Authors: Cait London
He pushed away the idea, sneering at his weaker side, and hating that vulnerability. He’d always been too vulnerable, and not tough enough. Now he was handling his life, paying back those who had belittled him.
He’d caused Lauren to be killed, and he’d killed Pete Jones. Exactly how could a dead woman hurt him? he scoffed as he tore a full rose bloom from its vine. It was July now and he had only a couple of months to complete his mission—to kill all of the women—before the last petal fell from the last rose in Madrid.
The dinner had ended uncomfortably—Everett stubbornly taking his place with Clarence for a game of checkers, and Mitchell returning to his home. Later, craving a peaceful relief from the bristling males—Everett and her father—Uma drifted into her moonlit garden. The gray cat slid from the shadow of a trellis, eyes glinting silver in the night, while lightning bugs blinked across the small lawn.
On another night, in another time, Uma might have talked quietly with Lauren, sharing their lives.
The roses’ heavy perfume wrapped around Uma, and a drift of silky petals washed against her cheek. She could almost feel Lauren—waiting, wanting…fearing.
Uma rubbed her hands, the image of Lauren’s blood staining them.
The cat watched her, then turned to a noise, and suddenly Mitchell towered over Uma. Moonlight caught on his brow and cheekbones, his eyes deeply shadowed. Unbuttoned against the night’s heat, his shirt hung loosely down his chest.
Uma fought the leap of her heart, the pounding of her blood, as Mitchell took a step closer. His hand looped around her wrist, bringing her hand to his chest, smoothing her palm against the rough hair there.
“I’m sorry dinner wasn’t more pleasant, Mitchell. I
wanted it to work out. My father can be very stubborn,” she whispered as his other hand released her hair from its knot, his fingers prowling through it.
He studied the effect of moonlight on the strands, lifting them away from her face and lazily twining them around his fist. He gently drew her closer and bent to nuzzle her ear. “Dinner was what I expected. Nice. Cool. Tense. You controlling the situation, keeping a lid on it. I wonder what you can’t control—what makes you look afraid and sweet and sexy, all at the same time. I wonder what would happen if you lost it—that control, the cool exterior jerked aside and the woman inside released.”
He looked down to her fingers, smoothing the hair on his chest, and when he slowly looked back into her eyes, she read the desire heating him, leaping from him, pounding at her.
Then his gaze lowered to her mouth, heating her skin as it traveled lower to her breasts beneath her summer dress. “Do you know that I wake up hard every morning, wanting you?”
“Mitchell, you shouldn’t say—” She couldn’t speak, sensations from his open mouth on her throat riveting her. At first, she thought the tropical warmth came from the night, and then she knew it came from within; she was quivering and aching and needing to possess him, to pit herself physically against Mitchell, battling him, taking his challenges.
Excitement skittered over her body, a primitive hunger to take and to torment—
She had to have his mouth, to taste him. Uma caught his face, bringing it to hers, taking his mouth.
The jolt of his parted mouth, the heat coming from him, poured into her as he tugged her close and tight against him. His kiss wasn’t sweet, but erotic and intense and pulsing through her, demanding that she give everything.
Uma held his hair in her fists, accepting the gentle foray of
his tongue into her mouth, raising up on tiptoe to be closer to him, to feel that burgeoning heat of his body against hers.
She realized slowly that Mitchell was easing away, and when she looked up at him, she found his mockery.
“So now we know, don’t we? You can pretend with someone else if you want, but not with me,” he said before turning and leaving her alone and shaking and hot in the night.
Upstairs in her bedroom, Uma gripped her arms and tried not to think about revenge. On the other hand, revenge was the only payback that was acceptable for Mitchell. He’d deliberately set out to prove his point—that she was susceptible to him—and he’d succeeded.
She looked down at the well-trimmed area between their houses to Mitchell’s back porch. If he would just come out, she had just the present for him—
Meanwhile, she worked furiously on her column, “Takers and Givers.” Takers had to be shown the boundaries of a relationship, the equality of it, the intimacy.
And they definitely did not walk away from romantic—sensual—interludes, as if they had never happened. They did not use sexual attraction as a tool
.
