An hour later Rafe heard her stalk back into the kitchen behind him. He removed the pan of steaming cocoa from the stove and glanced over his shoulder.
She had washed and dried her hair and tucked it back behind her ears. A thick white toweling robe was belted around her narrow waist. Her face was pink and flushed. He knew that the high color in her cheeks was not from the hot shower she had just taken. She was still fuming.
He hadn’t entirely recovered from the roller coaster of emotions he’d been through in the past hour either, he realized. Hannah and Winston had been through a bad experience, but the whole event had not been a picnic for him. He’d endured his own private ordeal.
First there had been the nightmare images he had envisioned when he knocked on the front door of the house and received no answer. Given the fact that Hannah’s car was in the drive, he’d started out with the worst-case scenario—that she was upstairs in her prissy little bedroom with another man. When he’d finally climbed out of the dark pit into which that vision had cast him, he’d summoned up some common sense and logic. Even if Hannah had been engaged in passionate sex upstairs, he reasoned, Winston would have come to the door.
Winston had not come to the door. Ergo, Winston and Hannah had gone for a walk. Given the fog and the late hour, however, that conclusion had induced other, equally disturbing scenarios. The tide was coming in. It was a damfool time to go walking on the beach.
When he’d finally spotted them coming toward him from the vicinity of the caves, the relief that had flashed through him had been stunning. Then Hannah had launched herself into his arms, and he’d realized that she was scared and shivering. Her clothes and hair were wet.
She’d told him the full story on the way back to the house, and he’d been chilled to the bone by the tale. A hundred variations on disaster had assailed him. She could have been swept up in the churning waters of the cove while attempting to rescue Winston. What if whoever she thought had watched her from the path had pursued her and the dog into the caves?
After the visions had come the questions, the primary one being, What the hell was going on? He’d made the cocoa partly as therapy for himself. Cooking always centered him and allowed him to think more clearly.
He’d done a lot of thinking while he stirred the hot chocolate and waited for Hannah to come back downstairs. He’d even managed to reach a few conclusions. He was calm and cool again, he told himself. He was back in control.
“Sit down,” he instructed. “I’ll pour you a cup of this stuff. Winston has already had his treat.”
She looked at Winston, who was flopped under the table. Rafe had dried him off and fluffed his fur with some of the old towels in the mudroom. He looked none the worse for his ordeal. In typical dog fashion, he appeared to have forgotten the entire experience.
The same could not be said of Hannah, Rafe thought.
“I still can’t believe that that twit at the police station actually said they could not spare an officer to investigate what happened to Winston tonight.” She dropped into a chair at the kitchen table. “The woman acted as if I had phoned in a complaint about some stupid childish prank.”
“Try not to take it personally.” Rafe poured the cocoa into a mug and put it on the table. “This is a small town, remember? There aren’t many officers on the force. The dispatcher explained that they were all busy out at Chamberlain tonight because of the big rally.”
“I am taking it personally. Winston would have drowned if I hadn’t found him in time.”
“Maybe, but once you told the dispatcher that you and the dog were okay and that there was no sign of forced entry here at the house, you lost your status as an emergency.”
“I know, I know.” She heaved a sigh and then, frowning slightly, she sniffed. She looked down at the mug of cocoa he had put in front of her. “That smells good.”
“Drink it.”
Obediently she took a sip. “Just what the doctor ordered. Thanks.”
“You’re welcome.” He sat down across from her. “I went back to the edge of the cliffs and looked for that cage or animal trap or whatever it was. But it’s gone.”
“Knocked off the finger by the incoming waves, no doubt.” She took another sip. “Maybe it will get washed ashore or left on the sand when the tide goes out tomorrow. I’ll watch for it. It’s the only evidence I’ve got.”
“Even if you find it, I doubt if it will prove useful. There won’t be any fingerprints left on it by the time the sea gets finished with it.”
She looked dismayed. “You’re probably right.”
Rafe glanced down at Winston. “Someone must have opened the back door and enticed him into the trap.”
