Sanctuary (51 page)

The sheet was barely dry when she slapped it onto her light table and applied the loupe. She caught her breath as the images enlarged and focused.

She looked so ... wanton, she supposed would be the word. Her eyes half closed, her lips just curved in obvious sexual satisfaction. Her body looked almost ripe. Apparently she had gotten her figure back without even noticing. She certainly had curves.

In the next her eyes were fully open and round with shock. Her hands were halfway up to her breasts, movement frozen by the fast film. There was no denying that she looked—how had he put it? Rumpled and sexy?

Oh, God, she had never allowed herself to be that exposed to anyone before. She'd let that happen, and now for just a moment, she could admit she wanted to let it happen again.

She wanted to let him touch her, to make her feel desired and reckless. There was a yearning deep in the pit of her stomach to be that woman again, the woman he'd seen and captured on film. To let him take control of her, and to know that she had the power to take control of him.

He'd given that to her, and by preserving that moment, had made her look straight at it and see what she could have with him. And what she could lose without him.

“You bastard, Nathan. I hate you for this.”

She got up quickly, stuffed the sheet deep into a drawer. No, she wouldn't destroy it. She would keep it, as a reminder. Whenever she felt herself tempted to trust a man again, to give that much to a man, she would take it back out, study it.

And remind herself how easily they walked away.

“Jo Ellen.” Lexy's voice came through the door as her knock sounded sharp and loud.

“I'm working in here.”

“Well, I know that. But you might want to finish up quick, fast, and in a hurry. Guess who came in on the late ferry?”

“Brad Pitt.”

“Don't I wish? But you might like this better. Nathan Delaney just walked in the kitchen, big as life and twice as handsome. And he's looking for you.”

Jo lifted a fist to her heart and firmly shoved it back in place. “Tell him I'm busy.”

“I already gave him the cold shoulder for you, sugar. Told him I didn't see why you should drop what you were doing and come running just because he blew back onto Desire like an ill wind.”

Jo found her lips curving in appreciation. She could easily visualize the scene, with Lexy playing the chilly Southern Belle to the hilt. “I appreciate it.”

“But I have to tell you—oh, open this door, Jo. I'm tired of talking through it.”

Because Lexy had just climbed to the top of Jo's most favored list, she obliged, snicking open the lock, and opening the door enough that she could lean on the jamb.

“I'd appreciate it if you'd tell him I'm not interested in adjusting my schedule to suit his whims.”

“I will. That's nicely put. But Jo, he looks so windblown and sexy and on the edge of something.” Lexy rolled her eyes in pure female appreciation. “It gave my heart a nice flutter just to look at him.”

“Well, you can just stop fluttering. Whose side are you on?”

“Yours, honey lamb, absolutely one hundred percent.” She kissed Jo's cheek to prove it. “He has to be punished, no doubt about it. And if you need some advice on how to go about it, I'm more than happy to give you some ideas.”

“I've got plenty of my own, thanks.” But she rolled her shoulders to ease the tension. “Tell him I have no desire to see or speak to him, and that I expect to be busy with a great many more important matters than him for quite some time.”

“I wish you'd tell him that yourself, just that way. I believe you've got a real knack for this.” Lexy's grin spread wide as she wound a lock of hair around her finger. “I'll go down and tell him, then I'll come back up here and tell you what he has to say to that.”

“This isn't high school.”

“No, it's more interesting and more fun. Oh, I know you're scalded good and proper, Jo.” She patted her sister's cheek. “I'd be as spitting mad as a stomped-on cat myself. But just think how satisfying it's going to be when he crawls. Don't you take him back until he does. And he comes up with at least two bouquets of flowers and a nice, expensive present. It should be jewelry.”

Jo's humor made a rapid return. “Lexy, you're a manipulative and materialistic woman.”

“And proud of it, honey. You listen to your baby sister and you'll end up
owning
that man. Now I figure he's been down there waiting and sweating long enough for the next slap.” She rubbed her hands together. “I'll make it count for you, don't you worry.”

