Wild Ride: A Changing Gears Novel (20 page)

Gillian stared up at Tom and drew in a shaky breath. “I’m afraid of what you’re going to do to me.” A man like this could steal all her love and never give it back.

He lifted her hand and placed it over his heart, so she felt the solid thump against her palm, and he placed his hand over her heart, which was bouncing with nerves and excitement. “I promise I will do my best never to hurt you.”

As they stared at each other, she knew he’d keep that promise. Maybe she was being given a second chance, she thought, as her eyes drifted shut and the sweet balm of desire warmed all her cold, numb places. Her fingers danced over his chest, and his also got busy.

From tracing her breasts his hands moved slowly but surely to her nipples, palming and cupping them, along with the full part of her breasts so they warmed to life and began to spread pleasant, throbbing sensations to the rest of her body.

Relaxing into the slow, easy seduction, she found herself lying pliant and warm, nothing on her mind but her own pleasure. When she felt the warm, wet heat of his tongue on her nipples, a sound escaped her lips, part sigh, part moan.

“Too rough?” Tom asked, raising his head.

“No,” she said breathlessly. “Perfect.”

Part of her wanted to rip their clothes off and get on with it, but a truer part of herself, one she hadn’t always listened to in her life, wanted to stay with this slow pace, wanted to enjoy every minute, to savor and prolong. She’d had a lot of sex, but she’d known very little of making love.

That’s what Tom was doing and she found she liked it a whole lot better.

He went back to her breasts, lapping, kissing, suckling a little, and meanwhile his hand traced her belly through the cotton. As he hit the base of her belly, the pressure changed so his fingers brushed her curls through the cotton gown.

At first she thought it was accidental, then after the not-quite-caress left her with the suggestion of a touch rather than the touch itself, and that only upped the anticipation, she realized he was doing it deliberately.

Her exploring fingers had made it down his back—the plaid boxers were a serious impediment to any further action. She wanted to see him, feel him, taste him. She let her fingers toy with his waistband for a minute, held back a gasp of frustration as he air-brushed her crotch once more.

He brushed her again, not so lightly this time and she touched him as softly through the boxers.

His breathing rate upped as she caressed him slowly. Meanwhile, he reached down for the bottom of her gown and raised the hem an inch at a time, all the while continuing to play at her breasts with his mouth. She slid her thighs apart the minute the gown passed her knees. She felt an orgasm in her imminent future as sure as she’d smell rain in the air on a gray, cloudy day. She wanted that orgasm so fiercely she trembled all over with the wanting.

Of course, Tom didn’t know about her recent troubles. He couldn’t know that she, who had never previously grasped the point of a vibrator had recently wondered if even one powered by a super battery could bring her body back from the dead zone.

And here was the elusive orgasm tingling in its possibilities, hovering just out of reach.

If Tom tormented her much longer it was going to take off for greener pastures.

How she’d gone from being unsure about even being touched to burningly close to climax, she couldn’t quite fathom.

Whether Tom had picked up on her distress or had simply reached the end of his own tolerance, she didn’t know, but suddenly things seemed to speed up.

His lips moved down her body until they brushed her inner thigh, her nightdress was slipping deliberately up over her hips, which she raised to aid the operation. She was mostly naked before him, apart from the gown rucked around her waist, but damn it, he was still wearing his boxers. What the hell was on his-

“Aaaah,” she cried aloud as his mouth found her sweetest place and he licked at her with the same focused effort he put to every task.

After all the waiting, the slow seduction, the may-I-put¬my-mouth-on-your-nipple, to have his tongue swirl right up inside her and then slide slickly over her throbbing clit was a joy to her love-starved body. She rose, slowly, as he played his tongue with gentle deliberation over her most sensitive flesh.

There was no hurry, no pressure. She felt his pleasure in his task and believed he’d be happy to stay there all night, so she relaxed and gave herself over to the relentless heat building slowly but surely.

She heard panting, and knew it was coming from her throat, heard the springs of the old bed creak, and knew that was caused by her lower body, which was starting to thrash.

Reaching back over her head, she grasped the metal posts of the bed frame, feeling she needed to anchor herself.

And she was right. In a move as mind-blowing as it was unexpected, he sucked her clit right into his mouth, maintaining a gentle suction. And just like that, she flew apart.

By the time she floated back to earth and her heart seemed to be back in her body, she discovered that Tom’s boxers were nothing but a tartan heap at the end of the bed.

