
They had to get out of the burning house or a lack of oxygen would suffocate them.
Two kicks and the barrier fell outward. Rowan turned to Jo and swung her into his arms. With her clasped against his chest, he ducked his head and stepped sideways through the gap and into the sunlight.
God, life was great!
He made it to the lawn. With his lungs heaving, he halted and watched the fire swallow up the room they'd fled from with less than a second to spare.
Rowan threw back his head as relief ripped a huge bellow of glad-to-be-alive laughter from his throat. Then he turned his attention to Jo.
Perspiration beaded her forehead, and smoky trails of tears painted her cheeks. She'd never looked more beautiful. She was alive. They were alive.
"Rowan..." Her lips seemed to tremble on his name. Her beautiful mouth filled his vision. His head dipped to take her lips with his own. Just one kiss. A hero's kiss. He was entitled, and this time he would claim it.
Love Under Fire
FRANCES HOUSDEN
Books by Frances Housden
Silhouette Intimate Moments
The Man for Maggie #1056
Love Under Fire #1168
FRANCES HOUSDEN
has always been a voracious reader, but she never thought of being a writer until a teacher gave her the encouragement she needed to put pen to paper. As a result, Frances was a finalist for the 1998 Clendon Award and won the award in 1999, which led to the sale of her first book for Silhouette, The Man for Maggie. Frances also teaches a continuing education course in romance writing at the University of Auckland.
Frances's marriage to a Navy man took her from her birthplace in Scotland to New Zealand. Now he's a land-lubber and most of the traveling they do is together. They live on a ten-acre bush block in the heart of Auckland's Wine District. She has two large sons, two tiny grandsons and a wheaten terrier named Siobhan. Thanks to one teacher's dedication, Frances now gets to write about the kinds of men a woman would travel to the ends of the earth for.
This one is for family. My darling husband, Keith, for all his encouragement, my sister-in-law, Susan Church, for her courage to read my first draft, and in memory of my mother-in-law, Yvonne, who introduced me to the delights of reading romance. Also, my thanks to Graham Pelham for teaching this perennially bad sailor to drive a boat without ever having to leave solid ground.
Contents
L ife as Jo Jellic knew it had become increasingly filled with little quirks. Okay, so she was being facetious, yet less than an hour and a half ago, she'd anticipated spending the evening in the local pub with her colleagues. After letting out a collective sigh, they'd have let off a little steam, celebrating the successful conclusion of a case which had tied them up 24/7 for four months.
Instead, she was up to her elbows in dirt, listening to an ultimatum---"I'll give you five minutes to back off or I'll shoot the girl"---with the whaump, whaump, whaump of the helicopter they'd arrived in still hanging in the air.
Every breath was filled with dust, its bitter tang coating her tongue, no matter how hard she swallowed.
Her meager cover was a scrubby pittosporum bush and twenty yards away, on the other side, Maggie, the best friend she'd ever had, was being held hostage.
Jo squinted, eyes straining to cut through the darkness. "Where the hell is Max?" She shred the words between teeth clamped as tight as her jaw. No need for anyone but her to know her boss had gone walkabout. Only a minute ago, Detective Sergeant Max Strachan had been positioned not less than five yards away. His disappearance wasn't part of the plan, though understanding his desperation, she couldn't give him away. Just this afternoon, Max had asked Maggie to marry him.
This was the man she'd actually imagined herself in love with for years, but naturally it had been one-sided. Max didn't find her all that lovable and who could blame him? She was a product of the job she did, made by the career she loved. A person couldn't work the homicide cases she had and remain the same naive girl she'd been when she joined the force.
It was as if she'd locked all her finer feelings inside and thrown away the key. The truth about love had struck her that afternoon when she'd watched Max and Maggie together. If she ever found a man who could bring out her softer side, she'd know the love was real.
What a time to start bleating, Jellic. She had more immediate problems, like what could she do about Max?
Senior Sergeant Rowan McQuaid on her other side was in no doubt of her feelings for Max. Hell, they'd been making book on it at Auckland Central, betting on the outcome, but their money hadn't been on her. Soon they'd be able to collect. She'd a notion if she started fussing over Max, Rowan would think she'd given in to her own brand of paranoia.
Jo huffed out air to release her tension. It didn't work. Her heartbeat raced on a full head of steam, her grip tightening on the 9mm Glock held against her cheek. Metal that had once been cool to the touch now burned in her hand.
She stared into the growing darkness on her left. This shouldn't be happening now, not in the middle of a hostage drama. Max was in charge. He'd no right to leave. They'd departed Auckland on what seemed a whim, unprepared for an armed siege.
Sure, the Armed Offenders Squad were on their way, but for now, they had to make do with two detectives, including herself, a senior sergeant and the helicopter jockey who had ferried them to the vineyard. Add to that four local cops, country cops, nervous as hell and excited to boot, who'd probably be about as much use as her Glock when it came to hitting a target in the gloomy light.
"Ooh." Darned if there wasn't a bug crawling up her arm on the inside of her sleeve. She shuddered. Man, she hated bugs. She hated dirt, too, yet her fingernails had clawed grooves in the ground. Pushing up on the ball of her palm, she paid for her view with the fetid stench of wormy earth on a defrost cycle.
Give her the city any day. She breathed easier with asphalt underfoot and streetlights overhead. This country stuff was a whole other world.
She pushed up higher. Well, the view was better, but Max wasn't part of it. Drat the man. She hoped he wasn't doing something stupid.
Glancing over her shoulder she watched Rowan. At least he was still in position, though facing toward the youngest of the cops they'd brought in to help. Knowing Rowan, he'd be doing his level best to calm the kid's nerves. Something about his size was reassuring; the sergeant had muscles to die for, and didn't have a nervous bone in his body. Always in control, that was Rowan.
Turning back, she caught a glimpse of movement, a glimpse of black hair slashed with silver darting through the trees. Max.
Anger and fear clutched at her chest, followed by guilt. She might have missed him by letting her attention wander. The urge to haul Max back screamed up her arm. As if he gave a snap of the fingers for her wants. Maggie, the woman Max loved, was inside the house. Nothing, absolutely nothing, she or anyone else said was going stop him acting the fool for love.
"Is Max all right?" Rowan whispered as a movement at the window caught her eye. A glimmer of light slid down the dull-gray barrel of the rifle following Max's trail like a heat-seeking missile.
Everything she'd ever been taught about safety sloughed right off. Distract the gunman or Max's as good as dead. "He's gone!" she shouted to warn Rowan as she leaped to her feet. The rifle in the window swung, taking a bead on her position. She couldn't move as fast.
"Damn and blast!" yelled Rowan.
A thud of feet and snap of twigs raced time, raced the swing of the barrel. No time to yell, "Stay down!" Although time appeared to stop, she didn't have any. Then his hand gripped her shoulder.
An inane thought that this was the first time he'd ever laid hands on her, struck at the same moment a shot cracked and the air beside them opened in a rush.
Rowan lunged, his legs straddling hers. His large body barreling into hers dragged her down. She tasted dirt. The scent of dead leaves, grave-cold earth and the coppery tang of blood filled every breath.
Blood? Who was bleeding?
Though Rowan's weight crushed her, she felt no pain.
As the truth hit, she wanted to scream, "Noooooo!" And she did. "No, no, no," she repeated the word, repeated the prayer.
She squeezed out from under his lax body and struggled to her knees as if daring the gunman to try again. Blood and some other stuff she didn't want to put a name to covered her shoes. "God, don't let him be dead." Groaning, she rolled him over.
There was no need to feel for his carotid pulse. Proof of life pulsed in the fountain of blood gushing from a hole the size of a fist in his thigh. "You fool, McQuaid. What you want to go and do that for?" She dragged the sleeves of her jacket down her arms and flung it aside.
"I don't want you to die for me." There were no other sounds in the world except her beating heart and Velcro ripping as she pulled at the straps of her Kevlar vest. Peeling the vest off, she started in on her shirt buttons. "I don't need a standin. I'm quite capable of dying by myself."
"Is Sergeant McQuaid all right?"
She'd forgotten that anyone but Rowan and her existed. Her shirt was off, and the kid Rowan had helped was staring at her underwear. "No, he's not all right. We need an ambulance."
"I already called the paramedics."
He hunkered down at Rowan's head and continued to stare. She knew he was waiting for orders, but her mind raced faster than her lips could frame the words. And no wonder. She was kneeling in the dirt, her hands fighting to staunch the flow of blood with her second-best shirt, while all she wanted to do was howl, to let her feminine side have its way and cry her damn eyes out. But there was no time. She didn't know where Max had gone but Rowan was down and that made her in charge.
"Press down on this, kid. Let's hope the ambulance doesn't take too long," she told him and shrugged back into her vest, then jacket while he complied. She nudged his hand aside, replacing it with hers. "Now give me your shirt and your belt," she ordered, digging her other fist into Rowan's groin in search of the pressure point.
Too busy now for tears, she'd save them for another day, praying that it wouldn't be at his funeral.
A little over two years later
"B abe alert."
The shout jarred Jo out of a daydream. Her head jerked around in time to see the fierce concentration on Ginny's face as a piercing, two-note twist of air whistled through the gap in her front teeth. Then awe threaded a breathless gasp. "Cooool."
Good grief, had she ever been so young?
Thank heavens the air-conditioning god insisted on tightly closed windows; she'd hate anyone to think the wolf whistle came from her.
Jo had been quite content to layer her own thoughts over her passenger's prattle---prisoner was too harsh a word. Ginny sure could talk, and had started the moment she entered the car taking her to the station house. The constant stream of words laced with a mixture of nerves and relief, had settled into a comfortable drone in her ears when Ginny's shout brought her out of her reverie.
By rights, it should have been the owner of the Two Dollar Shop on the receiving end of all her youthful fervor. The suggestion to let Ginny off with a warning for shoplifting had come from him. Yet from the moment Jo had explained the conditions she'd been promoted to saint...well, let's say knighthood.
It was kind of nice, really.
Half an hour later she was redundant. Ginny had found someone new to worship. Replaced by a babe no less.
"Where? I can't see him." She might be twice Ginny's age, and then some, but she wasn't immune to an attractive male, so she let her gaze follow the direction of Ginny's pointing finger. No use. The glare of late-October spring sunshine against the windshield blinded her. All she got for her effort was the impression of an elongated black shadow sliding across the white weatherboards cladding the Nicks Landing station house.
Wasn't that always the way? One bright spot in a mediocre day, and she'd missed it. Win some, lose some, usually the latter.
A designated parking space was one of the perks of being a detective, and Jo automatically swung into hers.
"Look out!"
Heart pumping, Jo slammed the brake pedal to the floor, skinning a week's worth of rubber off the tires in the process.
"Darn," she spat, ever mindful of her fourteen-year-old passenger, the ineffectual curse bearing no resemblance to her true feelings. "I don't believe this."
She blinked and shook her head but the Jaguar S-type, squatting between the white lines of her parking space, was still there. Two vacant spaces, yet again, someone stole hers. Some people simply failed to comprehend the meaning of the word reserved.
Jo spun her car back into the road. Chances were she'd find a spot in the small, crowded visitor's parking lot on the far side of the station house.
Two years she'd worked out of this station house, and still was no wiser why, out of the three spaces assigned to detectives, no one ever pinched the other two?
"Now that's what I call a car," said Ginny.
About to agree, she caught the tail end of Ginny's expression. So her car wasn't top of the line. She liked it. Tongue in cheek, Jo responded, "Pretty good huh? Maybe they'll deliver mine next week." Ginny's jaw dropped. Jo's smile said, "tit for tat."
"So...did you recognize the babe, Ginny?"
The girl's smile was dreamy. "I wish."
"What do you think, should I give him a ticket?" Jo joked.
"Noooo!" Ginny squealed. "The guy wouldn't know any better. He's not from Nicks Landing. Him I would have remembered."
Same goes. Of course it was that Jag, Jo had in mind.
Who was she kidding? Since arriving in Nicks Landing, there had been a dearth of any male who could draw a wolf whistle from her lips, or she suspected, even Ginny's.
She wasn't sure why, but she felt drawn to the girl. Perhaps she found an echo of her own patchy youth in Ginny's overbright chatter.
Rounding the side of the station house, her car began to whine. Envious of the leashed power nestling under the Jag's hood, no doubt. Well, her mind had been on other matters, too. Male matters. Changing down a notch fixed her car's complaint, but didn't stop her wondering what kind of man it took to handle such lethal-looking power.
Slotting her car into the only available space, she imagined her palms wrapped round the walnut steering wheel of the Jag, and took vicarious pleasure in imagining the money-flavored newness of the leather. She resisted an envious sigh and instead, unfolded her six-foot length from the driver's seat.
Once, she'd been secure in the knowledge of her own personal worth, her own capabilities. Not anymore. Living in Nicks Landing had done a number on her ego. A few more friends might have sweetened her stay, made her feel less of an outsider. Maybe...
With Ginny skipping to keep up with her longer stride, Jo glanced at the white station house. Two years on and she still hadn't gotten over her first impression. That down-home, country look didn't quite gel with what went on inside. Friday and Saturday nights were the worst. That's when the drunks came out to play. The local innkeeper couldn't seem to tell when they'd had enough. Oh, he'd excuses aplenty. Personally, Jo figured it had more to do with getting back at them for still being cops while he'd been made redundant, though no one else saw it that way. Hell, maybe her prejudice was showing.
Since it was closer, she shepherded Ginny to the back entrance.
"Coming through."
The warning left barely enough time to pull Ginny to the side of the ramp as Seth McAllister, the cop who manned the reception, ran past. "Where's the fire?" she called to his back view.
"Personal emergency."
Jo could have said, "Again?" but kept her own counsel. Seemed Seth had one of those emergencies at least once a month. The fact that he and his wife were desperately trying to conceive a child couldn't have anything to do with it. And pigs could fly!
The air in the station house rang blue with curses. Someone was putting the boot into one of the metal cell doors. The lockup was pretty rowdy considering it was only two in the afternoon. She noticed Ginny wince and hardened her heart against an urge to erase the fear she could see in her young eyes. Fist clenched close to her thigh, Jo's emotions warred between duty and empathy. There was a lesson for Ginny to learn here. A lesson that would do the girl more good than harm. Jo swallowed the tightness clogging her throat as she guided the teenager to a bench on the wall. Jo remembered the first time she'd visited the cells. Yeah, she knew what it felt like.
"Sit." She squeezed out the command, aware of how brusque she sounded. And when Ginny bobbed up again, hovering nervously a few inches above the seat, added, "Stay." Ginny's blue eyes paled against the whites as they widened. Blood drained from her face and promoted her carrot-colored frizz from unusual to startling.
The color of that hair was one reason Jo had known the kid couldn't seriously have intended to steal. The idea of pink barrettes holding back such riotous brilliance put the mind on hold. Though she allowed there was something about pink that tempted with its sheer femininity. That was something else she'd remembered since picking up the girl.
Gently, she pressed Ginny down to the bench. "You're okay here. No one will hurt you." Jo nodded toward the desk. "See the sergeant over there? He'll look out for you."
As always, Jo's first glimpse of Senior Sergeant Harry Jackson reminded her of her father. Maybe it was the silver buttons sparkling against the navy uniform, or an echo in the mannerisms. After all this time, the subject was still up for discussion.
Her first memories of her father had to be of those buttons. She'd sit on his knee, feel the scratchy wool under her skinny little legs, and play with the shiny baubles while he told her about the events of his day. Of course he'd always been the knight in shining armor, rescuing fair maidens, locking the bad guys up.
Even after he'd made detective, she'd waited for his stories, sometimes falling asleep before he got home. Two weeks into the job she'd realized he'd always given her the abridged edition.
The day he died had felt like they'd amputated her soul.
Four sons and one daughter he'd had, and out of them all, she was the only one following in his footsteps. Maybe being the youngest, she'd been the only one not taken in with their lies about him.
Jo caught her bottom lip in her teeth, stifling a grin at the way Harry ignored the clamor around him. He looked up as she approached, putting down his pen.
"Busy day, Sergeant?"
"Just a couple of local bad guys Bull and Jake caught growing cannabis in a house they'd rented. A right pair of smart-asses! They lined the walls with foil and grew the weed under lights."
Jo's hearing pricked up at the mention of drugs. Features bland, she prevented her longings from showing. Those kinds of cases seldom came her way now, and though her homicide training might have given her an edge in that area, no one had been murdered in Nicks County since the day she'd arrived.
Her immediate superiors seemed to be under the impression shoplifting and breaking-and-entering were more her speed. It wasn't as if she'd never protested. She had, long and loud. Which was one reason why the boys had handed over the one case they hadn't known she wanted. The one they'd decided would never be solved. An assault on Rocky Skelton, local innkeeper, purportedly by satanists who'd torched his house with him inside.
It was the kind of tale that made her eyes roll. Satanists in Nicks Landing...it sounded like a play on words, but when she'd mentioned "Old Nicks Landing," no one had laughed.
She'd had her eyes on Skelton from the moment she'd hit town. Finding her father's ex-partner running a bar in Nicks Landing had been like striking gold. And landing the case had been finding the mother lode, as if some power was at work, nudging her on, helping her to resolve the past. So what if her means of getting to Nicks Landing had come through a sideways demotion? They'd blamed her for what happened to Rowan. But in comparison, none of that mattered now. She'd been in the right place at the right time. Her father had been innocent and this might be her chance to prove it.
Harry's expression grew paternal, a ridiculous state of affairs as barely eight years separated them. "Nothing to worry your head about, little lady," he said in reference to the drug bust.
Maybe it was just Harry's protective instincts, and if so the disease was endemic. Where once she'd found it amusing, slightly endearing, now she felt smothered by living in male-chauvinist territory. If anyone in Nicks County had ever heard of equal rights for women, they'd quickly forgotten it.
Nicks Landing was about two hundred and fifty miles from Auckland where she'd worked before, and about fifty years backward in time. Located on New Zealand's East Coast, it was the sort of place needing a detour---and a damn good reason---to visit. It certainly wasn't on anyone's way to anywhere else.
The reasons she'd been transferred there were solid, nothing to be proud of, and she'd taken her licks, no sense in making excuses. She hadn't expected to be the only woman working out of the station house, or that she'd still be the only one today.
"Who have we got here?" Harry asked, nodding toward Ginny.
Jo's mind shifted gear and she told Harry. "Ginny Wilks. The owner of the Two Dollar Shop caught her slipping some plastic barrettes into her pocket. He didn't want to press charges, though, just give her a warning. Can you call this number and get her mother to come pick her up? She should be all right sitting here with you. I'll be upstairs if you need me. Call me when her mother arrives."
Jo had just turned away when she remembered. "Someone stole my space again."
"I keep telling you, take one of the other guys'."
Shaking her head, she didn't pursue it. Harry didn't realize she couldn't do the very thing she was complaining of to someone else. She couldn't be that hypocritical, or dishonest. Twelve years' service and she still felt the need to mind her p's and q's.
"I just wondered who owned the S-type Jag."
Harry's smile deepened, becoming more knowing than friendly. "Go on upstairs and find out for yourself. He's in your office."
The words your office were a misnomer. Harry knew it and so did she. Jo shared with two other detectives, including Detective Senior Sergeant Bull Cowan. Since his section took up half the space, the likelihood of the car's owner actually waiting to see her, in her office, wasn't something she contemplated.
Logic told her the driver and the stranger Ginny had admired earlier were one and the same. It could prove interesting to discover if he lived up to his car's image, and Ginny's high approbation.
In less than a minute she would know.
The stairs disappeared behind her two at a time. She stopped her momentum by grasping the door handle, her palm sweating lightly in anticipation of the babe being inside. She heard a rumble of male voices through the gaps where the door didn't fit the frame, too indistinct to decipher, and behind the gold-leaf lettering and frosted glass panel, their images blurred grotesquely.
Silently, she eased the door open, keeping hold of the handle so it wouldn't spring back and give her presence away. She indulged her curiosity by watching through the six-inch gap. Disappointment, she decided, wasn't a word she would use in the same breath as this man, not even from behind.
He had legs a mile high slicked in black denim. The supple, wash-softened fabric gloved his muscled thighs and calves in a way that set her mouth watering.
She knew her weaknesses.
His butt wasn't half-bad, either. At least nine on a scale of ten. Just looking at those firm glutes made Jo's hormones twitchy---a sensation she'd almost forgotten existed. And as if anything more was needed, he drove a Jag, her favorite car. Together they made one very attractive combination.
Sunshine caressed his tawny hair, the way a woman might to determine if the waves were real. It tipped the collar of his black cotton Polo shirt, which told her he wasn't a cop, another point in his favor. To date, her association with the male members of her fraternity had been doomed to failure. She'd found that breed never let a lie stand in the way of a good story.
As a child, she'd grown up glorifying the force and its aims. Seeing it through her father's eyes. But her father's death had shattered her rose-colored glasses and she'd mourned the loss of her ideal almost as much as she'd mourned her father.
Jo's mouth twisted as she puzzled over his presence. Could be the guy was undercover. In that case, why Nicks Landing? Nothing here ever warranted that kind of scenario. The biggest excitement to hit the sleepy little burg occurred two and a half months ago, and was the case they'd handed her on a platter. Because of its black-magic aspects, the media, TV and newspapers, had given the story a whirl at first, but that had died a natural death. Hence her male colleagues' unconditional generosity toward her.
She'd never believed Rocky Skelton's story. Satanists lurking in small-town New Zealand? Give her a break. Besides, she'd known for most of her life that the man was a liar.
Why should this time be any different?
Jo's gaze slid up the tall stranger's spine. It was a long, long spine, supporting a broad back and wide shoulders that hid the man he was talking to. Although, Bull Cowan's flat country twang was more distinct now that the door was open.
It wasn't every day of the week a woman got to see shoulders that broad. The fine knit of his shirt clung to them like a lover's caress. Jo sighed. She should be so lucky.
As she continued to watch, the palm of his large hand fanned over the back of his neck. His muscles flexed under the sheen of taut, golden skin, stretching the ribbed band on his sleeve. He had the kind of lean strength she liked, powerful without being bulky or obvious, hardly an ounce of fat on his body. As she speculated about the amount of work it took to look that good, Jo felt something curl deep in her belly, then expand as heat, sending a bloom of warmth across her skin.
With a twitch of her nose, she delivered a small personal chastisement. Too much fantasizing, that was it. Why, she still hadn't seen his face. Knowing her luck, he would be dog ugly, though likely he'd have more in common with a Doberman than a Saint Bernard, seeing as he was so lean.
Mind made up, she swung open the door and went to find out for herself. Both men turned as the door banged shut behind her, and Bull came into view at last. Now here was a man who lived up to his name. He had the kind of body that owed more to lifting a handle of beer than working out at the gym. Heaven only knew how he ever passed a physical.
Jo kept her eyes lowered slightly, her gaze hitting the stranger about midchest. It lingered over the glint of gold-edged sunglasses casually hooked in his shirt pocket, as a quick, indrawn breath tightened the fit of his shirt.
The view was everything she'd imagined.
Pretending disinterest, she didn't raise her eyes until she drew level and Bull was saying, "This is the little lady you want to talk to. Detective Jo Jellic."
Bull's too precious diminutive put a hex on the smile she'd been holding back to blind the stranger with. Deliberately, she thrust out her hand, getting in first.
At chin level she got her first surprise. Not at the few days growth of dark gold beard that covered his skin, but the several weeks older sun-tinted moustache. Her eyes held on it as if counting each hair, each sun-lightened strand above his full, firm mouth. If he'd been smiling, his teeth would have made a dazzling contrast to all that gold. But he wasn't.
Tilting her head---for the man topped her by at least five inches---Jo added another point to his total. It took a couple of seconds for the penny to drop, then her breath caught in her throat, and her greeting stuttered to a halt.
Shocked, her hand clutched air while she doubted her own eyes.
"Jo, meet Rowan...er...McQuaid," said Bull with a quick look at the business card in his hand.
"Rowan McQuaid," she wheezed as her oxygen ran out.
God, he'd changed!
Time froze as he looked down his long nose at her, nostrils flaring slightly, with eyes the opaque green of glass that has been battered by rough waves. Cold as ice, his hand enveloped hers. A shiver she badly wanted to hide slowly crept up her spine, never missing a notch. Jo let out another breath she hadn't realized she'd been holding as his eyes lightened and hazel flecks patterned the green, the way she remembered.
"As they say, long time no see," he drawled, a dry sound, lacking warmth.
And where was the surprise in that? The changes she perceived in this man, who had once been her friend, had all been her doing. All her fault.
"You...you look well. I hardly recognized you, Rowan."
"Well, it's been two years, and you know what they say about time." It healed all wounds.
But what about their friendship, could it even come close to fixing that? Jo let her hand drop, and took the opportunity to ease her tense body through the narrow space between him and her desk, wary of brushing against him.
She'd once prided herself on nerves of steel, yet they quivered now, like a plucked bowstring. It puzzled her mightily when the dull, leaden feeling of guilt she'd expected was superseded by feelings of uncertainty. As if she was indeed that little lady her colleagues kept calling her.
Sitting down, she took advantage of the distance the width of the desktop allowed, and sheltered behind it.
A frown shaped her brows in a V of futility. What couldn't be mended would have to be endured, for she'd demolished everything that had held them together the night Rowan had busted his leg taking a bullet meant for her.
Oh, she had paid. Paid well. Lost touch with most of her friends while she frittered away her homicide experience on jobs any beat cop could handle. But at least she still had her career.
She wanted to give him a great big hug to show she knew his pain, that she cared, but she was afraid any expression of empathy from her would go over like a lead balloon. Instead she asked, "How are you really doing, Rowan?"
Jo was the last person Rowan had expected to meet in Nicks Landing. Clutching tight to control, he chivvied her to prevent betraying himself. "Lighten up, Jo. Don't take it so seriously."
Don't do as I do, do as I say.
He'd outgrown the habit of enclosing his senses in a protective coating when Jo was near. He'd even ousted her from his dreams. Deliberately, he hadn't kept up with her whereabouts. Seeing her today had come as a shock. But he would be damned if he'd let her know why, or pity him for it. Feigning a grin, he put his weight on his injured leg and lifted his arms. "Look, no hands."
Jo's smile didn't reach her eyes. Their dark brown irises melted like chocolate. A look that Rowan wanted to reach out and smooth away. And therein lay the danger.
Now he knew why the hairs on the back of his neck had lifted, as if a ghostly hand ruffled them, filling his palm with an urge to brush them down. Now he knew it was a ghost from his past.
"So, Rowan, what brings you to Nicks Landing?"
"McQuaid's here about that case you're working on. Wants it cleared up fast," Bull answered for him, rushing the gate like the animal he was named for. Unlike most other things in Nicks Landing, Bull hadn't changed. He still acted the way he had when they were both boys, running wild during summer vacation.
"I thought you'd left the force...."
Her words dwindled away softly, but Rowan noticed she hadn't said "had to." Or "you were unfit." No, he'd give her that. She'd finally learned discretion. The art of not running off at the mouth and saying exactly what she was thinking.
"Take a look at this." Bull handed over Rowan's business card. "Insurance Investigator."
Rowan watched Jo's eyes linger over the card. He'd had a few of them made under two or three different headings, today's one for Allied Insurance. Few knew that even his name was misleading, only people like Bull and Harry Jackson who remembered him from the old days. He'd counted on their friendship not to give him away, using it to oil the wheels with this Skelton business.
"And what's that to do with me or my case?" Jo gasped, her mouth quivering as if disturbed by the turn of events.
Bull answered, "Allied has been taking a lot of crap from Rocky and his wife, and they want this puppy put to bed."
"Just like that. I can't just call it quits to suit your employer." Her chair bumped the wall as she stood leaning forward, fists clenched. "This case is important to me."
"C'mon now, girlie. You know that case is going nowhere."
Jo blinked, and under her lashes her eyes flashed a warning in Bull's direction before turning back in his.
She was good and mad now. He preferred her spitting fire than looking all soft and sad, tempting him to do something about it.
"I've only been on this case two weeks. That's not enough time. I need more. I deserve more."
Bull came round the side of her desk, mouth open to speak. She cut him off. "I know what you're going to say, Sergeant. You only gave me the case so I could tidy it up and stick it away in a file, but that's not the way I work."
"Don't worry, Bull. I know what Jo's like. Once she gets her teeth into something it's hard to prise them apart."
Bull looked from one to the other. Rowan could almost see his mind working. His brow furrowed and black eyebrows twitched. His mouth twisted to one side, then the other, as if making a decision his divided loyalties found difficult to spit out. "Just to be fair, I'll give you a week."
"A week!" blurted Jo.
Drawing himself up to full height, Bull sucked in air, pushing his gut up to his chest. "One week. Take it or leave it."
"I'll take it."
Regretfully, Bull wasn't done. He eyed Rowan with a lift of one brow. "McQuaid here can help you. Two heads are better than one, and maybe that way you'll both be satisfied."
Satisfied? Rowan would never dare to be satisfied when it came to Jo. He'd spent years avoiding that kind of satisfaction. He'd recognized the danger the first moment he saw her. Like reading an old map that warned, here be dragons.
Although he still counted meeting Jo as the point in time when his life started going downhill, the image had fixed in his mind. A memory, which the unlikely scent of locker rooms could trigger off.
That's where he'd been, Auckland Central locker room, reading a long boring letter from his brother, Scott, after a hard night keeping his friend Max Strachan company. When your best friend's first marriage breaks up, what else can you do but help him tie one on over a bottle of whiskey?
Someone barging through the door of the shower room had jarred him from a miasma of facts and figures he really couldn't be bothered sorting, but Scott insisted on relaying. Downing a cup of coffee at his desk had suddenly seemed like a much better deal. Prepared to slip by with a quick wave and a "Hi," he'd stopped dead in his tracks, adrenaline pumping through his veins.
Wild animals took notice of the time-honored signal and ran for their lives. He hadn't been able to drag his gaze away.
He'd yet to see a woman who could match her. Smooth, honey-colored skin all the way down to her toes; lush, rounded hips and long, long legs that were stepping into a pair of scarlet, silky French knickers. God knows how long he stood there caught in a trap by his hormones like a pubescent schoolboy. It seemed like forever. He'd wanted it to be forever, even while he recognized the danger as the elastic snapped on a scrap of red silk that would color his fantasies for the rest of his life, he'd known he should leave---get out of there quick. Instead he'd taken a step back, and watched her turn to snag a matching bra from the locker.
Instant arousal!
Her long tangle of black curls swung back, revealing the face behind their curtain. Strong features, straight nose, high Slavic cheekbones and lips that even memory couldn't improve upon. All that before he'd seen her breasts. Once that happened, his hands itched to cup them and his mouth went dry at the thought of suckling their treacle-dark nipples.
Honey and treacle.
Poison where he was concerned.
The last thing he'd wanted from life was to meet a woman who could tempt him to fall in love.
So, he'd worked alongside her, knowing the pain he endured was nothing compared to the hurt that loving and losing her could bring. And he'd based his security in the knowledge that Jo couldn't see him for Max, his best friend, and the man Jo loved.
How was he going to get through this week and still maintain that distance? He'd shaken the dust of Nicks Landing off his boots once before and all he could think of now was how soon could he do it again?
A week. Seven days. A hundred and sixty-eight hours, give or take a few if she wanted to sleep. It was going to be difficult working alongside Rowan. She'd never felt so unsure of herself in her life. Never felt as if her life was balanced on a knife's edge with Rowan responsible for which way she'd fall. Never in all the years she'd known Rowan had she felt the mouth-gaping, heart-stopping attraction he had for her now.
She and Ginny had more in common than she had realized, for when she looked at Rowan she didn't feel any older than the kid she'd left downstairs with Sergeant Jackson.
Why did it have to happen now, when she was on the most important case of her life, and the prize her father's reputation?
She took a deep breath and settled the squirmy feeling in her gut. "Okay. Here's where we start. I'll give you all I've got to look over...."
Rowan's eyes narrowed slightly, their cool, flecked green at odds with the slight curl of his lips. "Generous of you, Jo, but don't you think the work on hand should be our first consideration?"
Well, she'd left herself wide open to that one and blushed. Rowan was sharp, too sharp, but maybe she could turn it to her advantage.
"Exactly what do you think we're investigating here, Rowan? Attempted murder, attempted suicide, or just plain old fraud?"
Bull went first. "Jeez, Jo. This is Rocky Skelton you're talking about. One of us."
Jo swung around. She could see everything slipping away from her, from her father. She wanted to shut up, hold her tongue and not get into trouble, but she couldn't. "Great, well why don't we ask Rocky to help out? It's already turning into Old Boys' Week around here."
She lifted one hand, not to swipe at the tears frustration had brought to her eyes, but to disguise them by brushing back her hair, and found her wrist enclosed in a firm grip. Rowan's.
His fingers burned where they touched her skin. She looked up, ready to tell him not to manhandle her, and couldn't. One look at his face whitening under his tan and she was distracted. He didn't look well. Maybe the tan was simply camouflage he'd gotten up in the islands where he'd gone for some much-needed R and R.
Her mind drifted as his grip softened, warmed.
"Okay, Jo, we'll do it your way. Where do we start?"
G et over it, McQuaid.
The warning in Rowan's mind didn't go unheeded. It was simply impossible to implement while Jo's scent filled his head with every breath. It was torture. Sheer bloody torture. And he was no masochist. Neither was he a coward, but what he wanted now was to exit her office without making an ass of himself, and take a few hours to get his act together. He was positive that's all it would take. Just a little time to get his head on straight.
The words on the papers he was supposedly reading merged into one, making nonsense of the evidence. The utilitarian clock on the wall behind Jo made it plain only an hour had passed since her arrival had caught him off guard. Eyes closed, his gaze turned inwards as if his parole lay in the dark behind his lids. Damn, this had to be the longest afternoon of his life.
The hairs on his arms prickled each time she passed a piece of evidence, or pointed out a particularly interesting photograph. It was as if his body reiterated what his mind denied. He wanted to touch her. To hell with the weight of regrets lying in the pit of his stomach since he'd grasped her wrist and felt her heartbeat race under his thumb. Felt it pulse, tinting her soft skin blue, and still it hadn't been enough. Not when he'd wanted the whole of her under him, naked and writhing as they joined for the first time right there on top of the desk.
A wry grimace crossed his mind at the thought of Bull's face if he'd actually given in to his urges under his old mate's nose, so to speak. Out of the three there, he'd be hard put to say who'd be the most shocked. And with Bull out of the office, Rowan knew even that small hindrance to temptation was lost to him.
Jo's attention switched from the papers in her hand to her watch. "Hey, why don't I just bundle this lot up and let you take it away to work on? I presume Bull won't have any beef with that." The pun lit a small smile in her features, the first to brighten them since they'd begun sifting through information which neither confirmed nor denied Jo's theory of Rocky conning them.
Shoulder level and palm out she raised her hand as if to say pax or peace. If only she knew. Peace could never exist between them while this primitive tempo surged through his veins.
Then, very un-Jo-like, she giggled. "Don't give me away. The one-liner was straight off the cuff, not a jibe at my boss. I can see how he got the name though, Bill Cowan. Bull. Perfect."
Rowan nodded. Old nicknames stuck, Bull's and his, McQuaid, his middle name and mother's maiden one. Back then he'd been a real pain in the ass about being half-Scottish, and he'd put it to good use when he'd decided to join the force because he answered to it naturally, and made the powers-that-be less inclined to nix his application. Sure, McQuaid didn't have the same ring of power as Stanhope, but it wasn't as tempting to the lowlifes he'd dealt with as Stanhope spelled R-A-N-S-O-M.
Jo turned her back on him and stepped over to a gray, chipped metal stationery cupboard. She didn't have the kind of walk that shouted, "Hey, guys, look at me." She didn't need it. The way her black linen pants curved into her waist, and fit snugly across womanly hips and thighs was enough publicity, a tall woman, neat without being skinny. But, hey, he hated skinny, and life would have been a lot easier if she'd been built like a plank.
Jo returned with a large yellow envelope and passed it to him. "None of these are originals, so I'm sure Bull won't mind you taking them home to study."
Though her hands worked quickly, collating photos and statements, she kept rearranging the order, as if changing her mind about more than the papers. "By the way, where are you staying?" she asked, as if she'd just that moment thought of it.
Bloody hell! Was she about to offer him a bed? Petrified that he might be tempted to accept, he rushed out with, "I borrowed a boat from a friend. It's at the marina. The Landings."
It was a lie, but a white one, or maybe gray. His brother, Scott, used the boat most of the time, though the craft belonged to the family, two brothers and himself, all that was left.
"Good. I was about to warn you against the local motel, an experience I never want to repeat, but a boat at the Landings, how lucky are you? It's lovely along the harbor. I often go walking there. I might even know the boat. What's it called?"
"Stanhope's Fancy Two."
"So, what happened to number one?"
Trust Jo to pick up on a subject he wanted to avoid. "It sank," he said, shrugging, as if the tragedy had absolutely nothing to do with him. Hadn't changed his life at a time when his emotions still bled from the earlier blow. His feelings on the disaster were nobody's business but his.
It had been seventeen years since the boat went to the bottom. Everyone said Scott was tempting fate when he named the new boat after the first. But Scott didn't give a damn. If it made anyone squirm to know their parents had drowned on the original Fancy, let them stay home.
"You be careful."
"Didn't know you were superstitious. Doubt it'll come to much harm tied alongside."
"I guess not."
With everything in a pile, she squared the papers, bumping the bottom edges against the desk like playing cards. Her eyelids tilted at the corners as she watched him through long, thick lashes. "Hold the envelope while I slip these inside."
"Sure thing," he said, suiting action to words, trying not to acknowledge certain parts of her anatomy might get too close for comfort, trying not to imagine touching them during the exchange. And knowing he'd be a darn sight better off setting his thoughts on leaving as soon as he had the evidence in his hands.
"I take it you've heard of the Stanhopes? After all, they're lending you their boat."
"You could say that, considering they have a substantial holding in Allied Insurance."
His answer achieved a lift of Jo's dark winged eyebrows. Under them, stars twinkled naughtily in the dark brown depths. Rowan knew that look. Knew from experience the pull that teasing warmth had on his libido, and braced himself.
"Then you'll know they're what passes for nobility round here. World famous in Nicks Landing."
Jo's words hit a nerve. Luckily, he knew it was just her quirky sense of humor, she didn't mean anything by it. She'd no way of knowing it applied personally. And no need to for the few days he'd be in town.
"I suppose that's one way of putting it."
"Guess my city origins are showing. No offence to the Stanhopes but it makes me laugh to hear the locals hold them in such awe when Auckland is swimming in millionaires. I heard they're pretty lavish spenders though, so the boat must be out of this world. Maybe I could come down and let you show me around?"
Not if I can help it! The Fancy was fairly large as boats went in these waters, but the thought of being in its confined quarters with Jo made him break out in a cold sweat. As far as he was concerned, this office was as up close and personal as he dared get with her.
As if it had never come up, he deftly changed the subject, hoping he'd heard the last of the idea. Gauging the envelope's contents with his hands, he remarked, "Not much here for two and a half months' work." His plan worked.
"Got it in one. I always knew you were more than just a pretty face, McQuaid. Surely if they were satanists, we'd have found a lot more than this? Eyewitnesses at least. But no, we're supposed to assume said satanists have the power of invisibility. Get real. And Bull doesn't want to know. Far be it from me to cast aspersions...."
She halted midflight as if waiting for a comment about glass houses and stones. He didn't oblige. "You know Rocky used to be Bull's sergeant, huh? Skelton could still have set the fire himself," she continued.
"Why? Why would he torch the place?"
She looked surprised, as if suddenly finding him wanting. "Money, of course."
"How do you explain the cuts on his back?" He riffled the tops of the pages with a thumbnail. "Satan's initials it said here."
"Self-inflicted." Her tone said, "I ain't taking any crap." "You have to agree, they're indecipherable. On the other hand, diving through the glass door could go a long way to explaining them."
"You really don't like the guy, do you?"
His question merited a minimal lift of her shoulders and a pout. "That's neither here nor there. In all my time in Nicks Landing, I've never heard one whisper about satanists or black-magic cults. And Rocky can't come up with a good reason why, if one existed, they'd want to roast him. Come on! The man's lying. He pulled the story out of thin air, and now he's stuck with it."
As if there had been a wind shift, she changed tack.
Experience had taught him to be wary of that glint in her eyes. It meant she wanted something. "Getting back to the subject of money, does Skelton's insurance policy have a clause setting aside his right to privacy once he makes a claim?"
The glint brightened when he confirmed her supposition. "Most of them do these days."
"That's it then. I think we've got him. You can look into his finances, banking and etceteras, where I can't. The bar at the Hard Luck Inn couldn't possibly cover all his expenses. Losing his shirt would be a helluva incentive for torching his house."
"Then why didn't he simply sell the house?"
"Molly, his wife. It was her pride and joy. I'll take you to Rocky's tonight and let you get the feel of the Hard Luck Inn. That should give you enough time to go over what you've got there." She nodded toward the envelope. "Personally, I don't think Rocky had any notion how prophetic the name of his bar would be. He named it that because he was made redundant."
Now that his afternoon and evening had been arranged to Jo's satisfaction, all he wanted was out of there. It simplified matters to go along with her plans. "What time?"
She picked up his business card and glanced over it. "I'll call your cell phone when I'm done, and arrange a time."
From under her desk she produced a sturdy leather bag, too large to be called a purse, quickly slipping his card into a front pocket. Her next move set his heart racing. Slinging her bag over one shoulder, she slid her fingers through the long black silkiness of her hair before loosing it to fall in a flurry of waves and curls onto her shoulders.
The movement lifted her pink shirt's miniscule tail above her waistband, allowing a glimpse of smooth satin skin. Her pants slipped lower on her hips, and the shadowy hollow that was her navel, broke up the curve of her honey-colored belly. How would it feel to cradle his head on its softness and simply lie there breathing her in?
Bad move.
Rowan lifted his stunned gaze and swallowed hard.
Their eyes caught as she tucked her shirt in, patted the side of her leather bag and started to walk round the desk. "Ready?"
If he were any more ready he'd be lethal. He'd been half-hard for the past hour, and now he had an ache pressing against his zipper that had to be noticeable. Who'd have thought he'd ever be grateful for the protection of a yellow envelope.
Waving his free hand in the direction of the door, he said, "After you." Following the convention of ladies first, with heartfelt thanks.
Jeez, she couldn't believe she'd actually done that. Jo stood at the top of the stairs feeling ashamed of testing the waters the way she had, lifting her arms above her head, knowing it would emphasize her breasts.
She'd watched him swallow the knot in his throat, an involuntary action that only confirmed he was human.
Knowingly, she'd set out on this provocative path, hating to think the buzz zapping her nerves every time he glanced her way was one-sided. That all these hot, bothered and bewildered feelings affected Rowan not one iota. Honestly. Some people read auras, whereas she could sense Rowan's presence even without hearing his tread on the stairs behind her.
Where had it sprung from, this awareness? When?
Was it really new, or simply something she'd chosen to ignore? With each glance she'd cast his way, hoping he wouldn't catch her, the hum in her temples increased and the blood in her head bubbled and fizzed as if she had the bends. She couldn't remember getting this worked up over any man, not even Max Strachan, the last man she'd imagined she loved.
Imagined being the operative word. God, he would have the last laugh now. Max, the one man who'd been honest with her, even if only to tell her she'd no shot of him ever returning her affections.
And Rowan? She'd always thought of him as slightly uptight, at least in her company. First and foremost a by-the-rules guy. Never a step out of place until the last night they had worked together.
On the only occasions they'd met since, he'd acted pretty cagey, accepting her apology for darn near getting him killed with his usual stony face. As if nothing touched him, not even death.
So who had changed, her or him?
Jo stopped at the foot of the stairs, turned, waiting till Rowan drew level. "I have business with Sergeant Jackson. I'll call you this evening."
"No problem. I'll walk with you. I want to tell the sergeant I'm leaving and thank him for his help. I expect to be in and out of the station house quite a bit. Might as well stay on the guy's good side."
Jo rolled her eyes and shrugged, a small piece of body language she'd inherited from her Dalmatian grandmother along with her cheekbones and black curls. "Suit yourself."
What was he really after? It was unlike Rowan to be ingratiating. And how could he bear to watch Harry doing the work he'd had to give up? If she'd lost her job, the way Rowan had, she'd never enter another police station.
Spinning on her heel, she marched along the corridor, her steps brisk, concealing her doleful thoughts. But soon her true nature won through. She had a comic mental flash of what might have been, if Rowan had still been there when she'd arrived with Ginny. She broke into a grin as she pictured Rowan's face.
All teenagers morphed into an alien life-form these days. What was the betting Ginny would have gone off the planet? Jo was grateful Rowan hadn't heard the wolf whistle of approval coming from her car. With a sigh, she acknowledged she'd made a few hormone-driven moves herself in the last hour, as if her body had been taken over. The green light had gone on the moment he teased her about her offer to show him everything she had.
Then later...her feeble attempt to get a reaction from him, well that memory was plain embarrassing. Rowan would never really be attracted to her. She'd known him too long. In future it would pay to keep her eyes to herself and off Rowan. The problem being, the new Rowan was just so easy on the eye.
Dear heavens, now there was a thought to jump-start her brain. She was responsible for the new and improved model. Responsible for all the pain he'd gone through while they'd fought to piece his shattered leg together. She forgot how many times he'd gone under the surgeon's knife.
Rowan's strength of mind showed in taut, sleek muscles that couldn't be bought. She ought to be thankful he hadn't lost himself in the pain her foolish actions had inflicted.
