With Her Last Breath (29 page)

The small-town police chief, a relative of the Alessandros, had already interviewed Ed; after that Ed, a longtime antagonist of Nick’s, had been noticeably jumpy.

Brent shrugged. That was as it should be—his talent came in gauging the weak, playing them, just as he had played Maggie’s sister.

But Maggie wouldn’t play. She didn’t understand the rules. He would have to make her understand, to make her obey his every wish—before he killed her. He kicked at the repaired hole until the water began to gush through the crack and it widened treacherously.

Leo had served his purpose, driving in that night to destroy the winery. Later, Brent had been waiting for him in a deserted garage. As they had agreed, Leo had handed Brent a thick wad of big bills for the information leading to Maggie and Nick, the bargain between just the two of them. Laughing wildly, Leo planned how he would come back and kill the
entire vineyard, so that nothing would ever grow on Alessandro land. Then, high on drugs, wine, and revenge, Leo had wanted Maggie, bragging about what he would do to her…

Brent moved briskly to the other boat and frowned into the dark water, remembering the blank look on Leo’s face as the overdose hit him, passing from pleasure into death. No one but Brent was tending to Maggie Chantel, and she would tell him that she loved him before she died, just like her sister…

He watched the water seem to slowly absorb Leo’s boat. With care, Brent placed Leo’s wine-stained farmer’s boots into a plastic sack—they tied Leo to the ruined wine, and could be useful later.

Brent removed his rubber gloves and stuffed them into a plastic bag loaded with rocks. He tossed the bag into the water and began humming as he motored back to shore.

His mother had always taught him to be tidy.

F
rom his vantage point in the old lighthouse, Nick watched the woman on the beach. The brief call to inform his cousin Lorenzo, the local police chief, about Leo’s attack had really upset her. And when Nick took the telephone, Lorenzo hadn’t been too happy with him. His rapt admonishment “Nick,” was followed by the hiss of a dead line and had a lot of force—Lorenzo, as police chief, should have been informed of Leo’s attack.

On the beach now, Maggie had slipped from Nick’s arms and his bed, just as easily as she could slip from his life. Her past was always there, locked against him, and yet touching their lives. Maggie had more to tell him, and yet she preferred to keep that distance between them.

Nick ran his hand over his bare chest and wondered what drew her to the water. Maggie had changed since Celeste’s death, as if she were waiting for closure and listening to an inner voice. Even now, Maggie stretched her arms high into the brief slice of moonlight, as though she was trying to summon the answer within her.

Maybe he’d never understand. Maggie had faced her fear of sailing, and now she was dealing with Celeste’s death in her own way.

Women kept their secrets, and Celeste, Beth, and Maggie definitely had a bond.

The odd thing was that Maggie had defended Lorna.

The winery’s destruction and the attack on Eugene was one thing, stirring a cold anger that Nick feared releasing.

Maggie was something else: There was always that distance, as though she didn’t want to fully step into their relationship. He rubbed the ache in his chest, the one that told him how much he would miss her.

And she wouldn’t like what he had planned.

Nick picked up the telephone and punched in Vinnie’s number. At two o’clock in the morning, the radio was playing loudly in Vinnie’s garage, a sign that he was working on a very private project. When he answered the telephone, Vinnie was panting, and the sound of a welder’s dying torch hissed in the background. “Yeah?”

Nick didn’t want to know about Vinnie’s special nighttime work. “Vinnie. I’ve got something I need done, and I can’t do it myself.”

“You got it. Heard about the winery. Bad deal. The family and I been talking about it. We figure an outsider did the deed. Not kids on a spree, but someone out to make a point, a warning.”

“We’re working on it. I think the wine growers association will pitch in to help me with this harvest. I’ve helped enough of them in the past. Vinnie, there is going to be a lot of inquiries. If you’ve got anything going that isn’t on the up-and-up, you might call it off for a bit. Meanwhile, if you could get a few relatives together and help me out, I’d appreciate it.”

“Rebuild the place?”

“Can’t do that until the insurance and investigators are done, and I’m tied up with paperwork and obligations now. I can’t meet those orders I just took, and I’ve got to work on
getting equipment for this year’s crop. No, this has to be done tomorrow, while Maggie is in town.”

A woman’s voice murmured close to Vinnie and he answered, “Sure, baby. I’ll be right there. I got to go, Nick. My baby is sweaty, revved, and waiting. How can I help?”

The identity of Vinnie’s girlfriends weren’t for discussion. He let it be known that he liked married women, keeping his obligations in the affairs to a minimum.

Nick gave a brief description of the job and replaced the telephone. Maggie would dig in to argue, and things could get rough between them. He could lose her.

