Where the Heart Is by Elizabeth Lowell
The flat statement surprised Shelley into silence.
“I meant what I said,” he continued. “You’ll have to know me better before you can make an accurate assessment of what will or won’t please me. Making a home is an . . . intimate . . . process.”
“Not that intimate.”
He smiled slightly. “I’ll behave, mink. I promise. It will be business and only business, unless you say otherwise.”
“Mink?”
“Soft and wild,” he explained. “Mink.”
“Is this your idea of business?”
“Am I touching you?”
“No, but you’re reaching me!”
His laughter was no comfort to her ruffled nerves.
“And you’re learning about me, aren’t you?” he asked. “That’s business.” His grin was a clean curve of white beneath his golden-brown mustache. “I’ll pick you up at seven.”
Bemused, she stood and watched him walk out of The Gilded Lily and mount the black bike. Even through the thick glass of the store windows, the motorcycle’s primal roar made her shiver.
Not with distaste, she admitted silently. Like the man, the motorcycle doesn’t try to conceal what it is and is not. It definitely isn’t civilized.
The insight didn’t worry her nearly as much as it should have. Cain’s gentle caresses were still fizzing through her blood.
“Awful machine,” said JoLynn’s breathy voice next to Shelley’s ear. “But the man is something else.”
“They’re one and the same. Uncivilized.”
“Like you, Shelley,” Brian said, coming up behind them.
“Me?” She glanced in surprise toward her partner.
“Darling,” JoLynn drawled, “no civilized woman would hold a slimy snake.”
“Darling,” Shelley said, “fish are slimy. Snakes are not.”
JoLynn shuddered.
Shelley smiled. It wasn’t a friendly gesture.
Brian cleared his throat.
“Uh, Shelley, why don’t you have JoLynn show you what she found in the catalogs?” he suggested.
“Only if she has washed her hands since she touched that snake,” JoLynn said harshly.
Shelley looked down at her clean hands and counted to ten.
It wasn’t high enough.
“I haven’t washed my hands since I touched Cain,” she said very clearly, “and he felt just like Squeeze. Strong and warm and hard. Very, very hard.” She looked at JoLynn with wide, innocent eyes. “Do you think I should wash after touching Cain?”
The other woman made a strangled sound.
“You’re right,” Shelley said agreeably. “I should. Few men are as clean as a snake.”
Chapter Six
Even hours later, as she dressed for dinner with Cain, the memory of JoLynn’s expression made Shelley’s mouth curve in a smile that wasn’t a bit civilized. It had taken Brian a few minutes to soothe the beautiful client into a businesslike frame of mind. By the time Shelley returned from the washroom—vigorously drying her hands on a paper towel—JoLynn had been calmed down enough to point out the items in the shop that she wanted to rent for her own house.
Predictably, she chose nothing that hadn’t been displayed in a famous museum somewhere in the world.
Shaking her head at the limited tastes of some clients, Shelley went to her closet. While she looked at various clothes, she stuffed camping gear back into place. She soon discovered that bringing a small amount of order to her bedroom was easier than deciding what she should wear.
“You would think that he’d tell me where we’re going to eat,” she complained to Nudge.
The cat flicked an ear toward Shelley, but didn’t look away from Squeeze’s glass house high in the bookcase.
“Or whether we’re taking the motorcycle again. But no, that would make things too easy on me, right?”
This time Nudge didn’t even twitch an ear.
“Well, I guess this calls for my all-purpose, what-in-hell-am-I-going-to-wear slacks.”
She pulled out a pair of black slacks and looked them over critically. The roughly woven silk was strong enough to take a motorcycle ride, understated enough to eat hamburgers in, and elegant enough for a fancy restaurant if it came to that.
“They’re even clean—as long as I stay away from shedding cats that are the size of a small pony.”
Nudge looked at Squeeze.
Shelley pulled out a summer-weight wine silk sweater that met the same all-purpose requirements as the pants. Ditto for a necklace of tiny carved jet and amethyst beads. Black high-heeled sandals completed her outfit.
After she dressed, she automatically began pulling her hair into a smooth knot at the base of her neck. Then she remembered the motorcycle.
“If I have to wear the helmet, the knot won’t work. Why didn’t you remind me, Nudge?”
The cat ignored her.
After a moment of hesitation, she sectioned off her hair for a sleek French braid. Instead of wearing the beads around her neck, she wove the glittering jewelry into her hair. When she was finished, her hairstyle matched her clothes, understated yet elegant enough for anything short of a black-tie dinner.
The sound of chimes drifted down from the upper level. Nudge sprang to her feet and darted out the door toward the front of the house.
“Some guard cat you are,” Shelley muttered. “An army could camp on the steps and you wouldn’t look away from Squeeze until they blew reveille in your hairy ear.”
She crossed the room to the intercom and pressed a button. “Yes?”
“Glad to find you in such an agreeable mood.”
“Dream on.”
But she was smiling. Cain’s deep voice was unmistakable even after being filtered through the intercom. She pushed another button, releasing the electronic lock on the front door.
“Come on in. I’ll be right up.”
