Relative Strangers (16 page)

Smiling, she sat up and made a quick survey of her surroundings. Her overnight bag was on the floor by a chair. She’d never had a chance to open it and take out her nightwear, let alone hang up a change of clothes. Her things would be hopelessly rumpled, but she didn’t imagine Lucas would care.

After a quick shower, she put on jeans and a turtleneck, made the bed, and swept the curtains aside to reveal a bright, sun-dappled day. The bedroom windows took up nearly the entire wall, floor to roof beams, and gave her a splendid view.

Lucas had heard the shower and had a cup of coffee ready for her when she came down. She accepted it gratefully.

“Thank you.” She sipped at the hot beverage, inhaling the fragrant steam. Everything seemed more sensuous this morning, more vivid.

“So,” he asked, “what shall we do today? I don’t have to be back to work until tomorrow morning.”

She grinned at him. “It’s New Year’s Day, isn’t it? What else would we do but watch bowl games?”

“You like football?”

His astonishment amused her, but also made her aware of how little they really knew about each other. “As it happens,” she informed him, “I’m a rabid football fan, especially when my old college team is playing.”

For the rest of the afternoon and into the evening, they got to know each other in many little ways, happily munching popcorn and watching football games while they engaged in quiet conversation. They covered most of the subjects normal couples discussed, and with each passing hour Corrie felt more at ease with Lucas.

They did not talk about family.

They did not mention ghosts.

Old acquaintances by then, they moved on to cook dinner together and share the dishwashing duties. After that, when Lucas went to get wood for the fireplace, Corrie curled up with her feet beneath her on his sofa, leaving room for him to join her there. She couldn’t remember when she’d felt more comfortable with anyone.

After Lucas had a cheerful blaze going, he took the seat, snaking one arm around her waist and pulling her tight against his side. From behind his back he drew out a gift for her, a perfectly shaped pinecone.

“I’ll treasure it always,” she promised. Then she frowned, remembering a snippet of conversation from the day she and Rachel had shared brunch with Joyce. “What’s a cone year? I heard your mother use the term but I never got a chance to ask her what it meant.”

Lucas grinned and nuzzled her earlobe. “It has to do with the sex lives of pine trees.”

“You’re making that up,” she said as a delicate shudder passed through her. Just that fast she wanted him again.

“Nope. White pines have male and female cones. A cone year comes once every five years or so, when all the trees have more cones than usual. That produces more pollen, which fertilizes the female cones. It also makes the trees more flammable.”

“How . . fascinating.” He was now nibbling on her neck, making it hard for her to concentrate on their conversation.

“Want to play pine trees?” he asked in a wicked whisper. “You can be the female and I’ll be the male.”

Corrie tried to hold back a giggle but it was no use. The first burst of mirth was followed by a full-bodied laugh. Once started, she couldn’t seem to stop.

After a moment, Lucas joined in, reaching for her and holding her close while they both whooped without restraint.

It was cleansing. Cathartic. And when the laughter finally subsided an even more powerful force took its place.

Renewed desire hummed between them, impossible to ignore, impossible to deny. Corrie cleared her throat, remembering what she had packed in that overnight case upstairs.

“How do you feel about black peignoirs?” she asked.

CHAPTER TEN

Adrienne Sinclair was upset.

She wasn
‘t
able to make contact with Corrie because Corrie was not at the Sinclair House.

That she might not be successful in conveying the information, even if Corrie were in the hotel, was not the point. It was devilishly frustrating that she did not even have the opportunity to try.

Pacing the confines of Corrie’s room, Adrienne did the only thing she could—she waited. Surely Corrie would come back.

As Adrienne kicked a slipper out of her way, she realized that most of Corrie’s clothes were still in the room. With renewed hope, she went through every item in the armoire. She was uncertain what she was seeking until she found a navy blue blazer. A pin in the shape of a particular flower had been fastened to the lapel.

Perfect.

Adrienne moved the small object to a more prominent location, one guaranteed to attract Corrie’s attention as soon as she returned.

