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Go up to her old room? Or was it better to get out of this house, where she already felt spooked?
Luke Buckley was living in Cypress Cottage. But there were two others on the grounds. Water Iris was the closest. She’d feel more secure spending the night over there than here.
Wishing she could see what she was doing, she fumbled through another drawer and found the wad of spare keys that Mom kept. In the dark, she couldn’t even be sure they were the right ones, but that was the best she could do at the moment.
After slipping the set into her purse, she headed for the back door. On the porch, she looked toward the cottages, barely making out their shapes in the darkness. Water Iris was on the extreme right. Cypress was on the left. And Crepe Myrtle was between them. That would put some space between her and Buckley.
All were blacked out, and she couldn’t even discern the shape of a car parked in front of Cypress. Maybe Luke Buckley was away. Or sitting in the dark plotting murder? He’d taken care of the mother, and now he would finish off the daughter.
Acknowledging that her fears were making it difficult to think rationally, she descended the steps, then headed across the yard to the cottage. It hadn’t started raining yet, but the wind was blowing the trees, sending leaves flying across the lawn.
In Gabriella’s long ago memories, the grass had been well tended by a gardening company that did yard work in town. Mom had given up that service after Dad had died. For a few years, she’d tried to keep up the grounds around the house herself. But that had gone by the wayside, too, and now the grass was choked by weeds and needed mowing. She stumbled several times into what had formerly been flower beds, then finally made it to the cottages. But as she approached Water Iris, she had the sensation that someone was stalking her—like they’d been stalking Mom.
She started running, but before she’d gotten more than a few yards, a figure sprang out of the darkness at the side of Crepe Myrtle, grabbing her and pulling her to the ground.
A scream rose in her throat. Before it reached her lips, it choked off as large hands grabbed her throat. A man’s hands.
At his touch, a confusing welter of impressions and sensations assaulted her.
Chapter Three
In a blinding instant, Luke Buckley knew he had made a terrible mistake. In the darkness, he’d seen a shadowy figure sneaking across the lawn and been sure it was a Mafia hitman sent to murder him.
Instead, it was Gabriella Boudreaux, who had as much right to be here as he did.
But he hadn’t known who she was until he’d pulled her to the ground. He loosened his hands from her neck, intending to let her go and apologize.
Except that he couldn’t take his hands off her. And he couldn’t put any coherent words together. Not yet. Because in the moment of grabbing on to her, something strange happened. Her mind had opened to him in a way that knocked the breath from his lungs and made his heart start to pound.
At least he was able to open his fingers and make the hands that had gripped her neck move to her shoulders.
“Sorry,” he managed to whisper. Or had he even spoken the apology aloud?
His head swam as her memories leaped into his mind.
He saw her as a little girl being scolded for making a mess in the kitchen by a younger version of the woman who had rented him the Cypress Cottage. He saw her in high school squirming away when a boy crowded her into her open locker and tried to corner her there. Wandering alone into the bayou and sitting on a fallen log to get away from a town where she had never felt comfortable. Then later, more satisfied with her life, taking culinary courses and icing a chocolate cake.
Overlaying it all were the most recent, sharpest memory and the emotions swirling around it. Her coming home to discover that her mother was dead.
He cursed under his breath, feeling her pain and also her confusion at what was happening between them now.
As her memories assaulted him, his own memories were streaming into her mind. Especially one particularly vivid scene.
The reason why he was on the run.
Three months ago, he’d been at his computer, working on the book that had gotten him into so much trouble.
He’d heard a noise and turned to see a man with a gun standing in the doorway of his little office.
“You’re finished with that writing project,” the man growled. “Get up.”
Luke got up slowly, reaching under his desk for the fire extinguisher he kept there. As he straightened, he pulled the trigger, spraying the man in the face. The guy choked and clawed at his eyes. Luke lunged forward and clunked the heavy canister down on the man’s skull.
