The Legacy of Buchanan's Crossing (16 page)

The cop shifted uncomfortably. Yup, busted. “She doesn’t have a record, sir. However, I do feel obliged to inform you she’s dangerous.”

Relief trickled down the back of his neck. “I don’t need you to tell me that. We’ll see you at the precinct tomorrow afternoon.”

“Why did you tell him you’re my boyfriend? And why are you here?”

Cayden was barely able to get a candle lit, much less recover from overhearing what Clint had said about her when he closed the door behind him, confusion-inducing concern on his handsome face. She’d already been reeling from the previous events and wasn’t aware she’d spoken the questions out loud until he answered.

“Because I want to.”

“That doesn’t answer my question.”

“Yes, it does. Both of them.” His big strong arms around her felt far too good. “Cayden, honey, you’re shaking. We’ll talk, about anything you want, after you’ve had a nice hot shower. Go on, now—” he turned her around and gave her an affectionate pat on the butt “—I’ll see if I can’t light a fire in this fireplace.”

She was toweling off when she heard Nevermore squawk, “Cayden okay?”

“She wasn’t hurt, thank God. Those lowlifes shook her up pretty bad, though.”

“Bad men.”

“It’s kinda creepy the way it seems like we’re having an actual conversation.”

“Clueless bastard.”

“Nevermore!” Cayden had pulled on a floor-length black cashmere hoodie that was too worn to be appropriate for ceremonies any longer, and strode to the front of the soon-to-be-blazing fireplace. Clint was perched on the end of the daybed nearest the door, poking at the fire, Nevermore on the armrest opposite him. “If I wasn’t so thankful for you and your friends, I’d be tempted to withhold your breakfast raspberries.”

“Nevermore late. Keeper later.”

“Neither of you were late. In any case, you may not direct obscenities at Clint.”

“Keeper clueless,” Nevermore grumbled and ruffled his feathers.

“You can’t blame him for having a difficult time accepting—”

She broke off because Clint’s eyes were too wide, his face too pale. The man was clinging to the last strands of his reality. It wouldn’t serve either of them to rip them away from him right now.

“Would you care for some tea?”

“I’ll get it for you, if you don’t mind me bumbling around in your kitchen.”

“It’s all right. I think I’m up to putting on a pot of tea.” She gave him a reassuring smile. “Thanks for building the fire. It’s exactly what I need.”

When she returned, she handed him his teacup on a saucer and sat down between the two males. Clint took a sip without making a Mr. Yuck face.

To be certain, she asked, “How is it?”

“It’s not bad. It doesn’t taste like regular black tea, though. What is it?”

“The headache blend.”

He opened his mouth, closed it, and took another sip. “How come it doesn’t taste like dried Spackle?”

“The only reason it would taste like Spackle is if you used sugar. The recipe specifically says not to use processed sugar.”

“I didn’t have anything else.”

She couldn’t help the annoyed sigh that escaped through her nose. “You read the recipe while you were here. You could have stopped for honey on the way home. How can I help you if you won’t take care of yourself?”

“Like you take care of
yourself
? Much as I hate to admit it, that asshole was right. You had no business being in that neighborhood, especially after dark.”

“How else am I supposed to get home from the train station? Besides, as I told the police, it was not a random act of violence. Those men were paid to kill me.”

“Look, Cayden, maybe…” He poked at the fire, his tone careful and sufficiently patronizing that she didn’t want to hear the end of his sentence.

“You don’t believe me, either.”

“Listen, honey, it isn’t that I don’t believe what you thought you heard. Isn’t it possible you misunderstood? The cop said they were high. With everything going on, there was probably a lot of confusion.”

Cayden sat up straighter on the sofa and grabbed the poker out of Clint’s hand. “I didn’t misunderstand anything. And if you think I’m going to let you treat me like some delusional—”

“Hey, take it easy with that.”

She didn’t realize she’d turned the poker toward him until his large, warm hand covered hers.

“Okay, okay. I’m sorry. I guess the real question then is, why would anyone want you dead?”

“I’ve been working on that. I think it was someone who’s after Buchanan’s Crossing. There’s an underhanded developer who wants it very badly.”

She wasn’t going to name names, not without some kind of evidence. Not with Clint doubting her sanity.

“Buchanan’s Crossing’s yours?”

“Not yet”—thank all the gods and goddesses—“not until after Gran’s gone.”

“That’s kind of far-fetched, don’t you think?”

Cayden tightened her grip on the poker.

