Endless Night (3 page)

“Yeah, a towel, I’ll be right back.” She nearly stumbled in her haste to retreat.

As she reached the downstairs bathroom, Megan’s chest heaved. Nerves. That accounted for her reaction. The man made her nervous. Even if his reason to be here was legitimate, she still needed to find a way to make him leave. Whoever Jake Grogan was, he proved too much of a distraction at a time that she could afford none.

Megan rushed back, but drew up short when she found Jake propped against the hutch. His arms were crossed and he was staring up at the ceiling, at the ornate chandelier with cobwebs intertwined between its spokes, and yellowed bulbs casting an amber symmetric pattern across the ceiling. Her eyes trailed the arch of his throat, and she jumped when he looked at her.

“Thanks.” His smile was disarming, complete with a dimple that took away from the severity of his image. Even in the rank air trapped within the house she could smell the musky scent of his leather jacket.

“Look, Mr. Grogan—”

“Jake.”

Uneasy, Megan eyed the drawer made inaccessible by his slouch. She thrust her hands into the front pockets of her jeans to try to still them, but the containment only made them sweaty.

“Look, I don’t know how I can help you. I don’t know Estelle that well.”

Whisky-colored eyes shifted in another slow appraisal of the foyer. “You live in her house.”

“She put it up for rent. Everything was handled through a real-estate agent. I’ve hardly ever had the opportunity to see Mrs. Wakefield.”

He probably thought she was rude. She should offer coffee or act somewhat hospitable, but she wanted him to leave
.
She had things to do.

Today she was going to extend the firing point in her backyard shooting range. She had already mastered consecutive bull’s-eyes on targets fifteen yards away. After that she was going to spend a session in the cellar with her recently acquired weight set. Her arm and leg muscles were now well toned. If she should she lose possession of the gun and have to resort to direct combat she wanted to make sure her body didn’t fail her. And after that there was another mirror to mount outside the living room window, a trick of light to detect motion along the outside wall.

“You want me to leave, don’t you?”

“Wh-why would you say that?”

For such a hard-looking man, Jake’s eyes momentarily softened. When they traced her, they felt like the brush of a freshly cleaned sheet across goose-bumped skin.

“I-I’m not that comfortable with strangers,” she explained.

“You don’t say?”

Jake watched her for a prolonged moment, and then his smile fell. Under that weighty silence she was aware of the rain battering the eastside windows. The noise had an ebb and flow to it with each surge of wind. She felt cold to the bone in this house, but up until that phone call, she thought she was safe here.

“Okay, Megan. I’ll go.”

Good.

Jake stooped to fasten the sodden laces of his boots. Big hands. Powerful hands. As he stood, her eyes swept up to take in the dark intensity of Jake Grogan. The power was there in the steely set of his jaw and the dip of his dark brow—features that intimidated.
She was intimidated.
Yet when he flashed that dimple, all bets were off.

He reached the door, but the hand on the knob hesitated.

“Look.” His voice was husky. “If you should find anything—anything that might shed light on Estelle’s daughter—” He turned and frowned. “What was her name?”

Megan swallowed. “Excuse me?”

“What was Estelle’s daughter’s name? I don’t even know my moth—” he swallowed, “—her name.”

“Ummm—Gabrielle.”

“Gabrielle,” Jake whispered. “That’s pretty, don’t you think?”

Megan nodded, speechless.

Jake reached into the pocket of his jacket and extracted a card. “Anyway, if you should ever come across anything—” his voice dropped off, “—could you call me?”

He didn’t wait for her response. He opened the door, eyed the sky warily and then squared his shoulders and started down the steps.

“Wait!”

My God, what was she thinking?

Megan watched Jake pause at the foot of the steps. He turned around and looked up at her. Stoic in the downpour, he waited. With rain dripping onto his black eyelashes, he blinked away the assault.

Something about Jake tempted her with haunting images of pleasure she would never be privy to. Whoever Jake Grogan was—whether he was innocent or a foe, Megan knew that she would not let him cross that bridge in this weather.

She had the gun.

She would be safe.

He waited for her to pronounce sentence.

“Come inside,” she whispered.

The steady stream of rain made it impossible for her voice to carry, but he must have read her lips.