“Probably wouldn’t have been too hard.” Her mouth tightened. “A nice chunk of raw steak would have gotten his attention.”
“The real question is, How did the mudroom door get unlocked?”
She pursed her lips. “I’ve been thinking about that. It’s no secret that Mom and Dad leave a spare key with a realtor here in town who looks after the place when no one in the family is using it. It’s not too much of a stretch to imagine someone stealing the key or copying it.”
He thought about it. “Maybe. But it seems like more trouble than the average kid would go to just to play a nasty prank.”
She looked at him with troubled eyes. “You think this was something more than a vicious stunt?”
He shoved his hands into the front pockets of his trousers. “If you put this incident together with the possibility that someone may have been watching your house at night on and off this past week, you’ve got the makings of a stalker scenario.”
She shuddered. “That occurred to me while I was in the shower. But it would have to be someone who had followed me from Portland, and I honestly can’t think of anyone there who is obsessive about me.”
“The ex-fiancé?”
She looked genuinely taken aback by the suggestion. Then she shook her head with grave certainty. “No, definitely not Doug. He’s not the type.”
“I’m not sure the type is always obvious.”
“Our engagement ended a year ago. Why would he start stalking me now? And why follow me here to Eclipse Bay to do it? He doesn’t know his way around this town. Whoever trapped Winston and stuck him out on that finger knows a lot about this place.”
“Good point. Got to be someone from Eclipse Bay. Someone who knew about the fingers and the tides in Dead Hand Cove. Someone who knew how to get a key to this house.”
“What are you thinking, Rafé?”
“I’m thinking Perry Decatur.”
“Perry?” She sat back, startled. “Oh, no, that’s ridiculous. Why would he do something like that?”
“To get even for the way you finessed his move to keep Brad McCallister off the faculty at the institute?”
She chewed on her lower lip for a few seconds and then shook her head again. “I suppose it’s possible. But I don’t think so. Not his style. Perry’s a conniving little twerp, but I don’t see him pulling a stunt like this.”
“Why not?”
“Well, for one thing, whoever carried that cage out to the finger had to get wet and dirty doing it. Perry isn’t the type to get wet and dirty if he can help it. Plus there was a real risk of getting caught in the act if I came home early. Perry doesn’t take risks if he can avoid them. He prefers to maneuver behind the scenes.”
Rafe was unconvinced. “I don’t know. He was plenty pissed last night.”
She exhaled heavily. “It just doesn’t feel like the kind of trick he would pull. More likely it was a local kid. A budding little sociopath who has graduated from setting fires to torturing animals.”
Rafe said nothing.
“You’ve got a problem with my logic?”
“I’m just thinking,” he said.
“I can see that. And it makes me nervous.”
“Me, thinking, makes you nervous? Why?”
“Because the last time you did some serious thinking you decided to make us partners in Dreamscape.”
“That’s different.”
“Bull.”
“It’s going to work. You’ll see, partner.”
She pointedly ignored that. “What, exactly, are you thinking about what happened tonight?”
He hesitated and then decided there was nothing to be gained by keeping silent. “I’m thinking that whatever is going on here might not be about you.”
“Not about me? That was my dog out there on the finger.”
“What I meant was it might not be about you alone.” He paused. “It might be about us.”
“Us? You mean someone doesn’t like the idea that we’re—” She broke off and made another run at it. “Someone doesn’t like the rumors that are going around about us? But why on earth would anyone care if we’re, uh—”
“Sleeping together?” he offered helpfully.
“One time,” she said swiftly. “There was only one time. That does not exactly constitute a flaming affair.”
For some reason he found that observation both extremely irritating and strangely depressing. “Can’t argue that.”
She sipped her cocoa for a moment, then put the mug down. “I just had a thought. Maybe whoever did this is one of your old flames. A jealous lover from your misspent past?”
“Doubt it.”
She was undeterred. “Good grief. If I’m right, we’ve got more suspects than we can count.”
