2000 Kisses (17 page)

As TJ. flipped on the light, her breath caught. Pale adobe floors flowed through a room inset with stucco niches and bleached wood beams. Tess could imagine light flowing through the tall windows onto the row of
pottery set on a shelf before the curving fireplace. Brightly striped rugs of red and green were the only other items in the room.

“Do you have something against furniture?”

T.J. shut the door with his boot. “I haven't had a lot of time for decorating. The walls were finished only last month. The beeswax took longer to rub in than we thought, but it definitely gives a nice, authentic shine.”

Tess stopped dead. In the center of the room, light scattered in sparks from a cut tin chandelier over muted peach walls. She blinked, assuming she'd misunderstood him. “Excuse me?”

“It takes a while to build a house like this. Once it's done, a man wants to grow into it before he starts cluttering it up with things.”

“You
built
this house by yourself?”

“Every beam and latilla,” Maria said proudly. “Senor McCall is very good with his hands. He builds all kind of things.”

T.J. rocked back on his heels. “Actually, I had a lot of help. I expect everyone in Almost left a mark somewhere.” He ran a hand lovingly over a massive wood column. “Grady helped me peel most of the beams for the vigas in the ceiling. Mae helped me choose the layout of the windows, and Tom Martinez helped score the adobe floor. We tried to do as much as possible the old way. After all, if you're going to build a house, you may as well do it the right way.”

Tess shook her head and tried to accept his casual explanation. This amazing house could have belonged to an industrialist or a real-estate executive.

It was certainly
not
what she'd expected of a laid-back, small-town sheriff.

She frowned, trying to work her mind around the
reality of it. There was definitely more to the man than she had imagined. She suspected there was also more to this odd town, whose eccentric residents seemed to conceal unusual talents.

“It's beautiful. Beyond beautiful.”

He grinned, shoving back his liat. “Some of the stucco needs to be repainted, and there's one mural left to add in the courtyard. But I'm in no rush.”

Tess eyed the clean, fluid lines of the room and caught back a yawn.

Maria opened a door across the hall. “It is good that the lights have come back on. Now you will both come and sit,” she called. “The meal is prepared.”

“But I'm not—”

“You will eat,” the woman said firmly.

Tess looked at T.J., who shrugged as if this were an argument he'd given up trying to win.

“Why don't you change while I check on things in town? I want to be sure that lightning didn't set any fires.”

“You will please hurry,” Maria said calmly. “Senora O'Mara, you will like to sit down now.”

“Actually, it's senorita,” Tess said, summoning her very limited knowledge of Spanish.

“Hmmmph.” The woman led the way into a room bordered by floor-to-ceiling windows. Bright woven textiles crowned a table of golden bleached pine. Tess sat down as Maria poured water and brought soup. “You will eat. The sheriff may be long at his calls.” She clucked her tongue.

There was goat cheese with sun-dried tomatoes. Then Maria brought in squash soup with chiles and roasted corn, followed by a fragrant pork stew with fresh
corn tortillas. Tess felt her appetite grow in a rush as T.J. returned.

“There are problems?” Maria asked.

“Nothing beyond the usual. The fire department lost their backup generator for a while, but not too long. There doesn't seem to be any damage to the courthouse.”

“It is good. Now you will eat.”

Half an hour later, Tess sat back, stuffed. Maria had served dish after dish, each better than the last. Finally, the stately woman smoothed her red apron and nodded. “Enough. Too much and you do not sleep—or your dreams will be evil. It is time you both went to rest.” She saw Tess hide a yawn. “Go now, before you both fall asleep over my food.”

He pushed from the table. “I'll show you to your room.”

The bedroom was all curves leading to two sets of windows. Dried lavender hung over the doorway and a collection of antique colored glass ran along the adobe niche above the bed. T.J. put Tess's bags in the corner. “I'm just down the hall. Call if you need anything.”

“I'm sure I'll be fine.” Tess took a step back, suddenly aware of his tall body only a foot away from hers. She turned down the bed, avoiding his eyes.

“You'll have to talk about what happened outside the jail sometime. We both know it was more than disorintation from the storm.”

Tess looked away from his intense gaze. “Nothing happened, I already told you. I was just confused, but now I'm fine. Stop pushing, McCall.”

“Oh, I'll push, Duchess. I'll keep pushing until I have answers. If you're feeling so wonderful, why are your hands shaking right now?”

“I don't know what you're talking about.” But when Tess looked down, she saw that her fingers were locked around the colorful blanket.

And her hands were shaking.

His brow rose. “You can lie to me, but you can't lie to yourself.” Then he turned and vanished down the hall without another word, his boots echoing over the tile.

Sleep pushed at her mind as she settled beneath the cool sheets. Twig shutters covered the broad windows and a kiva fireplace held embers of fragrant mesquite to keep out the night's chill. A row of stucco shelves filled one wall, every inch crammed tight with books. Tomorrow, Tess thought sleepily, she would think about what had happened. There had to be some sane, logical explanation.

But now the fragrant mesquite and the gurgle of water from the courtyard conspired to make her eyes droop.

She studied the huge mural on the far wall with pictographs representing hundreds of horses and fighting warriors. The figures seeming to twist and dance in the flickering glow of the embers, and Tess couldn't pull her gaze away.

She remembered Damien Passard's predictions. Hot skies. Red cliffs. A man who waited for her.

She might have heard an animal call in the distance.

She might have heard T.J.'s boots scrape softly outside her door.

And then she was swept down into a restless sleep.

A sharp burst of sound pulled Tess awake hours later. Moonlight drew patterns on the floor as she sat up tensely.

Once again the sound came, the scrambling of feet followed by unearthly howling. The shrill noises grew, a series of barks and howls that rose and broke in an eerie cacophony that made goose bumps rise on her arms.

