Money Shot (17 page)

“Rush, I—”

He cut her off before she could ask even one more question. “I don’t know what Einar believes in terms of religion,” he said impatiently. “All I know is that people have been getting naked here and howling for the moon since there was a moon to howl for. Some places strip away the civilization better than others, and Mishkwa is one of the best. We’re all just animals here. Not so different from that damn moose, all heat and anger and drive and want.” He slipped his hand into the glorious warmth of her hair, felt it slide like living water over his fingers to pool in his palm. “Einar, though, he’s a greedy bastard. He wants everything.”

She stared up at him, her eyes impossibly wide and deep.

“Me, though?” He shook his head. “I only want you.”

And he kissed her.

IT WAS like crashing through the ice, Goose thought as the black waters of Rush’s kiss closed over her head. A devastating, disorienting, full-body shock. Not cold, though. Jesus, no. His mouth was hot on hers, aggressive and assured and uncompromising, and she understood that diplomatic relations had just been terminated. This was no warning, fair or otherwise. This was taking.

Taking
. Satisfaction sang through her even as sharpedged hunger began to churn. The clean, male scent of him filled her, enveloped her, sang to her, and desire rolled up hot and thick from that dark place in her soul where appetite lurked, dangerous and relentless.

But she didn’t check it. Not this time. No, this time she rode the surge of it, gloried in the whippy, consuming thrill of
wanting
. He’d only whetted her appetite with that sneaky, sucker punch of a kiss back in town. He hadn’t satisfied, only fed that dangerous, smoky little fire she’d been stamping at ever since landing on this island.

And now he breathed that fire into flames. Flames that roared. Crackled.
Craved
.

His big hand tipped her chin to a different angle, and she lost herself. Lost the self she’d cultivated so carefully over the years. The self with the strength to resist, control, moderate. She rose up on her toes and met him, matched him, opened to him, not in eager invitation but in fierce demand.

His tongue slid hot and wild into her mouth, sending a liquid pulse of
yes
through her entire body. Her hands fisted in his coat collar, wound themselves into the fabric there. She anchored herself into the heat and strength of his body, rocking and sliding and pleasing herself against the hard length of him. She tipped her face up, let the moonlight spill over her skin, and kissed him back.

She kissed him with everything inside her. With all the heady, driving desire, yes. But also with the loneliness, the pain and the weariness she hadn’t even been aware of until he’d shoved aside her charm and her smile and demanded to see somebody else. The woman she used to be.

The woman she sometimes—despite of every ounce of her strength and courage—still was.

A shock of shame and guilt, more powerful for its familiarity, rolled over her and she snapped back to herself with a gasp. Rush had already released her. Had sensed, knowing him, the split second in which she’d withdrawn her real self, the self he’d been tugging on since that first kiss. He didn’t want this other woman she’d cultivated. He didn’t want Goose. He wanted the girl she’d been. The woman that girl would have grown into. The one who wanted without thought and took without limit. He wanted Maria. She knew that. He’d told her so, hadn’t he? Walked away from her offer of some sweaty, no-strings sex in the hopes that he could have something more? Somebody more?

But he couldn’t have that woman. Neither could Goose. Fire was glorious but it was nothing to play with.

“Rush,” she began, regret an aching tightness in her throat. “I’m sorry. I—”

“Don’t apologize.” He reached down to retrieve the glove he’d let fall to the snow. “Just . . . don’t.”

“It’s this
place
,” she said anyway. She had to say
something
. A hot knot of tears lodged in her chest as she waved an arm at the whole ridiculous scene. The perfect bowl of evergreens skirting the quaint little cabin, the homey invitation of wood smoke hanging in the air, the full, fertile moon plastered round and lush in the night sky above them. “It’s so—” Frustration had her fisting her hands on either side of her head, like she could threaten her brain into providing some magic words to fix this situation. Neutralize it. God,
erase
it.

“Einar’s no fool,” she finally said with a bitter laugh. “This island
is
a gold mine. It’s a drug. And the guy who figures out how to bottle and sell whatever this place does to people is going to end up richer than hell.”

