Strangers When We Meet (14 page)

Perhaps he hadn’t told her he loved her up there on the mountain, after all. Perhaps that had been as much of a dream as the nightmares that had haunted him since he’d been here. Dark figures with guns. Blazing, hate-filled eyes taking aim at his head. Old dreams of old enemies from ten years and half a world away, reinforced by the terror of that never-to-be-forgotten September morning in New York when the World Trade Center had come hurtling down around him.

“I’ll be fine.”

“You don’t look fine.”

“You’re beginning to sound like your granddad.”

“I—” That one scored a hit. She shut her mouth with a snap.

“I was hoping you’d offer me a ride back into the city.”

Shock widened her eyes. “How did you know I was leaving Cooper’s Corner early?”

“Your grandfather told me when he stopped by last evening.” She hadn’t wanted Blake to know she was going. He could see it in her face.

“I’m already packed and ready to go. It will mean over an hour delay to go to Cooper’s Corner for your things.”

“Clint’s on his way with my stuff.”

“Oh.” She had hoped to put a wrench in his plans with that objection. She frowned a bit harder but seemed unable to think of any more excuses. “I suppose I can drop you at your building,” she agreed reluctantly.

“Thanks.” Step one of his objective had been successfully completed. On to step two. He had thought they could spend a day or two at Twin Oaks, but had changed his mind even before her grandfather had let slip that she’d checked out of the B and B the afternoon he’d been shot. Twin Oaks was where she’d come with Tubb, where they’d made love—possibly in the room he was renting. He didn’t want her to be thinking of that. Someday they’d come back, when those memories had been replaced by ones they made together. They were better off in New York. On the drive they’d be alone together in her car. He’d have a clear head. He’d find out what was bothering her and make it right.

Her touch had been gentle and her voice soft and comforting those first hazy hours after his surgery, but then she’d withdrawn. She was still there every day, and sometimes in the night when he awoke, sweating and caught in the dream, but there’d been no passion, no fire in her touch. She might as well have been Summer looking after him. He hadn’t had the strength or the clarity of mind to figure out why she’d withdrawn. He still wasn’t sure what had happened, but he had a couple of theories, none of them comforting.

Had she thought twice about breaking her engagement? Had the Realtor Lothario managed to work his way out of the hole he’d dug himself into with his tomcat ways? Had she taken him back?

That was the first thing he intended to find out. And if she had, it was the first thing he intended to change.

“How will you get your truck back to the city?” she asked.

A knock sounded on the door frame before he could answer that Clint had business in the city the next week and had offered Blake a ride to Cooper’s Corner when he returned home so he could repossess his truck. The man himself was standing in the hallway with Blake’s carryall slung over his shoulder. At his side was a Massachusetts highway patrol lieutenant.

“Clint. Lieutenant Hunter.” Emma smiled at them, but there were questions in her eyes.

“Hi, Emma.”

“Hello, Ms. Hart.”

“Blake, do you remember Lieutenant Hunter?”

“I think I do. You stopped by the morning after my surgery.”

“That’s right.” He stepped into the room and handed Blake a hat. It was his old red baseball cap emblazoned with the Corps emblem. The one he’d been wearing when he was shot. Ash had bought it for him with his allowance money a dozen years ago when Blake went off to Saudi. He’d figured he would never see it again. “My men found it in the woods opposite the old McGillicuddy place. Were you wearing it that day?”

Blake gave a short nod. “It would have been pretty hard for the shooter to mistake me for a deer,” he said. Or Emma, with the ends of Maureen’s orange scarf trailing in the wind.

Hunter returned the nod. “We’re going on a theory that it was a poacher. Doc says it was a clean wound, T&T, but it definitely came from a deer slug. Probably a twenty-gauge shotgun. The rain and snow pretty much took care of any physical evidence the shooter might have left behind. But there might be something you can tell us today that you weren’t up to talking about before.”

“I’m sorry I wasn’t more help that night.” His memories of the shooting and the day after were only bits and pieces of thoughts and sensations stuffed in the pockets of his mind like reminders written on scraps of paper.

“Do you feel like answering a few questions now?”

