Intimate Portraits (18 page)

One more minute, that’s all it
would have taken. One more minute.

They looked at one another.

His quick breathing slowed. She forced
her own lungs to take long deep gulps of air.

“I’ll go down, tell them you aren’t
feeling well.” He turned away too quickly.

Stunned, she watched him leave.

He did care for her, no matter
what he said. And he did want her. She had felt the desire coursing through his
skin.

He had admitted he wanted her.

Her heart lightened.
He does
care about me. He does
.

“I’ll come down in a few minutes,”
she called to his back, wondering how she was going to explain the broken door lock
to Victoria. She’d have to say she’d locked herself out and Rennie had had to
break it in. That sounded pretty lame.

Maybe Victoria wouldn’t notice.

Hah, a nosy reporter not notice a
busted door?

After her heated face cooled, she
had to go downstairs and sit in the great room as if she wanted to be there, smile
and make conversation and discuss her unfortunate fall off the bridge as if
nothing of consequence had happened between her and Rennie.

This isn’t finished. I may not be
the person he needs, but I won’t give up until he says there’s positively,
absolutely no chance for me.

He had wanted her. He had
admitted he wanted her.

Not that he showed it now. He sat
on the loveseat with Victoria on one side of him and Norma on the other.

Norma kept sneaking perplexed
glances at Paul. Norma didn’t understand why he was so casual toward her, why
he didn’t behave like the rest of her boyfriends.

Autumn sympathized, but she had
her own problems.

And her biggest problem smiled
across the room and bedeviled Norma about being spoiled and too used to having
her own way, before later explaining the responsibilities of his new job at the
University to an attentive Victoria.

The old feelings of being on the
outside tried to return.

Not that she was left out. Fran, his
earlier suspicions at her going off with Rennie waning, was overly solicitous.
He insisted she take the comfortable stuffed chair and brought her a hot lemon,
bourbon and honey concoction he swore would fix her aches and pains by bedtime.

Paul was considerate, too. He
covered her feet with a blanket so she wouldn’t be cold before Rennie got the
woodstove blazing, and then pulled out his phone to entertain her with pictures
of his cat and toddler nieces.

Norma fumed quietly. She liked to
be the center of attention.

Too bad. Autumn would gladly have
given her the spotlight. People fussing over her wasn’t her style. Especially
since Rennie carefully stayed far away from her for the rest of the night.

After Paul and Norma left for
Atlanta about ten, the others took turns in the bathroom. When Victoria
exclaimed about the broken lock on their bedroom door, Autumn shrugged, saying
she’d stupidly locked it from the inside when she started out. “So Rennie had
to break in for me.”

Her taking the blame made him,
she noted with satisfaction, flick that dark glance her way for a second.

Too bad she couldn’t read
anything from his eyes. Only when she was lying in bed did she remember the
gash in her fanny pack.

She was glad Rennie hadn’t
brought it up to the others. That would have made them hover over her even
more.

****

Sam Bogatti didn’t allow himself
to get annoyed.

Ever.

But this morning his stress
exercises hadn’t helped, and he was close to forgetting that anger was a no-win
proposition.

They were a nice-looking couple,
the poised Hitchcockian blonde and the tall olive-skinned Hispanic. And
Sam, having a tender heart and a compassionate soul and knowing it would be
their last chance, had given them ample time last night to have their fun. He
had patiently waited over an hour before slicking back his hair, snagging a
waiter’s jacket, and knocking on their door.

He’d waited, knocked again.

No answer. They weren’t in. They’d
evidently made whoopee and gone out on the town again. From what he could see,
Helen was one big party scene so he shoulda expected it.

But he hadn’t, and instead of
doing the job and heading out as planned, he’d been forced to check into a
motel down the way and spend another frigging night away from home and man, was
he pissed at them for giving him the slip.

Never mind. He smoothed his hair
and straightened the jacket that was a little bit big. At seven o’clock in the
morning now, the lovebirds should be sound asleep in their room.

His natural optimism returned.

This might work out better. From what
he’d seen the past night, everyone in town ought to be hung over and groggy,
including the lovebirds. He might not have to take out the man, too.

Sam detested unnecessary
slaughter.

When he knocked, a woman’s voice
answered.

Excellent.

He readied the gun beneath the
towel. “Room service, ma’am.” An old ploy, but effective.

A few minutes passed. The inner
chain rattled, and the bolt clicked back to let the door open. A sleepy face
peered out.

A woman’s face beneath a frizzy
cloud of dark hair.

“Did you order room service, baby?”
she called over her shoulder, stifling a yawn.

The gun, half-hidden by the towel
draped over his arm, was whisked out of sight. “Smith? Allen Smith?” he had the
presence of mind to ask. Quick on his feet, Sam prided himself in being.

“No, I’m Mrs. Kinsellen.” She
frowned at his towel.

He made a pretense of looking at
the door number. “Oh, terribly sorry, I must have the wrong room.”

A man’s voice, raspy from sleep,
called out a second before the door closed, “Who is it, hon?”

Sam didn’t hear what she
answered. He was striding down the hall, stripping off his borrowed waiter’s
jacket and fuming.

Shit, what a close one. Who the shit
is she?

Someone familiar.

His mind was already churning,
sorting new facts, filing them into old.

Ah. He had her.

One of the jazzy brunettes in the
photographer’s group last night, the one clinging to a placid man happy to be
clung to. Yeah, the man back in the bed who had spoken as Sam escaped. Somehow
this couple and the other had switched rooms on him.

Shit.

Now, now, take it easy, don’t get
your bowels in an uproar.

