After Caroline Page 7

  Joanna jerked awake with a gasp, her heart pounding. The clock on her nightstand told her it was barely midnight, and she could hear the low wail of the wind outside. It wasn’t raining, she thought, but the forecast had called for storms all night, and it sounded as if they were on their way.

  She sat up, running her fingers through her hair. The dream remained vivid in her mind, and with it a sense of urgency even stronger than the one that had sent her across the country in search of a dead woman.

  “My God, Caroline,” she murmured, “is that what happened? Did you see that poor girl pushed off the cliffs? Is that why you were afraid?”

  There was no answer, except the wind.

  AT FIRST, Holly thought it was a dream. She was floating peacefully, listening to the wind and half-consciously waiting for the storm to arrive. She liked storms and always slept better during a stormy night. Then she felt movement, the bed beneath her shifting heavily, and she rolled onto her back with a little moan of annoyance.

  Something touched her mouth, warm and hard and tasting faintly of coffee. She uttered another little sound, this one filled with pleasure, and decided she liked this dream. Someone was kissing her, only their lips touching, and he was awfully good at it. He aroused and enthralled her, seduced her, until her body felt hot and throbbed with a slow pulse that seemed to originate deep inside her. His mouth brushed hers, teased hers, his teeth nipping gently at her bottom lip, and his tongue enticed skillfully until she pulled her arms from beneath the covers to reach for him.

  Her wrists were caught and held together, gently pinned against the pillow above her head, and Holly would have protested if she could have found the breath for it. His mouth was still moving on hers, possessing hers, and she thought she was going to burn up or explode or just melt into a puddle if he didn’t do something to satisfy the frantic need coiling inside her.

  Then, finally, his hand touched her breast, moving in a slow, lazy circle so that her nightgown offered a silky friction, and she whimpered at the waves of pleasure. As if they had all the time in the world, he kissed her mouth and caressed her breasts. Her back arched as she tried to push herself harder against his tormenting hand, and when he teasingly drew back, Holly moaned his name in frustration.

  “Cain …”

  “I’m glad you know who I am,” he murmured, cupping her breast through her nightgown, his thumb rubbing slowly back and forth across the straining nipple. “I was beginning to think you were going to sleep through this. Open your eyes, Holly.”

  She did, staring up into the dark glitter of his eyes. She made one somewhat weak attempt to free her wrists from his gentle grasp, then forgot about doing anything about that and tried to think straight. “You’re in my room,” she realized.

  “You didn’t lock your terrace door. That’s a bad habit to have, babe, even in a small town.”

  He kissed her again before she could reply to that, and Holly kissed him back hungrily. It seemed like forever since he had touched her this way, and her body demanded his with an all-consuming need she had no power to fight.

  Even so, she heard herself mutter, “You can’t just waltz into my room whenever you feel like it, dammit.”

  “Want me to leave?” he asked politely, finger and thumb pinching her nipple gently.

  Since Holly was convinced his will was equal to anything—even self-denial—she wasn’t about to call his bluff. Fiercely, she said, “If you walk out on me now, I’ll never forgive you!”

  He kissed her, not teasing now, and released her wrists. Before she could grab him, he drew back, pushing the covers off her and looking down at her in the dimness of her bedroom. The only light came from a lamp in the hall that she always left on, and the glow provided just enough illumination for them to see each other.

  Cain had undressed before getting into bed with her, and she wished there was more light so she could really look at him. But memory closed the gap between what she could see and what she touched when she reached out to him. He was hard, flesh smooth and taut over well-defined muscles, and her fingers savored the journey along his arm and shoulder and to his chest.

  Holly knew his body almost as well as she knew her own, but she always felt a sense of discovery when she touched him, as if he was new to her every time they were together.

  “I’m glad you’re here,” she murmured.

