Нора Робертс - Black Rose

She gave a half laugh, brushed a hand over her face. “Gave me a hell of a jolt, thinking oh, hell, am I pregnant, because believe me, I wasn’t in the mood for it right at the moment after dealing with three restless, unhappy children. But something in her eyes didn’t look right. Too bright, and I want to say too mean. It scared me a little. Then the police came, and well, I wasn’t thinking about her anymore.”

Her voice had remained steady throughout. But her eyes, her long, lovely eyes, mirrored the grief.

“It’s a hard, hard thing. I can’t even imagine it.”

“Your life stops right there. Just stops. And when it starts up again, it’s different. It’s never what it was before that moment. Never.”

He didn’t touch her, didn’t comfort, didn’t support. What was in her heart, for this moment, in this winter garden belonged to someone else.

“You had no one. No mother, no father, no sister, no brother.”

“I had my sons. I had this house. I had myself.” She looked away, and he could see her draw herself back, close that door to the past. “I understand where you’re going with this, and I don’t understand it. She never bothered to object before, not to John, or anyone I was with after, not to Bryce. She did, occasionally express some disapproval—I’ve told you that before. But nothing on the scale she has recently. Why would that be?”

“I’ve been trying to work that out. I have a couple of theories. Let’s go inside first. The light’s going and you’re going to be chilled straight through. Not much meat on you. That wasn’t a complaint,” he added when she narrowed her eyes.

Deliberately she bumped up the southern in her voice. “I come from a line of women with delicate builds.”

“Nothing delicate about you,” he corrected and took her hand as they walked toward the house. “What you are is a long wild rose—a black rose with plenty of thorns.”

“Black roses don’t grow wild. They have to be cultivated. And no one’s ever managed a true black.”

“A black rose,” he repeated and brought their joined hands to his lips. “Rare and exquisite.”

“You keep talking like that, I’ll have to invite you up to my private quarters.”

“I thought you’d never ask.”

“ITHOUGHT I should tell you,” Roz began as they walked toward the house, “that my . . . household is very interested in my more personal relationship with you.”

“That’s all right, so am I. Interested in my personal relationship with you.”

She glanced down at their joined hands and thought what a lovely design it was that fingers could link so smoothly together. “Your hand’s bigger than mine, considerably. Your palm’s wider, your fingers longer. And see how your fingers are blunt at the tip where mine taper some?”

She lifted her arm so their hands were eye level. “But it makes such a nice fit.”

With a soft laugh, he said her name. Said it tenderly. Rosalind. Then paused briefly to angle his head down and touch his lips to hers. “So does that.”

“I was thinking the same. But I’d as soon keep those thoughts, and that personal interest, between you and me.”

“Hard to do, since we have other people in our lives. My son wanted to know where I came up with the brunette babe I was with at the Ole Miss game.”

“And you told him?”

“That I’d finally managed to get Rosalind Harper to give me a second look.”

“I gave you plenty of looks,” she said, and sent him another as they started up the steps to her terrace. “But I’ve gotten into the habit of being selfish with my private life, and I don’t see any reason we can’t enjoy each other without filing regular bulletins on our sex life.”

She reached for the terrace door. It blew open, barely missing striking her face. A blast of frigid wind gushed out of her room, knocking her back a full step before Mitch managed to grab her, then block her body with his.

“Good luck!” he shouted over the scream of air.

“I will not tolerate this.” Furious, she shoved him aside and bulled her way through the door. “I will not tolerate this sort of thing in my house!”

Photographs flew off tables like missiles while lamps flashed on and off. A chair shot across the room, slamming into a chest of drawers with a force that had the vase of hothouse orchids spinning. When she saw the vanity mirror her sons had given her start to slide, she leaped forward to grab it.

“Stop this idioticbullshit right now. I’m not going to put up with it.”

There was pounding, monstrous fists of fury, on the walls, in the walls, and the floor trembled under her feet. A large Baccarat perfume bottle detonated, a crystal bomb that spewed jagged shards like shrapnel.

In the midst of the whirlwind, Roz stood, clutching the vanity mirror, and her shout over the explosions of shattering glass, the ferocious banging, was Arctic ice.

“I’ll stop every attempt to find out who you are, to right whatever wrong was done to you. I’ll do whatever it takes to remove you from this house. You won’t be welcome here.

“This ismy house,” she called out as fire erupted in the hearth and the candlestick on the mantel spiraled up into the air. “And I will, by God, clear you out of it. I swear on my life, I will remove you.”

The air died at once, and what had been spinning in it fell with thuds or crashes to the floor.

The door burst open instantly. David, Logan, and Stella pushed through it an instant before Harper barreled through the terrace doors.

“Mama.” Harper lifted her right off her feet, his arms banded around her. “Are you all right?”

“I’m fine. I’m fine.”

“We couldn’t get in.” Stella touched Roz’s back with a trembling hand. “Couldn’t get the doors open.”

“It’s all right now. Where are the children?”

“Hayley. Hayley’s got them downstairs. When we heard—God, Roz, it sounded like a war.”

“Go tell her everything’s all right.” She pressed her cheek to Harper’s before she pulled back. “Go on now.”

“What happened here?” David demanded. “Roz, what the hell happened?”

“We started to come in, and she objected . . . strongly.”

“Your mother slapped her back for it,” Mitch told Harper. “Let her know who runs this house.”

“You’re bleeding,” Harper said dully.

“Oh, my God.” Roz shoved the vanity mirror into Harper’s hands and moved quickly to Mitch to touch the cut on his cheek.

“Some flying glass. Nothing major.”

“Got some nicks on your hands, too.” She lowered her own before they could shake. “Well, let’s clean them up.”