Stress was the cause of most heart
attacks in middle-aged men. And excess weight. He’d never had a weight problem,
and hitting the gym three times a week helped his stress levels. But for
moments like this, he had a set of mental exercises.

Breathe in, breathe out. Imagine
floating in a clear pool of water in warm sunshine. Imagine petting the dog’s
silky ears. Imagine lying on the beach listening to the ocean.

Okay, heart was back to normal, temper
under control.

He looked around the hotel for
the Lexus, but it was gone. The blonde and her man must have borrowed the room
for a while last night.

Never mind. This little setback
could be handled. All he had to do was watch and wait. The two lovebirds
upstairs should lead him to the Merriwell chick if he waited and watched long
enough. And patience was part of the job.

He moved his van to a place where
he could monitor both hotel doors.

****

The kitchen of the cabin was
crowded, too crowded for Autumn. There was no chance of being alone with Rennie
this morning, with everyone fixing their own breakfast and chattering.

Elena and John came in, with
Elena bubbling over about their night at the hotel.

“—wonderful, lying in that Jacuzzi
in front of the fire. I still can’t believe John thought of surprising me all
by himself.” Laney planted an enthusiastic kiss on her husband’s beaming
forehead but spoiled her accolade by adding, “He’s usually so unimaginative.”

John helped himself to coffee. “I
saw it was either find a hotel or spend another night listening to people going
in and out of that one bathroom beside our bedroom.”

“Oh, John, don’t spoil your
romantic gesture.” Laney did a happy pirouette before turning to Autumn and
Victoria and confiding, “The thing was, the bed creaked so much—”

“Elena.” John spilled his coffee.
“Do you have to share everything?”

“—that someone next door kept
bumping on the wall and screaming at us every time we tried to do anything
innovative,” she continued, sending a mischievous look toward her husband that
quickly dissolved into perplexity. “Then some dimwit bellman woke us up at the
crack of dawn this morning, can you believe it? And you know what?” Her brown
eyes, slanted like Rennie’s, widened. “He was carrying a gun under a little
towel draped over his arm.”

“A gun?” Autumn and Victoria
echoed.

Fran groaned and rolled his eyes.

“Laney,” her annoyed husband
injected with a long-suffering expression that said he was far too familiar
with her vivid imagination. “You didn’t see a gun, hon.”

“It was a gun.”

“We've gone over this. It couldn’t
have been a gun.”

Her eyes flashed. “You weren’t
awake, John, you were practically comatose after spending half the night in the
Jacuzzi and the other half getting a whole-body massage. You were in bed and never
saw the man. He had a gun.”

“It was a coffeepot or a serving
spoon or something you mistook for a gun.”

She flushed bright red. “Serving
spoon?” She jabbed a finger into her husband’s chest. “You’re crazy, John.” She
jabbed him again. “I tell you he had a gun.” Another jab. “You think I don’t
know a gun when I see one? You think I’m a dummy?” One last jab.

“Stop that. You’re as dingy as
that weirdo next door.”

She screamed and hit him with the
side of a fist. “Kiki isn’t a weirdo and neither am I. Take that back.”

He dodged when she would have hit
him again. “Cool it, hon. Remember your work with battered spouses.”

While the others observed, Rennie
braved the storm. “Yeah, cut it out, Laney. You’re getting to be as bad as Norma.
We’ll all testify for John if he decides to divorce you.”

“You butt out, Rennie. This is
between John and me.”

Rennie held up his hands. “John,
call on us as witnesses if you decide to take legal action.”

Autumn tactfully nursed her
coffee as Laney sat down, sulking. Anger looked good on Laney. For that matter,
any emotion looked good on Laney. Like her siblings, her dramatic Spanish face
was eye-catching, no matter whether she was happy or sad.

Frowning seemed to be the order
of the day. Even Fran, in his khakis and button-down shirt, seemed preoccupied.
At least till Victoria elbowed him and earned a grin.

As Autumn and the others nibbled
at toast and cereal, Laney tried her best to pick a quarrel with John. “The
next time someone shows me a gun, I’ll shoot you with it. Maybe then you’ll
admit I was right.”

John, accustomed to his
temperamental wife after two years of marriage, stopped arguing. He refused to
do anything but shake his head in an amiable manner supposed to deescalate
Laney’s anger but in fact doing the exact opposite.

Autumn fingered the rim of her
cup. A gun.

Had Laney actually seen a gun? Surely
not. The Degardoveras, with the exceptions of Rennie and his youngest sister
Cristina, tended to drag every ounce of drama out of ordinary situations. Laney,
while not quite as theatrical as Norma, was still pretty good at performing.

A slanting glance toward the one
never-ruffled Degardovera showed him disinterested in his sister’s antics. The
corduroys and bulky sweater didn’t mask his slim hips and wide shoulders as he
stood, mug in hand, looking out a tall window and brooding.

Neither Autumn nor he had said
anything to each other except for the inevitable morning greetings. He must
have been rethinking his admissions to her advances because he’d avoided her
all morning.

Heat warmed her cheeks.

All right. If that was how it was
to be. She got up to put her cup and bowl in the sink and turned her back to
him. They had a three hour drive back to Atlanta this afternoon. Alone.

Try and get away from me then,
Dr. Degardovera
.
She would make him accept her as a desirable woman or alienate him forever.

This friend stuff was getting old.

Fran, as Laney’s diatribe
increased in volume, made a spurious leap up from the breakfast table in a
patent attempt to stop his sister from further browbeating his brother-in-law. “Anybody
want to go for a short walk to the lake before we have to leave? It isn’t far
to the trail from the deck. If we start now, we can be back in an hour, plenty
of time before checkout at noon. Victoria?”