How would she fare if she lost her career?
Would she even know herself anymore?
She burst through the door, mind made up. All thoughts of Rowan as a living, breathing babe were banned. All her priorities were in a straight line. She needed his help to prove her father's ex-partner had burned down his house, not to discover how it felt to kiss a man with a moustache.
Of greater importance was a chance to prove to her superiors that she'd always known Rocky Skelton was a liar. Maybe then they would take a fresh look at the black marks on her father's record. She simply had to place that doubt in their minds, and make them realize Milo Jellic had been done wrong.
Rowan had barely passed through the doors when Harry Jackson asked, "How's it going, McQuaid? Was Jo able to set your mind at rest?"
Rest wasn't exactly the way Rowan would phrase it. Set fire to his libido? Yeah. Tightened the thumbscrews on his hormones? You bet! After this, he'd be lucky to get a good night's sleep for dreaming of Jo. Being over her, under her, inside her.
Damage control! He pulled a lead curtain across his thoughts.
Harry's grin didn't attempt to hide that he'd been conniving as he looked from one to the other of them. He and Bull were the only two who knew he'd come home. The only two he wanted to know. His old friend probably thought he'd been doing Rowan a favor by not warning him the detective he'd come to see was six feet of luscious curves. No way could Harry know they had a history together, or that most of his friends blamed Jo for his departure from the force. The way they told it he would have done the same for anyone. Anyone stupid enough to become a target. He wasn't so sure. He'd only known he couldn't let the bastard shoot her.
"Bull has given us a week to pull it together. Then I can okay Skelton's payment." The black look he'd expected from Jo didn't materialize. Instead her attention focused on a little redhead, sitting on a bench by the far wall staring at him with her mouth gaping. He gave a mental shrug. Kids.
"Harry. Why is Ginny still here?"
The sergeant's voice dropped a notch while he spoke to Jo, "Her mother had to work and her father won't be home till later. Ms. Wilks said to send her on home, she'd be all right. But I had a feeling you'd rather see she got there."
"That's for real. Thanks, Harry, I'll still have to speak to the mother, though. Where does she work?"
"The Hard Luck Inn."
One black eyebrow rose as Jo's gaze left Harry and zeroed in on him. "Looks like we've got two birds to kill tonight." The lopsided smile quirked her lips, producing a dimple. "That will be Ms. Wilks's hard luck."
The conversation was interrupted by Bull and Jake bringing two men through the door from the cells under protest.
"Uh-oh, gotta go," muttered Jo, her gaze on the girl. "I'll catch you tonight, McQuaid. For now, I have to baby-sit."
Harry let Jo get out of earshot before he produced the question Rowan could see hovering on his lips. "You two got a date tonight?"
"Not so's you'd notice. We're going to visit Jo's chief suspect." As soon as he'd said it, he remembered Bull's reaction and wished he could pull the words back.
"You mean Rocky?"
"Yeah, but keep it under your hat. I don't think it's for public consumption. You know the guy, Harry. What do you think of him? Is he capable of flights of fantasy? Satanists?"
"Must admit I thought it far-fetched when I first heard the story, but everyone else was convinced."
"Everyone but Jo?"
"I guess you could say if I took it with a pinch of salt, she used a bloody ladle. But then, she never worked with Rocky, didn't know him the way we do."
"And what do you know?"
Harry's mouth twisted as he considered. "He can be pretty sharp, and if that's how things are shaping, watch you don't get cut."
"Thanks for the warning." He hitched one trouser leg and sat down on the corner of Harry's desk, getting comfortable. "Talking about warnings, why didn't you do me the same favor with Jo?"
"Made your heart jump, did she? She's one beautiful woman."
"There are lots of beautiful women."
"Yeah, but you still haven't married any of them."
"Hell, you're as bad as Scott---"
"Oh, I can tell you and him are the same. Time you were both married."
"Well, he's decided he doesn't need an heir as long as Taine and I are around, but Taine can't do the same for me, so I ought to marry and beget heirs."
"Been matchmaking, has he?"
"You could say that. Now that I've left the force, he feels obliged to introduce me to all the eligible women in his circle. He never once said anything against me leaving him to look after the firm to become a cop, but I can tell he's glad it's behind me now. I guess he'd always had this idea I was invincible because of being so much bigger."
"Yeah, it always was you who got him out of trouble."
"Well, he's turned that around now with the firm." He slipped Harry a wry grin. "If it hadn't been for Scott, we wouldn't be living in the style we've become accustomed to."
"Scott's done well by us all."
"Have you got shares as well?"
"I've got the ones your father gave mine, when he worked for him. Probably thought Dad earned them putting up with you lot."
"Come off it, you spent as much time at our house as you did at your own."
Harry had the grace to look sheepish. "I helped Dad."
"Is that what you called it? Well, I'm helping Jo and I'll probably be about as much use. You can't find what's not there."
Heaven help him, was he starting to think like her? The last thing he wanted was to suspect Rocky Skelton of fraud. If that happened he could be here for longer than a week, long enough for the woman to get under his skin again.
Hell, she was under there now.
Damn, this was a complication. No matter how much he treasured his own hide, he had a dislike of paying out the firm's money for nothing, probably part of the Scottish heritage he'd been so quick to deny after what his mother did. It was all right for the hierarchy to say, "Write it off as public relations." In this district most people put their money with the Stanhopes, thinking it would benefit them in the long run.
Rowan stood. "I'd better get going. I'm living on the Fancy. Scott said he'd have someone leave it ready for me, but you never know with him."
"I for one never thought he'd play matchmaker. Shows how wrong you can be. It's usually us married guys who're pushing all their mates into the same boat. Has he managed to set you up with someone then?"
Hoping it would keep Harry off his back, he told him, "There's a woman I've taken out a couple of times, but it's early days. Might never come to anything." Hell, he knew it wouldn't, not now he'd met Jo again.
The shame of it was, he liked Barbara, and had thought maybe he could make it work, since she filled all his requirements. A woman he could be friends with, but who didn't stir his blood. It was a decision he'd made a long time ago. He wasn't looking for love. That way he wouldn't be hurt when she found someone else. The pain his father went through when his mother left wasn't going to be part of his inheritance.
No, it definitely wasn't for him.
Harry pushed back his chair and stood up to face him. He was two to three inches shorter, but he'd never carried the bulk that Rowan had, even when they'd both been desk jockeys. "No problem then. I wasn't really shoving Jo your way."
"No point. Jo and I have known each other for years. We worked together in Auckland." It didn't take more than that for Harry to cotton on. Not that he liked doing it to Jo, but if it would help his old friend mind his own business...
"So, she the one...the one who... Look say the word and I'll get Bull to put Jake back on the arson job."
"Hell, no!" He leaned over the desk and stared Harry in the eye. "And if word of this gets out I'll know who to blame. Right? I've no animosity toward Jo. I threw myself in the way of that bullet. My choice. Okay?"
"Sure thing. But if you know each other so well, how come she didn't give you an earful for pinching her parking space?"
"I didn't know I had."
Harry's chin jutted slightly, his eyes narrowing as if hiding the wheels turning behind them. He'd always been easy to read.
"Look, to Jo, I'm simply Rowan McQuaid, and I'd like it to stay that way. I won't be here long enough for involved explanations. And as much as she thinks she knows me, I know her better. Her mouth is inclined to go into self-destruct mode at the most inopportune moments."
A grin split the sergeant's face. "You really do know her."
"Let's put it this way, it's not so much Jo I'm worried about, but if Molly Skelton finds out who I am my life won't be worth living."
"Got it in one, mate."
Outside, Jo was saying, "Will you stop looking like a sick puppy, get into the car and shut the door?" Ginny's pathetic show of reluctance was ruffling Jo's patience. The girl was lovesick. Jo sighed, then clamped her lips on the smile forming as she watched the teenager's crablike shuffle. Each time Ginny's feet crossed, Jo held her breath, waiting the inevitable tumble while doing a mental inventory of the first-aid stuff she carried in her bag.
Eventually the kid made it to the passenger's seat without taking her star-glazed eyes off the exit, and fastened her seat belt. Heaven help the boys when the girl grew up; Ginny wasn't backward at coming forward when someone took her fancy.
"He's not going to come out. He's too busy. Besides, his car's parked out front." And he would pay for pinching her spot. A chance to drive his Jag would just about cover it. A decision punctuated with an ellipse as her car crawled into Main Street. Hers had to be the oldest model in the fleet. Not simply a case of first come first served, more that with her work schedule, they didn't expect her to be in any high-speed chases. And in the unlikely scenario of them presenting her with a newer one, she'd have to make do with a tune-up.
Finally, Jo had Ginny's attention, albeit secondhand. "You mean that beaut car is his? Isn't he just, just too awesome?"
Awesome was hardly a description she would have used herself, but Rowan was definitely something. She just couldn't make up her mind what. She wouldn't go so far as to agree with the hoary old saying that absence made the heart fonder, but in her case it certainly beat faster.
"I think your earlier description was more apt, Ginny. The man is definitely a babe."
It was as if she'd been given a new and improved pair of eyes that saw past the facade he'd used before. Details she'd missed took on a shimmering quality that beckoned her like a light in the window after dark. Like going home.
God, was that it? She was homesick for Auckland?
No way. The rest of her symptoms were definitely hormonal.
"What's his name, Miss? Has he come to live in Nicks Landing?" The words came out in a breathless rush.
The title Miss hurt, like suddenly being reduced to the status of maiden aunt, or schoolteacher instead of teen idol. "His name is Rowan McQuaid, he's only in town for a week, and for heaven's sake, call me Detective...Jo," she compromised, on the spur of the moment.
"Is he a detective, too?"
"He's a private investigator."
"A private eye...wow, even better. Is he here...like on some big case?"
The child definitely watched too much TV. Philosophical at being reduced to second fiddle, Jo got ready to disappoint the kid. "Nothing exciting, a case of arson, is all. We'll be working on it together."
She glanced at Ginny to ask, "It's the next left, isn't it?" only to find her status had been restored.
"That's ace," she said, all big eyed. "Yes, turn here, it's just two blocks down. Top apartment on the corner."
Jo pulled up outside a run-down apartment building crying out for refurbishment. It was a shame. A lick of light-colored paint over the sea of won't-show-the-dirt-khaki could give the whole neighborhood a face-lift and send it rocketing up a price bracket.
"Okay," she said, catching her breath as the dung-colored entrance door creaked open and a woman with a frown carved into her features came out. No wonder the kid had tried to heist pink barrettes. They were an antidote for living here.
"When I visit your mother at work, I'll discuss which form your punishment will take. Though I guess grounding would be as good as any."
"Oh no, not grounding, it's almost Halloween. My friends and I have something planned."
"Even better."
Ginny's jaw dropped. "Can't I just help someone? An old lady or something? Granny Monroe lives down the hall from us. I could do some cleaning for her."
Jo pretended to consider a moment. She couldn't blame the kid not wanting to miss out on a night of trick-or-treating. "I'd have to check with her that you'd done a good job."
"Sure. No problem. I'll go right in and ask her now. I can phone you when it's done. Will that do?"
"Sounds good to me." Jo dug into the pocket of her shirt and pulled out a business card and gave it to Ginny. "My number's on there. That doesn't mean I won't talk to your mother, but I'll tell her I've okayed you helping Granny Monroe."
The weight of the world seemed to pull Ginny's mouth down at the corners. "Molly's okay, but Rocky doesn't like it when people take Mom's mind off her work."
"Don't worry, kid. I'll flash my badge and tell them it's police business." She winked at Ginny. "So, what's wrong with the inn? Don't you like her working there?"
"I guess it's all right, but Dad and I hardly see her. Mom says it's the only way we're ever going to get out of this dump." Unfastening her seat belt, Ginny sat with fingers on the handle as if reluctant to press it down.
"Sounds like a wise woman. I'll talk to her tonight. Rowan and I were going there anyway, but if I were you, I'd tell my Dad what I'd been up to, before your mother gets home."
The teenager brightened a fraction, her eyes dreamy at the mention of Rowan. "Have you got a date?"
"No, it's business. We're working together this week."
Ginny's shoulders drooped as if she'd been hoping to live out her fantasies vicariously. "Have a good time anyway."
"I'll try." And she would; hanging around with Rowan for seven days wasn't her idea of punishment.
Ginny was halfway out the door, her face glum when Jo attempted changing the direction of her thoughts. "So, what are you and your friends doing at Halloween?"
"It's going to be real exciting. We heard where the black-magic cult have their meetings. It's at Te Kohanga National Park, and we thought it would be a hoot to spy on them. They're bound to be up to something on Halloween."
E ight o'clock. If Rowan was still on board surely he would be ready, waiting for her call? A call that frankly refused to go through. If Jo heard that computerized voice saying the number she'd dialed was either switched off or out of range one more time, she would spit. But then that's why she was walking down one of the floating wooden fingers of the marina. To see for herself.
The sea was remarkably calm, due to the huge anticyclone covering the country. A circumstance she gave thanks for. She hated that feeling, as if the bottom had dropped out of her world when she put her foot down, and the floor disappeared. Besides, these were her best high-heeled shoes.
At last she spied it, Stanhope's Fancy II. Larger than life and twice the size of the boats moored alongside, it was hard to miss its gleaming white hull. On the couple of occasions she'd ventured out on one of these, she'd learned this type of craft was called a midpilothouse motor yacht.
With one arm wrapped round a mooring post, she leaned out over the wooden lip to peer inside. No one around. Hmmm. She looked down at the toes of her red-and-black, faux-lizard shoes, and past them to the flotsam floating in the gap with a sinking feeling. They would have to come off.
Her bag landed with a thump on the boarding platform, but no one came to investigate. With a grin, she did a quick scan of the area, imagining the headlines if she got caught: Detective charged with indecent exposure.
Her red skirt hit just above the knee. Hands on both sides, she hitched it eighteen inches higher, just below her panties, and stepped into space, shoes clutched in one hand.
"Easy," she told herself, balancing by a fingertip on the stern rail, ignoring the slap of water against the hull as it slopped over her feet. Happiness was planting them on the other side of that rail.
She gave the glass door two loud bangs, then tried the handle. Like a hot knife through butter, the door slid open.
"Hey, Rowan! It's me, Jo. Can I come aboard?"
Silence spiked tiny tremors of fear at the base of her skull. From the depths of her overactive imagination, she culled the ghost ship, Marie Celeste. And the thought gelled as she took in a galley to one side of the entrance; it sparkled as if neither dish nor spoon had ever cluttered its counters.
Mmm. Her feet sunk into thick blue-gray carpet. She curled her toes into it, drying her damp panty hose. Sheer luxury. So this was what it meant to be a Stanhope. Rowan had landed on his feet working for Allied Insurance. On her side of the line this would smack of corruption, but from Rowan's the label read, perks of the job.
On the lush, woolen pile, she crossed the main saloon as if walking on water, then drifted up two short flights of steps, passing the upper saloon by, and into the pilothouse. Silence thundered in her ears as if the soft suede walls swallowed every sound she made. Her skin prickled. The horizon slid up and down the outside of huge wraparound windows as the boat tugged at its moorings as if eager to be gone.
"Good idea, I'm outta here, too," she muttered, spinning on her heel to retrace her steps, coming to an abrupt halt on the top one. Shaking her head, she laughed. "Good Lord, you need a change of reading material. You didn't used to be so easily spooked."
The briefcase on the dining table didn't catch her attention until her return journey. Immediately, she reversed her decision to leave. Rowan had to be around. He wouldn't go off, leaving the place open for just anyone to enter the way she had. Once more, she called his name, "Rowan!"
At the next set of steps, she hesitated. The sleeping quarters lay below. No problem, all she had to do was knock first.
She went on down.
The door on her right stood ajar. L-shaped bunks took up two walls, all of them made up as neat as a new pin. Across the companionway the door was closed. She rapped on it with her knuckles, then gradually eased it open, but saw no signs of occupation. Her choices narrowed to one last door.
Her shoulders drooped as she spied another neatly made-up bed without even a hollow in its surface to say someone had sat there. Expelling a gusty breath did nothing to relieve the disappointment threatening to swamp her. "Wrong darn boat!"
"Depends which boat you were looking for."
"Rowan!" she gasped, caught off guard, her mouth gaping at his half-naked figure framed in wisps of steam in a doorway that was hidden among the paneling.
"I...I did knock," she stammered, trying to make sense of a breathless response that tied her larynx in knots, cutting off the air to her lungs.
Water darkened his hair to burned sugar, molding it tightly to his scalp, until it fell into damp curls at his nape. His broad, broad shoulders glistened where diamond-bright drops of water beaded, pausing momentarily before the slide down the long muscles of his arms.
She had never seen Rowan without clothes. Had never expected to. Never even imagined it before today, and still she couldn't believe her eyes.
Was it any wonder he'd taken her breath away? Sculpted satin-smooth curves and hollows fitted his upper body as God had intended. Perfectly.
His chest shuddered lightly on the aftermath of a sigh. Even as she watched, his flat, male nipples set wide on the curve of his pectoral muscles, crested, tensing in the wake of her gaze.
Jo's blood leaped from her heart to her face.
Embarrassment was no hindrance to eating up his manly beauty with her eyes. No power on this earth could make her drag them away.
A narrow white strip, edging his charcoal-gray shorts, deepened his tan in contrast. Languor weighed her eyelids, a sensual heaviness. She knew she should look somewhere else, up...down...anywhere and pretend his body hadn't responded to her blatant voyeurism. But Lord, the sight of cotton knit molding his form stole her breath away.
Jo swallowed. Oh, my.
The seconds it took to remove her gaze dawdled like hours. Yet one glance at his thighs sent her reeling back to the safety of the companionway. Her stomach shot up to meet her throat and devoured every particle of heat from her body.
Cold. She felt so cold.
And sick.
She had done that. Blighted all that perfection in one unthinking second, with no other justification than she had been focused on Max. But after Rowan's sacrifice, how could she make excuses? And whom could she make them to?
The scars alone mightn't have been so bad, time would take care of them, turn scarlet into silver. The missing muscle, though, could never be replaced. Not after the bullet that should have been hers, had ripped it apart, spraying it over the grass where she stood.
"I'd better go back up..." she whispered through chattering teeth "...until you get dressed." The complete understanding in his eyes was worse than anything she'd ever experienced.
God help him, he hadn't been able to control his body's reaction to her. He'd stepped out of the shower, thoughts of her running through his mind, and suddenly she'd been there, as if he had conjured her out of thin air.
The same but different.
Her dark curls, as riotous and ruffled as a black, Oriental poppy after a storm, caught in a tangle at the back of her collar, unveiling a secret. Revealing another layer of the mysterious sway she held over his libido.
If he'd had the courage to ignore the danger of her thrall, when he'd first known her, he would already have pushed back that black silk curtain to discover for himself the smooth tender hollow where her jawline met her neck.
Instead, he'd been in control. Hell, he'd congratulated himself on it. So he'd never known that the pink slashing her high, Slavic cheekbones would match the rose of her earlobes.
The loss had been his.
Rowan's chest heaved. Until today he'd never known her ears were pierced or that she'd choose anything as feminine as creamy pearls to highlight their petal-soft lobes.
Damn, why was he torturing himself?
An unwelcome hunger prowled his reason like a ravenous beast full of suppressed urges and needs. Habit pushed it back into the black cave at the back of his mind where it had hibernated for the past two years. Too late, far too late. The mere thought of claiming one of those glowing pink morsels with his mouth, and circling a pearl with the tip of his tongue, made him hard.
Harder.
Then she'd blushed.
In all the years they'd worked together, he'd never known Jo to blush. It gave him a whole new take on her. A fresh angle corroborated by the way her cocoa-brown eyes had darkened to onyx. Arousal.
The other signs might be hidden from view, yet he'd bet bullet-hard nipples strained against her bra and her female core would have been slick and damp to his touch. Yeah, she'd been ready, every bit as ready as himself, as ready as the bed waiting in the corner of the cabin.
All he'd had to do was reach out, cup the back of her neck and the wanting would have been quenched.
Jo would have been his.
The salutary lesson had come with a look that took in his mangled leg. What else had he expected?
Yet he still wanted her, ached with it.
Shielding his unrelieved erection with one hand, Rowan zipped up his jeans. He'd given himself away. Years of self-discipline blown in a heartbeat.
Time for more damage control.
One large, black loafer slipped on to his feet followed by the next. He stood up, patted his belt buckle and pulled in a breath, ready to face Jo. From outside, the crimson tails of day's end whipped color into the steamy haze as he left his cabin and followed the scent of freshly brewed coffee up the stairs and into the galley. Jo had made herself at home.
She stood at the counter, staring out the window. "Just what the doctor ordered," he said to the back of her head.
The low hills behind the town were aflame with red, orange and purple. His mouth twisted slightly. Red sky at night, shepherd's delight. So, they were going to have a good day tomorrow. He could certainly use one.
She turned to face him, her eyes slightly red as if they'd captured the sunset. A smile poised precariously on her lips as if afraid the arms she'd folded across her breasts weren't her best defense.
Looking down the length of her body, he noticed what he hadn't seen before, when his gaze had been fixed on her face. Jo had dolled herself up for their outing. The sleeves of her pearl-gray twinset were pushed up, businesslike, to her elbows, and the hem of her red skirt kissed the crease at the back of her knees.
Her shoeless feet nearly floored him. The way she crossed the toes of one over the other, like a little girl awaiting punishment, and through the nylon he could see she'd painted her toenails red. Any ire or anger left inside him washed away as she changed from one foot to the other.
He'd never thought he'd want to smile at a time like this, when life as he knew it hung in the balance, but he did. "Lost your shoes somewhere?"
"They're outside...on the deck..." She trailed off, and her explanation turned into a jumble of words and a spill of tears.
Though he understood the risk, he had to go to her, comfort her. Place his hands on her shoulders, and feel her flesh mold beneath them. "Hey, hey, what's all this?"
"Don't hate me, Rowan. Please. I didn't know...it's dreadful what I did to you, and I don't know how to make it better."
"Aw, hell, Jo. Not pity." Not from you. "I'm a tough guy and I've learned to live with it. I even made a New Year's resolution. No pity allowed."
Though his mouth felt dry, he chanced a rendition of the phrase, "Big boys don't cry." His voice was husky and off-key from the lump strangling his throat, but it achieved the desired result.
Jo smiled. "Don't take up singing. You just murdered that."
He threw a quick retort into the ring. "Maybe you ought to call a cop."
His mind went back ten months, to New Year. He'd been two weeks out of hospital, in time for Christmas, taken a good look at himself and disliked what he'd seen.
Life didn't come with guarantees. Bone reconstruction, either, as he'd discovered the morning he'd put his foot on the floor and found the pin in his thigh had slid up inside the bone. Having one leg that was four inches shorter played hell on the ego.
As the year began, he'd decided to get on with his life and make the best of what came. Meeting Jo again had thrown a spanner in the workings of his brave new life with the discovery he still hurt.
"Want a cop, you've got one," said Jo. "What can I do?"
"You can pour me a cup of that delicious-smelling coffee and we'll call it quits," he said, not blinking at the lie.
"That's not near enough. If you'd like me to give up beating this dead horse of a case, it's yours. Just say the word."
Hell, she was serious. She'd been so hung up on proving Rocky was guilty a few hours ago. Now, she was offering to stand aside, and make his problems with Skelton fade away. His leg must look a helluva lot worse than he'd feared. For as long as he'd known Jo she'd pokered up at the faintest whiff of payback.
"Look, it's no big deal. As long as I don't try to run the mile in under four, I'll be okay. I'm used to it."
She swallowed. Hell, he hoped she wouldn't cry again. His resolve couldn't cope with drying her tears.
"That's the problem, I'm not used to it. If only..."
Rowan held up a hand as if to ward off the flow of regrets he could see coming. "Okay, I won't keep on about it. Let me pour you that coffee."
Jo was rinsing their cups and saying, "Tomorrow, I'll take you to Rocky's house, what's left of it, at Lonely Track Road. I'll walk you through his explanation of what happened."
"I'll want the afternoon free to check into his finances."
"That's okay. I know Bull's only given me a week, but that doesn't mean I can put the rest of my cases on hold. He'd be chagrined if I didn't keep up with them. That said, I received some new information this afternoon. No guarantees, in fact it sounds a bit iffy, but I should follow it up." Her lip quivered. "If it comes up trumps, you can wipe out two with one blow, pay Rocky off, and still keep your bosses happy."
She sounded defensive and he couldn't understand why, but she didn't keep him in suspense for long. "Don't think I made you that offer because I realized Rocky might be telling the truth. I don't trust the man. If I'm wrong about this, I'll admit it. I'll even buy you dinner. But, if Rocky isn't concealing the truth about the fire, then it's something else. It might take me a while to suss exactly what, but I'll do it. My biggest hurdle is Bull. The dope thinks the sun shines out of Rocky's sorry behind and refuses to hear a word against him."
Wondering when she'd get around to hitting him with the punch line, Rowan asked, "Is this new information secret, or are you gonna share?"
By the time they'd walked the length of the harbor wall and reached the Hard Luck Inn on the corner of Main and Broad Streets, she'd talked out Ginny's information about Halloween with Rowan.
"You're right," she told him. "Even though it disses any hope I had of pulling Rocky in, I can't not check it out."
"From where I stand it looks like we've got Tuesday and Wednesday scheduled. Friday night we could be crawling through the bush in the dark, Saturday looks like a day off. Any thoughts on Thursday or are we just gonna go with the flow?"
Though Rowan's tone was conversational, Jo got the message. "I'm doing it, aren't I? I'm organizing you. You did say I could be in charge."
"Remind me next time to think before I speak. It's the only way to stay out of trouble." A white grin split his face between the dusting of gold designer stubble and slightly darker moustache, softening his words. "One thing I insist on. We take my car to Te Kohanga. It'll be quicker."
"Can I drive?"
"I don't know, can you? You looked a bit shaky getting out of the station house car park this afternoon."
"Oh, you...were you watching?"
"Came out to apologize for stealing your space."
"My car gets that way when the engine's cold. Once it warms it's hell-on-wheels," she said sticking up for the car she cursed six days out of seven.
"I've known people like that."
In the lights from the bar, Rowan looked serious. Too serious. Tension that hadn't crackled since she burst in on Rowan, half-naked in his cabin, and devoured him with her eyes, was suddenly alive and well and sparking between them.
Confused, Jo sought to diffuse the situation by putting on a tough act. "Yeah, yeah, McQuaid, don't think you can get away with distracting me. It's payback time, buddy. At the very least, you owe me a drive for not giving you a parking ticket."
The tangle of emotions in her chest almost unraveled her. It didn't matter which string she pulled, the knots just fell apart. Man, could she pick her moments. Her timing was always off. It was as if the minute puberty hit, they had handed her a certificate with an F in Relationships 101.
Rowan raised his thick brown eyebrows. The creases at the corners of his eyes looked pale in contrast to his face. "Okay, I'll think about giving you a turn at the wheel. Now let's go inside and get this over with."
Jo turned the handle and Rowan stretched a long arm overhead, pushing the heavy door open. As she stepped into the noise and smoke, she turned, glancing at him. The strafe of lights flashing round the bar caught him square in the face. He looked like a stranger. What if they'd met for the first time today, this afternoon, as strangers? Would she still be having these feelings? Or was the fact that they weren't strangers the reason she felt all screwed up inside?
Rowan stopped just inside the bar, lifting his voice to be heard over the heavy-metal music blasting from the sound system. Rowan yelled, "What?"
"I was just wondering why the moustache?"
"Maybe I'm hiding behind it."
"Come off it. The Rowan McQuaid I know never hid from anything in his life."
He tagged her with a look that had "that's what you think" written all over it. "All right, you got me. I was scuba diving up in Fiji and my brother thought he was being funny and grabbed me from behind. I turned too quick and my momentum thrust me into some jagged coral that cut my lip." A wry twist pulled at his moustache. "I don't know what frightened him more, all the blood from the wound, or the chance of it attracting sharks. He had me out of there and onto the boat in no time flat."
As if he couldn't resist touching it, Rowan ran one finger across the toffee and gold bristles covering his top lip. Jo wished she had the courage to repeat the move.
"Anyhow, I couldn't shave until the stitches came out and by then I'd gotten used to it."
"It certainly changes your appearance. I guess that's why I didn't recognize you at first. So tell me, who is this brother? I never heard you mention him before."
This time the look said, "See? You don't know me as well as you thought."
Rowan took his time about answering. The biker paraphernalia hanging round the walls finally caught his eye. He blinked, twice, then looked back at her and finally answered her question. "He's just a regulation-size big brother who thinks he can boss me around."
But Jo had already lost the scent, and set off down another trail. "So what do you think?" she asked. The black painted ceiling and walls were hung with a mass of number plates; helmets, handlebars, front spokes even. A selection of chrome wheels looped in chains glittered like tinsel alongside brilliantly polished Harley signs being given pride of place. And among the clutter, a tangle of red-white-and-blue tattered flags, a mix of Confederate, Stars and Stripes, and New Zealand's Southern Cross, added color where the spotlights caught them.
"Bloody amazing. I never thought I'd see anything like this here in Nicks Landing."
Her eyes narrowed curiously, then she shrugged as if the thought evaporated in the booming noise. "Well don't let it turn your head. Remember we're here on business."
For the first time since he'd helped her off the boat, Rowan touched her. As his arm went round her shoulder, she felt the weight of his gaze slide over her body like a living, breathing thing. "Too bad you haven't dressed for it."
"Maybe I'm hiding, too."
His arm stayed put as he walked her up to the U-shaped bar, and she couldn't prevent slanting an obvious glance at his fingers cupping her shoulder. "Camouflage," he said, giving her a squeeze. After the excuse she'd made for her own attire, she could hardly complain.
"I take it that's Skelton?" he asked, lifting a brow in the direction of a man drawing a beer from the tap, dressed in a black T-shirt emblazoned with a long-dead singer's face.
Jo's gaze slid between the customers leaning on the dark-oak edifice Rocky had bought at a demolition sale and transported to Nicks Landing in sections. But before she could answer, Rowan's eyes latched on to a woman serving at one of the tables. "And that would be Molly. The woman who's been blighting the life of everyone at head office."
Jo followed his gaze. As soon as she saw the red hair, she knew she'd found Ginny's mom. "Sorry, that would be Ms. Wilks. I need to discuss her daughter with her. Molly does all the cooking. No doubt you'll find her in the kitchen."
Jo accepted one of the stools Rowan pulled out from the bar, hooking her toes under the brass rail that ran a foot off the floor to pull herself in closer. She kept her bag over her shoulder instead of dangling it from the back of her stool. With the 9mm Glock she carried, she couldn't afford to be careless.
"What can I get you folks?" Rocky rubbed his hands together as if expecting a big sale. She wasn't sorry to disappoint him. He was just short of being tall, but built wiry. He'd never have escaped the flames otherwise. One of the firemen had given her a lurid male description of how he'd found Rocky, trussed up like a chicken with duct tape wrapped round his sorry carcass. All plucked and dressed, ready for the oven.
"I'll just have coffee."
"Oh, c'mon, Johanna. Surely we can tempt you to have something stronger. A glass of wine." Rocky smiled at her and the steel-gray sideboards he affected, bunched on his cheeks. There was more hair on his face than on top of his head, where he wore it long in a comb over.
She hated when he used her full name, taking advantage of his supposed friendship with her father to hint at a familiarity that didn't exist. And she hated the noise which made it necessary to lean forward to hear him. Her hands fisted on the bar and she ground out, "Bring me a cup of coffee" or else.
"I'll have coffee, too," Rowan bit out in a way that brooked no opposition.
"Aren't you going to introduce me to your friend, Johanna?" wheedled Rocky.
Thankfully, Rowan let her off the hook by thrusting his hand out. "Rowan McQuaid."
"Rocky Skelton, owner. Glad to meet anyone who can drag Johanna in here. We don't see enough of her."
Jo found it hard to keep the glee out of her voice as she butted in. "Rowan's from Allied Insurance. He's come to investigate your fire."
She watched Rocky closely. Tension bunched in his shoulders as he wiped his hands on the towel he kept hanging at his waist for polishing glasses. Though his body language said flight, he hadn't been a cop all those years without learning how to bluff.
"About time. Maybe we'll get some action round here." His friendliness wasn't apparent in the look he darted at Jo. "I thought you two were an item when you came in. Sorry, my mistake," Rocky said.
"You weren't too far out. Jo and I have been friends for a good many years."
"Give me a second and I'll get those coffees. On the house, of course."
Rowan didn't bat an eye as he refused. "No need, I'm on an expense account."
Rocky grabbed a couple of cups from the top of the espresso machine and began making noises with milk and steam.
With his elbows on the bar, Rowan angled his body to face her. It put them close, close enough for his breath to brush her cheek. Close enough to taste it on her lips. But soon it became clear he only wanted to speak without being overheard. "Bad news, we've given him time to get his act together."
"Sorry about that."
"You didn't tell me you were friends with Skelton, Johanna. Anything I should know about?"
"It's a long story, nothing that affects this case." Whoa, back up girl. Lord, she'd nearly caught herself out on a lie. "Well, only indirectly, but this isn't the place."
She drummed her fingers on the bar impatiently. The coffee was taking forever. Rocky kept breaking off to serve someone else. At this rate the coffee would be cold before they were served. She watched Rocky scowl at a grungy-looking kid who hardly looked old enough to be in the bar. Should she check him out? The kid kept on calling and Rocky just kept on ignoring him.
She noticed Rowan watching the byplay. "Interesting, don't you think?" Sliding down off her stool, she said, "I can't wait any longer for that coffee. Tell Rocky I've gone to speak with Ginny's mom."
With one eye on Ms. Wilks and her one-handed balancing act with a tray filled with bottles and glasses as she wiped up spills from the table, Jo walked idly past the kid sitting alone on the far side of the bar. The closer she got, the more she thought she knew him from somewhere, but she decided not to approach him. Instead she salted his features away in her memory for future reference.
She'd always had a nose for sussing if something was out of kilter, but the whiff of cannabis was unexpected. The air in the bar was quite blue with smoke, even in the nonsmoking area, it hung close to the ceiling. But this was different.
Without making it too obvious she checked out his hands for a cigarette. He wasn't holding one.
No matter, fire was needed for smoke and a pinpoint of flame glowed at the back of her mind. Let it burn long enough... Oh yeah, sometimes her patience surprised her, only look at this business with Rocky and her dad.
The waiting would simply make a positive result all the sweeter.
R owan watched Jo, his hackles rising as he saw several other men in the bar do the same. He couldn't control the spurt of possessiveness awakening the sleeping beast in the back of his mind. And he had to admit, letting it stretch a time or two before reining it in lessened the strain acting so damn nice all the time put on his back teeth. They ached.
Hell, he wanted her.
What man wouldn't? She was so easy on the eye.
For an extratall woman she gave the appearance of being comfortable in her own skin. No hunching her shoulders. No wearing flat-heeled shoes. No pretence. She was simply herself. Beautiful without seemingly aware of it.
Casually, she walked by the stools on far side of the U-shape, hardly appearing to notice the guy whose clenched fist vibrated with impatience on the bar top. Yet, Rowan knew she wouldn't forget him in a hurry.
The intrusion of china clattering on the counter by his elbow broke his concentration.
"Worth looking at, isn't she, McQuaid?"
Eyes off, you sonofabitch! It was all he could do to hold the growl at the back of his throat and swallow it down.
Skelton wasn't finished, more's the pity. "Reminds me of her old man. He was a looker too, a real babe magnet. Pity."
He leaned toward McQuaid, confidential-like. Intuition told Rowan he wasn't going to like what was coming. Looking away, he took his time, ripping open the paper tube, pouring the sugar into his coffee, stirring until it dissolved.
"You probably know the story. Milo, her father, was my partner, but I don't think I ever really knew him. He was the kind of guy who played his cards close to his chest. That's another trait Johanna gets from him. I'll tell you it shook me up when he committed suicide."
Rowan had heard enough. He jerked his head toward the other side of the bar. "There's a guy over there so dry looks like he could spit tacks."
Skelton didn't need telling who Rowan was referring to. He looked over his shoulder, saying, "He'll keep."
"I don't think so, you deal with him, then come back and we can deal. No more interruptions."
"Sure, no worries," said Skelton. Moving with the smoothness of long familiarity, he slid open the glass fridge door, grabbed a long-necked bottle, an import, and cracked the top.
The round base hit the counter loud enough for Rowan to hear, but their conversation was another matter. The guy scowled down at the beer. It lasted maybe two seconds then his gaze widened fractionally before his pale lids shuttered his eyes, masking his expression. Skelton turned his back on him and like cock-of-the-walk, chest and biceps pumped, stretching the face of the dead rock star on the front, he stalked away. Behind him the guy twisted the top off the bottle. A fountain of froth spewed up the neck and over the counter.
Rowan saw the shape of the curse on his lips, but couldn't hear. Skelton could. Turning, he glanced over his shoulder as the guy slouched away, leaving the bottle slicked in foam, and untouched by human lips. Skelton simply shook his head, saying, "Kids. You can't win. Now what do you want to know?"
"Not a lot." Rowan took a long swig of coffee, checked out Jo over the rim of his cup, and said, "I've read your police statement, and I've brought a copy of your claim. Tomorrow morning I'll check out your house. And in the afternoon, with your cooperation, I'll do the same to your financial situation."
"You what?" Skelton shrank inside his black T-shirt and the white plastic face of Jim Morrison on the front sagged.
"Cast your mind back to when you took out the policy on your house. Remember the privacy waiver?" Rowan reached into the pocket inside his leather jacket. The papers were folded in four. He spread them out on the counter, rubbing out the creases with his thumb. "Unless you sign this form giving me access to all your accounts, your policy becomes null and void."
Five minutes later, Rowan had an inventory of all Skelton's banking, and the name of his accountant. He knew he'd been coming on strong, but the man had brought it on himself with his oh, so innocent, throw-away remarks about Jo's father. The jerk knew what he was doing; he was just too dumb to realize Rowan knew it, too. At last he had an inkling, if not all, of why Jo didn't trust the guy. He knew if he'd given the jerk another inch he'd have stabbed her in the back.
Hell, he was banking on being out of Nicks Landing in under a week, could hardly wait. But if Jo's secrets were going to be blabbed, he'd prefer to hear them from her lips.
And as for his secrets...same goes.
Jo recognized that the resemblance between Ginny and her mother was more than a mass of red curls. As she walked up behind Ms. Wilks, she heard her talking to the patrons in the same gotta-get-it-all-out-in-one-breath style as her daughter.
"Ms. Wilks?"
The woman gave the table a last flick with her cloth and turned, balancing the full tray on her hip. "Get yourself a table, hon. I'll take your order in a sec."
"No. I don't want to order. I wondered if I could have a word?" She wasn't a short woman but she looked up at Jo, giving her a familiar wide, blue-eyed stare.
"I'm sure the check's in the mail...." She laughed then, but there wasn't much humor in it, only the ring of resignation. "I bet you hear that all the time."
"Actually, no. It's usually some other excuse. I'm a cop."
"Omigod! Something bad's happened. Who is it? Carter or Ginny?" All the color leached out of her face, and in contrast, her hair swung in bright flames as her eyes flicked from side to side as if wondering where next to turn. "Has Carter taken another of his spells?"
Jo felt dreadful. She spoke up quickly, wanting to reassure the distressed woman. "Relax. It's okay, nothing major. I only wanted a word about Ginny."
Ms. Wilks released her white-knuckle grip on the tray and Jo made a dive for it, before its weight could send it crashing to the floor. Color returned to the woman's face as they faced one another, each with a hand on the tray.
"Thanks," she said shakily. "I couldn't afford to pay for that lot." She nodded toward Rocky. "Not out of the wages he pays."
"My fault. I could have picked my moment better."
"So what's Ginny been up to this time?"
"Nothing too awful. Look, why don't you put down that tray and we can talk about it?"
"Sorry." Ginny's mother looked in the direction of the bar again. Rocky was serving the guy Jo had been watching. "I have to keep moving. He'll dock my wages if I fall behind with my work."
"How about I walk round with you and we can talk as you work." Jo asked as she carefully framed her next question. "See that young guy Rocky's serving, do you know his name? Is he a regular in here?"
"Who, Jeff Smale? Yes, he's pretty regular. Not that I have much to do with him." Her nose curled as she sniffed. "Always looks as if he needs a good wash. So, what's he done?"
"Nothing." Nothing that she knew of, at the moment. "I thought I'd met him someplace but I don't recognize the name."
"Maybe it was one of his brothers? There are three of them, and they all look alike."
"Maybe that's it, thanks for your help, Ms. Wilks." Jo said, but Ginny's mother was already heading for another table.
She looked over her shoulder. "Call me Betty. I'm more used to it than Ms. Wilks. Now, you were going to tell me about Ginny. I take it she's in trouble again. She's not a bad kid, but she's impulsive. Doesn't stop to think things through."
It was like déjà vu, hearing an echo of Grandma Glamuzina's old warning. Think before you speak, girl.
Some role model she would make, when she still hadn't learned that herself.
Rowan tucked the signed form back where it had come from and smiled at Skelton. "Wise move. Less painful than drawing teeth."
He threw Rowan a look with a lot of stick behind it. "Some things are sacred."
"I'm afraid that cow died the moment you signed the insurance agreement." And it wasn't even fine print. "Where can I find your wife?"
"Molly? She's in the kitchen." Pale blue eyes swiveled in the direction of a door practically invisible against the dark wall, except for a small round of safety glass. Skelton cracked a smile. "Reckon she'll be pleased to see you. Been getting on her nerves all this waiting."
Putting his empty cup down alongside Jo's untouched one, Rowan slid a ten out of his wallet and placed it on the counter.
Indecision hovered over Skelton's features, and flicked between his expectation of Rowan's reception when he entered the kitchen and the studied insult in the ten which diminished him. His ego won. "It's on the house."
"No, thanks. Company policy, but keep the change."
A quick glance through the glass to confirm there were no bodies on the other side, and Rowan shouldered his way through the swing door.
Molly lived up to her name, contrary to his expectations after reading the crazed letters she'd bombarded Allied Insurance with. Silver-blond curls bobbed on her forehead and her cheeks were pink with exertion as the knife in her hand made short work of the carrots sitting on a work table too tall for someone of her diminutive size. "Mrs. Skelton?" he inquired.
She looked up, swiping at a lock of hair dancing in front of the bluest eyes he'd ever seen. Molly smiled and the dimple in her chin deepened. Only the series of lines tracking either side of her mouth and eyes showed her true age. "Sorry, we don't allow the public through here. Health regulations."
"Your husband sent me through. I'm from your insurer."
The knife in her hands froze midstroke and her smile faltered an instant then widened. Fluttering her eyelashes, Molly laid the knife down carefully on the scrubbed, pine butcher block at one end of the work counter. Right there and then Rowan decided Rocky had sent the abusive letters in his wife's name.
She wiped her hands on the navy apron she wore over a pink frilled blouse. "If I'd known they were going to send you, I'd have insisted on getting face-to-face sooner."
Hell, she was flirting with him. "I'm sure we'll be able to resolve all your problems within the week."
Her pert mouth pouted. No trace of the childish protest touched her eyes. Instead of sparkling, a dearth of emotion flattened their blue depths.
"I take it you haven't brought the check?"
A wiser man would have backed off when he caught the look in Molly's eyes, but sometimes it was easier to be wiser after the event. "I'm afraid not, but I do want to thank you for writing to Allied Insurance about your concerns."
The slash of overbright pink lipstick disappeared as she bit her lips. Aw, hell. She was going to cry. "I don't want thanks. A thank-you will never replace what I lost. All my pretties."
That flummoxed him. He hadn't heard about the lost pets in the fire. "I'm sorry Mrs. Skelton. I know it's hard to lose a pet---"
"Pets?" she sobbed. "I didn't have no pets. It's my collections, my crystal, my Lladro. What didn't smash when the beam fell onto my glass cabinet, the firemen finished off with their big feet." Molly grabbed her apron and buried her face in it, which muffled the sounds.
"You'll be pleased to know I've come here to give the local cops a hurry up." He could imagine Jo's face if she heard him now, but he picked the tool most likely to get the job done.
Molly's eyes peered at him over the apron.
"You have to admit it's not your everyday kind of case. Do you have any thoughts on what could have provoked..."
She sniffed and dropped the apron. "I'm done thinking about it. All I want is to make a start at replacing my stuff. Not that I'll be able to. Not all. Some of my pieces were irreplaceable. For starters there was..."
It looked like being a long list. Rowan started to brace himself against the boredom of a minute description of everything Molly had lost in the fire. But as he listened, it became easier. He felt sorry for her. The woman had no children, was stuck with a husband whose idea of beauty appeared to be the badge of a Harley-Davidson, or a crash helmet with a dent in one side. Everything beautiful in her life had been destroyed in a few short minutes.
He could empathize with that.
Molly's attitude toward him slipped from tearful to reasonable. Any tears she swiped now were on account of an onion.
"As soon as the police are satisfied, and we're looking at days here, you'll be paid out."
Molly sniffed. "When you say police I take it you mean Jo Jellic? Everyone knows she doesn't like Rocky. Believe me, she'll do her damnedest to see he comes off worst." She shook her head, blinking at the strong fumes. "As if a man would do that to himself. My Rocky was in agony. Slept on his stomach for weeks."
"Understandable, I saw the photo." He'd had another look at the photos after he'd dumped his duffel on board. That was the weakest link in Jo's case. It took guts to deliberately set fire to yourself. Rocky didn't seem top-heavy in that department.