“I’ll do my best. You caught me just in time. Emma’s driving me back into the city this afternoon.” She opened her mouth as if to make one more protest, then evidently decided it wasn’t worth the effort.

Hunter’s eyebrows rose a fraction of an inch but he didn’t make any comment on Blake’s leaving the hospital or the state. “Mr. Weston, can you give me any new details about the shooting? Emma’s already told me what she remembers.”

“I wish I could have been more help,” she interrupted, leaning forward, both hands planted on the hard mattress. “I didn’t see anything, really. The shooter was behind me. If Blake hadn’t seen—”

“What did you see, Mr. Weston?”

“Not much.” Blake turned his thoughts inward. “A shape, a glint of light on a gun barrel.” Then his instincts had taken over. Instincts that were just rusty enough to make him a split second too slow. But at least Emma hadn’t been hurt. Her grandfather had told him the hole in Maureen’s coat had been close to the heart. As a matter of fact, the old man had ruminated, if you considered the slight difference in the size of the two women, the shot probably would have hit Maureen.

“The man in the car that passed the farm had a dark cap.” Emma interrupted once more. “I couldn’t see his face. The car windows were tinted. I know it might have been someone else altogether who shot at us, but he’s the only person we saw up there.”

“Do you remember what kind of car he was driving?”

“No, I’m sorry. I’m terrible with car models or years. It wasn’t too big. Or too small.” She closed her eyes, turning her vision inward, concentrating so fiercely that her brows drew together in a straight line. “It was light colored, pale gray, I think. Like a rental car, you know. Very, very ordinary.” Emma opened her eyes and shrugged apologetically. “I’m sorry, that’s all I can remember.”

“It was a midsize. A Chevy Lumina,” Blake said. “Late model. And it was pale gray, just as Emma remembers.” He didn’t add that he hadn’t been paying attention to the driver of the car at the time, only to the woman standing so enticingly near.

“Can you give me any better description of the man driving the car?” Scott Hunter looked first to Emma and then to Blake. He caught the frown Blake couldn’t quite keep from altering his expression. The old dream flickered behind his eyelids once more, just at the corner of his consciousness. “Mr. Weston?”

Blake shook his head. “Sorry,” he said. Clint’s hands had balled into fists.

“Are you sure there isn’t something else you remember? Anything at all? My sister’s life might depend on it.” Clint moved to stand in front of the trooper. His face was tight, his jaw set in a hard, straight line. “I don’t think the shooting was an accident. I think the gunman mistook Emma for Maureen. There was a man back in New York—” He broke off as though he had already said too much.

Felix’s suggestion that Maureen might have been killed if she had been standing in Emma’s place came to mind once more, and Blake knew that Clint Cooper had made the same connection, and obviously for a reason Blake knew nothing about. But he was right. Emma and Maureen were similar in height. They both had auburn hair, and Emma had been wearing Maureen’s coat and scarf. From a distance they would be hard to tell apart, especially in the rain and gloom of a November twilight.

He caught Clint watching him through narrowed eyes. He felt the other man’s anguish and the iron-hard determination to protect his sister from whatever it was in her past that might have followed her to Cooper’s Corner. He held Clint’s gaze for a long moment, but there was nothing he could say to relieve his anxiety.

“I’m sorry. The whole night’s pretty hazy. Bits of sounds and pictures come and go.” He lifted his shoulders in a shrug. “What I saw would never hold up in court. All the bad guys look alike to me. He might have been blond and blue-eyed. He might have been dark-haired. I’m sorry I can’t tell you more.”

“Thanks, Weston. When you feel up to it, I’ll need a signed statement from you.” The trooper settled his hat on his head.

“You’re not going to pursue this?” Clint demanded of the other man.

“It’s an open case. We’ll follow up any leads we get,” Lieutenant Hunter answered patiently.

“Damn it. Emma and Maureen could have been twins wearing that coat and scarf. You know damned well that was no poacher who took a potshot at Blake and Emma. I want Maureen protected, Hunter.”

“I’m doing that. And don’t underestimate your sister. She’s one tough lady. She can take care of herself.”

