Нора Робертс - The Last Boyfriend

Only a few days, really, she thought, but the distance had spanned so wide, so deep, it felt like weeks. And here he was, smelling of sawdust, his chest warm and solid under the rough thermal shirt, and his hard-palmed hands confident and easy as he drew her sweater up and away.

Her true north, she thought. Constant and steady.

He ached for her. Not just physically, but in his heart for the hurt she’d endured. For the fact she’d felt obliged to endure it alone.

She said he couldn’t understand, but she was wrong. He’d never believed you had to experience pain to understand it.

He’d thought he knew her, every facet, but there he’d been wrong. The parts of her that questioned her worth, her courage, her heart, those were new to him, added complexities and vulnerabilities.

To those hurts he offered a gentle touch, an easy glide, pleasing himself with the curves of her, the pulse beats, the sigh of breath warm against his skin.

When she caught his face in her hands, when he saw her smile up at him before their lips met again, he thought: There. There was Avery. All of her.

She stroked her hands down his back, over his hips, back again as if measuring the length of him. Wanting to give, just give and give, she shifted to wrap around him, heard him curse when her shoulder pressed against his sore hand.

“Oops.” It choked a laugh out of her, and everything just fell away. All the guilt and grief, the apologies and worries.

You and me, she thought again. It’s you and me. So she wrapped around him and nipped her teeth at his shoulder.

“I’ve got a taste for you now.” She rolled him over, nipped again.

“Want to play rough?”

“You already did. Hauling me up here, throwing me down on the bed. Let’s see how you like it.” Mindful of his hand, she clamped his wrists, ranged over him.

“I like it fine.”

“Because now we’re naked.”

“It’s a factor.”

She lowered her head, stopped a breath from his lips, pulled back, lowered again. Pulled back.

“You’re asking for trouble.”

“Oh, I can handle you.”

She leaned in again, then slid down to glide her tongue over his chest.

Okay, he thought as his blood surged, she could handle him.

She owned his body, every inch, teasing, inciting, seducing, exciting. Quick and rough one moment, slow and tender the next, leaving him off balance, off rhythm, and totally possessed.

“Owen, Owen, Owen.” She whispered it again and again as she rose over him, drunk with power and lust.

She took him in, deep, deep, clamped her hands on his shoulders as triumph and surrender catapulted through her system. He took her breasts, pressed his hand against her galloping heart.

She lowered again, and this time let her lips take his in a long, trembling kiss.

And she rose again, let her head fall back, let everything that was the two of them fill her.

Then she rode them both empty.

Later, she doctored his hand, kissed the little wound. In her blue-checked robe she heated soup in the kitchen while he poured them each a glass of wine.

On impulse she lit candles for the table. Not quite a midnight supper, she thought with a glance at the time. But pretty close.

“It’s snowing hard now. You should stay.”

“Yeah, I should.”

Content, she ladled soup into thick white bowls while the snow fell on the rest of the world.

For as long as he could remember, Owen liked to figure things out, find the answers, wiggle out details. His innate propensity for schedules, agendas, bottom lines, and solutions made him a natural as coordinator of Montgomery Family Contractors. He’d never imagined, not seriously, doing anything else, and couldn’t imagine anything else giving him the same level of satisfaction or pride.

Working with his brothers suited him. They could and did disagree, piss each other off, bitch and complain. But they always came around. He understood their rhythms as well as he understood his own. He knew the weak spots in each, which could be handy if he was pissed off and wanted to needle.

Solving problems in a way that presented the facts, offered possible compromises and the occasional ultimatum was his thing.

He approached the situation with Elizabeth as a problem.

They had a ghost at the inn. Weird fact, yes, but fact. To date she’d proved mostly amenable, somewhat temperamental, and she’d put them all in her debt by warning Beckett when that asshole Sam Freemont assaulted Clare.

She’d only asked one thing. For Billy.

The problem was, who the hell was Billy? When the hell was Billy? What connection did he have to the woman they’d dubbed Elizabeth?

The ring indicated a relationship, possibly an engagement. But that, in Owen’s world, wasn’t fact.

Their resident ghost wasn’t saying either way.

It seemed to Owen the best place to start would be to identify Elizabeth, and to pin down when she’d died.

Where, though it wasn’t verified fact but logical supposition, was the inn.

“Makes the most sense, right?” He’d set up his laptop in The Dining Room on the theory Elizabeth might give him more direction if he worked the problem on location.

“That’s how it strikes me,” Hope agreed, and set coffee at his elbow. “Why else would she be here?”

“I’ve been poking around paranormal activity sites. You pick up all kinds of wild stuff, and a lot of it has to be crap—but what I’ve pulled out is most people who haven’t, you know, passed over, tend to stick around where they died, or go back to a place that was important or significant to them. If she died here, she could’ve been a guest, could’ve worked here, could’ve been related or connected to the owners.”

“Death records would be a starting point, but where to start?”

“That’s part of it, yeah?”

“Well, the way you described what she wore, it makes me think after the start of the Civil War, and before 1870. Not the wide, wide hoopskirt, but still a wide skirt.”

“Yeah. Kind of . . .” He held his arms out. “It was a pretty quick look.”

“If she’d let me get a look at her, I’d have a better idea.” And why wouldn’t she? Hope wondered. After all they were—as Avery said—inn-mates. “How about the sleeves?”

“The sleeves?”

“Of the dress, Owen. Long, short, snug, poofy?”

“Oh. Um . . . long. Kind of big, I think.”

“Gloves? Did she wear gloves?”

“I don’t know that I . . . you know, I think so, but without fingers on them. Kind of lacy, or like my grandmother’s crocheting. And now that I think about it, one of those wrap things.”

“A shawl—and you said a snood.”

He could only stare. “I did?”

“You said she had her hair up in a net in the back. That’s a snood.”

“If you say so.”

“I do. I’ve got a minute or two. Can I?” she asked, gesturing at his keyboard.

“Help yourself.”

He turned it toward her as she sat, and waited, enjoying his coffee as she typed.

“I’m pretty sure if you put those elements together, you’re talking early to mid 1860s.”

He let her work in silence for a few minutes. Peaceful here, he thought, in the middle of the day. He should get back next door before too much longer, give Ryder a hand. And maybe slip over to Vesta later, see if he could talk Avery into going out—or staying in.

“How about this?” Hope turned the screen toward him. “What do you think?”

Curious, he studied the illustration of a small group of women in a kind of drawing room. “I think I wonder why women wanted to wear something that looks that uncomfortable.”