His incipient depression vanished in the heat of a sudden, fierce anger. He sat forward quickly, flattening his palms on the table. “My reputation in this town was always a hell of a lot more exciting than the reality.”
She blinked. “Now, Rafe—”
“Trust me on this. I was there.”
She cleared her throat. “Well, yes, of course you were, but everyone knows about your reputation in those days.”
“This may come as a stunning surprise to you, but contrary to popular opinion, I don’t have a legion of old flames hiding in the bushes here in Eclipse Bay.”
“I don’t believe I used the word ‘legion.’”
“Close enough. For the record, virtually all of my dates—and there were not as many of them as everyone seems to think—were weekend or summer visitors who came here for the beach, the boardwalk, and a good time. They knew what they were doing and so did I. There was nothing serious with any of them, and I’ve never seen any of them again.”
Her jaw clenched visibly. “There was Kaitlin Sadler.”
“Yes. There was Kaitlin Sadler. She was a year older than me, experienced, and she could take care of herself.”
“I never implied that you took advantage of her. No one ever said that.”
“I didn’t have a lot of rules for myself in those days, but I had a few and I stuck to them. I never got involved with anyone who was married or too young or too naïve to know the score. Hell, you ought to know that better than anyone else.”
“Me?” She gripped the edge of the table. “Why should I know anything about the history of your love life?”
“Because I never laid a hand on you eight years ago, that’s why.”
For the space of two or three heartbeats she simply stared at him in utter astonishment. Then she pulled herself together with an obvious effort. “Of course you never touched me. I wasn’t your type. You wouldn’t have looked twice at me if we hadn’t been stuck out there at the Arch together that night.”
A cold, mirthless amusement shafted through him. “You weren’t my type, and you were squarely in the ‘don’t touch’ category as far as I was concerned, but that doesn’t mean that I didn’t look twice.”
Her eyes widened. “Because I was a Harte? Was I some sort of challenge?”
“The fact that you were a Harte had nothing to do with it.”
“Then why did you look twice?”
“Damned if I know. Pure masochism, probably, because I sure as hell knew that you’d never look twice at me.”
“That’s not true.” She shot to her feet. “I had a crush on you. Every girl in Eclipse Bay did.”
“That’s supposed to thrill me?” He was suddenly on his feet, too, although he had no recollection of getting out of his chair. “To know that for you I was just the interesting bad boy with the bike and the leather jacket and the dangerous rep? The kind of guy your parents always warned you about? The kind of guy it might be amusing to fool around with but definitely not the kind you would ever marry?”
A fresh tide of hot color rose in her face. He could have sworn he had embarrassed her. Good. Served her right. But her gaze did not slide away from his.
“How did you know what kind of man I’d marry?” she asked evenly.
“You told me that night, remember? You were only nineteen and you already had your damned list of requirements for a husband made out.”
“I was twenty, not nineteen, and I swear, if you mention that list one more time—”
He reached for her. He closed his hands around her shoulders and hauled her up against his chest. “As far as I’m concerned, I don’t care if I never hear about that damned list of yours again for as long as I live. Furthermore, I’m not real keen on hearing about your new, updated version of it, either.”
“Uh, Rafe, you’re acting a little weird here. Maybe the stress—?”
“Yeah. Maybe.”
He covered her mouth with his own, letting the fierce tension that was eating him up inside pour into her. She made a soft, muffled sound, and then her arms closed tightly around him and she was kissing him back with all the passion that had infused her anger a few seconds earlier.
“My God,” he muttered against her throat. “Do you have any idea of the scare you gave me tonight?”
“Scare?” Her own voice was muffled because she was frantically kissing his jaw. “Why were you scared?”
“First, because I thought maybe the reason you weren’t answering the door was that you were with some other man.”
“No. Really?” She went very still. Then she pulled back slightly and looked at him with wide, fascinated eyes. “You were actually afraid that I might be in bed with another man? Did you think that I might have a few old flames of my own here in Eclipse Bay?”