Nodding her agreement, she said, "Could have been worse. His burns stung, but he could be dead now." She scooped the onions into a bowl with the rest of the vegetables, then turning her back on Rowan she tipped them into the stew and gave it a stir. "Can you imagine the sort of lowlife it takes to even think of doing that? They had to be mad. You should look to the loony bin for suspects. That's the place for devil worshipers."
"Somehow I don't think we need worry about anyone locked up, the ones walking the street are harder to get a handle on. We got a lead today. Could be we'll bring this to an end quite soon."
"And you think Jo Jellic will follow it up?"
"Yes, I do. And I'll be right there alongside her." Right or wrong, it seemed Jo had something to prove, and not only to herself.
Skelton's wife never stopped working. She was gathering together the makings for pastry, piling it into a huge mixer. "Do you do all the cooking for the bar by yourself?"
"Every last bit. I don't trust nobody else to get it right." She switched on the machine and little puffs of flour rose from its bowl. "This is for my steak pies. I have to make plenty, they're my best sellers."
"Well, if they taste as good as they smell, I'll be in to taste some for myself tomorrow." He earned a smile for his compliment, and promised himself he would come in tomorrow and sample her baking. A few brownie points wouldn't go wrong.
The back of his neck prickled as if he were being watched, then the door behind him swung open and he heard Jo's voice.
Molly stopped smiling.
"I'll hold the door," Jo was saying as he turned around, laughing with the woman carrying the tray. His chest tightened. She'd never laughed with him that way. So naturally.
When had he ever encouraged her to? It had been safer to poker up when the jokes were flying, and keep his distance.
Safer for his peace of mind.
"What do you think this is? Central Station?" Molly slapped the cloth in her hand down on the bench and began rubbing hard enough to wipe six inches of splinters from the butcher's block.
One word from Molly and he had his reprieve. Jo raised an eyebrow. Flame flickered in the dark brown of her eyes. A cold flame, one that stripped the flesh off your bones. He was glad not to be on the receiving end. If Rowan had needed confirmation that there was no love lost between these two, he had it now.
"Jo was just holding the door for me, I'm pretty loaded up."
Jo? If they were on a first-name basis the talk between her and Ginny's mom must have gone well.
"No problem, Betty. I don't like to see anyone overworked."
Betty, the peacemaker, spoke up again, "Oh, Molly would never overwork me. She's very good to me and Ginny. I like to earn my wages, though. That way no one can complain."
From the look Betty cast Jo, Rowan gathered she was implying Skelton was a different proposition. "I was telling Molly we'd gotten a lead and she'd probably be paid out soon," he mentioned, hoping to put his weight behind Betty's conciliatory remark.
"Actually, Jo came to see me about Ginny. Wouldn't you know it? She's in bother again."
Molly just laughed. "She's a hard case that girl. What's she been up to this time? Not much, I bet. Some girlie nonsense. The child doesn't mean anything by it."
"Ginny's a favorite with Molly," said Betty, stating the obvious. "Jo picked Ginny up for shoplifting this afternoon."
"And charged her, no doubt. As if the cops haven't got better things to do than go around chasing kids."
"She's been given a warning. That's all. Her mother can see to her punishment. I'm sure Ginny is really a good kid. At least she didn't lie about it when she was caught. I appreciate honesty. I've been thinking about what Ginny told me. Betty was saying the kid has a great imagination, Rowan. Maybe it's not worth the trouble of going all that way, because of what Ginny thinks could be a satanic cult. The boys at school could have been teasing."
Betty rattled glasses as she filled the dishwasher, and the pastry dough slapped against the sides of the bowl, making it rock on its stand. Jo's indecision hit a lull and sounded the louder for it. Molly stopped scraping up flour with the edge of the knife. "What did I tell you? She's got no intention of finding out the truth. She's no more use than Bull and Jake. They couldn't find a suspect if he was under their noses."
The knife shuddered as it clipped the edge of the mixer, sending it spinning. The reflection from the fluorescent bounced off the blade, making fairy lights dance on the ceiling.
Molly watched the knife as if mesmerized until Betty walked over and picked it up, saying, "I'll put this in with the glasses." The moment passed.
He could see the quick rise and fall of Jo's breasts and knew he wasn't the only one breathing fast. Skelton's wife balanced on the edge of her stress like a tinker-tot doll, not quite falling over. He just hoped they weren't around when she did.
"Don't worry." Jo's tone was even as if she'd never had any doubt about the way Molly had eyed that knife. "If the truth's out there, Molly, I'll find it, no matter who's doing the telling. And don't be so hard on Bull and Jake. Only this afternoon they brought in a couple of bad guys who'd been growing dope. Not content with growing it out in the bush, these guys had set up lights and tinfoil, and were growing it indoors."
Through pinched lips, Molly said grudgingly, "'Bout time they did something to earn the money us taxpayers pay them. They lost a good man when Rocky retired."
Before anyone could comment that it was actually redundancy, the timer on the oven began to ping. Molly grabbed a tray from under the counter. "If you'll excuse me, I have to go fill up the pie warmer in the bar."
"I can do that for you," said Betty.
"No need. I'm sure these people haven't any more questions. I expect they'll be gone when I get back."
"Well, I'm one who can take a hint," said Jo, as the door swung shut with Molly on the other side.
Betty closed the dishwasher and spun the dial. "Molly's not always like this. She just hasn't been herself since her house was torched. She had it beautiful. Lived for that house, always planning what she would buy next. Got a pile of catalogues in the storeroom that she shopped through. No place in Nicks Landing for that sort of quality. Nothing but the best for Molly." Sighing wistfully, she looked at Jo. "She never had any children. I guess the house and those collections were her compensation."
"Molly never struck me as the motherly type."
"Oh, she wanted kids all right. Molly told me how Rocky and her tried for years. She even went to specialists. None of them could find a thing wrong with her. It was just one of those mysteries that no one can explain."
The conversation between Jo and Betty was heading in a direction guaranteed to make Rowan uncomfortable. He'd never been married, never had a sister either, nothing to help stop him breaking out in a sweat as the talk turned to women's troubles. He began edging toward the door, hoping Jo would follow him.
Jo took a couple of steps back in his direction, waving goodbye to Betty. A wry smile creased her lips as she lifted her face to his and spoke softly, cutting Betty out of the circle. "The biggest mystery is how Rocky hoped to father a child when he'd had himself snipped."
They hadn't heard the door open, or counted on Molly standing behind them. "Are you two still here?"
Rowan didn't breathe till they got outside. "Do you think she heard?"
"Heck, no. I'm still standing, aren't I?"
J o scrubbed her hands till they glowed pink. If anyone had told her three years ago that she'd spend the best part of a morning looking at a dead bull calf's innards, she'd have laughed in their face. If Rowan had suggested it last night, she'd have given him one of her I-don't-think-so looks and dismissed the possibility.
Compared to this morning's outing, last night's visit to Rocky's Hard Luck Inn had been an adventure in Sin City. Wanna get down to basics? Visit a farm.
Thank heavens she'd taken Harry's advice when she first arrived in Nicks Landing and invested in a pair of rubber boots. She kept them in the trunk of her car for visiting farms and the like, but usually by the time she got home it was mud and manure needing to be hosed off, not blood.
Taking a deep breath, Jo centered her equilibrium. A few swift strokes of the brush through her hair, a spray of her favorite perfume, the one her friend Maggie had sent her last Christmas, one squirt behind each ear and another inside the front of her bra and she felt almost normal. Ready to face anything---except maybe Rowan.
A quick look at her watch told her she was already five minutes late for their appointment. The one she'd already set back by four hours.
The sight of Harry sitting behind his desk was comforting somehow. Steady. Reliable. Unweird.
She'd come across a lot of peculiar things during her stint in Auckland, but luckily, nothing as bad as this morning's little entertainment.
Harry brought up his head and gave her a grin. "Feeling better?"
She looked at her hands. "Some carbolic would have come in handy. Lady MacBeth has got nothing on me. I don't think my hands will ever be clean again."
"Didn't you wear gloves?"
"What difference does that make? It's the thought that counts. And if Bull and Jake hadn't stayed overnight in Gisborne with those cannabis growers, this job would have been right up their street. I don't think I ever saw so much blood in all my life."
A puzzled expression drew some extra lines round Harry's eyes. "Didn't you work on that serial killer case up in Auckland?"
"I did. But he was a very tidy fellow. Hated the sight of blood, unlike our friend at Rimu Downs farm."
"So, are you going to fill me in on it then, or do I have to wait until you put in a report?"
Jo checked the clock on the wall behind Harry. She could spare maybe two minutes, that was all. It would take five to reach Lonely Track Road. Any more and Rowan would give up on her.
She hitched one hip onto the corner of his desk and began. "Okay, I'll give you the gist of it, then I have to run. The bull calf was worth ten thousand, minimum. It was part of a special breeding program they've got going up there. Its sire---" She paused a minute, thinking. "Do they call bulls sires?" Harry looked blank so she carried on. "Anyway, its father was worth about ten times that, and they'd had high hopes for the calf."
"You'd better tell McQuaid that."
"Why?" Had Harry come to the conclusion bugging her all morning? That maybe, just maybe, Rocky hadn't been lying. How many calves get killed by ritual sacrifice?
"Rimu Downs belongs to the Stanhopes. The guy running the farm is only a manager."
"And?" she prodded him.
For a second he looked like a goldfish drowning on air, then he spat out the words. "It's obvious. McQuaid works for them. Allied probably handled the insurance."
Logical, but something told her that hadn't been Harry's first choice of words. "I'll tell him about it when I get to Rocky's house. He's meeting me there fifteen minutes ago, so the rest of the gory details will have to wait."
"Speak of the devil."
"Who, Rowan?" She swung around. The sergeant's chair was positioned to give him a view of the comings and goings at the front counter through the open door. Rocky was there talking to Seth. "What does he want now?"
Harry sighed loud enough for it to have come from way down in his boots. "Knowing him, it won't be anything good."
That was what Jo liked about the Sergeant. He was the only other one in the station house who didn't think daisies sprouted in Rocky's footprints. Yeah, she really liked that about Harry. He was a man of extraordinary common sense.
Seth stuck his head round the door. He looked from Harry to Jo. "Rocky wants to talk to Jo, I mean Detective Jellic."
"Let him through..."
"Don't tell him I'm here," said Jo at the same time. It was no use. Seth knew which side his bread was buttered on, and obeyed Harry. "I don't have time for this. I should have left earlier."
"If it's of no importance, tell him you'll get back to him."
"Have you ever known him to listen to anyone but himself?"
Rocky appeared from the foyer. Harry spoke. "What's important enough to drag you from the bar during the lunch trade?"
"They're back." One bald statement as if she and Harry were mind readers. Maybe so. Icy drips trickled down her spine.
"Why don't you start by telling us who they are?" suggested the sergeant. He was nonchalance personified in contrast to a harried Rocky whose thinning hair stood on end as if he'd run his fingers through it. His gaze dodged a long strand of hair hanging over one eye and focused on checking her reactions. Only natural. He knew she thought him a liar. She'd told him to his face less than two months of arriving in Nicks Landing. Honesty had become her creed. She practiced it well and in no uncertain terms Jo had let him know, she thought he'd lied about her father. She'd followed Max, her old sergeant's example. Jo used to chide him about it, say it was his there's-a-new-Sheriff-in-town warning. It hadn't worked with Rocky. He'd laughed it off. Of course that was before she knew he considered himself bulletproof. Who wouldn't with half the local cops backing them?
"The satanists, they're back."
"What happened? They set fire to your bar this time, or just your shirttail to send you rushing over here in a tizz?" Harry's drawl grew more pronounced, emphasizing his country roots. It always did when he spoke to Rocky. At a guess, it was part of a running battle. One that had gone on in the days when Rocky had been Detective Sergeant, city trained and a big wheel in Nicks County police. Harry hadn't aimed any further than the town he'd been born in, hadn't wanted to.
"They've been back to my house. My neighbor, Jenny Gilbransen, came in this morning. Not for a drink, she doesn't drink, and anyway the bar wasn't open." He paused for breath, giving the impression he'd run all the way, which would be a first.
"She said she heard a car outside my place in the middle of the night. Said it was there awhile before it took off."
It was time Jo got involved, so she asked, "Did she get up and take a look? Did she see anything?" See you, maybe? First the calf, now this. Coincidence or what?
"No. She's on her own in that big old house next to mine. I bought my land off her. Jenny said she just pulled the covers over her head and waited till she heard them pull away."
"She didn't think to call you?"
"No. She got up when they left, had a look to see if my house was on fire, and when it wasn't she made herself a cup of tea and went back to bed."
"So why the panic if your house is okay?" Or as okay as it's ever going to be till they pull it down? Something was going down. Something distinctly fishy. If Rocky Skelton was cool enough to get himself out of a burning building with his skin still intact, or practically intact, why fall to pieces over a house that was hardly more than a burned-out shell?
"I went up there. I thought I'd find you and McQuaid, but there was no one around. Someone had been there all right. They'd scattered newspaper all over the floor."
Jo let a raised eyebrow speak for her. A yawn would have done it better, but she could control herself. She hoped the punch line was better than the rest of his story.
"The papers were covered in blood."
Harry looked in her direction. She could tell they were on the same wavelength but he was leaving the questions to her. Both of them throwing a two into the pot, hoping to come up with five.
She stared pointedly at Rocky. "But there was no body?"
"I didn't see one. Just an old newspaper with my picture on the front. It was smeared with blood and someone had drawn an inverted pentagram around the picture." His Adam's apple quivered among the lines on his neck. "Like it was a target."
None of his drama touched her. If it had been someone else she might have felt for them, but her sympathy button had been preconditioned, and Rocky just couldn't push it. "Two questions. How long ago was this? And what did you do with the paper?"
"Twenty minutes ago. I started to pick it up then dropped it back on the floor and got the hell out of there."
Rocky, Molly's parfait gentle knight, what a joke. She'd once gone into the kitchen of the Hard Luck Inn and caught Molly watching The Bold And The Beautiful on TV. Though Jo had scoffed to herself, she understood Molly's need for distraction, being married to a man who was anything but bold or beautiful.
It suddenly dawned on Jo that twenty minutes ago, she should have met up with Rowan. "You didn't see McQuaid at the house?"
"No, no one. I thought I might run into him because he said you two were going there this morning."
"Our plans got changed."
Ratchett! She gave herself a mental slap. Her nose twitched as it always did when she was annoyed with herself. Should she believe Rocky or not? If this was another of his cons... "I've got to go," she said more to Harry than Rocky. "You see Rocky out and I'll see him later."
She hurried through the lockup, silent today, and out to her car. Dust from her trek to the farm covered it so she'd hidden it out back. Her heels left short, sharp, snapping echoes on the concrete as her mind assessed the pros and cons. The bloody newspapers and eviscerated calf cried out to be connected.
If she was wrong about Rocky, bang went her chance to show the man up for what he was. What she knew he was, firsthand. Who else but a scumbag would tell lies about his dead partner? A partner and friend who could no longer defend himself. That's why the job had fallen to her, his partner's daughter. If she was wrong, Rowan could be stepping into a trap set for Rocky.
And if she was correct about said scumbag? Rowan could be stepping into a trap set for both of them...or maybe just for her. Rocky hadn't been whistling "Thank Heaven For Little Girls," when she'd taken over the case.
Jo put her foot down, accelerating out of the car park with more haste than style. Whichever side of the line the truth fell on, she needed to get the hell out there and warn Rowan.
If only she could remember where she'd stashed his business card. At least then she could have called him.
Rowan checked the clock on the dashboard as he pulled up in Lonely Track Road. He was late, but Jo was later. He'd give her five minutes, then go take a look for himself. He was a big boy, and whatever bug she had in her brain about accompanying him, he didn't need her holding his hand.
She'd been very insistent. "I want to show you the exact route Rocky took to get out of the house," she'd said when she called at some godawful early hour of the morning. Not that it mattered, he hadn't been asleep. Too busy planning his retreat to catch more than a few z's at a time.
No mention had been made of the unspoken disagreement that had driven them apart the moment they'd hit the sidewalk in front of the Hard Luck Inn.
Molly Skelton, God bless her, had a good excuse for her sour outlook on life and the rings she'd been running round the staff at head office. Rowan shook his head as he remembered his meeting with the CEO of Allied Insurance. He didn't know where the management got off employing such a bunch of wimps in a job where abusive letters were run of the mill. Yet Molly Skelton had inundated them with faxes and phone calls till they were almost ready to pay her the money just to get her off their back.
For the first time in seventeen years, Rowan had come home to Nicks Landing as a peace broker. All that changed the moment he met Jo. He just wanted to pay up and get the hell out of Dodge.
Sure, he could turn tail and run before concluding his business. But it would look too suspicious. Jo was too smart, and didn't need ideas put in her head.
She already had enough of them for two people.
Rowan looked up at the burned-out shell as he stepped from the car. Red chip crunched under the soles of his boots as he trudged up the fairly steep drive, intending to walk around to work out the easiest way to get inside, if Jo didn't arrive.
A car changed gears behind him. A quick glance was followed by a sharp twist of disappointment in his gut when he saw it wasn't her. For years he'd been telling himself he didn't need her.
What was so different now?
She'd taken him by surprise, and he'd still to decide if it was pleasant, or what?
The house stared down at him with dark vacant eyes. A sad Cape Cod with a hole in the roof that had seen better days.
Hadn't they all.
The sign nailed to the porch read, Danger. Keep out.
He knew all about danger. He'd lived with it for years, working in the same building, never knowing when he would bump into Jo in the corridor. Except he never had. Bumped into her, that is. He'd always made sure never to encroach on her personal space. Ironically the only time he'd ever gotten up close and personal with Jo was the night he'd been shot, and that memory he associated with pain.
A car door slammed as his foot hit the bottom step. He turned and it was Jo, running toward him shouting, "Wait up!"
She moved gracefully for a tall woman. A tall woman in a hurry as she didn't slow down, knowing he'd seen her. Her breasts swayed, captured by the bonds of a lime-green shirt Jo had tucked inside dark khaki pants. She'd topped the outfit off with a cream marled waistcoat barely reaching her waist. Hanging open, it didn't impede his view of her full breasts and lush hips.
Would he ever get the chance to touch them?
Would he ever take a chance and touch them?
Jo was so beautiful. Hell, he got turned on simply watching her.
The closer she got, the more his annoyance dissolved. He'd almost had Molly eating out of his hand last night---well, if not that, at least being agreeable---until Jo's blunder.
"Thank heavens I caught you." Her voice had a husky, breathless rasp. He wished it was on account of his presence instead of the grassy slope.
"What's the rush, I got here late myself."
"I know, Rocky told me, at least he told me you hadn't arrived earlier."
Her scent caught him with a right cross to the esophagus. She smelled of limes and passion flowers warming on a vine in the summer sun. He breathed deeply. An indulgence. One he could ill afford if he meant to stick to his original plan of staying out of danger and where danger dwelled. "So, he's been up here? What did he want?" Frankly, he didn't give a damn what Skelton wanted.
The sun was shining on Jo's hair and it reminded him of a lake he'd once camped by, the way the moonlight had crested the top of the ripples when the wind disturbed its surface. How easy it was to let his mind slide from there, to him and Jo, getting cozy together in a small tent. A very small tent. Oh yeah, it was tempting danger, but he was getting to like it.
"You can't get in that way. It's boarded up because the floor is dangerous," Jo was saying. "I have a key to the back door of the garage. It's easier to get in, less damage."
She grabbed his hand, oblivious to the effect of her touch on him. Seemed she wasn't holding any grudges over his dismissal of her the night before.
"C'mon, I'll tell you what Rocky said he wanted as we go. Then I'll give you a blow-by-blow description of my visit to Rimu Downs farm this morning and see what you make of it."
Jo pulled him away from the steps and down the path and he let her. Her grip was firm for a hand much smaller than his, but he lapped it up, wondering if the proverbial lamb felt this good as it was led to the slaughter. Maybe there was more of the masochist in his makeup than he realized.
"So there we are, me and the farm manager, we're standing inside this circle of white lime." Jo stopped and opened a door. "Through here," she said to Rowan.
Her panic had subsided on the drive to Lonely Track Road. In fact she'd begun to feel a little foolish about the situation and didn't want Rowan to know. That's what came of taking anything Rocky said at face value. Now if she could only stop talking. Heck, she could sympathize with Ginny. Seemed they both ran off at the mouth when they were nervous.
Nervous?
Was that the true cause of her girlish reaction? So? She wasn't as blasé as she liked to pretend.
"This calf is in the middle." They were walking down the hall now and the walls on either side of them were covered in soot. "Watch you don't brush up against anything. You'll never get it off. I think it's residue from the polyurethane foam inside the lounge suites. The only way to remove it is with soap and a wire brush. You scrub the stain till all that's left is a hole."
Rowan's features looked carved out of rock. She guessed he still hadn't forgiven her little faux pas---well all right, big faux pas---in front of Molly last night. There had been a moment when she'd run up to him outside, that she'd thought he looked pleased to see her, but it was probably only a trick of the light. She just wished he would add his two cents worth to the conversation. So, shut your mouth and give him a chance.
"Anyway, the calf's throat's cut and it's been slit open from top to bottom, lying there with its poor little legs sticking up and everything hanging...well, I don't have to describe it. Use your imagination."
They'd reached the family room. She took a good look round, couldn't see any newspapers, and carried on to where bifold doors hung lopsidedly on their hinges separating the room from the entrance hall. "I didn't know whether to be sick or swear." Or give way to hysterical laughter. "The farm manager, he was practically crying, and his voice squeaked every time he took a gander at the region where the calf's male parts once resided."
She stopped in the entrance hall.
Rowan came to a halt beside her, folded his arms and looked around. "Something special I should know about?"
He looked calm enough. Patient. Waiting. Tension strung the muscles of his lower arms where sun-bleached hairs caught the sunlight coming through the hole in the roof above the two-story-high foyer. They were the same color as the gold streaking the moustache that made his expression hard to read. For all he'd shaved last night, it still resided on his upper lip.
"This is the way Rocky got out. The floors in the entrance and living room used to be polished rimu." She pointed into the living area. "See that plank there? That's where he said they left him tied up."
"With duct tape?"
"Yeah, the firemen removed it before the cops got here. We've got the tape, but no photos of how he was tied up."
"Don't sweat it. This is another time when I'd rather use my imagination." His teeth flashed white, acknowledging her earlier throw-away line.
He'd actually smiled. Was this the same gruff Rowan she'd known in Auckland? If he'd hit her with a smile like that then, maybe she would have given him a second look. Or even a third. She mightn't have gone as far as shouting babe alert, or whistling, but she'd definitely have looked. A sigh crept up from the soles of her feet. Time to get back on course.
"Well, imagine this. He's doused in gasoline."
"Initials carved in his back."
"Yeah, so he said. The jury's still out on that one, remember? But I guess it would have stung."
"Not to mention the small matter of a fire chasing his tail."
"Let's not. There's gasoline all over the floor, but conveniently not beneath the curtains that they set fire to."
She turned and looked up, her shoulders at ninety degrees to the center of Rowan's chest. But before she could set him straight on the rest of the story, he said, "Could be that was to give them a chance to escape, or to make Skelton sweat watching the fire coming nearer."
Logically, Rowan was one hundred percent right. The trouble with this case was that all the evidence was circumstantial. What she needed was something positive, then she'd have Rocky. Or not.
"Good point," she conceded.
Rowan nodded. "Okay. He's out in the foyer. Where does he go from here?"
"C'mon. I'll show you. Someone's closed this door, but Rocky says it was open." Jo flung the door wide. "I can't imagine Molly leaving this open as it can be seen from the entrance. But then, she wasn't at home. This is the utility room. The washer and dryer don't look too bad, but I suppose she's claiming for them, as well. The door that's boarded up is the one he dived through. The flames caught up with him and gave him a bad case of sunburn. He put them out by rolling around on the back lawn."
"Don't you think if Skelton had set this up himself he'd have conveniently left that door unlocked?" Rowan stepped round Jo and measured himself against the door. Would he have made it through?
"No, because he didn't have any way to open the door. Look at it this way. He's wriggled in here on his belly, pushing with his toes. His ankles are bound and his hands are tied behind his back. The space between the tub and this wall is about three feet, so he pushes himself up the wall, digging his toes into the baseboard at the bottom of the tub, and gets upright. How does he turn the handle---with his teeth?"
Rowan took a good look at the hexagonal-shaped handle. His jaw worked slightly as if testing the theory. "You're right. No way could he open that without hands, but if he'd set it up himself, why didn't he leave the door open?"
"Puleeeze. That would have been too obvious. Either way he had to take a dive through the glass. I'd say the only thing stopping him from being cut in half was the three smaller panes. They don't have to be as thick as the large expanses."
The three feet of space which had made it simple for Rocky to push himself up, was about three feet too small with two of them trying to get out. They did a slow dance, elbows bumping, turning, fronts brushing. His breath tickling her face. Oh, Lord! Perspiration ran down her spine. Could Rocky have felt any hotter with flames at his heels?
With a jerky movement she brought her chin up, wanting, needing to see his reaction. Her gaze met his enigmatic, green stare head-on. His nostrils flared, his chest lifting on a sharp breath. Embarrassed, she felt her nipples crest as if chasing the elusive hardness that had made them tingle. She felt herself shake. Was that a hint of mockery round his lips? She looked away, dreading to have her suspicions confirmed.
"We'd better get on," she said, her voice huskier than she would have wished. She put a hand out to push past, discovering his heartbeat under her palm, slow, heavy thuds that reverberated in the nerve endings of her arm. The sensation giving her ideas.
"I'll go first." Second. Anytime. Just give me a sign.
"You're the boss."
Jo swallowed as she thought of all the ways she could take that. Take him. Lord, she was going loco.
Dragging her mind out of the bedroom and back to work, she said, "In that case, let's go find those bloody newspapers that had Rocky so worried."
Inwardly, Jo knew she'd been postponing the moment that might confirm or deny her suspicions about who was behind the fire, Rocky or someone else. Looking over her shoulder, she surprised Rowan's gaze somewhere around the level of her butt. A rueful glint tinged the admiration as his eyes lifted and met hers. All one-sided? She didn't think so.
"If you see a plank, walk on it. Chances are the floor won't take your weight." How heavy was Rowan? She turned away swiftly and quickened her pace into the living room as she felt heat color her cheeks. That's what she got for wondering how it would feel to wake up with Rowan's weight covering her.
Her womb clenched and she almost doubled over from the intensity. It took almost six deep breaths to return to normal. By then she was surrounded by bloodstained newspapers.
"What is that bad smell?" Rowan asked, his tawny head lifting, scenting the air like a huge lion as his hair tossed like a mane, completing the analogy.
Jo recognized the odor. Dead meat.
Shades of her time on the farm that morning. Lord, she hated the country. It was too basic, too down-to-earth for her. Everything stunk to high heaven. The buzzing was familiar as well. Darn flies, they had better radar than a bloodhound. At last she sighted her quarry. "It's the brown paper, grocery sack in front of the window."
Digging into her pocket she sighed with relief to find a spare pair of latex gloves. "At least I won't have to touch it. How kind of them to leave it where I can reach from the plank."
Rowan's big hand settled on her shoulder. "Give me the gloves. I'll do it."
"No, this is my job. I won't have anyone say I shrank away from whatever needed doing. Just don't ask me to like it." The latex snapped as she pulled the gloves tight over her wrists. Then for good measure she took the precaution of rolling her cuffs up to the elbow.
Keeping it light she said, "I wouldn't say no to a can of fly spray if you have one." Then began walking the narrow length of the wood. A deep breath solidified the lack of substance in her knees. It wasn't as if the solid strip of twelve-by-two pine was higher than the floor. Now if she'd been on a pirate ship, with sharks circling below, she'd have an excuse for the wobbles. A chance of crashing into the basement didn't have the same impact.
Just past the halfway mark, Rocky's photo stared up at her from the center of a pentagram. She could read the date above the headline, "Ex-cop attacked by satanists." The day after the fire. Two and a half months and already its folds were yellowed as if it had been part of a pile sitting somewhere sunny. Or had someone simply treasured it for their notoriety? Bringing it out at the appropriate moment.
"I see what Rocky meant about a target." Balancing on one foot, the other hovering six inches above Rocky's face, she eyed the newspaper the way a darts player sizes up the bull's-eye.
Rowan's weight made the plank sigh as he stepped on it, calling out, "No, don't," as if reading her mind. "I know it's tempting, but maybe that's the idea. Better to turn around and come back."
"Easier said than done, wise guy. Let me get to the end and pick up the goods, then I'll come back. It's only another yard or so." She took one long stride, clearing the paper, and a smaller one to land in front of the sack.
Consciously, she'd put the flies out of her mind, but this close they were noisier than a lawn mower on a Sunday. She stooped over, gripped the rolled brown paper edges between finger and thumb. A wave of black dots flew off to explore the disturbee.
"Oh, gross." She waved the dive-bombers away from her face, flapping her hand. "Urk, let me out of here," she moaned, straightening as the bottom fell out of the bag. A heart fell at her feet. She screeched as it rolled, jumping back a step.
The wood underfoot vibrated from Rowan's heavier tread. "What on earth have you got there?"
Jo knew he couldn't see what had happened. She was blocking his view, after all. But he could no more hide the alarm in his voice than she could stop her anxiety spilling over. Taking a calming breath, and feigning an insouciance she didn't feel, she asked Rowan, "Did I ever get round to mentioning which part was missing from that calf?"
Her two-fingered grip on the sack hadn't loosened, and panic soon replaced nonchalance as she flapped it at the ferocious little followers. Anyone in their right mind would have dropped the sack, but sadly, her common sense had gone the way of the heart and hit rock bottom.
Dry newsprint rustled as she was forced back another step. Her heel landed as Rowan caught her round the waist.
"I've got you," he said. She felt his head come around as he looked down. "And you got him."
She twisted, following his gaze. Bull's-eye. The solid heel of her work shoe had landed dead center on Rocky's face.
Not only that, she'd pitched backward with all the grace of an inline skating newbie, lower half at 110 degrees and one foot in the air. Her head leaned into the curve of Rowan's shoulder, his hands and arms circling her ribs. Two inches higher and her breasts would have been the recipient of all that raw power.
This wasn't the moment for wishing his aim had been better, or worse. She hadn't time to ponder the possibilities right now. The question of whether he'd expect her to say "Thank you," or "Will you please remove your hands," uppermost in her mind.
Then came the explosion.
It didn't come with a bang. It was more the sort of noise a barbecue starter makes when you throw in the match.
Though the blast was big enough to send them both reeling as the floor lifted on a cushion of hot air and flames shot up the wall underneath the window.
Rowan's body was too hard to actually soften her fall as she landed on top of him, but it did break it, sending air from his lungs whooshing through her hair.
It appeared every time she and Rowan got up close and personal, they were fated to roll around in a heap.
This wasn't good. It was either the beginning of the end of any hopes she'd nurtured, or it was the end of the beginning.
"W ill you please drop the damn sack?"
He'd imagined holding Jo, but it hadn't been like this, with flames licking at their heels and every fly within a square mile dive-bombing the bloody paper sack in her hands.
Lifting Jo, he let their recent discussion of Skelton's escape route guide him through the smoke into the utility room.
Her arms clung round his neck, but he refused to read anything into it. She was probably simply wary of being dropped. A smoky haze shadowed her eyes as if the fire were inside her instead of behind them, gobbling up portions of house it had missed before, like a starving priest after Lent.
In these circumstances, lust ought to be the last item on his agenda. He just wished someone had informed his body. The female softness warming his chest warred with his emotions until he couldn't tell if his heart raced from exertion or excitement at having achieved the ultimate. Being pressed against her lush curves combined his deepest desires with his worst-case scenario.
Slipping his hand out from under her knees, he let her slide to the floor. He was the one who peeled her hands from his neck, yet as she turned her back on him and stepped away, it felt as if his secret fear had come to life by the heightened tension of the moment. Her walking away, and him letting her.
As his father had done with his mother.
Everything he knew would happen, coming true. It seemed a lifetime before he came to his senses to hear Jo saying, "Darn, I left the evidence behind."
Her hand gripped the door frame as if she might dash back into the foyer. He reached for her, his fingers tangling in her hair. "Don't be a fool. You'll fry out there."
They could barely see. Acrid smoke blocked the light that had once poured through the hole in the roof and at his back, the boarded-up door and window let nothing through. Grasping the door handle, he jerked it round with a sharp turn of his wrist. Pain ricocheted up his arm. The bitch was locked.
The color drained from Jo's face as he gave it another futile twist. Stinging tears filled her eyes as she started to cough. "Close the door, or the fumes will kill us before the flames."
He heard it shut with a snap as he sized up the exit. Luck hadn't abandoned them completely. Whoever had boarded up the door had nailed the plywood to the outside of the frame. The theory being people were more likely to want to break in than break out.
Jo pushed at his shoulder, swinging him back against the soot-blackened wall and if his shirt hadn't been ruined before...
"Stand back and let me kick it out," she wheezed, running her hand down the plywood as if testing its strength.
Her insult thundered in his ears. It always came back to his damn injury. Vexation almost choked him. "No need, I can manage."
In the thin whispers of daylight squeezing through the slits in the board, he felt rather than saw her gaze rest on his thigh, confirming Jo still hadn't gotten over the horror of it.
Damnation, he knew Jo hadn't aimed to unman him. Call him supersensitive, but he had an overpowering urge to flex his muscles and did, feeling his shirt tighten around them as if he were the Incredible Hulk's alter ego.
No sense in taking deep breaths, even shallow ones hurt too much. His only option was to lead with his shoulder. The plywood shuddered but didn't budge. A curse ripped from his lips in a mixture of pain and frustration. Skelton broke out with his hands tied behind his back. He'd be damned if the place would hold him.
"I can hear flames on the other side of the door." Her palm slid down the wood. "Oh, yeah, that's hot. Real hot."
A glance over his shoulder was enough to harden his resolve. Her waistcoat was off, and she tucked it along the bottom of the door to block the smoke. On second glance, she shrank back into the corner, giving him room. One hand waved in front of her face, battling smoke and heat, and she loosened her shirt as the high temperature turned the confined space into a blast furnace.
They had to get out or a lack of oxygen would suffocate them.
Two kicks were enough. The barrier fell outward with a soughing and screeching of nails ripping from their sockets. Rowan turned to Jo, laughing on a surge of pure adrenaline, and swung her into his arms. Jo weighed almost nothing, a featherweight. With her clasped to his chest, he ducked his head and stepped sideways through the gap into the sunlight.
God, life was great!
And with that thought ringing in his head, he took the back steps in one bound, feeling no pain in his thigh or anywhere else for that matter. On the lawn, with his lungs heaving, he halted and watched the fire swallow up the room they'd fled from with less than a second to spare.
Hallelujah! They'd escaped. Rowan threw back his head as relief ripped a huge bellow of glad-to-be alive laughter out of his throat. Jo's fists beat against his shoulders but she didn't join in. He held her away till he could see her face, amazed to find no sign of his own knee-jerk reaction of joy.
Perspiration beaded her forehead and smoky trails of tears painted her cheeks. She'd never looked more beautiful. She was alive. They were alive. For once in his life he let his feelings take over and spun her around in circles.
"Rowan," Jo called his name, her hand tugging at the collar of his shirt. He slowed down, stopped, but the garden kept spinning.
"Rowan..." Her lips seemed to tremble on his name. Her mouth, her beautiful mouth filled his vision. His head dipped to take her lips with his own. A kiss. One kiss. A hero's kiss. He was entitled, and this time he could claim it.
Could a person feel happy and mad at the same time? Happy to find she was able to feel mad, and mad because he was so happy about having rescued her again, when she could have just as easily have gotten out under her own steam.
She felt his breath, tasted it as his face came nearer and put her in danger of discovering exactly how his moustache felt against her mouth, but even the anticipation of such a treat couldn't put the flash of temper she experienced on hold. "Rowan. How do you think this will look on my record, you having to rescue me again?"
His head shot back, all jutting chin and machismo, with no defense against the verbal right cross she landed.
"The powers-that-be will think I can't do my job." Hands on his shoulders, she pushed and this time he let go. Her limbs didn't feel as if they belonged to her, but at least she was on her feet looking up at him. The five inch difference in height had never seemed so great.
"Well, pardon me for not wanting to watch you die."
God, she knew the feeling. She'd prayed harder the night Rowan was shot than she ever had in her life. With his blood on her hands, she'd made promises she couldn't remember and could only hope she'd kept. But she couldn't lie about her feelings. Already in Rowan's debt, the interest rate was growing too steep.
Drawing her dignity and herself up to full height, oblivious to her sooty appearance, she protested. "Look at me, Rowan."
He obeyed her peremptory command, yet the flat, glassy green gaze he inflicted on her made her flinch.
"I'm a big girl. Hell's teeth, I'm a cop. You have to let me fend for myself. So, maybe I couldn't have kicked the door down, but sure as I'm six feet tall in my socks, I could have walked out of that house on my own two feet."
"You're absolutely right," he apologized stiffly, arms akimbo, his face as expressionless as an Easter Island statue. "I guess I got carried away with the buzz of escaping the flames."
Oh, oh. She'd done it again. "No, I was the one who got carried away." Her smile was feeble, without life. It didn't soften the blow of words regretted as soon as spoken. He hadn't meant to put her down, or make her feel diminished. She'd achieved it herself.
Her fingers rested on his forearm, curling around steel-banded muscles folded across their match. Had his tension lessened?
Desperate to make amends, she sighed, a feminine ploy.
His lips quirked, putting a kink in his moustache.
She followed through. "I apologize, it's not your fault. You just got caught in the backlash of my beef with the guys at work. Back in Auckland I was one of the team...."
She swallowed quickly to release the tightness in her chest as she realized this could be the end of her plan, her dream. If the combination of this morning's call out, and the trap they'd walked into were for real, it might force her to abandon an ambition she'd nursed since she was a teenager.
"Down here on the East Coast I'm just the little lady."
He shook his head slowly and reached for her face. "I didn't notice a plethora of men carrying white sticks." Swiping his thumb across her cheekbone, he said, "The male population of Nicks Landing must be blind." Then he held up his thumb and showed her a black smudge.
"Guess I'm just lucky they're not here today," she whispered, past a larynx rough as sand. She covered his knuckles with her hand, rubbing her thumb sinuously against his larger one where his print was just right for the taking.
And what about her? Was she ripe for the taking? Staring into his eyes, she looked past the shadows of old hurts, falling fathoms deep into his soul.
A crash behind her broke the spell, and she turned to see the roof falling through what was left of the second floor, down onto the first.
She shuddered. "We walked into a booby trap, didn't we?" Rowan nodded and left it at that. It was impossible to figure out whether it had been meant for Rocky or them.
Being an ex-cop, Rocky had known all the right buttons to push when he'd rushed into the station this morning. Maybe even been too convincing?
Ever the optimist, she acknowledged she hadn't given up. Never would. Her eyes narrowed, studying the thick black pall of smoke with Rowan's arm bumping against hers. A reminder that they'd survived together. Again.
As if the thin wail of a siren in the distance was a signal, they turned to each other. "Did you call them?" he asked.
She raised her eyebrows. "No, you?"
Rowan shook his head. "I was too busy being thankful we got out alive."
"And I was feeling ticked off. But you're right, we were lucky to get out alive. I'd no business feeling that way. But you need to understand, I'm not in the market for a hero, but I'm wide open for a partner."
Rowan's gaze clouded, hiding his thoughts. He never moved, yet she felt the distance between them widen.
"Hey, don't sweat it. I'm talking a week, seven days max. Not a commitment. Everyone knows you don't play on the romance circuit." She sweetened it with a smile, but it didn't take, sliding off her lips when she could swear Rowan growled.
He certainly had the haughty, king-of-the-beasts demeanor down pat. "Everyone?" he drawled.
"Well, I don't know about now..."
"Or maybe you simply don't want to know."
When had she given that impression? she wondered with more than an ounce of regret. Was it in the heat of the moment when his mouth had hovered close to hers? Had he actually wanted to kiss her? She'd never know now.
The arrival of the fire engines ended any further soul-searching. They roared up Lonely Track Road as if the end of the world was nigh. Jo squared her shoulders, telling herself the job called.
Then how come when she turned to Rowan, all she remembered was his lips descending toward hers?
She fished in a pocket for her cell phone. "I'd better give Harry the news," she explained, starting to dial. Silence. It was dead. "Blast, I think it broke when I fell."
"No, I'm sure it was me that broke." He ran the palm of his hand over his ribs. "Yeah, it was me."
"Okay, so I'm no lightweight, but trying to keep my balance on that plank wasn't easy. Lord, when that heart fell at my feet," she chuckled. "It was so gross. Who'd think like that?"
Icy fingers traced her spine as she replayed the moment.
"I'm sure that heart came from the Rimu Downs calf. It will be roasted to a cinder now. If only I'd hung on to the sack, forensics might have made a match." She shrugged away her regrets. "No point in crying over spilled blood."
"Once the fire cools get them to take a look for a pressure switch. If it wasn't hidden under Skelton's picture then my name's not McQuaid." Rowan made a choking noise.
She thumped his back as he sucked in breath. "You're right, it had to be a setup. But who was it meant for?" Who knew she'd like nothing more than to stomp on Rocky's face? If she and Rowan had become targets it could mean spending more time together watching each other's backs like the old days.
A smile crept out of its own accord as she complimented him, "Good thinking, Batman. I guess I should bone up on the technical stuff. It just hasn't seemed to matter since I moved away from the city. Guess I underestimated the local bad guys." She began to move away. "C'mon, let's go get my notebook. It's in the car and I don't want to forget anything."
"Talking about cars, we ought to move them out the way."
"Now there's a thought. I would hate to see that Jag of yours with its nose put out of joint. At least, not before I've had a chance to drive it."
He punched her lightly as they marched toward the fence line, keeping their distance from the fire. "That's one of the things I like about you, Jo. You don't call a spade a shovel."
"It may sound like I'm caught in a time warp, but I still contend honesty is the best policy." She stopped walking and squinted up at him. "While we're on the subject, you have this smudge, right about here." She stroked her fingers lightly across his cheekbone a few times more than necessary, simply for the pleasure of touching him. "There, all gone. How do I look?"
He took her question seriously. "Just a few sooty tear stains." A handkerchief appeared as if by sleight of hand and he held it up to her mouth. "Damp it, it's clean."
When she'd obeyed, Rowan wiped her face. "That's better, but if I were you, I'd button up your shirt. You wouldn't want to take the fire team's mind off their job."
Jo looked down and flushed. The view of her breasts curving up from the pink lace edging of her bra must be pretty good from Rowan's angle. Quickly, she fastened her buttons, not so much worried about putting the firemen off their stride, as wondering why she hadn't had the same effect on Rowan.
"Thanks, I'm in your debt. Again."
A frown creased his brow and the angle of his jaw tensed. "I'm not keeping score, Jo. But if I was, at a guess we'd be even. I would have died if it wasn't for the first aid you gave me at the vineyard. That's what counted. We were miles away from a hospital and you know they say it's the first hour that counts. The golden hour."
"There's still today."
"Consider that one a freebie. Besides, it doesn't count. As you said, you could have walked out yourself."
"Oh, no. I wouldn't have been walking. I'd have been flat out running. I'm not stupid."
Rowan reached the front of what used to be Rocky's house, when Jo's shaky sighs finally caught up with her.
She stopped abruptly, frozen to the spot.
"What's wrong?" he asked.
Firemen were running out hoses and water cascaded onto the steaming remains that had tumbled into the basement, but Rowan's attention was fixed on her.
"Did you ever feel you were running up and down on the spot?" She gestured in the house's direction. "All this work and we're no farther forward. It still could have been Rocky...or not."
She rubbed her hand over the bridge of her nose, frowning. "When it comes to the bull calf, do you think he has enough guts to eviscerate an animal that big?"
"I think he has guts enough for anything, except maybe standing up to his wife. But then again, if it was Skelton, who's to say he didn't have help?"
God, it was right under her nose and it had taken Rowan to clue her in. She'd been too focused on Rocky as chief suspect, she hadn't even contemplated the idea of him having assistance. Suddenly the world seemed brighter. She didn't mind looking for more than one culprit.
Filled with renewed fervor, she thought, bring them all on. I don't care how many as long as one of them is Rocky.
That's when she recognized the local fire chief heading their way. "Show time," she said to Rowan.
"Well, before we get too busy, what time do you want to meet me tomorrow?"
The fire must have turned her brain to jelly. "Tomorrow?"
She couldn't remember making any arrangements.
"Te Kohanga."
Blast, another day in the country. "Let me get back to you on that," she said. "I have to check the directions with Ginny and see if she's still telling the same story."
A quick tingle of annoyance brought her up short again. Was Rowan too fixated on proving these satanists existed? On the other hand if they found nothing, the scales would dip down on her side.
A few hours tramping through the bush was inevitable, she decided. What the heck? That kind of sacrifice, she could deal with. The ones that required rubber boots, she'd rather steer clear of.
Good grief, she must be tired. Another dreadful pun.
Jo reached Ginny's school just in time to watch the rainbow-colored stream of teenagers in their summer clothes, spill out of the high school barely moments after the bell sounded.
Picking out Ginny wasn't going to be as easy as she'd thought.
Finally, after thinking she'd spotted the redheaded girl five times, she caught sight of her in a group, walking slowly, heads together, giggling.
