Intimate Portraits (16 page)

Whatever his knife had hit, it
had stopped him cold.

Sam couldn’t understand it, and
that bothered him. He was a craftsman who did things according to certain rules
and expected things to turn out accordingly.

Worry about it later.

So when after thirty minutes he
turned into the hotel lot, he parked far away from their Lexus.

No sense in tempting fate.

Okay, decision time. Gun or
blade.

A lot of people were here in
town, maybe moving up and down the hotel halls.

But not in the room. There’d just
be the photographer and her man. He’d wait till the hall was empty.

Knock, shoot, and get out.

Yeah. He’d tried it quiet with
the blade, but that had crapped out. And with two of them, he’d have to be
quick. Fat chance he could get by with doing the woman without taking out the
man.

Had to be the gun.

Figure out scenarios
.

Like what would happen if Autumn
Merriwell came to the door alone. If her boyfriend came to the door alone. If
both of them came together.

If she opened the door and the man
was in the bathroom, he might get by with one hit.

Get real. More than likely, her
man would open the door, or he’d be in bed where he could see Sam when the
woman did the honors.

Plan on taking out two, and then
he wouldn’t be caught off guard, like what happened tonight on the bridge.

What the shit could have blocked
his knife?

Let it go. Concentrate on getting
the job done
.

He looked at his watch. Say an
hour. That would give him a chance to get acclimated and incidentally, give
them an opportunity to fall into bed and have their jollies.

This would be their last chance.

He wasn’t an unkind man. This was
simply business. He needed to get the job over with so he could head home.

Jeez, he wanted to be home.

Don’t think about it
. His wife would still be there
tomorrow, and his kid would have another hockey match next Friday night. He’d
be back for that one.

His gum was hard and tasteless. He
discarded its gray wad, using the wrapper before storing it in his litter bag, and
put a fresh stick in his mouth. Too bad it wasn’t a cigarette; he sure could
use one after that frigging washout on the bridge

Then he reached back behind his
seat for the case containing his Ruger and its silencer.

****

After depositing John and Laney’s
bag in their delightful and, compared to the rustic cabin, luxurious suite,
Autumn and Rennie left.

When they were settled in the
Lexus, she said, “You don’t have to take me back to the cabin. I’m okay now. We
can go back to town if you want to.”

The sound of distant merriment
made the silence pronounced. His eyes flicked at her and away. The weak outside
lights carved hollows, changed his face to a mask. “It’s been a long day. A cup
of hot chocolate in front of a cozy fire sounds a helluva lot better than being
forced to dance the Chicken Dance in front of a bazillion people. Doesn’t it to
you?”

Hot chocolate in front of the
fire with him? Heaven.

Autumn could almost forget the lingering
shoulder ache. Even her helplessness at dangling over the Chattahoochee’s
waters cutting through the boulders. Her terror.

Almost.

She shivered.

“It’s okay.” He took his free
hand, squeezed her arm at its fleshy top beneath her shoulder. “It’s over and
you’re safe.”

“You always did know what I was
thinking.”

“Not always. You’re good at
hiding your feelings.”

She should be. She had learned
early to hide them during those first long weeks after her parents’ deaths.

That was why she’d adored the
Degardoveras on sight. They vented their emotions unabashedly, laughing and
shrieking and crying whenever the impulse seized them, and they didn’t mind her
occasionally venting hers either. If she could be more like them, warm and
boisterous and outgoing, perhaps Rennie would feel differently about her.

Who was she kidding? She was a
timid cold fish pretending to be a woman. Her accident tonight had proved what
a clumsy coward she was.

By now, she ought to know better
than to let one moment beside a waterfall raise her hopes. Particularly after
that debacle in the bathroom when he’d viewed everything she had to offer and politely
turned his back. He hadn’t even felt comfortable enough to joke about it.

As Rennie brought in chunks of
wood for the stove, Autumn went upstairs to take off her coat. She laid her fanny
pack down on her bed and stopped short.

The heavy fabric was slit.

She fingered the hole, then
opened the zipper to take out her wallet. It was gashed, the leather pierced. When
she opened it, a big gouge in the flap stood out. Even a credit card was dented.

Like someone had stuck a knife in
it.

No. Couldn’t be. But what else
would have caused it?

She took the pack and her
billfold down to show Rennie.

Bent over at the stove, he
whistled his tuneless song and prodded a piece of wood with the poker.

“The weirdest thing, Rennie. Look
at this.”

The pleasant whistle stopped. “Lose
your money?” He shut the door and propped the poker in its place. “Was it a
pickpocket after all?”

Then he saw the slit in her fanny
pack. When he took the wallet, any good humor had disappeared. He inspected it,
touched the slit leather.

She bit her lip. “Something hit
me in the back when I fell. I figured someone had run into me. But now, this
seems kind of like, whatever it was that hit my fanny pack, must have cut it.”

He opened her wallet.

Oh, no.

She kept her photos on her cell
phone except one. Rennie’s senior high school picture hid her driving license
in its front window. She could see him first thing when she opened her wallet.

Why had she kept that photo, old
and out of date as it was? But it should have been safe. No one ever looked inside
her wallet. Certainly not Rennie, who’d been gone for years.

He saw his own face but made no
comment.

“What do you think?” she asked
hurriedly, to draw his attention away.

