The Missing Maitland

In spite of herself, Blossom let out a caustic laugh. “Hardly. We weren’t poor, but hired help of that sort was beyond our means. Although Mother would have loved it. She hated everything about domesticity.”

He turned and, for the first time since she’d entered the cabin, allowed himself a leisurely look at her. She’d swept her long hair up into a ponytail on the crown of her head. The exposure of her dainty ears and long, lovely neck made her look absurdly young. Even vulnerable. An adjective he’d never expected to associate with Blossom Woodward.

“In other words, you didn’t drag up a chair to the kitchen counter to stand in and watch while she baked cookies.”

To his surprise she didn’t come back at him with a flip retort. In fact, he was sure he saw a dark flash of regret in her eyes just before she glanced away from him.

“Not all little girls are lucky enough to have a mother like that,” she said, then after a moment she slanted a pointed glance back at him. “What about you?”

Nothing registered on his face as he shifted back to the hash. Picking up the wooden spoon, he pushed it slowly through the warming food. “My mother is dead now. But…while she was around, she tried.”

It hadn’t been Veronica’s fault that she’d had little more than roach traps to live in or barely enough money to put food on the table for four hungry kids, he thought. In her own way, she’d tried to make as much of a home as she could for them. Her untimely death and the brutal circumstances surrounding it had left a hole in him that he figured would never heal.

A few steps away, Blossom studied the distant, preoccupied expression on his face. At this moment he was far away from her, and she could only surmise that thoughts of his mother had tugged him to some other place in his past.

Larkin was a young man. Even if the woman had given birth to him in the latter part of her childbearing years and she’d died only recently, she couldn’t have been old. The notion filled Blossom with curiosity. Yet she didn’t ask him to elaborate about his mother. From his earlier comments, she’d gathered that he thought of her as a prying reporter. He wouldn’t believe that her questions could ever be strictly from a human interest.

“My mother is in Florida now,” she said as she made a quick survey of the cabin’s interior. “With her fourth husband. She’s been married to him for a year now. Much longer than I ever expected.”

The small room contained a living, dining and cooking area. Along the front wall was a plaid couch, the green and orange colors faded and worn from years of use. To the right of the couch, in the far corner, was a small square table constructed of mismatched pine boards. Huge trunks of hardwood trees about a foot in diameter and twice that much in height passed for chairs. The area where she and Larkin stood was the cooking area, complete with a single iron sink covered with chipped and stained porcelain, a relic of a cookstove. Wooden crates covered with dusty white curtains served as cabinets.

Next to the table, across the back wall of the room, was a small doorway. Another dingy curtain partially covered the open space. From where she was standing, it was impossible to see what was beyond the curtain. She could only surmise that it was a bedroom.

“Are you saying your mother and marriage don’t mix?” he asked.

She grimaced. “My mother likes men too much to stay married to one for very long. Her motto is too many men, not enough time.”

He wrapped a dish towel around the skillet handle and picked it up from the burner. “This stuff is ready,” he said. “Get some plates out of the cabinet while I carry it over to the table.”

He hadn’t asked her; he’d told her. But Blossom wasn’t going to point that out to the man. She was hungry, and so far he’d done all the meal preparation. Besides, she was the type of person who could bend. Up to a certain point.

After a quick search of the cabinet shelves, Blossom found a stack of chipped and mismatched plates, cups and bowls. To one side of the dishes, stored in a plastic jug, was a handful of silverware. She dug out two forks and spoons and, after wiping everything off with a damp dishcloth, carried the dining equipment to the table.

Larkin dished the food equally onto their plates, and by the light of a coal oil lamp they began to eat the simple meal. Even if the globe had been washed of dust and soot, the primitive lighting would have still been dim. Across the table, she was barely able to discern the lines of his face.

“I’ve had candlelit dinners brighter than this,” she said in an attempt to make light of their intimate predicament.

“I’m sure.”

With each bite, she could feel herself growing more weary. Her shoulders and eyes were both beginning to droop, making her reach for the camp coffee he’d brewed.

“What does that mean?” she asked, while pouring the dark liquid into one of the cracked cups.

“Nothing. Just that I’m sure you’ve had lots of…dining out.”

He made the word dining sound like a sexual romp, and she couldn’t make up her mind whether to be insulted or flattered. Blossom realized she wasn’t necessarily a raving beauty. Yet she was aware that the combination of her blue eyes, blond hair and lush curves were an attractive package to men. Even so, she’d never been overwhelmed with offers for dates.

