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The man, who wore wraparound sunglasses, dropped a cane-a thin, white cane.
He was blind.
Da
Twenty-one
T revalian had found the perfect view. From the balcony he’d watched Shaler’s grand entrance. Hearing someone bounding up the stairs, he’d turned and forced a collision, to win sympathy over suspicion.
Now, on his knees, he patted the floor searching for his cane, even though he could see it to his right.
“Sorry.” The man who’d knocked into him was profoundly good-looking, and polite in his supplication.
“No problem,” he said, moving tentatively toward the stairs and grasping for the handrail.
“You’re a long way from the party,” the man observed.
“Bird’s-eye view.” Trevalian openly smirked at his own joke. “I was taking the dime tour.” He was now halfway down the stairs, and with the man behind him he couldn’t risk observing Shaler as he’d intended. But given that he’d counted at least four security escorts around her, it was better not to test their abilities to spot people like him.
“If you give me a minute, I could show you back downstairs. I’ve got a fifty-cent tour that might beat your dime.”
“I can find my way, thank you.” He added to his voice the curt edge of a man who was used to and resented being patronized because of his disability. He followed the banister around the turn of the landing and continued down the stairs.
A gorgeous redhead arrived at the base of the stairs. “Hello,” she said.
“Hello,” Trevalian answered, looking in her general direction and raising his head like a dog sniffing the wind. The air smelled of ambrosia, and something earthy and pungent.
“You didn’t happen to see…that is, I’m sorry…Did anyone pass by you just now?” she asked.
Trevalian knew intuitively to stay out of this. The man who’d run into him had clearly been in a hurry: but to make a love nest or to avoid one?
And then, from above, “Up here, Ailia.”
Her cheeks flushed and her eyes sparkled. “Excuse me,” she said, hurrying past him, leaving Trevalian awash in her complex scents, and, to his surprise, aroused.
Twenty-two
Y ou look a little lost,” a friendly voice said from behind Walt.
He turned to find Clarence Stillwill, a fixture in the Wood River Valley for the past forty years. He’d been a river guide, a saloon owner, a magazine and book publisher, and was currently an organic farmer on twenty acres outside of Fairfield. And for good measure he and his wife filled in as bartenders for friends who ran the most popular catering company in town.
Clarence was a big man, but well proportioned so it didn’t show until you stood right next to him, part cowboy, part college professor. He ma
Walt took a beer.
“Money like this…”
“Yeah,” Walt said.
“This house…he’s here, what, three weeks a year?”
“If that.”
“Talk about a crime.”
“I know.”
“Why the civvies?” Clarence asked.
“I’m undercover.”
“Yeah, you fit right in here.”
“I’ve got to do the impossible: convince a woman not to talk.”
“It really is a thankless job.”
“Jerry’s involved.”
“How is it between you two?”
“About the same,” Walt said.
“Bobby’s death?”
“The great divide.”
“It was a real loss. How’s the kid?”
“Messed up.”
“Yeah,” Clarence said. “Kinda figured.”
“We all are. Gail and I…A lot of that was losing Bobby.”
“I figured you two forever.”
“You and me, both.”
“Can’t live with ’em, can’t kill ’em.”
“Cheers to that,” Walt said, hoisting the beer.
“In case you missed it, Tommy Lee Jones keeps checking you out.”
Walt looked to see Dryer staring him down.
“Guys like that,” Clarence said, indicating Dryer, “they’ll put up a fight, but they won’t take you to the mat. At the end of the day, it’s just a paycheck for them.”
“Your lips to God’s ears.”
A waitress interrupted and placed an order. As Clarence went to work, Walt looked up to see Da
Walt’s cell phone buzzed, and he ducked behind a potted tree to answer.
A woman’s grating voice cleared the wax from his ears. “Kevin tells me we’re invited to dessert with you and Jerry up at the Pio. Is that for real?”
“Hello, Myra.”
“Why are you whispering?”
“I’m kind of in the middle of something.”
“But it sounds noisy.”
“Kevin’s right. Dessert is for real. My treat. The Pio, maybe eight-thirty, quarter to nine.” He checked his watch, realizing if she hadn’t called, he might have forgotten the di
“But Jerry?” she asked. “What if he’s drinking?”
“Then you’ll be doing me a big favor by coming,” Walt said honestly.
“Okay…okay. But he starts dumping on Kevin, we’re out of there.”
“And I’ll be right behind you,” Walt said.
He hung up the call, wondering what he’d gotten himself into.
Twenty-three
T ell me you weren’t ru
Da
She gestured to the nearest guest room, marked “Guercino” on the door.
“Indifferent. Or trying to be,” Da
“But why?”
“New leafs don’t turn over easily.”
“Oh, God, don’t tell me you bought the whole twelve-step thing.”
“I bought it, but it was on credit.”
“Five minutes. Don’t make me beg.” She led him down the hall and into the first guest suite-as it happened, his.
She closed the door with authority.
“I’m going to skip the missing-you part, and how hard it’s been, and get to the point: I can help you, Da
“I beg your pardon?”
“Patrick told me all about it. He’s in a snit you won’t keep it in the family, but hey, if it’s Stu and me, it’s almost family anyway, don’t you think?”
“I think this is my business and Paddy had no right to-”
“Oh, come on! He’s looking after you. We’re all looking after you. And at least one of us is looking right at you.” She stepped closer, a dozen sweet smells swirling in front of her. “I’m not the enemy, you know?”
If she moved another inch toward him their bodies would touch. Now he felt her body heat. It mixed with her scent and his head swam.
“Allie…no.”
“Ah, come on. Why deny a girl a little pleasure?” Her breath smelled of red wine. “You know how I am about pleasure.”
The longer she stood there, the weaker his will. He inhaled deeply and some hairs danced toward his face.
She whispered, “Let me help. Please.” She tentatively placed her hands on his waist, above his hip bones. “I’m not going to beg,” she said. “Not until our clothes are off, at least. You know how I get.” She smiled, and as much as he wanted to see her as self-serving and shallow, a middle-aged flirt, to be turned off by her, he found himself quite the opposite. He liked aggressive women. She knew this about him and exploited it. “I’ve been fantasizing about you, Da
He felt his resistance failing. Her perfumes invaded him and hit like a drug. His skin burned where she touched him.
“Feel where I’m the warmest?” she said, pushing her hips forward and burning through to his thigh.
More scents escaped from her neckline-dark, lusty odors that didn’t come from a bottle-scents that were designed to trigger urges and instincts, and he was a fool to think he could prevent it. He drank them down and they fed him, and the addict in him, so barely confined, wanted more. He’d sworn no internal oath against this. He had no battle with her. Physically he needed this, and she knew it and the offer that now came out of her, in an expression of hands and a willingness of her lips parting to kiss him, so overwhelmed him that he didn’t simply give in to it, he thrived on it.