"Hey, Ginny, got a moment?"
Color swooped across her cheeks as she saw Jo. Quickly, she broke away from the group with no more than a perfunctory wave and an embarrassed glance over her shoulder at her friends. Her actions weren't those of a kid who'd laughed over being caught shoplifting with her peers.
Hoisting her bulging backpack more securely onto her shoulders, she lifted her gaze to Jo's almost defiantly. Her mouth cut a pale thin line across her face, and the rush of color had disappeared, making her freckles stand out. "I did what you asked, Detective Jo. Granny Monroe said she'd call you."
"And she did. Very pleased she was, too. You might want to look in on her now and then. She sounded as if having company was a rare occurrence."
"I know and I will, she kept wanting me to stop working to sit and have tea. I didn't mind," she hurried to assure her. "And I will go back. She was nice and I don't have a grandma."
"Good idea, but that wasn't why I wanted to speak with you. I don't want you and any of your friends going up to Te Kohanga Park at Halloween. If what you heard was true, it could prove dangerous and I don't want to have to go chasing through the bush looking for you."
She grinned at Ginny, pretending to shudder. "Too many creepy crawlies. I just hate bugs."
That made Ginny laugh. How was she to know Jo was telling the truth? A truth that fell way short of kidding.
"I wanted to tell you about a Halloween party that St. Michael's church is throwing. All are welcome, so take your friends. It'll be fun."
Yeah, right.
Ginny didn't need to say the words, they were written all over her face. "Listen, I kid you not, no fuddy-duddies, just cool fun like bobbing for eyeballs, pretty gross stuff like that. It's run by the youth group and from what I hear there are a lot of potential babes among them. You should try it out."
Ginny's demeanor brightened at the mention of babes. Jo sighed. Did she know how to read her or what?
"Maybe I'll give it a look in. I can't be too late anyway. I'm doing a paper route, filling in for someone who's sick so I have to get up early," she informed Jo, making sure she realized visiting the park had been out anyway. "If I do a good job, they said I can have a route of my own."
"Well, that's excellent news. I knew you had a good head on your shoulders." Slipping her hand into her pants pocket, Jo pulled out a small paper bag. "Here," she said handing it to Ginny. "You might want to wear these."
She could tell Ginny realized what was inside long before she ripped open the bag. "Oh, the pink ones. Thanks, they're so cool!"
"No problem. Now, would you like a ride home? On the way, you can tell me exactly where you heard that cult was meeting."
T he morning after the fire, Rowan stood outside Jo's address, ready for a day of trekking through the bush. To the rhythm of his boots on the brick path winding between intensive plantings, he weighed up Jo's seeming unwillingness to discuss today's project.
Fact number one, they were going at his insistence. Fact number two, if he'd given her the slightest excuse to bail out, she would have jumped at it. He'd never found Jo to be quite so fixed in her ideas when they'd worked together in Auckland.
Yet, she had tunnel vision when it came to Skelton. One had to assume the man's past association with her father in Auckland to be at the root of it. So far, she hadn't brought him up to speed.
Some would say he'd been paid in his own coin.
Secrets, everyone had them.
No matter. If the cult, satanists, black magic, whatever name they went by, were liable to meet in Te Kohanga Park, he'd rather check out the lay of the land in daylight. He was a planner. Always had been. Give him a pencil, paper and a situation and he'd do the groundwork and come up with a scheme. Stumbling around blindfolded wasn't his thing.
And truth be told he'd enjoyed pulling the rug out from her reluctance. Seeing Jo at a loss for words had been a new experience. Before they'd parted company last night, he'd arranged for an expert to check out the fire, and the farm manager, whom he'd known for years, to deliver the bull calf to the pathologist's door.
Rowan leaped up the four steps to the porch. He'd barely caught hold of the wizened face decorating the knocker, when the door swung open. Until that moment, he'd thought himself familiar with every shade of red hair in existence. But one look at the mass of vermilion curls, flaring like sunbursts against the shadowy background of the hallway, and he did a double take.
A quick indrawn gasp, tangled with the words in his throat and his, "Does Jo Jellic live here?" barely scraped out in some sort of order.
Birdlike, the woman's bright blue eyes scrutinized him with open curiosity tempered by the warmth of her smile. Looking him up and down, she nodded in a way that told him he passed muster.
"You'll be Rowan, then. Jo will be out in a second." Her soft burr caught him a sneaky sucker punch, echoing his mother's accent and the way she'd pronounced his name. She'd always turned the first syllable into an ow instead of an oh.
"I'm Moira MacGregor," she introduced herself, slipping a fine-boned hand into the one he'd offered automatically. Her warm dry skin felt as if it would crush like tissue paper, but it was her long purple nails that drew his gaze. As he glanced down, Moira's skirts, which were reminiscent of a seventies op-shop relic, swayed outward revealing a ginger cat. The final touch of eccentricity.
Tail held high, the cat shimmied against his legs, winding in and out between his boots. The thrum of its purring vibrated in its chest like a boom box. "Nice cat." Long claws. Its tail twitched, flicking his shin as if it read his mind.
Moira cocked her head and nodded decisively. "You'll do. Spoiler likes you."
"Spoiler?" he repeated. Strange name for a cat. Then he remembered those claws and had a vision of a sofa with its stuffing spilling in all directions.
"Once I had him he spoiled me for any other cat."
There was no answer to that, but he needn't have worried. Moira hadn't finished. "It was time you got here."
He flicked his wrist. Eight fifty-five. "Actually, I'm early."
"No, no, I meant time you got here for Jo. Her sex life has been sadly lacking since she got to Nicks Landing."
Stumped again. But he wasn't about to discuss Jo's sex life with a woman he'd known less than two minutes.
Thankfully, Jo appeared behind Moira. Saved! He could have kissed her, but that would only have encouraged Moira.
One heart-stopping glance at Jo's glowing features and he wondered why her sex life was nonexistent. What man in his right mind could look at her and not want her the way he did?
"I guess we'd better make a move," said Jo.
"I'm ready if you are." Damn right he was ready.
He'd been thinking of her more and more since he came to Nicks Landing. In fact, she was never far from his mind. If he wasn't thinking about working on the case with her, he was wondering how she'd fit in his arms. His bed.
Dipping her head, Jo bussed Moira on the cheek, then sniffed at the back of her hand as she straightened. "Ooh, this bug repellant you mixed is disgusting. I just hope that it works."
"It'll work...but only on the bugs," she said with a laugh, then pulled Jo closer and whispered in her ear.
"Okay, I'll remember," she said, but as she didn't color, he gathered Moira hadn't reopened the subject of Jo's sex life.
Letting Jo lead the way meant having to grin-and-bear the enticing view from behind. Someone ought to fine jean makers for using too little cloth. They played havoc with his equilibrium.
His resolve was all but shot.
The sooner he was out of Nicks Landing the better. The longer he stayed, the more his resistance weakened. And no way did he intend turning his life into the living hell his father had endured the last two years of his life.
Jo settled back into the softness of the fine leather seat, watching Rowan's hands on the steering wheel. Capable and controlled, that was him in a nutshell. Just once, she'd like to see him let go. "Now that we're outside the town limits, are you going to let me see what this baby can do?"
"Ah-ha, police entrapment? I go over the limit and you hand out a ticket." He threw her a white grin, but kept the Jag slightly below the allowed speed.
"That's the difference between us, McQuaid. I can be tempted. How can you not let this dream machine rip?"
"What? You think I'm not human? I can be tempted all right."
Talk about the pot sniping at the kettle. Who was she to imply Rowan needed to get a life? Until he hit town she hadn't realized how lonely she was for someone who understood her, who spoke the same language. Until he hit town, she hadn't realized how ready she was for a loving relationship, or remembered the last time her blood fizzed in her veins at the thought of seeing a man.
"You didn't tell me that your landlady was a hippie."
She spun in her seat. "Moira? Lord, she's not a hippie, she's a naturopath, a woman with her own individual style. So what if it's colorful? She's comfortable with it."
Rowan's glance left the road for a second, and a smile tugged the corners of his mouth. "I've no doubt that she's a law unto herself, but how do you get used to that hair?"
"Same way I got used to your moustache."
Curious, she licked her lips. How would it feel? What were the chances of tasting his mouth before he shaved it off? There was that moment yesterday when he'd bent toward her and the flame in his eyes definitely hadn't been the reflection of Rocky's house burning. Then she'd blown it. One of these days she'd learn when not to speak out of turn. Now she'd probably never know how it felt to kiss Rowan. Unless she took the initiative.
Time to get real. "I don't notice Moira's little foibles anymore, they're just part of who she is."
"Hopefully growing cannabis isn't one of her foibles. That's some garden she has."
"I think I'd notice if she'd gone to competition with the Smale brothers...." Oh, darn. The guy in the pub had the same name as the guy Bull arrested. It just went to show her instincts still functioned even if they hadn't clicked straight off. Oh well, better late than never. Bull had stuck her with the grunge jobs for so long, it was a wonder those instincts hadn't atrophied.
"You were saying?" Rowan asked as the yellow finger of a road sign appeared ahead.
"Nothing important."
The subject dropped out of the conversation as quietly as Rowan slipped the stick shift down a cog, saying, "This is the turnoff for the park."
The scenery merged from fields to tall trees, and the view of the local volcano, Tane's Throat, hugging the shoreline as the south side of the park became hidden behind them.
"What was all the whispering as we left?" he turned his head slightly, one eyebrow lifting mockingly.
Right about then, the Jag hit a patch of rough gravel. The wheels spun as clouds of dust concealed the road behind them.
"From here on in, McQuaid, you'd be smart to keep your eyes on the road. It would be humiliating all round if we had to call in to have someone tow us out of a ditch. You wouldn't want Moira's prediction to come true."
"Prediction?"
"She's very superstitious. Seems there were rings around the moon last night and she says that means trouble. She told me to take care. By the way, she thinks this is a social outing."
After half an hour of riding the bare ruts in the gravel, the road ended at a fenced-off parking lot with a sign on the five-bar gate which read, No Cars Past This Point.
"Make sure your boots are laced up tight," he said, swinging the Jag into the shade of a tree. "It's rough going from here on. I wouldn't want you to sprain an ankle."
She rested each boot in turn on the wooden bench of a picnic table to redo the laces. "How come you're such an authority?"
"Didn't anybody tell you? I grew up round here."
For once, she didn't blurt out the first thing that came to mind and settled for the second. "So, that explains Bull and Harry being so cooperative."
"From Ginny's description, this looks like the path we want."
"I guess you'd know since you grew up in Nicks Landing."
"You're not going to let it go, are you? Personally, I can't make out what the big deal is. I didn't lie to you. The subject simply never came up."
Too bad he hadn't thought to claim Nicks Landing as his hometown the day he arrived. Rowan would be the first to admit his life wasn't an open book; some of the pages had stuck together, their contents hidden. Things he'd avoided dealing with. Others he'd turned the corners over, places to remember, like the day he met Jo. And where the words blurred? Well, that was the difference between secrets and lies.
He planted his boot firmly on the ground and pushed on, up a path crowded with ferns and seedlings. As if his conscience wasn't troubling him enough, walking side by side, continuously, trying not to brush against her had become torture. Easier to suggest, "You go ahead. I'll follow."
Her gaze flicked uncertainly from him to the path ahead. "Maybe you'd better lead. I'll only slow us down."
Her obvious reluctance might have been amusing, if it hadn't been threaded with fear. What was up with her? It was so beautiful here, especially at this spot with the sun slanting through the gap in the treetops where a giant puriri had been toppled, in a storm no doubt. Even in the green shade, the air was steamy enough to bring him out in a sweat, yet Jo had been walking for thirty-five minutes, and the sleeves of her shirt were still buttoned up tight, as tight as her mood.
"Maybe you could travel faster if you loosened up a little." He flicked a finger at the top button of her denim shirt. "Aren't you the least bit hot?"
She patted the button as if to make sure it was shut tight. "Just a little," she replied, eyeing the path ahead.
Brushing his fingers through his sweat-dampened hair, he asked, "What's worrying you? You know there aren't any snakes in the New Zealand bush."
"Bugs." A visible shudder rippled through her. "I hate them. Have you seen the size of some of those wettas?"
The expression on her face startled a laugh out of him. He kicked at a rotten log, testing. "Like those you mean, with the long wriggly feelers?"
He regretted it the moment she squealed and danced back.
"Joking, just joking."
Remembering Jo, heart rolling at her feet while she batted the flies with the bag attracting them, he shook his head, saying, "I never thought you'd be scared of anything."
"You didn't have four brothers who thought dropping spiders and beetles down your back was a great joke."
"No, I didn't. Didn't know about your brothers, either," he replied, insinuating that her past was as much a mystery as his. "I had two brothers. One older, one younger, but they never played those tricks on me. Something we used to do, though, you know the house where you're rooming? Haggetty House?"
"What about it?"
"The house stood empty for years when I was a kid. The grass even grew through the floor of the porch. In fact it was so long, it practically pushed down the fence.
"We used to dare each other to see who could run through all the rooms without getting caught or peeing their pants. You see, we always thought the house was haunted."
Now Jo lived there.
He guessed in his case, time had proved him right.
A residual shiver from his youth ran through him and he laughed. "I remember the last time I dived through that door as if my shirttail was on fire. Those were the days."
Before everything turned to crap.
"I'll tell you what, if you lead, I'll watch your back for bugs. Okay?"
Big mistake. The way she filled out those jeans was making him damned uncomfortable. For him, watching her back pockets sway in front of him was a mating call. Jo might be tall, but no one could deny she was womanly. Her waist narrow; her bottom heart-shaped where her jeans hugged it tight. Using his eye to gauge her size, he bet she'd fit his hands like a pair of gloves.
Luckily, for sanity's sake, he'd eased back a few paces so when she stopped abruptly he didn't bump into her. "What's up?"
Her voice was whisper thin. "There's something in my hair."
When they'd started off, her hair had been knotted at the back of her head, and though the terrain wasn't particularly rugged, a run-in earlier with a tree fern had pulled a few strands loose. Rowan moved closer. "Are you asking me to rescue you?"
Her voice quivered between laughter and fear, "Please."
Two little feather-shaped fronds clung to her hair. "It's only bits of tree fern. I'll get it for you," he said, capturing one of the delicate green culprits to hand to her.
Taking the other miniature frond, Rowan drew it gently down her cheek, tickling her under the chin, before he realized what he was doing. These last few days had to be the longest he'd spent continuously in her company. Continually avoiding temptation.
For a moment neither spoke. The air crackled like a storm was about to hit. Way back, in his subliminal mind, Rowan acknowledged it would be so easy to grasp the moment, take Jo in his arms and kiss her till she clung to him and begged for mercy.
A great rush of heat blistered his skin from the inside out. Then the breeze picked up, shivering through the tops of the nikau palms and making the tall slender branches of the kanuka clack against each other, like warning drums.
An answering beat thrummed in his temple. Do it...do it...do it. He'd had years of practice at not responding to that inner voice. Years of wanting Jo. What would another few hours or days matter? The voice in his head laughed.
Both of them knew there was more going on than a surfeit of self-control, but neither of them was game enough to admit the truth. He handed her the other frond. "The rescue's on the house. After all the excitement I could murder a drink. Want one?"
He watched her swallow hard as his fingers ripped the Velcro fasteners apart the way he'd torn the tension building between them. Digging deep inside the pack, he grabbed the water bottle, his knuckles brushing the fruit he'd pushed in the pack as he left the boat. "Or would you rather have an apple?"
Her face relaxed, her eyelashes fluttering on her cheek and the tension fled on a mutual release of breath. "Haven't you got your genders mixed, McQuaid? It was Eve who offered the apple." Her eyes widened and sunlight flickered in them. "Or maybe there really are snakes in the New Zealand bush."
He watched her teeth dig into the red skin. Heard the crisp snap as the white flesh broke away and the sweet juice dribble down the side of her palm. Stared like a man dying of thirst as she licked her hand.
Playing the if-you-can't-beat-'em-join-'em game, Rowan bit down hard on a second apple and sucked up the juice. It was probably the closest he would get to sharing the same sweet taste as Jo.
Rowan let her get a few steps ahead before she heard him follow. She wasn't sure what had happened back there. Suddenly, she no longer felt the urge to jump each time a twig or frond snapped back into place.
Taking one last bite of the apple, she wrapped the remains in a tissue she had in her pocket and stuffed it into the small waterproof pouch on the side of her backpack.
Paying more attention to her surroundings, she became aware of a profound truth. In the rain forest, life and death existed hand in hand. Fallen leaves and branches rotted on the ground feeding the trees, while high up in the canopy birds dined on their berries, letting their droppings fall to the moist humus below. And so the cycle continued. Everything had its own part to play in the rhythm of the bush.
Lord, her thoughts were melancholy, yet she felt exactly the opposite. The day had taken an unexpected twist for the better and she'd begun enjoying herself.
Maybe it was the company? For sure it was the company.
For an exquisite moment in time earlier, she'd been completely aware of Rowan and nothing else. Not the bush, or the bugs, only the way his mouth opened around the apple and the relish he'd eaten it with. She'd wanted him to kiss her. Known she'd wanted him to. Prayed he'd take her in his arms.
The setting of the park was magical. Its full name, Te Kohanga o Nga Atua translated into "the nest," or "birthplace of the gods."
One night, Moira had told her of the legend, of a beautiful young Maori wahine seduced by one of the gods, perhaps Tane. The sad part of the story was the maiden died giving birth. As for her son, he leaped off the cliffs onto the wave caps to join his people. Even today, the birds skimming the waves called his name.
She could hear those waves now, washing over the rocks. It had to be high tide. Looking back over her shoulder, she hesitated and Rowan almost fell over her. Reaching out to steady himself he gripped her shoulder.
She'd been too deep in thought to realize he was virtually walking on her heels. The heavy green smell of the bush couldn't compete with the mix of Rowan's spicy scent and good honest sweat. She gulped. Instead of calming the tingling sensation in the pit of her stomach she tasted him. Rowan.
It took all her willpower to ask, "Do you think we ought to call this track a nonevent and turn back?"
"No. The path hasn't narrowed any and that, to my mind, means there has to be something at the end of it."
She should step away, but couldn't bring herself to move. Her position was awkward, looking up at him from over her shoulder, the cords in her neck taut from the tension whirling inside her.
This close she could see the pores in his skin and the stark maleness of the new growth of beard shadowing his chin below the tantalizing challenge of that moustache. Would she enjoy the feel if he kissed her? Would it mark her skin, leaving a reminder of how good it had been? Somehow, she just knew it would be good....
"Do you want me to take the lead now?"
Duh! How was that for getting her wires crossed? While she'd been salivating at the thought of his kiss, Rowan had more fitting matters in mind. "Yeah, sure. You go on ahead."
If the measure of his stride was anything to go by she'd definitely been slowing him down. Not that she was complaining. From this vantage point, she had a good eyeful of the length of the legs taking those strides. Like her, he'd pulled on jeans that weren't quite past their use-by date, but close enough to it that a snag or tear wouldn't matter. The jeans fit him like a glove, the soft denim cupping his butt, clinging lovingly to his thighs.
One second she'd been considering Rowan's butt and the next he'd disappeared. An intense feeling of déjà vu brought her up short as she remembered the time she'd lost track of Max.
She plunged after him and was on her second "Rowan!" when she hit something solid. Warm and solid. "Lord," she breathed out shakily, less from anxiety than from feel of muscle rippling under her palms. "I thought I'd lost you."
Just when the temptation to wrap her arms round him and cling became overpowering, Rowan looked down at her and grinned. Taking a few steps forward, he let her through until they stood shoulder to shoulder and she saw what had stopped him in his tracks.
About five of Rowan's strides from where they stood was a tall, straight tree covered in flowers. Fascinated, Jo drew closer.
On any normal tree the bracts would have grown high overhead, surrounded by leaves. These pale green beauties on long delicate stems sprang from the bark itself, flowing down the trunk and cascading from the branches overhead. "I've never seen anything like it," she murmured. Tilting her head back, she looked up into a shower of soft, green-tinged blossoms.
Rowan joined her under the tree. "It's a kohekohe. We used to have one in the garden at home when I was a boy." He lifted one hand and caressed a stream of velvety blooms, letting them flow through his fingers. "We're lucky to see this. Most of them have died out in the wild."
"They remind me of the decorations on a Japanese bride's headdress," she said, with a breathless sigh.
"I never knew you were a romantic."
She slipped around the tree, refusing to answer till she'd sorted out her feelings. Romance led to things she no longer craved, or so she'd told herself. Things like wedding bells and commitment. Oh no, she was too wise to let her hopes turn in that direction. She'd been burned too many times by men with smart talk and even smarter lies.
Yet, her heart began to pound as her gaze caught sight of another kohekohe and another. A whole ring of them, each separated by a tree where no flowers grew.
They had come to the end of their search.
The magic circle.
Suddenly the trees lost some of their charm.
"Looks as if Ginny was spot on," said Rowan.
While her glance had encircled the margins, his had been snagged by a ring of stones in the center filled with cold ashes. Not a blade of grass grew between the trees and the stones, not even a bird-sown sapling, yet life-giving sun shone through the hole in the canopy. Jo smartly covered the ground between the tree she'd been standing under and the one next to it. Ugly red fruit grew out of its trunk like weeping boils. A more fitting tree than the other for guarding the borders of a demonic haunt. "What type of tree is this? Do you know?"
Rowan glanced over his shoulder as he paced the distance between the stones outside the ring round the fire. "That's still the same tree. One in flower, the other in fruit. Harry's father used to say the kohekohe had a longer gestation period than an elephant."
As Rowan turned his attention to measuring distances, she fumed inwardly over nefarious louts using loveliness for evil ends. "I don't think I like this place."
"Yeah, it's kind of lost its glamour for me, too."
As Rowan paced, Jo picked up a fallen twig by her feet and walked into the center, saying, "You're doing it all wrong. Here, let me show you."
Poking the stick into the dirt she began to draw a line. "See, like this. There are five rocks, which means they're probably the points of a pentagram with the fire in the middle. The line stretches from here to there and on round the boulders in a continuous line."
A longer twig might help, she thought, swiping at a strand of hair blocking her vision. She was at the fourth point when the blood started pounding in her head. It's only from bending over, she told herself, yet her breathing grew more shallow until it barely reached her lungs. Perspiration bathed the back of her neck, her breasts grew heavy and the tops of her thighs ached. Still she kept on; she wanted to finish. Had to finish.
Her eyes lifted to Rowan. He stood statue still, staring at her. Energy jangled the air around him. His stillness was that of a jungle cat studying its prey. A glow lurked deep in his eyes, penetrating, intense, escaping shadows of his brow.
Stumbling slightly, she dropped the marker, overcome by a feeling of giddiness. A rushing filled her ears as she bent to retrieve it. She had to finish. Only a few feet to go.
Rowan was there before her, grasping the stick, throwing it aside. "No more, Jo. No more," he growled. His hands circled the tops of her arms, drawing her hard against his chest.
Her gaze swam and Rowan's features with it, but it couldn't disguise the intense hunger shaping them. His heart pounded against her palms as they slid up his chest to twine around his neck. The heat inside her spiraled near flash point, and surges of desire repeatedly jolted her until her body shook.
"What's happening, Rowan?" she asked breathlessly. "I don't understand. What is this place doing to me?"
His answer roared through her head as if carried on a tempest. "Damned if I know, but it's brought out the devil in me!" And with that, he covered her mouth with his in a knee-buckling kiss draining her life force, leaving her weak, wanting more.
It felt as if all his life, all he had ever wanted was this.
Jo.
Her hands on him. His hands on her. And her taste? There had never been anything like it for him, never would be again.
Her mouth tasted of flavors he'd only dreamed about, never expecting to indulge in. Sweet flavors. Honey, bloodred wine and spices that heightened the senses. One sip alone would live on in his memory, but would never fill him.
The velvet touch of Jo's tongue brushing his wasn't enough.
He wanted more.
He wanted deeper.
Rowan angled his mouth over hers.
A flash of pain smote his head with the knowledge he would never get enough. Never be satisfied. Never fulfilled.
The thought drove him crazy.
Her hands gripped tight on the back of his shirt and ripped it out of his jeans. He felt her nails anchor in his skin, holding on to him like a lifeline. They both shook and he couldn't tell where her shudders ended and his began.
He cupped the nape of her neck with both hands and pressed his thumbs under her jaw until her head tilted back farther. He drove his tongue inside her mouth, mimicking the end they both sought, both fought for.
The inside of her mouth was a potpourri of textures laid out for him to enjoy---velvet, satin, pearls. The rasp of her tongue. The softness inside her cheek. The hardness of her teeth. He savored them all. Her swollen lips throbbed from his caresses. He sucked the lower one into his mouth and caught it between his teeth.
Jo moaned and the sound filled his insides with a fire that threatened to consume him. Consume them both.
His hands raced down her back and dived under her T-shirt.
There was more to come. More to experience.
Jo's hips thrust against his and the terrible ache in his groin flexed, seeking the curve of her belly even as the fullness of her breasts filled his hands, pebbling against the center of his palms.
He squeezed tight. Tighter.
Jo let out a desperate mewl from deep inside her throat. He swallowed it down. Swallowed her passion and thrust his thigh between hers when it looked like they might fall as her hands scrabbled to undo the buckle at his waist.
An intrusive vision blasted Rowan's mind. Jo naked, spread-eagled on the dirt and himself over her, the marks of her nails like bloodred scars on his back as they lay in the center of the pentagram she had drawn.
A pounding grew in his head and paced him thrust for thrust. Pounding...pounding...flesh slapping against flesh in a feverish animalistic search for release.
Lashed by lust and almost blind from the fires the picture lit in his mind, he gripped Jo by the shoulders and pushed her away. The anguish and frustration roaring inside his head poured out of his mouth in a curse. He could hardly tell real from imaginary.
He only knew that if he didn't get them away from this place, the vision would become fact and the ritualistic undertones made him sick to his gut.
Only the superior length of his arms protected him from Jo's protests, her eager hands reaching out to touch him. He dare not let her near, or all his good intentions would come undone.
"What are you doing?" she yelled as he frustrated her attempts to draw him back into a carnal whirlpool of selfish needs that would suck them under; steal their humanity and spit them out, having taken the best of them.
He gave her shoulders a short, sharp shake. "Stop it, Jo. Stop it now. Look at me. This place is evil. It's put us under a spell. Bewitched us. We have to leave while we still can."
If he'd taken an old black-and-white photo and painted the lips scarlet that would have been Jo. Her eyes were huge, dark and dazed. Her face drawn and white. Yet, the red fullness of her lips had come from his teeth mauling them. At some stage he'd removed the pins from her hair and it hung in wild, tousled abandonment round her shoulders where his hands had done their damage.
She was breathing hard. They both were.
Their ragged breaths filled the silence between them as he kept her at arm's length and watched her breasts tremble on a long drawn-out sigh, remembering the weight of them in his hands.
They had to get out of here. Now!
Loosing his grip on her, Rowan bent down and snagged both their packs from the ground where he'd tossed them aside without even noticing. Standing up, wrapping his other arm round Jo, his hand tight on her shoulder, he walked her out of the circle.
Beyond the ring of trees at last, he turned and let his gaze rest on her face, gratified to find an uncertain, half-embarrassed smile. After such an experience, fear might have been the result. Fear of him. He couldn't bear the thought of her cringing away from his touch.
His hands trembled, grazing the tops of her arms where he held her steady. "You were right about that place. We're better off standing on the outside, looking in. What do you think, are you starting to feel somewhat normal?"
Nodding, she called his name as he headed toward the ring of trees. "Wait here. I'll only be a moment." His hands fisted inside his jeans pockets, as if that was the only way he could keep them off her. He needed this time away from her to calm down. The whole situation was just plain weird.
What the hell had gotten into him?
"I'm going to use an old Native American trick I learned at the movies. Once I've brushed away that pentagram no one will know we've been here," he called out.
The most handy twig was a length of manuka covered in black, honeydew mold that stained his hand. However, he willingly conceded it was better than the darkness that had stained his soul when he held Jo in his arms inside the accursed circle. Even now, he could feel it prowling the air, waiting to pounce the moment he let down his guard.
Never again.
He wanted Jo. And doubted that would ever change. But if they ever got to know each other in the biblical sense, he didn't want their first joining driven by some outside force. Driven by feral lust. How could he make a memory he didn't dare remember or retain his integrity and Jo's trust?
Tossing away the twig, Rowan dusted his hands on his jeans, then tucked in his shirt and fastened his belt. His back stung where her nails had gripped him, but didn't feel sticky with the blood he'd seen in his imagination.
His conscience eased slightly when he noticed color had seeped back into Jo's face. She'd tidied her hair, though it would never look the same to him. Who could forget their first encounter with perfumed silk?
Not him.
"I don't know about you, but I could go for a cup of coffee." Then he remembered tossing their packs. His mouth pulled to one side on a rueful, "Aw, hell. I hope I didn't break the vacuum flask!"
"You're in luck. It's a stainless-steel one. Unbreakable," she said, her smile playing hide-and-seek with him as she took her pack from his hands.
Thankfully, the coffee was safe. He wished he could say the same about Jo; he'd never seen her look so fragile. "Let's head for the sea. I've a sudden yen for fresh air, sunshine and the feel of wind on my face."
"Me, too," she said, looking up at him. Her eyes were huge and darkly luminous in the dim light, as if washed with tears.
He felt he'd been ripped open and a giant fist was squeezing his heart. Aw damn. What had happened to his defenses? Sucking damp green air into his lungs as deep as it would go, Rowan slung his day pack over his shoulder. "Let's get out of here." As far as he was concerned it couldn't be a minute too soon.
W ow! The situation back there had gotten pretty scary. When was the last time she'd tried to rip a man's shirt off his back?
Never.
Jo colored up at the thought, glad she followed in Rowan's footsteps. She'd much prefer to be alone when she downloaded the memory of her incredulous response to Rowan's kisses. The most erotic five minutes of her life. Five minutes she wouldn't forget in a hurry. Five minutes better viewed from a distance.
Lord, just thinking about it made her heart race.
"Watch where you put your feet. There are a lot of roots breaking through the surface. Mind how you go."
Too late. She'd already turned off at a side road filled with twists and turns. Heaven only knew where it would end.
The situation had been explosive. One touch from him and she'd gone off like a stick of dynamite with a short fuse. Who'd have thought after all that time, working side by side? She'd never imagined his kiss could pack such a wallop. Never thought of him in that light. Never once, until he'd arrived in her office.
Since then, the attraction had been skirting round the edges of her mind, but she'd refused to give it its head.
He was only here for a week, after all. Not even that, now that they'd discovered the ring of trees wasn't a figment of Ginny's imagination. But what if there was a way...a way he could stay a bit longer....
The sooner she forgot how it felt to be plastered against the front of his body, the sooner she could set her mind to work out ways and means to keep him here.
However convenient an excuse---and why should they need one?---she couldn't go along with Rowan's bewitched theory. No sense in making excuses. The desire they felt for each other had existed pre-Te Kohanga Park. The heat and the lush tropical setting had simply magnified it.
Rowan would soon come around to her way of thinking. He'd been a skeptic from way back. Good grief, she'd even known him to raise an eyebrow at some of Max's comments about Maggie's psychic powers. "Hell, Max," he'd said, "sure she's beautiful, but we all know her history."
Now Maggie she could believe in. She'd known her forever. The two of them had roomed together at St. Margaret's boarding school. And Rowan couldn't argue about Maggie's dreams being instrumental in catching a serial killer. The last case they'd worked together on in Auckland.
It was laughable that now he'd have her believe some nasty spirit had had them in its power. She'd give him maybe half an hour, an hour max, to change his mind.
She trailed after Rowan, both of them lost in their own thoughts, until his "Will you look at that" made her stop.
Rowan stepped aside. Light, so bright after the dim green bush, made her eyes squint as the reflection of sun on the water dazzled them.
"What a view." She walked forward carefully to the top of the cliff, letting the breeze turn her hair into a mass of tangles as she stood watching the waves. Amazed at her own intrepidity.
Next stop Antarctica.
With her history, the simple act of looking out to sea, on this East Coast cliff top, knowing there was nothing else out there was like taking away a child's security blanket. She had this standing-on-the-edge-of-the-earth-ready-to-fall-off feeling.
Away from the city lights she got the same sensation, looking up at the dark velvet of a clear night sky, studded with stars close enough to reach out and pluck down. But, the moment she remembered some of those twinkling lights were bigger than the sun, she started to shrink.
She'd hate anyone to know she could be so vulnerable. At six feet tall, she'd always had to be one of the big-enough-to-do-it-for-herself types. At least, that's how the three youngest of her brothers and her male colleagues in the force had treated her. Like a no-nonsense woman, both feet planted firmly on the ground with nary a thought of shooting stars in her head.
Boy, she was getting maudlin.
"Let's move on and find a spot sheltered from the wind."
Glad of the distraction, she merely nodded her agreement. They walked south along the cliff top in the direction of Nicks Landing until she moaned. "Aren't you hungry? I am. So hungry I could eat my boots if forced to...maybe even yours."
Rowan had always been famous for his big feet, so he just grinned, asking, "Will this spot do?" He swung the packs toward a clump of shrubby pittosporums, heaving them onto the grass.
"Looks good to me. Plenty of sunshine and sheltered from the wind." Jo opened her backpack, the one with the coffee and sandwiches, and tossed the largest packet to Rowan who had thrown himself down on the grass. Taking an orange nylon parka out of a zipped compartment, she spread it out to sit on, thus avoiding any creepy crawlies, facing Rowan, elbows balanced on her knees.
She was fascinated by the movement of his throat as he swallowed, but tickled by the way his fingers wiped his moustache, taking care of any crumbs. She touched her top lip remembering how it had brushed against it.
"Mmm, these are good," he said, as she handed him a cup of coffee and he settled back, leaning against a clump of spiky, yellow grass, content to eat in silence and soak up the sun.
Rowan had demolished eight sandwiches to her three and downed two cups of coffee while she was still on her first.
"Are you ever going to shave off that moustache?"
"Why, don't you like it?"
"I don't know. I haven't tasted you without it," she said, feeling safe to be slightly bolder, sitting out here in the open. She lowered her lids as she realized it was happening again. With Rowan she felt like a butterfly newly escaped from its cocoon, testing its wings. In other words, she had that fluttery sensation round her heart again.
She saw none of her own insecurities reflected in Rowan's eyes. Instead he said, "Maybe once the scar fades, you can come up to Auckland and find out for yourself."
The rough, dry, crenellated edge to his tone proved beyond a doubt he didn't believe it would ever happen.
She balanced her chin on her arms and looked at her toes. He meant to leave soon. Now that, too, was out in the open.
Had it only been three days since he arrived? How would she stand it when he was gone? The thought of going back to lonely days and even lonelier nights overwhelmed her. Soon she'd need to decide between staying in a much-loved career that was killing her, and giving it up to return to Auckland and a new life.
Maybe she'd surprise Rowan yet. She flicked a glance at him through her lashes and found him staring at her.
"Know what's been bugging me?" His question was as lazy as his body language. Rowan's feet crossed at the ankles, and with his legs at full stretch the distance between them shrank. Soft, worn, bleached-at-the-seams denim clung to his thighs and cupped the maleness he had pressed against her.
She knew she was staring but couldn't drag her eyes away as she responded to his question. An answer as brief as it was hard to drag out. "Not a clue."
"How'd you know about Skelton's vasectomy?"
The question popped into the conversation with all the aplomb of a ballerina picking her way on points across a barnyard. Jo felt about as steady, lifting her gaze to his face.
The other night, she'd known as soon as she'd made the remark it was a mistake. And now she was going to have to pay for it. "It wasn't through any personal association, if that's what you're thinking."
"Nothing was further from my mind. It's obvious you can't stand the man. Hell, you've been doing your damnedest to nail him for fraud and arson since I got here, and probably before. Guess I'm pretty safe in thinking there's no love lost between you two."
"That's not even the half of it. Did you know my father was a cop and Rocky was his partner?"
"Skelton mentioned it."
Huh, it was worse than she thought. Rocky had got in first with his poison. "I'll just bet he did. And I'll stake my life on him giving you the old wink-wink-nudge-nudge-know-what-I-mean routine."
Rowan sat up, alert, the laziness dropped from his manner and his voice. "He tried, but I wouldn't listen. If you can't bring yourself to tell me, then I don't want hear it from anyone else."
"Well, it's a matter of record. Not mine, but it might well have been. I had a lot to live down when I first joined the force, but I made it. Sometimes it's harder battling what people think they know about you than the actual truth."
"Tell me about it," he said, slapping his thigh.
Jo caught his drift immediately. She'd heard the rumors they were going to amputate his leg and they'd scared her spitless. She'd felt like a rookie pitcher with all the bases loaded and the other team's best man up at bat.
All the air in her lungs came out in one big huff. Revealing her past wasn't something she did every day. Not even every year.
"Getting back to Rocky. I discovered his secret by eavesdropping. Don't get me wrong, I'd have been around eleven at the time, griping to my grandmother about too many chores. She brought me up, and had this saying about idle hands---"
"What happened to your mom?"
"I never knew her. As I came into the world she went out. We were a close-knit family then, even though my father had to work all hours. The budget was pretty tight back then and with five kids, the overtime didn't go amiss." She didn't want him thinking she was looking for sympathy, so she looked away, avoiding his eyes.
Blades of yellowed grass drifted across the toes of her boots. As she watched, a seed head tangled in her bootlaces. It was then she realized her hands were plucking nervously at the dry stalks.
Jo dropped the grass and wrapped her arms round her knees. "Anyway, I was sitting on the window seat that day, hiding behind the curtain and reading a book. It was dinnertime and Dad had just come in." She didn't mention she'd been ready to leap down with a demand to hear the latest on the big case he was working on. Or that she'd held back when her father had begun telling Grandma about Rocky. Her long-held romance with becoming a cop sounded kind of childish from this distance. Like a fairy tale without the happy ending.
"I remember him saying he'd been working on his own that day as Rocky had gone for a vasectomy. Not that I knew what it meant at that age, but when Grandma went off the deep end, saying it was a sin against God and Rocky should be ashamed... Well, as you can imagine, I had to look it up. That's why it stuck with me."
She laughed at the memory. "When Grandma started ranting about sins against God, you just knew it had to be something really bad. How the world has changed."
"Stop talking as though you were ancient. I know you're four years younger than me. So that would make you thirty."
"Next January, Aquarius. What are you?"
"An idealist, eh? Mine's Taurus."
Was that how he saw her? To her mind idealists were the dreamers of the world, whereas she believed in action.
Her lips quirked slightly. "That would explain it." She tossed the statement back in his court.
"What?"
"Rowan, you must admit you can be pretty stubborn."
"Only when the cause demands it." He stood up and closed the gap separating them. "Time to go. Here, give me your hand." Jo slipped her hand in his and let him pull her to her feet. Mistakenly, she'd thought herself strong enough to touch Rowan again without reacting, but the sensitive, tactile memories in her fingers had other ideas. She dropped his hand as if it burned. The emotion he'd wrung out of her didn't look to be fading anytime soon.
Turning her back on him, she speculated, why now? Why did Rowan's touch make her backbone turn to jelly and her brain to mush? Right now, every mental facility should be concentrated on clearing her father's good name. Not wondering how good Rowan would be in bed. Besides, without handcuffing him like a felon and locking him up, he'd be out of Nicks Landing before the dust from the bush had been stomped off his boots.
She took a last look over the cliff. Just beyond where they'd been sitting an old landslip covered by scrub and spindly manuka flowed down to the water, making a tough but manageable climb to the beach.
The bay below was beautiful, more traditional than the black iron sands to the west of the North Island. It was hard to imagine a car lying at the foot of these cliffs as it had at Torbay. The words tumbled out of her mouth without thought. "My father's car went over a cliff. They said it was suicide but I never believed them."
That was the difference between him and Jo. Different yet the same. They'd both had to get over the tragic death of their parents, but he'd always believed his father had committed suicide and taken his mother with him.
He looked at Jo, not saying anything, knowing he didn't need to, waiting for her to fill in the gaps about her father.
"They said...Rocky said, he'd been dealing drugs and when he got caught he couldn't stand the shame so he drove off the cliffs. Rocky lied." Jo's eyes blazed with conviction. "My father never killed himself. He loved us, loved his family. He would never leave us that way."
Substitute me for us and those were the same damn thoughts he'd had when his mother had taken off, gone back to Scotland and left his father. Left him.
He wanted to take her in his arms, give comfort, take comfort, but he couldn't. The shadow of what happened between them earlier hung over him like a dark cloud. He'd lost control once and it could happen again. And without control, what else did he have?
"And if you'd nailed Skelton, what would it have proved?"
"The kind of man he was...is. A man who will lie for his own advantage. Did you know Rocky came down here shortly after Dad died? Hell, they had to drag me away from Auckland. Why would a cop come voluntarily to Nicks Landing unless things had gotten too hot for him?"
"Is that what happened to you?"
She let out a sharp puff of air from her mouth that lifted the hair hanging over her eyes, only to glide back into place again until she caught the errant strand and secured it behind her ear. "No, Rowan. I didn't jump. I was pushed."
"Believe me, I'm sorry. I didn't want that to happen."
"Don't be sorry. It wasn't your fault. You saved my life."
And he'd do it again in an instant, less than that, a microsecond. "Then you saved mine. That's what teams do. You rescue me, I rescue you. Partners now. Wasn't that the decision?"
She shook her head. "You're too generous, Rowan."
"No, I'm not, but you could set my mind straight on one thing. What in hell got into you that day? That wasn't like you...to deliberately step into danger had to have been an aberration. You were too good a cop. Still are, to my mind."
"Didn't you hear the rumors?"
He shrugged. Jo was holding out, but if anyone deserved to know the truth it was him. "We already covered rumors. I don't listen to them."
"It was Max."
Did he really want to hear this?
Damn, he'd known she'd loved Max, had embraced the fact with open arms, while it helped him see that wanting her would have been a lost cause even if she'd known. That didn't mean he had to like it.
"I caught sight of him heading toward the back of the house. And then I saw the gun. It was pointing straight at him. All I could think to do was distract the gunman."
She looked him straight in the eye. Hers were clear, unafraid. "Everyone thought I was in love with Max and that's why I acted so dumb. But I'd realized, just that afternoon when I talked to Maggie, that all I'd had was wishful thinking, and it didn't compare to what she and Max felt for each other. I was looking for an honest man. Max was handy, so he got nominated."
What if she'd nominated him? Where would his famous control have been then? Rowan pushed his fingers through his hair. "Why in heaven's name didn't you explain, about Max, that he could have been shot?"
"Partners. Max was mine, then. He shouldn't have done what he did, but I couldn't drop him in it. Besides, by the time I got home from the hospital, it was too late. The word had already done the rounds. It would have sounded like an excuse. When your father's been labeled a dirty cop, excuses won't cut it."
He heard the last couple of sentences, but didn't take them in. All that counted was the reason she'd given for getting back late to Central. "You were at the hospital? No one told me you got hurt."
Jo stepped right up to him. She shook her head as if exasperated and gave him a lighthearted punch on his arm. "Stupid. Of course I was at the hospital. That's where you were. I visited a lot, but you were always out of it."
Why had no one told him? His brothers should have told him. It mightn't have made any difference, but at least he would have had that. He would have known.
She'd been at a bad place in her life while he was in the hospital. She'd gone in regularly after her shift and visited the Intensive Care Unit. Dim and silent except for the rhythmic swoosh of air from ventilators and the rubbery squeak of the night nurses' shoes, it had seemed a place apart from daily life. Standing there, in the half-dark with guilt churning in her gut, she'd felt the weight of the world on her shoulders. But gradually guilt had been overtaken by the peace of just being with him, and the certainty he would be all right. Would heal.
The only occasion she'd seen him after that had been Maggie's wedding and the atmosphere had hardly been conducive for telling Rowan how his being shot had affected her. All she could do was say, "Sorry," and let it go.
This wasn't the place, either. Maybe one day she would tell Rowan how sitting beside him, holding his hand, had helped heal her, too.
"I suppose we should make a move," she said without looking at Rowan. She wasn't used to letting it all hang out. Never had anyone she felt she could trust with her innermost feelings, until now. She'd told him she'd been looking for an honest man. And as her eyes scanned the bay, and beyond it the volcano that hid it from Nicks Landing, she realized she'd found one.
"I guess you're right, Bull will be sending out a search party if we don't get back soon."
"That's it for you now, isn't it? You've got enough to make Rocky's story sound believable, and you can hop off back to Auckland. Whereas I---"
"Whereas you?"
"I still have to find out who these people are, and to be honest, I could do with your help." The solution had come to her in a flash. A lightbulb moment.
Rowan's brows lifted. "In what way can I help? If you're talking about catching the members of the cult, why do you need me when you have Bull and Shane and a few other assorted cops back in town?"
"You have the one thing they don't. A boat. Besides, can you really see Bull and the others creeping stealthily through the bush? They'd hear them coming a mile away." She stared up at him, considered batting her eyelashes, then decided against it. Sex wasn't the way to get what she wanted. She'd only end up feeling stupid. Especially if he turned her down. "I just thought how much simpler it would be to come up here by sea on Halloween. Tell me you know how to drive it."
For a moment he froze with his hand halfway to his face, but only a moment. Then his fist supported his chin while his thumb brushed the corner of his moustache. She could tell he was considering the idea, but he still didn't speak.