Two hours later, Mitchell lay on his bed. His body ached and he should have known better than to try to prove his point with Uma. The tense dinner had left him raw, the image of Everett’s hand holding hers.
So now we know…
Mitchell had been jealous and out for revenge, and Uma didn’t deserve his arrogance.
He’d wanted to claim her, to make her remember him that night, and not Everett—not exactly a class-act thing to do, leaving her simmering and himself aching.
Unable to sleep, Mitchell launched his taut body from the bed and went outside into the garden beneath Uma’s darkened bedroom window. It slid open, the lace curtains moving, and Uma leaned out slightly. “Having fun? Gloating?
And do all the men in this neighborhood prefer to run around in their undershorts?”
“I’m in my own backyard, sweetheart. Proper attire is casual. And I was just making certain that you didn’t get confused about which man you’re kissing,” he returned, still nettled by Everett’s possessiveness.
“I see. For the record, I’m not going to be controlled by you and I don’t like hit-and-run attacks.”
“I wouldn’t exactly call it an attack. Why don’t you come down and we’ll discuss it?” he invited, enjoying the tit-for-tat with her. She gave him pleasure in more than the physical sense. “Or maybe you’d like a second round.”
“Or maybe
you
should learn some
manners
.”
The cold water hit Mitchell in the face, drenching his body and undershorts. Before he could think, he was in motion, propping a ladder up against her house, and climbing up to her second-story window. On his way, he plucked a perfect rose.
Stunned, she stared out at him from the open window, and a surge of boyish pleasure hit Mitchell. He couldn’t help grinning as he handed the rose to her. “Are you going to invite me in?”
“Good heavens, no.”
Backed against the wall, with her hair in braids, wearing a loose T-shirt, and clutching a rose to her chest, she looked adorable.
Adorable
. Now, when had he ever thought a woman looked. “adorable”? “Want to come out and play?”
“Good heavens, no. Mitchell, you’ve got to get down before you get hurt.”
“I’ll need a kiss to take home with me.” Teasing Uma could be addictive, he decided. She looked all flustered and cute.
“You had a kiss, and a pretty good one at that. Then you left me.”
“I apologize. My manners need improvement. The next
time I kiss you, I’ll finish the job, good and proper. Goodnight.”
Mitchell almost chuckled as he descended the ladder and replaced it against his house. When he saw Uma staring down at him, her arms crossed, he bowed deeply, then blew her a kiss. The window closed quickly.
Inside, Roman was waiting and laughing. He handed Mitchell a towel. “You’re lucky her old man didn’t spatter your backside with buckshot. I thought you were too old and stiff for playing games.”
“I’m learning a few things.” Mitchell toweled his wet hair and shoulders, crossed his arms, and leaned back against a counter. He wasn’t exactly pleased that his brother had seen him acting like a lovesick, horny boy. And the knowledge that he actually would have crawled through that window to have her poleaxed him.
Even now, he could feel her warm, soft mouth beneath his, slanted, and fused and giving. He could feel her tremble, her body tight against his, every curve—
Mitchell sighed roughly. It was going to be a long, hard night.
“By the way,” Roman said slowly. “Our friend has been busy again. He works fast and he’s good. He knows we use that ladder. When I came home, it was in a different place than we left it. After the nail and tire incident, I checked and he’d been busy, sawdust on the grass. I fixed it, pronto.”
Mitchell tossed the towel aside with the violence he felt. “It is someone who knows a lot about everyone and he’s giving notice that he’s not happy.”
Clyde leaned back into the shadows. He listened to Edgar MacDougal peeing off his back porch, just a few inches from Clyde’s well-polished shoes.
Mitchell had used the ladder, handling its weight easily as
he’d propped it up against. Uma’s house. In fast motion, he’d used his arms to power up the ladder, and not his full weight, as a working man might do.
Clyde frowned; he’d have to remember that Mitchell moved quickly for a big man. That size meant a bigger target, but Clyde didn’t want to just shoot Mitchell. He wanted to enjoy his pain.
