Stay (Dunham series #2) (37 page)

He sighed. “You’re right.” He pulled her hair away
from her neck. Kissed her softly. “I hope you were planning to
spend the next couple of hours making love with me.”

“Mmmm, yes, I was,” she purred as she turned over to
face him, looking at that dark face and black eyes. “But I thought
you didn’t like quickies?”

He snorted. “I’ll learn to like it, trust me.”

Vanessa smiled. “Welcome back to Whittaker House,
Mr. Cipriani.”

* * * * *

33: Timing Drills

“Shit,” Eric muttered, his elbow on the conference
table in Vanessa’s office, his forehead in his hand, completely
frustrated in his attempt to build the foundation for his case to
put a woman on death row. The gore, the stench of death that had
lingered in his nostrils since Monday after-

noon— He could win this case, and fast. What he
needed was a running head start.

But—

“Hey, Eric, Vanessa’s out in the butcher shop and
there’s a guest who needs . . . ”

“Eric, phone.”

“Yo, Eric, there’s a dude downstairs who wants to
apply for concierge and Vanessa’s getting ready to tape a show. He
says—”

“Why is she taping on Saturday?” Eric interrupted,
thinking that was the most idiotic thing he’d ever heard.

The bellhop looked at him funny. “She always tapes
on Saturday. It’s the only time she can get a crew down here.”

“Does she pay ext—” He pinched the bridge of his
nose. “Never mind.”

“What do you want me to do with this guy? I mean, I
can tell him to wait until she’s finished if you want. He says he
didn’t have an appointment.”

Eric sighed. “No, send him up.”

It was constant, the chatter, the people who felt
free to parade through Vanessa’s office to him if they couldn’t
find her—

I don’t work here! I have a job! I’m trying to do
it!

They didn’t know that, though, and he’d done a
magnificent job in training them to come to him first if it didn’t
involve food.

Worse, Dirk was this defendant’s attorney and he
knew where Eric’s mind was, where his body was, and would use every
chink in Eric’s armor to get her acquitted, and one of those chinks
was time. Dirk wanted to push her case through to trial as fast as
possible to capitalize on Eric’s distraction. What Dirk
didn’t
know was that Eric wanted to get it over with so he
wouldn’t have to look at the pictures any longer than
necessary—

—and so he could get back to Whittaker House
business, which was a whole lot more attractive at the moment.

He interviewed the concierge candidate, hired him,
assigned him a cottage and gave him a set of keys, finished his
employment paperwork, emailed the payroll information to Knox for
setup in the system, then sent the man on his way to get settled
in.

By the time dinner rolled around, he finally got
some peace because every employee at Whittaker House was occupied
with Saturday dinner, but—

“Yo, Cooper,” Eric said when he called the Wright
County prosecutor. “I’m down here for the weekend, but I got that
capital case I’m working on— You hear about that? Would you loan me
your office for the rest of the weekend? I’m—”

“Whittaker House got you tied up?”

“Yeah.”

“I heard you got your eye on AG.”

“Yep.”

“That case’ll put you over the top if you win
it.”

“Arguing against Jelarde.”

“You got your work cut out for you, then. So,
Vanessa . . . ?”

“Cooper . . . ”

“Well, sure, boy. I’ll tell my desk sergeant to let
you in.”

Gratefully, Eric packed up his work and got ready to
head into Mansfield proper, aching for some peace and quiet.

“Eric, I’m done. Let’s go to be—”

He looked up to see Vanessa in the threshold of her
office, looking between him and the banker’s boxes, the laptop
case. The brilliant smile that had been there, the wide one that
made the corners of her eyes crinkle, melted.

“Oh.”

“I’m . . . going into town,” he muttered, helpless.
“Use Cooper’s office. I can’t— I have to—”

She nodded, almost too eagerly. “No, I understand,”
she said in a rush. “It’s an important case?”

He swallowed. “Um, yeah. A mother— Four kids. She
was traveling and stopped, uh, in that motel where you stay when
you’re in town.” She nodded again, her face clear of any expression
except appropriately interested innkeeper. That was a bad sign.
“She—” His mouth tightened when he looked down at the boxes, and a
wave of resentment surged through him. “She slaughtered her
children,” he said tightly. Vanessa’s face betrayed her shock and
horror.