Jo stayed leaning against the doorjamb as Lexy flounced away. “I bet you will,” she murmured. “And I'll owe you big for it.”

Satisfied, Jo turned back into the darkroom. She tidied her workbench, rearranged her bottles of chemicals, then put them back in their original positions. She examined her nails and wondered if she should let Lexy give her a manicure after all.

When she heard the footsteps, she turned toward the door, prepared to hear Lexy's report. When Nathan filled the doorway, his temper shot straight into hers.

“I need you to come with me.” His voice was clipped and anything but apologetic.

“I believe you were informed I'm busy. And you haven't been invited into this room.”

“Save it, Scarlett.” He grabbed her hand and pulled. When her free one reared back, whipped forward, and cracked hard across his face, he narrowed his eyes and nodded. “Fine, we do it the hard way.”

The room turned upside down so rapidly she didn't even get out the curse burning on her tongue. He was halfway out of the room with her slung over his shoulder before she got past the shock enough to fight.

“Get your goddamn belly-crawling Yankee bastard hands off me.” She punched at his back, furious that she couldn't manage a full swing.

“You think you can send your sister to brush me off? In a pig's eye.” He shoved open the door with his shoulder and started down the narrow stairway. “I've been traveling the whole fucking day to get here, and you'll have the courtesy to listen to what I need to say.”

“Courtesy? Courtesy? What does a snake oil New York hotshot know about courtesy?” In the confines of the stairway, her struggles only resulted in her rapping her head against the wall. “I hate you.” Her ears rang from both the blow and the humiliation.

“I've prepared myself for that.” Grim and determined, he hauled her into the kitchen. Both Lexy and Brian froze and gaped. “Excuse me,” he said shortly, and carried her outside while she left a trail of threats and curses behind them.

“Oh.” Lexy sighed, long and deep, holding a hand to her heart. “Wasn't that the most romantic thing you've ever seen in all your life?”

“Shit.” Brian set down the pie he'd just taken out of the oven. “She'll rip his face off first chance she gets.”

“A lot you know about romance.” Lexy leaned against the counter. “Twenty dollars says he's got her in bed, fully willing, within an hour.”

Brian heard Jo scream out something about castrating a certain Yankee son of a bitch and nodded. “You're on, darling.”

J
O sat in simmering silence as Nathan drove the Jeep hissing across Shell Road. She wouldn't give him the satisfaction of leaping out of a moving vehicle, or of running away once he stopped it. She would simply tear his skin into bloody shreds when they were no longer in danger of running off the road.

“This isn't the way I wanted to go about this,” Nathan muttered. “I need to talk to you. It's important. A hell of a time you pick to pull some lame female cold-shoulder routine.”

Ignoring her low, purring sound of warning, he dug a deeper hole for himself. “I don't mind a fight. Under any reasonable circumstances I don't mind a good kick-ass fight. Clears the air. But these aren't reasonable circumstances, and you having your nose out of joint is only complicating an already painful situation.”

“So it's my fault.” She sucked in her breath as he jerked the Jeep to a halt at the cottage. “This is my fault?”

“It's not a matter of fault, Jo. That's the whole—” He broke off abruptly, too busy defending himself to bother with more words.

She didn't go at him with teeth and nails and heated accusations. She waded in with balled-up fists, and the first several blew right past his guard.

“Jesus! Jesus Christ!” He wished he could laugh at them. He wished to God he could just drag her close, pin those surprisingly well-toned arms with his and just howl at the pair of them.

He tasted blood in his mouth, wasn't entirely sure his jaw wouldn't turn out to be broken, and finally managed to hold her down on the seat while both of them panted for breath.

“Would you stop it? Would you pull out some modicum of control and stop trying to beat my brains—which I'm assured are in perfect working order—to a bloody pulp?” He tightened his grip, shifting fast as she tried to bring her knee up and render him helpless. “I don't want to hurt you.”

