Нора Робертс - The Last Boyfriend

He waited a moment. “I have some things to say.”

“Okay.”

“She’s less and always will be for turning her back on you, for walking away not just from her responsibilities but from the potential of you. She’ll never have a daughter who loves her absolutely, without reservation and with real joy. The way you love your dad. She’s less, Avery, not you.”

“Yes, but—”

“Not finished. Is your dad less?”

“God, no. He’s more than most people could be.”

“She left him, too. She walked out on him, without a word. Chose another man over him. She didn’t even give him the respect of truth, of a clean break with a divorce, but it didn’t make him less of a man, of a father, of a friend. She came back because she needed something, and she took his money.”

“It’s her, not him.”

“That’s right. It’s her. Not him. Not you.”

Something loosened inside her, something tight and hard and painful. “It helps to hear that.”

“I’m still not done. Whether you’re happy or sad or mad or glad, you’re still you. If you figure I’m only around—or you decide you only want me around—when everything’s solid, you’re wrong, and you’re stupid. It’s not going to work that way for me. It’s never been surface with us, and whatever else has changed, that can’t. That’s bottom line.”

Shame wound through the lessening misery. “I screwed up.”

“Yeah, you did. I’ll cut you a break this time.”

Relieved, she managed a smile. “I owe you a break for when you screw up.”

“I’ll remind you when the time comes. Next, personally I don’t see the point in dragging in prior relationships, how and why they worked or didn’t. This is you and me. If you decide it’s not working, you better damn sure not look for an out. You tell me, to my face. I’m not some loser you need to shake off.”

“I never thought—”

“You tried shaking me off.”

Excuses, rationalizations trembled on her tongue. Weak, she realized. Weak and wrong. “I don’t know if I tried because I thought I could or I knew I couldn’t. I just don’t know the answer to that. Either way, it was wrong because yeah, this is you and me.”

She laid a hand on his cheek. “Solemn promises, here and now. I’ll tell you to your face when I’m done with you.”

That got a smile. “Same goes.”

When she shifted toward him, he put her on his lap. She curled in, held on. “I’m glad you acted like a bully and dragged me up here. I’ve missed talking to you, being with you.”

“I had to be a bully because you were a moron.”

“Calling me names isn’t cutting me a break.” She eased back. “And you’ve got Beckett out there making deliveries.”

“He’s got three kids now. He can use the tips.”

She laughed, reached for his hand, released it when he yelped. “Oh God.” She lifted it again, carefully. “I really nailed you.”

“Tell me about it.”

“It’s your own fault for falling for the ‘oooh, you’re hurting me’ ploy.”

“Won’t happen again.”

“Let me clean it up.”

“Later.” He pulled her back in, just sat while the world rode smooth again. “You wouldn’t have any of that soup left?”

“I have smoked tomato bisque in the freezer. I can heat it up.”

“Sounds good. Later.” He tipped her head back, found her mouth with his.

“Definitely later.”

Feeling sentimental, she roamed his face with kisses as she unbuttoned his shirt. He smelled of sawdust, even along the column of his throat.

“I’ve missed this, too,” she murmured. “Missed touching you.”

Only a few days, really, she thought, but the distance had spanned so wide, so deep, it felt like weeks. And here he was, smelling of sawdust, his chest warm and solid under the rough thermal shirt, and his hard-palmed hands confident and easy as he drew her sweater up and away.

Her true north, she thought. Constant and steady.

He ached for her. Not just physically, but in his heart for the hurt she’d endured. For the fact she’d felt obliged to endure it alone.

She said he couldn’t understand, but she was wrong. He’d never believed you had to experience pain to understand it.

He’d thought he knew her, every facet, but there he’d been wrong. The parts of her that questioned her worth, her courage, her heart, those were new to him, added complexities and vulnerabilities.

To those hurts he offered a gentle touch, an easy glide, pleasing himself with the curves of her, the pulse beats, the sigh of breath warm against his skin.

When she caught his face in her hands, when he saw her smile up at him before their lips met again, he thought: There. There was Avery. All of her.

She stroked her hands down his back, over his hips, back again as if measuring the length of him. Wanting to give, just give and give, she shifted to wrap around him, heard him curse when her shoulder pressed against his sore hand.

“Oops.” It choked a laugh out of her, and everything just fell away. All the guilt and grief, the apologies and worries.

You and me, she thought again. It’s you and me. So she wrapped around him and nipped her teeth at his shoulder.

“I’ve got a taste for you now.” She rolled him over, nipped again.

“Want to play rough?”

“You already did. Hauling me up here, throwing me down on the bed. Let’s see how you like it.” Mindful of his hand, she clamped his wrists, ranged over him.

“I like it fine.”

“Because now we’re naked.”

“It’s a factor.”

She lowered her head, stopped a breath from his lips, pulled back, lowered again. Pulled back.

“You’re asking for trouble.”

“Oh, I can handle you.”

She leaned in again, then slid down to glide her tongue over his chest.

Okay, he thought as his blood surged, she could handle him.

She owned his body, every inch, teasing, inciting, seducing, exciting. Quick and rough one moment, slow and tender the next, leaving him off balance, off rhythm, and totally possessed.

“Owen, Owen, Owen.” She whispered it again and again as she rose over him, drunk with power and lust.