And he was slipping a condom onto a cock as rock-solid and reliable as its owner. The jingle of a truck commercial flashed through her mind. Something about being made in America and built tough. That was Tom.

As he slipped between her legs, she opened for him and then he was there, entering her body slowly and deliberately as though he’d be in no big hurry to leave again.

With a sigh of pure bliss, she wrapped her legs around his hips and rose to meet him. Their gazes caught and held and as he began to thrust she felt, absurdly, as though she were starting all over again.

In all thirty years of her life, she realized, she’d never been intimate with a man she truly loved.

Until now.

She kissed him, tasting herself on him, and his own heat and need.

The speed increased and she discovered safe, reliable Tom had some moves on him she’d never have guessed, including a delightful habit of hitting her g-spot with each deep thrust.

She’d had her orgasm and was happy to ride along with him, enjoying her own aftershocks and ready to enjoy his pleasure almost as keenly as she’d experienced her own.

She had no idea quite how he did it. He changed the angle somehow and seemed to stretch her in some new way that had her gasping and forgetting all about climaxing vicariously through him as a second orgasm exploded through her. She was clinging to him, arching to receive each thrust as he took her deep and hard and to some new place she’d never been.

On the echo of her own cries she heard a deep roar and felt his explosion somewhere so deep she suspected it might be her heart.

“Thank you,” she said softly, much later when they lay twined and ridiculously crowded in her old single bed, the mattress so giving they were like a human sushi roll.

He smiled at her but didn’t answer, tucking a strand of hair behind her ear and following the length to smooth it over her shoulder and all the way to the end, which happened to be mid-breast. Once he was there, her hair was promptly forgotten and he toyed with her breasts with sleepy sexiness.

“I felt almost as though that was my first time,” she said, knowing she was now at the Oprah-watching woman’s-need-to-talk part of the program.

“It was our first time. With each other.”

“So, I was a virgin for you and you were a virgin for me?”

“Yeah.”

The emotion that rushed through her was so rare it took her a moment to identify it as what it was. Hope.

Eric had come into her life when she’d been vulnerable, young and weak. He’d used her, introduced her to drugs, and then talked her into bringing him to her home. In Swiftcurrent, he’d gone from being the failed rock singer she’d first hung with, so cool and exciting with his long hair and his drugs, all the way to a pillar of the establishment.

Gillian now realized that Eric had craved respectability the way she’d craved love. They’d been disastrous together but in one way they’d both sucked what they’d needed from the marriage. Her grandfather had helped Eric become a respected business owner in this town, and Eric had brought her back home, where she was loved—by her family, if not her husband.

Well, she wasn’t quite so young, but she wasn’t as weak and foolish, either. She wouldn’t settle for so little ever again.

She kissed Tom long and deep and his attention to her chest grew instantly less lazy. An insistent nudging against her thigh told her that all of him had sprung to attention. Sighing, she rubbed against him, as aroused and ready for round two as he, and no longer inclined for talk.

“If I have to roll around on this old mattress again, I’m going to put my back out,” he complained. So he hauled her off the bed without ceremony, pulled the mattress, its bedding clinging as best it could, to the floor and got down onto it.

Once she was standing, her nightie started to slip; feeling his gaze, hot and focused on her, she let it go. Maybe she wasn’t one of those gym-obsessed hard bodies, but she spent an hour a day doing yoga and she walked most places. Her body was trim and flexible and Tom obviously had no complaint.

He eyed her from the floor, his gaze sliding hotly up her body from her feet to her chest. It seemed to snag there, but eventually kept going until their gazes met. She’d never seen a longing so fierce and she shivered in reaction.

“Come down here,” he said hoarsely.

“If you’re a restless sleeper, I’m going to end up tossed on the floor,” she complained after they’d made love again, simple and straightforward and sweetly satisfying.

“I can’t stay,” he said.

“Why not?” She hadn’t meant to sound so distressed, but she hated the thought of him up and leaving right after what they’d shared. Or had she made a big deal in her mind about something that meant much less to Tom?

Probably. With her usual knack for throwing herself into things long before she was ready, she’d obviously made more of the Tom thing than he had. She’d imagined him climbing her wisteria had been a sentimental and highly meaningful gesture, but perhaps he’d missed his workout and used the side of her house as a temporary gym.

“I’ve got to get home to Lester,” he said about the same time she concluded she was a total idiot.

