produced her driver’s license.

Wolf pushed her hand away and gave the
detective his grandmother’s address. Marissa set her hands to her
hips, but she didn’t protest. He couldn’t leave her alone tonight.
Not now, maybe not ever. He’d hire bodyguards if he had to.

When they got back in the car, the irritation
came through in her voice. “You could have asked me first.”

“I’m sorry.” He wasn’t, but she’d need to
hear the words to avoid further argument.

Another car drove into the parking lot and
Angela got out. Marissa went out to meet her while Wolf watched
from the car. Marissa’s arms waved in the air and she turned toward
the café several times. Detective Gibson approached and Marissa
took a step back while he questioned Angela. Marissa cast a glance
at Wolf and crossed her arms. The look on her face was
murderous.

Detective Gibson retreated, Angela hugged
Marissa and Marissa walked back to the car, to the driver’s side
where he sat.

She opened the door. “My car,” she told him.
“I’ll drive.”

Wolf knew better than to argue with an angry
woman. He got out, walked to the other side of the car, took his
seat silently and buckled his seatbelt.

“I’ll go with you, to Harper Manor,” she
said, “but I need to stop by my parents’ to pick up my things, and
Hex. And my place, for clothes.”

Wolf nodded. She seemed more composed by the
time they reached her parents’ driveway. She turned off the engine.
“Do you need help?” he asked.

“There isn’t that much. An overnight bag and
Hex’s stuff.”

He made a move for his door and she held up
a hand. “It’s okay. I’ve got it.”

Wolf watched her walk into the house. He
closed his eyes and inhaled her lingering scent. Her father had a
right to worry. Wolf’s behavior was one step shy of obsessive, or
was he all the way there? The thought of her inside an exploding
café scared him to death. He wouldn’t lose her, not like he’d lost
everyone else.

Marissa’s ability to crawl through his head
was one of the most amazing experiences of his life, but Wolf
understood where it might also be problematic. He could control
that. For the first time in eleven years, he didn’t feel alone. He
wanted to possess Marissa—all of her—the same way she possessed
him.

She opened the car’s back door and loaded a
suitcase, and then she went back inside. Wolf shifted in the seat,
ready to jump out and help, but she reappeared with a bulge in the
front of her coat. Hex. Marissa locked the door to the house and
released Hex into the car.

She resumed her seat behind the wheel. “I
want to stop by my apartment.”

They drove through Blue Lake, toward
neighboring Cooper Village. Marissa came to a stop at an apartment
complex at the edge of town. Wolf helped her unload Hex’s supplies.
The building opened to two apartments on the lower floor and a
staircase that led to two doors above. She climbed the stairs and
stopped. The door to the right was ajar.

“What is it?” he asked.

“That’s my place.” She nodded toward the
open door.

Wolf set down the litterbox and bag of cat
food. “Call the police,” he told her. He knew he shouldn’t go
inside, but if someone meant to hurt Marissa, they’d have to go
through him first. He made a move for the door.

Marissa set down her overnight bag and put a
hand on his arm. “Don’t.” She dialed three numbers on her cell
phone.

He shrugged past her and
pushed into the apartment. Neat. Clean. Organized. Nothing seemed
to be out of place, but what did he know? Something crunched under
his feet—something white and powdery. The hairs on the back of his
neck stood up.
Things are seldom what they
seem
. Discretion won out, and Wolf stepped
into the hallway beside Marissa.

“Is it awful?” she asked.

“No.”

She made a move for the door and this time,
he held her back. “Let’s wait for the police.”

Marissa was grateful that
they’d already made plans to spend the night at Harper Manor, but
now she’d have to think longer term. She was
not
going back to her apartment, the
apartment
someone
had broken into.

Salt.
Salt
? Why would someone break into
her apartment to spread salt on the floors?

She’d called Angela, but no one had broken
into Angela’s apartment. Detective Gibson hadn’t been ready to call
it a coincidence, and had stationed a policeman outside Angela’s
apartment until they could determine if the break-in at Marissa’s
apartment was related to the break-in at the café.

Marissa stared into the glowing embers in
the parlor fireplace at Harper Manor. She checked the tall windows
for faces that might peer in, someone who might have followed
her.

Her home had been violated. Marissa shivered
again. Wolf had done his best to calm her, had taken her to his bed
and spooned behind her with his arms wrapped tightly around her.
Even the warm blankets weren’t enough to stop the nerves from
shaking her body. By the time she relaxed, Wolf had fallen
asleep.

Who would break into her apartment?

Marissa wrapped her robe more tightly
against the drafty room to ward off another set of nervous tremors.
She petted Hex, who had snuggled up beside her.