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

I
T
WAS
DARK
by the time they neared the city, the short November twilight giving way to a moonless night. Blake had been silent for a long time. Emma wondered what he was thinking about. They’d discussed the circumstances of the shooting, Clint’s reaction in Blake’s hospital room, and the conversation Emma had overhead between Maureen and Lieutenant Hunter. They had come to the conclusion that neither of them knew what the devil was going on, and probably wouldn’t, unless the shooter was apprehended. Blake didn’t seem to think that would happen anytime soon, and Emma reluctantly agreed. She also realized it would be a long time before she was comfortable walking in the hills again. Blake, however, didn’t share her alarm. “You can’t let the bad guys win, Emma,” he had said, then settled back in the seat for a nap.

“I still can’t get used to it looking so different,” she said as the city skyline appeared before them, glittering against the dark night. “Were you here?” she asked. She didn’t know if Braxton, Cartwright and Wheeler had had offices in the doomed twin towers. It was a high-profile company and a prestigious address like the World Trade Center would have almost been a given. How many friends and associates had Blake lost in the carnage? Had he been trapped in the masses of doomed souls trying to escape the flames and terror?

“I was there,” he said. “I thought I’d seen a lot of terrible things in Kuwait and Somalia, but I was wrong. That day was the worst.”

“Were your company’s offices in the building?”

He shook his head. “No. B, C and W never left Wall Street. Not in twenty-nine. Not after Pearl Harbor. Not when they built the Twin Towers. It used to be a sore spot with most of the brokers and traders, even one or two of the partners. But no more.”

But if he had been there, as he said, it meant he had moved toward the fallen buildings, not away from them.

“Most of our on-air personalities got caught outside the city,” she said, keeping her eyes on the road so he wouldn’t see the tears she still sometimes had trouble keeping back. “Armand and I—he’s my producer—were in the studio getting ready to head off to a remote broadcast. We stayed on the air for twenty-seven hours.”

“I remember,” Blake said quietly. “I was at a triage center at Ground Zero. Somewhere WTKX was playing on a boom box. You did a good job.”

“I just tried to keep it all going.” He didn’t say what he’d been doing at the triage station, and Emma didn’t ask. He would tell her someday when the time was right.

There she was again, assuming they had a future. Repeating the same mistakes she’d made with Daryl.

“You kept people from panicking. You got them the best information you could find. I remember.”

She didn’t want to talk about what she had done. It was no more than what many others had done. “The radio station raised almost a million dollars in donations for the victims and the Red Cross,” she said, channeling the subject in a slightly different direction. “I’m proud of that.”

“You should be.”

They fell silent again, as they had been for so many miles. She turned her thoughts away from those bleak days. Life went on, and the city was moving forward. And she needed to move forward with it. Come Monday, she would begin negotiations on the syndication contract in earnest.

“Traffic’s not bad at all this evening,” she said as they neared the heart of the city. There was a steady stream of headlights outbound to the suburbs, though, as men and women headed home from work. “Are you hungry? Do you want to stop someplace for a bite to eat?”

He shook his head. “My housekeeper should have restocked the refrigerator when she cleaned yesterday. I’ll find something. Don’t worry.”

“Okay.” But she did worry. The doctor had been more than a little unhappy about Blake checking himself out of the hospital so early. But he hadn’t asked her to stay and help him, and she wasn’t going to volunteer.

He hadn’t said or done anything since he’d regained his senses that indicated he remembered saying he loved her up there on the mountain.

Or had she only thought she’d heard the words?

She gave up on keeping a conversation going and concentrated on her driving. Blake did the same, only breaking the silence to give her directions to his building. “You can just pull up out front and drop me off,” he told her. “The doorman can get my bag.”

“Oh, no, you don’t,” she said. “Where’s the entrance to your parking garage? I’ve got you this far. I’m going to make sure you get safely to your own bed.”

“That’s exactly where I want to be,” he said, and something in the tone of his voice set off little shock waves of awareness so deep inside her that they echoed in her chest and belly like heartbeats.

His building was an Art Deco masterpiece close enough to Central Park that the upper floors would have a good view. She bet the apartments had high ceilings and fireplaces and claw-footed bathtubs. It was the kind of building she’d love to call home.

If you married Blake it would be your home.

Love. Marriage. Only a week ago she’d connected Daryl’s name to those words.