* * * *

“I wish I didn’t have to go back to the hotel,” Lucas said as he finished his second cup of morning coffee. “I wish you didn’t have to.”

Two nights and an entire day together hadn’t been nearly enough time alone with Corrie. His cabin was going to feel lonely without her, but it was way too early in their relationship to ask her to move in with him.

Wasn’t it?

“That’s one nice thing about freelance work,” she said. “I have a lot of choice about when and where I put in my hours.” She was washing out her own cup. Her overnight bag stood packed and ready by the door.

Scarcely daring to hope, Lucas walked up behind her at the sink, so close he could shadow her arms as he dumped the dregs of his coffee down the drain. “Does that mean you could stay on longer if you wanted to?”

“If you wanted me to,” she said softly, “then I suppose I could. For a few more days, anyway.”

Aware his thoughts were growing far too serious way too fast, he retreated into humor, mimicking Rachel’s accent. “I could give you such a deal—”

“I’ll bet you could,” she murmured, turning in his arms.

“I’ll have the rest of your things packed and sent over from the hotel—” At the look on her face he broke off. “What?”

“Lucas, if I stay it should be at the Sinclair House.” She squirmed in his grip. “Oh, drat! This isn’t going to work.”

Bewildered, he stepped back. His hands still resting lightly on her forearms, he could feel the fine trembling that shook her.

“Corrie, what is it? I thought you said there was no problem with your job?”

“There isn’t. I can work anywhere, up to a point.” She wouldn’t meet his eyes, and she began to talk faster and faster, without revealing what was really bothering her. “My clients like to talk to me face-to-face occasionally, but most of the business is done electronically. I have my laptop computer with me. I can get quite a bit of work done in my hotel room. That would be better, really.”

“If that’s true, you could work here just as easily.” He was beginning to have a bad feeling about this, but he did want her to stay, if not with him then at the hotel. He needed time to figure out how to keep the two of them together longer.

He knew he was rushing things, but he couldn’t help thinking that if her job was that flexible, then it was possible she might move her business to Maine entirely. Or at least open a branch office there.

She sighed and finally met his eyes. “You aren’t the only one who wants me to stay on, but she needs me to be at the Sinclair House, since that’s the only place I’ve ever seen her.”

“Adrienne?” Lucas felt his temper rising and clamped down on it, but not before he’d flexed his hands on Corrie’s arms hard enough to make her wince. Hastily, he released her. She turned away from him and gathered up her parka.

“I haven’t managed to do whatever it is she wants me to do, have I? I don’t even know what it is yet.”

Lucas was not at all pleased by the reminder. He supposed he’d been hoping she’d forgotten all about that damned ghost. He helped her into her coat and shrugged into his own, making one last attempt to get her to stay.

“You
could sleep here, Corrie, and just visit the hotel during the day. Not that I’m agreeing it could happen, but if you think she might be turning up when we’d, er, rather be alone, then—”

“If I go back, I’ll be available to both of you.” Her cheeks were tinged with pink. “Except in that one way, of course.”

“What are you suggesting, Corrie? That we be reduced to coming back here for an occasional nooner?”

She blinked at him in surprise, taken aback by the bite in his words. Maybe he’d been wrong, he thought. If she didn’t understand how he felt about this supernatural crap, what real hope did they have for a future together?

“Lucas,” she said gently, reaching up to touch his jaw with her fingertips. Just that slight contact jolted through him like an electric shock. “I’m sorry you’re upset by my sense of obligation to Adrienne, but I am committed to going on.”

He sought in vain for the words to convince her to give up her quest. He did not believe in the paranormal. She already knew that. It was a mark of how much he cared for her that he’d endured as much talk about it as he had, but now she’d stretched his patience to the limit.

If she’d been anyone else but the woman he loved, he’d have kicked her out of his hotel, out of his life, long before now.

Corrie sighed again as they stepped out into the crisp New England morning and walked toward the van. “It hurts to know something is true and have my belief tolerated rather than accepted,” she said.

“I can’t change my convictions any more than you can, Corrie.”

