With Her Last Breath (16 page)

After a sleepless night, Nick stood in the shadows, his hands in his jeans pockets, watching the woman on his couch. She slept deeply, almost too deeply, unstirred by the nightmares he’d seen creeping onto her earlier.

She gave him nothing of her fears, her shadows; she didn’t trust him, and that nettled. Frustration wasn’t an easy burden, either sexual or in friendship. He wanted to carry Maggie to his bed, just to hold her close.

She was running too hard—and from him, from the sexual attraction that had snapped and heated between them earlier. He’d wanted to taste that sweat between her breasts, feel the slick softness of her beneath him, and the strength.

Nick sucked in air, remembering the incredible sounds she’d made in the shower. Another minute and he might have joined her.

Maggie would probably explode when she discovered that Nick’s cousin, Vinnie, at Vinnie’s Automotive had made a late-night call to her pickup, replacing the battery. Vinnie hadn’t needed keys and while he was under the hood, he did a few minor fix-ups, replacing the hoses she’d taped.

Nick smiled slightly. Vinnie looked tough and bragged about his “time in the joint,” but he was a soft touch; he’d always loved the image of being a knight in shining armor—or Santa Claus. Out of respect for Vinnie, none of the family pointed out that his tough jailbird image came from protecting an abused child from her parent. Maybe he’d chosen the wrong way, letting the woman know how it felt to be slapped, and hard.

Was that what had happened to Maggie?

Is that why she always stepped back from what ran between them? Fear of abuse?
From him?

“I’m back with my special cucumber, pore-tightening mask. I’ve added seaweed. Then you’re going to have a real treat—
my new moisturizer, packed with chamomile and E and all good stuff, including ylang-ylang. You’re the first to try it. I want to know what you think.” Celeste eased Beth’s shoes, if that’s what the bits of leather straps could be called, off the coffee table. Amethyst, citrine, and other crystals in abalone shells ranged across the walnut, a pretty display, catching the candle’s light. Between the shells were Celeste’s best teacups, decorated with delicate sprays of light green Queen Anne’s lace.

After a salad dinner in Celeste’s tiny kitchen, the three friends sat in her living room. She’d chosen the herbal tea carefully, a blend of chamomile, to relax her friends. She wanted to lessen the interference of their shields because she wanted to prowl through their thoughts and emotions. Impressions and sensations might give her more.

Celeste had purified her home with sage; she wanted none of her fears to touch them: Beth, caught by life into less than she could be, merely needing a helping hand to create a new life; Maggie, obviously caring for Beth and unaware that danger stalked her, and that Nick’s desire for her was so intense that he would wait through time.

“Guinea pigs, that’s what we are. But you’re a genius, Celeste. I’m in heaven.” Beth’s face ran smooth beneath Celeste’s hands as she applied the mask. The young bones were strong and good and pure beneath her experiences. Her face lifted like a child’s to Celeste’s gentle ministrations, the girl craving love that she’d never had.
Soon
, Celeste thought,
soon he will come to you and do not turn him away, Beth
…

The girls’ night at her home was paying off. Her cats were purring, snuggled tight against Beth. She would need them to find her way, and they would need her as a champion.

Maggie watched the candle’s flame, locked in her struggles with the past, the locket in her hand.

Celeste couldn’t pinpoint the danger, because Maggie didn’t know it existed. Whatever was causing those shadows beneath her eyes said she wasn’t at peace. It didn’t take Ce
leste’s psychic powers to see the ache in Maggie’s expression when she looked at playing children, to feel the chilling fear of water, to know that the locket had special meaning to her.

Why was Maggie in danger? Why did it seek her? Why would Celeste die?

Maggie settled back on the lavender-scented pillow, allowing Celeste to spread the relaxing mask on her face.

When she touched Maggie, Celeste almost gasped; the gripping sense of her own death was stronger.

“Is something wrong?” Maggie frowned slightly, watching Celeste.

“No, of course not. I was just thinking about the mixture and the scent, how to improve it. How does it feel?”

Maggie leaned back, once more relaxed. “Lovely. I’ve never had anything like this. You’re a genius, Celeste.”

“You’re working too hard, Maggie, if you can be swayed by a bit of beauty butter. How’s business? And where is Scout?” The dog was always present, always protective.