"I'm sure I could get you a voucher for gas, so it wouldn't cost you, but I don't think I could up the ante to hire the boat. Would your boss object to you taking it out?"
Rowan's brows drew together and his eyes narrowed to green shadows. "That's not the problem. I have the use of the boat and I can drive it. What I want know is how important is this case to you? Do you really need to nail these bastards? It could be dangerous."
A buzz of anticipation flowed through her, making her skin tingle with excitement. Rowan was going to help her. She just knew it. "It wouldn't be too dangerous if we limited our contact to taking photos. Once we're sure, I could warn Harry, and get some cars to meet them as they leave. There's only one way out."
"How would we get up here?"
She pulled at his sleeve, impatient now. "Come and look. This is what gave me the idea. If we anchored in the bay, we could climb up the landslip. There's plenty of trees to hang on to but we'd need to wear gloves."
Rowan studied the slip for a few moments. His eyes measured its position and looked farther afield as if comparing a few others. "It's a fair climb, we'd need a rope."
"If you think it's too steep I could try it on my own as long as you got me here." Straight off, she knew she'd put it the wrong way. Rowan's mouth pulled into a narrow line and his hand squeezed hard on his day pack's strap.
"I've told you there's nothing wrong with my leg, but we don't want to go off half-cocked. No sense in getting killed before we can take any photos. And no more acting on impulse, okay? Sure and steady, that's the way to tackle that slope. We'd better mark this in some way, so I can pick it out from the water."
"My parka." Jo pulled the small bundle of orange nylon from her pack. "Will it be bright enough?"
"Bright enough?" He rolled his eyes and grinned at her. "I should think they could use it as a beacon to guide planes flying back from the south pole."
She looked at her pack. "What can I say? They came as a set. Find me something to tie it on to."
They fastened it to a half-grown manuka, waving its arms like some half-pint scarecrow that would glow in the dark.
"Howzatt?" he asked stepping back to admire their handiwork.
"Perfect." Jo slid her arms round his middle as if it were the most natural thing in the world now that they were truly in this together. A team. As for the buzz she got whenever he came near, like the one tingling through every nerve in her body, she had a feeling time would take care of that, now that they had some.
"I never told you why this was so important to me. I know falsely, I'd been pinning my hopes on proving Rocky did this himself. But since it appears I was wrong, maybe I can salvage something from it. Like catching the real bad guys. A story this weird is bound to make the papers again. And who knows? If Bull takes me off the shoplifting circuit, I might be able to earn a few more brownie points and get back home to Auckland."
"I hope you make it," he said, surprised to find he really meant it. He placed his hands on her shoulders, needing to push her away before she discovered just how much being close to her aroused him. He was rock hard and aching with it, yet his heart squeezed as she leaned forward, her hair brushing his wrist like a silk rope she used to bind him to her. He could feel her breath, damp and warm on the skin at his throat. Then her mouth as she kissed him. Once, twice, three times he felt the slow heat of her lips on him.
And between each of them she murmured words so soft he had to strain to hear them. Words that almost tore asunder the bonds he had placed on his feelings for Jo.
"I'm going to miss you when you leave, Rowan. It'll be like leaving home all over again. Maybe I can visit with you when I come up to Auckland. I have some leave due."
How could he say no?
W ere blisters on top of blisters possible?
Jo did a mental calculation of how many Band-Aids she had in her pack and decided the way her feet felt, there wouldn't be nearly enough. Gravel rolled under her boots as she quickened her pace across the parking lot, nearly embracing Rowan's Jag with open arms as the remote key bleeped a welcome. Would Rowan think she was nuts if she kissed his car?
She was halfway round the bonnet to the passenger side when he said, "You drive."
Jo stopped short in surprise, almost missing the keys he'd tossed casually in her direction. A shiver of anticipation snaked up her spine. Rowan trusted her enough to let her drive his car. Oh, boy! This car tempted her like the apple did Eve. All that power under the hood, just waiting to be released by the touch of a hand. Her hand.
Shortening the distance to the pedals, Jo adjusted the seat, and straightened the back till it fit snugly against her shoulders. She shifted, easing almost sensually into the soft leather and took a deep breath. "Lord, I love that smell." She took another sniff for good measure, and held it, allowing the earthy smell of new leather to seep into her---bone deep.
A random memory, a scent, powerfully, muskily male, overlaid the other as the engine began to purr and found an answering echo inside her. Rowan and his car were a good match. They both stirred her senses. She turned and ran her gaze over him, letting the sensations she felt spill over into her smile.
Rowan shook his head, the wry twist to his mouth reinforcing his words. "If you've finished drooling, maybe we could leave."
"Yes, sir. Whatever you say, sir." What would he say if he knew he made her mouth water every bit as much as his car? More...
She put her foot on the gas pedal. The engine growled. She couldn't resist. "Do you hear that?" She licked her lips wickedly, teasing him. "Hot sex on wheels."
His eyebrows rose, feigning an impatience that didn't reach his eyes. "Are you gonna drive, or do I have to take over?"
Jo took it easy at first, careful not to spin the wheels and send any gravel flying that might chip the paintwork.
Her skin prickled lightly as if it glowed from an excess of static in the atmosphere. Not solely her doing. Something new proliferated the air between them. The attraction was a given, but an extra element had been added. The word trust popped into her mind. Yes, that was it. A new trust had grown between them.
"I really appreciate you letting me get behind the wheel of your new toy." She turned her eyes, hardly daring to take them off the road. Rowan looked large and safe. Safe to confide in.
"No problem."
She'd opened up back there on the cliff top, told him stuff about herself, about her father. Stuff she'd never discussed with another soul. Not her grandmother. Not her brothers. And Rowan? Well, he'd listened, and he hadn't laughed. Hadn't said, "You're just imagining things."
She thought back. The sharing hadn't all been one-sided. He had told her he'd been brought up in Nicks Landing, and he was staying on a bit longer to help her. What more could she ask?
Men couldn't bare their souls as easily as women, but if ever there had been an opportunity to get anything off his chest, like a grudge he'd been holding against her, anything important, that had been the time. "What I really wanted to say, was thanks for trusting me with your car. I know how much these babies cost. And I wanted to say the feeling's mutual."
"It's what?" Rowan's shoulders cut out the light from the window, increasing the space separating them. "What's mutual?"
"I trust you, too. You've always been one of the good guys, Rowan. Honest. Straight. That's pretty unusual, these days. Believe me I know what I'm talking about."
He shrugged, but didn't respond until she'd taken her gaze off him as they approached a T intersection. "You need to get out more, out of the station and away from the criminal environment. I'm just an average guy, don't try putting me on a pedestal."
Yeah, sure. The average guy goes around saving lives every day of the week and twice on Sundays.
Jo checked for traffic then took a left. As far as she was concerned his modesty was all part of the same package. And the slight dent in his comfort zone only needed a few gentle taps with a hammer to smooth it out.
"Hey, don't get me wrong. I'm not resorting to flattery on the off chance you might change your mind about helping me."
Her foot increased its pressure on the gas pedal and the speedometer needle inched closer to the speed limit. "Allied Insurance sure must think a lot of you. I'll bet they don't supply many of their employees with cars like this."
"Not many."
She should have stopped there, but curiosity got the better of her. "I suppose cops aren't usually in the same league as the Stanhopes, but I guess you've known them most of your life."
"How did you know?"
"An intuitive guess. From what I heard, the Stanhope brothers ran pretty freely around Nicks Landing when they were kids. You're bound to be the same age with at least one of them."
Rowan shifted his hips in his seat. The soft leather made the kind of groan she had wanted to, following that denim-covered butt through the bush.
"Got it in one. I'm the same age as the middle brother."
She couldn't prevent a small, smug grin as a line from a song hummed through her brain. Her thumbs tapped out the beat on the steering wheel and her head moved in time to the rhythm. "I guess my detective genes haven't completely seized up through lack of use, after all."
Under her breath she sang, "I feel good."
Only a jerk would choose this moment to disillusion her.
Rowan felt the weight of Jo's trust settle like a three-pound brick inside his chest. A weight that would take more than antacids to shift.
"Where to now?" she asked as they came over the last rise and entered the outskirts of Nicks Landing.
The small town looked almost beautiful from this distance, spread out before them like a block-patterned quilt. Hard on the heels of the thought, he experienced a moment of nostalgia. He'd stayed away from it for years, but it wasn't the town he hated...only the memories of his last few years there.
"We can go pick up your car, or carry on into town and your office. Makes no difference to me."
Jo had left her hair loose on the walk back, and as she turned to smile it skimmed her shoulders, sending a drift of evocative fragrance in his direction. He quieted an urge to reach out and twist the black rope of hair round his hand, just for the feel of it. Yeah, he'd like that, though he couldn't deny it would bring that mischievous smile close enough to taste.
"You know what?" she said with a naughty smirk. "I'm going straight to the station house. Bull and Jake might just catch a glimpse of me driving your car. Now wouldn't that be something."
"You think they'll care?"
"Jake will. He's always going on about fast cars and what he'll do when he owns one. You wouldn't begrudge me a little female chauvinistic one-upmanship, would you?"
He couldn't begrudge her anything. That was his problem. For the past two years he'd convinced himself he was doing great without her in his life. Well, maybe not great, but okay.
He'd been back home just three days and already he'd given up an opportunity to escape to the city, back to where it was safe.
One taste, one kiss and he'd given up the fight like a wimp. Hell, he'd been fooling himself back there in the bush. Fooling them both with tales of being bedeviled.
The devil made me do it. What a crock!
But he still wasn't ready to admit what had driven him.
Temptation...oh yeah.
The word echoed. Temptation. Not from inside his head, but seated somewhere deep inside his chest. He tried blowing a sharp puff of air through his nostrils to clear his system.
"All right, Jo. Let's go make Jake jealous."
Entering the station house with Rowan following behind her, Jo felt happier than she had in a long time. A very long time.
Even the knowledge that saving her father's reputation had once more been put on hold, couldn't dull her exuberance.
On hold didn't mean the same as giving up.
From the look Seth slanted at her from behind the reception counter, he'd seen her drive up. And she knew that if Rowan hadn't been there, he'd have pestered her with questions.
Rowan was at her shoulder. She turned to look up at him, inches shorter in the comfortable sneakers she'd changed into. "Do you want to go straight upstairs and work out our plans, or would you rather check in with your old mate, Harry, first?" She punched the code into the lock.
What Rowan might have answered was lost in the shuffle as Seth called her back to reception before they'd gone through the door.
"Jo, Rocky Skelton left a message for you."
Rowan held the door open by pressing his palm against it at shoulder level, but kept watching her. As she felt his eyes on her, she realized this had long since stopped being her case alone; she no longer resented him being seconded to help her. They really had become partners, a team. And it felt good. Better than good, terrific.
"What's the message, then? Did forensics find some brimstone in the ashes of Rocky's house?" She heard the sarcasm, heard the sharpness, residue from her grudge against the old scumbag. Two years of hoping to nail Rocky couldn't be canceled just like that. Old grievances didn't disappear overnight.
What a surprise.
The acid in her voice slid right off Seth. Working in reception on a regular basis, it took a lot to faze him. "Rocky didn't say. Just told me he wanted to see you the moment you got back."
She turned on her heels. If she hadn't been wearing sneakers they would have signaled her displeasure. Rocky had taken the edge off her good humor. Who was he to make demands on her time?
Rowan took one look at her face and said, "Your prejudice is showing."
"You're right." Her nose twitched at the precise moment she realized her arms were folded across her chest. Swell, her ambivalence was crying out; her mouth said yes but her body language was on the defensive. "Are you gonna come with me? Or leave me to get uptight on my own?"
Rowan read her like a book, a book in need of diversion. "I'm with you, partner," he said with a wink, and took a shot at her with an index finger.
It worked. She responded with a feigned cuff on the chin. "Well, at least I've got one on my side."
She studied the back of her knuckles where the scrape of his beard lingered. He already needed a shave. Her nostrils flared slightly. There was something utterly masculine about a man who needed to shave twice a day. She looked up at him through her lashes and studied his face covertly.
That moustache. On a reflex, her tongue slipped out and tentatively feathered her top lip. Yeah, the jury was still out on that one. If it hadn't been for the facial hair---and the kiss---she could have pretended nothing had changed. That they were both home in Auckland.
Wrong.
Remembering her old life, the way things had been. That was partly what had spoiled her stay in Nicks Landing. But right this moment, right now, she wasn't sure if she'd swap.
The time of day was late afternoon, but in the Hard Luck Inn, darkness drew itself around the interior as if night had fallen. They entered to the usual clash of heavy-metal music. It reverberated through the souvenir bike parts like wind rustling autumn leaves.
Jo's senses were at high pitch and as soon as they crossed the threshold, the buzz in the air prickled the hairs on her arms.
At six foot five, Rowan's size usually attracted attention, and she was no small fry. Together their impact doubled, but although she couldn't put her finger on it, she knew immediately the stir had nothing to do with their height, or their entry.
Cheek by jowl on the outer rim of the U-shaped bar, a crush of men in jeans, work shirts and boots, not unlike the ones she'd been glad to take off, stood downing ice-cold beer. With a sense of timing that reminded her of a Mexican wave, they tilted an assortment of long-and short-neck bottles, poured the contents down their throats, then swiped the condensation running down the inside of their wrists onto the denim cloth of their jeans.
On closer observation she noted the icy sweat had settled in rings on the counter that could have given the Olympic symbol a run for its money. Seemed as though Rocky's mouth was working faster than his cleaning-up cloth.
"Let's get this over with," she said to Rowan, stepping up to the bar with a loud "Excuse me."
The bodies lining the counter parted after a preliminary glance over their respective shoulders, then ignored the two of them once more. Or pretended to. She wouldn't risk a five-cent bet on everyone minding their own business, even though they appeared to have developed a sudden fascination for the football game on TV.
Everyone fixed their gazes on the bright screen sitting among the clutter on the wall. Did they think she didn't realize that they could do two things at once even though they were men? Of course, the absence of any commentary helped.
Rowan slotted into the remaining space, his shoulder overlapping hers as if protecting her back and, just for once, Rocky looked happy to see them.
"You sent for me?"
"Not exactly sent," he answered, his initial pleasure collapsing as if someone had popped a balloon and let his features sag down his face in lines. "I've got something to show you. It came today." With a flick of his wrist, a folded envelope, slightly discolored from handling, emerged from his hip pocket.
Rowan leaned forward, his face close to hers. She felt the pressure of his shoulder as the latest development in Rocky's saga unfolded like the envelope. "Maybe we'd be better off at a table?" he said in her ear.
She eyed the inn's patrons, checking their reactions, but no one met her gaze. Too many secrets. Too much to hide. Secrets and lies were the lifeblood of a small town.
Hundreds of secrets that everyone but her was cognizant of.
She was an incomer, a city girl, and as such, not to be trusted.
As though someone had given him a shot of bravery, Rocky croaked, "I've got nothing to hide. Everyone's seen the anonymous letter."
She reached out across the counter, and set her sights on the sloppy neckline of Rocky's wash-faded, black T-shirt. Behind her Rowan tensed. A charge of electricity zapped where their shoulders met, as if he expected her to grab Rocky by the T-shirt, if not the throat.
In next to no time, she put the big guy, and probably Rocky, too, out of his misery and crooked her finger in Rocky's face. Besides, a girl would be unwise to get any closer to the swimming wet counter than necessary. "Come here, Rocky."
The innkeeper leaned forward and the breath Rowan released stirred her hair. Who had he really thought needed rescuing this time? Her or Rocky?
She spoke low, pitching her voice to travel across the bar and no farther. "Did it ever enter your small mind that one of these guys you've been blabbing to, might be responsible for the letter? They could be laughing up their sleeve even now."
Rocky's eyes widened and exposed a glimmer of fear. "Let's get a table over there," he said, sobered by the truth. The innkeeper opened the gate on the far leg of the U and ducked under, leading them to a table at the farthest side of the room. Was she the only one who noticed his gaze flitted around the room, never settling, shifting from one face to the next?
She'd always known his shiftiness was endemic, but in an I'm-the-man sort of way. What amazed her was the difference today from the Cool Hand Luke bravado he'd demonstrated the night she'd visited the inn with Rowan.
Betty was dispatched to tend the bar by a raised eyebrow and a jerk of Rocky's thumb as they passed. The whole operation took less than a minute and as Jo caught Betty's eyes, she shrugged her shoulders as if to say, "don't blame me," and added a half smile to soften Rocky's gruff gesture.
Rocky Skelton sat down with his back to the wall. His bony chest seemed to cave in as his shoulders hunched over the table. If ever a man looked ready to duck incoming fire, it was Rocky.
She threw herself into the opposite chair and felt the metal legs creak as they spread under her, then watched Rowan test his weight on the only other one at the table. Rowan had positioned himself so he had a view of the room as well as the new and unimproved version of Rocky.
Keeping her face expressionless, she demonstrated it would take more than a few glances over his shoulder to convince her he was running scared. Hard luck, pal. Rocky's peculiar choice of names for his bar was about to ricochet and take a bite out of him.
In her peripheral vision, she watched Rowan rub his chest as if it ached. His expression was set, unreadable, except for a gleam in his eyes that she couldn't help but answer. Then it was back to business and she let her impatience bare its fangs. "C'mon, Skelton, spit it out, we haven't got all day."
"It's the satanists. They're after me." Again!
The strident riffles of a heavy-metal guitar that had buffeted them around the head, chose that moment to stop, leaving a gap for Rocky's cry to fill. Everyone in the bar stopped talking at once and Rocky's glare only succeeded in driving the suspenseful whispers to greater heights.
A new, slightly quieter track began and restored privacy to the table. "So, what's new?" she asked, "You've been singing that song for months."
Gingerly, Rocky laid the envelope on the tabletop as though it was on fire, then he flicked it with one finger, spinning it in Jo's direction.
She picked it up by one corner, looked at the address, then squeezed gently on the sharply creased edges until the jagged rips in the top of the envelope yawned open like a mouth full of crooked teeth.
"What's this, then?" She shook it upside down until the contents fell out on the table. "I don't suppose the idea of not smearing your dabs all over entered your mind?"
Rocky's scowl deepened as he went on the defensive. "It did, but not until I realized what it contained. I didn't expect to find this crap in the mail. The envelope was in the middle of the pile and I didn't notice until I'd opened the damn thing."
She carefully unfolded the paper.
Rowan pushed his chair back and stood behind her, one hand resting on her shoulder. Like many threatening letters she'd seen in her time, each character in the message had been cut from a newspaper or magazine and stuck on the paper. It was as if they'd all taken anonymous letters 101 by watching reruns of old films.
Call off your dogs Skelton.
Next time we won't miss you or your wife.
Rowan's fingers tightened their grip. They'd signed it with a pentagram. "Have you shown this to Molly?" he asked.
Rocky shook his head. His gaze slithered over to the kitchen door and he swiped at his top lip where beads of sweat had gathered. "I didn't want to worry her. She has enough on her plate with the fire and everything. It's no fun trying to make a home in what used to be our storeroom."
Mark one up for Molly. Rocky gave no indication that his wife had reported Jo's faux pas. Maybe she hadn't heard.
"You'd better warn her. Both of you stick together. Don't, and I mean don't, go anywhere unaccompanied or leave your wife alone. Have you got that?" She captured Rowan's gaze and was pleasantly surprised to read agreement written there.
"This is the thing, Rocky. Hopefully by tomorrow night we'll bring an end to all this satanist mumbo jumbo, but keep it under your hat. If word of what we're doing gets out, the whole town will know before morning." Deliberately, she kept their intentions vague. On the one hand, she wanted to reassure him, if his fear was genuine. On the other, something didn't smell right.
Jo couldn't put her finger on it. Near as she could figure, after the first fire she would have sworn Rocky was acting, but he sure as hell wasn't now.
And why had Molly kept quiet? She'd never liked Jo. Why protect her now?
Had Rocky actually been mixed up with some demonic weirdos and this was a payoff for some misdeed or attempt to leave the cult? Whatever they were hiding, it would take more than browbeating from her or Rowan to make the jerk talk. No threat they made could top the ones he'd already received.
"We mean it, Skelton. Keep your mouth shut." Rowan added his weight to her order.
"Rowan and I want to talk among ourselves. It's all right, you go tend bar. I can tell from the way you're looking at Betty, you don't think she's meeting your standards."
"Can I send her over with a drink, a beer maybe?"
Rowan sat down again and the metal scrape of his chair added a bizarre off-key element to the music. She saw his lips move, grumbling indistinctly, before he said, "No thanks."
"Me, neither. In fact, I think we should finish this conversation at the station house. We ought to see if they can lift any prints off this." She maneuvered the letter and envelope with the tip of a ballpoint, sliding them into a small clip-tight bag that she'd stuffed in her pocket this morning for just such an occasion.
Simply stepping outside that place did wonders for his equilibrium. The air smelled sweeter somehow. Rowan took a deep breath and let it permeate through him.
On the short walk to the station house, he told Jo, "Sorry if I trod on your toes back there, with Skelton, I mean. It's really your call."
"No problem. You've got a heavier hand than mine. Whether or not he'll take your advice is another question."
"So, what was your take on Skelton? Was he sweating over this, or was it my imagination?"
"No, he was feeling the heat. There's something rotten in the house of Hard Luck and I don't think it's in the kitchen."
She stopped at the curb and their hips brushed as he lost his balance and swayed into her. Without rationalizing his need, he reached out and pulled her into the curve of his arm until they both steadied. Beyond all reason, he realized he only felt truly alive when she was in his arms. Beyond all the craziness and suspicion, he relished the days ahead with her.
It was broad daylight and he wanted nothing more than to kiss her right there in front of everyone on the sidewalk. Instead, he pressed one finger to the tip of her nose. "You always had a great sense here for anything slightly off-kilter. I'm positive you're right. But never mind, he's got more than satanists or devil worshipers on his tail now. You and I are going to find him out."
"Hi, Detective Jo. Hi...sir."
His first reaction to the young voice was annoyance. He'd have felt the same about anyone who made Jo flush and push away from him, taking her warmth.
One glance gave him a clue to the owner of the voice. There couldn't be many red-haired kids wearing pink barrettes in Nicks Landing. She looked up at him with a frank show of adoration in her eyes. Now he wanted to color up. He wasn't used to kids this age, or the way they didn't hide their feelings.
"Well, hi to you, too, Ginny. This is Rowan McQuaid."
The kid nodded but didn't say anything. "Where are you off to?" asked Jo who put a hand up to her own hair and commented, "Love the barrettes."
Seemed Ginny had plenty of adoration to go round. It shone from her face as she responded to Jo, copying her action and fingering the touch of pink in her hair. "Me, too. Don't worry, I'm not getting into trouble. I'm cooking supper for Dad and getting an early night."
"For heaven's sake, Ginny. I hope you're not still planning on hiking into the bush tomorrow night after what I said?" Jo crouched, bringing her face level with Ginny's, and held her lightly by the shoulders. "Promise me you won't go near Te Kohanga Park tomorrow. It's dangerous...and I don't mean all those rumors that have been flying around. I'm talking about the bush. It's too easy to get lost in there and I don't want to have to send a search party out after you."
"Oh, we changed our minds about that anyway. Sandra's mom won't let her have the car."
Straightening up, Jo rolled her eyes at him, but he could see she was thinking, thank goodness for Sandra's mom. "That's great. I didn't want to chase through there looking for you." She winked at the kid. "Remember what I told you about the B-U-G-S," she whispered, as if he couldn't spell.
Bloody amazing. She'd pit herself against a satanist any day, but cave in the face of a bug.
Ginny wrinkled her nose the way he'd often seen Jo do. It was either a girl thing or the kid had a case of hero worship. "Not to worry, Detective Jo. I couldn't go anyway. I've got the paper route. I have to get up early in the mornings."
Jo gave her the thumbs-up. "I'm proud of you. We've got to go, but don't forget to say hi next time you see me."
The station house door had barely swung closed behind them when Harry got to his feet, frowning. There was little he missed, including the fact she'd been out of range all morning, her cell phone reception shaded by the volcano at the southern end of the park.
She wasn't kept in suspense for more than a few seconds.
"You get hold of Rocky?"
"Yeah, no problem, Harry. He received a threatening letter. I don't know if it'll tell us much. The idiot got his prints all over it. Still, I'm going to need it sent down the line and have it checked." She held the clip-tight bag out to Harry. "Did the forensics team leave already?"
One of the biggest hindrances she had found in Nicks Landing was the lack of a forensic team. They didn't have enough continuous work to warrant the expense of one there.
Sure, Nicks County was a big area, thus three detectives, but it was mainly rural. There was no knowing how many cannabis patches were hidden back in the hills. Bull and Jake were always following up leads. Especially at this time of year, when the fresh young growth of the plants stood out among the darker green bush, making it easily spotted by crop dusters or copters passing through. And often as not if they got too close, they were shot at for their trouble.
It had happened on Great Barrier Island to a friend of Rowan and hers, Jamie Thurlo. He'd been flying the helicopter the day Rowan had got shot. As far as she could make out, Jamie had taken an investigative reporter with him on one of his regular flyovers of the island. They'd been lucky to come out of it alive, though she'd heard Jamie was pretty scarred.
"You just missed them. The team's on its way back to Gisborne. I read your report. You were right to be wary of that newspaper with the pentagram, Rowan. They found the remains of a pressure switch. Looks like it was connected to the tractor mower in the basement. It only took one spark."
"That's great. Now they're getting technical, working their way up from candles to pressure switches."
"More than technical," said Rowan, "the bastards are getting serious. Did you tell Rocky?"
Harry nodded. "When he came looking for you."
"No wonder Rocky was sweating on it. From now on, ex-cop or not, I say we keep him in the dark. What do you think, Jo?"
"Definitely. I still don't trust the guy. His going up to the house yesterday might have been more of a fluke than anything else. We were the only ones who had made definite plans to visit Lonely Track Road. Rocky knew that. But, who else did he tell?
"Which makes me think we could be getting too close and the fire was a warning for us. You know Rocky once he gets behind that bar. He could have spilled our plans to any number of people. You can't keep secrets in this town."
"Somebody can," muttered Rowan, frowning, his brow as dark as a thunderhead.
"Well, I didn't tell anyone about our lead to the national park. Not even Moira. She thought we were just having a day out."
"On a Friday?" gibed Harry.
Jo shrugged it off. "She's got used to my insignificance in the scheme of things around here. Why should she be surprised if I get a day off?"
"Well, I might have something here that will cheer you up, if it doesn't piss you off first that is."
"What is it?" she asked.
Rowan chimed in. "That's the kind of attitude that got the messenger shot, Harry," he said. "But let's see what you've got."
The sergeant held out an envelope, a twin to the one inside the baggie.
"You didn't open it?"
"It's not addressed to me," he answered.
Meticulous to the last. She wouldn't have expected anything less. Harry was a good cop. "Got a knife?"
"Here," said Rowan, retrieving a slim pocketknife from his jeans, then opening the equally slim but lethal-looking blade.
"Offensive weapon?" she teased, refusing to acknowledge the letter had any power over her. She focused on Rowan, and why not? Over the last three days it was as if he'd been her hold on reality while everything around her went mad.
Rowan gave her a crooked grin. "Boy Scout knife."
One thought dominated after he passed it over. And it wasn't, hurry up and open the letter. No! The one seducing her concentration went, she could feel the heat from his body flowing from the knife into her palm!
"It's sharp. Be careful," he warned.
"Don't worry, I can handle an itty-bitty knife like this one."
She lifted the blade to slit the fold, remembering the jagged rip Rocky had torn in the other one. It was a short step from there to the words with their implicit threat that she'd read at the inn. Her hand trembled as the memory wiped out any humor she'd found in the situation. "I think I'll take this through to my office. I should photocopy the note Rocky handed over...and this one, too, if your suspicions are correct."
From the moment Harry had spoken of a letter addressed to her, she'd been conscious of Rowan hovering next to her elbow. Not touching, but close enough that his presence became part of everything she did.
After a day spent in the bush, she wasn't certain how her deodorant was hanging in, but Rowan's spicy tang with its additional sharpness wasn't unpleasant as it might have been in a stranger. There was something very intimate in having his scent in her head. An awareness of him as a man.
Her man.
Her step faltered on the last thought.
When they reached her office, he took the knife and the envelope from her and said, "Here, let me do it."
For once, she gave them up without a murmur.
After he slit it open, he tipped the fold of paper onto her desk. The marks where the paste had dimpled the back of the note were visible at a glance. "Want me to open it?"
She simply nodded and said, "Gloves in the top drawer." Certain of the threat it would contain, her mouth grew dry. During her years on the force, she'd prided herself on dealing justly with those she arrested. But in all that time she'd never received a personal threat. One aimed at her alone.
Following Rowan's example she rolled latex gloves onto her hands. Finished, she heard his indrawn breath as his gaze skimmed quickly across the page. She could put it off no longer and held out her hand, steeling herself to read the worst.
SKELTON'S WHORE---YOUR NUMBER IS UP
DON'T BUTT YOUR NOSE INTO OUR BUSINESS
BE FRIGHTENED---VERY FRIGHTENED---WE KNOW
NO MERCY
The paper dropped to the floor as her gaze flew to Rowan. His features had tightened, throwing his cheekbones into sharp prominence. His eyes glittered angrily in the stillness of his face as his nostrils flared with each breath he took.
"It's not true...." Revulsion robbed her of breath. "Rocky and me...no way! I couldn't---"
"I never thought you could...did." Rowan came closer and his big hands cupped her face and tilted it until they stood eye to eye. "No one who knows you could believe the implication." Next moment, he held her in a bear hug, his arms pressing her against him till it hurt to breathe, but it was a good pain.
Rowan loosened his grip. His voice was gruff as if he'd hurt his throat. "It's shock tactics. They want you to back away from the case. If anyone's running scared it's them. Someone must have tipped them off."
He held her out from him. She felt bereft at the loss of his warmth. His body.
Rowan's lips twisted slightly but he pulled her head into his shoulder before she could work out which emotion was showing. "I don't like this, Jo." His hand slid over the back of her hair. "It's been a helluva day. Come back to the boat with me, I don't want you to be alone tonight."
"I've got Moira."
"And what is a ditzy little woman, half your size going to do if they come after you?"
She pushed her hands against his chest, feeling the steady life-confirming beat of his heart and felt safe. Stronger. With a half laugh, she meant to reassure Rowan she felt better, more herself. And she did. The shock had worn off. Soon she would just feel mad. Good and mad!
"I told you, I'm a big girl, I can take care of myself. No more hero stuff."
"You said partners and that's what you'll get. You need backup, Jo, and I'm it."
S o, this was how the other half lived. Heavens, this cabin was as large as the room she rented from Moira and twice as luxurious. Jo hung the clothes from her duffel inside the fitted locker, admiring the way the designer had put every inch of space to good use. The task barely took her three minutes and as she straightened the last sleeve, she wondered if such pitifully few clothes had ever graced its interior before.
"You can use this stateroom, the head's...bathroom, is over there," Rowan had said, then dumped her bag on the floor and left her to get on with unpacking.
Sitting down on the side of the bed, she smoothed one hand across the silky quilted fabric of the fitted coverlet. The subtle autumn hues tied in with the two shades of timber that had been used on the cabinetry and the dull apricot suede finish lining the walls and ceiling. The same decor she'd seen in Rowan's stateroom that first day, except he had a larger bed and its cover was a creamy peach brocade.
She had her own queen-size bed and private ensuite. It was perfect. Two huge square pillows rested against the headboard. She punched one; it was soft as marshmallow. She picked up the other one and leaned it on top of the pillow on her side and gave it a punch as well. Her fist sunk deep into the center as they gave under the pressure. So, what had she expected? That he would put her in his own cabin? Is that why she felt dissatisfied in the middle of all this luxury? What more could a girl ask for than a queen-size just for one person? Perfect.
Perfectly lonely.
In the nether regions of her brain hovered the whiff of an idea that her time would soon run out. That, if she didn't do something about her feelings soon, she'd regret it for the rest of her life.
"Nonsense!" she chided herself. Since there was no one to disagree, she picked up her bag and grabbed a small squashed box of tissues too ratty to go with her luxurious quarters from the bottom. "In you go," she said opening the top drawer of the nightstand, thrusting them out of sight.
A gleam of silver at the back of the drawer caught her eye. Condoms. Fool, for all her imagining she hadn't even considered adding them to her list when she'd shopped. And with the way she was feeling anything could happen. At least she hoped it would.
Reaching in she picked up a handful of foil packets and tossed them in the air so they landed on the bed. Someone had been well prepared. What did the advertisement on TV say? The life you save could be your own.
It was time to go up to the saloon and see what she could do to nudge events in the right direction.
Rowan breathed in the aroma of steak broiling under the grill as he tore lettuce apart for a salad to eat with the baked potatoes he'd shoved in the microwave. He could look after himself, even if he didn't go in for anything fancy. Jo would soon see he wasn't in search of a wife simply to look after him.
Wife?
Whoa! One shot in the dark and his subconscious had taken a leap into the unknown. Time to rein it in.
He threw a handful of spring onions, sweet peppers and avocado into the mix. Sliced tomatoes followed as he sensed Jo come up behind him. Her fingers lightly snagged his belt as her head dodged round his shoulder, watching him cook. "Whatever it is, it smells delicious."
"That tantalizing aroma is broiled steak. Supper's almost ready. You take a seat and I'll pour some wine."
Rowan pulled a bottle out of the rack and held it up for Jo to read the label. Kereru Hill Shiraz.
"I couldn't resist. Look at the date, Max's first vintage. We can give him our opinion next time we all meet up."
Damn, what was he doing talking as if they'd be doing it together? The corkscrew, cork still attached, clattered onto the counter like an exclamation mark to his thoughts. He poured two glasses of ruby wine, sniffed the bouquet, then took a sip. Max had done a good job. He'd taken a chance and it had worked.
Maybe it was time for him to do the same.
Jo looked serious as he passed her a glass. A tiny V-shaped frown bridged her dark eyebrows as if she had an unpleasant task to perform. "Drink up. This is good for whatever ails you."
"Do I look that bad?"
"You've never looked bad to me, you're a beautiful woman. Easy on the eyes. I've always thought so." What more could a man want apart from constancy and fidelity.
She let out a gasp and almost spilled some wine. A small red trickle escaped the corner of her mouth followed by an explosion of need bursting inside him. It was all he could do not to seize the nape of her neck in his grasp and clean up her lips with his tongue.
Down boy, down, he warned his raging libido.
A velvety softness gleamed in her eyes, yet her smile seemed reluctant, uncertain. "I can count the number of times I've heard that on one finger. Thank you."
"It wasn't a compliment. Simply a statement of fact." He swirled the wine around his glass and let the bouquet drift upwards, rich, fruity, like black currants.
"It was a first for me. Personally, I can't see it. Mostly when I look in the mirror it's what's going on inside I see, and the rest of the junk takes a back seat."
"Sounds too philosophical. But you haven't told me, why the frown?" He touched her between the eyebrows, then smoothed a finger over both shiny dark wings to erase the small worry lines. "What's going on inside your head tonight?"
"That I always thought I would see hate in your eyes when we met up again. You have reason to hate me. Good reason."
He made a movement with his fingers, which flicked off such a suggestion as preposterous. "And now? Look in my eyes and tell me what you see now."
The danger he'd always known awaited him loomed large. His heart pounded like a jackhammer against his breastbone as if it might break out and show her his agony, past and present.
Jo stared at him. He tried not to blink, holding her gaze, hardly daring to breathe.
"I see warmth and friendship, an attraction that's reciprocated, but no hatred." Attraction. Love it seemed, wasn't on either of their agendas, but he could go with them both feeling attraction. It would be enough. It would have to be.
"And I see a man I don't have to fear. A man who cares for me, who could never stand aside and watch me die."
"Even when you've ordered him to do exactly that?"
Her brown velvet eyes softened. "Even then." The words rolled slowly from lips that looked fuller, redder, lush and inviting.
The smell of broiled T-bone teased his nose. Damn! "Time to eat. Our supper's ready." For an instant he'd been tempted to let it burn and follow where the conversation and his instincts led. To disaster, maybe, but at least he'd die a happy man, having trod the highs as well as the lows instead of the straight and narrow road he'd taken lately.
So, how would Mata Hari handle the situation?
Half an hour had passed since she'd come down to her stateroom, saying, "I think I'll go have my shower and get ready for bed. We have an early start in the morning."
Maybe she'd been giving out the wrong signals. Come-hither looks weren't part of her repertoire, and playing the vamp at her height had always struck her as ridiculous. Besides, there were so few men tall enough for her to look up at and bat her eyelashes.
Rowan had merely responded to her announcement with a nod. The recessed downlight overhead had cast shadows across his eyes and mouth. The lack of light made the first look brooding, the other grim, and in the end her own smile had withered from lack of nourishment.
Seduction was a game she'd never played before. Max hadn't given her the chance, and any rules---if she'd ever known them---were long forgotten. She licked her lips and pouted at her reflection in the small mirror. She tried, "Rowan," purring.
No, she decided with a shake of her head that sent her hair spinning. She couldn't do this. It smacked too much of pretense for a woman who had made honesty her creed.
Warm inside and out, from the wine, then the shower, her perfumed skin appeared to glow. It looked soft enough to the eye, to the touch. She lifted her breasts and held their fullness in her hands, imagining how they would look to Rowan.
What if all her years on the force had taken their toll, and the only softness left was on the outside? She'd spent so long proving she was as good as the next cop. Better than most. As good as her father had been, no matter what the records said.
What if she'd lost the ability to call up the softer, womanly emotions inside her? Love, compassion. When had she last opened her heart and shed a tear? Except for Rowan.
Perhaps there was hope for her yet.
With that thought ringing in her head, she slipped into her best underwear, wrapping a black satin robe over its red, lacy sensuality.
"Just tell Rowan the truth," she muttered over and over. He could only reject her, and she'd dealt with that before.
Her hand trembled as she held her robe tight. Her insides jangled with a mixture of anticipation and doubt. Satisfied the bra she wore underneath was hidden, she took a deep breath and grabbed a fistful of condoms from the top drawer of the nightstand, slipping them into the deep side pocket of her robe.
Maybe if his brain would shut up, he could get some sleep. Rowan should have guessed this would happen the moment he'd agreed to Jo's request that they use the Fancy to come up on the tree-girded circle from the seaward side.
Hell, what a cop-out. If she hadn't suggested it, he might have. No, it was the threat of Jo, sleeping a few feet away with only a wall separating them that jangled his chain. What was it about him, Rowan McQuaid Stanhope, about his personality that all his troubles came in twos?
This time of year had always been difficult for him. A few more days and it would be the anniversary of his parents' death. It was the not knowing that he couldn't get past.
Had his father killed both his mother and himself on that fateful boat trip on the Fancy I?
His father had been such a good sailor, to have anchored in the main shipping lane just wasn't the act of a sane man. But what if the reconciliation hadn't taken, if his mother had hurt his father again? Rowan still carried the memory of the first time his mother had left....
He'd never seen his father cry before, and it had shaken him to the core. Damn! He couldn't lie in bed reliving that time over and over. He'd a good mind...
No, he couldn't do that either. Couldn't go to Jo and use her as a palliative to relieve the scars of hurts that still throbbed after all these years.
Rowan's feet hit the floor the moment he threw the bedcovers aside. The buttoned and belted feel of his jeans was an easy find in the dark and familiarity with the task soon had him covered in denim from ankle to waist.
Gathering her courage round her, Jo opened the door, remembering that afternoon and the way Rowan had held her.
Wanted her.
It hadn't been the result of a spell, simply a man and a woman wanting each other. "Hold that thought," she whispered under her breath.
He needed fresh air to clear his head of ancient memories and latent desires that could only lead to tragedy. When it came to love he was too much his father's son.
He crossed the cabin on bare feet in the dark and stepped into the companionway.
A soft click alerted him of another's presence in the darkness. Every hair on his body prickled with an icy chill of awareness. A superstitious man might have pondered if the ghost of his longings had come to life. Instead a sigh of inevitability left his chest in the wake of soft hands pressing dead center, against his sternum.
At his temples, the sound of his heart pounding was enough to drown the mix of irregular breathing, but not Jo's cry. "Oops, I didn't see you in the dark."
His hands reached out as if to steady them both, and encountered silk-covered skin. In an instant, he was hard. Painfully hard. He forced his apology past a larynx wrapped in rusty barbed wire. "My fault. I should have put the light on. Can I get you something, is there anything you want?"
"You. I want you." Her whisper swirled into the thick blackness enveloping them.
The world stopped and sent him hurtling into space. He sucked in a breath and held it as if it was the last he'd ever take. "I want you." The words he thought he'd never hear, rang in his ears. Their meaning more decipherable, more explicit as his head stopped spinning. This could be his last, best chance. And his gut feeling told him if he didn't grab it, he'd never get another.
"Are you sure?" It was laughable. Even now his innate caution didn't let him down. Not for himself, but for Jo. He stepped into the danger knowing it was there. Knowing what could happen. But she didn't have a clue where it could lead. Couldn't see the future as he had from the moment he knew she existed.
"I'm sure. Very sure." She stepped closer and immediately became more confident of her welcome. Her insides clenched, spasming, the moment his hard male flesh pressed into her belly.
She curved her arms around his neck, unerringly finding the way to his mouth and let their breath mingle as she said, "And I can tell you want me."
Rowan didn't answer. He let his lips do it for him. They slanted across her mouth as she gasped and swallowed the dark-coffee flavor of his breath. The brush of his moustache, against her lips, neck and ears, then back to her mouth, all added to the exhilaration. The fast, furious warring of their tongues warned her not to expect a leisurely coupling.
One stem of her pearl-studded earrings pressed sharply into the tender skin behind her ear as his tongue ran a swathe of wet warmth round its circumference. She was too far under his thrall to feel the pain. It was the attention he gave the shell of her ear that nearly killed her. Her knees melted, removing their support. All she could do was fork her fingers into his hair and hang on for dear life.
Desperation drew static from the air and played like stars behind her eyelids, but she had no way of knowing if the emotion was his or hers until he stepped through the dark well of the cabin door and half carried her inside.
With his breath still warming her skin, Rowan said, "No guarantees, Jo. There's nothing here to bewitch or bedevil our minds but each other. If you come to me, you have to want what I have to give."
He felt an echo of her shuddering sigh in his own as she murmured, "That's all I want. Every little, last thing you have to give."
With the soft weight of her propelling him, he found the bed more from luck than judgment. He had a growling ache in his groin which wouldn't cease until he'd pulled her under him and found alleviation inside her body.
"Touch me, Rowan. I want to feel your hands on my skin." The husky timbre of her voice sent his temperature up five notches. His hands slipped under the collar of her robe, pushing it aside until he found the smooth warmth of bare skin. Satin under silk. That's how it felt to his hands.
She exhaled a long drawn-out sigh. "Ooh, that feels soo goood." Her voice fell like soft rain, bathing his senses, lulling the need for self-preservation. A word...an emotion trembled on his lips, but he kept it inside. He'd lost control of his body, but a small portion of his mind clutched at reason and wouldn't let go.
Perfume, hers, and the overpowering scent of sexual musk exuding from his pores combined and filled the cabin, filled his head. He undid the belt of her robe and it flowed to the floor in a puddle of silk round their feet.
Her breasts rose on an indrawn gasp of air and her lacy bra scratched his chest until he disposed of it as well.
Jo's fingers grasped the tab of his zip, jerking it down until she heard him catch his breath and cry. "Easy now. Easy." She realized he wore nothing under them. Hair brushed her knuckles as she slowed down, holding her fingers between Rowan and the teeth of the zip. Air whistled through his teeth as he sprang free into her palm.
She stifled her own gasp as she discovered the length and breadth of him. One small squeeze and hot steel pulsed in her hand. His chest shuddered and she couldn't help asking, "Better now?"
"The only place I'd feel any better, is inside you."
"Go for it, Rowan. Make yourself feel real good."
The brief respite while she made sure not to damage him was over. Resting the tips of her fingers on the sleek skin, sheathing his collarbones allowed Rowan free rein of her body. Darkness added an extra dimension to his touch.
He turned them both round until the bed brushed the backs of her knees, then cupped her breasts, but she was blind to the movement she'd parodied in the mirror. Her hands were too smooth to simulate the scrape of masculine calluses.
She moaned as the hair on his top lip feathered the tips of her breasts and exclaimed out loud as his teeth scraped their furled crests. Rowan's hands skimmed her sides, hooking the top of her panties. To touch her, he only had to move his hand.
One finger.
Her skin crawled with anticipation. She held her breath. Then his shoulders slid from her hold as he knelt at her feet and kissed the silk keeping them apart.
Rowan started to pull down her panties, memorizing the curve of her hip as he did, breathing her in all the while. How would he ever lose the scent of her now? It was imprinted on his synapses. A panicky thought of any other man getting this close to her reared into his imagination. She was his now. Fear erupted in a feral growl as he grasped silk between his teeth, baring his path to her female center and buried his face in her softness.
"Dear heaven," Jo gasped, her hips thrusting forward. "I can take all you've got of that and more."
With her taste on his lips Rowan drew back. "One last thing, what's the color of this scrap of silk and lace?"
"Scarlet."
Rowan's libido spat out a prayer inside his head. Red panties. He'd never forget how she looked in them. He could see it now. Who said fantasies never come true?
He'd said one last thing, but he'd lied. How did Jo really feel? In his imagination when they made love it wasn't with him in heat and her in cold blood.
She had to want this as much, if not more than he did. As much as she'd ever wanted any man. More. He wanted it all.
