You are Mine (15 page)

She frowned, made a sound of discontent and
then tried to burrow farther under the covers.

“Oh no, you don’t,” he said and pulled the
covers back and off so that she was completely uncovered. For most
people, this would be enough to at least get them in an outraged
sitting position, but not my wife, Brian thought with a shake of
his head. She didn’t even bother to open her eyes; merely sighed,
pulled a pillow over her head and curled up into a fetal
position.

The sight of her long limbs bared by a white
sleeveless tank and matching panties made him more than tempted to
climb back into bed with her and do naughty things, but he
nonetheless did his duty. “All right,” he said. “I guess I’ll have
to do what I did the other day to get you up.”

“You wouldn’t be so cruel,” came the muffled
reply, followed by a somewhat threatening, “or
self-sabotaging.”

Brian grinned. “Oh, wouldn’t I? I have it
right here in my hand, cranky pants.”

This brought a slight shifting of the pillow
so that one eye peeked out suspiciously at him.

Giving her a huge, deliberately sappy grin,
he sing-songed, “Wakey, wakey, eggs and bakey.”

The one eye went to his hand which held a
dripping wet face towel and then back to his face, which held
laughing intent. Almost before he could blink, she whipped her hand
out and hooked him around his neck to drag him down so his face was
in hers. She kissed him, and his original good intentions
momentarily forgotten, Brian dropped the towel and scooped her up
to pull her sideways onto his lap.

She broke from the kiss after a few moments,
and he sipped from her mouth, making it last a little longer. “Good
morning,” he offered.

“G’morning,” she mumbled sleepily, and eyes
still closed, put her head on his shoulder and her arms loosely
around his waist.

Brian felt her snuggle in, and since she
hadn’t shown any signs of morning sickness, reached for the glass
of juice on the bedside table instead of the ginger ale. He held it
to her mouth, and she drank thirstily, placing her hand over his to
hold the glass steady.

She finished and when he leaned over to put
the glass back, kissed the underside of his chin. “Thank you for
taking such good care of me. I’m sorry I make it difficult, but I’m
just so tired.”

“Yeah, you’re such a bitch,” he teased. “I
should have quit you a long time ago.”

Chuckling, she stroked his chest, her
fingers pressing into the muscles. “You know…” she began huskily
and he felt her fingers start to caress the skin exposed by his
open collar, “I am hungry, but I can hold out a little bit longer,”
she said suggestively and then rose and sat back down astride
him.

As she began unbuttoning his shirt while
trailing hot kisses along the skin as she exposed it, he gripped
her butt in his hands and squeezed eagerly. “Sounds like a plan to
me. This will only take a minute,” he promised, making her collapse
against his chest as she broke up with laughter.

CAROLINE took a bite out of a huge tangy,
but sweet, strawberry and continued to read from a book telling her
what she should expect while expecting. Brian and she were having
breakfast on the private terrace of the cottage. It was a beautiful
spring day, and because Jae had taken himself to breakfast at the
Grand Hotel, she wore nothing but a short, light blue silk robe and
matching gown. Still feeling loose and fluid after their morning
round of lovemaking, she had her legs in his lap. Absently he
stroked her calf as he ate and read from the latest edition of
Wired
magazine.

She finished her chapter and put the book
down. Sighing in contentment, she tipped her head back and viewed
the cottage, thinking it was a perfect little slice of heaven.
Compact in size, the white clapboard house had several green gable
roofs that sloped upward and met in the middle. Some were small,
others big and they all connected to cover the structure. Looking
at it made her think of Nathaniel Hawthorne’s
The House of the
Seven Gables
, one of her favorite books in high school
.
“Angels do not toil, but let their good works grow out of them,”
she quoted softly from memory. Sighing because they only had three
days left on the island, she wished they could stay longer than
their reserved week.

She straightened. “Darling,” she called to
get Brian’s attention.

“Hmm?” He didn’t look up from his
magazine.

“How would you feel about buying a place
here? You know, as a getaway? I bet we could find a great vacation
home here.”

