My Heart's Desire (8 page)

Rennie tried to imagine Hollis saying something like that and couldn't. Except for the slight heave of her shoulders, the faint rustle of her dress, her sigh was inaudible. She noticed that Mary Francis seemed to be satisfied by Ethan's response. Her sister's features were calm, her beautiful face serene. She was touching the crucifix that rested against her wide, white collar.

"Good, because I'll break your kneecaps if you ever hurt my sister."

"Mary Francis!" Moira admonished, shocked. She cast a significant look at Jay Mac as if to hold him responsible for his daughter's outrageous threat. Jay Mac held up his hands innocently, but his eyes were amused.

Rennie drew Michael aside as the rest of the family spoke to Ethan. She searched the face that was so much like her own and found every nuance of expression that made it different. Michael's dark green eyes were radiant, illuminated by some deep happiness within her. There was a becoming blush of color on her cheeks, and the normally elusive dimples on either side of her wide mouth were fully evident.

It was Rennie's mouth that had flattened seriously, her eyes that were dark and worried. "Say the word and I'll take your place," she said.

Michael laughed, pretending to misunderstand. "With Ethan? Really, Rennie, don't you think he'd know?" She looked down at her abdomen, then back at her sister. "We're not so much alike right now."

Rennie took her twin's wrists and gave her a little shake. "Don't you dare make light of me. I'm thinking of you and the baby."

Michael's beatific smile disappeared. "I love you for that. There's no one else like you."

"That's quite a compliment," she said quietly, "coming from my twin."

Michael hugged her. "I mean it," she whispered back. "There is no one else like you. I don't want you to do anything that would place you in danger. I couldn't live with that, Rennie." She stepped back and searched her sister's face. Rennie was making a good show of being calm, but Michael knew better than anyone the strength of the anger that was being suppressed. "I'm sorry about your wedding." And lest Rennie misunderstand, Michael added, "Not sorry that you're not marrying Hollis, only sorry that it wasn't your decision. You believe that, don't you?"

"You know I do." She jerked her thumb over her shoulder to indicate Jarret Sullivan's shadowy presence by the door. "I wish Mary Francis would threaten his kneecaps."

Michael laughed. "And what about Jay Mac?"

Rennie's emerald eyes shifted from Michael's face to where her father stood deep in conversation with Ethan and Judge Halsey. She shook her head slowly, her expression torn between admiration and anger. "I'm not one to back down from a challenge," she said. "I'll think of some way to outmaneuver him for the trick he's played me."

Michael almost felt sorry for her father. "Good for you, Rennie." She squeezed her sister's hands, offering encouragement. "But don't marry Hollis Banks to spite Papa. You'd only be spiting yourself."

Rennie opened her mouth to reply, but Michael was not letting her get the last word in. Before Rennie could say anything, her twin was moving away, rejoining Ethan, Judge Halsey, and Jay Mac.

"She's right, you know," Jarret said.

Rennie jerked in response to the unexpected voice at her ear. Her look was sour and her voice was tart. "If you're going to live in my pockets until Nate Houston is caught, then I suggest you do so quietly and with as little interference as possible. I'll thank you to remember you're no real part of my life, and therefore your opinion is quite unwelcome."

"You know, ma'am," he drawled, "that's an awfully high horse you're ridin' now. A lady could get hurt fallin' from an animal like that." After delivering his set down, Jarret sauntered away.

Rennie was stranded in the middle of the room. Her mother was talking to Mary Francis. Jay Mac was laughing over something amusing the judge had just said. Michael was encircled by her husband's arms. Skye and Maggie had been quick to include Jarret in their animated conversation. Rennie had never felt so isolated or so heartsick. For a moment she actually hated all of them. That feeling passed and she was left hating herself. While Jarret was occupied, Rennie slipped out the door.

She made it down the courthouse steps before her elbow was seized in a bruising grip.

"Don't you have regard for anyone but yourself?" Jarret asked.

Rennie tried to shake him off. Her efforts only increased the pressure of his hold. Her chin came up challengingly. "What do you know about it?"

"I know that the moment your family realized you were gone they were sick with fear."

"Oh, you mean they actually missed me?"

Jarret's fingers eased around her arm. "Feeling a little sorry for yourself, is that it?"

Shrugging him off and turning away, Rennie hugged herself. "Feeling a whole lot sorry for myself. That's why I left. I'm not fit company."

Her honest self-assessment surprised Jarret. He fell in step beside her as she began walking away from the courthouse. "We should take the carriage," he said. "It's safer."

"I want to walk."

"All right." He handed her the shawl she had left behind and watched her throw it carelessly around her shoulders. "The carriage is warmer."

She ignored him.

Burying his hands in his duster's pockets, Jarret shrugged. He knew she was cold, knew she was nearly shaking with it, and yet she seemed to accept the brisk night air as if it were a deserving punishment. Under the street lamps the delicate lines of her profile were starkly etched, and the expression in her eyes was somehow both empty and filled with hurt.

It had seemed a whimsical thing to do, Jarret thought, to stop Rennie's wedding when Jay Mac made his outrageous offer. Now he wondered how many other women of his acquaintance would have acted with as much spirit and aplomb. He couldn't think of one. Hardly realizing his own intention until it was done, Jarret stepped a little closer to Rennie to protect her from the buffeting wind.

"Your sisters would like you to journey with them to the summerhouse," he said.

Rennie shook her head. "They're only hoping that if I go with them, I'll elect to stay. It will simply be another disappointment when I return to the city."

"You won't consider changing your mind?"

"I want to be close to Michael and as far away from Jay Mac as I can be right now. That shouldn't be so difficult for anyone to understand—even you."

"I thought perhaps my presence here would tip the scales in favor of the valley."