She took him in, deep, deep, clamped her hands on his shoulders as triumph and surrender catapulted through her system. He took her breasts, pressed his hand against her galloping heart.

She lowered again, and this time let her lips take his in a long, trembling kiss.

And she rose again, let her head fall back, let everything that was the two of them fill her.

Then she rode them both empty.

*   *   *

Later, she doctored his hand, kissed the little wound. In her blue-checked robe she heated soup in the kitchen while he poured them each a glass of wine.

On impulse she lit candles for the table. Not quite a midnight supper, she thought with a glance at the time. But pretty close.

“It’s snowing hard now. You should stay.”

“Yeah, I should.”

Content, she ladled soup into thick white bowls while the snow fell on the rest of the world.

For as long as he could remember, Owen liked to figure things out, find the answers, wiggle out details. His innate propensity for schedules, agendas, bottom lines, and solutions made him a natural as coordinator of Montgomery Family Contractors. He’d never imagined, not seriously, doing anything else, and couldn’t imagine anything else giving him the same level of satisfaction or pride.

Working with his brothers suited him. They could and did disagree, piss each other off, bitch and complain. But they always came around. He understood their rhythms as well as he understood his own. He knew the weak spots in each, which could be handy if he was pissed off and wanted to needle.

Solving problems in a way that presented the facts, offered possible compromises and the occasional ultimatum was his thing.

He approached the situation with Elizabeth as a problem.

They had a ghost at the inn. Weird fact, yes, but fact. To date she’d proved mostly amenable, somewhat temperamental, and she’d put them all in her debt by warning Beckett when that asshole Sam Freemont assaulted Clare.

She’d only asked one thing. For Billy.

The problem was, who the hell was Billy? When the hell was Billy? What connection did he have to the woman they’d dubbed Elizabeth?

The ring indicated a relationship, possibly an engagement. But that, in Owen’s world, wasn’t fact.

Their resident ghost wasn’t saying either way.

It seemed to Owen the best place to start would be to identify Elizabeth, and to pin down when she’d died.

Where, though it wasn’t verified fact but logical supposition, was the inn.

“Makes the most sense, right?” He’d set up his laptop in The Dining Room on the theory Elizabeth might give him more direction if he worked the problem on location.

“That’s how it strikes me,” Hope agreed, and set coffee at his elbow. “Why else would she be here?”

“I’ve been poking around paranormal activity sites. You pick up all kinds of wild stuff, and a lot of it has to be crap—but what I’ve pulled out is most people who haven’t, you know, passed over, tend to stick around where they died, or go back to a place that was important or significant to them. If she died here, she could’ve been a guest, could’ve worked here, could’ve been related or connected to the owners.”

“Death records would be a starting point, but where to start?”

“That’s part of it, yeah?”

“Well, the way you described what she wore, it makes me think after the start of the Civil War, and before 1870. Not the wide, wide hoopskirt, but still a wide skirt.”

“Yeah. Kind of . . .” He held his arms out. “It was a pretty quick look.”

“If she’d let me get a look at her, I’d have a better idea.” And why wouldn’t she? Hope wondered. After all they were—as Avery said—inn-mates. “How about the sleeves?”

“The sleeves?”

“Of the dress, Owen. Long, short, snug, poofy?”

“Oh. Um . . . long. Kind of big, I think.”

“Gloves? Did she wear gloves?”

“I don’t know that I . . . you know, I think so, but without fingers on them. Kind of lacy, or like my grandmother’s crocheting. And now that I think about it, one of those wrap things.”

“A shawl—and you said a snood.”

He could only stare. “I did?”

“You said she had her hair up in a net in the back. That’s a snood.”

“If you say so.”

“I do. I’ve got a minute or two. Can I?” she asked, gesturing at his keyboard.

“Help yourself.”

He turned it toward her as she sat, and waited, enjoying his coffee as she typed.

“I’m pretty sure if you put those elements together, you’re talking early to mid 1860s.”

He let her work in silence for a few minutes. Peaceful here, he thought, in the middle of the day. He should get back next door before too much longer, give Ryder a hand. And maybe slip over to Vesta later, see if he could talk Avery into going out—or staying in.

“How about this?” Hope turned the screen toward him. “What do you think?”

Curious, he studied the illustration of a small group of women in a kind of drawing room. “I think I wonder why women wanted to wear something that looks that uncomfortable.”

“Fashion hurts, Owen. We live with it.”

“I guess. This is pretty close, in type, I mean. The skirt was pretty much like this one, and the sleeves, and it had a high neck like this one. Maybe some lace or something on it.”

“This is fashion from 1862. So you could start there. And I doubt you’re looking for a maid or servant,” Hope added as she studied the illustration. “It’s too fashionable. Not impossible as it could’ve been a dress passed to her by an employer or relative, but going with the odds, she dressed like a woman of some means.”

“We’ll play the odds to start. Thanks.”

“You’re welcome, and it’s interesting. I’ll be in the office if you need me.”

He intended to give it a half hour, then strap on his tool belt. But he got caught up, poking through old records, old newspaper articles, genealogy sites.

At some point, Hope walked back in, freshened his coffee, added a plate of warm cookies.

He finally sat back, frowned at his screen.

“What the hell is this?” Ryder demanded. “You’re sitting here eating cookies while I’m up to my ass next door?”

“Huh?”

“It’s two-fucking-thirty.”

“Oh. Sorry. I think I found her.”