“I’ll pick up in here,” Stella offered.

“No, leave it be. Go down, make sure Hayley and the kids are okay. Logan, you ought to take them to your place.”

“I’m not leaving you.” Stella stood firm, shook her head. “That’s not negotiable.”

“I’ll stay here.” Logan draped an arm around Stella’s shoulders. “If that’s all right with you.”

“That’s fine.” Letting out a breath, she took the mirror back from Harper. “She’d’ve gotten more than a tongue-lashing if she’d broken this.” She set it back in place, then turned to give Harper’s hand a squeeze. “It’s all right, baby. I promise.”

“She does anything to hurt you, I’m finding a way to get her out.”

“Like mother, like son.” She smiled at him. “I told her the same, and since she stopped when I did, she must know I mean what I say. Go down now. Hayley can’t leave the children, and she must be frantic. Mitch, come on into the bathroom. I’ll clean those cuts.”

“I don’t want her alone up here tonight,” Harper said when his mother left the room.

“She won’t be,” Mitch assured him.

When he went into the bath, Roz was already damping a cloth with peroxide. “They’re just scratches.”

“Doesn’t mean they shouldn’t be seen to, and since I’ve never doctored cuts caused by some ghost’s tantrum, I’m doing it my usual way. Sit down.”

“Yes’m.” He sat, studying her face. “Not a scratch on you.”

“Hmm?” Distracted, she glanced at her own hands, then looked at her face in the mirror over the sink. “I guess you’re right.”

“I don’t think she wanted to hurt you. Not that she won’t, directly or inadvertently, being as she’s more than a little crazy. But this was a warning. It’s interesting.”

“I admire a man who can get cut up by an angry bitch of a ghost and find it interesting.”

“I admire a woman who goes toe-to-toe with an angry bitch of a ghost and wins.”

“My house.” Her voice gentled as she tipped up his chin. “Here now, this won’t hurt.”

“That’s what they all say.”

But she cleaned the cuts with a deft and easy hand while he continued to watch her face.

“Looking for something?” she asked him.

“I’m wondering if I found it.”

“This one here barely missed your eye.” Shaken more than she cared to admit, she bent down to brush her lips over the cut. “There.” She stepped back. “You’ll live.”

“Thanks.” He took both her hands, those sharp green eyes on hers. “I have some theories.”

“And I’m anxious to hear them. But I want to clean up that mess in there first, then I want a glass of wine. A very big glass of wine.”

“I’ll give you a hand.”

“No, I’d rather do it myself. In fact, I think I need to.”

“You make it hard, always asking me to take a step back.”

“I guess I do.” She brushed a hand through his hair. “Maybe it’ll help if I tell you it comforts me to know you’re confident enough in yourself to take that step back when I need you to.”

“Maybe that’s something else that makes this a good fit.”

“I think so. I’d appreciate it if you’d go down with the others, give me a half hour to put things back to rights. It’ll settle me down a little.”

“Okay.” He got to his feet. “I’m staying the night. I’ll take a page from Stella’s book and tell you that part’s not negotiable. But you can use the half hour to decide if I’m staying in there with you or in a guest room.”

He left her frowning after him.

HE FOUND EVERYONEin the kitchen. Like family, he thought, gathered together in the hub of the house with something simmering on the stove, a baby crawling on the floor, and two young boys pulling on jackets while their little dog jumped with excitement.

Every eye shifted to him, and after a beat of silence, Stella began speaking brightly to her sons. “Go ahead and let him run, but stay out of the flower beds. We’re going to eat soon.”

There was a lot of scrambling, barking, a scream of laughter from Lily, then dog and boys were gone with a slam of the back door.

Stella’s hand slipped into Logan’s. “How is she?”

“Steady, as usual. She wanted half an hour.” Mitch looked at Harper. “I’m staying tonight.”

“Good. I think that’s good,” Hayley said. “The more the better. It gets so you’re used to having a ghost in the house, but it’s different when she starts throwing things at you.”

“You, specifically, from the look of it,” Logan put in.

“Noticed that?” Mitch rubbed absently at his cut cheek. “Interesting, isn’t it? There was a lot of rage up in that room, but nothing—nothing tangible—was directed at Rosalind. I’d say there was deliberate care not to do her physical harm.”

“If there hadn’t been, she’d be out.” Harper scooped up Lily when she tried to climb up his leg. “And I’m not talking about my mother.”

“No.” Mitch nodded. “And Roz expressed just about the same sentiment.”

“And she’s alone up there,” David chimed in, then glanced up from his work at the stove. “Because she means it. Everyone in this house, dead or alive, knows she means it.”

“And we’re all down here, leaving her be because she runs this show.” Logan leaned back against the counter.

“That may be, but after this, she’ll have to get used to giving up the wheel from time to time. Is that coffee fresh?” Mitch asked with a nod toward the pot.

UPSTAIRS, ROZ PICKEDup the pieces of the personal treasures she’d kept in her bedroom. Little mementos, little memories, shattered now.

Willful destruction, she thought, that was the worst of it. The waste of the precious through selfish temper.

“Like some spoiled child,” she mumbled as she worked to put order back to her space. “I didn’t tolerate that behavior from my own children, and I won’t tolerate it from you. Whoever the hell you are.”

She straightened furniture, then moved to the bed to remake it. “You best just keep that in mind, Amelia. You best just remember who’s mistress of Harper House.”

She felt better, amazingly better, taking action, putting her room to rights, saying her piece, even if it was to an empty room.

Steadier, she stepped into the bathroom. Her hair, short as it was, stood up in spikes from the wind that had blown through her bedroom. Not, Roz decided, a good look for her. She brushed it into order, then idly freshened her makeup. And thought about Mitch.