“No more waiting.” Her arms tightened around his neck. “I love you, Gideon. I love you so much.”
It really did feel as if he had waited for her forever, the tensions, frustrations, and desires of the past days almost exploding inside him. Knowing now that the woman in his arms had an infinite capacity to feel all that he felt, and to return it with the same ferocity, freed him. For the first time in his adult life he could relinquish his need to control.
It was a new and heady kind of freedom to just feel, to sate himself with an emotional and sensual awareness of another person so intense it was shattering. Emotionally, he already felt bonded to her, connected by some affinity his mind had at first blocked, as if it had always lain, unseen, inside him. And his senses opened up in a way he’d never felt, dazzling him with the best of raw impulses. He had thought he’d known desire for her before, but this…
At first, it was almost too much, a blind compulsion to hold her tightly against him, as if his very cells needed to merge with hers until they became one being. But they couldn’t get close enough for that, and holding her wasn’t enough, not nearly enough, to satisfy his terrible craving.
Maggie felt his hand touch her thigh, and then a tug at the hem of her shirt as he drew it up with slightly rough impatience. As driven as he was, she helped, pulling her arms from the sleeves when he lifted her a bit to get the shirt off. Her long hair caught in the neckline and was swept to one side, spilling over the pillow and the edge of the bed in a shower of silver as the shirt was tossed onto the floor.
“Maggie…”
It never occurred to her to be embarrassed or self-conscious because she was lying naked in his arms. And if it had occurred to her, his expression would have banished those feelings instantly. He looked at her, she thought in wonder, as if she were the most beautiful woman he had ever seen. His gray gaze, burning almost silver, moved over her with such an intensity that it might have been his touch on her flesh. In response the glowing embers inside her burst into flame.
“It’s…too much,” she said breathlessly, the force of her own feelings overwhelming her. “I can’t—”
“Yes, you can,” he interrupted, his voice raw and hoarse. He kissed her, insistently this time, demanding that she hold nothing back. “It’s mine. All of that primitive emotion was meant for me, and I want it.”
She never doubted that he understood, that he saw or felt or sensed the wildness inside her. But he wasn’t drawing away from it—he was urging her to let go, to free the feelings and share them with him. And for the first time in her life, she couldn’t look away from them herself. With a sound almost like a sob, she reached for his shirt, helping him to discard the barriers that kept them apart.
She hadn’t realized he would be so beautiful. Muscles rippled powerfully under tanned flesh as he moved, his strength vividly revealed now. The mat of red-gold hair covering his broad chest was soft and springy under her fingers, the hard planes and angles of his body so compellingly different from her own that he seemed alien, yet stirringly familiar as well. And all her emotions swirled wildly around an aching emptiness.
“Dear Lord, Maggie,” he murmured, one hand sliding up over her ribcage to surround a firm breast, “I need you so badly.”
She gasped when his mouth closed hotly over her tight nipple, the sensation so stark it was almost painful. Her fingers twined in his thick hair and a soft moan escaped her throat. He was burning her, setting all her nerves on fire as his mouth moved on her. The hunger in him shuddered through his powerful body and awoke answering tremors in her body. Hot shivers broke like waves over her.
The empty ache inside her seemed to pulse, throb, growing moment by moment until she couldn’t be still, couldn’t breathe except in shallow gasps, and couldn’t keep the sounds locked in her throat. She felt his hand slide down over her belly, warm and heavy, and she was opening to him eagerly, an instinctive tension holding her poised on the brink of something because he was so close to the awful emptiness.
She cried out almost silently when he touched her, her feverish body arching helplessly. His probing, stroking fingers intensified the ache until she thought she’d go mad, until that emptiness was all she could feel and it was consuming her.
His name burst from her in a sound that was love and need and desperation, a sound winging free of her because it belonged to him now. It was a sound he felt pierce him and touch an answering chord deep inside him.