The fervent cries. The impassioned moans.
He wanted her the way she'd been that afternoon in the circle of trees, climbing into his skin because she couldn't get close enough.
Stripping her of the last of her covering he clasped her to him by the hips. His breath was a caress that said, "Open for me, babe." Who would have guessed this morning how the day would end?
He nosed her thatch of hair aside and laid her bare to his mouth. Jo trembled as he placed an impassioned kiss at the core. Her insides turned soft as ice cream and began to melt.
"You taste so sweet, I won't ever get enough." Seemed whatever kind of ice cream she was serving, he was buying.
Then his tongue parted her folds and found the spot.
Way back in her mind she thought she heard someone whimpering, then realized she was the culprit.
Weakness invaded every bone in her body and the lock she had on her knees was the first to come undone.
"I don't think I can hold up much longer. I'm going to fall," she squealed. As her legs began to cave, Jo's fingers kneaded his shoulders and did damage with their nails.
Agony and ecstasy.
"Just hang in there, babe. I'm going to make you so happy."
"I don't think I could get any happier."
"Give me a few seconds to prove you wrong."
He found his target and circled it with his tongue as he had the pearl in her ear. Fastening his mouth over her he sucked gently, drew it into his mouth. Into the soft, wet darkness like the shell that had formed it in the depths of the ocean.
"Now! Rowan, now!"
Her impatience caught up with him and he set up an uneven rhythm, fast, slow, soft, hard. Then he slid one thumb partway inside her to join the dance.
She screamed, falling backward onto the pillows in a tangle with him sprawled across her belly.
"Hold me, Rowan. Just hold me."
He climbed over her and hauled her into his arms, wrapping her up in himself, hugging her close while the aftershocks ripped through her. The tears streaming down her face were a surprise. He lapped at the saltiness with his tongue, then covered her damp face in small kisses until her harsh breathing subsided.
She'd never experienced anything like it in her life. It was almost as if, after thinking herself experienced in matters of sensuality for most of her adult years, she'd finally lost her virginity.
Although he couldn't see them, Rowan brushed the last tears from her eyes with a thumb. "That bad, huh?"
She almost started bawling at the tenderness in his voice. Everything was new and shiny tonight. "No. That good. I never realized, Rowan...I just never realized."
"And we haven't even reached the good part. What are you going to do then, sweetheart?"
Sweetheart. When had he started calling her that? It was a good word. One that made her feel special. Forcing past the emotion clogging her throat, she responded with, "Well, if I die. Tell them I want to be cremated."
His hands were moving on her back, gently stirring her senses again. She didn't see how she could live through too much more of this excitement, but she was willing to try.
She traced his features. The darkness made sure she'd never forget the shape of them, would know him by touch anywhere. But the satisfaction she craved now was Rowan's. She wanted to return the pleasure he had given her.
Only one thing was needed to make it perfect. "Rowan, let's put the light on. I want to see your hands on me."
"No problem. I'd like that myself," he said, rolling off her. "Time I found some protection, anyway."
"There are some in the pocket of my robe. I found them in the drawer by my bed."
The light made her blink and what had been a small confined space occupied by her and Rowan, expanded in a way she didn't like and made her feel naked.
It didn't matter that she already knew it.
Rowan emptied her pocket, scattering foil packets over her and the bed. His eyes crinkled at the corners as he smiled, "Can I take this as a good sign?"
She took her time to reply. The light didn't seem as bright now, just a bedside lamp, bathing the sheen of his skin in a golden glow. If it hadn't been for the scars on his leg he might have been a shoo-in for a Greek statue. A rampantly male statue. He had the most perfect body she had ever laid eyes on, and his scars added to, instead of detracting from the whole, because she knew what they had cost.
"I think we should pace ourselves and think of the spare condoms as an opportunity not to be missed whether it's today or tomorrow. We really haven't got all that much time."
"No, not that much." He bent his head to hers and like an aphrodisiac, she smelled herself on his breath, stirring her, making her want him again. She parted her lips as his mouth closed over hers. Suddenly, she was drawn back into the deep dark vortex of sexual arousal. Her hands reached up and cradled his jaw. The kiss went on and on and she didn't want it to stop.
She heard foil rustle, then a stifled curse against her mouth as he fumbled with the opening. Placing her hands on either side of his face, she eased him away, whispering, "Let me do it. Uh-uh." She cut off his protest. "It's no big deal. Don't go all macho on me, Rowan. Partners, remember?"
She lifted her gaze as a sudden rush of tenderness flushed away the guilt associated with the uneasy memory. Jo traced the scar with her fingertips, less flexible than the soft surrounding skin, but no less sensual, this was a part of Rowan. Part of their shared history.
He tensed as her mouth traced the path the bullet had taken and a quavering sigh escaped as if ripped from his hide.
She'd never done this for a man before and her hand wasn't any steadier than his had been as she sheathed his sex. By the time she'd completed the task they were both breathing hard.
Sitting back on her heels, she stared at him. Her onyx-dark eyes held a question in their depths he couldn't translate.
His heart had no such problem.
From way down inside him, emotion roiled until it burst into his chest in a rush like nothing he'd ever experienced before. His whole body tingled as it invaded every pore. And beyond all reason he knew the sensation had nothing to do with sex.
Opening his arms he pulled her into them and held her. Simply held her close and let the rigors of emotion take him. Take them both to a place where only they existed.
As the shaking eased, he pulled back till he could look into her face. Combing his fingers through the silk of her hair where it clung to her cheek, he examined her features minutely. What he saw there pleased him. Greatly.
Her lips parted as his mouth crushed them under his, and he rolled her into the nest of pillows. As her legs came round him, gathering him in, he entered her.
A groan burst from Jo's lips as his thickness filled her, opening her up in one seamless thrust. Her heart pounded, mating with Rowan's, breaching the walls of their chests, clinging together beat for beat.
Hard fingertips kneaded her scalp until she floated in a daze of ecstasy, then slid into hollows at the base of her skull to melt her bones. His mouth whispered indecipherable endearments against her skin, her face, her breasts that made her moan with pleasure and bite down on the ridge of his shoulder to prevent a scream she felt building.
She had no will of her own. Rowan ushered her into the dance, she simply followed his lead. Had there ever been such a feeling before? She thought not, pitying those who would never experience this twist of rapture laced with fear.
Fear of not quite scaling the heights of the giant wall they climbed, Rowan pushing them higher thrust by thrust.
All thought disappeared as her reason dissolved. She no longer had to strive. She simply was.
His body flowed into hers as the gulf stream merges with the Atlantic. Two entities, one indecipherable from the other. No ending, no beginning.
Then Rowan lifted her over the wall and they fell clinging together.
As they floated in limbo, Rowan felt something tear inside him. Inside his soul. He cried out as it left him and poured into Jo, knowing his life would never be the same again.
She would always carry a part of him and if they were ever separated the piece he had left would wither and die.
F ive o'clock. Half an hour until dawn. Rowan got a rude awakening as the radio alarm went off. He hadn't turned the lights out. Had they even slept for more than thirty minutes at a stretch? He couldn't remember, but he'd never forget the loving.
He shared a pillow with Jo, their heads close together, her hair caressing his face and her shoulders pressing his arm into the mattress. His fingers flexed, pins and needles piercing his skin as his palm cupped a warm breast. He squeezed gently and his sex thickened in response to her nipple answering his touch. One knee lay between his and the sole of her foot massaged the back of his calf, yet her lids stayed closed. Dark lashes shadowed her creamy cheek and, though hidden, her eyes moved back and forth as she dreamed.
He blew a strand of her hair from his mouth, watching her lashes flutter as his breath skimmed her face. He repeated the procedure a few times and caught a glimpse of dark drowsy eyes in reward. Jo blinked, myopically, as her eyes tried to focus on his face.
A flash of shyness, quickly shuttered by her eyelids, surprised him. "Hey," he whispered, rubbing her cheek with his chin.
"Mmmmh, rough." She pouted. Her hand found his bristly face, fending it off. "You need a shave."
"Rise and shine, sweetheart." The words warmed the air before his conscious thought recognized the significance of the endearment.
Sweet---no one would ever call her that. Tart---didn't fit, either. Jo fell somewhere in between, like tasting the first peach of the season, fresh, lush. Oh yeah, that covered it. As for heart---how many times had she turned his over in his chest, by a look, by a touch?
"How about sharing a shower with me, peaches?"
Her breast rose in his hand and ebbed away in the wake of a sharply drawn breath, but she didn't speak.
"Have you gone back to sleep?"
"Why did you call me that?"
"Peaches?"
Her knuckles brushed his fingers as she fisted her hand, holding it clenched between her breasts. An ever so slight nod of her head gave him his answer as he felt her heart flutter. He sighed; he knew the sensation well.
"That's how you taste. Like a peach," he said against her ear, making her tremble.
"Ah, God, that feels so good."
His mouth grazed her cheek and settled over her lips. He pursued them as her head pulled back. She drew her eyebrows together in a V and twitched her nose, protesting. "Sore."
He looked at the whisker burns on her chin and decided the moustache had to go. Who was he hiding from anyway, except maybe himself?
"I think I'll pass on sharing the shower. Time to shape up and ship out," she said, sliding out of his arms and out of his bed.
From up on the bridge he looked back toward the town. Nicks Landing showed no signs of life and that's how he wanted it. No one to see them leave. To the east a faint lightening, merely a glimmer, appeared in the clouds riding the horizon above Venus.
Time to leave.
Jo's head and shoulders appeared round the corner of the stairs. "Finished," she sang out. "Everything's cleared away."
"Be with you in a sec."
Checking that both throttles and gears were in neutral, he placed his hands on the levers of the large twin diesel engines. Moving them ahead slightly so they'd idle evenly, he turned the key and pushed in the ignition. When the dials for the revs, oil-pressure and water-temperature gauges settled he took a quick look over the stern to make sure the cooling water flowed from the exhaust.
Jo waited on the stern while he went forward. The wind had dropped away to almost nothing, relieving him of any worries about letting go both bowlines. Tall wooden pilings marked off each berth and he unclipped the lines from the bow of the Fancy and let them swing back with a dull thud against the posts.
A faint shiver of anticipation prickled the back of his neck as he trod the narrow deck between the port side rail and the cabin. Was this how his father had felt when he'd set sail with hopes of resuscitating his marriage?
Jo watched him cast off, stepping aside to let him pass. "Weather's looking good, just as they forecast," he said.
"Oh well, the Met. office can't be wrong all the time." She nodded toward the bowlines he'd undone. "Is that what you want me to do back here?"
"Yeah, but not till I give you the word."
Back on the bridge he returned the twin throttles to neutral and called down to Jo, "Let go the stern lines."
That done, he pushed the throttles ahead and the Fancy put her nose between the front poles and said goodbye to the floating finger she'd been tied alongside.
Jo appeared beside his elbow. He felt excitement radiating from her as they cleared their berth. Family trips of years gone by floated in his memory, jangling his nerves like a honky-tonk tune on an old piano. He hadn't sailed out of this harbor since his parents drowned.
Same place, same time...
He glanced at Jo and let the thought crash and burn. What he had cursed as weakness in his father teetered on the brink of understanding. Maybe he had more in common with his old man than he'd realized.
Satisfaction welled in his chest as he slid the starboard throttle into astern. They were underway. The maneuver sent their craft on a starboard turn past the moorings. Soon they had cleared the marina with only the slap of their wake on the other boats to show they'd ever been there.
"How fast can she go?"
"Well, she has two 500 hp diesel engines and a top speed of twenty-three knots. We'll cruise around twenty once we reach open water." The powerful revs thrumming beneath his feet reassured him as he stood with one hand on the wheel. Safety was everything at sea and this boat was equipped with the best money could buy. He wrapped an arm round Jo's shoulders. Ahead of them, the first fingers of sunlight clawed their way over the dateline and Venus rode above the horizon.
That darn star looked so pretty, yet if he were to believe the romantics, its influence had been responsible for all the angst he'd suffered over the last few years. He could name the time and the date it had started. The day Jo had come into his life.
If he could turn back the clock there was a lot he would change. About himself mainly. But for sure, last night wouldn't be one of them. No. That was one day he'd mark on the calendar each year. The thirtieth of October.
"I see it!" Jo yelled, quivering with excitement. While they'd done a good job of signposting their final destination, neither of them had taken into account the size of her jacket in comparison to the huge bush-covered cliffs.
Joining him beside the wheel, she looked round his bulk to see the charts. "Are we safe to anchor there? No reefs or shoals?" She hoped Rowan was more capable than her at reading the data on the screen. Computerized charts, GPS and sonar arrays which sketched a side-on view of the seabed, above a patchwork of colors mapping out the bottom, were all beyond her ken.
"Everything looks fairly good. Although..." He caught her chin with a finger and thumb turning her head then pointing her in the right direction. "Look at those breaks in the bush where the yellow clay shows through, there could be some recent slips that aren't marked on the chart. I think I'll anchor out aways. It makes no difference. We'll have to launch the RIB, Rigid Inflatable Boat, tender anyway."
She had no fear of running aground. Rowan worked at bringing them in with the same kind of competence he handled his car...handled her. Another bolt of heat flashed through her. It wasn't easy to put her hormones to rest when the man who rattled them stood by her side.
Time to put the brakes on her imagination before she got carried away with her own importance in the scheme of things.
Rowan slowed the boat to five knots, then gradually put her astern until she stopped. The movement of the waves felt more noticeable now that they weren't cutting through them.
"We're at ten meters here. The wind is quite light and from offshore. I'll let out thirty extra meters of chain and we should be okay." She watched him do everything from where he stood with just the chain counter and a push of a button. The anchors hit the water with a gentle splash as the noise of chain running through the winches broke the comparative silence on board without the big diesels vibrating through the hull.
The sun shone. Both sea and sky were unbelievable shades of blue. Glowing on the steep slope, fifty different hues of green bush flowed down to the water's edge. The weather should hold.
With its bow turned into the wind, the boat drifted away from the shore until the anchors ploughed into the seabed. Far from towns and pollution, crystal clear water surrounded them and she could count every link in the silver chains. Somehow it felt like a homily of the past they shared. Coming out to this beautiful place made the connections easier to see.
He touched her elbow. "How about a swim?"
"You must be joking---it may look beautiful but that water is cold." She pretended to shiver. "No, thanks. I'll hold your towel, though."
Ten minutes later he dove off the boarding platform, punching a hole in the water with barely a splash. When she looked at him stripped of almost all his clothes, she barely noticed his scars. Last night she'd explored every inch of his sexy body. A person tended not to notice what they were familiar with. Now it seemed as much a part of him as his green-gold eyes.
Watching him roll, turn and dive as lithe as a seal, Jo knew she could explain, but not condone the impulse, which had set the accident in motion. Never again, she vowed. She would rather she died than Rowan.
He lasted five minutes in the cold water. Out of sight one second, the next he emerged from the blue depths and hoisted himself on board.
The bottle-green briefs he wore clung to his hips, outlining his masculine shape. Water dripped from his body, turning the toffee streaks almost as dark as hers. His wet skin gleamed in the sunshine, the drops on his lashes sparkling like diamonds.
Towel in hand, she rushed over as he shook himself like a dog, spraying her T-shirt with water. One squeal followed another. The towel landed on the deck unused while he proceeded to wipe off the excess moisture on the front of her T-shirt and jeans.
"Cut it out! You're soaking me."
She pushed at his chest and he leaned against her palms and bit her earlobe. "More," he growled. "Touch me all over."
"Fool," she whispered halfheartedly as his mouth slid along the side of her neck and her knees turned as liquid as the puddle they were standing in. "I hope you're remembering I'm on duty."
Damp cotton knit delineated her breasts in waves of yellow-and-white stripes. Rowan ducked suddenly, leaving her with a view of the sodden curls. Her fingers forked through the wet strands and held on tight as his strong teeth latched on to her tender nipple, T-shirt and all. A moan of protest ripped out of her throat as he lifted his mouth away from her, taking her pleasure with him. Next moment, her T-shirt disappeared, landing at their feet, soaking up the puddle. Her bra swiftly followed.
"You can't...be on duty...if you're naked," he mumbled against her lips while his hands worked her zip.
His skin felt as cool as hers was aflame, yet she reveled in the difference where it touched hers. "You're right. Kiss me."
"Uh-uh. Not before I've shaved."
"When will that be?"
"Later tonight."
"What am I supposed to do until then?"
"Don't worry, I'll think of something." Before she realized what was happening, his arm slipped behind her knees then he knelt and laid her on the towel. One second later his briefs were gone and he moved over her, blotting out the sun.
"And this is?"
"Something."
"Well, I've got my stuff. What are you taking?"
Rowan scrunched his eyes slightly and went through the list of his gear in order of importance. "I've got water, flashlight, machete, rope, camera and light sticks."
"Light sticks?"
"Yeah. I found them in a locker along with some diving paraphernalia when I was searching for the rope."
"I meant, what are they for?"
"Finding our way back in the dark. They're low power but the glow should be enough to guide us in case we have to get out of there in a hurry."
He put his pack on the deck beside hers, which looked almost empty. "You haven't got much there. No more than would fill your pockets," he said, then taking a gander at her tight jeans, decided, maybe not. "What are you taking?"
"My gun and a couple of pairs of cuffs."
"I see, only essentials. What about water, or do you expect to share mine?"
Her teeth looked very white as her lips curled up at the corners, emphasizing her fabulous cheekbones and the sparkle in her eyes. "What's up? Worried about swapping spit?"
No doubt in his mind, Jo was referring to the swapping they'd done last night. He looked at her mouth, noting she'd painted her lips bright coral, a small feminine affectation that pleased him, considering her long-sleeved sweatshirt was a dull green meant to blend into the bush.
"I've got a bottle of H2Go in the fridge. I want to put it in my pack at the last minute so it'll keep cold."
"The last minute just arrived. Go get it while I launch the RIB." By the time he reached the deck outside the pilothouse, she was pushing the bottled water in her pack. "Right, Jo. I'll swing it over the side with the derrick and you catch the line before she hits the water."
The climb ahead of them wouldn't be easy, and his pinned thighbone had been aching ever since he'd made love to Jo on the deck. Whoever said sexual arousal masks pain knew a thing or two. Served him right for being so bloody organized he'd slipped protection into the little inside pocket of his swim briefs. And thank God, it only held one. They'd had to go back to the comfort of the cabin for the second round.
Even then he'd had to hold his lust in check. Lust?
So he was fooling himself, who better? The little voice at the back of his mind kept reminding him, he'd maybe only one more night with Jo. The danger wasn't over, he knew that, but he'd tempered foolish disregard of the truth by pretending it was him who'd walk away.
If all went well on their little jaunt, they'd end up with photos identifying their suspects. After that, it was her task to link those weirdos to the notes. He hadn't mentioned it to Jo, hadn't wanted to dampen her enthusiasm, but film filled with shots of goats' heads and masks wasn't going to further her case.
If that happened he could see his plans for the night hours foiled by hours of tracking satanists through the bush.
The RIB bumped against the hull. "You got the line, Jo?"
"Affirmative."
The tender hit the water and he leaned over the rail to check if she was coping with the line. He'd had one cold swim today and another one wasn't high on his to-do list, although the earlier one had served its purpose.
Jo was tying the line off on the rail. She twisted her head, glancing up at him with her eyes full of mischief. "You checking up on me? I said, affirmative. In case you didn't know that's cop speak for yes."
At the top of the slope Rowan put away the machete, then wiped the sweat from his eyes with the back of his glove. Jo was about a minute behind him, almost on all fours, her fingers grappling one root while her toes found leverage on another.
He undid the rope from his belt and tied it round the rough bark of a totara. The tree was sturdy enough to take both their weight on the way down. He heard Jo puffing behind him as he tugged on the knot to test it. Turning around he hunkered down and held a hand out to her, twisting the rope round the other.
They gripped each other, wrist to wrist, both grunting from exertion as he hauled her the last few feet.
She flung herself onto the ground face down. "Whose bright idea was this?"
"Dare I say, yours?" Rowan peeled off his gloves, clumped them together in his fist and tapped them on her behind. "But you don't hear me complaining. And whose brilliant idea was it to go back for the gloves?"
He'd remembered just before they'd taken off and he'd gone back to get them from the locker where the rope had been stashed.
Struggling up on to her knees, she moaned, "So, I forgot. And you didn't. That only counts as half a brownie point. Though, I'll give you one more if you pull me to my feet."
When she finally stood beside him, Rowan pulled her in close to his chest and they just stood, hugging each other. Finally she sighed and lifted her chin so her mouth hovered just below his. "How's the leg holding out?"
His hands tightened on her momentarily. He couldn't help it. "Great. Couldn't be better," he lied.
Jo pinched him just above the waist.
"Ow!" he yelped. "What was that in aid of?"
"I'm just showing what you get if you don't tell the truth. There's no need to act all macho with me. The slope nearly killed me and it must have put a lot of pressure on your quads. If you want to sit down a little while and get your breath back it's okay by me."
She couldn't kid a kidder. He knew her game. Her breasts grazed his chest every time she squeezed out a gust of air and her pulse beat hard and fast under his palm. "No problems here, peaches. I'm ready to go whenever you are. In about an hour the sun will be dipping down behind the trees and, look over there, the moon's coming up! Hopefully we'll be in position before they arrive."
"Easy for you to say."
"Do a few stretches, they'll make you feel better." Releasing her, he got down on one knee and wiped his machete on a clump of grass. At least their descent would be easier.
As he came up again, he watched Jo take his advice, and it worked better than he'd imagined, especially from his viewpoint.
A smile creased his face as he slid the blade into the sheath on his belt, then took a light stick out of his pack. Cracking the contents, he hooked it over the rope close to the knot. By daylight its candlepower didn't amount to much, but come nightfall it would be enough to light them home.
They found themselves a good spot to lie in wait, hidden by a tree fern still young enough for its fronds to sweep the ground. It was like looking through Mother Nature's veil, but once it was truly dark, instead of this thick green gloom, they should be able to pull it aside and get a good view of the circle.
Jo curled her toes inside her boots to keep her circulation going, hoping she wouldn't cramp up by lying so long in one position. She refused to even consider there might be bugs around. No way. Once her mind went down that track she'd start to fidget. She could just picture herself, racing around the circle, flapping at her shirt where a creepy crawly had taken up residence, right in the middle of some fiendish ceremony.
Now that would be funny. Funnier than a lot of the other scenarios she'd imagined happening tonight.
The whole place still spooked her, though. A breeze she'd thought nonexistent, danced through the trees on ghostly tiptoes. Branches whispered and clacked, and every little noise, characteristic of the bush or not, made the back of her neck prickle. It would be worse once night finally fell. Sounds seemed to magnify when you were blind to their source.
Her biggest problem, real or illusory, once she'd shoved her other fears to the back of her mind, was that she was left with the awareness of the heat emanating from Rowan's body. He lay alongside her, touching, burning, at shoulder, elbow and hip. They'd blamed the madness that came over them on their last visit to the circle on a mix of heightened senses spiced with vivid imagination. Now she wasn't so sure.
If someone could can the air pervading the place, they could make a fortune selling it as an aphrodisiac. She felt it creeping stealthily toward them, seeping out of the ring of trees on long green fingers that teased and prodded. Her breasts grew tight and heavy and she ached to be touched.
Just as she prayed she could get out of their hiding place without ripping Rowan's clothes off, giving their position away, his hand clasped her wrist. "Listen. Someone's coming."
Three figures cloaked and hooded in white entered the clearing. "I thought they'd wear black," she whispered.
"Hush." His hand let go her wrist, and his finger pointed in the air, level with their mouths.
Jo's nails dug into the leaf mulch they were lying in, realizing these could be the very people who had threatened her and Rocky. They'd made her puddle around in blood-soaked mud, and nearly trapped them in a burning house, not to mention forcing her to handle a roasted heart. After what they'd done, she would see they paid.
She stifled a gasp as Rowan's fingers bit into her arm. At ground level the rest of the man was invisible, but the skirt of his white robe grazed the fronds hiding them, and set the green veil shivering. Her heart pounded in her throat at the near miss. And it wasn't over. The figure reached for a branch, probably the one Rowan threw away to stop her completing the pentagram.
Two others dodged in and out of the circle, as well, collecting wood until they'd built a small pyre inside the ring of stones.
Each time they came near, she tensed. It wasn't that she was afraid, simply wary of being discovered. Recovering from one close shave, she noticed a supplicant skirting the rim of the stones with a box in her hand. Fire lighters, Jo recognized the brand, Little Lucifers. Tension fractured a bubble of near hysterical laughter she almost choked holding in, then Rowan gripped the back of her neck, planting her mouth over his. He tasted warm and human and the brush of his moustache was infinitely more real than the play being enacted in front of them.
Laughter no longer troubled her breathing by the time he let go. Instead she was glad of the darkness inside their hidden bower. Even the smell of leaf mold and rich humus, couldn't diminish her emotions as she reached out to touch his cheek. Not for the first time, asking herself, how could she have been so blind to his attractions?
More people began to join the gatherers. Some in white robes, some in gray. At one side, where the path they'd taken on their first visit ended, a few of the cult members moved in and out in an urgent, almost fussy manner, whispering to the apparent leader, then gliding away, robes skimming the ground.
After her lurid experience with the bull calf, Jo's mind pounced on the word sacrifice. Who, or what, were they preparing out there? Dear Lord, she prayed it would be animal, not human.
A goat maybe...she could stand a goat.
Dark as it was they couldn't fail to notice the ceremonial knife. An athame. Rowan nudged her arm. She started to nod, realized it was redundant since he couldn't see, and squeezed his hand instead.
In much the same way Jo had used the stick, the knife cut a pentagram into the earth in a continuous line from stone to stone to stone. Jo figured this guy for high priest.
Once it was done five hooded figures stationed themselves at the points, heads bowed, waiting. It didn't take long to discover who they were waiting for as two women were brought in from behind the trees. They weren't even fighting it. No struggling, nothing. Drugged...they had to be drugged or hypnotized. She'd gladly have swapped their composure for a bleating goat or a few blood-curdling yells.
Damn. Why couldn't it have been a goat?
Flames licked at the seat of the pyre, though not enough to light the circle. Jo caught back a scream as they knelt at the penultimate point and the leader raised the knife high.
Oh, God. They weren't wasting any time. Jo's hand swung behind to grasp the gun nestling against the small of her back. She had the bastard in her sights and the sound of Rowan's camera in her ears as the knife sliced through the air when the high priest threw his head back as if in exultation. And as a result of this fervent movement his hood and hair tumbled free.
Whoa! Jo did a quick reality check. Her hair.
A woman! Even in the dark she could make that out.
Gesticulating toward each corner in turn with the athame, she recited an incantation Jo couldn't make head nor tail of. Latin spelled backwards, she'd say at a guess. She should have done more research and not let her inborn dread of the whole black-magic business put her off.
The urge to make a gagging gesture to Rowan, tingled through the hands she'd wrapped around her Glock, as the hammy theatricals continued.
The priestess scooped up a handful of dust, letting it spill through her fingers as she called out, "Earth!"
The athame circled above her head. "Wind!" she cried. Every particle of air inside the trees seemed to follow the knife, swirling and forming a funnel. The long strands of hair spun around her head. Widening its circumference, it twisted between their robes and ripped through the fronds of the tree fern sheltering them.
Jo's pulse jolted as her gaze followed its snarling progress through the leaves and branches until suddenly it died away, and everything except her heart stilled.
With a sleight of hand worthy of a magician, a sprinkling of powder flew from the priestess's fingers onto the smoldering pyre. "Fire!" she shouted.
Almost blinding after the darkness, flames shot high, illuminating the circle and burnishing the leader's tangled locks where they floated round her shoulders.
Rowan's camera whirred and clicked. He'd loaded it with a fast film, and these pictures were their best chance of getting the evidence they needed.
A hush fell over the gathering as the priestess's attention turned to the women kneeling beside her. Others carrying flowers joined the group and laid their hands on the supplicants' shoulders.
Jo steadied her aim, looking along her arm, then stopped, bewildered. Familiarity teasing her memory, she studied the raised faces of the women as they lifted to the priestess. Athame and flower garlands held high, the leader turned in a circle, stirring the dust at her feet into a fine mist at her hem. Flames glanced off her knife, casting a ripple of reflected light onto the trees as if a streamer of fire leaped through them.
Knife and flowers forgotten, Jo's aim faltered.
Rowan's gasp matched her own as they finally saw the leader's face.
L ike in a game of follow the leader the faces were revealed, and the worst thing about it, Jo found most of them familiar. None more so than the one holding the knife.
"Ratchett!" What a fool, the answer had been right there under her nose if only she'd bothered to look.
She didn't realize she'd cursed out loud until Rowan nudged her with his elbow. Leaning closer, her forehead grazing his cheekbone, she whispered, "Moira," then backed off before his musky male scent made her forget her purpose for being there.
There was magic in the air and it wasn't all happening in the circle.
Her landlady, the witch. Good grief, Rowan must think she was the dumbest cop around not to have known. And somehow, her not knowing only served to emphasize that even Moira still thought of her as an outsider.
But Moira was no killer.
Jo would stake her life on it.
Her landlady made a magnificent sight with her bright red hair agleam in a tangle of firelight and curls, like a symbol of her high status. From the instance of recognition, the scene went through a transmogrification. And with change came the belief that these women, kneeling before Moira had nothing to fear from either her or this place.
Jo recognized one of them as Seth MacAllister's wife and wondered if the young cop knew what his wife was up to.
The camera clicked and whirred, reminding her she wasn't alone. Shadows tattooed a pattern over the plains and hollows of Rowan's features, disguising them in striped camouflage. He lay beside her, watchful as a jungle cat, and every bit as lethal.
Her last thought made her hesitate as she touched his shoulder. Maybe the ambience of the circle had worked its magic again. Even in shadow his sheer maleness aroused her. In this all-female gathering, Rowan's strength became more pronounced, more alluring. A sought-after prize in the game of mating.
Man, woman...child.
"Oh heavens," she said on a hushed breath as enlightenment dawned. And with the knowledge came the need to leave quietly, as if they had never been there, never witnessed the proceedings. The purpose behind the ceremony in the Nest of the Gods was obvious now. As obvious as the reason for Seth's departures on personal emergencies. They wanted a baby.
Time to depart and allow these women their privacy.
Leaning closer she inhaled the irresistible masculine essence emanating from the collar of his shirt. There was temptation there. Temptation to nibble on his lobe instead of whispering her decision. "We should go now. There's nothing for us here."
He nodded, tantalizing her weakened libido as the stubble on his chin scraped her cheek. Shaken by need, her whole body quivering, she finished, "I'll back out first."
It wasn't an easy retreat from their hiding place. Her mind wasn't on the job. The silhouette of Rowan's shoulders reminded her of the sheer strength of them, looming over her this afternoon as he covered her body with his.
Don't go there. This isn't the time for those thoughts. Those temptations.
Her body didn't give a damn. A spear of need twisted inside her and coursed between her thighs. She felt as if she were in heat. Her heart pounded beneath her breast and a flush of arousal flooded her skin.
She wanted Rowan. Wanted him now. Wanted to roll over and open her body to---
Pain jarred Jo to her senses as her ankle banged against the soft spongy trunk of a ponga tree fern. "Oh, boy." She'd needed that. No wonder they brought women who were having a hard time getting pregnant to this place. She ought to tell Moira they might have more success if they brought their husbands along. Of course she wouldn't do that. She had a good relationship with her landlady. Not as honest as she'd thought, but she didn't want to ruin it.
Biting her bottom lip, Jo started to shuffle backward once more. The painful jabs of spiky little twigs towed along by her bootlaces were more noticeable now that her mad arousal had subsided.
A simple lift of her eyes showed Rowan would soon overtake her. She needed to get a wiggle on, take her mind off his butt and those tight jeans, and circumspectly crawl out of there.
Not that she could see his butt, it was far too dark, but her memory of it started a fire easier than rubbing two sticks together. She could tell the cat-that-stole-the-cream look still lingered on her face by the time she was far enough away to turn around to make her way out headfirst. Before her, the nearest light stick glowed dimly. At last she could stand up.
A crackle of dead leaves preceded Rowan. Warily she stepped back among the foliage, not trusting the strength of her resistance. Still uncertain if the circle had cast a spell, or if her libido, primed by its release from hibernation, was to blame.
Then something fell off the greenery into her neckline.
Panic.
No, don't panic.
She shuddered as every hair on her body stood on end. Deliberately, she closed her mind against the peculiar insect life inhabiting New Zealand's bush. It didn't work. Seemed like it, too, hated being ignored.
Trying not to squeal, she struggled out of her jacket and tossed it aside. Holding out the hem of her sweatshirt she wriggled, hoping to dispatch the many-legged hitchhiker she sensed running down her back. Her skin tightened, shrinking away from it. She'd shivered over them at natural-history classes, creatures, part worm, part stick insect, which ran on tiny little legs. Wettas, whose large back legs could inflict a sting.
Oh Lord. From giant huhu bugs to poisonous spiders, her mind listed them all. By the time Rowan reached her, her arms were high and feet stamping as if issuing a challenge with her own rendition of a Maori haka.
"What's wrong?"
"Bugs, creepy crawlies. One fell down my neck."
He took the light stick from the tree. "Here, let me help."
"What is it? What can you see? Is there something in my hair?" She fluffed out her curls, scouring them with her fingers.
"No, nothing there. Hold this." He pushed the light stick at her and slid his hands under her sweatshirt.
"What are you doing?"
"Looking for bugs."
His palms skimmed her back, but it wasn't enough. He'd been dying to touch her from the moment she lay down beside him. Every time her hip or elbow brushed against him, he'd been tempted to throw caution to the wind.
And now he could.
Rowan's fingertips trailed across her shoulder blades on the way up. Jo trembled and he smiled, confident he could make her forget about bugs. His smile deepened as something prickled against his finger. "Hold still," he murmured.
Jo froze. "Have you found something?"
"Yeah. Let's see what it is." The light played over a strand of rimu needles from the tree above them. "No wonder you thought it was a bug. With those spiny needles, it would travel around inside your sweatshirt every time you moved."
Jo sighed, letting her body lean into his. He'd have liked to pretend it was passion, but common sense told him it was because he hadn't dismissed her fears. He pulled her closer, nuzzling her ear, tasting it with his tongue. "I take it I'm safe this time."
"S-s-safe?"
"You aren't annoyed because I rescued you."
"No, just grateful, but don't you dare tell a soul that bugs scare the living daylights out of me."
"I won't. It'll be our secret." He wasn't likely to share the way watching her had made him feel. This visit had given him a whole new take on Jo. He'd always admired her as a dedicated cop; getting shot hadn't changed that. Discovering the woman who came apart in his arms made him want to rethink a decision made long before he knew she existed, before he knew anyone could tear his heart out the way she did. Now he'd discovered the child in her, scared of bugs. Who'd have believed it? He gave her another hug and brushed a tender kiss over her silky tangle of black waves.
"I think I've worked out the reason for the ceremony. Remember the effect the place had on our libidos?"
He not only remembered, he was still in its thrall, but this time he'd known what to expect.
Her hands slid up his arms and caressed his biceps through the fine cloth of his shirt. "Maybe the legend has a basis in fact."
At her touch his muscles expanded, bulging as though strutting their stuff for her approval. Not only that, the brush of her fingers against him turned his already aroused sex hard as stone. Given his druthers he'd take her here and now and to hell with who heard her shouts of release.
Her palms swept across his chest, rubbing in concentric circles. "There's certainly some sort of magic in the air."
"You could be right." He bent his head and took her mouth. She tasted of desire, flavored with golden honey and rich dark figs, holding a promise of heaven. His hands slid down and cupped her buttocks, pulling her up tight against his need, so she would have no doubt of her effect on him. He lifted his head and looked at her. A stray beam of moonlight bathed her face as her head fell back and her hair swung free. There was no mistaking the desire on her lips or the hunger in her eyes, shaded by half-closed lashes. "I prefer to make my own magic," he growled.
He let her feel the slide of his teeth on the cord of her neck. Her throaty response was enough to get them back to the boat and into his bed in double quick time.
On the way, he gathered their guiding lights until gradually they walked in a shimmering ball of phosphorescence bounded on each side by trees. "And you had no idea about Moira?"
"Not a clue. I know she has lots of women visitors. I simply took it for granted they all came for herbal remedies."
He patted the pocket where he'd stowed his camera. "I got some good shots of her. Do you think she'd like copies?"
"Good grief, no! She must never know. If you must develop the film, do it when you go home to Auckland. Can you imagine the stir if you had them processed locally?"
His mouth went dry; this was the first mention of his departure. From the moment they'd become intimate it was as though the subject had become taboo.
"What difference is this going to make to your investigation? Will you still pay Rocky out? The only proof of satanists we have now are those letters and he could have written them himself."
He recognized hope in the way she tilted her head toward him.
"Bull gave us a week. But I can take as long as I like." A lifetime. Hell, he knew being with Jo had screwed his mind around. His last thought proved it. He was hedging about leaving her. What had happened to the notion that he'd be okay as long as he was the one to walk away? "I'll give it at least until we hear what forensics has to say about the letters."
They'd reached the top of the slope down to the beach and the rope he'd tied off earlier. He released the last of the light sticks from its branch and hooked it onto one of his belt loops. "Here, fasten this one on to you. It'll help a little. Even if only to show where you've been."
He shoved the rest into his pack, his movements jerky from the frustration running through him. His leg had stiffened up from lying on the ground. So far, he'd managed not to show it was giving him hell but he wasn't looking forward to the climb.
Everything seemed to be conspiring against him: his leg, the thoughts of leaving her that had been playing through his mind. No matter what time they got back on board, he wanted to love her so well, she'd never be able to forget him. Or he her. But with his leg in the shape it was in...
He shouldered his pack again. "Put your gloves on. I'll go first. Then if you fall you'll land on me."
It was near midnight and she was bone tired, yet she didn't want to sleep. The journey downhill had been worse than the one going up. Heaven only knows how Rowan had coped on his bad leg, but if he'd been in pain she hadn't been able to tell with her back to him. Any grunts he'd let loose had been no worse than her own as her arms took the strain on the rope.
More than that, the load on her quads had been tremendous and her hip joints had taken to calling her unrepeatable names by the time she hit the beach. They creaked like a dry hinge when she finally sat down on the edge of the RIB to go back to the boat.
From low down on the water, the night sky was glorious, a real midnight-blue velvet. The only thing bothering her was the ring around the moon as per Moira's prediction of trouble. With thoughts of omens on her mind, she'd watched it sail high above the cliff top, blighted by a red haze.
Shivering, she asked, "Do they call that blood on the moon?"
Rowan laughed. "You're very superstitious all of a sudden. The wind that's blowing from offshore is the smoke from Moira's fire drifting in front of the light. Nothing to worry about...unless they set fire to the bush."
Back on board, they stood in the middle of the companionway as if in limbo, neither at her cabin door nor his. Slowly, his hand reached out and plucked a green sprig tangled in her hair. Rowan tucked it into his shirt pocket. "Do you wanna shower first?"
"I can use the shower off my stateroom."
"My ensuite is larger. Use it." To settle matters he took her jacket and tossed it into his cabin followed by his own.
His palm centered on her lower back and pushed her in after them. "You go get started. I'll bring the tender aboard ready for tomorrow."
If she hadn't known Rowan's was the master stateroom, his bathroom would have clinched it. There were no sharp corners anywhere. A huge mirror lorded it over shiny white lacquer cupboards, curving below a brown-flecked granite vanity counter with two basins. The heads fitted behind the sweep of granite, and above, stacks of terra-cotta towels packed the shelves. An almond-shaped glass wall enclosed the shower, its base the same nonskid surface as the floor.
The mirror she could have done without.
She cringed to think she'd looked this way while Rowan held her in his arms and made no bones about wanting her.
Man, he must have it bad.
And that was good.
She smiled to herself. A secret smile, born of a thought she hadn't dared voice. Not to herself. Not to anyone. With an urgency she didn't question, she stripped off her sweatshirt, boots and jeans. There was little glamour to be found in thick socks; she added them to the pile. Bra and panties joined them in quick succession, then naked, she reached for one of the towels.
For less than a minute she studied her reflection. Her body wasn't the type which graced the pages of pinup magazines. Her honey-colored skin and plum-dark nipples weren't in the usual style. What was it Rowan had said last night? "You taste like Caruba rum and I'm going to get drunk on you."
The words alone intoxicated her.
She got high just listening to him.
High on love.
Was that her problem? Had she really fallen in love with Rowan? The warmth she felt inside by simply looking at him wasn't anything she'd experienced before. A look from him made every bone in her body melt and everything she was softened with a sweetness she'd never known existed.
She'd told him about her father, something she hadn't shared with another living soul. That and her phobia about bugs. Rowan was an honest man, trustworthy, and he brought out the best in her. Wasn't that what she'd always wanted?
Magic in the air or not, she'd be unlikely to find her answer in the mirror. Caught up in speculation, she hadn't heard Rowan enter, but suddenly his reflection overlapped her own, wide, tanned shoulders bare like hers.
Until he stretched for a towel on the pile, she hadn't realized he was naked. He grinned at her, tucking the ends of the towel in at his waist. His expression didn't quite wipe the pain from his eyes. Her heart turned over in her chest. She'd known the climb would be tough on his leg. "Would you like to go first? I can wait."
His arms pulled her close to his hard body as heat burned away the pain she'd seen and made her blood race. "You disappoint me, Jo. What makes you think I can wait?"
Her fingers splayed against his tanned chest as he ducked his head and nipped gently on the side of her neck. A violent shudder rocked his chest beneath her palms.
"I can't get enough of you, didn't you know that?" In contradiction he pushed her away and lifted a hand to rub his chin. "But first I've got to shave." From his chin to hers was a small leap. His thumb caressed her bottom lip, making it tremble. "Tonight I'm going to take real good care of you."
Her response was spontaneous. "Let me help. What kind of razor do you use?"
In answer he opened a cupboard and pulled out an old-fashioned cutthroat razor and a can of shaving foam. Her eyes widened and he said, "It has sentimental value. My father used this and it was one of the few things I wanted after he died."
She took the razor from him, releasing the blade from its mother-of-pearl sheath. It seemed like forever since she'd watched her father use one of these. His beard had been so dark and strong he'd said nothing else was any use. She stared at Rowan's jaw. Would she still recognize him when all the gold-flecked hair on his face had gone? Would the unveiling bring back the restrained guy she used to know, in place of the pirate standing before her? Only one way to find out. "Do you trust me?"
"With my life."
"Okay, you lather up and I'll check if the blade's sharp."
Within five minutes she was asking, "Are you sure you want to lose the moustache?"
"Positive. Just don't make me laugh anymore, or you might take my nose with it."
"All right, freeze, it's coming off."
Rowan studied his face in the mirror, checking if she'd missed a spot, as she rinsed off the blade. "Stop preening and let me look at you." She lightly touched the pink scar on his top lip. "Coral, huh? You should be more careful."
Her hands followed the trail his had taken. "Okay, you'll do. You may kiss me now."
Rowan's brows rose at her peremptory command. "What's wrong, don't you think I know this workman's worthy of her hire?"
He spoke his reply against her lips but the words were lost in the kiss as he lifted her up on to the vanity and lost both of their towels.
The cold took her breath away as he turned on the spray, but she was getting used to breathtaking, being around Rowan.
Their lovemaking atop the vanity had been fast and furious and over too soon. She'd wanted to drown in his arms and when she told him he'd lifted her into the shower. Actually lifted her and made her feel weak, trembly and utterly feminine in a way she'd never felt before. He'd said he couldn't get enough of her and she echoed the sentiment.
Gradually the water mellowed and soon she had fluffy clouds of shampoo sliding down her breasts and back.
"Here. Let me do that for you." His fingers massaged her scalp like an erotic instrument. They found every nerve ending, some she'd never realized existed, and stimulated them until she could have promised to be his slave for life.
Water fell in screeds as he rinsed her hair.
"Do you use conditioner?"
Aw, help! Did that "Yes" sound like begging?
Regretfully, even conditioner had eventually to be rinsed off. And by then, her legs were like marshmallow. Rowan turned her toward his chest, tucking her hair behind her ears out of her eyes.
She twined her arms around his waist to support herself and turned her face toward his. Her eyelashes felt thick with water, which would account for the sparkling lights flashing as she blinked to clear them. "Thanks, Rowan. You give good shampoo."
"Peaches, you ain't seen nothing yet."
The husky note in his voice rippled across her skin as she linked her fingers behind him and hung on for the ride. Soon there wasn't a particle of each other's body they hadn't washed or explored and hers vibrated with anticipation as he turned off the shower.
Twisting her towel into a sarong across her breasts, he turned another into a turban enclosing her hair. The heated mirror hadn't steamed up and as she rubbed at her hair, she noticed him wince as he stretched out to snag another towel.
Knowing how sensitive he became if she merely hinted his leg might be bothering him, she kept her mouth shut, but resolved to have a look in the cupboards for a bottle of skin lotion. It would be interesting to see if she could turn the tables and make him melt like chocolate in a hot car.
He dried himself quickly, slinging away the towel round his hips long before she was finished looking.
There was a hair dryer built into the fittings and she'd only started to brush out the tangles when Rowan took both items out of her hands and began another sensual encounter.
Her hair felt glorious. He wanted to run it through his fingers like skeins of silk, but then he also wanted to get her into bed. "Is this all natural?" he asked, gathering in fistfuls of her curls as he checked it for dryness.
"Every bit, even the color."