Now she was linking them with Blake.

She felt as though she’d walked through the looking glass. Everything was moving much too fast. But regardless of the warning bells inside her head, her body still thrummed with desire for the man in the seat beside her.

Only desire, not love? How could she tell? Would she ever completely trust her feelings again? Would she always have these doubts? It was an unwelcome thought and it circled to her fears that it would carry over into her work. Then where would she be? Alone and out of a job.

Emma’s mind was still racing when she pulled into the entrance to the underground garage and then the empty parking space Blake indicated. Thankfully it was within a few yards of the elevator. She turned off the engine, and silence filled her little car. He unfolded his long legs from the cramped front seat and used the armrest, and then the roof of the car to lever himself upright.

“You couldn’t wait thirty seconds for me to help you,” she scolded as she hauled his duffel out of her trunk, letting her perfectly justified annoyance at his stubbornness push her uncertainties and sexual frustration into a tiny, dimly lit corner of her mind.

“I’m fine.”

“Sure,” she said. “You’re ready to run a marathon. Can you make it to the elevator or should I call nine-one-one here and now?”

When the elevator doors slid open on Blake’s floor, he motioned to the left, preceding her into the carpeted hallway. He had a corner apartment, it seemed. The view would be spectacular. When he dug in the pocket of his sweats for his key, Emma kept her eyes averted, but it did no good. Immediately she was transported to the lean-to, could feel again the heaviness of his sex along the edge of her hand as she searched for his penknife. The desire and longing she’d suppressed for an entire five minutes came surging back, and her pulse rate kicked up several beats. The key turned easily in the lock, and he swung the heavy, six-paneled door open into a wood-floored foyer. The room beyond glowed softly in the reflection of the lights of Central Park shining through two tall, sheer-covered windows.

Blake walked slowly into the living room. He rested both hands on the back of a huge leather couch and bowed his head. Emma let his bag slide off her shoulder, kicking the door closed. Blake never even flinched at the sound as it thudded shut behind her.

As Emma watched, uncertain what to do next, he moved around the couch and lowered himself stiffly onto it. The uncertainty of his movements released her from her hesitation. Before he could protest, she stooped to lift his feet onto the cushions and untied his shoes so he could toe them off. They landed on the soft woven carpeting with two substantial thuds. “Thanks,” he said with a rueful twist of his lips. “I never realized it was such a damned long walk up from the garage.”

“You ought to be in bed.”

The smile faded from his mouth. “This will do fine.”

She grabbed a throw pillow and positioned it behind his head. Glancing around for something to use as a blanket, she got her first good look at the room. It did have high, corniced ceilings and a fireplace along one wall. The colors were rich and warm, shades of brown and mellow ivory with touches of gold and copper. The furniture was substantial, supple leather and dark wood. A man’s room. If Heather had wanted to change things in Blake’s life, she hadn’t gotten as far as his living room. Heather again. She had to get the woman out of her mind.

“I’ll get you a blanket.” She stood, hesitating. Getting a blanket would mean going into his bedroom. She could feel heat creeping from her belly to her breasts. No, not his bedroom. Not yet. “Or a throw, maybe? Yes, a throw. Do you have one lying about?”

Blake grabbed her wrist. Regardless of lingering weakness and fatigue, his grip was strong and sure. “There’s one right here, at the end of the couch.”

“Oh.” She looked where he was pointing. The throw was mere inches from her hand. Cashmere, soft as down. “If it was a snake it would have bitten me.” The saying was one of Martha’s favorites, and she blurted it out without thinking. Emma felt the heat rise even higher, into her cheeks.

“It’s okay, Emma. I don’t need a blanket. I just need to catch my breath. You don’t have to stick around and wait on me hand and foot.”

“I’m not waiting on you hand and foot. I just want to make sure you’re comfortable before I leave.” His touch was making her anything but comfortable. She searched frantically for something to do that would remove her from his immediate vicinity before she threw herself on the couch beside him. “Are you hungry? Where’s the kitchen? You said the housekeeper would have stocked the refrigerator. I’ll make you something to eat.”

He didn’t loose his hold on her wrist. “I don’t want anything to eat.”