“Let’s not go there.” He refused to be sidetracked again by that possibility. “My other big fear was that you’d gone for a walk with Winston and fallen on the rocks.”
“Like Kaitlin Sadler?”
“I wasn’t thinking of Kaitlin,” he said bluntly. “All I could think about was you.” He wrapped his fingers around the back of her head. “Lord help me, I haven’t been able to concentrate on anything else except you since I got that letter from the lawyer.”
“Don’t give me that.” Fresh outrage erupted. “If you’ve been concentrating on me, it’s because I’m connected to Dreamscape. You have to deal with me before you can get your hands on my property. That’s why you suddenly started focusing on me. Admit it.”
He cast about briefly for the words he needed, but he could not find them.
“We both want the same thing for Dreamscape,” he said finally. “We ought to be able to work together.”
“And sleep together?”
“We both want that, too. I really don’t see the problem here, Hannah.”
“Probably because you’re thinking like a Madison.”
“You know something?” he said through his teeth. “I’ve had it with you implying that just because I’m a Madison, I can’t handle a sexual relationship and a business relationship simultaneously.”
“I’ve had it with you classifying our relationship as sexual.”
“Well, what would you call it?”
She stilled. “I don’t know.”
“Fine. Great. That’s a lot of help.”
She raised her chin. “I just know that for me there has to be more than sex.”
That stopped him cold. “More?”
“And don’t you dare tell me that a business partnership will fill in the empty places,” she added icily.
He was annoyed. “I wasn’t going to say that. That sounds like something a Harte would say, not a Madison.”
“If I’m not allowed to insult your family, you can’t insult mine.”
“Sure, right. Take all the fun out of the argument. Damn it, Hannah, I’ve had enough of this. You know that what we’ve got is more than just a sexual thing. I want you. I think you want me. Can’t we just go with that for now?”
She put her hands on his shoulders as if to steady herself. “I don’t understand what’s happening here. But I do know that adding sex to the mix complicates things.”
“In the most interesting way,” he muttered against her throat.
“Rafe—”
“Give whatever we’ve got going for us a chance, okay?” He drew his finger down the curve of her neck. “That’s all I’m asking.”
“I really don’t think that’s a good idea, Rafe.”
He cradled her chin in his palms. “Tell me something.”
She searched his face. “What?”
“Do you ever stop talking?”
“Not as long as I have something to say.”
“Just wondered.” He kissed her again.
For a few seconds she hesitated and then, with a tiny sigh, she softened.
Maybe she no longer had anything to say, he thought. A man could always hope.
Afraid to risk any more conversation, he kept his mouth on hers as he maneuvered her through the kitchen door. When they went past the light switch, he reached out and flipped it to the off position. Heavy shadows descended. The only light now was a dim, welcoming glow at the top of the stairs. He started toward it with Hannah tucked safely against his side.
His breathing was heavy and ragged by the time he got both of them to the bedroom at the end of the hall. He did not turn on the lamp, but the light from the corridor was sufficient to allow him to see that the room, with its white wicker furniture, white bedspread, and bleached wooden floors, was just as he had imagined it all those years ago: a pristine retreat for an untouchable princess. He felt like the intruder he was.
Not that that was going to stop him, he thought.
Exultation raced through him. Nothing could stop him as long as he knew that Hannah wanted him as badly as he wanted her. The passion between them was mutual. He could work with passion. He was a Madison.
He stopped beside the bed and untied the belt that bound the robe around her waist. She wore a long-sleeved, high-necked, prim white gown underneath it. Womanly armor, he thought. Did she know the challenge it presented?
She mumbled something against his mouth as he slipped the robe off her shoulders. He did not catch the precise words, but he had no trouble at all understanding the meaning. She was as swept up in the moment as he was.
Her arms tightened fiercely around his neck when he started to unfasten the tiny little buttons of the flannel nightgown. She smelled so good. He knew that when he threaded his fingers through the triangle of hair at the apex of her thighs she would be moist. He could hardly wait.
