AS SHE STARED into the embers of the fire, Charity finally had to admit to herself she was lousy at this one-night stand business. Maybe it was just her, or maybe it was something lacking in the X chromosome that prevented women in general from enjoying a love ‘em and leave ‘em scenario.
Wyatt, sleeping quietly beside her, had been the perfect candidate to practice the technique on because he didn’t want a permanent relationship any more than she did. And even though Charity didn’t believe in marriage, she had sexual needs. Wyatt had certainly exposed that fact in graphic detail. The experiment had seemed like a good one, and in theory she should have been able to seduce Wyatt and walk away when morning came.
But morning was very nearly here, and she was no more ready to say goodbye than she was to set fire to her precious bookstore. But she’d let someone pull her fingernails out one by one before she’d ever admit that. Wyatt was probably just waiting for her to throw off her disguise as an independent woman and reveal herself as a husband-hungry spinster. Actually, she didn’t care if Wyatt married her. She just wanted him to stay. Forever.
That was certainly a pipe dream. Even this delicious isolation they were enjoying couldn’t possibly last much longer. The power might very well come on today and the roads would certainly be plowed soon. Once that happened and the cabs and trains were running, Wyatt needed to get back for his rodeo.
And that would be the end of that. She’d been a temporary amusement for him. He’d enjoyed himself, no doubt about that. He might even be willing to stop in again the next time he was in town. That should have been perfect for her. Instead it gave her the most painful heartache of her life.
A cold nose touched hers. She reached out and scratched behind MacDougal’s ears. “Hi, Mac,” she whispered. “Want to go out?”
The little dog whined softly.
She didn’t doubt he needed a potty break. He’d been sleeping ever since he’d lapped up the wine last evening. She eased out from under the comforter and grabbed a nearby quilt to wrap herself in. She didn’t bother looking for her glasses. She knew the hallway well enough to make it to the back door without them. Damn, but it was cold, colder than yesterday, she thought as she walked with the Scottie to the back of the house. After Mac took care of his business she’d better build up the fire again.
She had trouble getting the back door open and had to pull with all her might. Finally it gave. Mac started out, then whipped around and headed back inside. The cold took Charity’s breath away.
“You have to go out there, Mac,” she instructed the little dog. “Be quick.”
He gave her a forlorn look and trotted out into the little tunnel Wyatt had made for him. Charity closed the door and stomped her feet to stay warm. In seconds Mac scratched at the door and she let him in.
“I hope you took care of everything. It’s too cold for me to check.” She locked the door, grabbed his bag of dry dog food and hurried back into the living room.
Wyatt was awake, a blanket around his shoulders as he stoked the fire. He glanced around. “Hi,” he said softly.
“Hi, yourself.” Charity’s heart squeezed at the sight of his blurred image. She decided not to put her glasses on just yet. Glasses might bring everything into focus, and she’d rather live in a fuzzy dreamworld awhile longer. After pouring some food into Mac’s bowl, she sat on the mattress and tucked her frozen feet under her while Wyatt finished feeding the fire.
He replaced the screen. Still crouched, he turned. “Think fast,” he said, and launched himself at her, tumbling her backward onto the mattress.
Laughing, she wrestled with him as he tried to rub his beard-stubbled cheek against hers. “You’ll be sorry if you give me whisker burns on my face,” she warned breathlessly.
“Oh, yeah? How about down here?” He pinned her squirming body to the mattress and leaned down to stroke his cheek gently over her bare breast.
“You asked for it.” She placed the sole of her foot on his thigh.
He yelped and released her. “What’s that, a snowball?”
“My foot.”
“Good Lord. Something must be done.”
Before she realized what he planned, he’d burrowed under the covers to grab her ankles. Ignoring her protests and Mac’s furious barking, he dragged her by her feet to the edge of the mattress and held her with her soles facing the fire. Then he began a vigorous massage of her feet.
She shoved the quilt away from her face and blew the hair away from her mouth. “Is this manhandling absolutely necessary?”