Clint pried it away from her. “Did you mention this theory to the cops?”

She took a sip of her tea. “Only that it wasn’t random. Because they won’t even admit that much, it seemed futile to share my suspicions. Especially since that’s all they are at this point.”

“That’s probably wise.” He stared at the fire and gave it another poke. “Look, I’m going to call my lawyer, have him join us at the cop shop tomorrow. I didn’t care for the way they were trying to make this your fault. Another thing, you’re not going anywhere after dark alone from now on.”

“How am I supposed to get home from Gran’s?”

“You call me.”

“You know I don’t have a phone, and you know why.”

“Fine, whatever. Have her call me. I’ll pick you up.”

“You’re overreacting.”

He set his tea cup down and started pacing. “Overreacting? Chrissakes, Cayden. For whatever reason, three men just tried to…” He gazed at her, his eyes dark, his jaw hard.

“Why do you care? You already got what you wanted. There was never going to be a second date.” There, she’d said it.

His face blanked with that expression of baffled bewilderment that looked so comical on manly men. Other emotions followed it, more manly, much more familiar: frustration, exasperation, a hint of guilt.

“I told you what I want.” His voice wavered just enough to make Cayden ask her next question.

“Do you really know?”

He looked away, then met her eyes. “All I know is I’ve been miserable this whole week thinking I wasn’t going to see you again.”

“If you weren’t going to see me again, why are you here?”

“I just told you.” He sat back down, rubbing his hands over his face. “Look, Cayden, when I woke up Saturday morning, I absolutely wanted to see you again. I don’t know what made you think I didn’t. But when I came downstairs, you acted all weird. You kicked me out, if you recall. Then I took a gander at my truck. It got me thinking maybe dating you wasn’t such a great idea.”

Now it was her turn to be confused. “Your truck?”

He pointed to Nevermore. “That is a severely jealous pet. What I can’t figure out is how he did it all by himself. One bird cannot possibly produce that much shit.”

Nevermore rotated his head toward Clint and croaked, “Snitch.”

“How could you?” The last thing she needed was her familiar working against her. She touched Clint’s arm. “Were they able to remove it? How much did it cost? I want to reimburse you.”

Nevermore turned his bright eyes on Clint. “Keeper pride truck. Keeper hurt Cayden.”

“I didn’t mean to.” Clint wiped his hand over his face again. “Why am I talking to the damn bird? Cayden, honey, I don’t know what I did or said, or what happened here last Saturday morning, but I never meant to hurt you, and I’m sorry if I did.”

“Nevermore sorry, too.” He hung his head.

The day had been too long to hold a grudge against such an onslaught of sincere remorse.

“You’re both forgiven, as long as you play nice.”

“I can play nice.” Clint slid over to her on the sofa and curled his arm around her.

“Play Crossing,” Nevermore squawked harshly.

“Territorial much?” Clint shot back, then shook his head.

“He’s right, though,” she said.

“What?”

She’d done it again, thought out loud. Clint was staring at her, waiting for an answer to a perfectly reasonable question. And he was going to get a perfectly reasonable answer.

“I’ve been spending a lot of time with Gran this week, at the Crossing.” Reasonable and true, if vague and having nothing to do with Nevermore’s comment.

She cast her familiar a sharp look, one she hoped conveyed she knew what she was doing, and would he please go away. Nevermore stared at her, unblinking, deliberately obtuse.

Clint frowned for a second and shook his head again. “How is your grandmother, anyway?”

“Better. It’s sweet of you to ask. She even told me she’d thank me not to come by tomorrow because an old friend would be visiting.” Why hadn’t she hadn’t thought to ask which old friend?

“Does that mean you’re free tomorrow?”

The hand attached to the muscular arm still draped over her shoulder began playing with her hair. Distracting little tingles strolled up and down her spine.

Cayden cleared her throat. “Except for the statement at the police precinct thing, yeah.”

“We could go out after.”

“Did you mean what you said at The Night Crawler, that we could go anywhere I wanted?”

Just enough of a pause preceded his “Anywhere” for Cayden to infer he was nervous about her choice, but he sounded sincere.

“In that case, I’d like a midnight picnic in the grove at Buchanan’s Crossing.”

His hand in her hair paused, then resumed massaging. “Would this picnic involve a blanket or two, a bottle of wine, and maybe a bucket of chicken?” He stroked the nape of her neck.

“Clueless Keeper.” Nevermore’s wings flapped loudly as he flew out the window.