For every step he climbed, Jake held her eyes. He reached the top and loomed a head above her, looking down with dark force. Paralyzed by that compelling whirlpool of colors, all
Megan could do now was pray she made the right decision.

Possibly more wet and miserable than he had ever been in his life, Jake measured the woman beside him. Her slim frame quaked like someone had stuck a jackhammer in the very ground she stood on. She drew the bottom of her sleeves over her fingers and then wrapped her arms around herself.

“Come into the kitchen.” Megan managed a semblance of a smile. “At least there I can mop up the mess.”

Now see,
he thought,
that wasn’t so bad.
She was trying to joke and ease up the tension. But as he followed her down the hall, he could tell how rigid Megan’s shoulders were beneath the thick knit material.

The kitchen was a remarkably cheerful oasis in this bleak, Victorian dwelling. The hall was depressing, with mottled wallpaper and faded burgundy brocade carpet, but the kitchen bore fresh yellow paint and bright floral accents. Fat pillows and potted ferns filled a box bay window, and distracted from the fact that the glass was matted with rain. The tiled floor was white and glossy, with a sunflower rug thrown beneath a butcher-block table. Sunflower rugs also lay before the kitchen sink and refrigerator. In here the pervasive stench of mildew and ocean was not as evident, filtered by the scent of cinnamon from a source he could not locate.

“My little sanctuary,” Megan admitted, casting him a side look.

Jake noticed the laptop and printer on the table, and the half-filled cup of coffee. He also saw the garbage can heaping with crumpled newspapers, some tumbling onto the floor.

“I take it this is all your touch.”

She nodded. “Oh, goodness, forgive me—here.” She reached into a drawer and yanked out an armful of kitchen towels and, with a twitch of her hip, closed it again.

The gesture made Jake’s glance latch on to her slim waist. “Thanks.”

As he started to towel himself off, Jake caught Megan’s eyes wrenching away from the motion.

“Yes, I tried to visit Estelle and ask her if I could start doing some renovating.” Her hand swept toward the arched doorway into the bleak shadows of the dining room. “I guess you can see what shape this place is in. But she—she wasn’t doing well that day. She has no relatives that I can contact to ask—” Megan looked at him.

“Don’t look at me,” he injected. “I’m still trying to find out if she’s a relative, remember.”

“Yes, I remember.”

“The changes you’ve done in here…what’s not to approve of? It’s nothing major. Just some new paint, new rugs, a new table and some bright accessories. With very little effort you transformed this kitchen, I’m guessing.”

“Thanks,” she mumbled.

Outside the rain tortured the façade, while inside Jake stared edgily up at the ceiling, expecting to see the dark hue of moisture pool there.

“Don’t worry,” Megan reassured him. “She’s held up to much worse than this.”

“Doesn’t it scare you? I mean being in this old house all alone?”

Blue eyes rounded. Megan took a step back.

“Whoa, hey. I didn’t mean to frighten you. I was just—” Frustrated and alarmed, Jake rubbed a hand through his hair. “I just… Well hell, if I knew you better, I would be worried about you being out here by yourself. There’s no one nearby if you’re in trouble, there’s—”

Every word Jake said only heightened Megan’s look of horror. He sighed and tried to
regroup. “Okay, forget about all that. None of my business, right? So let’s get on to what
is
my business.”

Again, Megan took a retreating step until the backs of her knees hit the frame of the box bay.

Jake had to get out of here. This woman was a wreck and she looked at him as if he was going to attack her at any second. He was tempted to reach for her shoulders, and say
don’t worry, you’re safe with me,
but his mere touch would probably make her pass out from fright.

“Estelle.”

Air seemed to slump from Megan’s body, and with it she sank down onto the yellow cushion. “Oh yes,” she said weakly.

The towel only did so much. Jake was starting to feel uncomfortable. He took his jacket off and threw the soggy lump of leather on the tiled floor. He felt Megan’s eyes on him. They traced over his flannel shirt and down to the line where his jeans had been exposed to the rain.

Megan probably wasn’t even aware that she was staring, but he wasn’t going to stop her. That look warmed the damp traces from his body.

“You said you tried to see her—that she wasn’t doing good.” He probed, “Tell me, in your honest opinion, do you think I’ll learn anything here?”