Celeste saw a puppy, tethered to a stake and lying down in the mud. She saw a hand ready to strike—

“She’s with Nick and Dante on the beach. Don’t ask me. Boys and beer and bratwursts on a beach, and my dog happy as can be, running into the water to fetch sticks. She runs off to see Nick when she can.”

“What girl wouldn’t?” Beth drawled. “So is that why you’re down there so much? To retrieve your dog?”

“Smart mouth. Yes, I’ve had to go after her a few times. I don’t know why I put up with you,” Maggie said after a moment.

But Celeste did. The link was immediate and deep. Beth was changing, her self-respect growing, and part of the reason was that she wanted Maggie as a friend. Beth had taken a part-time job at Celeste’s and was staying with her more nights than not; the harsh makeup had softened and the sexy tight clothing had slid into T-shirts and jeans.

In return, Maggie had found someone in Beth whom she had loved and lost.

Celeste forced herself back to the girls-only night, needing to see how the two women reacted to each other—her heirs and her family. Her cats would need them, and perhaps the little cottage, too, for comfort with its herbs and fragrances, the soft sounds. Perhaps because she knew her end was near, Celeste held these two friends more closely, wanting their happiness more than her own.

They would eventually circle Lorna and draw her into their warmth, freeing her of shadows, just as the loving woman captured inside Lorna deserved.

Beth and Maggie were comfortable in Celeste’s home, moving easily in the kitchen. Even now, Beth had left some clothing in the extra bedroom where she had begun to stay. Almost wistfully, Maggie had weeded the rue and lavender before dinner, as though she wished for her own home. Her hand had skimmed Celeste’s furniture, the mark of a woman who loved tending her home and beloved possessions. Where were they? Those possessions that Maggie needed?

Maggie had come from a terrible journey; her life hadn’t been perfect.

Celeste pieced the facts she knew of Maggie’s life—she’d lost her father, been raised by a loving, strong mother, loved her younger sister who had passed away—ah, there, there was friction and torment that tangled with a marriage Maggie had wanted desperately to work, and it hadn’t. That much was easy to read: When one is betrayed, the bitterness remains in the turn of the mouth, the wary shadows of eyes. In the month and a half of their friendship, Celeste had gathered bits of Maggie’s life and stored them away. The images of the two young girls with copper-colored hair were very strong, just as powerful as ones of the mistreated dog.

Perhaps Celeste’s abilities gave her more cause to listen closely to Maggie, to find small nuances within her words and to draw from them:

“My mother was a good role model—she had to work too hard after Dad drowned,” Maggie had said. “Mom never recovered from losing him, but she forced herself to go on for
my sister and me. Mom died when I was twenty-one.”

Bitterness came slipping through with her comment. “I thought I could count on a man once. But, put to the test, I wasn’t that important to him.”

Then at a different time, Maggie had said, “I wish my sister could see me actually stand in water and try not to be afraid. She was younger and a good swimmer. She’s gone now, but she understood. I miss her so much.”

The locket was part of her sister; Maggie’s habit of touching it came more often when she spoke of a younger sister.

Her father had drowned—that explained her fear of water, that pained look as Maggie gazed out onto Lake Michigan…

A betrayal, a mistreated puppy…

But there were so many unanswered questions about Maggie, the pieces of the puzzle unmatched and bothersome.

On the porch, the goddess wind chime tinkled slightly, warningly, rhythmically, counting down to Celeste’s time to die…

Again, Celeste pulled herself back, focusing. She wiped her hand on the towel around Maggie’s throat and couldn’t help the shudder passing through her—the locket gleamed on Maggie’s chest.

The connection leading to Celeste’s death came from the locket and the dog—but how?

Whatever stirred inside Maggie, Celeste would be the key to unlock it…

In his wine cellar, Nick ran his hand over the bottle’s surface, critically studying the slope of the shoulders and the punt, or raised indenture at the bottom. He placed the bottle—an expensive reserve red—on its side in the rack. In time, he would strive for a more distinctive style and upgrade the label with a frame of gold. He ran his thumb over the Alessandro logo—the picture of a man with a small boy at his side, bending over a row of small grape vines, just as Nick remembered being with his grandfather.