S
helly stopped her Wednesday night ironing, poured a long cool glass of sun-brewed sweet tea, and held the icy glass up to her hot cheek. The third week of July baked the streets during the day, and heat hugged the night.
Tabor Street was quiet; the houses along it settled into the night beneath the towering oaks. During the day, the trees gave some relief from the hot summer sun, and in the winter, they sheltered the homes from the fierce winter winds that would sweep across Oklahoma. The basic “starter” houses with small yards were owned by a mix of newly marrieds just starting out, and retired people on strict pensions.
And everyone knew what happened along Tabor Street, who visited who, for how long. It was a friendly gossip, neighbors checking on each other, and as a single mother, Shelly usually appreciated the safety and comfort. But with Roman prowling in Madrid, she wasn’t certain she wanted her life inspected.
She pressed a hand to her aching back—today was her every-other-week floor cleaning day, scrubbing and vacuuming at the Millers’ big two-story house. She was tired and hot and her ancient air conditioner had broken down and Dani
could be anywhere. Shelly turned her face to the oscillating fan, letting it blow the damp tendrils around her face as the washer and dryer hummed near her. Her cotton tank top and the cutoff shorts didn’t ease the heat and she debated asking for an advance on next week’s cleaning to repair the living room window’s air conditioner. The small window unit in Dani’s room did little to cool the small house.
Shelly rubbed a healing cut on her arm and looked down at her bare feet. She didn’t have control of her life or her daughter, and there was only one thing she could do about Roman—tell him the truth and hope…for what? What if he wanted to step into their lives now?
Shelly looked outside her kitchen window to see Roman standing beneath the streetlight. She pivoted, tossed the dishtowel aside, and leaned back against the counter. She crossed her arms, locking her fingers into the flesh, and still they continued shaking. Dani spoke only of him.
Shelly had to talk with him. He had to know that Dani, the girl infatuated with him, was his daughter!
She took a deep, steadying breath and turned off the iron that she had been heating to press her customer’s shirts. She hesitated at the back door, then firmly jerked it open and stepped out into the hot, quiet night. The heavy scent of her neighbor’s honeysuckle met her as the police car cruised by and she waited beside her ancient Toyota pickup until it passed. Taking another deep breath, she walked out on the sidewalk where Roman could see her.
She wanted to run, but she couldn’t. She had to protect Dani.
Roman turned to her immediately and started walking across the street. He came to tower over her and said nothing. The oak trees on her lawn hid them from the street, the shadows engulfing them. His face was so hard now, his body lean, but heavier than it had been in his youth. The black shirt he
wore stretched across shoulders that blocked out the night, his jeans flowing into long legs and biker’s boots.
But the hair was the same, unruly and shaggy and damp, his scent that of soap and the tang of aftershave—and of anger. She could feel it tremble over the softer sweet scents of the honeysuckle in the hot night.
In the streetlight, one side of his face caught the light, the other was in shadow. Those long lashes shadowed his deep-set eyes and created shadowy fringes on his tanned skin. His jaw gleamed, that high ridge of cheekbone jerked just once as he looked at her. She wasn’t a girl any longer and that close study tore at her senses; she gripped the white fence post for support.
He looked slowly down to her hand, the knuckles sharp in relief, and then back up to her face. The pinpoints of his eyes lasered at her, and she sensed that his slow breathing, that slight flaring of his nostrils, was forced, a man keeping an edge on his emotions.
Back then, he’d been so desperate to hold her, to love her, as if he needed an anchor to tether him to life…
Roman’s stance, hip-shot, that arrogant tilt to his head, said he hadn’t come in peace.
It had been so many years. Her heart raced as she tried to force just the words she had practiced from her lips. “I…there’s something you should know.”
His expression tightened and the bitter low tone slammed into her. “That Dani is my daughter. That you—”
“No, she isn’t,” Shelly lied fiercely.
“Oh, she’s mine, all right.”
Her carefully constructed words flew out into the street, still heated from the sun. “You don’t know that.”
“I can do basic math. Her birthday counts back exactly nine months from that night. We’ve been talking. I know quite a few things.”
He wasn’t sparing her, slapping her with facts. “You must know that you’ve got to leave her alone,” Shelly said.