She grabbed a deep maroon summer jacket and ran lightly up the two flights of stairs. She found him only a step or two inside the front door. He was squatting on his heels, rubbing strong fingers down Nudge’s back.
The cat arched and preened in the manner of all felines no matter what their size. Her purr sounded like a very large hummingbird on overdrive.
Smiling, he stood up after a final lingering stroke. Nudge bumped her head against his knee, demanding more petting. He laughed softly.
“If you say ‘Just like a woman,’ ” Shelley warned, “I’m going to sic Squeeze on you.”
His mustache shifted slightly as he tried not to smile.
She watched each subtle movement of his mouth, realizing all over again what beautifully formed lips he had. Neither too blunt nor too thin, the shape of his mouth would have done credit to Michelangelo.
The elemental temptation of Cain’s mouth shouldn’t have fit with the unyielding planes of his face or the thick, uncompromising pelt of his hair, yet it did. She decided it was the lively intelligence in his gray eyes that drew everything together, balancing the sensuality of his lips with the angular lines of his face.
“Is my mustache on crooked?” he asked with a lazy smile.
Abruptly Shelley realized that she had been staring at him as though he were a piece of art she was considering acquiring.
“Sorry,” she said. “You have an unusual face.”
“Unusual?” He laughed briefly. “Is that a polite way of saying ugly?”
Startled, she said the first thing that came to her mind. “Good God, the last word I’d use to describe you is ugly. You have the most beautiful mouth I’ve ever seen on anyone, man or woman.”
It was Cain’s turn to be startled. His eyes widened as he realized that she wasn’t being coy or flattering. She had told him the truth as she saw it.
“Thank you,” he said simply.
Then he smiled again. It was a slow, dangerous invitation that sent warnings down to Shelley’s very feminine core.
“I’d tell you what I thought of your mouth,” he said, “but yo
She didn’t disagree.
“So I’ll show you instead.”
With no more warning than that, he gathered her into his arms and lowered his mouth over hers. He fitted his lips to hers exactly, gently, and then the tip of his tongue traced her mouth in a caress that told her more about the beauty of her lips than any compliment could have.
She felt the tremor of desire that went through him, heard the deep sound of hunger he made when his tongue probed the moist warmth of her inner lips. She forgot all the bitter lessons she had learned from her ex-husband, forgot how little she had to offer a man sexually, forgot everything but the glittering wonder of wanting a man and being wanted in turn.
Dangerous, she reminded herself even as her heartbeat quickened. So dangerous.
And so tempting.
“Cain—”
Her voice was more husky than protesting, though she hadn’t meant it to sound that way. He heard the difference and took advantage of her parted lips to slide his tongue inside, expanding the kiss.
Slowly he sampled every texture in her mouth from the tiny, sharp serration of her teeth to the slight, sensual roughness of her tongue and the creamy softness of her inner lips. Though he knew he should stop before he frightened her, the taste and feel of her were too good to give up.
The kiss deepened until he filled her mouth completely. The world shrank to the slow, rhythmic movements of his tongue sliding over hers, the heat of her body flowing over his, her softness fitting against his strength as perfectly as his mouth fit over hers.
He felt the tremor that took her, heard a sound come from deep in her throat, a cry that was balanced on the razor edge of fear and desire. Reluctantly he lifted his mouth. Yet even as he spoke, he dipped his head between words for small, brushing tastes of her mouth.
“Before you yell at me for being unbusinesslike,” he said, “think how much you just learned about me.”
Shelley took a ragged breath and tried to put the world back in its proper, safe place. It wasn’t easy. Her thoughts kept scattering with each caress. The taste and feel and scent of him filled her senses.
And he was right. The kiss had told her a lot about him. He was a man of shattering sensuality.
Physically, kissing Cain was more intimate and exciting than anything she had discovered in or out of marriage. Mentally, kissing him was a kind of sharing that was like nothing in her experience.
He had given himself to the kiss with a completeness that first surprised and then set fire to her. Yet he had been so restrained in his demands on her that she hadn’t felt either crowded or angry at the intimacy.
And despite his gentleness, he was more than strong enough to support her weight when her body had decided to turn into warm honey and flow all over him.
“We better get out of here before I forget my manners,” he said huskily.
She heard the question lying just beneath his words. Sanity returned.
“Will I need the helmet?” she asked.
Her voice was as husky as his. The sound of it visibly tightened his body.
“No. I brought my car.”
“I’ll get my purse.”
In silence she followed him to the classic black Jaguar parked in the driveway. The car’s sinuous lines appealed to her in much the way the man himself did. Both were restrained without being at all tame.
Though decades old, the engine started at the first turn of the key. The sound the car made was a well-tuned, throaty growl. She climbed in, ran appreciative fingertips over the leather-covered seat, and clicked the safety belt into place.
Under the guidance of his big hands, the car devoured the twisting, narrow hillside road with the gliding ease of a jungle cat.
“Have you been keeping this in a time capsule?” she asked.
“Close. When I’m out of the country, I leave the Jag in storage with a classic-car nut.”
Out of the country.
The words echoed and reechoed in Shelley’s head.