She tugged a blanket around her shoulders and moved to the outer windows, but was unable to see anything. Shivering, she walked out to the living room and stopped.

T.J. was curled on a blanket in the middle of the floor, asleep before a fire that had burned down to embers in the huge kiva fireplace. He wasn't wearing a shirt. His jeans were unbuttoned and riding low on his hips.

Tess felt heat fill her face at the sight of him. She had a sudden thought that this might be some sort of bizarre dream until the unearthly howling began again.

“T.J., wake up.”

He shot up with a curse, reaching for his pillow in the same swift movement. Tess blinked as she saw moonlight glint on the dull barrel of a gun.

“What's wrong?”

“There's something outside. Some kind of animal. Can't you hear it?”

“Hear what?”

Once again the wild cacophony filled the air.
“That.
What in heaven's name is it?”

T.J. ran a hand through his hair, then pushed to his feet. “Relax, Duchess.” He strode to the window and pushed back the twig shutters. More discordant notes filled the room. “It's just coyotes. They tend to get social up here on moonlit nights.”

“Coyotes?” Tess repeated. “But they sound so unearthly.”

T.J. stood looking out. The rain had stopped and the
moon was high, its cold silver light tracing his hard features. “I guess the coyotes would say the same thing about the Three Tenors.”

Tess tried not to watch the planes of muscle shift where his jeans rode low on his hips. With even less success, she tried to keep her gaze off the chiseled planes of his face, caught in a restless pattern of shadow and light by the fire.

She shivered.

Not because of the unearthly howling or the chill of the night. Here in this place she felt like a stranger to herself and all she had been. Instead of Tess O'Mara, she was a woman she barely knew, someone who stood on the brink of immeasurable discoveries. A voice whispered that the man before her would be part of those discoveries.

She remembered again what Richard's psychic friend had said about hot skies and burning red stone.

Not this place. Not this man
, Tess told herself.

“I can't sleep, not with all that noise.”

“Then come sit before the fire.”

“I don't think—”

“Hell, I won't bite you.” His face was unreadable. “In case that's what you're worried about.”

After a moment's hesitation, Tess sat down on the pillow he'd tugged from the window seat. It, too, was handmade in bright tapestry squares. Tess wondered whose work it was.

She realized the blanket had fallen from her shoulders. Muttering, she yanked it higher and caught the scent of wood smoke and desert wind.

And there was something else, a male scent compounded of sweat and soap.

His
scent, she realized with a shiver. There was something intensely earthy about being wrapped in his blanket and enfolded in the primal beauty of this amazing house he had created tile by tile and brick by adobe brick.

Tess closed her eyes. She wasn't going to think about T. J. McCall. She didn't need any more disturbing visions that left her yearning for things she couldn't name and wondering how his mouth would feel brushing hers, here in the moonlight.

“You must be chilled.” Tess felt his light touch as he wrapped another blanket around her. She had been right about that smell. It
was
his—all wood smoke, desert wind, and man.

The coyotes' voices seemed to soften, to become more song than howl. She'd heard that before, too….

Impossible. It had to be the heatstroke she'd suffered. She'd heard it could fool the mind into playing tricks on itself. She should shift away from him, put some distance between them but the bare brush of his shoulder against her seemed to ground her, to keep her from slipping away into visions of what couldn't possibly be.

“Talk to me,” T.J. said softly. “Tell me what happened.” He was studying her, seeing … what? “It's still happening, isn't it?”

She shrugged. “I'm tired, T.J. I'm still wobbly from the long drive and the heat.” A deep sigh escaped her. “And this place is magic—the mountains and the sky and the desert … I can see why so many artists and writers come to the Southwest. It invites the imagination to run wild.”

T.J. didn't move, didn't stop looking at her. “Imagination,” he said thoughtfully. “So where did yours run to? What did it see?”

She forced a smile and lifted her hand, gesturing toward the windows. “The mountains, the sky, the desert … and ideas to help Mae.”

He frowned and opened his mouth, then shut it again as if he wanted to challenge her answer and changed his mind. “Mae? How did she get into this conversation?”

“I spent some time with her this afternoon,” Tess said quickly, relieved that she'd thought to bring Mae into a conversation that left her distinctly uncomfortable. She didn't want to bring him into it, to tell him that he'd been there in those odd moments spent in another time. She didn't want this man to be the one Damien Passard has spoken of. She didn't want to acknowledge aloud the strange bond she felt with him, growing with every minute they spent together.

“You spent some time with Mae …” he prompted.

She took a deep breath to banish the thoughts that lurked so close to the surface, focusing on the realities of the here and now of her life. “She wants to package and market some local foods and asked me for help.” Tess took hold of the excitement she'd felt that afternoon as ideas had spilled from her mind. That kind of sudden inspiration was rare and always triggered restless energy in her. “Specialty foods are my newest area, and I've got some great ideas, starting with an Internet promotion and a four-alarm Web site with hot recipes using Mae's products.”

“First a coffee klatch that involves the whole town and now Mae becomes an entrepreneur.” T.J. shook his head. “I go away for a few hours and you've turned the whole town upside down.”

She glanced at him, seeing the twist of his mouth in a
wry smile and the glint of approval in his eyes. He'd meant it as a compliment rather than censure.

“You're not here to work, Duchess.”

“No, I'm here to hide,” she said, the reminder of why she'd come here bringing a jolt of fear. “But I can't stop working, T.J. Ideas can't be turned on and off like the pump in your waterfall.” She kept talking, driving thoughts of a million dollars and some unnamed threat from her mind. “I usually work with well-established companies whose presence is apparent in the market. But this will mean beginning from the ground up with a sole proprietor in a small town. Mae presented me with a challenge I can't refuse.”