After Dark

SHE LET OUT a gasping breath.

She extended her hand and her fingers brushed across his fist, clenched on the table. “I never intended—”

When he lurched to his feet, she fell silent.

He shouldn’t have brought up the ugly darkness. Why had he?

To be cruel? To dim that bright, clever smile? Had his family’s pain and tragedy really turned him into such an unfeeling ass?

With his back to her, he forced his emotions to the pit of his stomach. “I understand you and your committee have a job to do. So do I. And I need to do it alone.”

“I don’t plan to burden you with my presence on a daily basis. Weekly inspections will be fine.”

He suppressed a wince. “Inspections?”

“Visits,” she amended.

There had to be a way around this historical accuracy nonsense. He only wanted to work and sweat, bring back elegance and beauty to something in this world.

“Suppose I ignore these rules? And your visits?”

“You could, I guess. But Sister Mary Katherine would consider that dishonorable, and you really don’t want to get on her bad side.”

Blue-hairs, teenagers, librarians and nuns were going to rule his life for the foreseeable future. It was completely, jaw-droppingly ridiculous.

“Also,” Sloan added, “My daddy is the sheriff, and my granddaddy is the county judge. You really don’t want to get on their bad side.”

And the law. Great.

He’d seen enough cops in the last year to last a lifetime. If only her cousin was a reporter, his torture would be complete.

Heading toward the whiskey bottle, he said, “The blueprints are in the library. Look at them all you want, make copies, pass them out to your fellow committee members, alert the media.”

“Thank you. That would be helpful.”

He poured his drink, then rested against the counter to sip it. “The carpenter is coming tomorrow. I’m sure you can discuss all my insidious plans with him.”

“I’ll be sure to do that,” she said cheerfully.

“So go.”

She angled her head. “Does drinking improve or sour your mood?”

“Go!”

Shrugging, not looking at all offended by his surliness, she rose from the table, then walked down the hall.

She was right. She didn’t saunter. She strutted.

He poured more whiskey.

Rage and regret were living, breathing things. And both volatile. He longed to remember what his life had been like before, when his family had been happy and secure, when his communications company, which he’d inherited from his father and which had supported them all, had flourished. When he’d been full of himself and the fortunes he’d been surrounded by. When he hadn’t thought being on time to dinner would be the difference between life and death. When he hadn’t realized the power a total stranger had over everything that mattered.

Berating the police for lack of justice hadn’t solved anything. Avoiding the media hadn’t made them any less likely to go away. Selling the company hadn’t soothed his grief. Working himself to exhaustion hadn’t, as yet, tempered his anger.

Give it time, his friends said.

So he was.

As he sipped his drink, he forcefully pushed his thoughts to the work he’d accomplished the last few days and ignored the briefcase sitting on the floor a few feet away. He’d sanded the floor in the dining room, preparing it for staining. He’d accepted delivery of a mattress and box-spring set and assembled it into the antique mahogany bed frame he’d bought a couple of weeks ago at an estate sale. He’d repaired the bookcase in the library.

Where Sexy Sloan was now.

Why didn’t she leave? Why did the sensual, tropical fruit scent of her perfume linger, even when she wasn’t in the room?

He stiffened as he heard her move down the hall toward him.

“These are really good,” she said, holding the rolled-up plans. “You’ve done a lot of work already.”

“I haven’t changed anything,” he said sharply. “Just simple repairs.”

She held up her hand. “I can see that. I saw the pictures of the new stair and balcony railing. Did you have it built?”

“I bought it at an estate sale.”

“I have a hard time seeing you puttering around old houses on weekends.”

He paused in the process of sipping his whiskey. “I don’t putter.”

“No.” Her gaze drifted down his body, leaving heat and need in its wake. “I imagine you don’t.”

“You’ve got what you want,” he said harshly, irritated by her ability to arouse him so effortlessly. Now go.

She seemed to sense his unspoken words and crossed to her briefcase, which she set on the kitchen table. “I’ll get the plans back to you tomorrow.”

“Fine.”

Straightening, she faced him. “I’m not your enemy, Aidan.”

It was the first time she’d called him by his given name, and the moment sent a pulse of excitement through his veins. A moment he didn’t want and shouldn’t feel.

“I’m sorry about your parents,” she added.

He never knew what to say to this. Thanks? They lived a long and full life? Since neither of those were true, he remained silent.

Hitching her briefcase on her shoulder, she started out. “It’s a nice town. You’ll be—”

“Happy?” He shook his head. “I want to be alone.”