Gussie lifted her brows in question to Ari. “Can I tell her?”
“Of course.”
“She’s trying to stop him from building Cutter Valentine’s house because she thinks it’s on sacred Native American ground or that there’s a treasure trove of three-thousand-year-old tools under the hill. Or dead bodies.”
“Maybe,” Ari corrected. “I’m not sure. Something came up today that might set us straight on that. Still, I believe there’s something in that land because I can feel it.” And someone was digging for something, that much was clear. Maybe that was just the missing pearls or even that overpriced baseball card, but she wasn’t imagining there was something of value on that land, and it wasn’t just the million-dollar view.
“Whatever happens, I don’t want my brother to go back to France because he made it clear to me that’s the only place he is certain of a steady income.”
“Couldn’t he do something else?” Willow asked.
“I don’t know his financial situation,” Gussie said. “But he definitely feels a burn to make money and, really, who can fault him for that? We all have to work.”
Ari’s cell dinged, and she seized it from the desktop without a second’s hesitation.
“The grab of hope,” Gussie teased.
“Oh, yeah,” Willow agreed. “She thinks it’s him.”
She flattened them both with a look, even though, damn it, they were absolutely right.
But it wasn’t Luke’s name on the text screen. The message was from Dr. David Marksman from Mound House.
Can you come out here tomorrow? Must talk. Very important.
She tapped a response into her phone, then turned to focus on sending an e-mail to the address in the classified ad in the local paper. But that was another dead end, she discovered, seconds after sending it. The e-mail of the person looking for the pearl necklace was no longer active.
A strange zing traveled up her back, like a telegram from the universe. Something wasn’t right.
* * *
Luke let his head fall back on the leather headrest of the limo, grateful that Cutter Valentine had the foresight to have a car and driver at the ready after their dinner. Had Cutter been that huge a drinker in high school?
After more than ten years in the Legion, Luke could hold his liquor. Hell, getting stupid drunk was actually considered part of active duty in the Legion, and Luke had done his part in many hellhole bars around the world.
Maybe Cutter just had better whiskey. Whatever, Luke was definitely well past mellow and into toasted as he sat alone in the limo, headed south to Gussie’s apartment.
Where Arielle would be sleeping one short flight of stairs above him.
Just the thought of her in bed fired his body with a gallon of blood, making him shift uncomfortably against the luxurious leather.
He was not going to show up at her door half-drunk and hard up. No way. Fighting the idea for the rest of the ride, he thanked the driver and made his way to the back stairs that led up to Gussie’s apartment, the buzz in his head still pleasant enough to slow his step and let him take a minute to appreciate the nearly full moon spilling light and shadows over Mimosa Key. Along the walkway, he sniffed some honeysuckle, a smell he usually found cloying, but tonight it seemed…intoxicating.
Or he was intoxicated.
He plucked a few white flowers and stuck them under his nose as he headed up the stairs, unable to stop himself from looking up to the third floor to see if there were any lights on. Because they could talk…
Like hell they’d talk. He’d have his hands up her shirt and down her pants in ten minutes, and she’d hate that.
Except she didn’t hate it on the hill this afternoon. And they’d been interrupted, so maybe…
He closed his eyes and almost swayed, more from the memory of her bare breasts in the gleaming sun than the top-shelf whiskey Cutter had been sharing.
At Gussie’s door, he was about to knock or reach under the mat for the key, like she’d been leaving it since he arrived. But then he spied a little sticky note on the door handle. He ripped it off and turned toward the moonlight to read it.
Gone to Tom’s. Left my key at hardware store to get one made for you. Ari has a spare.
With a damn winky face. Evil little thing—as if she didn’t know exactly what she was doing. As if you had to leave a key overnight to get a duplicate. He knew Gussie.
All those questions she’d asked him before he left for dinner, all the insinuations that he might be “the one” for her best friend.
Huffing out a breath, he started up the stairs, trying to decide if he loved his sister for this or might have to kill her. Either way, this was not a booty call. Not a booty call. Not a booty call.
Not. A. Boo—
The door whipped opened before he knocked, sending him back a shaky step. “It’s about time.”
He opened his mouth to speak, but nothing came out, because her eyes were hooded, her hair messy, and she wore nothing but a longish T-shirt, her legs bare.
Oh, shit. Maybe it was a booty call.
“I’ve been asleep for two hours, Luke.”
“Sorry, I…” He had to touch her hair. Had to. Lifting his hand, he grazed a few strands before she jerked back.
“Here.” She held a key out. “This is what you want, right?”
No, he wanted to push her up against the wall, rip that shirt off, and make love until they both howled and cried and couldn’t see straight anymore. “Yep, key.”
She searched his face again, as if trying to gauge how drunk he was. Pretty drunk, but he’d faced worse scrutiny from a CO after a bender. He met her gaze and didn’t flinch.
“Gussie could have put it under the doormat,” she said. “But I think she thought she was being oh-so-sly getting you up here.”
Arielle could have put it under the doormat, too. But she hadn’t.