With a rough sound of his own, he spread her legs and slipped between them, willing the last threads of his control to hold steady just a little longer. But Maggie’s need was impatient of control, and she surged upward to meet him, possessing him as surely as he possessed her. Her body accepted him, claimed him, as if the certainty of him as her one and only love was stamped in her very cells.
Gideon felt that certainty as well, felt it in the fire consuming them both, in the tight clasp of her body, in the shattering culmination that hurled them over the rim of something so imperative that he knew it had been intended.
In that stark moment of wild physical pleasure and profound emotion, he understood. He belonged to Maggie, not in any possessive sense, but in truth. More basic than any of society’s conventional tags—friend, lover, wife—she was his mate.
For life.
—
“Wooooo?”
Maggie yawned and snuggled closer to Gideon’s side, wondering vaguely what that peculiar noise was.
“Wooooooo?”
She felt his arms tighten around her and was conscious of a drowsy surge of delight. How nice, sleeping with a man. This particular man. Every inch of her body was tingling warmly. Somebody should have told her. She would have gone to San Francisco and hunted this man down years ago.
“Woo-oooo?”
“Tell him to go away,” Gideon muttered, pulling her an impossible inch nearer.
Maggie yawned again. One completely sleepless night and one virtually sleepless night had taken their toll. She thought she could possibly move if somebody lit a fire under her, otherwise it was a lost cause.
“Woooo!”
“Sweetheart, if you love me, strangle that cat,” Gideon said, sounding as plaintive as the feline outside.
“He loves you, too,” she murmured. “You abandoned him last night.”
“It’s his own fault. He told me to.” Forcing his eyes open, Gideon found that she had lifted her head from his shoulder and was looking at him in mild puzzlement. A brief and rather uncertain laugh escaped him. “Never mind. It sounds just as crazy on this side of the mirror.”
Maggie accepted that amiably. “What time is it?”
He looked at his wrist. “I don’t know. My watch is gone.” Peering past her, he added, “It’s right on the table there. On your side.”
The bed wasn’t all that big. Maggie roused herself enough to reach around behind her until she found the table and then his watch. She stared at the thing for a minute, then sighed heavily. “It’s after eight. I hope Farley fed the animals.”
“Wooo,” Leo commented miserably from the other side of the closed door.
“He wants in,” Maggie said.
“He isn’t coming in. And we’re not going out. Do you hear that, Leo?” Gideon demanded, raising his voice slightly. “Go away. Mind your own business.”
“Why aren’t we going out?” she asked interestedly. “Not that I can move at the moment, but we have to eat.”
“I want you all to myself for a while. It’s an interesting world, your side of the mirror…but crowded.”
Quite suddenly, Maggie sat up. “I just remembered. Today it won’t be crowded. One day a week almost everybody goes into town to shop and maybe see a movie. At least one of us usually offers to stay and watch the camp. If you and I stay—”
“That sounds—”
“—we can look for the cache,” she finished.
Gideon closed his eyes briefly, then hauled her back down to his side. “I have another suggestion.
Let’s go to San Francisco. Richmond. Australia.”
Maggie folded her hands on his broad chest and rested her chin on them. “Anyplace but here?”
“That’s the idea.”
Gravely, she said, “I have to finish what I started, Gideon. I owe it to my family. It shouldn’t take much longer. If I know my uncle Cyrus, he’ll find the information we need. Then all that’s left is to find the cache and get a confession.”
He stared at her. “That’s all? Honey, we might—just might—find the cache. If it exists, that is. We might even find out who the guilty party is. But how on earth do you expect to get a confession? And why? The goods would probably convict him.”
“Not of murder.”
Gideon wasn’t surprised. He’d had a hollow feeling she was going to say just that. And since he understood her, since he could now see the determination in her eyes, he knew it was useless to argue. But naturally he tried.
“Maggie, you said yourself there was no evidence. That the police ruled the death as accidental. No murderer in his right mind would confess to—” he stopped, blinked. “Is anybody here in their right mind? Other than me and thee, that is?”
