CLOSE TO YOU: Enhanced (Lost Hearts) (23 page)

             
Without saying a word, she slipped off her water-stained jacket and hung it on the newel post. She shook her head. Raindrops flew, and her hair bounced to unruly life. Placing her hand on the banister, she started up the stairs.

             
There was an inevitability about this meeting. He'd spent three weeks avoiding her, yet it had never occurred to him their time together was over. She had asked him if he believed in fate. Well, he did, and as he watched her walk toward him, he recognized that this was confirmation.

             
"I take it you saw the news," he said.

             
"Did
he
kill her?" Kate's sensual mouth trembled, and her blue eyes were large and grieved.

             
"I don't know." He could scarcely suppress his disgust with himself. He had listened to Mrs. Oberlin's alcohol and drug-induced babbling, and because he was angry, because she had made a fool of him, because she had threatened Kate, he had assumed she was delusional. He had investigated her accusations against her husband, but Oberlin was guilty of no more than a parking ticket—and he'd paid it. Teague had looked through the Austin social register for the Blackthorns, found the family, and contacted them to ask questions about a family member who had fallen down the stairs. They had acted as if he was crazy. Worse, the cops had no record of any such accident.

             
So Teague had decided nothing Mrs. Oberlin said was true. He wasn't usually so careless. But then, he wasn't usually so . . . emotional. Entrapped and fighting entrapment. "But I'm willing to bet she didn't fall by accident. She either killed herself, or he killed her."

             
Kate reached the top of the stairs, stood beside him, extended her hand. He took it, and he experienced a sense of relief, as if she'd just placed a bandage over his wounded heart.

             
Just as they had moments before they parted, they looked at their entwined fingers. There was a symbolism here, a sense of coming full circle.

             
And now they were going to take another step into an abyss that he could not comprehend.

             
"Come on back. My living quarters are up here." With her hand still in his—now that he had touched her, he couldn't release her—he led her toward his study.

             
The stairway was painted white, decorated with framed black-and-white photos of women dressed in Edwardian splendor and men posed stiffly with their collars starched high. The way to his private quarters was different: soft, warm golds and reds.

             
She followed him inside his study and looked around, and he knew what she thought.

             
This wasn't the place she would have envisioned for him.

             
He used the kitchen downstairs, but for the most part, he lived on the second floor, away from his paperwork and his office. He'd torn down the wall between the two biggest bedrooms, remodeled the attached bathroom, and lined the study with bookshelves. He had decorated with a big overstuffed chair and an ottoman, a long comfortable couch, and a huge pillow chair in front of the entertainment center. He'd had the hardwood floors refinished with a rich burgundy stain and covered them with a couple of Oriental rugs that glowed with jewel tones. He enjoyed his collection of knickknacks from foreign countries—a camel saddle and a collection of silk paintings from India.

             
He'd noticed she had a similar collection in her bedroom. He wondered if she would notice, and knew that she would.

             
The heavy gold drapes kept out the night. The place was a cave where he could read, where he could watch television, and where he could brood—something he'd done quite a bit lately.

             
"Make yourself at home." He gestured toward the couch and headed toward the bathroom.

             
Shutting the door behind him, he leaned his hands against the counter and stared at himself in the mirror. Dark, desperate eyes gazed back at him. He recognized this Teague. This was the Teague he'd been as a teenager, frustrated, angry that life was not fair, determined to grab all he could regardless of the cost.

             
He had hoped never to see those eyes again.

             
Yet
she
had come.

             
Outside, the lightning flashed, and the thunder grumbled.

             
He'd had everything under control. He'd thought he'd never see Kate again, and if he did, so what? He'd have another model on his arm. He'd have a dozen women in his bed. He would smile at Kate without interest, view her as a momentary aberration caused by too much refinement forced on a ghetto boy. Never mind that it had been three weeks since he'd seen her and during that time he hadn't gone on a single date. Never mind that he found himself remembering her in the dark hours of the night where before only demons of his former life had visited. He had just needed a little time, although time for
what
he dared not asked himself.

             
Now she was here. She'd recognized her danger, and she'd come running to him. Come into his lair, come seeking his help, as if she knew no other man could care for her as he did.

             
She was right. God help him, she was right.

             
Stiffly, he stood upright. With the slow motions of a man who bowed to fate when it wrapped him in its coils, he did the things a guy does to make himself ready—for anything.

             
Kate scanned the bookshelf, and what she saw there surprised her not at all. Teague read paperback thrillers and war stories, manly books that manly men read— except in Teague's case, he understood what he was reading. He wasn't some armchair quarterback; he'd played the position and coached, too. She touched the ruined spines. He read them hard, and, from the looks of his favorites, he read them repeatedly.

             
She glanced at the muted television. Jay Leno shook hands with his excited audience and settled into his monologue.

             
She still couldn't comprehend the news she'd heard tonight.
Mrs. Oberlin had fallen down the stairs.