That got his attention and he lifted his
head to stare thoughtfully around as he continued to absentmindedly
stroke her leg. “It is beautiful here.”

“And peaceful, too,” she encouraged
helpfully, knowing he would likely need a lot of convincing.

“Yeah, but are beauty and peace worth what
I’m sure would be an obscene amount for something probably no
bigger than a hole in the wall?”

Caroline bit her lip. He was extremely
cautious about spending large sums of money, even though they could
afford to. This is where the differences in their backgrounds
played themselves out, as she’d grown up wealthy and he’d grown up
in the middle class. He was wealthy now, having made his money in
the technology industry and escaping the bust a couple of years ago
virtually unscathed, but he didn’t really like to spend it. While
it was true that she was a trust fund baby; she didn’t believe in
spending money frivolously. To her it was worth spending large sums
if they were investing, and a house or cottage on the island would
be a good long-term investment. She tried again. “I’m sure we’d get
much more for our money here than we would at home.”

He frowned. “True,” he conceded. “But just
how often do you think we’d make it up here?”

Sensing a crack, she leaned forward eagerly.
“Oh, we would come often; I’m sure of it! We’re lucky to have the
kind of careers that don’t demand we go to an office every day, so
it would really be up to us, wouldn’t it? And I’ll bet it’s
gorgeous in winter here. I read that snowmobiles are allowed on the
island in winter. You love snowmobiling.”

His frown was back. “I do, but not enough to
spend a couple of hundred thousand dollars for the privilege.”

“It would make a great investment for that
bonus you got in January…you know, as far as taxes go.”

“I guess it might at that,” he said
thoughtfully.

“Plus the real estate market is really
strong right now. Will you at least think about it?”

He squeezed her leg. “Certainly.”

She smiled and then, “And maybe we can look
at available properties before we leave the island?”

Shaking his head, he picked up his magazine
and began reading it again, but she heard the words “I must be out
of my mind” float through the air, and hugged her knees to her
chest happily, knowing that he’d as much as agreed to go.

She took a bite of a buttery croissant that
had now grown cold. Of course she could go out and find a house and
take the money from their accounts to pay for it, but that wasn’t
the way their marriage worked. She’d never make such a large
purchase if he didn’t agree with it, nor would he if she didn’t.
She reached out and pushed the magazine down until she could look
into his slate gray eyes. She smiled and hugged her knees again. “I
love you, Bri.”

“Uh-hum,” came the skeptical reply. “You’re
just saying that,” he said and leaned in to kiss her lips, “‘cause
you do.”

She fed him a piece of croissant. “You
betcha, baby,” she exclaimed, rubbing her nose against his fondly,
and in a soft tone, “So very, very much.”

“That’s good to know,” Brian commented and
rested his forehead against hers as he smoothed his hand up and
down the side of her upraised thigh, “since the feeling is so
embarrassingly mutual. Anything special you want to do today?”

“Oh, yes. Hang with you and just relax. We
could watch movies in the media room, if you want.”

“With popcorn and pop?”

“Of course.”

“Then it sounds good to me.”

“Good. Now,” she began in a serious tone as
she cupped his cheek, “tell me honestly: what are you feeling
regarding Brickman? Think he’ll make an appearance here before we
leave, or did our little traps fall flat?”

Brian shrugged uncomfortably. “Well, now
that you mention it, I have been feeling a little itchy lately,
like something big is about to happen.”

“And do you think that feeling has anything
to do with Brickman?”

“Oh, yeah, most likely. Unless you’ve got
another maniacal stalker chasing you that you never told me about,”
he said gravely and pulled her closer.

***

ESSENCE surreptitiously studied Alexander
Brickman from under her eyelashes.
Jesus, what a creepy little
man. And his brother
-- her gaze went to Jonathan --
holy
Mary, is he a schleprock.
The elder Brickman looked at her and
she smiled shyly, nervously and hurried along. She’d come to the
meeting room in the hotel where Brickman, his brother, Tomás and
Rafe were meeting under the auspices of needing to speak to Rafe.
She hadn’t heard anything that would be helpful regarding the
cartel, but she did hear the artist’s name mentioned, and had
glimpsed photographs.

