Barbara Dunlop - A Secret Life

Heather felt a reluctant smile forming on her lips. “Well, that is one way to solve your problem.”

His brown eyes glinted ever so slightly. “Isn’t it, though?”

“I could write you a check right now.”

“Goodbye…”

“Heather.”

“Goodbye, Heather.”

“I can’t leave.”

“Sure you can.”

She shook her head. “Not without your assurances that you’re not going to hurt my sister.”

He stared at her in silence. “My word good enough?”

Heather hesitated. “You tell me.”

He paused and seemed to think for a moment. “I’m not interested in money. But if I have a chance to prove my father’s innocence, I don’t care who I hurt.”

“If you want to hurt Joan, you’ll have to go through me.”

Samuel’s sharp nod told Heather he was confident he’d prevail. And, though she hated to admit it, she had a feeling he was right. She might have money and power on her side, but there was something about Samuel that intimidated the hell out of her. He wasn’t a man she’d want to cross.

“Fair enough,” said Heather. Joan had made it pretty clear her novel didn’t contain new evidence that would help Samuel. And if he was after money, he’d have been wise to say yes to the forty thousand.

Heather turned to go. But as she focused on the lawn below them, she experienced a sudden, overpowering wave of vertigo. She steeled herself and took a step forward anyway. She wasn’t afraid of heights. And they weren’t that far off the ground. She and Joan had had a tree fort when they were kids. Ladders were nothing.

She kept going.

Five more steps and she was at the edge of the roof, her trepidation rising by the second. She could do this. She would do this. She’d climbed up that ladder, and she’d climb back down again. She gripped one of the rails, and the ladder shifted along the gutter.

Everything inside her froze.

Samuel swore behind her, and she heard his footsteps on the cedar shakes.

“It’s easy,” he rumbled.

“I know.” She took another baby step. “I’m fine.” She put her hand gingerly on the top rung. She’d slide her leg around, just like she’d done when she got off.

She glanced at the ground, and it swayed crazily to one side.

“You’re shaking,” said Samuel.

“I am not.”

He sighed, and moved up beside her. “I’ll hold it steady.”

“There’s no need.” Her voice came out raspy against her dry throat.

He pointed. “Grab right here.”

She did.

“Now put your leg on the rung.”

She tried to move her foot, she really did. But for some reason, it was frozen to the roof.

“How the hell did you get up here?” Samuel muttered.

Heather didn’t answer. She was afraid it would come out as a whimper. Maybe she could make a call. Maybe they’d come and get her by helicopter.

“You okay?” asked Samuel.

“Fine,” she breathed.

“You afraid of heights?”

“No.”

“You going to get on that ladder?”

She didn’t answer.

“Heather?”

“What?”

“Just how scared are you?”

She tightened her grip on the ladder and inched herself forward, refusing to let him know she was nearly paralyzed. Careful not to look down, she hooked a toe on the gutter and transferred her weight.

The gutter started to give way, and she shrieked.

Samuel’s arm was around her in a split second, yanking her back against his body. “Damn,” he muttered above her head.

“I’m fine,” she insisted, but her voice was shaking.

He loosened his grip. “Don’t move.”

“Okay.” That one she could do.

He slowly let her go. Then he effortlessly swung himself out onto the ladder and backed down a couple of rungs. He let go of the ladder with one arm and held his hand out to the side, making a space for her.

“Hang on to the top of the ladder and step around on this side,” he said. “If anything goes wrong, I’ll grab you.”

Heather nodded, swallowing as she assessed the situation.

“Do not look down,” he warned.

She nodded again. It didn’t seem nearly as scary with Samuel’s big body between her and death.

His voice went softer. “Piece of cake.”

She took a step.

“Grab on right there,” he coaxed. “And turn around.”

She did, and the ladder felt solid beneath her hand. She breathed in, daring to move backward toward the edge. It was stupid, but now she couldn’t help thinking about his angle and her thong. “Can I trust you to be a gentleman?” she asked.

“Not even a little bit.”

She shot him a glare over her shoulder.

“If I have to grab you, I have to grab you. I’m not gonna be careful about the target.”

“I wasn’t…” Oh.

“What?”

She studied his expression. “Forget it.” She faced the roof again. Nothing to do but get this over with.

With both hands on the top rung, she inched her toe onto the ladder. When one foot was solid, she moved the other, breathing a sigh of relief when Samuel’s arm locked her in.

“You actually thought I would check out your underwear?” he rumbled.

“It had crossed my mind,” she confessed.

He moved down a rung and waited for her. “What the hell kind of men do you hang out with?”

She carefully stepped down, her muscles clenched, her damp palms inching along the painted rails. “There’s nothing wrong with the men I hang out with.”

He moved again. “There is if they’re all looking up your skirt.”

“They don’t look up my skirt.” At least not without an invitation.

“Then why did you think I would?”

“It was an overreaction, okay?”

“First, you try to bribe me,” he grumbled. “And then you accuse me of being a Peeping Tom.”

Heather took another rung. “Get over it, will you? How was I supposed to know you were a paragon of morali-” Her foot slipped. Her heart went to her throat.

His arm closed tight around her waist, and he was a solid wall behind her. “You’re fine. I’ve got you.”

“Damn,” she muttered, adrenaline thrumming through her body.

“You okay?” he asked.

She nodded, searching for the rung with her foot.

He didn’t immediately let her go. Which was perfectly okay with her. If she had to stumble on a ladder twenty feet off the ground, Samuel was definitely the guy she wanted hanging on to her.

His broad palm was splayed across her stomach, and his solid abs were pressed against her rear end.

“I’m not much of a paragon at the moment,” he said.

“You just saved my life.”

“Yeah. But now you’ve got me thinking about your underwear.”

“JOANIE?”Heather’s voice hissed in Joan’s ear as the bedsprings sagged beneath her weight.

“What?” Joan groaned, refusing to open her eyes. Maybe sending the jet back and letting Heather stay a few days had been a bad idea. It felt as if she’d only been asleep for a few minutes.

“I hear something.” Heather slipped under the covers in the queen-size bed.

“Those are frogs,” said Joan, wrapping her arms around her pillow and burrowing her face more deeply into its softness.

“Not the frogs. The thumping noise.”

“Those are the cypress trees.”

“It’s not trees.”

“Yes, it is.”

“Joanie.”

“Do you still get nervous in the dark.”

“I don’t get nervous in the dark.”

“You’re nervous now.”

“That’s because of the thumping noise.”

“There is no thumping-”

Something whapped against the side of the house.

“That,” shrieked Heather, scooting closer on the bed.