Maggie walked up the knoll to Nick’s house, the sand cool and shifting beneath her feet, just as her fears stirred within her.

Lorenzo’s questions had been quick and shielded, but he wanted answers: Had she given Leo any indication that she might play ball that night? Had he paid her? The questions led to Ed, and Lorenzo advised her to avoid future conversation with the bartender. Lorenzo had chuckled when she described her confrontation with Ed to protect Beth.

Maggie pushed away her uncertainty, that nagging quiet voice about Brent, and called to Celeste to help her. The description of the stranger did not fit Brent, meticulous about his physical fitness, his hair and face. A vain man, he would have repaired imperfections: If he were thinning, he would have had implants. If he had a scar, he would have had cosmetic surgery. He ran and exercised regularly, ate well, and on the outside was the picture of a healthy athlete. But his mind was sick, and the infection spread to the people whose lives he touched.

Scout moved close to her, as if understanding her unsettled emotions, and Maggie bent to hug her pet. “It isn’t Brent. He’s far too vain and too sly to outright come after you. He was glad to get me out of town, to shut me up. He knows I can make trouble.”

Nick stood on the porch, dressed only in jeans, and stand
ing with legs braced and arms crossed. A big man, he was a formidable sight as he watched her walk up to the house. “You’re upset because I want to marry you.”

“Yes, I am. I’ve been married. It wasn’t fun. I was the good wife and I gave everything, too much.”

“I got that picture.”

Maggie understood Nick’s pride and his vulnerability now. But she wasn’t acting as a scapegoat for his frustration and letting someone else set terms for her life. She’d learned the hard way. “Now isn’t the time to be discussing something like that.”

“You think because my business is in the toilet that I can’t handle my private life? That I don’t know my own mind when it comes to the only woman in my life?” His angry thrust sailed across the shadows to her.

“You’re going to work through this, Nick. You’ll rebuild. That’s what I’m trying to do with my life.”

“Your nightmares—they’re worse. Why? Did the investigation make you nervous? Lorenzo is only doing his job, honey. He’s not looking at you as a suspect.”

“It’s not about that. I rescued Scout. The thought that anything could happen to her—it’s a long story.”

“I’m waiting.” The demand was flat, tinged in anger that stoked her own.

“You can wait then.” Maggie didn’t want Nick to see the darkness she’d left behind.

He chewed on that, a muscle moving in his jaw, then demanded, “What am I to you? A temporary stop before you move on?”

Maggie fought her own anger. She’d been pushed, and hard, before in her life and now Nick’s need for legal commitment nettled. “Nick, I wouldn’t be here now if I didn’t want to be.”

“Move in with me. I want you protected. If anything happens to you—”

Maggie instantly sensed his insecurity—that he’d once let a woman he’d loved die. Instinctively, she moved into his
arms, holding him tight. “Nothing is going to happen to me, Nick.”

Against her cheek, his heart was racing, his arms trembling around her. “Nothing can.”

When Nick picked her up to carry her to bed, Maggie held him tightly. She understood his need, and her own, to share the tenderness between them, to be one and to be comforted—because she had already started to love him.

Yet to her, love was a dangerous seduction, taking away everything—because she gave everything.

In the morning, Maggie awoke slowly to Nick’s steady, even breathing. Today would be difficult for him—facing the reality of investigators, paperwork, calling customers, the legalities of dealing with a criminally ruined inventory.

She eased aside to look at him, this man who already shared part of her heart, and definitely had shared her body. The muted light from the window gentled his features. She eased back a strand of waving hair from his forehead, and he grunted, jerking away as though he didn’t want to wake up. “Go back to sleep,” he murmured drowsily.

Maggie studied the long sweep of his lashes, his tousled look. The arrogance was still there in the broad planes of his face, the blunt masculine nose beneath her prowling fingertip. Celeste had said that it was a stubborn, truthful nose, that men with those noses were honest and faithful—they could be trusted.

Beside the bed, the crystals in an abalone shell gleamed, the facets catching color from the early morning sunlight. Celeste had given the crystals to Nick just days before she died, her actions unexplained.

The multicolors of the abalone shell seemed to cuddle the crystals, bringing warmth and life to them as images stirred within Maggie.

She saw him as a boy, running freely with his brothers. As a grandson, helping an aged man fulfill his dream. As a son who loved his parents and family.

She saw him as her lover, intimate and honed, locking her possessively to him.

She inhaled slowly, and turned to Nick. His tall body sprawled on the bed, a sheet pushed down to his hips.

New and demanding, the need to take him, pit herself against him, rose in her. Perhaps the physical need was a release for the tension of last night, the more primitive side of tenderness, the dark possession of a predator.