Rafe had told her the night before in their
shared suite that the artist, someone named Caroline
Singleton-Keenan, was the reason they were all there. And thanks to
her little traipse through the conference room, she now knew that
the woman was staying at Masco Cottage with a bodyguard and her
husband who at one time had been a cop. Their photos were the ones
she’d seen. According to Rafe, Brickman was evidently obsessed with
the woman and had ridiculous plans to kidnap her. Essence had only
met the man for the first time yesterday when they’d arrived, but
she knew evil when she saw it --
felt
it -- and she knew
that this artist would not survive her time with Alexander
Brickman. She’d decided to do her best to save her, though she knew
she should keep her nose out of it.

Her instinct was to hurry back to their room
so she could change and get over to Mackinac Island, but she knew
she was being watched, particularly by Tomás who hadn’t much taken
his gaze off of her since they first met. She took her time. The
next ferry left in a half an hour.

***

LIKE everyone around him, Brian let his gaze
linger on a tall, willowy black woman as she ambled along the
grass’s edge. He couldn’t see her face yet, but she certainly had
presence with her mane of wild hair and her sexy saunter. She was
at least six feet tall by his estimation, and walked like she was
on a runway instead of just ordinary concrete. Dismissing her from
his mind, he looked back out at the lake, watching incoming and
docked ferries and wondering if Brickman was, or had been, on any
of them. Caroline and he had decided to come back to Marquette Park
one last time before they left the next day. She’d wanted to get
more sketches and photos of the harbor for a painting she planned
once they got back to Chicago. They’d been there a couple of hours
already, and his mind was rarely off Brickman. Something was going
to happen; he could just feel it.

ESSENCE took her time walking towards Brian
Keenan, and concentrated on looking as if she were meandering
instead of actually having a purpose and destination in mind. She
had a two-fold purpose in doing so. She needed to calm her nerves
and also to keep her quarry from realizing that he was her true
intent. She knew that the last thing she should be doing was making
contact with Keenan or Caroline Singleton, but she would not be
able to look herself in the mirror if anything happened to
them.

“I must be out of my mind,” she muttered as
she squinted her eyes thoughtfully on Keenan. He has no idea who I
am, she thought and then let loose a self-mocking chuckle. “Hell,
nobody around me really knows who I am.” She slipped her hands in
her pockets and continued to unobtrusively study her target as she
walked closer. So very handsome, but maybe just a bit clueless, she
hypothesized doubtfully. He was a former police officer, so she
couldn’t believe that some small instinct didn’t know, didn’t
feel
the threat. “Surely, all of your cop intuition isn’t
gone, Mr. Keenan,” she murmured softly, “especially since you love
the artist so much.”

She continued on towards him, wondering if
perhaps that love was blinding him to the danger around them. She
sighed. It really didn’t matter why the man was so clueless; she
was going to help him and in the process endanger herself and her
mission. She didn’t even want to think about Coop’s reaction. He’d
blow a gasket if he ever found out what she was doing and likely
yell at her that she was there for one job and one job only and
that the Keenans were not her concern.

Too late now
. She was abreast of
Brian at that point and taking advantage of that, tripped over her
feet and fell into him. Hard. It was like falling into the face of
a mountain. She’d been hoping to push him over, but even caught
unawares, he was quick on his feet. He staggered a bit, but that
was it.
Okay, plan B
. Wrapping an arm around him, she
slipped the note she’d written into his back pocket and using his
shoulder as leverage, stepped away from him. “Oh, I’m so sorry,
please excuse me.” She smiled at his assurance that it was okay and
continued her fake amble.

Eyes narrowed, Brian turned and watched the
young woman saunter away from him. The phrase ‘sexy and dangerous’
came immediately to mind. He felt a hand land on his back. It
stayed there for a moment before briefly rubbing and then settling
on his hip.

“Was that the model Cesare?” Caroline asked,
pronouncing it ‘Chez-a-ray’. Absolutely gorgeous, but a bit young
for you, isn’t she?”