“I ended up at the crime scene for . . . hours. All
night, actually. It was the most horrible thing I’ve ever seen and
I really just want to— Knox— Uh, Parley— Everybody’s expecting me
to snap like he did, but uh, I have to do it the right way. And
that takes time.”

“Oh, Eric. I’m sorry. Of course. You . . . shouldn’t
have come. Your job, it’s— You’re important. You— Um, go home.
Don’t bother Cooper. You need to . . . Just go home and work on it
where you have your tools. I know what it’s like to be stranded in
a job without the right tools.”

Going home was the right thing to do, but his unease
with it made him twitch. “You won’t mind?”

“No, no,” she said in a rush. “You need— The county
needs you. Those children need you. Your job, it’s—” She swallowed.
“It’s so much more important than mine. I’m a . . . luxury. You’re
a necessity. You should, um, just stay there until it’s over with.
You know, no distractions.”

He stared at her for long moments, trying to read
her (but he couldn’t), trying to decipher her words (but he
couldn’t). “Why do you tape TV shows in the summer and on
Saturdays, instead of in the winter, or on Sundays or in the middle
of the week, or at midnight? Or, better yet, do a year’s worth of
shows back to back in October or January?”

The abrupt change of subject startled her, which
he’d meant to do. “Oh. Well, because I can’t get a crew down here
any other time.”

“Yeah, that’s what I heard. What, they charge more
for a weekday, maybe nights, than they do for Saturdays?”

“Well, I— I don’t know. They said Saturday . . .
”

“And it was easier to go along with that than think
it all the way through to the end. Uh huh. Did you ever ask Knox to
see if he could get that rearranged for you?”

That got a reaction out of her. “Knox wouldn’t know
how to do it,” she snapped. “He has no clue what goes into
producing a TV show.” Eric stared at her until she fidgeted. Looked
away. “You should probably get going. If you leave tonight, you
won’t be in the middle of lake traffic.”

True, that. Traffic from Springfield to Kansas City
on Sundays in the summer was a nightmare and the Lake of the Ozarks
season was in full swing.

“You’re really mad at Knox, aren’t you?” Eric
murmured.

She suddenly looked completely horrified. “Um . . .
No?”

“You’re allowed, you know. He’ll admit it when he
screws up, but if you want him to understand he screwed up, you
can’t mince words or it’ll go over his head.”

“I can’t be— Um, I’m not—”

“Yes, you are. He has no idea how hard you work,
does he?”

Vanessa’s mouth tightened.

“Do you not trust him to take over more or do you
just need to have your hands in every pie?”

“He can’t even get his quarterly reports in to Eilis
on time. Why would I ask him to do more when I can’t depend on him
now?”

“Oh, bullshit. He can work on a deadline if he knows
it’s important and I bet Eilis doesn’t even look at those reports.
He probably knows that and doesn’t worry about it.”

“He left me!” she flashed, then clapped her hands
over her mouth, her eyes wide.

Eric blinked. “Left you for a wife and family,” he
asked warily, “or for a different job?”

She swallowed. Didn’t answer for a moment. “A job,”
she finally whispered. “In
Utah
. He went—” Her nostrils
flared. “Didn’t ask how that would affect me. Never talked about it
at all except to tell me how excited he was. Just . . . left me
with so much more work to do . . . Twelve hundred miles. No plane
flies fast enough.” She drew a long, shaky breath. “I hope my staff
didn’t bother you today.”

Only every fifteen minutes like clockwork.

“No, not at all. I’d just . . . rather be helping
you.”

“Go home, Eric. Neither of us are going to get
anything accomplished and those children need justice more than I
need a weekend general manager.”

More than I need you.

“I’m coming back, Vanessa.”

“Okay.”

But she was gone before he could catch her to kiss
her and he didn’t bother to look for her.

She didn’t want to be found.

* * * * *

34: A Good Crop of Wheat

Friday night dinner. Vanessa had her nose down,
squirting a pale yellow dandelion flower glaze over a plate in an
abstract pattern in preparation for the plating of a new peach and
pecan confection that was far more popular than she’d anticipated.
The demand for it had completely overwhelmed the pastry apprentice
and Vanessa had nearly ended up seating and serving in her
whites.