             
Had she overreacted by coming here?

             
How was it remotely possible that Senator Oberlin had killed his wife . . . and other people, too?

             
And if it was true . . . why had she come running to Teague?
Why did he make her feel so safe?

             
Teague's voice in the doorway made her jump. "If you find my sanity on those shelves, let me know."

             
She tried not to smile with pleasure at seeing his tall figure, his broad shoulders, his golden eyes. His dark hair was damp and tousled. He wore dark blue jeans and a blue T-shirt that stretched across his pectorals and over his biceps. He might have known she was coming, for he had dressed in a manner guaranteed to make her knees go weak. His feet were bare . . . she was a pushover for a man with bare feet.

             
Why did he make her feel so safe?

             
Because she knew, without a doubt, that he could keep her safe.

             
"Have you lost your sanity?" she asked.

             
Inside, behind the protection of his drapes, she could barely see the flash of the lightning.

             
But the thunder rumbled and growled.

             
No measure they took could completely keep out the approaching storm.               "Possibly. At least I'm feeling a little off balance— aren't you?"

             
Kate's brief flurry of euphoria faded. "That poor woman.

             
"Yes, and I'd like to keep people from saying that about you." He went to the small refrigerator built into the bookshelves. "Would you like a drink?"

             
"Yes. Chardonnay if you have it."

             
"Not chardonnay." He pulled a bottle of champagne out of the refrigerator.

             
Special occasion?
But she swallowed the question. She didn't dare ask what he was thinking. She was here, in his quarters, bound to him by danger again. The atmosphere between them was thick with sexual frustration. At least . . .
she
suffered sexual frustration. None of her needs had faded in the three weeks of thinking of him. Now, just being with him heated her with excitement.

             
He popped the cork and poured two tall flutes full of golden bubbling liquid. He paced across the room toward her, and pressed the glass into her hand.

             
The flute was cool.

             
His gaze was hot.

             
"How is it?"

             
While he watched, she lifted the glass to her lips and took a sip. "It's . . . wonderful."

             
"Yes." He clinked his glass to hers, watched her take another sip, took a sip himself. "Wonderful."

             
She smiled into the slowly rising bubbles. He made the act of serving champagne seem like foreplay.

             
"Why is Senator Oberlin interested in you?" He shot the question at her.

             
She recognized the tactics. Relax the victim, then knock the truth out of her. She'd done it herself, so she refused to let him shake her. "The usual, I guess."

             
"Sex?"

             
"Yes." She remembered the flat tire. She had thought it was the stalker—but maybe not. Maybe Senator Oberlin had arranged a convenient chance to rescue her.               "Yes. Definitely."

             
"Mrs. Oberlin said he'd killed you before."

             
"I know." Kate smiled painfully. "That's why I thought . . . that's why I didn't look into any of that stuff she said."

             
"That was my job. I failed."

             
"I'm a reporter. I failed." Kate looked him in the eyes, her mouth straight and grim, and insisted on taking the blame.

             
Regardless of danger, she sought out her stories. The truth of the matter was, if she had to, she'd step back into the raging Gulf of Mexico during a hurricane. It was her job, and now she would pay for not following up as she should have. Evelyn Oberlin had paid, too. "Mrs. Oberlin was so crazy that night. I thought she was always crazy."

             
"Certainly a little crazy. Just maybe not as crazy as we thought." Teague's regret was palpable. He indicated the easy chair.

             
She sat down.

             
Jay Leno was flashing headlines on the television, mugging for the camera, faking sincerity.

             
Pulling up the ottoman, Teague sat beside her. As if he couldn't resist touching her, he stroked the skin on the back of her hand with his little finger. "Are you close to your family?"

             
"Yes." She sneaked a glance at him.

             
"Do you have any unsolved murders in your family?" He watched the screen without amusement, without seeming to see it. "Any skeletons lurking in the familial closet?"

             
"Not that I know of." She took a hasty swallow of her champagne, then a longer swallow, savoring the bubbles and the bite.

             
"Do you resemble your long-lost aunt Gertrude Blackstone?"

             
"Who? Oh, you mean
Blackthorn
. Mrs. Oberlin called her Mrs. Blackthorn. The other person whom Senator Oberlin . . . pushed down the stairs." Kate seldom felt awkward about her background, but she did now. "I may resemble someone. I don't know. I'm adopted."

             
"Really?" Teague seemed remarkably unimpressed.

             
Poker face
, she thought. He couldn't fool her. He was interested. Very interested.               "What do you know of your blood relatives?" he asked.

             
"Nothing. I . . . nothing. I'm not even positive about the exact date of my birth."

             
His head turned slowly to her. His golden gaze raked her features. "Isn't that unusual in this day and age? Don't most people know at least a little about their birth parents?"

             
"I've never checked the stats. I only know my parents got me when I was ten months old, or thereabouts, and they were wonderful parents."