It’s that air of independence you have, Blossom. Men like to think they’re needed and they don’t feel that way with you.

Dena Woodward had often spoken those words of warning to Blossom. Even so, it wasn’t in her to pretend to be something she wasn’t. And anyway, she’d be crazy to take her mother’s advice. Dena might know how to attract men, but keeping them around as a family member was another story altogether.

“In spite of what you’re thinking, I’m not much of a socializer,” Blossom told him. “For the most part men keep their distance and I keep mine.”

Larkin shook his head with faint amusement. “You’d try to make a person believe water isn’t wet.”

She shoveled a forkful of hash into her mouth and chewed. After she washed it down with a swallow of coffee, she said, “I’m pretty sure I’ve never seen you before today. Yet you behave as if you know me better than your own grandmother. Have you been…stalking me?”

It was true that he’d come to Austin because of her, Larkin silently admitted. And it was also true that he’d been wanting to learn some things about her. Mainly why she was searching for Luke Maitland. But he’d certainly not been stalking her. For any reason. In fact, it was still hard for him to believe that fate had virtually dropped the woman into his lap.

“First of all, I never knew my grandmothers. Secondly, as I’ve tried to tell you before, Blossom, I’m not a deranged person. If I’ve been implying that I know you personally, it’s only because I’ve seen you at work on television and made my own deductions about you.”

He could be telling the truth, but she couldn’t be sure. For the past two months she’d had the eerie feeling that she was being followed and watched. The notion could have been all in her mind. But what if Larkin had been stalking her all this time, just waiting for a chance to abduct her. The idea sent a river of goose bumps over her heated flesh.

“Then that puts me at a disadvantage,” she said, “because I haven’t been privy to any information about you.”

He shrugged as though she shouldn’t view that as a problem. “There’s nothing interesting or necessary for you to know about me.”

“Are you from Texas?” she asked. “You don’t sound like it.”

After he’d turned eighteen he’d never lived in one place long enough to acquire a local accent. His job had turned him into a tumbleweed that carried nothing but dirt behind it. For ten years he’d not had a family or home and he could only think of a handful of people he could call true friends.

“No. I’m not a Texan. Just a transplant.”

The hash on her plate was gone so she put down her fork and looked at him through the meager light. Lines of fatigue were beginning to etch his face, but Blossom instinctively felt there was more to his weariness than just the stressful day they’d had. She couldn’t imagine why the idea touched a soft spot inside her. Besides keeping her here against her will, he’d been nothing but a jerk.

“You don’t want to tell me about yourself, do you?”

“No.”

“Why?” she persisted.

Without glancing her way, he poured himself some of the coffee. “Because the less you know about me, the better.”

She drew in a deep breath and let it out. Normally when she was interviewing someone it was very easy to keep her thoughts focused on the questions she needed to ask. But with Larkin, one look at him made her intentions fall to the wayside. No matter how hard she tried, Blossom couldn’t forget how it had felt to be in his arms, to taste his lips. She’d never experienced such an electric state of euphoria and it frightened her to think how much she wanted to feel it again.

“When are you going to let me go? Take me back to Austin?” she dared to ask.

His brows lifted as he looked across the table at her. “That all depends.”

“On what? Those people who shot at us?”

His smile had nothing to do with being amused. “So you’re finally accepting that we were the targets and not Megan Maitland.”

“Not really.” The cabin was hot and his close proximity was making it even hotter. She could feel sweat trickling down her temples and between her breasts. Her skirt and blouse would be ruined before the night was over. She hoped that was the only thing. “However, since you seem so adamant about us being the bull’s-eye, I’m beginning to think you have enemies. I think that you recognized those men with the assault rifles and that you know why they came gunning for you.”

His jaw like concrete, he rose from his seat and picked up their empty plates and silverware. As he carried the dirty dishes over to the sink, he said, “Like I told you before, Blossom, you’re thinking too much. There’s a bed in the next room. Go lie down and let me do the worrying.”

Blossom didn’t stop to consider her reaction. Like a shot, she was across the floor, clamping both hands around his arm. “Don’t treat me like a child or an idiot! This is my life! And though you might play these sorts of games with other people, I don’t!”

He glanced at her fingers digging into his flesh, before slowly and calmly lifting his gaze to her face. “Believe me, Blossom, this isn’t a game.”