“Well, I do. It’s been hours since lunchtime.” She gave her hand a tug, and he released her. “Where—”

He pointed toward the wall where the fireplace stood flanked by two doorways. “Door to the right. Down the hall.” Emma fled.

The kitchen had been updated recently. The appliances were stainless steel, the granite countertops and tiled floor in the same shades of earth tones as the living room. There was a small alcove with a polished wood table and chairs whose bay window opened onto a balcony and another spectacular view of the park. She opened the restaurant-size refrigerator and found a number of covered plastic dishes. One of them contained a rich, aromatic vegetable soup, and Emma’s stomach rumbled when its scent reached her nostrils. Blake’s housekeeper was obviously a treasure.

In five minutes she had the soup simmering on the stove and at least a little bit of her composure back. She couldn’t find tea bags, and it was too late for coffee, so she settled for glasses of bottled water. There was, however, a wonderful crusty loaf of multigrain bread and what looked like homemade jam in the refrigerator. She added spoons and napkins to the bowls of soup and loaded everything on a tray.

Emma stepped back and surveyed her handiwork, then swiped her damp palms down the legs of her slacks. She couldn’t hide out in Blake’s kitchen forever. He was hungry and needed nourishment. A quick mental image of cooking for him every night in this kitchen streaked through her mind. She’d never had fantasies like that before—except that day in the old McGillicuddy farm kitchen. It was almost as unsettling as the dreams of sex with him that tantalized her in the wee small hours of the night.

She returned to the living room and placed the tray on a table between the windows. “It’s soup,” she said, turning to find him asleep, his head resting on one hand propped on the back of the couch. The pain lines had smoothed out, but a slight frown between his brows told her he was still uncomfortable.

What should she do? Wake him? Leave him to rest? Go home before she found herself on her knees, brushing a stray, stubborn wave of dark hair off his forehead? Bending forward to kiss him? Lying beside him to keep him safe and warm, as she’d tried so hard to do those terrifying hours on the mountain?

No. She had to be honest with herself. This time she didn’t want to lie beside Blake to protect him, but to love him.

A lamp on a table beside the couch was shining directly on his face. He frowned a little harder in his sleep, as though annoyed by the glare. She had taken a step or two forward without realizing it. Her last thought, making love with Blake, set off warning bells. A ringing in her ears that would do justice to a four-alarm blaze. But she ignored the inner clamor and crossed the remaining expanse of carpet. She turned off the light, and soft shadows closed in around them. Then she did what her heart bid, not what her mind ordered, and sank to her knees beside the couch. She reached out and laid her hand gently on the side of his face. His skin was cool to the touch, a little rough. He probably needed to shave twice a day. Another intimate detail she wanted to become familiar with.

“Blake,” she whispered. She couldn’t have spoken louder if she wanted to. Her throat was constricted with nerves and longing, a paralyzing combination. “Blake.”

His eyes opened, more brown than green-gold in the half light. He stared through her for a long moment, then seemed to come to himself. He smiled. “You’re still here.”

A smile, nothing more. But Emma was grateful she was sitting down. Her knees would have been too weak to hold her upright otherwise. “I’m still here. I wouldn’t leave without telling you. I made you some soup.”

“I don’t want any soup,” he said.

“What do you want?” she asked, no more able to stop the words than she could fly away.

“You. Making love to you is all I’ve wanted to do since almost the moment I first laid eyes on you.”

Emma’s heart fluttered in her chest. But that had only been seven days ago. Too soon, too soon. The inner warnings screeched. Slow down. Wait. Don’t leap before you look, the way you did with Daryl.

“That’s what you want, too, isn’t it?”

Once more the words jumped unbidden to her lips. “God help me, yes.”

His hand closed on her upper arm. He urged her closer until she was sitting beside him on the couch. She braced her arm above him, settling her weight gingerly, careful not to cause him more pain. He continued to watch her, leaning against the pillows. His grip didn’t lessen. When he raised his head, she bent hers to meet him more than halfway, and her eyes closed reflexively. The siren shriek of warning was silenced as her brain shut down. She was nothing but a shivering mass of need and desire. She was lost and she didn’t care. All she could see were bright colored pinpoints of light, and then darkness, as his mouth found hers.