hell. He shifted in the doorway to hide the reaction that little visual had caused. Really, he had to get out of here, for his own good. And hers.
If things went as he suspected, there would be quite the uproar when word got out. Lionel wouldn’t be pleased. And he didn’t want Emma getting caught up in fallout not of her own making. No, he’d have to find a way to make sure she took no blame in what he was about to do. Which meant he couldn’t even think about entangling himself with her. Even for one, stormswept winter night. “Do you—” He had to pause to clear his throat and the thickness from his voice. She really knew how to…impact a guy. “Do you need anything else at the moment?”
“No, I’m good.” She pushed her hair back from her face with one hand as she kept digging with the other. “How long will you be gone?”
It rather stunned him, the strength of will it took to keep his hands to himself in that moment and not go straight to her and drag her down on the couch. Nose pressed to the window, indeed. If only she knew how badly he wanted her to come into his candy shop. That hair of hers was like a living, breathing thing. And he wanted his hands all tangled up in it. He shoved one hand in his pocket, out of apparently irreversible necessity. The other merely gripped the flashlight a little more tightly. “I’m not sure,” he said.
“We have the fire, and plenty of wood. I don’t mind keeping it stoked so it lasts till morning. You don’t have to hunt for candles.” She had no idea how easily she was keeping things stoked already.
He really needed to get the hell out of this room. “I’d just feel better if we had more alternate light sources. If we need to move around during the night. Restroom calls, refrigerator raids…”
“Okay.”
So dismissive. The epitome of casual disinterest. Very “I’m not even paying attention to you.”
Yeah. Right.
Clearly, not true. Well, not clearly, but certainly he wasn’t the only one with the whole heightened awareness thing going on. Just moments ago, she’d looked at him like a woman craving a sugar rush, and he’d been a giant Everlasting Gob-stopper.
He really needed to refocus. “Okay, then,” he said, because apparently his ability to be a witty conversationalist had vanished. Right along with his common sense. “I’ll check back in with progress reports.”
“Fine.”
He stared at her bent head for another too-long moment, frustrated that she didn’t seem to be having as much difficulty fighting this…whatever it was, as he was. That, and he was wondering what her smooth, bare skin would look like by firelight. Which, when he realized what he’d been thinking, had him swearing under his breath and ducking abruptly out of the room. Considering she could have presented a major obstacle to him getting what he’d come here for, she was making his premeditated plan perfectly easy for him to execute. Even with the added problem of the power loss, he couldn’t have asked for a better resulting scenario. Candle hunting. It was a brilliant off-the-cuff plan, if he did say so himself. So, why in the hell was he not racing to take full advantage of it?
“Because,” he muttered, as he wound his way back to the main stairs, “the only thing I want to take advantage of is Lionel’s hot little pet sitter.” Except there was nothing little about her. And, on any traditional scale, she wasn’t exactly pretty, much less hot.
So why was he smiling as he went down the stairs and made his way to Lionel’s personal study? He wasn’t sure, not entirely. But maybe it was because, although she looked at him like forbidden fruit, she talked to him like he was an annoying fly in her pet-sitting ointment.
God, he’d never thought himself perverse when it came to women, but apparently, there was a first time for everything.
Well, he’d simply use that as motivation to find the proof he’d come for as quickly as possible, and get the hell out. Complications he didn’t need. And he didn’t want to complicate things for her. She didn’t know what she was possibly getting into by just being here at the same time as his little visit. And he was sure as hell not going to tell her. Find the Bible, get out of the house. Simple plan.
He let himself into Lionel’s study and flashed the thin beam of light around the room. He groaned. Simple, huh? He’d been in this room many times, but he didn’t remember there being quite so many books. Possibly because he’d never faced searching through them before.
The room was octagonal and formed part of the corner tower built into the mountain retreat. Four panels of the room contained floor-to-cathedral-ceiling bookcases, each crammed full of books. This library section of the room came complete with rolling ladder to climb to the upper echelons of each stack. He supposed he should be grateful for that much. Another panel contained the nine-foot-high door he presently stood in, and the remaining three contained windows that started around two feet from the baseboards, and, in multiple panes, covered the entire length of each section of windowed wall. Heavy curtains were drawn over them, but they barely muffled the sound of the ice pinging against the many panes of glass. In fact, the sound was far more prominent in here, possibly because the room itself protruded away from the rest of the structure of the house, making it more vulnerable to the elements. The rapid-fire tattoo of ice pellets brought with it the disturbing reminder that, even if he did find what he sought, he might not be able to get out in the morning.
In fact, given that the rural roads weren’t high on the county’s list of what to plow or treat in inclement weather, he could be stuck here for a few days.
A few long days. With Emma. By the fire.
He groaned and quickly made his way over to Lionel’s cherrywood desk. It was a massive thing with heavy, carved legs, squatting ominously and gleaming in the center of the octagonal room. He felt a momentary pang for what he was about to do, but pushed that aside and ducked around behind the mini-fortress before he had a change of heart. This was his one chance. Once Lionel heard he’d been here, he would contact his great-nephew and demand to know why. And Trevor would tell him. And that would be the end of Trevor’s visits to the mountain retreat. So, he had to make good with the one shot he was ever likely to have. Because he certainly wouldn’t ask Emma to lie and say he hadn’t been here, especially when she was already in potentially enough trouble just by associating with him at all.
He skimmed the light over the drawers, then knelt before the first set of books stacked on one side. The chances that Lionel kept the ancient family Bible, or any other family documentation, right in his desk drawer was slim, but he’d feel better when he’d eliminated it from the possibilities. He had to at least check it out.
Another possibility that hadn’t escaped him was that Lionel might have locked the thing up in the family vault. Only Lionel had access to that code, but possibly, if the Bible wasn’t in the desk, the code would be. Somewhere. Possibly jotted in a journal. Something personal, perhaps, that would trigger awareness of it’s purpose in a family member, but not with a common thief.
At the moment, he felt like both as he slid each drawer open and carefully rifled through the contents. He didn’t bother with worrying about things like fingerprints. If he found the proof he sought, Lionel would know soon enough, as Trevor had every intention of confronting him with it. If he didn’t find it, then Lionel would never suspect him, a family member, of snooping around anyway.
Unless someone mentioned it to him. Someone like Emma.
He rocked back on his heels and ran his plan through his head. Again. Nope, he concluded, he couldn’t involve her. Besides, who was to say she’d be trustworthy anyway? Her loyalty, if she had any, would be to Lionel as he was the one ultimately responsible for handing over her paycheck. And a very healthy one he imagined it would be. Lionel could be a real stick in the mud about, well, pretty much everything. But he paid people enough to put up with his bullshit. Trevor was certain he was taking good care of Emma as well.
Good enough not to risk getting herself involved in a lie. He was a virtual stranger and she owed him nothing. Of course, a little voice said, there are other ways to sway her into wanting to protect you….