“Then I demand to know what’s going on. And why I’m a part of it!”

A blaze suddenly sparked in his eyes, warning Blossom he was on the edge of an explosion.

“You demand,” he repeated with a snarl. “Look, little lady, if it wasn’t for that big nose and even bigger mouth of yours, you wouldn’t be in this predicament now. You’ve dished out a heap of misery to people and didn’t blink an eye while doing it. Well, sister, if you haven’t learned it by now, what goes around comes around. You’re reaping your rewards!”

Fury hit her like the full force of a hurricane, and before she realized what she was doing, her hand reared back to slap him. But she never managed to fulfill the urge. Instantly, his fingers were gripping her wrist, forcing her hand back to her side.

“You won’t be slapping me, Blossom. Not tonight. Or any other night. And furthermore, if you don’t quit trying to hit me, you’re going to get your backside tanned with the palm of my hand!”

“Why you…insolent beast! You have no right to do—”

Without warning his hands were on her shoulders, propelling her rapidly backward through the doorway with its dusty curtain and farther still until the back of her legs collided with the side of a bed.

“That’s what you think, isn’t it?” he growled back at her. “You think no one has a right to their privacy. If your digging and your questions expose someone to danger, you just mark it off as a part of the job. To hell with their life as long as you get your story. Isn’t that the way you work, Ms. Woodward?”

Pain and humiliation burned through Blossom, and to her utter horror, tears began to sting her eyes. Damn it, she never cried. Crying was a sign of weakness. Besides, it didn’t help anything. She wasn’t about to let this man break her down to a sniveling female.

Furious with her own reaction to this man, she said, “I’ll bet you wouldn’t be talking to me like this if I were male.”

He barked out a caustic laugh. “You’re right. I wouldn’t be talking at all. I’d have already knocked your lights out.”

And he wouldn’t have had any trouble doing it, she thought with an inward shiver. The man was tough, strong, and he possessed a keen mind to boot. The combination of those three attributes made him a dangerous man. And yet she sensed he would never hurt her physically, or any woman, for that matter.

“I’ll bet,” she quipped.

His nostrils flared and then slowly his blue eyes began to glide over her face. One by one he inspected each feature, until finally his gaze settled on her lips. Hot lightning instantly arced between them. Blossom felt stunned, mesmerized by the desire to lean into him and feel the scorch of his touch.

Suddenly aware that the atmosphere between them had taken a drastic change, he removed his hands from her shoulders in the way a man might drop a snake, only after realizing he’d been bitten.

“In case you hadn’t noticed, there’s a bed behind you,” he said sharply. “Get in it and go to sleep.”

She opened her mouth, planning to tell him to quit ordering her around, but he didn’t give her the chance to utter the words. Turning on his heel, he left her in the little darkened room as though he’d washed his hands of her for tonight. She wondered furiously how many more times the man intended to insult her.

“Aren’t you going to tie me up?” she called out to him. “Or guard the door to make sure I don’t slip off in the night?”

From somewhere in the other room, his low voice came back at her. “We both know you’re not going anywhere.”

“How can you be so sure?” she asked, each word coated with sweetness.

She heard the springs in the couch creak from his weight, and when he spoke again, his voice sounded as though he was bent over. “Because you have no idea in hell where you are or how to get out of this place. Added to that, you’re too soft to try an escape on foot and I have the keys to the truck.”

Turning slightly, she carefully felt over the top of the mattress. The way her luck was running there’d be a rat’s nest or rattlesnake coiled up beneath the covers. But she couldn’t worry about either. She had two choices: climb onto the bed or sleep on the floor.

“How do you know I can’t hot-wire a vehicle?” she persisted.

She heard a thunk and realized he’d been unlacing and removing his boots. Apparently he planned on getting comfortable.

Unconsciously, her hand went to the buttons on her blouse. It would be heaven to undress, she thought. But to lie in here naked with him only a few steps away in the next room would be indecent and all too risky.

His voice suddenly interrupted her thoughts. “Because if you really did have that talent, you wouldn’t have been stupid enough to mention it. And don’t bother to get up in the night and start poking around for the keys,” he added. “I have them on me. And I think you know better than to risk getting that close to me again.”

Oh, yes, Blossom knew better. But at this very moment, getting close to the man was all she could think about. The physical attraction she felt for him was insane and certainly unexplainable. Yet she wanted to make love to him. Even more than she wanted to go home.

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