“Well, that's too bad because I want to hurt you. I want to send you off limping for treating me this way.”

“I'm sorry.” He lowered his brow to hers and tried to catch his breath. “I'm sorry, Jo.”

She refused to soften, refused to acknowledge the little trip her heart experienced at the utter despair in his voice. “You don't even know what you're sorry for.”

“For more than you know.” He eased back, met her eyes. “Please come inside. I have things to tell you. Things I wish I didn't have to tell you. After I do, you can beat me black and blue and I won't lift a hand to stop you. I swear it.”

Something was wrong, horribly wrong. The anger dropped away into fear. She kept her voice cool before her imagination ran wild. “That's quite an arrangement. I'll come in, and you can say what you have to say. Then we're finished, Nathan.”

She shoved him away and pushed open her car door. “Because nobody walks away from me,” she said in a low, vibrant voice. “Nobody ever again.”

His heart sank, but he led the way inside, switched on the lights. “I'd like you to sit down.”

“I don't need to sit down, and what you'd like doesn't interest me. How could you go that way?” Even as she rounded on him, she wrapped her arms around herself in defense. “How could you leave my bed and just go, without a word? And stay away when you had to know how it would make me feel. If you were tired of me, you still could have been kind.”

“Tired of you? Sweet Jesus, Jo, there hasn't been a minute of the past eight days that I haven't thought of you, wanted you.”

“Do you think I'm stupid enough, or needy enough, to believe that kind of lie? If you'd thought of me, wanted me, you couldn't have turned your back on me as if none of it mattered. Had ever mattered.”

“If it hadn't mattered, didn't matter more than anything else in my life, I could have stayed. And we wouldn't be having this conversation.”

“You hurt me, you humiliated me, you—”

“I love you.”

She jerked back as if to avoid a blow. “You expect my knees to go weak now? You think you can say that and make me run into your arms?”

“No. I wouldn't love you if you couldn't stand there and spit at me after I'd said it.” He walked to her, gave in to the need to touch her. Just a brush of his fingertips over her shoulders. “And I do love you, Jo Ellen. Maybe I always did. Maybe that seven-year-old girl ruined me for anyone else. I don't know. But I need you to believe me. I need to say it, and I need you to believe it before I start the rest.”

She stared into his eyes, and now her knees did start to tremble. “You do mean it.”

“Enough to put my past, present, and future in your hands.” He took hers in his for a moment, studied them, memorized them, then let them go. “I went back to New York. There's a friend of the family, a doctor. A neurologist. I wanted him to run some tests on me.”

“Tests?” Baffled, she pushed at her hair. “What kind of—Oh, my God.” It struck her like a fist, hard in the heart. “You're sick. A neurologist? What is it? A tumor.” Her blood shivered to ice in her veins. “But you can have treatment. You can—”

“I'm not sick, Jo. There's no tumor, there's nothing wrong with me. But I had to be sure.”

“There's nothing wrong?” She folded her arms again, hugged them to her body. “I don't understand. You went back to New York to have tests run on your brain when there's nothing wrong with you?”

“I said I needed to be sure. Because I thought I might have had blackouts or been sleepwalking or had fugues. And have maybe killed Susan Peters.”

She lowered herself gingerly, bracing a hand on the back of the chair as she sat on the arm. She never took her eyes off his. “Why would you think such a crazy thing?”

“Because she was strangled here on the island. Because her body was hidden. Because her husband, her family, her friends, might have gone the rest of their lives not knowing what had happened.”

“Stop it.” She couldn't get her breath, had to fight back the urge to clap her hands over her ears. Her heart was beating too fast, making her head spin, her skin damp. She knew the signs, the panic waiting slyly to spring. “I don't want to hear any more of this.”

“I don't want to tell you any more. But neither one of us has a choice.” He braced himself not only to face it but to face her. “My father killed your mother.”

“That's insane, Nathan.” She willed herself to get up and run, but she couldn't move. “And it's cruel.”