“Fuck that.” Rush shoved one hand into his snowy glove and glared at her. “And fuck lying, too, Goose. To yourself
and
to me.”

She stared at him, openmouthed. “Lying?”

“Honesty, Agent di Guzman.” He shook his head. “You promised.”

“I
am
being—”

“The fuck you are,” he said, and the banked fury in his silver eyes knocked her back a step. “Blaming your shit on an
island
? Please.” His hard mouth curled in disgust. “Mishkwa doesn’t do anything to people except cut them off from all the noise. It doesn’t put anything in you, Goose. It strips things away. Forces you to look yourself right in the eye.” He gave a ragged laugh. “Jesus, what do you think I’m here for?”

“The view?” She tried for a flip smile but her lips were numb with shock.

“I came back to face myself. I needed to look at what was in me. To figure out if I could live with it. Turned out I could. I
can
.” His eyes locked on hers, and compassion swirled into the burning anger there. “Can you?”

Anger slapped at her, sudden and nasty. “Of course I can live with myself,” she snapped. She’d spent the last twelve years proving it, hadn’t she? To herself? To her family? To the world? “Hell, I’ll go you one better. I not only live with myself, I
improve
myself. Daily.”

“Well, there’s your problem.”

“My
what
?”

“You’re not living
with
yourself, Goose. You’re living in spite of yourself.” He touched her cheek, his fingers gentle despite that stony gaze. “You don’t need improvement. You just need to be yourself. And until you figure out how to do that, you’re no good to anybody. No matter how pretty you are.”

She stared at him in stunned dismay, her head ringing like he’d smashed her upside it with a Mallet of Truth or something.

Because he was right, damn him. She wasn’t living
with
herself. She was living
around
herself. Around what was inside her. She’d built a life based on avoidance, where every choice she made—from her career down to her hair-style—allowed her to pretend she was making herself
better
rather than different. Making the most of what God had given her rather than simply creating a pretty shell in which she could lock away her dangerous and disappointing—and truest—self.

And up until this very moment, it had worked. Hell, it had rocked. Because twelve years ago she’d been awkward and passionate and angry and hungry. But now? Now she was shiny and successful and well dressed and . . .

And still hungry. Still passionate. Still angry. But now she could throw in tired, scared and lonely, too.

And just when the hell had
that
happened? The plan had worked, and worked well, for years. How had things come apart with such spectacular suddenness?

It was Rush. Of course it was. The problem, she realized, was that the plan only worked when she wanted to be in control more than she wanted anything else.

And now she found herself wanting something—some
one
—as much if not more than her precious control.

“Rush,” she said, reaching for him in spite of herself.

He stepped back, and her stupid body mourned. “Figure it out, Goose. Figure out who you are and what you want.” His eyes dropped to her mouth. “Soon.”

Tears prickled in her eyes, swift and shaming, but he didn’t see them as he’d already turned his back on her. Small mercies, she thought. He headed down the trail toward the Ranger Station, and after a single, wretched moment, Goose fell in behind him. She didn’t weep as she followed, though. Didn’t allow herself even one single, self-indulgent tear.

“TEA, DEAR?” Lila asked the next morning, and Goose smiled. Tea seemed to be Lila’s all-purpose antidote for whatever ailed a person. No wonder she had a pot in every room.

“No, thanks. I don’t want to put you to any trouble, especially not so early.” She glanced toward the window, where the winter sun struggled to achieve liftoff from the horizon. “You’re going to start locking the doors before business hours if I keep dropping by at dawn.”

Lila gave her a smile as she settled into the curvy wire café chair across from her. “Dawn works just fine for me, Agent di Guzman. You get to be my age and sleep is rarer than rubies.”

Goose shook her head. “You’re not exactly elderly, Lila.”

Lila gave her hand a brisk pat. “Sweet. But what about you? I know for a fact Rush’s been snowshoeing you all over the island. Why aren’t you sleeping the sleep of the righteous this morning?”

“I have one of those brains,” she said easily, though she was anything but easy over the sleepless night she’d passed. “The kind that won’t turn off if there’s a good question to chew on, no matter how tired I am.”

“I see.”