  “Are you?” He pushed the narrow strap of her nightgown off one shoulder and pressed his lips there. “I wanted to make you come to me, but…”

  “But?” She pulled her arms free as he pushed the other strap down, and felt the warm slide of silk as he eased the gown to her waist. And she almost forgot the question when he reached out and slowly trailed his long fingers from her collarbone down between her breasts to her navel.

  A low, rough laugh escaped him. “But I knew you wouldn’t come to me, not now, and I couldn’t wait. You’re making me crazy, you know that?” Suddenly impatient, he pulled the gown completely off her, dragging the material from under her before she had time to raise her hips, and threw it aside.

  Holly wanted to deny the accusation, or at least ask him what she was doing to make him crazy, but his mouth was on her, on her throat and her breasts, and the only sound she seemed capable of making was a whimper of raw triumph. He knew just where to touch, how to touch, knew just what her body craved from him, and he gave her what she needed.

  The pleasure washed over her in waves, each one more intense than the last, and when he finally came into her, it seemed to Holly that she had wanted him forever. Her body welcomed him, moved with him in a rapt, rhythmic dance he had taught her. Until Cain, she had never felt the delights her body was capable of, and she wondered if he knew that. Or even if it would matter to him.

  She looked up at him dazedly, her nails digging into his shoulders, wondering, as she always did, why he always watched her with such total absorption, wondering what it was he was so intent on seeing in her face in the naked moment when her pleasure peaked and she cried out in helpless rapture.

  And then it happened, and she forgot everything except the blind, deaf, and dumb delight of her body. With a control that always maddened her, Cain waited for her, delaying his own release until she came back to herself. Only then did he let himself go, climaxing with a hoarse groan of elation.

  It was some time before either of them moved, and then Cain simply rolled so that she sprawled out on top of him. It was a position he enjoyed on the rare occasions when they actually slept together, and since she enjoyed it as well, Holly hadn’t complained.

  Now, summoning the strength to move, she folded her hands on his chest and rested her chin on them. “Spending the night?” she asked.

  “I thought I would. In case you can’t hear it, it’s storming outside.”

  Now that he mentioned it, she did hear thunder rumbling and rain pelting against the bedroom window. It was a restful sound to her, yet though she was completely relaxed, she wasn’t sleepy. “I wouldn’t make you leave even if it wasn’t storming,” she told him.

  “No?”

  “No.” She smiled slowly. “But from now on, I’m locking the terrace door.”

  He chuckled. “So I should wait to be invited, huh?”

  “I have my reputation to consider,” Holly said, solemn. “Living here in the hotel does have its drawbacks, and being under everyone’s eye is one of them.”

  Cain was threading his fingers through her hair, spreading the silky strands over her shoulders and back. “Do you really think there’s anyone in all of Cliffside over the age of twelve who doesn’t suspect we’re lovers?”

  “Probably not. But I refuse to confirm their suspicions.”

  “So I sneak out in the morning?” he asked wryly.

  “Well … you can slip out the terrace door and meet me on the veranda for breakfast. Nobody has to know you didn’t walk over from your place. Did you walk over, by the way?”

  “Yeah.”

  She hesitated, then said,
“I wasn’t sure … I mean, after yesterday, I had the feeling you weren’t liking me very much.”

  A flash of lightning brightened the room for a brief second and lit his eyes like a cat’s in the dark. “I wasn’t,” he told her with a touch of dryness. “Like I said, you’re making me crazy.”

  “Because I have to work for a living?”

  “No. Because you can’t see through Scott McKenna.”

  Holly drew a breath. “See through to what? Cain, Scott’s been nothing but good to me. Never so much as a harsh word. What is it I’m supposed to see?”

  “He’s a taker, Holly. He always has been and he always will be.”

  “A taker? I don’t understand what you mean.” Suddenly uncomfortable, Holly got herself off Cain and pulled the covers up around them.