“What did I say wrong now?”

“Well, you have to admit, nothing says romance like a bucket of chicken.”

“Hey, I’m a man. Everyone knows we think with our… Obviously, the chicken’s optional. I may need it to keep up my strength, though.”

She didn’t have to see him to know he was wearing that devilish grin.

He had begun massaging her in earnest. “You can stop that sometime next year,” she whispered into his chest.

“It’ll probably take me that long to get you unwound. I guess all the ass-kicking you did took its toll.” His hand clutched her neck tenderly. “I should have been there.”

“You’re here now.”

Cayden rested her cheek over his heart, breathing his scent deep into her lungs. It was both comforting and arousing, much more potent than the lingering suggestion of it on her sheets. She tilted her chin up to find his lips hovering just above hers.

Her fingers smoothed his shirt before using the collar to pull him closer to her. When their lips touched, the heat of the contact made her gasp.

He drew back slowly, licking his lips. “Mmm. You’re making it hard for me to continue with the unwinding of Cayden Sinclair.”

“Sounds ominous.”

“It should. I’m very thorough.”

“Maybe it would help if I did this.” Cayden stood up, pulled the hooded robe off, and tossed it on the floor.

The way his jaw dropped, combined with the sight of his breath slowly drawing into that magnificent chest, was seriously good for her ego.

She lay belly-down with her head in his lap, facing the fire. When nothing happened, she mumbled, “You mentioned something about unwinding.”

The word “right” sounded as if it’d been forced through a too-narrow passageway. His fingers tentatively resumed their divine attentions.

“Better?” she asked.

“The angle’s—”

Cayden turned her face into his lap and began nibbling and nuzzling him through his jeans. She heard a hard swallow between the crackling of the fire before he finished the sentence.

“—fine. Really, fine.”

As the massage continued, Cayden melted slowly into an aroused haze of relaxation. She scarcely noticed the subtle changes in Clint’s technique and posture, that his fingers spent more and more time south of her waist, farther east and west of her spine as it neared her shoulders, the way his muscles tightened beneath her in rhythmic twitches as she continued to use her breath and mouth on the overstretched denim of his lap.

She was fully aware, however, where this would end. Even though he’d agreed to the picnic tomorrow night, men could be fickle when they were satisfied. They could also be fickle when they weren’t. She could compromise, deny her own spiraling need now for the greater reward tomorrow night. She breathed in his scent, muskier here than above. Her body clenched in desire.

Her fingers fumbled at the top button of his jeans as the tension in her rose. Her teeth slowly pulled his zipper down. It was enough for now to feel the hard length of him with her lips through the thin soft cotton of his briefs.

His hands had been massaging her tight, if well-padded, glutes. They stopped when he groaned.

“Jesus. Cayden. You’re gonna drive me—”

“Shhh. Busy.” She immediately returned to what she’d been doing. “Mmm,”—she hummed around him—“much better.” The trembling of his rock-solid thigh muscles beneath her tendered no small encouragement. She wanted more, could give him more, but getting to that “more” was going to be tricky.

“Lift up a sec’. Let me…” He shoved his jeans and shorts past his knees.

Thank you
. Tasty skin over hard heat, a tantalizing treat. She was pleased he hadn’t melted in her mouth. Yet. She was enjoying her experiments and explorations, but Clint’s breath was coming in irregular bursts, each more labored than the last.

She accomplished her transformation from tormenting devil into angel of mercy by sliding to her knees on the floor between his thighs. The fireplace warmed her back. His half-naked body sheltered her front. She found her rhythm. There was a lot of him to manage, considerably more than past experience allowed for. Those fantastic fingers of his glided over her shoulders and wrapped themselves gently in her hair, tugging without pulling, urging without forcing, his murmured praises growing incoherent. When at last she heard his hoarse cry of release, tasted it in her mouth, a singular power washed over and through her, radiating in waves she could see through closed eyes.

The room brightened, as if all of the light that reached the inside of her home—candle, fire, electric—was magnified. The air hummed and shimmered, smelled of ozone and rain. Clint pulled her up onto the daybed and curled her into his arms, her head beneath his chin. Soon, he was snoring lightly.

Cayden smiled as the firelight’s dance slowed. In spite of its nasty edge, her day had ended far better than she could have hoped. Her magic had returned, along with Clint. The Joining would take place tomorrow night.

She refused to spoil her contentment by dwelling on the life-altering ramifications. The legacy must endure.