“At least we’re honest with each other.” She sounded resigned but terribly unhappy, as if she felt this spelled the beginning of the end of their relationship.

“Corrie, don’t give up on us.” She was seated in the van now. He stood next to it, her hands clasped in his, looking up into her eyes.

“I have to resolve the mystery of Adrienne Sinclair if we’re to have any hope of working things out between us.”

Not what he wanted to hear.

He released her and stalked around to the driver’s side. He could see it all now—the two of them recruited to appear on some tacky television talk show with the theme “Women Who See Ghosts and the Men Who Love Them Anyway.”

They were halfway back to the hotel before he spoke again. “What do you want to do next?” he asked. “About Adrienne, I mean.”

“Oh, Lucas. I wish I knew.”

He was trying. He really was. But her vagueness didn’t help. Why couldn’t she just decide she’d imagined the whole thing and let them get on with what was really important?

Sliding toward him, she rested her head against his shoulder. “I can’t seem to think what to do about anything, not even how I feel about what’s happening between us.”

“You don’t imagine Adrienne pushed us into bed together, I hope.”

That won a faint chuckle from Corrie. “No. I know for certain whose idea that was.”

Remind her of how good it was, he told himself. Avoid talking about the supernatural.

But the second part of that plan couldn’t work without Corrie’s cooperation and she seemed determined to discuss Adrienne.

“It’s the whole problem of what she wants.” Corrie sat up as the hotel came into view. “That’s what keeps nagging at me. I’ve thought over everything she’s conveyed to me, and there’s just no rhyme or reason to it. Most of the time I don’t think I’ve even gotten half of what she’s trying to tell me.”

“Maybe there’s a simple explanation for that,” he muttered as he stopped the van under the portico. He waved off the valet, needing a few more minutes of privacy.

“And that is?” Corrie’s tone was brittle, as if she, too, had reached the end of her rope on this subject.

“Maybe what you’ve seen of Adrienne had more to do with that knock you took to the head than you’re willing to admit. Maybe—”

She reached for the door handle. He barely caught her in time to keep her from opening it, grasping her groping fingers with one hand and gripping the shoulder closest to him with the other.

“It’s no good, Corrie. I want you in my life. I can accept that you sincerely believe you saw Adrienne. That doesn’t affect the way I feel about you. But you’ll have to accept the truth sometime. She isn’t real, Corrie. There are no such things as ghosts.”

Corrie’s eyes were downcast. He felt a shiver shudder through her slender frame. “I was wrong,” she murmured.

His heart leapt with hope. “Thank God.”

Finally, she looked up at him. “Not about Adrienne. About us.”

Tears welled up and slid down her cheeks. Confused, he could only stare helplessly at her.

“I thought it didn’t matter,” she whispered. “That I could continue looking for Adrienne and you would tolerate my doing so. But this goes deeper, doesn’t it? It isn’t just that you don’t believe in ghosts, Lucas. It’s that you don’t have any faith in me.

* * * *

When Corrie returned to her hotel room, alone, she noticed the lapel pin lying on top of the Sinclair family tree. She automatically picked it up, went to the armoire, and pinned it back on the blazer where it belonged. Then she returned the chart to its file folder.

Her mind was elsewhere.

The night before at Lucas’s cabin, sometime after he’d demonstrated his appreciation of black peignoirs, she’d come to a realization. She’d gone and fallen in love with the man.

It seemed impossible after knowing him such a short time, but she didn’t question her conclusion. No other emotion could account for the way she felt—elated and totally miserable at the same time.

“Great timing, Corrie,” she grumbled to herself. “And so intelligent too.”

For in spite of their traumatic scene in the van just now, she still hoped they might have a future together. Could she plan forever with a man who couldn’t believe what she said without outside proof? That did not bode well for a trusting relationship.

It did not, however, mean he didn’t love her.

Her first reaction had been to think that if he loved her, he’d accept her beliefs even if he did not share them. That Lucas had tried to change her mind had been a crushing blow. But now that she’d had time to think, she realized there might have been another reason for what he was doing. If he did love her, it made sense that he might fear for her sanity in a situation he did not understand.