Goose feared she did, actually. Lila didn’t miss much. But she didn’t press, so Goose didn’t offer. She just pasted on a smile and said, “Do you mind if I ask you some questions about the coven here on Mishkwa?”

“Of course not, dear. Ask away. I’ll confess I’m surprised, though. I thought you’d have asked Einar anything you wanted to know last night.”

“Sir Humpalot cut our conversation short.” Thank God.

“Mmm,” Lila said, as if she’d heard the mental aside. Goose shifted uncomfortably. She hadn’t considered until just this moment how Lila might feel about her rejecting Einar’s romantic attentions. And if Lila didn’t like that, she really wasn’t going to like the rest of this conversation.

“So,” Goose said with a determined briskness. “Einar tells me he’s in line to inherit the coven.”

“He and Rush,” Lila said. “We’re the last of our line, the boys and me. When I’m gone, it’ll just be them.”

“Which one will inherit leadership? Have you decided?”

“My hope is that they’ll lead together.”

Goose let the skepticism show on her face. “Does Einar know that?”

Lila tipped her head. “You think he’d feel slighted?”

“You think he wouldn’t? He’s the dutiful son, after all. Staying, working, tending, while Rush disappears for years at a time. He’s earned his half of the birthright, easy, and Rush’s, too. Probably even has plans for it already.”

“Plans?”

“It was my impression,” Goose said carefully, “that Einar would like Mishkwa Coven to be a bit more high profile.”

“Oh,” Lila said. “The Paganpalooza thing.” She waved a dismissive hand. “Einar can’t help himself. He’s an entrepreneur to his bones. The boy loves people, parties, crowds.”

“Money.”

Lila’s eyes went shrewd and sharp, but she inclined her head in acknowledgment of that truth. “Money, too. Things for which Rush cares not at all. They’d balance each other.”

“Why don’t you trust him?”

“Who, Rush?”

“No, Einar.”

Lila drew back. “Of course I trust Einar. Why wouldn’t I?”

“I don’t know, Lila. You tell me. You made him a priest, you gave him the title, the responsibility, the show. But when push comes to shove, you don’t want to let him fly solo.”

“What are you saying, Agent di Guzman?”

“I’m not saying, I’m asking.” Goose leaned in, her voice as soft as her words were harsh. “Why don’t you trust him, Lila? What is it you see in Einar that you don’t like?”

Lila shook her head slowly. “You’re asking me if it’s Einar, aren’t you? You’re asking if my nephew is your money runner.”

“Or your bloodletter,” Goose said.

Lila flinched at that but didn’t break. “If a hunger drove him, for either money or power,” she said slowly, “surely he wouldn’t have stayed on Mishkwa all these years. Surely he’d have sought out something larger, something brighter—”

“You’re giving me logic now.” Goose shook her head. “Logic, I have. What I want from you isn’t what you know or what you’ve concluded. I want to know what you feel.” She caught Lila’s eyes with own, refused to look away. “Is it in him, Lila? That hunger? That need? That appetite for more, always more, that might drive a person beyond caution?”

“It’s inside you.” The words drove Goose back against her chair. As slaps went, it was a good one. Clean and cold, exactly on target and breathtakingly unexpected.

“In me?”

“You,” Lila snapped, her lips tight in her stern face. Then she softened, relented. “In everybody, dear. It’s universal. It’s just closer to the surface in some than in others. I see it in Einar, yes. But I see it in you, too. You’re just better at reining it in. You’ve likely had a great deal of practice.”

“I have, yes.” She could admit that much. Why not? Rush had all but bashed her over the head with it last night. It took daily, unstinting effort to be better, always better, than she actually was. An effort she was committed to, no matter how seductive Rush could make freedom sound.

“Einar has a bit of growing up to do yet. Then again, Rush has some road to walk himself. That’s why I’m hoping they can find a way to get along. Those boys need each other.”

Light and dark, Goose thought. Words and silence. Style and substance.

“I’m just trying to make them see it while I still can,” Lila said. She rose, and Goose took the hint.

“Thanks so much for sitting down with me, Lila,” she said, coming to her feet. “This has really clarified a few things for me.”