  Cain didn’t try to stop her, turning on his side and propping his head on a raised hand in order to see her better. “Don’t you? Haven’t you ever noticed that Scott’s life is carefully arranged so that Scott is rarely troubled by anything? You take care of The Inn, Dylan York and Lyssa Maitland take care of most of the other businesses—and you can’t wait to help out poor Scott when they have to be out of town.”

  “Those are our jobs, Cain—”

  “You’re all at his beck and call twenty-four hours a day. He has a housekeeper, maids, and gardeners to run his house. And if you think Caroline wasn’t the only parent in that house, think again. Now that she’s gone, what happens? When Regan is too terrified to get into a car or school bus, does he try to help his kid? Does he even give her a hug, or hold her hand while they’re burying her mother? No. He just hires somebody else, a teacher this time, and expects her or the housekeeper to put their arms around that poor little girl.”

  Holly was too honest to deny the justice of some of what he said, but it didn’t make her very happy to admit that. “All right—say he’s everything you claim he is. But, Cain, I still work for the man. And it’s … upsetting that you’re always so hostile toward him.”

  After a moment of silence, Cain reached over and cupped her cheek. “I’ll make a deal with you, babe. You do just the job he hired you to do, and I’ll keep my mouth shut about him.”

  “Just the job—”

  “You’re the manager of The Inn—and that’s a full-time job. You weren’t hired to wrangle contractors and suppliers for the clinic’s new wing, or run over and water the plants in the nursery, or handle problems at the lumber mill when that manager’s out sick. You were hired to run this hotel. So run it. And the next time poor Scott calls asking you to enter data in his computer because he never learned how to type, suggest he hire a temp to do it. Or a full-time secretary; he seems to need one.”

  Holly chewed on her bottom lip. “Lyssa and Dylan should be back within a few days, so things will get better—”

  “That isn’t the deal, Holly.”

  “Don’t back me into a corner, dammit!”

  Cain shook his head. “Jesus, you’re a stubborn woman. Look, all I’m asking for is a compromise. Things keep going the way they have been, and we see each other maybe once a week; at least if you cut back to only one job, we might be able to spend a little time together.”

  “I want that. But—”

  “But what? I’m willing to make some time for us. My next show isn’t until the spring, and I do most of my painting during the day while you’re running this place. That leaves us evenings and weekends—if you’re willing to set aside that time.” He looked at her steadily. “Are we worth that much?”

  Holly had known all along that she would cave in; this was the first time in the eight months since they had become lovers that Cain had shown any desire to have more of a relationship than being occasional bedmates and lunch dates, and she couldn’t even pretend that didn’t matter to her.

  “Holly?”

  She nodded quickly. “All right. From now on, I promise to try my best to do only the job Scott hired me to do, and not be at his beck and call. Good enough?”

  For an answer, he leaned over and kissed her, then settled back on his pillow and pulled her into his arms. “Notice I’m not crowing in triumph,” he observed.

  “Wise of you,” she remarked, cuddling up to his side. “There’s nothing worse than a man who crows when he gets his way.”

  Cain chuckled.

  She closed her eyes and listened to his heart beating beneath her ear. But when he spoke again in an almost idle tone, it chased away the first tendrils of sleep that had crept over her.

  “You haven’t mentioned Joanna Flynn. Does she really look as much like Caroline as people have been telling me all day?”

  Holly made her own voice matter-of-fact. “Amazingly like her. Blond hair and yellowish eyes, and a Southern accent you could cut with a knife, but fix the coloring and she’d be Caroline’s twin.”

  “Mmm. Well, I’m sure I’ll run into her sometime.”

  “I imagine so.” Holly was silent for a long moment, then said, “Cain? Why have you never painted me?”

  As if he’d been waiting for that question, Cain answered it immediately, his tone light. “I don’t know enough about you yet, babe.”

  “Oh.” Holly said nothing more, but long after Cain’s even breathing told her he was asleep, she lay awake and listened to the storm that continued to rumble outside. And the thoughts chased themselves through her mind until she wanted to scream aloud to relieve some of the pressure inside her.