Maggie nestled her bare breasts against his arm, smoothed her insole against his shin, and settled in to think about Nick.

With Nick, she simply enjoyed being a woman—at times feminine, at times playful. She enjoyed being in command of herself—and with Nick, strong and predatory, a taker. She could be what she wanted, because Nick could handle it—meeting her in equal strength.

Whatever happened between them, for the moment, she was in full possession of a man she had chosen, not one that society and surface logic had chosen for her. With Nick, she was unafraid to show her sexuality, her needs and hunger. Call it tension release, but Maggie felt alive and strong and physically ready to take on anything.

Biorhythms, Celeste had explained, were a powerful influence, and now Maggie’s were dismissing everything but the pleasure of—

With Nick, she enjoyed being predatory, and now was the time to give him a sexual marathon to remember throughout a long, hard day…

Nick dreamed of Maggie’s hand on the stick shift, the skillful movements that could make him hard. He gave himself to the luxurious sensation of those hands on him, moving him into high, erect gear.

He groaned, pulsing and hungry and—Nick opened his eyes as Maggie moved over him, kneeling to capture him fully.

With slow rhythm, she took him from one dream into throbbing reality.

Just before she went into herself, Nick caught that smile—a pleased, victorious smirk that caught him.

So she thought him easy, did she?

Taking care, Nick eased slightly away, eluding her capture of him fully.

Braced on his shoulders, her fingers dug in, her body trembling as he withstood his own release.

Everything else outside their own intimate battle, Nick caressed her hips until that first threatening orgasm eased without release.

She frowned down at him. “Nick?”

He couldn’t stop his grin. “Maggie.”

One hand lightly prowled his chest, and she tugged a hair gently, her expression challenging. “Don’t make this difficult on yourself. Give up.”

“You first.” He ran his thumb over the crest of her nipple and then raised to suckle gently, edging it with his teeth before lying back down.

Watching Maggie deal with her frustration and her pride was fascinating. “You want games? I’ll give you games.”

She settled down atop him, her elbows braced beside his head, her hand toying with his hair. Her hips undulated slowly upon him. The tightening of her inner muscles almost sent him over the edge. She brushed her lips over his, holding his bottom lip in her teeth just that instant before releasing it. “Take that, Nick. Live and learn.”

Maggie was all heat and sleek, damp, soft skin, her muscles gliding smoothly beneath his caresses.

Nick allowed the knowing feminine smirk, enjoying it, before he moved his hand down her belly, lifting her slightly.

When his fingers found the tiny intimate treasure, Maggie stiffened. “That’s not fair.”

This time, it was his turn to smile. “Isn’t it?”

Multiple orgasms with Nick had a way of making the morning absolutely beautiful, Maggie decided.

Not that she was alone in the orgasm lane, as she had thoroughly zapped Nick. Or he had zapped her.

It was a mutual experience, a most satisfying, long-lasting, draining, woozy, and filling experience. Maggie showered quickly, pleased that the man she had left that morning could only grunt and turn over after her good-morning kiss.

“I hope I haven’t ruined you, dear,” she’d whispered against his ear, gloating a little that she was the first to move that morning.

Her muscles ached, but then the physical release had been long and powerful—and satisfying for them both.

He’d grunted again, an apparent concession to her victory.

They had met in a balance of endurance and power, but his button move just wasn’t fair.

Okay, so it was a toss-up, Maggie admitted as she dressed in an athletic bra, a tank top, and shorts. She tied her shoes briskly and noted the slight twinge in her haunches.

Maggie smiled softly. She’d left Nick belly-down, sprawled on the bed, unable to move. He’d have a hard day, but she’d accomplished her goal of giving him something to take with him.

And tonight she planned a candlelit bedroom assault. After fighting legalities and frustration all day, he’d come home to a good meal and healthy, devastating sex, which she would thoroughly enjoy.

If Nick was up to it. He’d definitely been up to it earlier, giving her only so much before starting again, lifting her even higher…

Maggie shuddered a little bit, remembering flashes of their match, a good healthy release of tension, a little bit of physical medicine before they both met their day.

But now she was late for her appointments, and despite the shadow of the destroyed winery, the possibility of Leo in the area, and the ongoing investigation that could take days, she
was supremely happy. Anxious to meet the day, Scout was busy prancing in front of the door, whining softly.

“You are going to have to stop visiting the whole town for a while, Scout. If Leo is involved with this, I don’t want to think about what he would do. Let’s just stick together like we always have, okay?”

Maggie lifted her freshly shampooed hair into a ponytail, opened the back door, stepped onto the deck, and stretched.