“No, I won’t. You know I won’t, but I haven’t been bothering her—not that way. What do you think I am, anyway? She’s my child, and dammit, you never tried to contact me. There were people here who knew where Mitchell and I had gone. They should have, they ran us out of town as soon as Mitchell left the hospital.”
“You were a boy. There was nothing you could have done.”
“I would have taken care of you somehow. Away from here. I asked you to come with me at the time, but you couldn’t force yourself to leave Mama and step into the big, wide world. And what would you have had? You would have probably ended up hating me.”
Shelly felt herself fading, sliding—then Roman’s hand was on her arm, holding her upright. “Let’s go in. You need to sit down.”
“You can’t come in. If Dani came home—”
“She’d see me. We’ll handle it.”
Shelly let herself be propelled into the kitchen, eased into a chair, and took the glass of water that Roman handed her. “Drink.”
He was taking in the tiny neat kitchen, the rolled dampened laundry in the basket, the already pressed dress shirts hanging on the rack, the waiting ironing board. She couldn’t move while Roman quietly prowled through her two-bedroom home, clicking lights on and off as he went.
Shelly scrubbed her rough hands across her face and knew how he would see the used, reupholstered furniture, the curtains she had sewn, the old sewing machine that she used to patch things, the basket beside it. The bathroom was tiny, cluttered with Dani’s makeup; her bedroom was plastered with posters, clothing on the floor. It was quiet now, without its usual earsplitting rocker music.
Then Roman was back, sitting in a chair, looking down at
her worn linoleum floor, his hands dangling at his knees. Her “Roman—” set him off and he lurched to his feet, slamming an open hand down on the yellow marble Formica table. He went to the kitchen counter and braced his hands against it as he looked out into the night.
Then he looked at her and the flashing anger in his light brown eyes, his too-quiet tone, held her. “Want to tell me about it?”
“No.” She didn’t want anyone to know what her parents had said, how the town had speculated about the father, the pressure she’d been under from the minister, and the censure of everyone, the lurid stares from the men. But worst of all was the livid coldness of her parents, the way they wanted her to put Dani up for adoption. “I had friends,” she said, not wanting his pity.
“Uma, Lauren, and Pearl, right? What about your parents?” he demanded as he tested the buttons and knobs on the dead air conditioner. Then he turned back to fire the next volley. “Dani told me how wonderful they were. They didn’t recognize her as their granddaughter. That really hurts the kid.”
“I know. Only my mother is alive now and—”
“And you’re paying the tab at the nursing home and she still won’t talk to her own granddaughter?” His tone was low, quivering, and shaking the room with emotion.
She loved her mother, and through her pain, she’d understood. Her parents had such plans for her—college, a good marriage, security…“There are worse things. I was able to work. I did. I work at the nursing home to help expenses. Mother has a small retirement. We managed. Like I said, my friends helped—Uma and Pearl. Pearl and Walter were wonderful. Pearl gave us so many things she didn’t need. Uma babysat and was my rock.”
“‘Managed.’” The flat tone and Roman’s dark scowl challenged her.
She didn’t like him criticizing the best she could do. “You have no right to judge. Just stay out of Dani’s life.”
“She’s my kid, too. And she’s headed for trouble, just like I was. I know better than you about this and how she could end up. I don’t want that to happen.”
“You don’t have any say in our lives.”
Roman’s smile wasn’t nice. “Honey, from now on, I’m making you and Dani my business.”
Shelly leaped to her feet. “Don’t you dare hurt her.”
Roman frowned and lifted a finger to trace the year-old scar along her temple. “What’s that? How did you get it?”
She brushed his hand away. The burn had hurt fiercely, just searing her scalp which bled horribly. She didn’t think it was necessary to see a doctor, and she could ill afford the luxury, using butterfly bandages and good antiseptic. “I hit my head on something the night Lauren died. A branch or something tore my skin when I was coming into the house. I’d been outside, trying to get Dani’s cat in out of the storm, and—”
His eyes narrowed, his expression cold. “Uh-huh. That was quite some branch…. it’s always Dani, isn’t it? That’s why she’s spoiled and doesn’t care if you work yourself to death, while she’s partying.”