When the assailant went still, Luke reached for the phone cord and used it to tie the man’s hands behind his back. Then he wound packing tape around his ankles and reinforced the phone cord with more tape.
By the time the guy’s eyes blinked open, Luke was holding the gun.
“Rudy Maglioni sent you?” he growled.
The assailant sneered. “Like I’m going to tell you.”
“What happens when you have to go back to him and explain that you failed? Or will you have to skip town?”
The only answer was a string of curses.
Luke grabbed the man’s hair, yanking his head up and using more masking tape to gag him. His heart was pounding, but he began methodically gathering up the papers on his desk.
He unplugged his laptop, took an already packed duffel bag from the closet and walked out of the room, forcing himself not to run when he wanted to dash to his car.
His attention was brought back to the present as he heard Gabriella gasp.
With the memories—his and hers—came physical sensations that walked a line between pain and pleasure. He scrambled to explain it to himself and could come up with nothing beyond the violence of the encounter.
“Gabriella.”
In the darkness, he couldn’t see her face, but he didn’t need sight to know what she looked like. Dark-blond hair cut short. Light eyes. A delicate nose. Tempting lips that drew him with an intensity he had never felt before—much less imagined. He lowered his head, and as his mouth touched hers, he was caught by a blaze of need that radiated to every cell of his body.
They had just met. Met? Not exactly. In his haste to protect himself from another mob attack, he had struck first without knowing who she was.
Yet they’d gone from strangers to intimates in seconds. Without understanding why it had happened, he wanted her. Right here. Right now. Out in the open.
And she wanted him. He knew it by the way her lips moved over his and by the desire reverberating through her mind. Those signals were as clear to him as their shared memories.
He gathered her close, rocking on the weedy grass, frustrated by the layers of clothing separating them. He wanted her naked. In a bed. This would have to do.
Those heated thoughts and the pain pounding through his brain almost wiped out his ability to think, but not quite. Somewhere in his consciousness, he understood that what they were doing was dangerous. That knowledge was as sharp and insistent as the desire binding them together. And the pain in his head.
And she understood, too. He felt her wrench her mouth away, felt her push at his shoulder to free herself.
“No,” she gasped. “We can’t.”
Strange as it sounded, in that frantic moment, he knew he had come close to having his brain explode.
Oh, come on!
Even as he dismissed that notion, he rolled away from her, panting, his head spinning. Still, he was as aware of her as he was of himself. He heard her breath coming fast and sharp. Felt the beating of her heart, although that should be impossible.
He couldn’t label what had happened. Not the psychic … exchange of information. Or the swell of desire. Or the conviction that they skated on the edge of disaster.
Not yet. Maybe never. He was too shaken by the whole encounter. And the worst part was that he knew what she always struggled to conceal—how alone she felt. And she knew the same thing about him.
Both of them had learned to bury that innermost truth but not when someone had invaded your mind.
Invasion? Was that the right word? What the hell had happened?
She broke into his thoughts, speaking in a shaky voice.
“Luke Buckley,” she said. They were meeting for the first time, but she knew his name. “The man who rented Cypress Cottage.”
“Yes,” he answered, knowing her mom could have told her that much. But that didn’t account for her absolute conviction that it was him.
And, unfortunately, she zeroed in on a fact that he needed to keep hidden. “That’s not your real name. You’re …”
“Don’t say it.”
“Why?”
“You know why.”
He clenched his teeth. The whole situation was so damned weird that he wanted to shout a string of curses, if that wouldn’t have made things worse.
This wasn’t the way he would have wanted to meet anyone. Particularly not this woman who—what? Who had connected with him in ways that he still could hardly believe.
He heard himself say, “We have to talk.”
He was sure she wanted to refuse, for a whole host of reasons, starting with the way he’d thrown her to the ground, but she answered with a small sound that signaled acquiescence.
The wind had picked up, and a few fat drops of rain began to fall.
“We’d better get inside before it starts to pour. Come to my cottage.”
She dragged in a breath. “You’ve got to be kidding. You just attacked me on my own property.”