Brushing the question aside, she said, “A confession might be a problem. What we need is evidence. Or a witness. I have to be able to make the killer think I know exactly what went on the night Merlin was killed.”
“And make yourself a target?”
“Of course not. I wasn’t here when Merlin was killed—how could I know? Obviously, somebody told me. Which means that someone else knows the truth. So why would the killer want to get rid of me? It wouldn’t help him.”
“What if he doesn’t work all that out, Maggie? He may be an impulse killer; maybe that was why Merlin was just pushed into a well instead of being done in by a method that was a little more fancy.”
“You’ll be near,” she said dismissively. “Out of sight, though. He’ll talk to me, I think, but not if he knows anyone else is listening. I have a pocket recorder with a very good microphone, so we can get it on tape.”
“We both keep saying he. At least tell me if any of the women are suspects.”
“Well, none of them has been here less than seven years. Except me, of course.”
“So it’s Lamont—and somebody else?”
Maggie frowned at him. “I was wondering if you’d remember that, dammit.”
“I have an excellent memory. You said that Lamont had joined Wonderland a couple of years ago when it passed through his town. Which town was that, by the way?”
“Dallas. And it was three years ago, according to the account books. Would you care to guess who our other suspect is?”
Without hesitation Gideon said, “Farley.”
“Why him?”
“I don’t like him.”
Maggie raised her head and gazed down at him. “That was a gut response, wasn’t it?”
He thought about it for a moment. “I suppose so. Logically, he’s a good suspect—and there aren’t many. I mean, think about it. To consider Malcolm or Oswald is laughable; underneath their poses, they’re two old men enjoying themselves.”
“Astute of you,” Maggie said, watching him.
Gideon continued to pursue suspects. “Tom and Sarah—no way. He’d kill to protect her, but he strikes me as a good man. She couldn’t do it, period. Buster’s parents seem the most sensible of the lot, but also the most content; I don’t think they want any more than they’ve got.”
“And Tina?”
“She could kill—for the right reasons. I don’t think money would do it, though.” Gideon was silent for a moment, then said, “Maggie, what about Jasper?”
“He’s been with Wonderland more than twenty years.”
“Okay. But what if that’s the beauty of it? Suppose Jasper went off to visit family sometime during the past few years and committed a robbery?”
“Damn. That never occurred to me.”
“You’ve all said he wandered off occasionally. And no one seemed surprised to find the note that said he was visiting relatives now. Suppose he lit out and took the cache?”
“I’d almost prefer that answer to the one that’s been haunting me,” Maggie said seriously.
“That he’s dead?”
“Yes. But Gideon, if Jasper’s the killer and he’s left for good—who’s been watching you?”
“Maybe I imagined it. God knows this place is conducive to lunatic thoughts. In fact, this whole thing is so bizarre, I don’t know what to think.”
She smiled at him. “You’re not as bewildered as you say you are; you’ve got the people here summed up rather neatly. In fact, you’d make a good detective.”
“Perish the thought.” Gideon sighed. “Tell me something. Are you often involved in this kind of thing?”
“Well, not murder, naturally. And my family doesn’t get into trouble that often.”
“I knew I should have worried more about your family,” he murmured wryly.
“You’ll love them, I promise.” She reflected, then added honestly, “Once you get used to them, that is.”
He lifted his head and kissed her. “I love a mad angel. I suppose there are worse fates.”
“Of course there are. I love a banker.”
Gideon slid his hand down to one rounded hip and swatted her lightly. “Don’t say nasty things about our future livelihood. Though, I must admit, the office is going to seem very dull after Wonderland.”
“I’ll visit every day and bring your lunch.”
“I’ll look forward to that.” He kissed her again and murmured, “There’s no lock on that door, is there?”
“No one’s going to disturb us unless it’s an emergency.”
“If anyone disturbs us, there will be an emergency.”