Outside, the early July sun was bringing the sweet harvest,
and in late September the grapes would be fat and lush.

Maggie had said she was busy tonight with a client, and he missed her. He’d grown to expect her chasing after Scout, eventually helping him prepare dinner, then taking Scout down to the beach. It was a time to know and wait and let the flavors of friendship ripen and deepen.

The desire pressing him made waiting difficult, because the scent of Maggie, the look of her could make him ache instantly. Even the thought of her could distract him. One look at her jogging, her breasts bobbing gently, the sheen of sweat on her skin, the muscles of her body moving in a rhythmic push-up was enough to stop his mind completely, and his body shot into full hard alert.

He turned to the shaft of bright light coming through the open door of his cellar. Eugene and Beth stood at the doorway to the stairs, then Beth was flying down to him. Her footsteps echoed eerily in the large cellar, her face pale and terrified as she collided with him.

He held her away and watched her fight for breath. “What’s wrong?”

“It’s Maggie. She has an appointment with a customer at his house—it’s that rented Evans place on Lakeshore Drive. I heard it in the tavern just now. He’s one of them—the summer people—and has his own boat. It’s tied up to the Evans’s private dock now. He’s not sweet and I don’t think he’s really wanting a sports massage. At the bar, I just heard that he’s got his buddies coming in later for a little dessert—I know of a girl who got hurt awful by them down the coast. I took off early and Ed didn’t like it, to tell you. Oh, Nick, you’ve got to get her away from there.”

Nick tried to leash his panic. His hand trembled as he replaced the bottle in the rack and tried to balance his fear for Maggie with how much she wanted to start a good business. Her excitement had been happy, bursting over the telephone lines to him. “Nick, I’ve got a favor to ask. Is it possible for you to keep Scout tonight, just until I can pick her up? I’ve got this great appointment—if it works out, I’ll have a really
good client who can provide referrals. I’ve been working piecemeal, but this could mean a step up to my own exclusive clients. He says he’s allergic to dogs, or I’d take Scout with me.”

Nick had driven into town to collect Scout, and when she was seated beside him, Maggie had leaned into the window, lightly kissing his cheek. She was riding on excitement, and when he turned slightly, the kiss lingered and tasted, and hungered. Impetuously, she’d reached into the pickup cab and held his head as they kissed, each seeking the other, satisfied for the moment. “Thanks,” she’d said.

“Come in here, and we’ll go for a ride,” he’d invited when he could talk, because Maggie’s quiet reserve had slipped for once, allowing him into the woman.

She’d laughed knowingly and playfully ruffled his hair. “You want more than to take a ride.”

“Some other time?” he offered, steaming and feeling quite rosy himself. But she had run into Ole’s, waving back at him. That slight jiggle of her butt had left him with the hard knot of desire that even hard work in the vineyard wouldn’t ease.

“Nick?” Beth was urging as she and Scout followed him up the stairs.

Terror wrapped its ugly fist around him; Maggie could be—“I’m on my way.”

Eugene held open the outside door. “Beth told me. I just called Old Reno. He fishes down there by the Evans place. That thirty-footer, high-class outfit just took off down the harbor, out to the lake. The guy was helping a woman into the boat. She looked like she needed it. Said she was a red-haired woman. Maggie—”

“I know. Tell Old Reno that I need to borrow his boat, okay? And call Dante, tell him to meet me at the boat.”

“Sure. Don’t let anything bad happen to Maggie, Nick. She’s not like that party crowd we get in sometimes.”

“Nothing is going to happen to her, Eugene,” Nick said and prayed that he was right. “Come on, Scout.”

Nick rammed the vehicle into gear and spun out of the parking lot. If Beth was mistaken, all that could happen was a little embarrassment for him. If Maggie was in danger—he didn’t want to think further and focused on racing to the harbor. She was terrified of water, but she just might have overcome that in her desire for a new client base.
Or not
.

Maggie couldn’t shove the haze in her head away. She remembered Leo Knute serving her an iced cola, which she drank as he asked about her background and skills, if she had any family in Blanchefleur. It seemed an innocent thing to do, chatting with a client over a soft drink, getting him to relax and become comfortable with her. From the boat moored at the dock and the luxurious interiors of the house, the way he dressed, he seemed to have money and friends. A connection with wealthy friends who could—