Page 12 of Tempting as Sin
“Always,” she said. “Don’t tell me you haven’t heard that about me, what with your extensive research.”
“I can light a stove. But I’ll go back to the car for my things first. House key, please.” He held out a palm. Self-control was a virtue, even when a slap to the face felt so much less painful than the way she’d slipped that knife straight between your ribs. Even when it was your brother she was hurting, and he’d already spent half a lifetime carrying too much weight.
She slapped a key ring into his hand and said, “We’re getting your company for a while, are we? Be my guest. I’ll be getting changed, but please—do make yourself at home.”
He squelched his way back along the pier and up to the parking lot in a cold, slanting February rain that hadn’t let up one bit, pulled his laptop bag and suitcase out of the boot, and thought,Well, that’s why you’re here, mate. Forget the part about you, andfocus.Get rid of her, and then think about how to tell Jace.
That wasn’t even going to be the worst. The worst was what would happen afterwards. Jace had a handle on the PTSD now, even since the divorce. At least that was how he sounded. Rafe hadn’t actually seen him since…well, since last April, now that he thought about it. But he’d called, hadn’t he? And that time hehadvisited the cabin, Jace had been good.Grounded. Whole, instead of like he’d left a piece of him behind in the blood-soaked Middle Eastern dust. The dog had helped. The place, too, and the peace of it, but the dog had been a lifeline.
Wait.The dog. Where was Tobias? Why hadn’t he barked and come to meet Rafe at the door?
Never tell him that Paige had made him get rid of the dog. Or that Jace would have done it.
Less thinking, more action.You’re scared for him?he asked himself.Then get in there and start fixing it. As for Jace—you can be a shoulder afterwards, at least. Go do it.
When he came back with his bags, Paige was nowhere to be seen. The grocery bags were still sitting in the entryway, too, as if she’d decided she didn’t need to bother anymore. She was smart enough for that, anyway. Rafe took off his soaking-wet shoes, picked the bags up, and headed through the houseboat’s roomy living space in search of a kitchen.
Despite the rage, he was getting the feeling that he might have approached this wrong. He was lucky, now he came to realize it, that she hadn’t pulled a gun on him. Hehadgrabbed her. To keep her from falling, but still.
It wasn’t even just that he had her defensive and hostile, though, and that it was going to drive her price that much higher and draw this out that much longer. It was that he’d seen fear in her eyes, and pain, too. You’d have thought a cop would be tougher. But then, maybe that was proof that she wasn’t that good a cop. She’d been under investigation only a few months ago, right?
He didn’t want to think that he’d just stomped on a wounded bird.Thiswas why you didn’t get involved with vulnerable women. They didn’t just wreck their own lives. They wrecked everybody else’s, too.
He unloaded groceries into a dark-stainless fridge in a tidy galley-style kitchen in which absolutely everything was the best, and took in a boat builder’s dream of a great room, with tidy cupboards, drawers, wooden beams, and furniture along modern lines, all pale leather and teak, soaring ceilings, and huge windows that were nothing like “portholes. The rain drummed on the roof and ran down the windows.
It should have been cozy, but once again, he was soaked and cold. He needed to get out of his wet clothes, but a withdrawal of antagonism might throw Paige off-balance and soften her up to hear his proposal.
He was on one knee in front of the wood stove, feeding larger bits of kindling into a tiny fire, when she came out again. Looking like she’d tried to be severe, in wide-legged cream-colored trousers that didn’t let you see her curves, a top in a deep peachy color, and low heels. And all that hair pulled back into a tight knot, nothing like the loose, soft one of the night before, so her face was all eyes, cheekbones, and lush mouth.
The top was the same color as the lingerie he’d seen in her bag. Which she’d bought to wear when she was with his brother, and with his brother’s money, no doubt. He chucked a bigger piece of split wood into the stove, shoved it hard with the poker, shoved that image of the wounded bird down again, and summoned up somebody else. Somebody colder and harder, who could deal with her the way she deserved.
Jace had said she was low maintenance. How could he be that mistaken? Jace knew heaps about combat, but he still wasn’t clued in on celebrity, or even, apparently, women.
She said, “I didn’t think you’d actually do it.”
He closed the door to the stove, stood up, and put away the poker, but kept himself backed well off. What he absolutely didn’t need to do was look at her too closely. He wasn’t imagining her naked anymore, or in her lingerie, no matter what kind of fevered thoughts he’d had in the wee hours of the morning, with the scent of her perfume still on his shirt.
Maybe if he told himself that enough, it would work.
He said, “Let’s get one thing straight. You don’t get my brother. If you play this right, though, you can still get something. You can take it with you when you go. But you need to gonow.”
Her eyes widened, color stained her cheeks, and she was nearly on her toes, about to tell him where he could shove that, when he heard the barking. Not a fusillade. More like an announcement. Two slow, deep statements from the throat of a powerful dog.
Like a Ridgeback.
What the hell? Tobias was outside?
The door opened fast, and Jace came in. Dressed in running gear, his bright-yellow jacket streaming with rain, with Tobias following him. Well, almost following him, because there was somebody else there, too. A medium-height woman who was laughing, exactly as wet as Jace, and dressed in her own running clothes.
She was pulling off a black knit cap, revealing her hair. Herblondehair. Which was pulled back into a ponytail. Severe, so her face was all eyes, cheekbones, and lush mouth.
Wait.
Jace was already coming forward, a grin on his face, saying, “Bro.” Sounding rapt to see him. And Tobias’s tail was wagging.
Jace grabbed him, and Rafe looked at both women from over his brother’s shoulder, because they were standing together now.
“I’ve been seeing this twin,” he suddenly remembered Jace saying on the phone, all the way back in the summer. “She and her sister have what anybody would call an eerie connection.”