"Oh, I know that's natural." He looked pointedly in the direction of her thighs, as if he had X-ray vision. A quick rush of pink tinged her cheeks. She could still blush. Amazing.
Jo was a conundrum. One he intended to solve.
He undid the knot holding her towel, but she grabbed it before it could hit the deck and tucked it back together.
"No. I want to hold on to this for now. You go through and I'll be with you in a minute."
A protest formed on his lips, but he kept it behind them. He didn't want her to think she couldn't have her privacy. If she had woman stuff to attend to it was none of his damn business.
Waiting, he tidied his clothes away in the locker and folded back the bed. By the time she appeared holding a bottle of skin lotion his eyebrows automatically leaped at the possibilities.
"I like the way your mind works," he said, holding out his hand for the bottle.
She swung away, out of reach. "That's good to know, because this is for you. Lie down."
His imagination ran riot as he followed her instructions. There was no hiding how he felt as she stood beside him pouring lotion onto her palm. The blood flooding his loins turning him into one huge throbbing ache that might just explode the minute she laid hands on him.
About the only prospect he hadn't considered was the one where she massaged his leg. Not that it didn't feel good...more than good...wonderful. Her strong fingers found every single agonizing knot in his thigh.
Painful or not, it didn't diminish the overpowering torment burning in his groin. Her fingers had only to brush close to his heat to make him groan. Each time a noise erupted from his lips she glanced up at him, leaving him in no doubt she knew what her ministrations were doing to his libido.
At last the torture was over.
Jo capped the bottle and set it on the nightstand.
He reached out and enclosed her wrist with his fingers. She looked down, her eyes glistening under her lashes as she bathed him in their warmth. "Come over here, peaches."
Instead of doing as he asked, she sank to her knees by the bed and her fingers traveled his thigh once more, but without the same intense pressure. Gently they traced the scars where the bullet had emerged. Maybe they wouldn't have looked so ugly if they could have just sewn him up, but there had been bone to mend and by the time the orthopedic surgeons were finally done with him, the red lines had spread like tentacles across his inside thigh.
Still, matters could have been worse. A little higher...
It didn't bear thinking of.
Her lips tenderly followed the path her fingers had taken until a fist seemed to reach right up inside him and twist his heart. It gave him the shakes. Overcome, he ground out, "No more, sweetheart. Come up. Come to me." He held out his arms and she fell into them. Her weight crushed down onto his chest yet her feet lingered on the floor.
"I don't want to hurt you."
He ran his lips down her cheek to the curve of her neck for a taste of the sweetness he knew he would find there. When he spoke it was muffled by her skin. "There's no way...you can hurt me anymore...than I do now. You may have...noticed, I'm pretty much in agony down there."
Jo lifted slightly away from him and her hand moved from his shoulder down to his belly. "I can help."
"No! Not that way. It's not enough. I want to be moving inside you. Pleasuring you. That's the only way I'll be satisfied." He reached between them and rid her of the towel impeding the glory of feeling her skin against his. "Come up here beside me and I'll tell you what we're going to do."
Minutes later, Jo sighed her contentment. She was surrounded by warmth. Rowan's warmth. His chest lay hard against her back and his arms held her close. She could stay like this forever, with her breasts cupped in his large hands and his mouth, tongue and teeth nipping and nuzzling at her neck and shoulders until he transformed her into a huge bundle of quivering nerves.
Her moan was long and loud and came straight from her soul as his teeth found the spot again. Her body bucked, her hips wriggling against his long hot length, pressing tight and hard against the crease of her derriere.
His hand found her belly, holding her still and his moist breath panted in her ear as he sought to control her. The feel of his palm splayed over her, so near and yet so far, had the reverse influence. There was a place deep inside her that needed filling, making her undulate her body trying tempt his fingers to journey farther.
"Whoa, don't do that or I won't be long for this world."
"Then touch me, Rowan. Touch me before I disintegrate in your arms from an overdose of anticipation."
A deep growl reverberated through his chest. "I can do that for you, peaches. I sure can." He suited his actions to his words and found her female core with his fingers.
Peaches. She loved it when he called her that. It made her feel soft and tender and gooey inside as if she might melt all over him.
"Rowan," she sighed on a breath that spiraled up from the soles of her feet where her toes curled and released in time with the fingertip circling her femininity. "I can't wait any longer...I need you inside me like now!"
He heard her, and thanked providence for his forethought to see to her protection while he was still capable of rational thought. He touched the inside of her knee. "Raise your leg."
She let out a long low mewl, half human, half animal and her thighs clenched on his hand.
"C'mon. That's it, lift for me, bend your knee."
Once she complied, he gripped her ankle, tucking her foot behind his hip. She felt so open. Yet she wasn't uncomfortable. His finger slipped inside her, testing. She wanted to tell him she was ready, good and ready, but the sensations filling her robbed her of speech. He removed his hand and she felt empty. But not for long. This time he inserted two fingers and brushed between her folds. She let her feelings rip and cried out loud, her belly bucking against his hand.
The noises she made were like music to his ears. They had a magical effect on his sex. He hadn't thought it could get thicker or longer but it did, almost jumping out of his skin. As soon as he felt her first ripples circle his fingers he knew if he didn't take her soon he would miss out on feeling all that hot silk shatter around him.
"Aaaahh,' she sighed as he entered, filling her at last.
The second thrust took her to the top. The third pushed her over. All thought deserted him except one. Jo. His woman.
He growled his right of possession against her neck, lightly gripping her with his teeth as he thrust one more time.
The way down was long and scary. But they made it together.
"Rowan, it's time to get underway." His leg came over her thighs and trapped her. Obviously the man was feeling no pain this morning. "Rowan. Turn off the alarm."
With a halfhearted grunt he rolled over and grabbed his watch and switched on the light.
She pushed up and the bedcovers flowed over her knees. Although she was naked from the hips up she felt anything but embarrassed by his perusal of her attributes. Especially as he only opened one sleepy eye. The raised eyebrow told her he liked what he saw, yet the whole gesture, topped by spiky morning hair was so boyish she wanted to hug him as her thoughts fled in another direction.
She'd always wanted a son---with her upbringing, daughters didn't rate---and suddenly that son took on Rowan's features.
This was dangerous ground.
Time to move.
"Come on, Rowan." The preceding thought, wishful thinking, made her tone brusque. "Only one of us here is self-employed. I have to get back to work."
Climbing over him inelegantly, she reached the side of the bed before he stopped her, catching her fingers with his.
"Shower with me."
"Oh, no. I'm not that foolish. Once you get me in there I'll never get out." She softened her words with a smile. "Get a wiggle on, skipper. We've a lot of waves to slide down before daybreak."
By dawn they were already rounding the bush-covered cone of Tane's Throat and Rowan was on his second shot of coffee. He scowled down into his mug as he remembered Jo's cheerful smile when she'd handed it to him. Things would feel a whole lot better if she didn't seem so darn happy to be returning to civilization, such as it was, in Nicks Landing. Even now, she was down below, packing her bags. No argument from him could convince her she'd be safer staying with him until they'd caught the creep who'd sent her the letter.
The sea was rougher this morning. He heard Jo curse the chop from the foot of the stairs as they left the lee of the volcano. By the time she reached the top he'd smoothed the frown from his features.
She swapped the mug to her other hand as she braced herself against the locker beside the bridge. "Slopped my coffee," she explained as she sucked at the red mark forming on the back of her hand. "I should have put cream in it, then it wouldn't have stung so much."
"Go down and run it under the cold tap before it marks."
"No, it'll be okay, honestly."
Sometimes Jo could be too stoic for her own good.
The radio burst to life before he'd had a chance to reinforce his advice. "Coast Guard to Stanhope's Fancy. Come in." The message repeated before he could reply.
"Stanhope's Fancy, reading you loud and clear, come in."
"Do you have Detective Jellic aboard?"
"Affirmative." A nasty feeling crawled over his skin as soon as they asked for Jo. What could be so important it couldn't wait till they tied up at the marina?
She took over the mike as Harry's voice came over the speaker. "How far are you from Nicks Landing?"
She turned to him, her eyebrows raised in a question. "Approximately two hours at this speed, a little less if you want her to get shaken up on the outgoing tide."
"It'll be two hours, Harry. What's up?"
"Rocky's missing. Went out last night and didn't come back."
As Rowan steered them into the marina, Jo reached up till her lips touched his cheek and kissed him. "Thanks for the last couple of days. I'm going to miss you."
He took his eyes off the berths for a second and shot her a white-toothed grin. "It's not over yet, peaches."
Her heels landed back on the deck and her stomach rolled over the way it did each time he called her that pet name. If only she felt as confident. Moira and her predictions of trouble were still bugging her. She couldn't get that red haze on the moon out of her mind. Superstitious? Maybe. It wasn't her fault she'd been brought up by a grandmother who'd clung to a lot of the traditions from the old country.
"Yeah, I still have to find Skelton."
Rowan put the powerful engines into slow astern then cut them as they glided into their berth. She'd noticed the white-and-blue police car parked at the top of the finger as they approached and it was no surprise to see Harry jump aboard and clip the boat to the floating dock.
"Quick, give me your handkerchief. I've left lipstick on your face." Her task accomplished, she hurried forward and clipped up the bowlines.
All three of them were in the lower saloon before Harry explained what all the rush was about. "We've found Rocky."
Jo heaved a sigh of relief. If anything had happened to Rocky while she was...well, while she and Rowan...it didn't bear thinking... "Thank goodness."
"Where'd you find him?" asked Rowan.
She took her eyes off Harry and turned to him. There was none of the relief she'd felt in his tone. He sounded serious.
Deadly serious.
"Young Ginny found him when she took a shortcut through Stanhope Park on her paper route."
Ginny found him. This didn't bode well. She had a sick feeling the poor kid had seen something no child should ever lay eyes on. She would go see the child first chance she got.
"Come on, Harry," she said roughly. "Get on with it. Stop dragging it out."
"He was naked with one of those symbols drawn across his chest like on the letters. It was centered around a knife wound. The M.E. says the weapon went straight through his heart."
J o always felt there was something obscene about gazing on the dead before the undertaker had had time to make them presentable. Like spying on people through a gap in the curtains, catching them at something they'd never do if they knew they were being observed. Rocky definitely had that look of being caught unawares. His eyes were wide open, but she couldn't find any blame in them for her failure to apprehend the fiend responsible.
A full raft of regrets tossed around in Jo's troubled mind. Starting its descent into the pits by spoiling her fabulous two days with Rowan, and ending with Ginny having to witness this lewd presentation of death.
The poor kid would probably have nightmares over it. On Jo's first murder case, the victim had continued to haunt her dreams for weeks.
Between the first and last thought, the knowledge that Rowan's reason for staying had died along with Rocky, almost overshadowed the other casualty, her chance to prove her father's innocence.
Now that Rocky was no longer in the land of the living, she doubted she'd ever know the truth.
The screen had been erected around the crime scene only moments before their arrival and the rest of the small suburban park had been cordoned off. According to Harry, both Bull and Jake had gone to interview Molly.
She'd rolled her eyes at this information. It wasn't as if the pair of them were joined at the hip. One of them should have stayed behind at the scene. Maybe then she wouldn't have felt like the middle man in a comedy routine, not knowing which way to turn. If she followed her instincts would it earn her a rap over the knuckles? Or was Bull hoping she would do just that?
Rowan stepped round her, taking a good hard look at the way the victim had been staked out. "They didn't make much attempt to hide him."
She'd been mulling over that exact thought. "It's like they were thumbing their nose at the cops. Which shows how much they think about our ability to catch them."
"Don't put yourself down. The other two had this case well chewed over before it came your way."
She let out a sigh and let her gaze wander. "They couldn't have picked a better spot to throw a load of confusion into the mix. This is a well-known short cut. It probably saves a couple of minutes compared to following the path, but it's not going to make our job any easier."
She ran her gaze over the grass and dried mud path, checking it out. "Most of this trash has probably been blowing around for weeks. Also, it hasn't rained in a while so we can discount the footprints."
"Am I included in that our?" he asked.
"I doubt it. But it isn't my case, so you should speak to Bull. He's the man again."
"Don't take it so hard. You're the one with experience, he'll be a fool if he doesn't utilize it."
"Yeah, right."
"Bull may be old-fashioned when it comes to female cops, but this one time he'll have to get over it."
Behind her, Harry let out a bark straddling the fence between cough and laughter. "See, he doesn't think I have a show, either."
"The Sergeant will back you. Won't you, Harry?"
"On your recommendation, McQuaid?"
"On her reputation." The two of them were thick as thieves, but it pleased her that Rowan didn't trade on it over much.
As Harry nodded, she said, "Thanks, guys, but this never should have happened and that's how it'll read on my record. We all know what happened after my last mistake."
Harry coughed again, but there was no telling if it was in agreement or denial.
"You don't need to go there, Jo."
"It's no secret, is it? I got sent here for almost killing you. Well, this time I've succeeded. Rocky is definitely dead."
Her eyes welled with tears as self-pity got in another strike. "Where do you think they'll send me this time?"
Rowan carried on as if he hadn't heard. The plastic covers on his shoes rustled as he hunkered down beside Rocky and she was glad he wasn't looking her way as she swiped her knuckles across her eyes. Rowan didn't touch the pale flaccid body, but his hand hovered over the area of the wound and pointed with a ballpoint. "Not much blood."
His pen scribed a circle in the air and flicked away a dead leaf that had floated onto the body. "D'you think this was drawn before or after he was killed?"
Jo heaved in a breath. Inside her navy jacket with Police emblazoned in yellow, her breasts quivered on a sigh, but she felt better. Following Rowan's example she bent her knees and crouched down beside Rocky's mortal remains. "After. I'd say."
She turned her attention to the ropes on Rocky's wrists. No bruising. "He wasn't killed here. They tied him up after death. And look at this." She lifted one leg to look underneath. "He wasn't lying in this position till a while after death. Has anyone found his clothes?" she asked Harry.
"Not so far. I've put a couple of men onto searching the park. Once they finish here they'll start checking out the Dumpsters and the park's rubbish receptacles. I heard Bull ring Gisborne for reinforcements."
"That's good to know. We're going to need them, thanks, Sergeant." Habit took over as she mentally enumerated the tasks ahead of her, unaware of anything else until she lifted her head and her gaze clashed with Rowan's. It was as if Rocky didn't exist, as if they weren't in the middle of a crime scene, but back in the bush, just the two of them. If only.
His clear green gaze met hers and her heart squeezed. Oh, boy, she was in trouble, deep trouble. Her eyelashes flickered, tangling together, camouflaging her emotions, or so she thought. She felt about Ginny's age, fourteen with all the uncertainty that comes with burgeoning hormones. Jo licked her lips, but a smile for Rowan still trembled on them. "Did I tell you thanks for all you've done?"
"No problem. Anytime," he said without a blink, his eyes wide as if she filled his vision.
A rush of hope welled up inside her and her heart went down for the final count. The future spread itself out before her, beckoning, as if she could have it all, a meaningful relationship, maybe even marriage and a family, but best of all, the love of an honest man.
Rowan thought he was doing a pretty good job of blending in with the furnishings at the back of the squad room. It was small by Auckland standards, but the best the station house had to offer. He'd also discovered something about himself.
The pain he'd expected to experience in this familiar milieu hadn't materialized. Instead, he'd only felt a small pang of nostalgia for the old days. Seemed he'd healed in more ways than one and was ready to move on.
He watched Jo's long dark curls bounce on her shoulders as she spoke animatedly to Harry. Soon, he determined, he'd make sure Jo was ready to make that move with him.
Bull had the floor. "Okay, anyone not know why we're here?"
The few grunts his audience emitted appeared to satisfy the D.S., and he continued. "At or about one a.m. Saturday morning, Rocky Skelton went out to the Dumpster after he and his wife had cleaned up. Molly, his wife, went off to bed and fell asleep, not realizing he hadn't joined her until she woke next morning."
Turning to the board his finger underlined one of the police photographer's shots of Rocky. "Six-fifteen a.m. the victim was discovered looking like this, by a young girl on a bike. She was in the middle of her paper route so if any of you missed out on the morning's news, you know why."
The obligatory titters sounded forced. Murder wasn't a joke to be laughed at in a town that hadn't seen one in ten or more years. Bull smiled at the response then spoke to Harry. "Sergeant Jackson, er...where are you up to?"
Only one day since Ginny found Skelton's body and already Bull was out of his depth, not that he would admit it. To Rowan's mind it seemed the first two statements were all Bull had rehearsed.
"Most of the guys I pulled off the crime scene, now that we have reinforcements, will be doing a door-to-door for anyone who saw Rocky. I know the hour was pretty late, but someone may have heard something. The others will take the streets bordering the park and radiate out from there."
"Can I butt in here?" said Jo. Bull nodded.
"Although it hasn't been confirmed yet, we ought to keep in mind the victim wasn't killed at the crime scene. That means they had to move the body, so you're also looking for a vehicle that may have wakened one or more of the neighbors. My thoughts are that they probably parked at the top end of the shortcut to save carrying the weight uphill, but don't take that for granted."
"You guys keep that in mind." Bull seemed to find his second wind as if for once having Jo on his side gave him the confidence he needed. "Jake and I have a list of the regulars at the Hard Luck Inn and we'll check on them today. If you come upon any leads, inform either me or Detective Jellic."
Hmmm, Bull was learning Jo was more than a token female cop.
Bull went to the board. A map with several pins on it, plus notes on everything they'd had so far, were displayed along with crime scene photos and copies of the anonymous notes, both Rocky's and Jo's. "And you, Detective Jellic? Have you had a result on these?" Bull tapped the notes with a pen.
"Forensics say they're snowed under, but I've been promised a full work-down tomorrow at the latest."
"Well, keep on them. If we can't wrap this up in the next few days then we'll have to put up with cops we don't know from Wellington." He looked apologetically in Jo's direction but it didn't stop him from saying, "We don't want them coming here with their big-city ways and looking down on us.
"Jo, before you do anything else, go talk to the widow. Molly wasn't up to saying much yesterday. Maybe you'll be able to get something other than tears out of her today."
Bull rubbed the tip of his nose on the back of his hand and sniffed. "Play up the woman-to-woman angle."
Rowan couldn't see Jo's face, but he watched her squirm in her seat. "I have a few ideas of my own. I'd like to put them into play." She sounded optimistic. Whatever she had in mind, it wasn't something she'd shared with him. By his guess it was to do with her still discounting the satanists. For himself, he wasn't ready to discount anything or anyone, and that was his reason for sitting at the back of the hall.
Without allowing her to feel crowded, he hadn't let Jo out of his sight since their return from Te Kohanga National Park.
While she sat up front, putting forward her take on what they'd discovered so far, the thought that her own life might be in jeopardy appeared to be the farthest thing from her mind, but it was perched right on top of his list. The only way to make him walk away from her now was at gunpoint. Dammit, not even then!
He'd discovered something about himself, he no longer simply wanted Jo, he wanted to make her happy, but despaired of being the right man for the task.
If she'd felt the desperation in his lovemaking last night, she hadn't mentioned it. She'd simply fallen into a deep slumber in his arms, while his own troubles clawed at his gut and refused him sleep, her palm lay against his breastbone as if the pulse of his heart lulled all her worries. And that was only one of his problems. Over the last few days, Jo's openness had competed with his own ambivalence; he had to tell her the truth about himself.
The night before, he'd discovered a new Jo in the woman who cried on his chest. "I feel so bad, Rowan. For years...all those years I knew only one gift would do for my father, and I blew it. Rocky was the key, and with him dead it's too late...too late." She'd struggled out of his arms and stared unseeing across the dark sea, fist clenched hammerlike against her breasts. "Forgive me, Dad. I should have tried harder."
That had been his chance to tell her about his own father, Robert Stanhope, but he'd let the opportunity slip from his grasp. Big mistake. One he had to correct very soon, or he might live to regret the omission. It was no longer any use, telling himself he'd held back, when he realized how readily Jo shouldered other people's responsibility. The way she had when he got shot. Now he felt like a cur. Her father at least had the excuse of being dead, but what was his?
A fluttery sensation made Jo's heart skip when Bull told her, "Might as well take McQuaid with you, he'll go anyway and it will give me a man to put somewhere else." Happiness for her had become the glimpse of a tall silhouette out of the corner of her eye, a fleeting touch of his hand as they passed, simple little things that made her feel utterly feminine. Utterly in love.
She could practically guarantee Molly wasn't going to be as delighted. And here she was at the rear door of the inn with Rowan at her shoulder, taking comfort from his presence. Or should that be his continued presence?
Rowan had been part of the landscape all day. How many times had she indulged herself by turning, knowing he would be there?
The door opened a reluctant inch at a time. Red-rimmed eyes stared through a veil of smoke. "Oh, it's you. What d'you want?"
Jo held up her badge as Rowan's knuckles brushed her tense spine, a reminder she wasn't alone. "Sorry to disturb you at such a time. My condolences at your loss, Molly. But I wondered if you felt better able to talk today. If anything more had occurred to you about the people who perpetrated this crime. I know you'll want to find them as much as I do."
"You already know. Those devils took him from me." Loathing seeped out from under her lashes and anger added color to her pinched face, made brighter by the lank silver curls framing it.
Molly drew hard on her cigarette, her mouth tightened, pursing around the filter tip until her pale lips seemed to fray at the edges. In a cloud of smoke she turned her ire on Rowan. "The Stanhopes have a lot to answer, hanging on to money that was rightfully ours. My man's dead and no money to bury him."
None of this was Rowan's fault. Jo wished she could find an excuse for the other woman's bitterness, but she had her own to contend with. Years of living with the lie Rocky perpetuated about her father had seen to that. And dammit all, she was only human.
"Recriminations aren't going to bring your husband back," Rowan replied in a deep voice. Jo felt the rumble vibrate through her rib cage. That was how close he stood. "Rest assured Molly, there will be enough money to bury Rocky in style."
The widow rolled her eyes, as if to say, "I'll believe it when I see it." Without another word, she opened the door wide, walking ahead of them into the kitchen, shoulders stooped and back so brittle a light wind would snap it. Molly's demeanor was surprising. She and Rocky had been married a long time, yet Jo had never gotten the impression it was a love connection.
A strong odor of bleach and a gleaming kitchen indicated Molly hadn't spent the whole day smoking and crying. As they got closer to the table, Jo noted a lonely stub in the ashtray sitting next to a half-drunk cup of coffee. Yeah, the woman had been busy. Every surface gleamed; floor, counters, pots on their hooks and knife handles in rows of three in their wooden block.
Grasping the back of a wooden chair with a hand that looked red and raw, Molly scraped it across the floor, its feet clattering as she angled it into the position she wanted.
Jo sat opposite, while Rowan settled for hitching one hip onto the edge of the worktable. She watched his large foot swing back and forth as she organized her thoughts. "If we discount the satanists, was there anyone else holding a grudge against Rocky?"
Molly pounced. "Apart from yourself, you mean?" Her hand fisted on the scrubbed pine counter. There was an intense stillness about the widow, like a cat gathering itself to pounce.
If it was a knock-down-drag-out fight she wanted, Jo wasn't about to oblige. "How about that guy, Smale?"
Molly's face turned surly. She looked at the floor and ignored the question. Jo carried on. "He was sitting at the bar near the kitchen door the other night. He and Rocky seemed to be having a barney over something."
"Credit. He wanted credit. People are always looking for something for nothing. It wasn't anything worth killing over." Stubbing out her cigarette, undeterred by the change of direction, Molly went on. "Did you think he didn't know you hated him for telling the truth about your father?"
"That may be, but my alibi's sound." Jo didn't utter the words, "How about yours?" But she knew Molly heard them. "If you think of anything else keep us informed, meanwhile I'd like to look through Rocky's personal effects for any clues to his killer there."
Molly jerked her head toward an open door. "Our room's down there, end of the corridor. Not that you'll find much, we'd very little left. Take a good look. See how you'd like it. Nice place for a man to spend his last days. It's clean and that's all you can say for it. Not what you'd be used to, of course." Again she aimed her malevolence at Rowan.
His hand gripped Jo's shoulder once they were out of sight. "Don't let her get to you. I'm not. Skelton's bank accounts had stacks of money in them. They didn't have to live here, they could have rented a damn nice house, no problem."
Jo pushed open the only door at the far end. The room was small and cramped, hardly big enough for the double bed and dresser they'd crammed inside.
"Whauh," Rowan showed his disgust or maybe it was claustrophobia. "Obviously she had no idea about the money. There was no reason for them to live this way, unless you count greed."
"Well, she was right about one thing, it's clean. I have a feeling that anything of use has already been tossed out." Jo looked around the room. She'd been hoping Molly had redirected her compulsion for collecting to their sleeping quarters. There wasn't enough space, though. Inside the room not a particle was out of place, from the hospital corners on the bed to the four-squared pile of magazines on top of the dresser. She wondered how much Rowan would bet on them being stacked by date?
"We'd better get a move on. By the look of this place our next stop has to be the Dumpster outside."
"Thanks, Jo, you just had to make my day."
"Boy, am I glad to be heading home." The last rays of sunset elongated their shadows and the lights in the marina hadn't come into their own yet. Rowan's arm was around her, holding her tight, pressed against his side and Jo made no bones about stealing some of his warmth to combat her weariness.
Heavens, had she really said that? Her tired brain had taken a moment to register her unthinking comment. Flustered, Jo rushed to correct her mistake. "I meant glad we're finished for the day. I know the boat isn't home---"
"Hey, take it easy, peaches. I don't mind." A shimmer of emotion curled inside at the inappropriateness of the endearment to someone her size.
They'd reached the top of the finger where the Fancy was tied up and Rowan stopped under the lamp, turning her in his arms until they were facing each other. "Where do you call home these days? Here, or is it still Auckland?"
"That's difficult to answer. I can't call Nicks Landing home. It's simply the place where I work. And since Grandma died, even before, my brothers have scattered, one was in SAS, but now I'm not sure what he does. He moves around a lot. So I haven't had a place to call home. At least not physically. But, Auckland has always been my favorite place."
"Auckland, huh? At least that gives us something to work with."
Before Jo could ask him to explain, he bent his head till their lips lined up and covered his mouth with hers. She tasted want and need, tinged with fear for her safety. He pulled her closer, holding her as if he'd never let her go. Like Rowan said, they had something to work with.
She let herself drift into the kiss, into the magic and leaned against his chest with a sigh as he lifted his head. "I'm glad you stayed on."
"Me, too. Tonight we've got to talk. And not about Rocky."
Hope surged through her. Maybe she had been in the wilderness long enough. She could put in for a transfer to Auckland. Central was out, but there were always the suburbs. Browns Bay might be an option. She'd put the idea to Rowan later tonight once they were in bed. After she'd heard what he had to say.
Her stomach growled. She looked up at him, laughing. "Lord, am I hungry."
"Me, too. But to hell with food. I'd rather eat you." He leaned forward, his teeth nibbling her earlobe. "What can I say? I can't get enough."
She felt the long hard ridge of his sex pressing into her belly as he pulled her closer. It made her hot all over, and she laughed, uncertain and suddenly vulnerable. Where was it leading? Her and Rowan. Did they really have a chance of making this work?
Impatient with the direction of her thoughts she pushed at him playfully and took a step back. "Well, I was talking about food. Energy, fuel. C'mon, let's go, I'm starving."
She pulled him by the hand, laughing all the way along the silvered wooden planks of the finger. There was a long slow swell running and every now and then the deck came up to meet their feet, which added to the laughter as they misstepped. Just to be awkward, Rowan hung back so she had to haul most of his weight, protesting, "You weigh a ton."
He flashed a look fraught with challenge. "And you love it."
They were almost at the berth when he decided to reverse tactics, drawing level. They covered the last few feet in a flash. Side by side, hearts and minds traveling in unison to the same rhythm. The same need.
A becoming flush colored her cheeks and her hair was all over the place, but her smile was just for him and made his heart squeeze. She'd never looked more beautiful.
And he loved her.
Tonight he would tell her. Then, he would explain who he really was. He'd wait till after they'd made love and she was snuggled up in his arms as they savored the afterglow.
Then he'd tell her.
"Rowan...did you leave a light on?"
"Not that I remember." The galley and lower saloon were dark, but a pale glow illuminated the windows of the upper saloon. "I'll go first." He stepped onto the boarding platform and tried the door. Unlocked.
His first thought was for Jo's safety. "Keep behind me," he whispered and silently swung the door back on its hinges.
"You don't think it's the ones who killed Rocky?"
"Probably not, but we won't take any chances." He put a finger to his lips and she nodded. As he reached the steps he heard a clink of glass and glug, glug of liquid pouring from a bottle.
"Damn cheek," he whispered, "they're into the liquor."
He took the last few steps in one, saying, "Put that down and turn around." The bottle went flying and the glass landed on the floor, soaking the thick carpet pile. His brother turned and blasted him with a look.
"Dammit, Rowan! See what you made me do."
As Jo appeared, for a second so did his brother's usual polished savoir faire. "Sorry about that, I'm Scott Stanhope, and you're..." Scott's jaw dropped and all his social niceties with it. His blue eyes, so like their father's, grew wintry as he looked her up and down.
Rowan stepped closer, not quite in front of Jo but at her shoulder. Too late, he thought, realizing he couldn't shield her or their relationship from the ice storm he knew was on its way.
Scott negligently flicked off a bead of liquor that had landed on his cuff and proceeded to do the same to Jo.
"You're that bloody woman who almost killed my brother!"
L iar, liar, pants on fire. The childish retort raced through Jo's mind every time she stopped for breath.
Jeans, jacket and Tshirts came out of the locker in a jangle of hangers. Liar--- She punched them into the soft duffel bag. Drawers opened, one, two, three. Fists of underwear hit the pile. Liar--- Tissue box scrunched and flattened as the zip closed. Pants on fire. Two foil-covered missiles exploded against the wall. That was it. She was outta here!
But first she had to walk through the saloon she'd left precipitately, holding her anger in check. Rowan's story might have appeased his brother, but his "later" to her, putting his explanation on hold, was never going to happen. Not now. Not ever.
And damn Scott Stanhope for the archetypal, self-centered bastard that he was. He'd just ripped her world asunder and what did he say when Rowan asked him what he was doing here?
"I've just bought a million-dollar horse!" Then he'd laughed when Rowan scowled fiercely.
"Don't worry. I didn't dip into our money. I bought it myself. It was a bargain."
Jo left the stateroom, slamming the door behind her.
Her feet hit the stairs.
Mike Gallagher, a horse trainer, gets into debt and Stanhope helps him out by buying a horse that could win the Melbourne Cup next Tuesday and make him more than his money back, all within a week. Typical! And he was the man Nicks Landing looked up to.
She entered the saloon.
Rowan and his brother were talking together until Rowan spied her duffel and his expression changed.
"Where are you going?"
"Away."
Rowan strode over, reaching for the bag, as she flipped it round behind her. "Don't go."
Two words couldn't mend a broken heart. She'd fallen for a man who was no more than real vision she'd had of their future. And he didn't get it. He just didn't get it.
Such betrayal. She had ended relationships for smaller deceits than the one Rowan perpetrated. "How can I stay? You're a stranger. Someone I only thought I knew."
His face might have been carved in stone. She bit back a sob that came up to choke her. His dear face. She never wanted to see it again. He'd turned her world upside down and all she had to show for it was a killer of a pain in her heart.
The man she loved had never existed.
She stepped round him, missed, and had to shoulder him aside. Five steps down and she was away. She raced for the exit and could hear them behind her. Rowan's feet pounding the stairs, his brother's lighter ones following.
How could she have been so dumb? She'd seen photos of Scott Stanhope, hosting parties for local dignitaries, with a few actresses and models thrown in to sweeten the mix. Together, their similarities hit her eyes like a poke with a sharp stick.
Why hadn't she realized they were brothers?
The whole of Nicks Landing must have been laughing at her.
Rowan McQuaid!
Rowan Stanhope!
She pulled open the door and turned. Rowan was almost upon her. His eyes narrow and his expression furious. "Thanks for the ride, McQuaid...Stanhope. It was fun while it lasted."
She slid the door across in his face, stepping from the boarding platform to the long finger of decking.
The wind came from offshore and blew her tears away.
They'd been arguing in Jo's office for five minutes and Rowan wasn't getting anywhere. He'd been calling Jo since this morning. She'd left a message with Seth at the reception desk that she wouldn't accept his calls, was too busy to see him. He'd circumvented her instructions by asking for Harry.
She looked like hell---the way he felt. Ever since he'd arrived in her office she'd been masking her true feelings by acting offhand. It hadn't worked.
But she still wasn't ready to listen to his explanation. "Excuses," she called them. She played tough. She played explicit---liar---and she countered every argument.
Only the memory of holding her in his arms with him moving inside her, listening to her moans of pleasure, kept him persisting. Jo loved him. He knew it. She knew it.
All he had to do was make her admit it.
Easier said than done.
"This isn't over, not by a long chalk. I love you, Jo."
She blanched, not entirely the response he'd hoped for when he'd played around with the words "I love you" in his head, but neither had he expected her to look as if she might swoon at his feet. If only he knew what she was thinking, but she'd closed her eyes and wouldn't let him in.
He stepped closer. Her throat moved convulsively as his breath stirred the dark curls framing her face. He lifted her hair back from her ear. She tensed. He dipped his head toward her cheek. Jo quivered, fragile as a crystal glass in sync with the note his body played. "Cross my heart and hope to die," he whispered.
The glass shattered. Her eyes flew open, fear expanding her pupils, stark black replacing chocolate brown. "Don't tempt fate, Rowan. You're not indestructible."
Hell, he knew that. Knew it as surely as he knew the pain in his chest was because she'd left him. It had taken that to learn the truth about love. The heart had no defense against it. "Fate has already had its way. I freely admit I didn't want to fall in love with you. I knew the danger, but love isn't that simple." He held her shoulders as if that would force her to look at him. "I want to learn from my father's mistakes and not repeat them. And I won't stand back and let you, my woman---my life---walk away. If it means fighting for your love...I'll do whatever it takes. Just listen."
"No! How can love exist where trust is dead? Lies brought us together. Rocky lied about my father. That gave me the incentive to become a cop. Your deception, your lie, has torn us apart. When were you going to tell me the truth? You had loads of opportunities, I gave you plenty of openings but you didn't take one of them. Seems you didn't really trust me."
"Dammit, woman, I do trust you. I'd trust you with my life."
"What's new? You did that by saving mine, but I gave it back to you. That makes us quits."
He cupped Jo's nape in his hand, tightening his grip as she flinched away from him. "I refuse to give up."
She tried to shrug him off. He forked his fingers through the black silk of her hair, turning her head until she had no place to look but at him.
"Let me go, you oaf. I have a job to do before it turns into another fiasco, and you're in my way." Her dark eyes flashed angry shards of jet.
Just as he thought he was past hurting, past feeling any more pain, his heart clenched on its force. "Resign from your job...make a fresh start...come work with me."
A harsh laugh that sounded more like a plea for help, escaped her lips. "Great. Two police castoffs. Who'd take us seriously?"
Anger and frustration ripped at his control. The insults were getting down and dirty, balancing on the cutting edge of slanderous. But it couldn't stop him loving her. Theirs was a match made in hell, a product of their days working together in Auckland Homicide Division. If you got out of there still clutching your sanity you were lucky. And he felt lucky.
Lucky enough to push his hand up her skirt and discover the little swatch of silk hiding her womanhood. He wanted Jo. Wanted her now! Down on the desk with her legs tight round his waist as he hammered into her.
He started with a kiss, swift and hungry, but it got his message across. Her chest heaved as he clamped her tight against his hip. At last, he found her, cupping her through the sleek barrier. Their gazes fought and he knew he was winning as the first quiver of surrender rippled through her....
"Hrrumph."
The noise came from behind him. He hid Jo from view as he released her and turned to find Harry standing in the office doorway. Passion had made him deaf to it opening.
She stepped past him, flinging him a venomous glance. Jo was keeping score again, but at least she was thinking of him.
"Come on in, Harry. What can I do for you? Stanhope here was just leaving." Could she have put it more pointedly? She didn't think so. Yet, a pang of emotion she didn't want to acknowledge smote her as his wide shoulders filled the door of her office, perhaps for the last time.
After Rowan left, fist clenched round an envelope Harry handed him, she walked over and closed the door, more as a way of stifling regret than anything else. Reluctantly, she released the handle. The click echoed in her mind for a long time afterward.
"You ought to give him a chance, Jo."
Her brows rode high on her forehead and the back of her neck pricked. But she recognized concern in his gaze and stance. Compassion was a rare thing and she accepted it graciously. "Thanks, Harry, but he lied. Couldn't trust me with his name."
"You know what the bard said, 'A rose by any other name...' You knew the real Rowan McQuaid Stanhope."
There had to be a funny side to Harry quoting Shakespeare at her, but her spirits were too low to see it. They'd been scrabbling at the back of her mind since the moment Scott Stanhope turned up, trying not to hit bottom. How ironic that their only moment of relief had been Rowan's kiss.
"Has the whole town been laughing at me?"
Harry's expression was sheepish, "Except for Bull and me no one knew, and we weren't laughing. Though, I have to admit it did raise a smile, seeing McQuaid sickening for love. He hasn't spent a lot of time here since his parents died, and we only wanted what was the best for him. That seemed to be you."
The man was good, but she wasn't falling for any of his tricks. Sure, Rowan had said he loved her, but it wasn't enough, fool that she was, she needed more. She needed everything. Love, trust, the whole nine yards. Hands balled, she doused the excess of emotion, making them tremble as she walked back to her desk and sat down before acknowledging Harry again.
She had murder in mind but it wasn't Rowan's. Oh, she'd thrown out a lot of insults, but he was right, she did love him. Who else could turn her insides to mush with a look, melt her heart with a smile, rescue the tender feelings she'd locked deep inside? Hell, how could she have fallen for a liar?
Jo's stomach clenched so hard she felt sick. It had been years, at least two, since she'd taken out her feelings and examined them so closely. Time to fold them up in a small neat square and bury them again. She had a job to do.
"Anything on the autopsy report?"
"I called the M.E., but he wasn't finished. Said to let you know the blade you're looking for is eight inches long, sharp tapered point and two inches wide at the handle with a nick in the blade near the hilt."
"Sounds like the chef's knife Moira uses. But at least I know where she was on the night of the crime." Harry was one of the only cops they'd let in on the secret. On top of everything else she didn't want to be responsible for spreading gossip about her landlady.
Besides, there was the little matter of having lived at Moira's house for two years without cottoning on.
"Oh yeah, he also said Rocky wasn't laid out like a sacrifice when they stabbed him. He was standing. The knife went in and up under his ribs with a lot of force behind it."
"Short-order cook got him, huh?" Uh-uh, no wisecracks. "Sorry, that was uncalled for, I expect you were Rocky's friend."
Harry eased a hip onto her desk. "Not so's you'd notice."
Spying the envelope Harry slipped onto the desk, she tensed. Stark white, it stood out against the dark wood, like another she'd received. Fingers crossed, she asked, "Is that for me?" Her voice sounded a note too high and a shade too feeble. A fine time to become superstitious.
"Don't worry. It's not another anonymous letter. It's the results of the fingerprint check you ordered done on them."
"Why didn't you give it to Bull?"
"He and Jake dashed off a while ago. They were up in arms when they heard the Smale brothers had been bailed by the youngest of the brood. Besides, when you read the report, I think you'll catch on to the paradox quicker than Bull will."
Paradox? That was an unusual word coming from Harry. He was full of surprises. "I take it you've read the results? I thought you said you never opened my mail?" She inserted a fingernail under the sticky resealed edge and ran it along its length.
"This wasn't personal."
And the other one was? Harry was correct in his assessment. What else could a threat on her life be considered, but personal?
She pulled out the results and read. As she'd thought, the only prints on the letter to Rocky were his own. And on the one to her? Only one print found. And it was taken off one of the letters cut out and pasted. It matched Rocky's thumb-print.
Her jaw dropped as the meaning sunk in. She closed her mouth quickly as she stared up at Harry.
"I knew you'd find it interesting," he remarked dryly.
Now that was more like the Harry she knew, the one given to understatements.
"Read the footnote."
She read. One of the technicians had noted the unusual font, matching it up with a heavy-metal magazine he subscribed to.
That gave her two options. Either Rocky had sent the letters or someone he knew had cut the letters out of a magazine Rocky had read. Maybe he'd traded magazines? As there was no way his death could count as suicide, she settled for the latter option.
Picking up the envelope, she pushed the sheets inside.
"No one else knows about this?"
"Just you, me and forensics."
She could have hugged him. This might stave off the impending invasion by Wellington cops if Molly would cooperate. "Well, I'm off, Harry. You'll know where to find me."
"That I will. Good night, Detective."
She flipped him a grateful smile and left the office.
At last something was going right.
"Are you still here?" Rowan growled at his brother. He wasn't in the mood for anyone's company, Scott's in particular.
"Don't worry, you've only got me for tonight. I'm flying to Melbourne tomorrow morning to watch the race and to see what I've bought." His brother eased back into the blue-and-tan abstract patterned lounger fitted against the bulkhead. The colors emphasized Scott's eyes and for a moment Rowan imagined his father sitting there with his feet on the coffee table. His brother wore a scruffy pair of designer jeans, an old Aran sweater and he'd paid a million dollars for a horse, sight unseen.
It was like seeing him through fresh eyes. No wonder Jo had taken one look at him and run. No wonder his mother had done the same to his father.
Rowan turned away. "I need a drink, do you want one?"
"No. Tonight I'm teetotal. Have to fly the Hughes up to Auckland early tomorrow." Although Scott was licensed to fly a helicopter and a twin-engine plane, it was part of what Rowan saw as an affectation, not to fly them himself unless absolutely necessary.
"What happened to your pilot?"
"I gave him a week's leave. I didn't know about the horse then."
Rowan poured himself two fingers of Cardhu malt, swallowing it down in one gulp, then he poured another.
"Hey, take it steady, brother." Scott's feet hit the floor and he came over to the cabinet where Rowan stood tipping back the second whiskey. He was shorter by a good four inches, slighter and dark where Rowan took after his mother. "Look, let's face it, Rowan, she wasn't for you. It would have been better all round if you'd let it go after the last disaster. I know what I'm talking about. Stick to your own kind. They know the rules."
"I love Jo. And I'm going to have her, so mind your own damn business!" His glass hit the top of the cabinet with a clunk.
Scott picked it up and swiped at the damp ring with his sleeve. "You think I don't know what you're going through? Well, my last disaster with a woman happened right here on the Fancy. Would you believe I caught her piercing condoms with a needle! Yeah, I learned my lesson there. Always supply your own."
Rowan just shook his head and headed for the galley. "Did you bring anything to eat?"
"I've ordered pizzas."
"Well, I hope you ordered plenty. I could eat a horse. Even a million-dollar one."
Scott laughed, sounding relieved.
Jo parked across the street from the inn. It was in darkness but she'd be sure to find Molly in the kitchen. Apart from Betty, she didn't appear to have many friends.
Walking through the alley separating the inn from its nearest neighbor, she approached quietly until a movement in the darkness told her she wasn't alone. "Who's there?"
"It's me, Detective Jo."
Ginny appeared in the light of the old yellowed fluorescent tubes glowing through the high-barred kitchen windows. It personified what she'd come to believe about Rocky. He'd been all show up front, but weak on the inside where it counted. Essentially he'd lacked the humanity needed to care for anyone other than himself. No wonder he hadn't been surprised someone could want to kill him.
"Hey, Ginny. Why are you hanging around the inn at this time of night? Is your mom working?"
"No, I wanted to speak to Molly. I wanted to say how sorry I was about Mr. Skelton. I meant to come before, then I thought maybe Molly wouldn't be too happy about me seeing him naked and all that. It was terrible what they did to him, I can't get it out of my head."
"All the more reason for not hanging around in the dark." By rights the kid should have gone for counseling, but the facilities just weren't available. She'd tried to tell Bull he should bring someone in for Ginny and for Molly. With one eye on his budget, he'd laughed off her suggestions as another of her peculiar Auckland ideas. "Why didn't you go in?"
"Molly has a visitor. He got here just before me and I was going to wait till he left."
"Well, I haven't got the time to hang around and I don't think Molly will want to see anyone else after I've had a word with her. I probably won't be long, so how 'bout I give you a lift home? Your mom is probably worried sick."
"That'd be cool. I didn't fancy walking home in the dark."
"You go wait by my car. I'll be as quick as I can."
Jo had come here on a hunch. Though it would take Molly's collaboration to make it pay off. It would be interesting to see who was visiting her. Most likely the answer would be a priest or funeral director.
For maybe two seconds she had wondered if Molly was involved. A bit of putting two and two together, hoping to come up with five. That would make life too easy. Besides, she couldn't see someone Molly's size shifting Rocky on her own.
Then there was that business about her and Rocky trying to have children. What a rat he'd been. A tweak at her amateur psychologist's button suggested Molly's fetish for beautiful crystal et al was simply compensation for being childless.
Amateur being the optimum word in that little analysis.
As Ginny's footsteps receded, Jo fished a small flashlight out of her purse and swung the beam around as she walked. The Dumpster was no more than twelve feet from the door, but she could imagine it seeming a lot farther at one in the morning in the dark.
She knocked on the door then rang the bell for good measure. As she waited she shone the pencil-thin blade of light overhead. The lamp above the door was broken. Trust Rocky. His motto should have been, never put off till tomorrow what you can do today, for tomorrow you might be dead.
She felt sorry for Molly. No wonder she placed such value on perfection. How had she and Rocky gotten together in the first place? They appeared to have very little in common.