“
I love her
.” Her statement vibrated in the air and Roman watched her carefully, the protective mother fighting for her child. She didn’t try to hide her emotions; she’d already fought many, many times for Dani. She’d fight with her last breath.
He shook his head and studied the wide satin strips hung carefully over the door. His hand cruised down the hot pink satin and he lifted the brightly flowered one beneath it. “What are these?”
She didn’t like him seeing into her life, inspecting the bald, poor edges of her pride. “Ribbons for Rosy, the Ferris’s pig. I launder and iron them for free because I love them and her.
The Ferris’s low retirement pensions aren’t paying their bills now, but I can do this for them. And I will.”
He scanned her arm, the bandage running across it. “What happened?”
“An accident.”
Roman’s deep voice was quiet and fierce, demanding an answer. “I asked you what happened.”
“A knife. A butcher knife that I forgot I’d placed on the cans on the closet’s top shelf. I reached up and it came down. No harm done.”
His dark brows jerked into a fierce frown. “Is that where you’d usually place a knife?”
“No…” She didn’t want him to know the series of accidents that had happened in the last year; they had increased since her preoccupation with his arrival in Madrid.
Roman’s expression said he was caught on the edge of a decision and she again tossed him an escape. “I don’t want you to have anything to do with Dani. She’s my responsibility.”
His low tone shook the kitchen. “She’s my child, too. I wasn’t there then—but I am now. She’s not going to end up like me, or ironing someone else’s clothes. The kid is running with the wrong crowd. She has to graduate from high school and get an education.”
“
Stay out of our lives. I know what she needs and it isn’t you
.” She leaped to her feet, her fists at her side. She hadn’t meant to sail that order at him and in the silence, it boomeranged back to her.
Roman rubbed his chest and looked at her, a heavy pulse beating in his throat as she locked her gaze with his. She’d really only fought for one thing in her life, and Dani was it.
“I’m going to be around,” he said as the washer started bouncing and chugging and moving off the blocks she’d placed beneath it for balance on the sagging floor. Roman tested the soft flooring with his foot. “Termites, more than likely.”
She hadn’t had money for the exterminators and now pride forced her to stay quiet. Roman caught her frown and shot it back to her.
“I’ll be around,” he said quietly as he bent to lift the washer slightly and readjust the cement block beneath one corner. He stood, looked at Shelly, and served her worst fear to her. “Explain it to Dani however you like, but I’m going to be a part of her life. I’ll be around. See you.”
At the door he turned to stare at her. “Dani tells me that just after Lauren was killed, your car caught on fire when you turned the key. Is that true?”
“Yes. I’d been having trouble with it and the engine just seemed to explode. The mechanic said a gas leak—”
“Did you have a gas leak with it before? Any smell of gas?”
“Well, no, but it was old and everything needed repair on it. I smelled gas that morning. One of the old hoses, probably—”
“Uh-huh,” Roman said grimly and closed the door behind him.
“You can’t just come in here and take over, Roman Warren,” Shelly stated shakily to the yawning, quivering silence.
I’m going to be a part of her life. I’ll be around. See you
.
“Shelly, Shelly, Shelly,” Clyde murmured as he watched Roman step out into the night. “You’re not making this any easier on yourself. I made a mistake with Lauren, hiring someone else, but I won’t with you. I was angry that night with Pete and let my temper get the best of me, shooting at you—missing you. It’s just as well that you wear my mark, that scar. I like that. So much better for the game, then actually shooting you between the eyes. I like the game with you. You can look so distracted, so confused. I’m amused, I really am. But that won’t help you. You’ve trespassed, and you’ve got to be removed. Because if you live too long, you might tell, and I couldn’t have that.”
He tipped his fedora slightly and sank into the shadows as Roman walked by on the street below. Clyde didn’t like the Warrens in his town again, stirring up Uma and Shelly and Pearl, because they belonged to him.
Roman stood inside his father’s garage, the moonlight slicing through the boards on the windows.
If there was any place he didn’t want to be, it was Madrid.
If there was anything he hadn’t planned, it was being a father.