“Wouldn’t want you to get frostbite. Or give it to me accidentally.” He glanced over at the dog, who was watching with great interest. “Go lie down, Mac. This treatment may take a while.”
The Scottie trotted over to his basket and flopped down.
“He’s a pretty good dog when he’s not drunk,” Wyatt commented.
“I may not report that little incident to Nora.”
“There’s a lot I hope you don’t report to Nora.” His massage gentled, became more sensuous.
“And what will you give me to keep quiet?” she teased.
“This.” His stroking now included the length of both calves.
“But my legs didn’t get cold.”
“Can’t be too careful with these cases. Got to keep the circulation going.” His attention moved to her knees.
Her circulation was improving by the second. By the time he reached her thighs, her circulation was positively tip-top.
He eased up beside her but kept one hand firmly between her thighs.
She sighed with pleasure as he probed deeper to tap her wellspring of desire. He stroked her lovingly and she arched into his touch. “Where…did an Arizona boy learn how to treat frostbite?” she murmured.
“Fact is, I don’t know a thing about frostbite.” Slowly he ended the caress and reached for a cellophane packet lying beside the mattress.
“You must.” She reveled in his heated gaze as he sheathed himself. “My feet aren’t cold anymore.”
“Good.” He moved over her. “Because I want you to put them around me. Wrap me up tight, Charity. Tight as you can.”
She sensed a note of desperation in his request. For one wild, hopeful moment she wondered if perhaps he was as reluctant to end this rendezvous as she was. Then thought gave way to sensation as he set her world to spinning with the touch that only he possessed. She wanted this so much. Too much.
And if she imagined that his lovemaking was more intense, his cries of release stronger, she knew it could be her own longing that colored what they shared. Fighting tears, she held on very tight, just as he’d asked. When they both drifted off to sleep again, she still held him wrapped securely in her arms. Her last conscious thought was that he was holding her just as close.
A DEAFENING CRASH and scream from somewhere overhead jerked them awake. Wyatt leapt from the mattress and grabbed his jeans from a chair. As Mac headed for the stairs barking, Wyatt called him back.
Charity shivered as she stared up at the ceiling where everything was now spookily quiet. “What was that?”
“Don’t know.” After he pulled on his jeans, he ran to the window seat, scooped up Charity’s sweat suit and tossed it at her before putting on the Syracuse sweatshirt. “But I’m betting Updegraff’s involved.”
“Wyatt, I need my glasses.”
This time he didn’t argue but snatched them from a table and handed them to her. “I’m going up there.” He started off, Mac bounding at his heels.
“I’m right behind you.” She pulled her sweatshirt over her head with trembling hands and put on her glasses. It looked as if she had no choice about facing reality now. By the time she started up the stairs Wyatt was already out of sight in the upstairs hall.
“Hold it right there!” screeched a voice. “Hold it or I’ll shoot!”
Charity’s step faltered and her heart pounded hard against her ribs. Alistair. And he had a gun.
“Take it easy, Updegraff,” Wyatt said in a soothing tone, the kind someone might use for a wounded but dangerous animal. “You need some practice if you’re gonna be an upper-story man, buddy. That’s a hell of a hole you made in Nora’s roof.”
Cold whooshed down the stairway as Charity climbed to the landing and saw Wyatt, his hands in the air, standing outside Nora’s bedroom. Mac stood beside him, his fur on end, a low growl coming from his throat.
“I am not your buddy,” Alistair said. “And we all know that Nora won’t be needing this roof anymore.”
“We might not agree on that one, Updegraff. But I think one of us has been smoking those funny little cigarettes again, haven’t we?”
“I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
Charity edged closer.
“That makes us even,” Wyatt said. “Now, why don’t you just put that pop-toy away and—”
“Never! I’m taking you in.”
“In?”
“You’re under arrest for the cold-blooded murder of Nora Logan, may God rest her soul.”
Charity gasped.