She should be snuggling against Wolf,
upstairs, but she couldn’t sleep. Wolf had made her feel safe and
warm, but Marissa didn’t want to deprive him of much-needed sleep
just because she was restless. He hadn’t made love to her, he’d
simply “taken care” of her, and that made her like Wolf that much
more. Could she fall in love with someone in such a short period of
time? Aside from their obvious attraction—and that seemed such an
inadequate description for what pulled them together—what did she
know about Wolf?

She’d never be one of the “model” types that
Noah said Wolf liked, and she still wasn’t certain that his
response to her wasn’t an extension of the ‘new Marissa.’ When had
she ever made the first move on a guy before? But there was no
denying she wanted this one, in spite of his flaws.

If she went back to his bed, she couldn’t
guarantee that she wouldn’t wake him, stroke him, taste him,
succumb not only to the thrills of his body, but to the union of
their minds. She wanted more than that. Would he? It would kill her
to be an available distraction until he found his next model.

Marissa picked up Uncle Balt’s journal in
search of answers, or at least something to distract her long
enough to fall asleep. She leafed through several entries where he
complained about “the ridiculous game” Rosalie was playing with
him, asking him to document her “adventures,” as he called them.
Marissa stopped on an entry that was written with a shaky hand.

“
Cousin Edmond came by to warn me of talk
in the village. He says there has been discussion about how Rosalie
helped to locate Bernadette’s missing son. Rosalie is confident
that Bernadette’s brother-in-law is behind the gossip. He was the
man responsible for taking the child. Rosalie says the child is
his. How is it that my maiden sister suddenly knows so much of
children and infidelity? Her cheeks grew quite red when I asked
her. She told me that Bernadette had been abused by her husband’s
brother, but the poor woman was too afraid to tell her husband.
Cousin Edmond is concerned that Rosalie will be accused of
witchcraft as a means of revenge for what she knows. When I told
Rosalie of his concern, she told me that she and Friedrich were
planning to run away to America. America. The two of them.
Together. And when I asked her about a chaperone, she tossed her
head and smiled. “But of course you’ll be joining us,” she said.
Sometimes that woman infuriates me. When I asked if he’d proposed
marriage, she merely smiled. “Of course.” As if I should know. That
gives me a measure of relief, as I doubt that her recent weight
gain is due to overeating.”

Marissa lowered the journal. Was Uncle Balt
implying that her grandmother was pregnant before she got married?
They lived in much stricter times, when women guarded their virtue
much more closely. If Rosalie had responded to Friedrich the way
Marissa responded to Wolf, it would take more than chaperones to
keep them apart.

Her heartbeat quickened. Wolf was upstairs.
The intimacy of the shared vision, the way they read each other’s
thoughts, the memory of his hands on her body made Marissa’s womb
warm with liquid fire all over again.

She rested a hand on her
stomach and sensed something growing inside, something that hadn’t
been there before.
What the
hell
?

“Well, well, well.” Ralph stepped into the
parlor wearing drawstring pants and a t-shirt. “I didn’t realize
Wolf had company.”

Marissa drew the robe more tightly around
her. Her cheeks warmed with the blush she knew was there. “Wolf
didn’t tell me anyone else was here.”

Hex straightened his paws across Marissa’s
lap. Ralph watched the movement and smiled. “You guys have gotten
very close in a short period of time.”

“Cats are easy to love.”

“I wasn’t talking about the cat.”

She knew that, but she wasn’t ready to
discuss her confused feelings for Wolf with someone she hardly
knew. Marissa could barely talk with her father. Instead, she
stroked Hex’s fur. His purrs vibrated through her and she narrowed
her eyes as a picture formed in her head.

Wolf and Ralph in a canoe, fishing. Wolf and
Ralph hiking a steep slope. Wolf and Ralph motorcycling on the open
road. In each picture, Wolf’s image became more transparent.

“Miss Maitland?” Ralph’s voice drew her out
of the vision.

“I’m sorry, what?” And yet she still
couldn’t concentrate on his words. She’d seen what Ralph wanted,
read his mind, and it was a completely different experience from
what she shared with Wolf.

What she had with Wolf appeared to be
unique. A flare of joy shot through her.

“. . . rushing things?” Ralph was saying.

Yes, they were definitely rushing things, she
and Wolf, but what was the old saying? When you knew, you knew.
That wasn’t what Ralph wanted to hear right now.

“How long were you with Mrs. Harper?” she
asked.

Ralph blinked. She’d obviously taken him off
guard when she redirected the conversation.

“Fourteen months,” he replied.

“I guess you become part of the family in
that length of time,” she said.

“I try to maintain professional detachment.”
He cocked his head.