“Lester?”

“My dog.”

“I thought you had a cat.” She knew he did. A tiny, scrawny kitten he’d rescued years ago, it had grown to the size of a small sheep, a natural redhead, and snooty as a spoiled princess. She saw it the odd time hanging out around town wherever it felt like.

“I do have a cat. Lucy. Lester’s more recent. He’s a Lab, red setter cross and very smart. I found him out on the highway, lost or abandoned. He’s still young and can’t make it through the night without accidents.”

“Okay.” She tried to keep her voice pleasantly neutral. No problem, buddy. Come on by anytime, screw me and leave me for a Labrador cross. She supposed women had been left for less.

“Come with me.”

“Pardon?”

“I’m not near finished with you. And,” he tweaked her nose, “I have a big bed.”

“There’s something serious I want to talk to you about,” Eric said on the phone. It was Sunday night and Alex was preoccupied planning her week’s wardrobe, so she hadn’t checked her call display, assuming it would be Duncan on the phone. The minute she heard Eric’s voice, annoyance filled her.

She wished she hadn’t made that promise to Duncan. She wanted to yell at Eric for telling Duncan he’d seen her half naked. Still, even though she’d promised not to confront Eric, she didn’t have to be sweet to the man. “I really don’t think—”

“You’ve had so much on your shoulders lately. I’ve tried to be there for you, to help you, but that fellow is always around.”

“Which fellow?” Alex asked through gritted teeth. She was getting close to breaking her promise to Duncan and giving Eric an earful.

“The man who calls himself a teacher and who haunts your every waking moment.”

A lot of sleeping ones, too, but she decided not to share that information. “If you mean Duncan Forbes, he is a teacher and he’s using the library for research purposes and a quiet place to write.”

“Alex, he arrived here the day before a man was murdered. He was in the library the morning a gun showed up in your desk drawer. Has it occurred to you he isn’t all he seems?”

She tried not to let the doubts creep into her mind. Eric was trying to make trouble between her and Duncan. She had no idea why, but she didn’t like it. “It’s late, Eric. I think I’d better—”

“Wait.” She heard him let out a breath. “I’m sorry. I’ve no right, I know that. But I’m the closest thing you have to a brother. I’m trying to watch out for you.”

Abruptly she softened. “I appreciate it, but I can look after myself.” And yet, for all her feelings of self-righteousness, what did she know about Duncan? She’d believed everything he’d told her.

“Well, your grandfather wanted me to keep an eye out for you. I have to respect his wishes.”

Her anger dissolved. “I understand.”

“How are you doing with those tapes?”

If she weren’t spending so much of her time playing private games with Duncan, her grandfather’s memoirs would be coming along a lot faster. “Fine. I’ve got most of them transcribed now.”

He seemed to consider his next words for a moment, then said, “Look. This may sound crazy, but I got the feeling your grandfather had something special that he wanted you and Gillian to have. Did he ever tell you anything about that?”

“Yes,” she said. “Grandpa talked to me a few months before he died about a special bequest, but there doesn’t seem to be anything other than the house and his art and antiques.”

Her grandfather had enjoyed collecting beautiful things. And he’d had a good eye. Some of the art he’d bought had appreciated over the years, and the better antiques were worth quite a bit. But he’d had to sell some of the pieces as he grew older and needed the money. “By ninety-two he’d run through most of his savings.”

“What did your grandfather say specifically?”

“He said he was leaving a letter with his will, but there wasn’t one.”

“He said something to me a few months ago, also. I got the feeling there might be some art work involved.”

“Really? That’s more than he told me.”

“Maybe he forgot to write the letter and the special bequest is hidden somewhere. Can you think of any locations where it might be?”

“Eric,” she said, feeling her irritation return, “he was an old man. He was very sharp but I think sometimes he dreamed he’d been more successful than he was.”

“Your grandfather was a shrewd art dealer. If he said he had something of value, he did. It doesn’t matter to me, obviously, but Gillian is going to need money. Rehab is expensive.”

A frown pulled at her forehead. “Rehab?”

“I’m worried sick about her. She’s getting worse. She may have to be put away for her own good.”

“Put away?” The term conjured grim images of a Victorian mental hospital.

“I don’t think she can go on like this much longer. God knows I can’t.”

“But she seems so much better.” Alex was getting a sick feeling in the pit of her stomach. She knew already that she wouldn’t be a party to putting Gill into rehab unless her cousin wanted it.