“What?” Wyatt’s mouth dropped open.
“You carelessly snuffed out the life of a fine woman, a good neighbor, a loyal friend, even if she never really appreciated that I—”
“I’ve had enough of this.” Wyatt started forward.
“Stay there, I said!”
Wyatt backed up. In the process he motioned Charity away.
“Your partner in crime is out there, isn’t she?” Alistair said, his tone hysterical. “She’d better get in here, too, if she doesn’t want to see her lover shot.”
Charity’s throat went dry and she moved down the hall on wobbly legs. “I’m coming, Alistair. Don’t get excited.”
“Stay out of this, Charity,” Wyatt ordered.
“Not on your life, cowboy.”
“Contrary female. Get the hell back down the stairs. We’ve got a certified loony here who thinks we killed Nora.”
“I don’t think you did. I know it!” Alistair said. “I have all the proof I need to put you both in the slammer!”
Wyatt shook his head. “You’re not only delusional, you sound like an old Jimmy Cagney movie. You need to update your routine, Updegraff.”
“Go ahead, make fun of me. You’ve been doing it all along, both of you. But I’ll have the last laugh. Truth will out.”
“And just what makes you think we murdered Nora?” Wyatt asked.
“Motive and opportunity. And she’s missing.”
Charity edged down the hall. Wyatt was blocking most of her view through the door, but what she could see made her heart sink. Alistair sat in the middle of Nora’s bed, or what used to be Nora’s bed. The footboard had been destroyed by the huge oak branch that had apparently broken and crashed through the roof.
Alistair must have tried to use the tree to get onto the roof. A jagged hole the size of a compact car was open to the leaden sky, and nearly everything in the room was covered with snow. Had Alistair not happened to land on the bed, he might have been killed by the fall. And he did, indeed, have a very lethal-looking pistol pointed at Wyatt’s heart. Cold sweat trickled down Charity’s spine.
“Nora’s not missing,” Wyatt said. He sounded like the soul of patience, but a muscle twitched in his jaw. “She’s still up in Maine, stranded by the same snowstorm that hit us.”
“Up in Maine?” Alistair scoffed. “That cover story won’t work with me anymore, Mr. I’ll Inherit Everything. She checked out of her bed and breakfast three days ago.”
“Maybe she found one she liked better.”
“Likely story, Mr. Rodeo Star.”
“Oh, for crying out loud, Updegraff. This isn’t one of your mystery books. You’ve put two and two together and come up with seven squared. Let me—”
“I’m tired of playing around with you two.” Alistair pointed the gun at Wyatt’s forehead. “I see you lurking back there, Charity. Both of you get in this room before I have to start shooting.”
“Dammit, Charity, leave. I can handle this better alone.”
“That’s what you think.” She slipped under his upraised arm and darted into the frigid room.
“Charity!” Wyatt roared.
She ignored him and concentrated on appealing to the persnickety nature of Nora’s neighbor. For the time being she decided to go along with his belief that Nora was dead. “We have to clean up this mess, Alistair,” she said. “The snow will devastate Nora’s room. She would have been shocked to see this carnage. How can we preserve her memory if everything’s ruined?”
“I didn’t mean for this to happen,” Alistair admitted. “I meant to climb onto the balcony and break in through the French doors. Then I was going to sneak down the stairs and catch you and the nephew flagrante delicto, so to speak.”
“Lucky for you that didn’t work,” Wyatt said. “If you’d showed up while we were flagrante delicto, I would have had to wringo your little necko, so to speak.”
Charity glanced around the room, looking for just the right distraction. She finally found it. “Oh, no, Alistair,” she moaned. “That picture of Nora with her college roommates is covered in snow! As I’m sure you know, they signed the picture, and one is now a famous mystery author.”
“I know. I have all her books.”
“That photograph is irreplaceable. I’m sure she wanted you to have it.”
“Really? She said that?”
“She certainly did. Just last week she mentioned that you would be the only one who would appreciate such a keepsake.”