—
When they emerged from the wagon around ten, they found Leo sulking, the other animals snoozing peacefully, and the human inhabitants of the camp grouped near Tina’s wagon apparently engaged in an acrimonious discussion.
“I think I’ll go shave,” Gideon said, eyeing the group while he tried to imagine what kinds of questions he’d be confronted with after having spent the night in Maggie’s wagon.
“Coward.” She grinned up at him. “But all to the good, I suppose. I’ll go over there looking dreamy eyed and tell them you and I will stay here today. We want to be alone,” she added soulfully.
Gideon, understanding the depths of her emotions as no one else ever would, wasn’t disturbed by her mockery. “You do that,” he told her politely. He tipped her chin up and kissed her.
“Wooo?”
He looked over his shoulder at the cat, who’d been slinking along in his shadow looking sulky and muttering to himself. “Come on, cat, and you can watch me shave. I realize that isn’t entertainment of the first order, but you seemed to enjoy it yesterday.”
Unrelenting, Leo snorted, but followed nonetheless as his fallen idol started across the camp.
Maggie looked after them for a moment, then let a few of her emotions float to the surface as she went over to the group near Tina’s wagon. “Good morning,” she told them.
Farley cocked an eye up at the sun. “Barely,” he conceded.
“ ’Tis love that makes the world go round,” Oswald murmured, then added a hasty, “Hush!” when the parrot on his shoulder began the first few bars of what sounded like a sailor’s ditty.
Lamont, who was wearing a bright blue nose that looked rather like a bird’s perch, said simply, “Well, I like him.”
“The parrot?” Maggie questioned, lost for once.
“No. Gideon. He’s nice.”
Tina grinned faintly. “As long as he doesn’t snore.”
Maggie strove to look dignified. “If he did, I didn’t notice. Now, why’re you all standing here?”
“Deciding who stays,” Tina told her.
“No problem. Gideon and I will.” Rather to her surprise, Maggie felt herself blushing slightly. “We wouldn’t
mind a little time alone.”
Sean looked up at her, faintly puzzled. “I thought you was with him in your wagon. Was somebody else in there, too?”
Maggie looked somewhat helplessly at Tina, who said instantly, “Go in and put your shoes on, Sean. You’re not going to town barefoot.”
“Why not?” the boy demanded.
“They won’t let you in the movie.”
The threat effectively distracted Sean, and he darted into the wagon without delay.
“Thanks,” Maggie murmured.
“Don’t mention it.” Tina grinned again. “Your time will come. Kids always ask the most awkward questions.”
“I’ve noticed. Tina, the rent for the field’s due; on the way to town, can you stop at Mr. Davis’s and pay him?”
“Sure. Oh—and I’ve left some snacks in the wagon for whoever we elected to stay. In case you and Gideon get hungry. We’ll eat in town.”
Maggie nodded, then looked at the others questioningly. “Do we need any supplies I don’t know about?”
“We could use fresh meat for the cats,” Farley said. “That means I’d better take along the battery for the ice locker and get it recharged.”
“All right, I’ll get the money. You all had better hurry if you want to have time to shop, eat, and see a movie.” They all scattered while Maggie went to get the money box from its hiding place in the floor of the boa’s cage.
Around half an hour later, the supply wagon had been unloaded of its remaining supplies to make room for more, and it and the only other “light” wagon—not one of the huge antiques that were so cumbersome—were hitched to teams. The carnies claimed their places, and the two wagons rolled out of the field and onto the road.
Gideon, standing beside Maggie as they watched the others depart, couldn’t help but think that the little procession looked both ridiculous and curiously charming.
“Won’t they get stared at?” he asked Maggie.
“No, not really. We had to get a special permit to drive the wagons through town and the first couple of visits we attracted a lot of attention, but we’ve been here for weeks now, and everybody’s pretty much used to us.”
He looked down at her, smiling slightly. “You always say us when you talk about this place.”