A soft lump flowed down Megan’s throat.

“I don’t know what to tell you. Like I said, I had heard that Gabrielle never had any children. Harriet actually told me she was barren. And when I moved in here, there were no photographs of family, not even a picture of Gabrielle on her dresser—not even Estelle’s husband.” Megan toyed with the hems of her sleeves. “Little things like that make this house as cold as it is. It needs memories. Snapshots of the lives that transpired here. Souvenirs from family vacations. School drawings. Trophies. Hand-knit blankets.”

As if aware that she was rambling, Megan bit down on her lip.

“Didn’t that strike you as odd?” Jake prompted.

“Goodness, do you want a cup of coffee?”

He grinned at the blatant segue. “Coffee sounds wonderful, Megan.”

In midstride, Megan stopped to gape at him.

“What?” he asked, troubled by the look on her face.

“Nothing—it’s just—,” she paused, “—I’m not used to hearing anyone say my name.”

Before he could respond, Megan moved to the coffee machine and busied herself spooning grounds into the filter.

He watched her.

I’m just not used to hearing anyone say my name.

There was more of a mystery to Wakefield House than the simple matter of his heredity.

“Alright, you already mentioned that there are no pictures—no personal items, right?”

True, Megan thought
.

For a woman who had lived eighty-some years, there was little to show for that existence. The notion disturbed her. Maybe it disturbed her because if someone were to comb her room upstairs they would find nothing of a personal nature either. No photos. No childhood memorabilia.
Definitely no identification.
That was one of the reasons she moved into this old relic. They accepted cash each month and asked no questions.

“When I got here, Estelle had already moved into the nursing home. I met her, like I said, but the conversations weren’t always lucid. From what the Realtor told me, there was an estate
sale and most of Estelle’s stuff was sold off. They just kept the primary pieces of furniture in hopes of renting out this house.” Quietly, she added, “Gabrielle—Gabrielle had already rented an apartment in Bangor when she started receiving treatments for her cancer. Estelle was not going to be able to take care of her, so she stayed near the hospital.”

Jake looked at her. “Good thing you came along. I don’t think anyone else would have rented this place.”

“Anyone in their right mind?” she snapped.

“Hey, easy now. You keep decorating like this and you’re going to have yourself one beautiful home.”

Megan was skeptical.

“I mean it,” he added. “If you look beyond the faded wallpaper, past the worn floorboards and tarnished windows, you can see that this was once a grand place.”

Jake walked up to the kitchen window, his knee nearly clipping hers as he leaned to look outside. Megan caught a whiff of his soap. She watched the corded muscle that ran down the length of his neck.

“Take this porch, for example.” He craned for a better view, but with the heavy downpour the view just didn’t get any better. “Imagine it painted white. And the house—oh, maybe a baby-blue. That swing would be white too. And between each column on the porch you could hang a basket of geraniums…”

Megan followed that muscle in his neck as it dipped into his shirt collar. Jake’s chest, which nearly loomed over her as she shrank into the corner, was wide enough that a person could get lost in his embrace. The sinewy strength continued through his arms, their sculpted profile evident beneath the warm fabric. He had an athletic build—the build of a man who worked outside.

“Let me guess.” Megan’s voice was thick. “You do construction for a living. Your card said Engineer.”

Jake’s grin was beguiling.

“No.” He righted himself, but didn’t move away from her. “But I’ve been around construction enough.” His eyebrow arched. “Well, on a slightly bigger scale than this.”

“How much bigger?”

“Have you ever been to Boston?”

“Yes, don’t tell me you engineered the Big Dig.”

Jake chuckled. “No, that new tower in the Back Bay, and the other tower next to the Prudential building—”

“You built those?”

Jake laughed at her astonishment and propped his hand on the wall. “Hmm, I could take the credit and you wouldn’t know any better, would you?”

“There’s always the internet, Mr. Grogan. I can find the names of the builders and architects in a matter of seconds.”

“True, true. But you’ll never find the electrician, will you?” He smirked. “I get no respect.”

Oh, she didn’t want to like him, but Megan felt a tug of emotion that had long ago run dormant. A ghost of her former self emerged, the woman who used to tease all the time.

“Electrician, huh? So you do what, plug in the light bulbs?”