“And you know why,” he said again.
He understood she was still making up her mind as more drops plopped down.
“You left the plantation house,” he said. “Because you were afraid to be there alone in the dark.”
She didn’t bother denying it or asking how he knew. It was the same way she knew that he’d changed his name when he fled to Lafayette, Louisiana.
“I was going to Water Iris, not to you,” she answered in a strained voice.
“You might as well come to Cypress. I’ve got some battery lights.”
She looked toward his cottage. “They’re not on.”
“They can be.”
Luke waited while Gabriella made up her mind. He knew she had to be going over the scene between them. His throwing her to the ground and fastening his hands around her neck. The opening of their minds to a level of intimacy that should have been impossible. The pressure building inside each of their heads. And the sexual need that had overwhelmed them.
That might turn out to be the final factor that sent her running from him. But perhaps she was pretending it hadn’t happened because she finally said, “All right.”
Wordlessly, he started for Cypress, and she followed a few paces behind him.
FROM THE SHADOWS, George Camden watched and listened, his hands clenched as he cursed the way his excellent plans had just gotten screwed up.
When he’d heard the thunder, he’d thought the storm would give him some cover when he broke into the mansion again so he could grab Gabriella. Then he’d watched her come out of the house and thought, what luck.
He’d been on his way toward her when Luke Buckley had tackled her. There was something strange about him, although George hadn’t figured it out yet. But it looked as if the guy had started to assault her, then changed his mind. Yeah, assault had turned into a pretty heated scene.
He laughed. That was an interesting development.
Too bad the guy had stuck his nose in where it didn’t belong.
But why?
He’d heard them talking. It had been a strange conversation, as if George was only hearing part of it. Which could have been true from the way the wind was howling. Maybe it had carried away words spoken softly, but he had caught that Luke Buckley wasn’t his real name. Interesting.
Did they know each other or not? Part of the time it had sounded as if they did—then not so much.
Or maybe the mom had given the daughter an earful about the renter. Did Mrs. Boudreaux know that the guy was using an alias? Or just the daughter?
As drops of rain hit his head, George narrowed his eyes. He hadn’t signed up for this job to be wet and miserable. However, Gabriella had to come out of the guy’s cottage some time, and when she did, he wanted to be ready.
Lips set in a grim line, he moved cautiously across the lawn, finding a spot under a tree that gave him a little shelter—and where he could still watch the cottage door.
Of course, you weren’t supposed to stand under a tree in a lightning storm, but he’d take a chance on that.
As he huddled in the cold, he played the scene again in his mind. Why had Buckley come out in the first place? Did he suspect someone else was on the property? Or was he just jumpy about something to do with his alias?
One thing was sure: renting a cottage on the plantation had put Luke Buckley in the wrong place at the wrong time—as far as George was concerned. Too bad for him.
LUKE AND GABRIELLA HURRIED onto the porch as the storm finally broke, sending rain pouring down.
“Close call,” he muttered as he opened the door.
When she hung back, he stepped quickly inside and turned on two of the battery-powered lamps that he’d bought after Mrs. Boudreaux had told him the electricity often went out in the middle of a storm.
Gabriella came in after him. As she looked around at the mess he’d made of the living room, he suddenly wished that he hadn’t been so quick to offer the lamps. However, if he hadn’t, she might not have come inside.
He knew she was staring at the epitome of a junked-up bachelor pad. He’d been working, and he’d left papers all over the desk. Books and other research materials were stacked on the coffee and end tables. Sitting on top of them were several plates and glasses that he hadn’t carried to the kitchen area, which was at the side of the room.
Of course, he hadn’t expected company, but still, he should have kept the place a little neater. What if his landlady dropped by?
Well, that wasn’t going to happen, he reminded himself.
He quickly picked up the glasses and plates and ferried them to the sink. Probably he should have hired a maid. But then he’d have to put his papers away. They were confidential, and dangerous, come to that.