She unbuttoned his shirt and spread her palms across his chest. “I love the feel of you,” she whispered.
He was already hard, but her touch and the sultry desire in her words made him absolutely rigid. Electricity flashed through his senses.
He released her long enough to sit down on the edge of the white bed and remove his running shoes. When he looked up he saw that she was watching him with hungry attention, as if every move he made fascinated her.
He rose and lowered the flannel gown to her waist. It slipped low on her hips but it did not fall all the way to the floor. He caressed the tips of her small breasts. Her nipples were stiff and full. He closed his eyes briefly against the torrent of need that threatened to drown him.
She undid his belt, and then she lowered his zipper. When her fingers closed lightly around him he stopped breathing for a few seconds. The sensations tearing through him were so intense that he was sure he could live without oxygen for a while.
She slid her hands beneath the waistband of his trousers and pushed slowly downward. The pants hit the floor at his feet.
“Rafe.”
He stepped out of the trousers and quickly sheathed himself in the condom he took from his back pocket. Then he grabbed her around the waist and fell back across the white bedspread with her. She sprawled atop his chest and thighs, the bottom of her gown tangling in his bare legs.
She rained kisses on his flesh. Her fingers circled his upper arms. He shuddered under the gentle assault. Then he rolled onto her back, leaned over her, and tore the gown off altogether. It vanished into the darkness below the bed.
He curved his hand around her hip and kissed the gentle swell of her belly. She trembled beneath him and reached for him.
“No,” he said. “Not yet.”
He found the tight, hot place between her legs. And she was wet, just as he had anticipated. He inhaled the secret scent until he could no longer think clearly. Then he separated her thighs and kissed the exquisitely soft skin he found there.
She shivered again. Her nails dug into his shoulder as she tried to pull him up along the length of her. But he was not yet ready to be lured into the climax.
He drew a fingertip along the tight nub hidden in the silky thatch of hair and felt her quiver in response. She was clawing at him now.
He bent his head and touched the tip of his tongue to her full, taut clitoris. She tensed.
“Rafe.” It was a plea and a protest. “Wait. Don’t do that.”
“Come for me.”
“I can’t. Not like this. It’s too—Rafe.”
“Come for me.” He kissed her again, intimately, and simultaneously eased two fingers into her, stretching her gently.
Her hands twisted in the sheets. “No, wait. I want—”
“Come for me.”
“I…Oh, no. Oh, yes. Yes!”
He felt her climax take her. The sensation was so intoxicating he nearly went with her.
He held himself together until the tremors had begun to subside. Only then did he shift his position to lie on top of her.
“Open your eyes,” he whispered. “Look at me.”
Languidly she raised her lashes and smiled at him, a dreamy smile that was somehow smug and all-knowing and filled with invitation.
He plunged into her body, driving himself to the hilt. She closed around him and took him deeper still, straight down into uncharted depths and unknowable waters.
“Come for me,” she said into his mouth.
He gave himself up to the tides of a mysterious sea.
A long time later he roused reluctantly from the cocoon of warmth that enveloped them, levered himself up on his elbow, and looked down at her.
“I just want to know one thing,” he said.
She raised her lashes halfway and yawned. “What?”
“Are you sleeping with me because you’ve got some kind of kinky thing about finding out what it’s like to do it with the kind of guy your parents would hate?”
“That would be extremely immature.”
“Yeah.”
“Hartes do not act out just for the hell of it, nor do we take risks merely for the sake of novelty. We are not immature. We’re the logical, reasonable, rational ones, remember?”
“Yeah.” He kissed her breast. “So why are you sleeping with me?”
She studied him with an enigmatic expression. “You had all the answers earlier.”
“Earlier I was trying to talk you into bed.”
She punched him lightly on the arm. “We are not amused, Madison.”
“I’m serious. I know why I’m sleeping with you. I want to know why you’re sleeping with me.”
She searched his face. “Is it that important to you?”