She stopped in the circle of light from a street lamp. The gaslight bleached the color from her face and turned her hunter green gown black and her emerald eyes gray. "Your presence here has little meaning to me now and even less when my mother and sisters leave."

Looking down at her, Jarret was struck again by her resolve and the gravity of her tone. He was also struck by how very kissable her mouth looked. It was the more unsettling of his observations. He lifted the collar of his duster and turned away. "Let's go." When she hesitated Jarret slipped his arm beneath hers and gave her a nudge.

Rennie almost brushed him off but then thought better of it. She would concede this small skirmish to Jarret, but she would win the war.

Jarret was largely unfamiliar with the city, but he knew how to mark a trail. On his ride to the courthouse he had looked for landmarks that would help him find the Dennehy home again without assistance. Now, as Rennie took him past the St. Mark Hotel and Union Square, he knew he was not being led astray.

Broadway was a busy thoroughfare even after midnight. The traffic on the street and sidewalks forced Jarret to remain hyper vigilant for any sighting of Nathaniel Houston or Detra Kelly. His eyes marked the features of every hack driver, flower vendor, and weaving drunk. His ears registered the noise as individual sounds. A milk wagon rattled down the street. A spritely pair of beautifully matched grays whinnied in unison. A fruit seller cursed his wife, and a whip snapped smartly behind him to his left.

"Do you really think they'll just appear on Broadway?"

It took Jarret a moment to realize that Rennie was addressing him. "What?"

She sighed. "Do you really think Nate Houston and his consort are simply going to appear in the middle of the street in the middle of the night?"

"Stranger things have happened."

"I'd be hard pressed to think of one. Isn't it taking coincidence a little too far?"

Without looking down at her, Jarret answered. The tension that kept him alert for more hours than he cared to think about was finally transferred sharply to his voice.

"It wouldn't be coincidence at all, Miss Dennehy. Nathaniel Houston knows what he wants, and she's here in New York. It would be far stranger if the man never showed up."

Rennie shivered, and this time it wasn't from the cold. Stepping around Jarret on the sidewalk, she raised her hand and hailed a hansom cab. She pulled the shawl more tightly around her shoulders as she sat down. "You shouldn't be here with me," she said, staring out the window of the hack as he joined her. "You should be tracking that killer down."

Jarret leaned back in the leather seat, propped his feet on the bench across from him, and folded his arms comfortably against his chest. He closed his eyes. "It would be infinitely more difficult for me to find him than for him to find your sister."

"It's a waiting game."

He nodded. "Exactly."

She itched to slap him. "Then, you should be with my sister."

"You know how to make that happen."

"I'm not leaving."

Jarret opened his dark blue eyes and leveled Rennie with a hard, implacable stare. "Neither am I."

The remainder of the journey was passed in silence. When they reached the house Rennie alighted without waiting for Jarret. He yanked her back as she would have used her key in the door.

"What do you think you're doing?" she demanded.

Jarret's eyes darted across the dark face of the house. Where were the cook and her husband? "Didn't you knock?"

"No, I didn't. It would hardly do—"

Jarret rapped on the door.

"—any good," she said. "They live on the upper floor of the carriage house. That's the house around—"

"I know where it is," Jarret said shortly. He took the key from her hand. "Wait here while I make certain everything's as it should be."

Rennie was on the point of snapping at him, when she saw the gun. The outline of the Remington was a powerful silencer.

Jarret saw her reaction to the weapon. "I know you find it easier to be fearful for your sister than for yourself, but it's time for you to understand the danger to you is real." He saw her nod slowly. "Wait right here."

The house was very nearly impossible to search thoroughly. Jarret started on the ground floor, weaving in and out of the rooms with the stealth of a shadow. The thick carpet runner on the grand staircase absorbed his footfalls as he climbed to the second floor. When he was satisfied that every room was empty he went back down to get Rennie. A soft thud in the front parlor drew his attention.

* * *

Rennie lifted the hem of her gown and raised her knee. Standing on one leg, she held her injured foot and massaged two stubbed toes. She swore softly, grimacing with pain, but even that faded to nothingness as she realized she was no longer alone. Her heart stopped and then resumed beating with such a slam to her chest that she thought she would faint. When she looked up she found herself nose to nose with Jarret's Remington.

Fear made her furious and foolish. She slapped Jarret's hand away from her face and swore hotly. "Damn you! How dare you scare me like that!" She pushed him hard in the chest. When he didn't budge she pushed him again, this time hard enough to rock him on his heels. "If you can't get the hell out of my life, Mr. Sullivan, then have the decency to get the hell out of my way."

He grabbed her by the back of the neck as she brushed past him. His fingers tangled in the thick coil of hair at her nape. The pressure of his hand warned her that if she moved he would scalp her. He waited until she stilled before he holstered his gun. His voice was soft and restrained, and menacing because it was both those things. "I've never hit a woman in my life, Miss Dennehy, but if a man had pushed me the way you just did, I'd have given serious consideration to laying him out. I'm warning you now, the next time I'll give you the same consideration." He paused, waiting for his words to register. When he felt her stiff and reluctant acknowledgment, he continued. "As for scaring you, well, it works both ways. I told you to wait at the front door." In the darkness he found her hand and drew it inside his duster to feel the butt of the Remington. "I'm carrying the gun. You might want to remember that the next time you see fit to scare me."

Rennie knew then that she had come close to being shot in her own front parlor. "I'm sorry," she said lowly. "I should have listened to you."

Jarret didn't expect her to remain contrite for long, especially if he didn't let her go. Yet the urge to hold her was there. Strands of silky auburn hair were threaded through his fingers. Her skin was warm and soft beneath his hand. Her breath smelled faintly of wintergreen. That he was even contemplating what it might be like to kiss her worried him. His fingers dropped away from her neck and came up to rub the bridge of his nose.