The low thrum of a souped-up engine zooming past on
the highway vaguely pierced the din of the kitchen, but Vanessa
paid no attention until it got closer and more familiar and—

Vanessa’s head snapped up to look out the back
door.

—an electric blue Corvette roared right past the
mansion and up the driveway toward the butchery and private garage,
its red taillights glowing bright and round in the dark.

Joy spread through her so hard and so fast she
thought she’d burst.

“Keep your head in the game, Boss,” Alain
called.

Right. She bent back to her work, but now she had
something to look forward to, as did the rest of her staff, who had
taken to asking her if Eric would become a permanent weekend
fixture.

He made everyone’s jobs easier, more efficient,
including hers.

Last week, when she had stood in the door of her
office and understood that he was leaving her a day earlier than
intended, she hadn’t expected him to come back. He was a lawyer, a
prosecutor, with a very serious problem on his hands. He had an
important
job for which he didn’t get paid near enough.

Her job, well— She was a luxury. Yeah, people had to
eat, but that was what McDonald’s was for.

Still, he was here. Now. Waiting for her. He’d
shower. He’d get in bed to wait for her, pull out his iPhone and
maybe read a book—

“It’s the only way I can read books anymore,” he’d
explained when she asked him what had him staring at his gadget.
“Put it in my pocket and go. Always available.”

Vanessa ended her evening as early as she could,
again requesting Vachel’s assistance, which he gave her with a
delight that made her flinch.
How
had she not seen what he
so obviously needed?

Eric was indeed in bed by the time she’d run down
the driveway, into her cottage, and up the stairs. But when he
pulled her down to him, he rolled her over until she lay on her
stomach. He straddled her, nearly sitting on her butt, and she
sighed, understanding immediately. She closed her eyes to await his
big, warm, oiled hands on her shoulders.

No words were said and, except for the sound of
soft, plaintive bluegrass coming from a corner, Vanessa could only
hear the crickets outside and the hoot owl that lived in the
orchard just behind her cottage. A sweet breeze ruffled the gauze
curtains that framed her open windows. She took a deep breath
through her nose to catch every nuance of scent, from fresh-mown
and dew-laden grass to the blooming lilacs.

She grimaced when the heel of Eric’s palm found a
knot in one of the muscles of her shoulder. She must have shied
away from it, because he lightened his touch a bit.

“You’re tight as a drum,” he muttered.

“Thank you,” she sighed.

He leaned down, his mouth brushing her ear. “You
need to learn how to relax.”

She thought she was perfectly relaxed already, but
she couldn’t muster the energy to open her mouth or move her vocal
cords.

“Have you ever been to Silver Dollar City?”

Don’t make me talk.

“In high school,” she mumbled into her pillow.

“You’ve lived here how many years and you haven’t
been again?”

“Branson. Scout talent. ’Sall.”

He said nothing more, but his hands continued to
work their magic until he reached the lower part of her back, just
above her buttocks. One press of a thumb and she nearly came off
the bed with a screech, her eyes filling with tears.

“Geez, Vanessa,” he murmured. “I barely touched
you.” She swallowed, the tears coming now, and her mind flashed
through her to-do list. “Stop it,” he said. “I know what you’re
doing. Deep breath. In through your nose and hold it.” She did that
until her lungs felt they would burst. “Now out through your
mouth.” Vanessa obeyed. “Do it again.”

But her list wouldn’t leave her head. Emotion
flooded her: the remnants of her little-girl hurt, her regrets and
insecurities, her anger with Knox and the guilt it caused, and her
fears—for Whittaker House, for Eric, for Eric’s far more important
future. Finally, she began to sob into her pillow, but Eric said
nothing. He continued to dig deeper into her muscles, down lower
into the flesh of her bare buttocks, and then her sobs had nothing
to do with pain.

Just release.

With every knot he found and worked, she sobbed
harder.

“Breathe, Vanessa,” he whispered from time to time,
and only then would she realize she’d been holding her breath.

Slowly her tears dried up and she was too spent not
to relax, not to let him do whatever he thought needed to be done.
She’d never cried in front of her lovers before; she’d had no
reason to.