There was a mysterious flash in Jake’s eyes. Something witty. Something dangerous.
Something sexy.

“Coffee’s done,” he said. “Let’s get some.”

The fog in Megan’s brain lifted as she busied herself pulling two mugs down from the cabinet, hoping that Jake didn’t catch a glimpse of how empty the cupboard was.

“I don’t handle the tough stuff like light bulbs.” His husky tone filled the alcove. “I have to worry about the little things, like integrated circuitry, telecommunications, oh, and elevators. Elevators are much more fun than light bulbs.”

“Are you looking for me to be impressed?” Keeping her back to him, Megan poured two steaming cups and took a deep breath before she turned around. She had to regain some control, although turning around to take in the full image of the man achieved the opposite effect. His height was daunting and his shoulders were wide. She wondered if he had downplayed his role because he appeared strong enough to erect an entire skyscraper with his bare hands.

“Yes.” His eyes riveted her as she nearly dropped the mugs. “I’m looking for you to be impressed.”

Jake must have sensed her clumsiness and surged to her rescue. He grabbed his cup, and in doing so, dusted his fingers across hers. “Sorry—” he grinned, “—looking for an ego boost.”

“I doubt that.”

“What about you?” Keen eyes shifted to the laptop. “My sources at O’Flanagan’s tell me that you write.”

It had been easy enough for Megan to keep her contact with the outside world at a minimum. But out of the few people she had interacted with, why did she have to pick Harriet Morgan, one of the most effusive residents of Victory Cove?

“Your sources are correct.”

Jake cocked his head toward the teeming wastebasket. “A frustrated writer or a lucrative one?”

“A
private
one.”

“Ahh, that explains a lot.”

“Okay.” She needed to change the subject. “So tell me more. Why would a man…?” She searched his face and tried to estimate an age. Faint lines around Jake’s eyes and a tightness around his mouth indicated maturity, but then again, he had an innate tan that made any conjectures at age difficult. He had the rough, exotic look of a captain of a treasure-seeking charter in the Keys, yet his casual attire seemed affluent, and he spoke with the education of…an engineer.

Megan decided that his age didn’t really matter.
Jake just looked good.
“Why, all of a sudden, are you seeking out your grandmother?” she asked.

Jake turned pensive. His jaw was set and his eyes were a dark web of inward thoughts, making her picture him at the helm of a ship, watching the sunset with trepidation, awaiting what conflicts the horizon would hold.

“It’s none of my business.” Megan set her mug down.

“I’m in your house.” His voice was husky. “I just made it your business.”

When she would have protested, Jake hushed her by taking a step closer. Just his proximity made her breathless.

“Jake, I—”

The phone rang.

Never had Jake seen such a jolt seize someone. It was as if a current had started at Megan’s feet, charged up her legs, jerked her shoulders and poured out of her in a flash of stark
terror.

And then it was gone.

Its aftershocks remained in the form of the tremulous hand that sought the receiver mounted to the wall.

“Hello?” Her voice was as unsteady as her hand. “What? How do you know that?”

Megan’s back was to him now. Jake’s glance traced the soft waves of sable hair that dusted across her shoulders in a silken caress. Before, in the bay window, he had caught the scent of her shampoo, a hint of citrus and sunshine to clash with the outside rain.

Megan fascinated him. She seemed so genuine, her emotions worn out on her sleeve, although she probably thought she did an admirable job of hiding them. Unfortunately, the raw emotion he discerned most was fear.

What was Megan Summers afraid of?

And why in the world did he care?

Maybe he could trivialize his reaction by saying that she was just
hot.
That gorgeous hair with each shiny strand a new shade of chocolate, making him yearn to lift the mane and see what colors lurked beneath. Or that lean body that looked great in jeans and a turtleneck, making him want to see those legs in shorts…or less. There was no doubt she was a tempting package, but that was not the sole reason for the attraction.

Megan turned around, the cord of the phone dangling across her shoulder. She met his eyes.

That
was it
.

Haunted was the most prevalent emotion on Megan’s face. Shadowed eyes, darkened to a shade of midnight by torment, could consume him if he wasn’t careful.

“Yes, yes, he’s still here. All right, Harriet. Thanks.”