  She wanted to believe that Cain’s hostility toward Scott was, as he said, anger because the other man took advantage of her. She really wanted to believe that. But she was very much afraid that it simply wasn’t true. She was very much afraid that the woman the two men had in common was not her—but Caroline.

  Cain didn’t know it, but hardly more than a week after Caroline’s death, Holly had gone to his house to see him. He hadn’t been at home, but she had looked into his studio through the window, and had seen, for the first and only time, a portrait of Caroline.

  He had, it seemed, known enough about her.

  The storms had spent all their fury by Thursday morning, and Joanna ventured out after having breakfast in her room to find the sun shining. She stood at the edge of the veranda, breathing in the clean scent of the breeze and staring out past the cliffs at the ocean. It was a beautiful sight, a beautiful day, but she couldn’t summon much enthusiasm for either.

  She had slept only fitfully during the night, and though she had dreamed again after finally going back to sleep, it had not been of a woman pushed from the cliffs. No, she had dreamed the same dream that had driven her here in the first place, of the house and the cliffs and carousel horse, and roses and a painting, and a paper airplane. A clock had ticked loudly through it all, and a child had sobbed miserably. Only the signpost had been missing, but Joanna supposed that made sense. She was here, after all, and no longer needed a signpost as guide.

  As always, the dream left her restless and anxious, so to her, the day felt overcast rather than sunny, and the pounding of the surf against the rocks seemed to throb in her ears uncomfortably. She wanted to back away from that sensation and to put some distance between herself and those dangerous cliffs. She wanted to do something.

  She was tempted to return to the library and finish going through back editions of the local newspaper. She had been reading an interesting bit about how Scott McKenna had started a greenhouse business locally, supposedly because his wife loved flowers so much, when the good sheriff had interrupted her, and so she hadn’t copied that part. And she definitely wanted to look back—when had Griffin said? Four or five months ago?—and find out all she could about the poor woman who had fallen (been pushed?) from the cliffs.

  But she didn’t want to go back to the library so soon, not when Griffin could, apparently, look out his office window and see her. Spending a rainy afternoon in the library was one thing—a bright sunny day was another thing entirely.

  After a moment’s thought, Joanna nodded to herself
. Shopping, of course. Tourists always shopped. So she’d just stroll into town and see what all the stores had to offer. And talk to people.

  Griffin’s warning aside—and damn the man for assuming she had the sensitivity of a stone!—Joanna had no intention of asking direct questions about Caroline, not unless whoever she was talking to brought up the subject first. Which most anyone was likely to do, given the resemblance, of course. Still, she was unlikely to cause anyone pain by talking about a subject they brought up themselves.

  “Well, it’s about time you—”

  Joanna turned around, surprised, to encounter Holly’s surprise.

  “Oh, sorry. You know, I hate to tell you this, Joanna, but not only do you look like Caroline from the front, you look like Amber from behind.”

  “Amber? You mean that girl who runs around here in shorts?”

  “That’s her. I was going to tell her it was about time she packed away her shorts—only it was you.”

  “She has to be ten years younger than me,” Joanna objected. “And you can’t possibly believe I move like her. Please say you don’t believe that.”

  Holly chuckled. “No, no. It’s just that your hair is the same shade and length, and you have the same build. She’s probably at least a couple of inches shorter, but with the heels, who can be sure?”

  Joanna sighed. “That’s all I need, to look like somebody else. Is there a hairstyling salon around here? Maybe I could dye my hair flaming red.”

  Holly laughed again. “Don’t do anything rash.”

  “Oh, I won’t. I’m a very prudent woman, not given to doing rash things.” Except flying three thousand miles to get to know a dead woman …

  “Another lesson from Aunt Sarah?” Holly asked curiously.

  It was Joanna’s turn to chuckle. “One of many. Always think things through—and sit up straight, and get your elbows off the table.”