The bright-eyed, shiny-haired woman she’d shared tea and laughter with didn’t look in imminent need of forceful confinement. She remembered Gillian’s bitter claim that she always believed Eric. And she had, she realized. He’d turned around his life so spectacularly while Gill always seemed like she was on edge. Alex had fallen into the habit of believing whatever he told her.

“Alex, some addicts never recover.” He sounded so sad as he said it.

“Maybe we need to give her another chance.”

“Oh, I agree. I’m saying it would be easier if there was money for her care. Or money to get on with her life. Your grandfather wanted you to have something special. It would be a shame for it to stay hidden when you could both benefit.”

“Maybe we’ll dig up the backyard and find buried treasure,” she said lightly.

“Maybe.” He laughed, but not very humorously. “If I can help at all, call me. You know I only want what’s best for you and Gill.”

Did he? She wasn’t so sure anymore. “Thanks. I appreciate it.”

“I’m on my way out of town for ten days or so. There are some auctions coming up in Eugene and Portland, and some clients I need to see. Before I leave, I wanted to warn you to watch out for that professor. Speaking as your friend. I don’t trust him.”

She suspected his warning about Duncan stemmed from the same source that had urged him to tell Duncan he’d seen her beauty mark. And yet, even as she tried to dismiss his words, they hit home. How much did she know about Duncan Forbes? She’d pretty much taken him at his word.

Enough of that. She was a librarian, wasn’t she? Maybe it was time to do what she did best. Boot up her computer and research the man. If only to disprove Eric’s hints.

It didn’t take her any longer than a Google search.

The name Duncan Forbes produced a gratifying number of hits. Of course, there could be a lot of guys named Duncan Forbes. That didn’t mean anything.

She scanned the listings. Immediately her attention was caught by an article from the London Times dated barely more than a year ago.

Stolen Gauguin Returned.
She clicked on the link, surmising that since Duncan was an art historian he might have helped authenticate the work, or perhaps, as the author of a book on Gauguin, he had an esoteric comment to make about the importance of the painter to the art world.

As she read, her eyes widened.

A Gauguin painting, valued at ten million pounds sterling, has been returned to Lord Hooting, from whose fifteenth-century castle it was stolen three months ago.

Women Bathing was stolen in broad daylight on one of the public visiting days at the castle.

Professor Duncan Forbes, nicknamed “the Indiana Jones of the art world” for his record of recovering stolen and lost works of art, was the principal figure in the art work’s recovery.

She almost choked. “The Indiana Jones of the art world?” she cried the words aloud even though she was alone.

Article after article cited Duncan as a paintbrush-wielding bounty hunter, tracking and retrieving stolen art works all over the world.

Immediately, she recalled that the dead man in her library had been, not only a drug dealer, but a thief and a fence. Could there be a connection between the two men? And if so, why had Duncan never said a word to her?

“You lying prick!” she shouted as she finished the search.

She wanted to kick something very hard. Preferably Duncan’s face. Instead she kicked the wall, not willing to move from her computer until she’d read everything she could find about Mr. Duncan “Indiana Jones of the art world” Forbes.

Wait, calm down, she told herself. He hadn’t lied. He was a prof, and, according to a review that came up among the Google hits, the author of a seminal work on Gauguin, which he’d mentioned.

He’d told her he was writing a book while he was here, so there was no reason to tell her about his other life. But he was sleeping with her so there was no reason to keep it a secret. She recalled how reticent he’d been when she asked him about his work. He could have told her about his lucrative sideline, but he hadn’t.

Why?

The more she thought about the way he’d kept secrets from her, the less she liked his reasons.

She’d told him all kinds of things about herself. The man had been inside her body. A little honesty didn’t seem too much to ask in return.

She grabbed her phone. She’d call his cell and yell blue murder in his ear.
She banged the phone back down before she’d pushed a single button. No. She wanted to do this in person.

Five minutes later, she pulled out of her parking space and headed to Duncan’s cottage. Her temper did not improve when she discovered his car wasn’t in its usual spot.

He wasn’t inside the cottage, either. The door was locked, so she pressed her face against the windows. All was dark.

She felt like a hunting hound who thinks it’s got its prey cornered, only to find the animal had gone to ground. No wonder hounds bayed. She felt like baying herself.

Typical male behavior to disappear off the planet whenever a woman wanted a good fight.