He fanned out her charge cards
and took his time answering. “I think credit cards are good for something
besides credit. And I think you’re lucky you had your butt pack on. Whatever
sliced this went right through. It could have sliced you as easily.”

Nausea swelled. She put a hand to
her mouth.

“Hey.” As on the bridge, he put a
brotherly arm around her. “It’s okay. Nothing happened. It’s over.”

“I was scared.” She hugged him,
holding him tighter than necessary.

“I know. I was scared, too.” He
laid the wallet on a nearby table and shifted her around so that he could
enfold her in both arms and pat the back of her shoulder at the same time. “And
I wasn’t the one hanging off the bridge by my fingernails.”

Emboldened, she buried her face
in his shirt and let her hands slide down to rest on his hips. As his hand
drifted up and began kneading her neck, she tightened her hold on him. His heat
penetrated through her scarf to her throat, through his sweater to her breasts,
through their two pairs of slacks.

The faint cedar cologne mingled
with his body oils, and the soft rise and fall of his breathing accompanied
hers.

Her heartbeat heightened, pulsed
in her ears as she became conscious of something else. Something dark and
wanton within her. Something solid and tense and excited between them.

She couldn’t move, could hardly
breathe.

Not again. She couldn’t make a
fool of herself by mistaking his reactions.

This happened all the time, didn’t
it? A pretty girl, cleavage, the curve of a leg.

Anything like that turned men on.
Some men got hard brushing against silken fabrics. And his hand was wrapped in
her scarf, cupping her neck, massaging her shoulder.

Rennie’s chin lifted to rest on
the top of her head. Her breasts lay against him, their weight pulling at her,
draining her will.

Why didn’t he do something? Push
her away, pull her closer, raise her face and kiss her?

Lord, she wanted to kiss him.

But she couldn’t move, and he
didn’t.

The two of them stayed perfectly
still, arms tight about each other, bodies melting against each other, his chin
resting on her hair so that her forehead nestled in the hollow of his neck. His
skin felt fiery hot.

Not as hot as her breasts where
they pushed into his chest. Not as hot as his sex through the corduroys where
he pressed against the top of her thighs.

“Are you all right?” The words
above her ear were distant. Taut. Strange. Rennie’s voice, yet not his voice.

“No,” she whispered, and her
whisper cracked from the longing that rose up and filled her throat and vocal
cords.

He moved his chin then, and she
could tell from the direction it moved that he was looking down at the top of
her head. “What’s wrong? You aren’t hurt?”

“No.” Again the croak.

She lifted her face, intending to
tell him she was fine, but his eyes met hers and she was drowning in their dark
liquid and with an incoherent mutter, he bent down and she stretched up until
their mouths met and merged.

Soft, damp, warm. Everything she
wanted.

She belonged here in his arms. She
belonged.

From the time she was eleven
years old, she had dreamed of kissing Rennie. Under his mouth, she floated in a
white haze of surprised pleasure and aching desire that erupted into full-fledged
need. Her lips opened to take his tongue, and it pushed into her mouth as if it
had every right, hot and eager to explore each area, yet restrained, slow,
prolonging its investigation and the urgent promise.

Sex with him would be like that.

Some faraway corner of her mind knew
it. The blood rose and threatened to drown her mind.

Sex would be slow and sweet and
exquisite, building up to a blinding, crashing climax.

Barely realizing what she was
doing, she cupped her thighs around him, pushing against him, molding her
breasts and stomach into him until she was ready to do anything, promise
anything in order to make him a part of her.

Rennie pulled his mouth away. He
exhaled with a suddenness that reminded her of the pricking of a large balloon.

She deflated as quickly as one.

When he removed his lips, he didn’t
let her go. He took her head in one hand and turned it and laid her cheek
against his chest and held her there.

His heart beat furiously in her ear
pressed to his shirt, the ebb and flow of his blood joining hers as he clung to
her, compressed her to him. His free hand massaged her back and hips. She heard
him swallow, felt his throat’s constriction on the top of her head through her hair.

“This—I—this won’t do, Autumn.” His
voice rasped. Not Rennie’s voice. Not casual or calm. Then he gently nudged her
back, away from him, removing the heat he generated.

They
generated.

“We can’t.”

She came back to earth.

Chapter 11

She wanted to scream. But that
wasn’t her way.

Reluctantly, silently protesting,
Autumn let Rennie push her away until they stood face to face, two feet apart.

She gasped for breath, swallowed.

Her mouth, her breasts, her body.
All hot and trembling and aching for him. Rennie.

Who had wanted her for a moment
before he caught himself.

“We can’t, Autumn,” he repeated.

“No. I know.” And she did. Whatever
emotional needs Rennie harbored could never be satisfied physically. Rennie
wouldn’t make love to a woman unless he committed himself, wanted to live with
her. Marry her.

And he didn’t love Autumn.

He started to take a step toward
her, but stopped. His mouth twisted as if he tried to speak but no words came
out.

“It doesn’t matter.” She’d caused
his conflict between desire and integrity. She’d end it, make it easy for him. “Don’t
worry about it, Rennie.”

“I shouldn’t have let it go so
far. Autumn, anything else wouldn’t, it wouldn’t be right. Francisco—”

 “I told you Fran and I are
friends! That’s all we are!” He thought she was in love with Fran. She clenched
her fingers so tight the nails hurt her palms.