Anger stirred deep inside him, dissolving much of the warm afterglow that had enveloped him. “Hell, yes, it’s important. You think I’d be trying to get through a stupid conversation like this if the answer wasn’t important?”
“Well, I’ll tell you one thing,” she said. “I’m certainly not doing this because I still have a teenage-type crush on you or because you’re the guy my parents always warned me about.”
He rolled onto his back, put one hand behind his head, and gazed moodily up at the dark ceiling. “So what’s the reason?”
She rose partway off the bed and leaned over him in the shadows. When she spoke, her voice was low and steady.
“I am sleeping with you because, among other things, I am a mature, unattached adult who happens to be physically attracted to you and also because—”
An eagerness that bordered on desperation swept through him. Get a grip, he thought. “And also because—?”
He sensed that she was on the verge of saying something crucial. But in the next heartbeat the intense, important thing disappeared beneath a breezy smile.
“And because my dog likes you, and I trust Winston’s judgment implicitly,” she said demurely.
So what the hell had he expected her to say? He wondered. “Sonofabitch.”
“Yes, but we do not refer to him in those terms in his presence.”
“Huh.”
“In my experience, Winston is never wrong in these matters.”
He thought about that for a while. “Winston didn’t like the ex-fiancé, I take it?”
“Winston was civil, but he never warmed up to Doug.” Hannah paused. “There was an unfortunate incident one evening toward the end of the relationship that more or less summed up his opinion.”
“What sort of incident?”
She cleared her throat. “Winston mistook Doug’s leg for a fire hydrant.”
“Winston and I are pals,” Rafe said. “I don’t think he’d make the same mistake with me.”
“He seems to like you very much.”
“Guess that’ll have to do. For now.”
She tilted her head slightly. “I guess so. For now.”
He lay there unmoving, intensely conscious of the warmth of her hip where it rested against his thigh and the elegantly sensual curve of her shoulder. He could not shake the feeling of destiny that rippled through him. It was the same sensation that had come over him the day he opened the letter from Isabel’s lawyer.
“What are you thinking?” she asked.
Don’t let the feeling run away with you, he warned himself. Stay on top of it. Stay in control. Don’t think about the future. Stay with the present.
But the future was so important now.
He inhaled slowly, centering himself. “I was thinking about the subject that we were discussing before we were so delightfully interrupted.”
“I believe you were holding forth on a theory that whoever tried to murder Winston might have been attempting to express his displeasure over our relationship.”
“You don’t have to say it in that tone of voice. It’s a good theory. But I never got a chance to explain the finer points.”
“I’m listening.”
“I didn’t mean to imply that whoever tried to off Winston did so because he was pissed about the fact that you and I are sleeping together. What I was going to suggest was that he or she might be worried about something else altogether.”
“Such as?”
“Think about it,” he said patiently. “Ever since we arrived here in Eclipse Bay, there has been talk. It hasn’t all been focused on the speculation that one of us is trying to screw the other out of Dreamscape.”
She winced. “What a delicate way to put it.”
He ignored her. “There’s also been gossip about what happened eight years ago.”
“Oh, for pity’s sake. You actually think that some people still care whether or not we had sex on the beach that night?”
“No. The conversations have circled around the subject of Kaitlin Sadler’s death. You heard the Willis brothers. Others are talking, too. I overheard a couple of folks in the vegetable aisle at Fulton’s chatting about how no one was really sure what happened that night. One of them suggested that Yates might have closed the case a little too quickly, for lack of suspects.”
Hannah’s lips parted as understanding struck. “Kaitlin died a long time ago. Who would care if there was fresh talk going around about an old tragedy?”
“Someone who thinks that I really did murder Kaitlin might care. A lot.”
She froze. “Dell Sadler. But why would he try to harm my dog?”
“As far as Dell is concerned, you covered for me that night. You’re involved.”
“You think he would have tried to harm Winston as a way of taking some revenge?”
“I think,” Rafe said deliberately, “that we’d better talk to him.”