Oh, and she did want a fight. The more she thought about how he’d been lying to her the whole time he’d been here, the more angry she became. She wasn’t a stupid woman and while she sat, freezing in her car, waiting for Duncan, she began to see his presence in Swiftcurrent in a new light.

The dead man who’d turned up in her library had been a drug dealer; they’d all glommed onto that piece of information and assumed that drugs had been involved in his death. But he’d also been a thief and a fence.

She tapped her gloved hands against the steering wheel in a mindless rhythm.

Duncan, according to her internet search, spent a lot of time tracing stolen goods, mostly art. Was there a connection? Was Duncan not only involved in recovering stolen goods but in stealing them as well?

Getting both ends of the business?

But why Swiftcurrent? What was there here to steal?

There were no billionaires living quietly in Swiftcurrent with priceless art on their walls or locked in safes. The richest person in town was probably Herbert Murchison who owned a chain of liquor stores.

He owned the biggest house in town but as far as she knew, he spent his money on fishing gear, bought himself a new truck every year, and liked to vacation in Hawaii. She knew her grandfather had tried to interest him in a few expensive paintings and antiques over the years, but he’d always said he didn’t understand art and didn’t want to waste his money on old furniture.

Duncan had told her he’d chosen this area for its climbing. Otherwise, who would choose to stay in Swiftcurrent in order to write a book about art?

Why not New York, so you could stroll to the Met, or the Frick, or the Guggenheim when you needed inspiration. Or Paris, Madrid, some place that boasted a real art gallery.

Obviously, nobody had lost a Gauguin recently in Swiftcurrent that needed returning. She nibbled her lip. A man fit enough to climb mountains could climb up walls and sneak into dark windows and steal, couldn’t he? She didn’t like to contemplate the possibility, any more than she liked the logical connection between Duncan and the dead man. She couldn’t believe she could show such poor character judgment that she’d sleep with a man who’d turn out to be a thief.

Or, even worse, a killer.

She wasn’t going to believe her lover was a killer on such circumstantial evidence, but neither was she going to hang around in this dark, secluded area to confront him with her findings. Tomorrow would be soon enough. She’d meet him someplace with a lot of people around. In daylight.

And she would not spend any time at all wondering where he was at nearly eleven o’clock at night when he wasn’t with her.

Duncan took a deep drink of his second bottle of a craft beer called Boneyard Beer at Sailor Ernie’s Pub, which he’d rapidly discovered was to the men of Swiftcurrent what Katie’s Kut ‘n Kurl was to the women: gossip central. He’d learned nothing new tonight, but he hadn’t expected to.

He was really here to sort out his feelings over an ice cold beer.

He’d almost begun to believe that Plotnik’s death was drug-related. A bizarre coincidence, and he was no closer to the Van Gogh than he had been when he first arrived.

Then the gun showed up in Alex’s drawer.

The gun he strongly suspected was going to turn out to be the murder weapon. It was a message for somebody. It seemed to be for Alex.

But why? Of all the things that didn’t make sense, only one thing did. Alex was in danger.

Maybe this quiet little gig didn’t involve chasing down the streets of Lisbon or payoffs in the back alleys of Rio. This was Swiftcurrent, so sleepily law abiding that it seemed like hard work would be required to nab a parking ticket.

Something was going on, though, and it seemed Alex was the key. It was time to do what he’d been putting off and tell her the truth about himself. He swallowed hard, hoping the beer would lend him some courage. He wasn’t sure he wouldn’t prefer shady Russian mob figures in a dark alley in Moscow to an angry Alex.

He was doing a crap job of coming up with the painting on his own. Coming clean with Alex was not only the clearest way to finding the picture, if Franklin Forrest had ever owned it, but it was also the best way he could see to protect Alex, and that was more important than anything.

From his perch at the pock marked, stained oak bar, Duncan could see everyone from loggers to farmers to the local bank manager. They were here to watch a game on the big screen TVs, to enjoy a brew with the boys after some sport or outdoor activity, or like him, to get out of the house and do their brooding over a drink. He wondered where their women were.

He knew where his woman was. At home, since she liked to spend Sunday nights obsessively organizing everything from her pantyhose to her hair clips for the week ahead.

If he hurried, he could watch, and maybe throw in a few suggestions for the week’s underwear. He found he could watch her do the most mundane tasks and get a kick out of them. He took pleasure in simply watching her, being with her, loving her.