Not like you and Rowan. She pushed the notion back where it belonged in the dark recesses of her mind. Turned out they hadn't had as much in common as she'd thought.
What was Molly doing? Hadn't she heard the bell? She'd give it another ten seconds and she'd ring again.
"Who is it?" The door never budged and the voice sounded far away as if coming from the end of a tunnel.
"Detective Jellic. Sorry to bother you, but I'll only take a minute of your time."
"Hold on then till I unlock the door."
Jo's eyebrows rose. Just who did Molly have in there that she needed to lock the door? A lover...nah, she couldn't see Molly jumping into bed with someone a couple days after Rocky had gotten murdered. Though she'd come across a few like that in the old days, up in Auckland.
The deadlock clicked and the door slid back. Molly had on a navy apron liberally streaked with flour.
Baking. She'd known Molly wasn't the type.
"Shut the door behind you." Molly flung the instruction over her shoulder and padded into the kitchen in a pair of pink slippers with fur trim. Without her heels there was nothing of her from back on. Compared to Jo, she'd always been small. Let's face it, who wasn't, yet tonight Molly appeared to have shrunk.
"You thinking of opening soon?" Jo asked, looking at the mixer tilted back with its dough hook pointing toward the ceiling. Folds of pastry sat in a square and a silver-colored rolling pin sat alongside. She hadn't known they made them in stainless steel, but then she wasn't much of a cook.
"I am, tomorrow as it happens. You know what they say. Needs must when the devil drives," said Molly, thumping the rolling pin down onto the pastry in a way that the nun who'd taught home ec said was sure to make it tough. And sure enough, Jo's attempts had always come out like leather.
Molly might also have picked a more politic saying for a woman whose husband had supposedly been killed by satanists. But then maybe she didn't believe that any more than Jo did.
"So what did you want?" Molly asked, breaking the silence that filled the spaces between the rhythmic thumps and swishes of turning pastry while Jo looked around the room.
Unless she'd hidden the guy under the table, they were the only two in the room. Jo said the first thing to come to her mind, lowering her eyes to check. "Rowan assures me you'll have your check very soon." No one there.
"I'm as likely to fall for a check's-in-the-mail story as I am to believe in UFOs." The pastry received another few thumps. "What do you want now, Sergeant? I have a lot of work ahead of me. Nothing got done yesterday."
"I wanted to have a look at those magazines that were at the side of your bed."
"You mean you've come to bother me because you've run out of reading material?"
"No, it's part of my investigation. Did Rocky swap any of his heavy-metal magazines?"
"Not that I know of." Molly wiped her hands on her apron. "Wait here, I'll get them for you. Don't want no strangers seeing my bed unmade."
An unmade bed? Now that she found hard to believe. The woman was a neat freak. For a moment she regretted asking Ginny to wait by the car. She'd like to hang around outside to find out who was hiding in the back room. Lover...or accomplice? A shiver of unaccountable fear snaked up her spine and curled into a tight knot at the base of her skull.
Phew! She huffed out the breath she'd been holding and tried to remember if the door had locked automatically behind her. Damn, she hadn't brought her gun. All she had was the small flashlight in her pocket. She'd been stupid to come in here alone. Rowan filled her mind in the few strides it took to circle the table on her way to the door. She'd never told him she loved him and now...now it might be too late.
All she could see was Rowan's face as he'd left her office that afternoon. A few more strides and she'd be out of here.
Rowan. She needed to see Rowan.
Jo looked over her shoulder; she was in the clear.
Then she spied the knife block.
"Damned intuition," she cursed, but it didn't stop her from turning back.
The whole world stilled, holding its breath as she slid the knife she wanted out of its slot.
There it was not an inch from the end. A rough nick in the blade where it had hit the mixer while she and Rowan watched Molly. The blade gleamed, catching the light as she eyed its size. Eight inches long, tapered point and two inches at the handle.
Spirits buoyant, she sang out, "Gotcha!"
The word barely sprang from her lips when the air around her thickened and quaked with tension as if its mass surged from Tane's Throat.
Jo stepped back into the dull thunk with its pain chaser. A black hole swallowed the cluster of stars exploding in front of her eyes, then she followed them down in a headlong dive with the knife still in her hand.
R owan couldn't remember Scott being as enthusiastic about anything as this horse. And that's what kept him in his seat, listening, while his brother extolled his horse Winnatexal's virtues ad infinitum. For years all that had made him happy had been business. Racehorses at least had the distinction of being unpredictable---as opposed to money---and when Scott touched it, inevitably, the three of them became richer.
Scott had the Midas touch.
And Taine had the green thumb. His younger brother had always been the one who'd hung around old man Jackson while he worked in the garden and in two years he'd be bottling his first vintage.
So, what was his special gift?
Had the good fairies been on strike the day he was born?
He'd like to think they'd given him a loving heart, but maybe that only counted in Jo's favor. As sure as the sun would come up over Nicks Bay tomorrow, he knew he'd never love anyone the way he loved her. The knowledge crowded his chest until he could hardly breathe, thinking he would never succeed in winning her.
So he listened to Scott's rambles, bloodlines, anything had to be preferable to his own pessimistic wanderings, drinking his fourth---or was it his fifth---scotch. He'd begun to mellow out.
"You're not really paying attention, are you?"
It took him a few seconds to come out of the place his mind had been drawn to. Despite his best endeavors to listen to his brother, he had his parents on his mind. "Why did you call this boat after the first Fancy? Don't you feel it was somewhat crass?" The words, "even for you," hung in the air between them.
"I did it as a memorial to Mom and Dad."
"And it didn't occur to you that Dad might have deliberately killed them both by sinking the original boat?"
"Hell, no!" The glass of soda in Scott's hand clattered onto the table, slopping over onto the polished wood like an old bloodstain. "Don't tell me you've been harboring that thought all these years?"
Rowan nodded.
"God, man, why didn't you tell me? Why did you never say?" Scott shook his head and chewed at his thumbnail with his elbow balanced on the table. "All this time and you never knew how happy they were, but of course you didn't see them leave. Dad was all puffed up and full of himself and Mom glowed. It was as if they'd turned back the clock, in love again for the first time."
Scott seemed so certain, and God, Rowan wanted to be persuaded, but he wasn't totally convinced. "Then how do you think it happened out in the middle of nowhere?"
"I figure a foreign merchant ship probably wandered out of the shipping lanes and ran through them, so get any other thought out of your head. I console myself with the thought that they were happy. That they were together. It's more than most people get."
Rowan agreed. At least his parents had been together. Which brought to mind the night he'd almost died holding Jo.
Darkness filled Jo's vision, filled her soul. She was cold. Cold and alone. Damp bleeding from the bare earth seeped into her bones. Lying naked as the day she was born, she shivered, dreaming of warm clothes and cursed the inquisitive wind that sought out every crevice in her body.
They'd tied her up with crime-scene tape. She wondered if whoever found her would see the irony in it.
Anyone with a skerrick of decency would have allowed her at least one scrap of clothing, preferably her panties, she thought facetiously. Deadly laughter bubbled up under the duct tape strapping her mouth, nearly choking her. She breathed furiously through her nose to clear her mind.
They said these situations brought out the best and the worst in people, so she hoped to hell this was her best.
She refused to cry...or beg. Not that she could say much with her mouth bound, and she refused to let her eyes plead for her.
If anyone was to blame, it was herself. Taken out with a rolling pin. Damn!
What had been Molly's cri de coeur? "Needs must when the devil drives." She'd certainly put it to good use on Jo.
The youngest of the Smale brothers, Jeff had refused to meet her eyes as he carried her down the slope, and after a while she'd switched off, suffering the indignity of being trussed up like an oven-ready bird in a state of inertia.
The shakes had really begun when he'd dumped her in the middle of the crime scene. After that, it hadn't taken much figuring to guess Molly's intentions.
Having her skin touch the very ground where Rocky's body had lain until yesterday was kind of creepy, but she'd get over it. The knife through the heart could take longer to get used to. The thought made her choke on a snort of laughter.
Was this a type of hysteria? All she had to do was keep it up and Molly would be redundant. She'd die laughing.
Stop it, you idiot!
Closing her eyes, she tried shifting her focus. Concentrate on Jeff. How had Molly tangled him up in a murder?
What drove his actions, apart from Molly's whiney, nagging voice? Guilt or fear? It had to be fear. Or money...oh yeah, that was it. His brother's bail money.
The guessing game made her brain hurt. There was a locomotive, all bells and whistles, inside her skull trying to get out. No wonder her thought processes were stunted.
The site screen that had hid Rocky's body flapped and she strained to see if they'd come back. Too bad someone hadn't thought to remove the screen with the body. It gave them the perfect cover. No one passing by would even know she was here. A pang of longing broke through the brave front she was feigning. Did Rowan miss her?
She hoped so, yet she'd hate him to see her like this. Sometimes love just wasn't enough to wipe out the memories of this sort of abuse. She'd seen it time and time again in her work...men turning away from their loved ones because that awful image simply wouldn't go away.
Even from her angle she wasn't a pretty sight.
That's why she'd been thankful that the boy's refusal to acknowledge her extended to turning away when Molly had spread her out like a starfish, tying her hand and foot to the stakes used for Rocky. If only Bull had pulled them up earlier, like she'd asked, it might have slowed Molly and Jeff down some.
She tugged on her bonds to loosen them for what seemed like the hundredth time since they'd gone and left her there.
Rowan shifted on the leather lounger, the envelope in his back pocket rustling annoyingly, the way it had all evening. With barely a glance at the franking mark from Rocky's bank he'd shoved it out of sight. Any information from the victim's bank manager seemed redundant. Let's face it, he'd been too frustrated by Jo flicking him off to be bothered.
As Scott disappeared in the direction of the galley, Rowan fished the letter out of his pocket and tore the seal.
What the hell? Rocky had withdrawn fifty thousand dollars in cash from his account, the day before he died. There was something about the amount that rang a bell, but all the whiskey he'd drunk was taking its toll and he couldn't retrieve the information from his dulled memory.
"Hey, you've got a visitor," Scott called up to the saloon, arriving with Ginny in tow.
The kid's face had gone into competition with her hair. Ginny puffed furiously and the infamous pink barrettes dangled dangerously close to the ends of her curls.
"What's wrong, Ginny? You look done in. Take a seat and get your breath back."
"I can't, I haven't time," she panted. "I didn't know where else to come, but Detective Jo told me you lived here so I ran all the way." She sucked in a breath. "They've got her."
"Who have they got?"
The answer spilled out in a long stream. "Jo. Detective Jo. She told me to wait and she would take me home but she never came back. I was standing in a shop doorway near her car when this man came out and took it away. At first I thought he was stealing it, but he had the keys. Then I thought, I'll wait 'cause Jo wouldn't forget me. She told me off for being on my own after dark and I was too frightened to go home but when they drove away in her car and the lights were out at Molly's I had to tell someone."
She stopped for breath and Rowan asked, "What man?"
"I don't know. But Molly was in the car and the man was driving. I couldn't see Jo."
"You should have gone to the police."
"No way. Have you seen that place, it's terrible. I've been there twice and that Sergeant Bull scares me. But I knew you were Jo's babe, so I came to you."
Blinking at the description, Rowan grabbed his jacket from the end of the lounger, thrusting his arms into the sleeves.
"Did you see where they went?"
"Yes. They went up the hill heading out of town but they could have turned off anyplace. Do you think they've killed her, too?"
Out of the mouth of babes, and he wasn't thinking of himself. Ginny had pushed the right button. "Get your coat on, Scott. You're driving."
"Me?"
"Yeah, I've been drinking, but luckily you haven't, and as Ginny here can't drive, it's up to you," he said, keeping the tone light to avoid scaring the kid any more than necessary.
On his way out, Rowan raked through the jumble of exhausted light sticks and ropes he'd dumped in the locker, and found the flashlight. Seconds later he strode along the marina, cell phone pressed to his ear, with Ginny and Scott hard on his heels.
"Harry, I need your help, Jo's in trouble. Abducted."
"Hell's bells! I should never have let her go to the inn on her own. Rocky's fingerprint was on that anonymous letter she got and the more I thought about it, the more peculiar it sounded."
"Damn you, Harry! If anything happens to her, you'll answer to me. But for now, get every man you can lay hands on and start searching for Jo's car. Ginny saw it head west with Molly in the passenger seat with an unknown man driving."
"What's this all about?" asked Scott.
"Jo received a threatening letter a few days ago and it looks like they aim to make good on their promises."
"I don't see what I can do."
"You can stop being more of a self-centered ass than usual, Scott. This is the woman I love and if I'm in time, the woman I'm going to marry. Got that?"
"Okay. I'll come with you. The mood you're in you could do something stupid...or worse...dangerous!"
The tape rubbed her skin raw. Still, she had to try. Maybe she wouldn't go as far as chewing her hands off, like an animal caught in a trap, but old Mother Nature preprogrammed all her creatures pretty much the same way.
She gave a few more tugs. Did the stake securing her right hand seem looser? Or was she imagining things?
What happened now? Were they just going to leave her here to be discovered by Bull or Jake in the morning? Gross!
She'd almost rather die....
No, she wouldn't...life had doubled back on itself and given her another chance with Rowan. Who was she to argue with gifts the gods were throwing her way? Love had sneaked under her guard before she'd perfected ducking. And if she got another chance with Rowan, she was going to grab it with both hands.
She hadn't seen or heard either of her captors for a good five minutes. Maybe they had simply left her and made good on their escape in her car. Yet every time the plastic screen bellied out in the wind she tensed, expecting one of them to return.
A sudden flash of light dazzled her. It traveled her full length, producing an urge to draw her knees up and hide herself. Humiliation ripped at her soul and frustration tightened the knots round her ankles as Molly laughed at her struggles.
"You might as well give up. You won't budge those knots."
Jo clenched her fist, digging her nails into her palm. Instinct made her want to thrash around like a snagged salmon, but reason and pride told her to stay still.
"Bet you were hoping we'd gone." Her "Well, you were wrong" was almost gleeful. The woman had gone mad.
Why else would she kill her husband?
Why else would she have done this?
"The beauty of it is, we won't need to hide. No one will know it was us who left you here, because you'll be dead...like Rocky. It's quite funny really. Rocky setting up the scheme for his own murder...although his was really an accident. Yours on the other hand..."
Hers had been a foolhardy attempt to get one up on Bull and the others while her mind had been on Rowan and not the job.
"He only came up with the satanist idea to put you off the scent. Didn't want you to know the fire was a warning from the local drug baron for dipping his hand in the till too often. In it up to his elbows in laundered money. Too clever for his own good, that was Rocky. But he got you lot good. Sent you chasing all over the countryside, searching for a gang of devil worshipers. And all the time Satan was doing business right under your nose."
Jo caught a maniacal note in the laughter that followed. The eerie sound took over where the dampness left off and she couldn't hide her shivering any longer.
"And do you know what's really funny?"
A sly malevolence twisted Molly's lips.
"It was you arriving in Nicks Landing that gave him the idea. The inn wasn't making as much money as he'd hoped. 'Molly,' he said, 'if Milo Jellic could make money out of cannabis, so can I.' Of course he went too far. They always do, criminals. Rocky used to say that's what caught them in the end. A pity he didn't listen to his own advice."
Jo closed her eyes, wishing she could do the same with her ears. Her father had never dealt in drugs.
Never!
She refused to believe Molly. To do so, would confirm her whole life had been based on a lie.
Molly began pacing, muttering under her breath, until Jeff Smale turned up. "Here you are," he said to Molly, handing something over. "That's your last from me. Rocky was an accident but this is cold-blooded murder and I'm not having any more to do with it. You've had your money's worth."
"Yeah, go on then, take the money and run. Who needs you?" she called after his retreating figure, the need for silence apparently forgotten in her madness. "Don't know what you're worried about. It'll be a lot easier than that little bull calf."
The widow started to laugh and the beam from the flashlight in her hand did a crazy dance among the trees. "I heard you found the heart, give you a start did it?"
Hope of discovery died as the light hit her from ground level. Molly set it to shine across Jo's naked breasts.
Tensing, the cold-induced shudders paused as her mind perceived the reason for this new departure. Its conclusions weren't happiness inducing. As she watched, Molly pulled the top off the black felt-tip pen Jeff had given her and knelt by Jo's right-hand side.
The pen pressed into her skin, releasing a sharp inky tang, while Jo continued her gentle, yet persistent assault on the stake behind the artist's back listening to Molly tsk under her breath as she worked. Knowing Molly's need for perfection, was it perverse to feel delighted at the difficulty the widow was experiencing? Drawing a pentagram onto Jo's breasts in the region of her heart was no easy task, despite the natural attempt of gravity to flatten them.
Take your time...take your time. The words ran like a litany in her brain as, with every tug on her bindings, Jo kept up the rhythm.
Sitting back on her heels Molly sighed, her frown made horrific by the cast of the light. "Don't think I take any pleasure in this work, but you forced me into it."
What? Molly developing a conscience? Funny, that fact had escaped Jo. Maybe it was the intent way the widow was going about her business. She squinted down the length of her nose, expelling a sharp burst of air. The pentagram still wasn't finished.
"It all started as a way to frighten Rocky, first the calf then the letters. If I hadn't caught your remark to Rowan in my kitchen, none of this might have happened. Hell, that rankled. All those fertility tests I suffered. All for nothing. Is it any wonder I wanted to pay him back?"
Molly began to laugh. "You should have seen his face when the letter arrived and then the house...boom! Huh, it wasn't worth saving anyway. But it sure made Rocky think there was some sort of cult out to get him. Just for once, the worm turned."
Pen poised, Molly bent over Jo's recumbent body once more. "Hold your breath," she ordered.
You must be joking. Jo started to pant, and kept it up for a while even though her head spun.
"C'mon, give in gracefully. You're only prolonging the inevitable. And don't think Jeff is likely to arrive with the cavalry. For all his belated bout of conscience he hated Rocky as much as I grew to. The Smales worked with him, growing cannabis, but when it came to getting his help...well, let's say he lived up to his name. You can't get blood out a stone."
Molly burst into another fit of laughter.
A small reprieve. Jo sent up a prayer. Surely someone must hear Molly's cackling.
"Yet, I managed it. There wasn't that much blood, though. He just dropped where he stood, in the middle of the kitchen by Jeff's feet. Huh, Jeff got his money, but I made him work for it.
"I hadn't intended killing Rocky, but he made me so angry. Slapped me around and called me a hysterical slut when I asked him about the vasectomy. In a way he deserved it for killing all my babies." Wiping her eyes on her apron Molly released a miniature snow storm of flour. Glistening in the beam of the flashlight the small white flecks floated onto Jo.
Was there a chance some might remain on her skin? Surely forensics would pounce on that as a clue. Moira could tell them she never baked...couldn't bake.
Reaction to the wayward thought set in immediately and drained the fight out of her. Her optimism had sunk to an all-time low if she was calculating evidence that might lead to her killer.
Molly twisted the knife so the moonlight bounced off the blade. "Like your old man, you were too clever for your own good. Now I have to kill you...don't worry, I won't make a hash of it. You've no idea how easily this knife slides through flesh."
And I don't want to know!
Jo's stomach churned. She swallowed hard. If she threw up behind this tape, Molly wouldn't need the knife.
"Harry, we've found Jo's car. It's at the top end of the park near the crime scene. Let your people know, but warn them against using the sirens."
"I'll be with you in under five minutes. Don't go in alone."
"I'm not alone, I've got Scott with me, and five minutes might be too late. By the way, Ginny's in my car, let her mother know she's okay, but for God's sake don't frighten the kid when you arrive."
Rowan closed his cell phone and told Ginny, "I want you to promise you'll stay in the car. You remember Sergeant Jackson, he'll get someone to take you home."
"But I have to know if Jo's okay."
"She will be, don't worry, you can see her tomorrow," he said, praying he'd be able to make good on his promise, praying he wasn't too late to save her this time. "Right, Scott. This is how we'll do it." Even as he told Scott what he expected of him, his mind drifted. He'd wondered about this moment. Wondered, knowing how it could end, if real danger awaited could he meet it head-on? Only time would tell and there wasn't much of it left.
"There's two of them up there. Molly's a little woman. You tackle her, and I'll take out the man."
They had to fight their way through a tangle of rhododendrons. Good for keeping cover but hard on the hands and face. Most of the park was planted in English trees. An idea of one of his ancestors who'd still had sentimental ties with the old country and had called England back home.
A branch snapped and a curse singed his ears. Scott. "Listen," Rowan hissed. "If you can't keep quiet, go back. You're putting Jo's life in danger."
"No way. I'm not leaving you to do this on your own."
The noise lessened as Scott took more care. "I always wondered why you chose this life, Rowan, but it's exciting in its own way. Like watching your stock rise on the trading index."
Rowan shook his head. God help him, he'd never understand his brother. "C'mon, no more talking."
He could see a beam of light through the trees farther down the slope and trod even more carefully, edging closer with Scott rustling lightly at the rear. Then he heard Molly's high-pitched voice as he moved a branch out of his face and caught his first glimpse of Jo.
Hell!
His heart tumbled over at the sight of his woman spread-eagled naked on the ground in a weird parody of the vision he'd had in the witch's circle. This time it brought no lustful thoughts to mind. Only terror. Molly, knife in hand, knelt beside Jo, side on to the slope where he and Scott hid.
Not only would she see him the moment he broke cover, she'd probably hear him break into the crime scene.
Everything happened at once.
In a crash of limbs, both tree and human, Scott blasted the stillness apart and set everything in motion. A host of impressions rather than clear-sighted action took over.
Scott: "Damn! I've broken my ankle."
Molly's small face twisted. A grimace etched with anger. Her once-pretty blue eyes burning with animalistic fear, knowing she was cornered.
Jo's faith in him beaming from her eyes as he burst out of the shrubbery into an arena, where the game of the day was life or death.
There was no sighting of the man as Rowan ran, his legs like lead, dragging, holding him back. Seconds dragged into hours.
The knife lifted in Molly's hand.
He threw himself across Jo's supine body and caught Molly round the middle. She came down over his shoulder, thumping against his ribs, cracking one. The pain a dull heavy ache in his back.
He'd felt worse.
Jo's arm curved in an arc pulling out the stake she was tied to and Molly slumped as the wooden point came down on her head.
A thunder of footsteps announced Harry's arrival. The other police couldn't be far behind. Rowan pushed Molly aside and braced himself on one hand, pushing up so his weight didn't crush Jo. Her skin felt icy cold as he turned to reassure her with a smile. "Couldn't wait to even the score, could you? You're one helluva woman, Jo Jellic."
He'd wanted to reassure her, but his words failed to wipe the dull bleakness from her eyes. "Somebody find me a blanket," he called.
His voice sounded strange to his ears. Was it the shock of another near-death experience? Jo's this time.
He could hear Molly crying as she came round and Harry wrestled her away from them into the arms of Seth McAllister. The widow deserved all Harry dished out, after what she'd done.
Nothing mattered now except Jo.
Scott's cursing drew a shrug of annoyance that hurt his ribs. He wished he'd stop moaning and calling out to him. Why couldn't his brother think of someone other than himself for once? He hated to think that all his brother's money had leached away his humanity.
So what if a sprained ankle meant he missed a horse race? There was always next year. And all the years that came after.
That's what he wanted now, year after year, for himself, for Jo. All the years ahead together.
"We'll have to stop meeting like this," he said and began to laugh. Jo didn't seem to see the funny side. Her gaze darted past his face to somewhere beyond him. He twisted his shoulders and caught an earful of Scott cursing. "Get this tape off Jo's mouth," he said as his brother gripped his shoulder.
The pain made him feel nauseous. "What the hell are you doing?" Then he noticed Jo bleeding. A bright red stream ran across her breast. "Call an ambulance, quick...Jo's hurt. Molly must have nicked her with the knife."
Her head lifted as a stream of tortured mumbling boiled up behind the tape. The world spun out of control as he reached out to free her. Then he heard Scott say, "I've got it."
An ugly gurgling sound filled his ears, like someone sucking at the dregs in a glass through a straw. The noise took his breath away as his hand dropped onto Jo's breast, blood spilling over his fingers. Someone ought to do something about it.
That was his last thought.
Frustration screamed in Jo's head and with it the word, "Idiot!" But Scott Stanhope couldn't hear her. No one could. She'd tried to signal with her eyes. It had made no difference and her heart had leaped under her ribs as he'd limped up behind Rowan and pulled the knife from his back.
How could two such different men be brothers?
Rowan's weight was fully on her, his hand heavy on her breast. There was no tenderness in his touch now. No love. Only the mockery of what might have been. What they might have shared.
She wanted to scream, but all she could do was pray. Pray someone would realize what was wrong with Rowan.
He needed help badly. Scott had done the exact opposite of the recommended procedure. Puncture wounds should be dealt with by a professional. And Lord help him, the fool had collapsed beside Rowan, moaning about a broken ankle, instead of covering the sucking wound with plastic to seal it.
If it wasn't so damn tragic it would be funny.
She'd never associated Rowan's sophisticated brother with slapstick, but now she would never see him any other way.
She'd never forget the sight of blood frothing over Rowan's lips while he tried to make light of the situation. It was just like him to think of her before himself. She sniffed.
Somebody better get this tape off her mouth soon, or she'd drown in her own tears. Suddenly she had everything to live for. But only if Rowan survived.
T he pale peach monolith that was Auckland Central surveyed the city from its bastion of autumn-hued, scoria block work.
Jo looked down on the view from the fifth floor, corner window of Detective Inspector Mike Henare's office, sighing. She'd come home.
"Well, does it live up to your memories?"
Jo looked over her shoulder as the DI's well-remembered rumble filled the space behind her. He was a huge man, barrel-chested, deep voiced, and his word was law in the homicide division. He was the man who'd sent her away from Auckland, and the one who'd brought her back. And for that she could kiss him, but wouldn't ever dare to attempt turning the thought into action.
She left the window and folded her long legs into a chair opposite Henare. "I notice a few changes, but all-n-all it's just the same, except for all the colored lights and bunting. Honestly boss, you shouldn't have bothered."
"Count yourself lucky. If you'd left it another four weeks I'd have had to take them down again."
Jo grinned. "Yeah, like you don't enjoy Christmas. My memory isn't that short," she said, remembering Henare's light green eyes twinkling over a white Santa beard.
"Talking about which, according to your last medical you need to give it till after New Year to resume work. Pneumonia is no laughing matter."
"It was only a chill," she protested. So how come her memories of the cold leaching out of the earth and into her bones made her want to shiver?
And the memory of Rowan, shielding her while he bled from a knife wound, made her want to cry?
"That's not what the Doc says."
Jo acknowledged the truth with a slight nod. She knew better than to argue when Henare used that tone.
He stood up, indicating their talk was over, and held out his hand. "Give it until those Christmas lights come down, to return to work. I want you fighting fit."
Taking her dismissal on the chin, Jo shook his hand and said, "Goodbye."
She'd barely reached the office door, before he called out after her. "You seen McQuaid yet?"
The question took her straight to a place she didn't want to be, at least not yet. "No. I wanted to get settled first."
His eyes narrowed and he speared her with a no-nonsense look. "Don't leave it too late."
Dear Lord, what did Henare know that she didn't?
Scott Stanhope had assured her Rowan had made an excellent recovery. McQuaid's elder brother wasn't nearly so bad once she'd gotten to know him, in fact, he'd gone out of his way to help her. One thing she'd learned, Scott would do anything for his brother. He'd had Rowan on his way to Auckland by air ambulance before her icy cold body had slid between the crisp hospital sheets.
And Scott had visited her often, hobbling into her room on crutches to keep her informed of Rowan's progress.
Keeping her eyes on Henare, she nodded, pulling the door closed behind her. "Maybe I'll go see him tonight."
Eight o'clock already. The sun slid down the blue wall of sky, bursting into a blaze of pink as it hit the horizon, long before Jo was ready to face Rowan. She couldn't leave it too much later and then simply turn up at his door.
Yeah, she could have called ahead, but that would have narrowed her options. Right at the moment, she could still turn tail and run.
At least that's what she told herself looking into the foyer, from where she stood on the sidewalk outside the golden-beige Quay West serviced apartment block.
Slowly, ever so slowly, she released a thin stream of air between her pursed lips, then moistened them, swallowing quickly, remembering the trouble she'd taken to get her lipstick just right.
To get everything just right.
Jo looked down at her new red suit, wishing she felt as confident inside as she did out. She'd lost a little weight. Would Rowan notice?
He hasn't got a show of noticing unless you go inside.
Ten steps took her into the foyer. She knew because she counted them. It was easier than concentrating on the purpose of her visit, the reason that had brought her here.
The foyer reminded her of the great hall of a manor house she'd seen in some magazine, with wide stairs rising from a sea of marble before branching in two at second floor level. Minus the reception desk, of course. Jo noticed that it didn't take a second for the rail-thin receptionist, hair scraped back tight enough for a face-lift, to home in with her laser-like gaze.
Tossing her freshly shampooed hair, Jo targeted the lifts as if she owned the place, though her normal stride was hampered by the tight cut of her skirt. Pleased to reach her destination without a break in the rhythm of her three-inch heels, she swiped the key card Scott had given her for Rowan's floor and waited.
And waited, conscious of her tapping toes, upping the beat to match her heart rate, taking it faster, beyond impatient and into nervy. The lift doors yawned open and her stomach turned over as she caught her reflection in the mirrored interior.
Too late to back out now.
In hindsight, rehearsing first might have been considered a wiser move, except she didn't have the words, only the feelings. Every time she tried shaping her thoughts into meaningful phrases, her emotions overtook logic and threatened to choke her.
The way they were now.
One floor from the top the lift stopped and she got out. Scott had given her directions. "Turn left and the door will be facing you." He hadn't told her that the corridor was a mile long or that the lush pile of the carpet would silence each footfall, leaving her alone with her thoughts.
What did you say to a man who had saved your life not once, but twice? A man who'd claimed to love her.
A man she'd flicked off because of a silly thing like a name.
She faced the door, acknowledging that in this ambience the person living behind the carved door would inevitably be more Stanhope than McQuaid.
When it finally opened she was positive.
Rowan was dressed to go out.
Why else the black tuxedo that fit like a glove over white shirt and black tie? And the toffee streaks of hair she'd twisted round her fingers were now short and sleekly styled, not chopped. Had he ever looked so handsome, so relaxed, so at ease with his body? So much like a man who hadn't missed her?
Wearing heels had always brought her eyes level with his, making them easier to read. The message tonight read, "Surprise," with more than a dash of hesitation.
Oh, hell, what if he wasn't alone? Her impulsive plan hadn't taken that into account.
Then Rowan's white smile curled around her senses, turning her knees to water and her heart to mush. If she needed proof that she loved him, it was there in the soft, womanly, warm response he dredged up from her soul. And in the nervous conclusion that she was definitely the wrong woman for him.
Yet, she knew with certainty that above all others, Rowan was the one person who deserved the truth.
Rowan took in every detail, from the top of her gleaming hair to the tips of her toes and widened his smile. "Jo, you look wonderful."
"You, too, Rowan. Scott told me you were well again, but I'd visions of you looking wan, but interesting."
"I heal quick. Scott owns the top floor and I've made use of his roof garden." He stood back as it dawned on him, they were still in the doorway. "C'mon in. Would you like a drink?"
Jo took a step, then hesitated. "But you're going somewhere."
He looked down at his bow tie, pulling on the end to loosen it. "Business. It wasn't important, I was filling in for Scott, but I'm a poor substitute for my brother when it comes to social functions."
She moved into the small foyer, her scent reaching out to pull at his senses. He searched his memory to recall if he'd ever mentioned how much he loved her in red. As if mesmerized, he gripped the edge of the door as she passed, praying she'd worn the suit molding her breasts to awaken memories of his own journey in that hauntingly familiar territory.
Praying this visit meant she'd changed her mind about him, forgiven his deception, he joined her on the step down to the living room. Rowan signaled the direction with one hand, unnerved by her silence. "Grab a chair." He brushed the back of his knuckles against her arm and felt her steely tension under the fine silky fabric. "Would you like a drink?" he repeated.
She nodded. "Scotch."
Although he'd said "chair," sofa was what he'd had in mind, and disappointment was uppermost in his mind as he returned with the drinks to find she'd chosen a high-back wing chair facing the large, comfortable four-seater.
She looked up as he drew near, her legs crossed and her ankle swinging in front, making a barrier of her pointed-toe shoe.
Her mouth pulled back in a one-sided travesty of a smile as he stretched out toward her with one of the glasses.
"There's something I have to tell you," she said, forcing out the words.
"You're pregnant," he barked louder than intended, caught by the surprise at hoping it was true, realizing he'd snatch at any chance to bind her to him. Quickly, he pulled back the glass. "Pregnant women shouldn't drink alcohol."
Jo didn't look up to answer, she was too busy wiping spilled whiskey from her stocking. "I'm not pregnant. How could I be, we always used protection."
Rowan sighed. Too bad.
Of course, Jo hadn't heard the story of Scott's girlfriend puncturing condoms with a needle. It would be just like Scott to leave them lying around. He passed over Jo's drink, then glanced at the sofa. It looked a million miles away from where he wanted to be, so he chose the corner of the coffee table instead. "Okay, go ahead, I'm all ears."
"First of all, I want to apologize for blowing up at you because of your name. When I was lying in the hospital I realized how---"
"Hell! I never even asked how you were."
"It's no biggie. I feel pretty good. Henare has other ideas, though. He won't let me work until two weeks after New Year. That's another thing, they've let me come back to Auckland, less harmful for our friends in Nicks Landing. Bull seems to think I attract danger, and I'd be safer in Auckland."
God, that was what he wanted, too, Jo to be safe. Eyes closed, he let memory and emotion overtake him. Jo spread-eagled on the dirt and Molly's knife poised to strike. He never wanted to live through another moment like that. If he had his way, he'd pick her up in his arms and carry her somewhere, anywhere, away from harm. Yet, even as his mind gave voice to the protective emotion, he knew she wouldn't thank him for it.
Loving Jo meant accepting her, gun, handcuffs and all. He knew what it was to have a life-shaping decision taken out of your hands, and though he was content now...
My God, he was content, all he needed was Jo to make his life complete. The realization stunned him. The yearning to be a cop again had disappeared along with his reluctance to commit, to love.
For years he'd let Scott take all the responsibility for the company, staying on the fringes and letting the money pile up in the bank while he did nothing to earn it. But that had changed. He laughed inwardly, imagining Scott saying, "Not before time."
Opening his eyes, he faced Jo and took in the luminous brown of her irises and her quivering bottom lip as if she felt vulnerable by being shut out of his thoughts. "You're a good cop, Jo, and Henare's lucky to have you. I guess he was caught between a rock and a hard place after our first little contretemps."
"Don't you stick up for him. I can't keep up with the man. One, I almost get you killed and he sends me away. Two, I almost get you killed and he brings me home."
She stopped midbreath and he knew the exact moment the truth hit her. "You did it. You went and told him what really happened that first time. You told him about Max."
"You saved his life."
"I told you I wouldn't make excuses for myself."
He took her untouched drink from her fingers and replaced it with his hand. "You didn't say I couldn't."
She swallowed, hard, and let out a deep breath. "Guess that puts you ahead of the game."
"Adding up the points again? Haven't I told you there's no such thing as a score when it comes to you and me, peaches?"
God, he was good. With that one word, "peaches," he got straight through to her heart, tangling her determination with her emotions. With the love she felt for him. It wasn't fair when she knew she would have to leave once she told him the truth. All she wanted to do was put things right between them first.
"If you must keep score, how about evening things up by saying you'll marry me?"
How did he do that? How could he do that?
Rowan had no idea that he was tying her heart in knots. The lump in her larynx threatened to choke her. Her response rubbed her throat raw as she forced her words past the baseball that had lodged there.
"You might want to reconsider the offer when you hear what I have to say. I've come here to give you the truth. It's something I've prized most of my life, something my father taught me on his knee. The trouble with that is, on the night Molly abducted me, I found out that the code I've lived by...all that I am, has been based on a lie."
Rowan got down on his knees in front of her chair. Anxiety written all over his expression. "Hush now. Nothing you can say will change my mind."
Oh Lord, she was going to cry. But first she had to tell him the truth. "Molly told me my father really had been dealing in drugs, and Rocky had gotten the idea for growing cannabis when he discovered my identity."
Rowan leaned closer, staring deep into her eyes.
His blazed with a declaration of love.
His said they wouldn't take no for an answer, but she couldn't let him do it. She'd almost ruined his life once, and she refused to do it again.
"Your explanation doesn't hold water, peaches. I knew all this before. You told me yourself."
"Dammit, Rowan! You don't get it. You just don't get it." She gripped him by the shoulder, needing to force him to believe. "I didn't know the truth about my father, before. I believed it was all lies. And that's why I can't marry you. Your family is one of the richest in New Zealand and I'm the daughter of a drug dealer," she finished, then did something she'd done maybe three times since the day she found out her father was dead---burst into tears.
Rowan pulled her down off the chair and into his lap, holding her tight in his arms as if he could soak up all her pain. He knew from her sobs that simply holding her wasn't going to work. Somehow he had to find the right words.
"As long as I've known you, Jo, you've been hung up about truth. I've seen other cops laugh at you for refusing to bend your beliefs, even slightly. And no matter what your father did, or maybe because of it, you became a damn good cop. One of the best I've worked with. Being in love with you even two years ago, doesn't mean I was prejudiced in your favor. Well, maybe a little bit. But I wasn't blind. You did a great job."
Jo shuddered and he found its echo deep in his chest. She calmed down to a few hiccups, gulping air in between. Her fingers slid under his coat front and he felt their trembling warmth through his shirt. Then she whispered, "Did you mean that? Did you really love me way back when?"
He placed soft crooning kisses across her brow and her eyelids and breathed her in, filling himself with her essence.
"Even then. And now I'm going to tell you a truth about love that is indisputable. The heart has no defense against it. We didn't choose to fall in love, our hearts did it for us, and who are we to question what lies in our hearts?"
"I do love you."
"I know. That's why I can't let you go, I'm not that much of a fool." Not any longer. "If you can love a man who lied to you, albeit by omission, I can love the daughter of the man we're going to prove was framed by Rocky."
She tightened her grip on him, pulling him close enough to feel her heart race. "Will you accept a heartfelt apology? At first, I kept you in the dark because I was scared Skelton would get wind of it."
"You mean, me and my big mouth?" Her tone was wry with self-knowledge. And he knew what it cost her.
"I love what you can do with that mouth," he said, placing his lips over hers for a short demonstration. "Afterwards, when you were so honest with me I cursed my own ineptitude. Cowardice was what held me back. The fear that I'd lose you..." He didn't have to say, "The way I did."
But Jo had more important matters in mind. He held her away slightly, missing her warmth immediately, then looked down, as one by one, his dress studs began to disappear from the front of his shirt. Her palm pressed against his chest above his heart and set it pounding so hard he felt it might leap straight into her hands. Right where he wanted it, where he'd wanted to place it for so long.
After a few moments of absolute bliss, Jo tilted her head onto his shoulder. He liked the invitation he read in her eyes and caught his mouth with hers, widening all the known parameters of rapture as she let him finish what she'd started.
A sigh took Jo into a realm of wonder.
Oh...this was love...what else could it be?
With his hands forked through her hair, he held her head still, just studying her face. His hands slid over her back and hips, yet he held her with his eyes. "When I think of what Molly tried to do... She was the real devil of the piece."
His body trembled with emotions and the only way to appease them, was claiming her lips in a swift, harsh kiss filled with passion's promise.
Chest heaving, he broke away and said, "It never occurred to you that Molly might have told you all that about your father simply to hurt you? I've tried to reason it out. In the end she hated Rocky for what he'd done, depriving her of a family. And she hated you for being the messenger, for knowing how he'd humiliated her."
Leaning forward, he placed a kiss over the spot where her palm rested, feeling his heart jolt. Loving meant placing your power in another's hands, but Rowan's generosity, the way he'd tried to reassure her and give her back her self-confidence, proved her trust in him wasn't misplaced.
"You no longer have to worry about me anymore. My father gave me the first twelve years of my life and I gave him the next eighteen. Whatever he did or didn't do, the decisions were his, not mine. Now it's time for me...for us."
She slid her hand up round his neck and caressed his nape until he shuddered against her. The physical evidence of his desire burned like a fire against her hip. "Rowan," she whispered, with a pout of her lips, "take me to bed."
The effect was spoiled slightly by her squeals as he rose, still holding her in his arms, and carried her down the hall to his room, kicking the door aside, too impatient to let her open it for him.
Rowan placed her in the center of the large, soft-gray comforter covering the bed with its carved teak headboard. Quickly, he shucked off his shoes and peeled back her jacket, holding his breath as a matching red teddy came into view, making all his fantasies come to fruition.
His mouth explored the curve of her breasts, tracing the lace as he slid her arms out of her jacket and tossed it on the floor.
She spread the opening of his shirt apart, baring his chest, touching him lightly with her fingertips as if she couldn't believe he was real...the situation was real.
Then she repeated his grand gesture and slid his tuxedo jacket off, slapping it down on top of hers, as if to say "snap." That woman just couldn't stop keeping score, but before the night was over, he intended batting a thousand.
He took care of his shirt himself, reserving the right to remove the rest of Jo's clothing. Working from top to bottom he used all the sensual skills at his command.
Every nerve in her body hummed. She felt like a sighing, quivering instrument only Rowan knew how to tune, how to play.
At last he released her and stripped off the rest of his clothes. Her heart tightened at the knowledge that the magnificent male specimen before her couldn't hide his need for her. His sex stood to attention, obvious and unrepentant.
Rowan. This man who was going to be hers to have and to hold...till death.
Quickly, she made a vow never to get into a situation that put his life at risk again.
Sliding onto the bed, he reached out for her. Then stilled, gazing upon beauty. Upon the woman in his arms. His hand trembled as one calloused fingertip knew the velvet softness of her cheek.
This was real.
This was true.
Rowan brushed his lips across the full red pout of hers.
This was it.
He was simply a man holding the woman he loved.
Who loved him right back.
T he sun burned into Jo's back as she sat outside a restaurant on the edge of Auckland's Viaduct harbor. It soaked into her bones, making her want to stretch like a lazy cat. A contented cat. A cat who'd gotten the cream.
And no wonder. In the week since she'd moved in with Rowan, they'd made love endlessly. Exploring each other's sensual psyches couldn't be done overnight, at least that was her excuse.
It hadn't prevented Rowan arranging a hurried wedding for Christmas Eve, or planning a honeymoon aboard the Fancy. Warmth flushed her skin, remembering his reasoning. "I'm taking no chances on you escaping, peaches. This is a life sentence." For both of them. They'd each captured the other's heart.
She expected Rowan to arrive any moment. Her skin prickled with anticipation, her smile bordering on sensual. Too caught up in personal romantic flights she didn't notice the interested glances from passing males. There was no two-note whistle from Ginny to alert her today. Besides, she had her own one-hundred-percent babe, proof in the sparkling two-carat diamond he'd given her.
As she lifted her glass of ice water to moisten her parched throat, a gruff whisper asked, "Starting without me?"
Her pulse stuttered at the sound of his voice but you couldn't tell from her reply. "I don't like to play alone." She fanned herself. "I'd been thinking of you and needed cooling down."
Rowan's chest swelled, molding his white T-shirt to it and though his eyes narrowed she could read, "Wanna go home and make love?" in them. So, she was surprised when he sat down opposite her, sliding a thick, sealed envelope in her direction.
She looked at it, puzzled. All the dry legal forms expected before a marriage had been signed and delivered. "What's this?"
"Wedding present. Open it."
A note in his voice indicated this wouldn't be fun. Trying not to let her anxiety show, she ripped the envelope open with no great show of finesse, then scanned the papers she found. Names, dates of service, details of trials and sentences given. Huh?
Returning to the top page, she said, "These men? They were cops at the same time as my father." His head moved slightly in acknowledgement. "And these." She pushed the papers under his nose. "These were cases that involved my father."
She read on. "I recognize this name, Jurgens, Carl, a scumbag drug dealer. My father gave evidence at his trial. I remember him being angry because he thought Rocky had blown it for them, but it seems Jurgens ended up in Paremoremo anyway."
"He got twenty years and did fifteen."
"So, he's out?"
"Three years ago. Guess where he lives now?" Without waiting for an answer he said, "He's on a farm near Young Nicks Head. Hell, it's barely fifty kilometers from Nicks Landing."
"Molly's drug baron."
"I'd lay odds on it. What's the betting Skelton's swift slide into anonymity was hastened by your father's death? That he might even have had a hand in it, after his failure to get Jurgens off by bungling his evidence. Skelton's the type who would have done anything to save his own neck. Look at the dance he led us.
"Another thing, I checked Jurgens's background. The guy had a sister married to a man named Smale."
"Oh, my Lord. Jeff Smale got away, but the two brothers had their bail rescinded. They're under lock and key at Gisborne."
"Then we start with the Smales." His brows twitched. "But not until after the honeymoon. They'll have to keep awhile longer."
She looked at him with love and reached for his hand. Rowan's strength flowed from him to her. "That's the most wonderful gift you could have given me. But how did you manage to get it all?" She looked down at the papers littering the table. "I tried for years but couldn't get anywhere."
"My name still has some pull."
"What, Stanhope?"
"No. McQuaid."
ISBN: 978-1-4592-0098-2
LOVE UNDER FIRE
Copyright © 2002 by Frances Housden
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