“She’s right about that.”
“But someone needs to clean the snow off before the signatures run.”
Alistair looked worried. “All right. But no false moves.”
Charity stepped over to the dresser. She picked up the picture in its heavy gilt frame and started brushing. “Thank goodness, the snow doesn’t seem to have seeped inside,” she babbled, not looking at Alistair, not wanting to telegraph her next move. As she whirled and threw the picture, she yelled at Wyatt to duck.
Wyatt hit the snowy floor as the picture frame connected with the side of Alistair’s head and the gun went off with a roar. Then Wyatt jumped to a crouch and hurled himself at Alistair. The little man was too dazed to protest as Wyatt wrestled the gun away and hurled it through the hole in the roof.
“No! You should have kept it!” Charity cried.
“Why, do you know how to shoot?”
“No.”
“That’s what I figured, and I didn’t want you playing with it and getting hurt while I’m busy putting a patch over that hole in the roof.”
“Fine talk after I just saved your fanny!”
His chin jutted in defiance. “I’ll have you know my fanny was perfectly safe!”
“Didn’t look that way from where I stood, buster.”
His jaw clenched. “Maybe you need your glasses adjusted.”
“Maybe you need your attitude adjusted.”
“Charity, so help me…” He glared down at her, but slowly the anger was replaced by the soft warmth of concern. “If something had happened to you…”
“I thought he was going to shoot you,” she murmured, beginning to tremble again in the wake of the adrenaline rush that had sent her into the bedroom.
His expression grew tender. “Charity, I—”
“My head hurts,” Alistair whined.
Wyatt glanced at him. “Let’s hang him upside down in a snowbank.”
“Good idea. Using snow, I mean. There’s a nasty lump growing above his ear.”
“Pardon me if I don’t ooze sympathy for this nut.”
“But we should put something on that lump to keep the swelling down.”
“Be my guest. I’ll keep an eye on him to make sure he doesn’t try anything while you make a snowball.”
Charity had no trouble coming up with enough snow. The floor was covered with it. She packed some in her hand, pulled a pillowcase from one of Nora’s pillows and wrapped the snowball in it before applying it to Alistair’s head. “Hold that,” she instructed.
“Now you’ll kill me, too,” Alistair babbled as he sat in the middle of the collapsed bed holding the cold pack against his head. “You’ll bury me in a shallow grave just like you did Nora. And cut out my entrails, just for sport.”
Wyatt looked disgusted. “I’m beginning to see why folks decide to gag their captives.”
“Please use a clean rag,” Alistair begged. “And no duct tape.”
Charity folded her arms. “What do you think we should do with him?”
Alistair looked from one to the other and shook. “Make it quick. Please, no torture. Nothing with cranberry sauce.”
Wyatt and Charity gazed at each other.
Then Wyatt braced his hands on either side of Alistair and put his face very close to the little man’s. “You seem to think I’m a dangerous character, so listen to this, and listen good. If you ever tell anybody what you heard here last night, I will personally feed your cajones to the sharks.”
Alistair looked about ready to pass out. “Wh-what are cajones?”
“Use your imagination, buddy. And you have an impressive imagination, so that shouldn’t be too hard for you.”
Alistair gasped and placed his free hand over his crotch.
Wyatt’s smile looked lethal. “Bingo.” He pushed himself away from the bed and turned toward Charity. “We’d better get that hole repaired and do what we can for this bedroom.”
“I don’t think we can trust Alistair to run around loose while we clean everything up,” Charity said.
“You’re right. Let’s take him downstairs. We’ll use my rope.”
“You’re going to hang me, aren’t you?”
Wyatt surveyed him with studied nonchalance. “Don’t tempt me.”
“Wyatt, stop. You’re scaring him.”
Wyatt glanced at her. “Seems only fair. After all, he scared the hell out of me.”
“I thought you said your fanny was perfectly safe?”
“It was. It was your fanny that concerned me.” He winked at her. “As always.”