“That’s my Auggie. Sly.” His hands hurt, like always, dying to get into her hair. And his chest ached, and every cell in his body—even the ones that had been numbed by Jameson’s—started to do the whole tingle thing they always did when she was around. “Booze didn’t kill it,” he murmured, almost shaking his head in disgust.
“Good to know. I’d considered trying that, but…I’m not that much of a drinker.”
“You know what I’m talking about?”
She laughed easily. “Of course I do, Luke.”
“Damn.” He put his hand on the doorjamb, not asking to come in, not even getting any closer, but still…there. “You’re good. A regular mind reader.”
“I told you I’m nothing of the sort.” She crossed her arms and looked up at him. “If you think you’re coming in here, you’re wrong.”
“It’s not a booty call,” he said, the words still a little singsong in his head.
“No kidding.”
“It’s not even a ‘good night, I’ll see you tomorrow’ call.”
“I know that.”
He inched closer. “But can I kiss you?”
She leaned right into him. “No.”
“’Cause you think I’m drunk?”
She didn’t answer right away, but held his gaze. “If I kiss you, Luke McBain, you know exactly what’s going to happen.”
Everything. “Why don’t you tell me?”
Very slowly, a smile tipped her lips as she lifted her hand and put one finger on his chest. He braced for the nudge backward, ready for her to give him an easy shove out the door. But instead, she started drawing a slow, slow line down.
“We’d kiss for twenty seconds, and you’d be up my T-shirt.”
Exactly what he’d been thinking. How did she do that?
Her finger traveled an inch lower. “Then you’d walk me backwards into my apartment, and we might make it as far as the sofa.” She made a little circle over one of his ab muscles. Then another circle. Then another.
Every circle made him a little…bit…harder. “And then?” he croaked.
&nb
sp; “Then I’d probably start dragging your pants off, because I’m kind of tired of imagining what’s in there.”
She was…imagining? Her imagination made him grow two inches.
“And then…you know.”
“No.” But, holy hell, he wanted to know. Had to know. “What?”
By now her finger was over the top of his zipper. A hair’s breadth from his engorged cock.
“I’d probably want to…put you in my mouth.”
His knees practically gave way. “In your…” His voice sounded like sandpaper. Desperate, anxious, horny sandpaper. “Mouth.” Please. He swallowed against his desert throat, not wanting to beg. At least not yet.
“And then…” Her finger pressed on the head of his dick, and he almost exploded at the pressure.
“Then?” He fought the need to rock into her, to kiss her quiet, and get this scene she was describing underway.
“Then…you tell me. Are you leaving? Are you staying? Are you scared? Are you ready? Can you handle it, Luke McBain?”
“Hell yes, I can handle it.”
“You can handle sex, I have no doubt.” She opened her hand and pressed it against his erection. “But what if it’s more than that? What if you really are The One?”
He didn’t answer, staring at her, no blood in his brain, no sense in his heart, nothing but her hand and her question and her right to know.
“And what if…” She continued, stroking over his pants, slowly. So, so slowly. “What if I am The One for you?”
Everything froze. Her hand. His heart. His cock. And time…that stood still, too, while she waited for an answer.
An answer he didn’t have.
She moved her hand away, torturing him with the sudden loss of pressure. “When you’re ready to answer that question, I’m ready to make love to you.” She stepped back into the shadow of her apartment and closed the door in his face.
No, it was not a booty call. It was a call to action…but was he man enough to accept it?
Chapter Twenty
Montgomery Land Technical Services couldn’t have been more different from GeoTech. The company was housed in a ten-story office building in Naples, with a clean and spacious reception area decorated with sleek works of art and a professionally dressed receptionist who offered Luke a cup of coffee while he waited to meet with Sam Montgomery, the VP of engineering he’d been e-mailing about his samples.
Sipping the hot brew to work off the remnants of a hangover and a very uncomfortable night of cold showers and hot thoughts, Luke picked up a geotechnical trade publication and flipped through the pages, but the articles and ads faded as he pondered Ari’s question over and over again.
What if I am The One for you?
What if he didn’t believe in that shit, he thought, letting his throbbing headache answer for him.
But what if she was? What if there was something to her crazy, woo-woo intuition? Then shouldn’t he know for sure?
“Mr. McBain?” A tall, blond woman in a form-fitting gray suit approached him, her heels snapping against the polished oak floor, her hand extended in a warm greeting. “Sorry to keep you waiting. I’m Sam Montgomery.”
Really. He set the magazine down and stood to greet her, taking in exquisite cheekbones carved under smoky blue eyes, deep-red lipstick, and the wink of a sizable diamond floating over the hollow of her throat.
Holy fracking shit. It was like Cerisse had come back to life and shown up at an engineering firm in Florida. He swallowed hard, the banging in his head like a steel rod against a lead pipe.
She gave him an easy smile as she must have read his surprise. “My father is the other Sam Montgomery,” she said with the slightest Southern drawl. “I mean, if you were expecting someone more seasoned. And male.”
He laughed softly. “Not at all. You look like…someone I know.”
Her smile said she wasn’t buying it, but with a smooth gesture, she ushered him through an etched-glass door that led back to the offices. She wasn’t quite as tall as the woman he’d once guarded—and loved—and her hair wasn’t the same natural color of wheat in the sun. But this lady certainly reminded him of Cerisse, and looking at her brought up a million unhappy memories.