I should have expected it, she told herself. Nothing about Cain says that he’s a stay-at-home kind of guy.
“You’re a traveling man,” she said flatly.
He looked over briefly, searching her expression. Then he focused on the road again.
Her face was like her voice had been—withdrawn, remote, shut down. She was sitting within arm’s reach but she was light-years away, retreating farther from him with each breath, each instant of time.
When Cain spoke, his tone was soft, yet it couldn’t conceal the surprise and anger he felt at her retreat. “You say that like a curse.”
“It’s a fact. Like death.”
“Life is also a fact.”
She shrugged, pulling her composure around herself like armor. She needed a shield against this man’s potent appeal to her mind and body.
I watched Mom grow old trying to make a home for a traveling man, Shelley reminded herself savagely. That should have been enough.
But it hadn’t been. She had married a traveling man herself. She had believed if she provided an inviting enough home, her husband would no longer wander.
She had been wrong.
Traveling men aren’t capable of appreciating homes or the women who make those homes and wait, hoping and hoping and hoping, until hope finally dies.
How many times do I have to learn the same lesson before it sticks?
Grimly she dug into her oversized leather purse, giving herself plenty of time to listen to her own good advice. Finally she pulled out a notebook and a slim gold pen. Composed again, she settled back in the comfortable seat. In quick, neat strokes she wrote “Cain Remington” across the top of one page.
“How long are you usually in the country?” she asked.
Her voice was completely professional, utterly neutral. It was not the voice of a woman who had just melted and run like honey beneath the sensual heat of a man’s kiss.
With a smothered curse, Cain downshifted suddenly. The Jaguar roared. It was a deep, almost angry noise.
She looked up from her notebook, but not with alarm. He handled the powerful car the same way he had handled the bike—ease, skill, and control combined.
To the right of the pavement there was only brush climbing up the old, abandoned road cut. To the left there was more brush, a thick growth of chaparral that dropped steeply away into a canyon that had no name.
The tires made a high, wild sound as he took the car through a tight curve. At that moment she realized just how angry he was. Somehow he had sensed the finality of her retreat.
He reads me like a book, she thought unhappily. That will make the job harder for both of us.
And that’s all this is. A job. He wants to rent some personal touches to gild his temporary residence.
Shelley was damned if she would be one of the items he rented.
Chaparral went by in a brown-and-gold blur.
“What do you have against traveling men?” Cain’s voice was as hard as the steel color of his eyes.
“Not a thing,” she said evenly. “Without them, I’d be out of business.”
Rented homes, rented people, rented lives.
“How long will you be in the country this time?” she asked.
Her tone of voice said more clearly than any words that she was inquiring for business rather than for personal reasons.
His mouth thinned.
For long minutes the silence stretched. The black Jaguar consumed the twisting, narrow road.
Evening light poured into the interior of the car, turning Cain’s features into a tawny study of planes and angles softened by velvet shadows. Gold burned in his hair and mustache, but none of the warmth reached his eyes when he glanced at her. Like ice, his eyes took the rich light and transformed it into translucent shades of blue and gray, colors as still and deep as an Arctic twilight.
Without warning, the Jaguar swooped into a turnout at the edge of the road. In front of the car the br
“I’m not a mercenary,” he snarled.
Startled, she half turned in the seat toward him. “I didn’t think you were.”
He paused as though examining her words for truth. Finally he nodded. But his impatience showed in the tightening of his hands on the wheel and the curtness of his words.
“All right. What do you think I am?”
“A traveling man, that’s all.”
“A lot of men travel in their work. What’s so dishonorable about that?”
“I didn’t say it was dishon—”
“The hell you didn’t,” he interrupted. “When you heard that I traveled, you shut down completely. No warning, no explanation, just good-bye, Cain Remington, and don’t bother to write.”
Damn! she raged silently. Why does he have to be so perceptive? Most men wouldn’t have noticed my withdrawal or have confronted me with it if they did.
“Since when do good-byes bother traveling men?” she asked. “Tonight, tomorrow, or two months from now, it’s all the same. Good-bye, so long, see you around.”
She heard her own voice, cool and very calm.
Too calm.
But if she let her control slide just one fraction of an inch, she would be yelling at Cain. Neither one of them deserved that. It wasn’t his fault that he was so very attractive to her and at the same time the worst possible man for her. Traveling man.
A man who would be here today and gone tomorrow. But her emotions wouldn’t go away. They would stay with her, eating her alive.
“Good-byes can’t be new to you,” she said. “Or is it just that you’re not the one saying it this time?”
He took a long breath and a better grip on his temper. What she was saying was reasonable. He was accustomed to good-byes.
And, he admitted to himself, I’m used to being the one to say good-bye.
Score one for sweet reason.
But he was not ready to say good-bye to Shelley Wilde.
After a few moments Cain forced himself to relax. He had excellent instincts about people, and right now every instinct he had was telling him to walk very carefully with her, business and business only.
No more wild honey of her kiss. No more of her womanly softness flowing over him and teaching him how hungry and alone he had been. No more heat and thick need gathering inside him, tightening his body until he ached in time with the heavy beating of his heart.