Her laugh, her eyes, her look of sheer shock when the bullet—
“I feel like this analysis took longer than it should have since you paid for a rush,” the woman said.
“Not at all,” he replied, forcing himself to think of the business at hand and not the coincidence that the engineer was a dead ringer for his ex-lover. “But I am anxious to see the results.”
She turned and gave him an unreadable look, her expression so much like Cerisse’s he almost stumbled. What a coincidence. Except…was there any such thing as a coincidence? Was this the universe sending a message to him?
The universe. Good God, he was turning into Arielle.
“It was a small sample but not quite an easy job. We worked all weekend.” She gestured toward a sun-washed conference room, where several files spread across the center table, along with a sleek laptop and the bag of shells he’d left to be analyzed.
“But the results are fascinating,” she added as she took a seat and indicated he should do the same. “How did you manage to gather such an eclectic mix of soil and shells?”
“I didn’t gather it, exactly,” he said, glancing at the files and the brightly colored computer-generated images on the screen. “The original core sampling was done by GeoTech, hired by the previous general contractor.”
“Ahh,” she nodded knowingly. “We’ve had to step in on those cases before.” She gave an apologetic tilt to her head. “I mean no disrespect to the firm, but they are not as thorough as some of our clients would like, though I understand their prices are quite, well, competitive.”
In other words, the work by Ken Waggoner’s shop was of piss-poor quality and cheap.
She waved a hand toward the computer. “So it’s very smart of you to spend the money for a second opinion and to use our thermal dyna analysis technique, which I am fairly certain GeoTech has not incorporated into their systems yet.”
He smiled, thinking of the warehouse, and Michelle, smoking up a storm around the samples. They didn’t have thermal anything. “Not yet,” he agreed.
Her eyes twinkled with shared humor and no small amount of flirtation. Which only made him feel a little sicker than yesterday’s whiskey.
“But since they ran the core sampling and know exactly where this source material came from, I have no doubt they were able to find out how interesting this particular sample really is from a geotechnical standpoint.” A little color rose in her cheeks as she held his gaze, direct and warm. “Which, I’m going to admit, turns me on. But I’m just your average geotech geek.”
She wasn’t average anything, and she knew it. Standing to open one of the files, she leaned down, affording him the slightest glimpse of her cleavage. He took a millisecond to appreciate the view, then looked down at the file, surprised at how little interest he had in checking the woman out.
And not because she reminded him of Cerisse. He simply wasn’t interested. He wanted…someone else. And, hell, someone else was all he wanted.
Why didn’t he have the nerve to tell her that last night?
“I guess I misunderstood when I got the assignment, though,” she said, yanking him back to the moment. “I was under the impression this land was in Florida, in Mimosa Key, right off the coast here.”
“That’s exactly where it’s from.”
A frown tugged at her pale brows as she glanced at a file, then back up at him. “Then are you certain these were properly logged at the GeoTech lab?”
The trailer lab? Michelle had handed him the bag right out of a bin at GeoTech. Could it have been something from the wrong job? Misfiled? Mislabeled? Misplaced? All of the above were possible at that place. “Why don’t you tell me what you found?”
She turned the computer so he could see the screen. “These are sh
ells, every one of them from the East Coast of the United States.”
“That’s good.”
She gave him a questioning look. “How’s that?”
“I want this to be a shell mound,” he said honestly. “Anything else and I might have some environmental issues. You are certain that nothing in this sample could be”—he had to say it—“bones?”
“One hundred percent certain,” she said, unfazed by the idea. “We can immediately recognize the difference in the molecular structure and by the calcium carbonate deposits. These are seashells, but they did not come from Mimosa Key.”
“How can you tell?”
“The computer analyzes shell consistency and a number of geographical ‘fingerprints,’ if you will, such as the residue of water, the amount of salt, and the dirt included, and of course currents and general shapes of the shells.”
“I realize dirt can be different from various parts of the world, but shells?”
“Oh, shells are like little GPS trackers in the sand everywhere,” she told him. “Again, calcium, water deposits, even the organic parameters of the exoskeletons tell us where the tiniest shell came from.”
Organic parameters of exoskeletons were making his headache worse. He indicated the computer. “So what did you find?”
“That the farthest south this sample could have come from is Maryland.”
“You’re sure?”
“Absolutely. What’s more interesting is that this sample included shells from Canada and Maine and quite a few from the New England coast. It was a veritable geographic potpourri.”
And none of it had come from Mimosa Key, Florida. Damn it.
He leaned back, trying to digest this information. Either GeoTech made a mistake and he had to go back and get another sample, or he needed to order a whole new core sampling.
“How long would it take to get you guys out there to do the whole job over again?”
“Oh, not long at all.” Her eyebrows flicked with interest, making him wonder if it wasn’t only rocks and shells that turned on Sam Montgomery. Maybe the owner’s daughter got a commission for new business, too.
And maybe that’s why he was getting a song and dance about shells from Maine and Maryland.