Jason didn’t seem quite so bad on the drive home. He was friendly but not pushy, and his reasons for going into the ‘protection’ business made sense. Lucy had worried he’d be on some kind of power trip, but…he’d seemed all right. She actually felt better about him being around. And he was—
Okay. He was hot. He was very handsome, very tall, and she had noticed how beautiful his blue eyes were. Very, very blue eyes. She could imagine him stopping people just by staring at them hard enough. She could imagine him staring at her.
She pressed her legs together. No. That was not happening. Even if he was interested, who could say he’d be interested in her? He might just be looking at her and seeing that inheritance. Sure, he didn’t seem like the kind of guy who would do that. None of them did. Then they murdered you in your sleep.
Not that she’d mind him sneaking into her room—
Ophelia had been bad enough. Damned if she’d have two sisters drooling over this guy, no matter how handsome he was.
When she got back, O and Frieda were sitting at the table with Dad and…what was his name? Ian. She was pretty sure it was Ian. You taught school, you got good at names fast. He was pretty good-looking too. Nordic? Ophelia didn’t seem to have changed her focus from Jason, though.
“You guys okay?” she asked. They had what looked like a plan of the house spread out in front of them.
“We’re just going over the plan,” Ian said. “I don’t want anyone to feel like we’re spying on them, so I want to show you where the motion detectors are, where we’re going to be tonight and tomorrow. I figure this won’t take more than a couple of days, from what Thomas said. A week at most.”
The animals had been showing up every couple of days. Lucy hadn’t realized how often it had been, but…okay. Maybe Dad had been right, though she wasn’t sure what two guys could do that they couldn’t manage with their own motion detectors. She supposed at least Dad could have some peace of mind this way. If he hadn’t hired Okami, he’d be going crazy setting up booby traps and who knew what else.
She leaned over and looked. They had motion detectors at every corner, and an infrared camera on the back door. “No sneaking out after curfew, I guess,” Frieda said.
“Unless we get a hookup with the security guys,” Ophelia said, with a sly little grin on her face.
Shameless.
“You’re free to leave if you need to,” Ian said, “but we will know about it. And we’d prefer you not go out alone late at night. I don’t want you guys to feel like prisoners here, but our first priority is keeping you safe. The better we work together, the sooner we can get answers, and you can get on with your lives.”
“Should you give us your cell phone numbers?” Ophelia asked. “Or do you need ours?”
“Your father’s given us your numbers,” Ian said. “But that’s a last resort. Most of the time, you won’t even know we’re here. Nothing unusual’s happened during the day, so we’re just going to keep an eye on the house while you go about your business. Make sure no one’s coming in while you’re out, that kind of thing.”
“But you’re not going to give us yours?”
“You shouldn’t need them,” Ian said. “One of us will always be here at the house.”
Ian was pretty good at this. Lucy was impressed.
“Sometimes I go running,” Ophelia said. “Early. Is that okay?”
“Yeah, of course,” Ian said. “I might go out with you, if that’s all right.”
She looked at Jason. “You don’t run?”
Jason shrugged. “Sometimes.”
Lucy couldn’t remember the last time O had gone running. Probably high school. Oh well. She kept saying she wanted to be more active, maybe this time she’d finally do it. Something good had to come out of all of this crap.
“Well,” she said. “I’m tired, and I want to get out of these shoes. Are you gonna leave this on the table?”
“Sure, if you want us to,” Ian said. “We’ll get it in the morning.” He stood up. “You ready, Jason?”
Jason nodded. “Have a good night,” he said. “We’ll be working tonight, mostly in the SUV. You have Ian’s number if anything comes up. Anything looks or feels out of the ordinary…give a call.”
“We’ll do that,” Ophelia said.
“I’ll do that,” Dad corrected. “You girls come get me first.”
“We are grown women,” Lucy said.
“And you’re still my daughters.”
Lucy sighed. “Good night, everyone,” she said, and headed up the stairs. She’d had it with being social. She wanted her own room and some peace and quiet. And her shoes off. They’d felt pretty comfortable when she got started, but now they were starting to ache, and she knew they’d swell the second she took them off. At least she still had a room to herself. Dad always said he’d bought too much house, but it was a huge relief to close the door behind her and be free of everyone else.
She closed the door, took off her shoes, and rubbed her feet. That was better. She wasn’t sure if she wanted to change into the t-shirt and shorts she slept in, or just into some jeans. It was only about eight. She wanted to be awake for a while longer.
She pulled her dress over her head and put it back on the hanger. It’d need to be washed but the fabric was delicate enough she didn’t want it on the floor or in the hamper. She shimmied out of the bodysuit she’d put on underneath, and pulled off her hose. That was better. She wiggled her newly freed toes.
Maybe she was more tired than she’d realized.
She scratched her knee. Funny how everything itched once the layers came off. She decided to throw a t-shirt on over her bra, in case she wanted to walk down to the kitchen again, and pull on her pajama pants.
She sat at her desk—the one she’d had in her office since she was a kid—and opened her laptop. She really needed to get the rest of her art supplies from her apartment, but there had been so much to do since they’d found out about the will, she’d hardly have time to even sketch. Mostly she checked email and worked on one of the digital paintings she’d been working on at the end of the school year.
She opened up one of the files now, a 3-D model she wanted to use in next year’s classes. It was a detailed reproduction of the Colosseum in Rome, and she’d been working to modify the model so students could design their own murals to decorate the walls of the building, the way they’d been back in Rome. The webmaster had already agreed to put it on the school website when she was done, so students and parents could take a ‘virtual tour’ of the whole building. But scaling the model up and down was going to be a challenge, and she was afraid she might have to call in tech support to help her allow each student to only have a section of the piece. Still, it was a lot easier than it would have been back when she was in high school. Moore’s Law was her best friend.
She worked on the model until her eyes threatened to start crossing, and when she got up it was close to ten. She figured she’d go downstairs and get a glass of milk—she didn’t really need to eat anything with all the food there had been at the party, but she was thirsty, and her doctor had given her a long, dull lecture about calcium the last time she’d had an annual.
Jason was there in the kitchen, looking over the floor plan. His jacket was on the back of the chair and his shirtsleeves were rolled up. He couldn’t have been there all that time. What was he doing? “Everything all right?”
“Fat girl getting a snack,” she said. “Don’t be alarmed.”
“You’re not—” He paused. “I wouldn’t—” He shook his head. “I just met you,” he said. “I know you didn’t want me here, but—why would you think—”
“Because everyone does,” she said. She walked over to the cupboard and got out a glass. “Trust me, I know. I’ve seen it before. I’m not angry.”
“I’m not—” She could hear him standing up. “You’re beautiful. Who the hell says things like that?” He sounded like he meant it.
“Don’t play dumb,” she said, opening the refrigerator. “Maybe you haven’t said it, but you’ve heard people who did.”
“That doesn’t mean I will,” he said. “Doesn’t mean I would. I’m not much for skinny girls.”
“Poor Ophelia,” she said. “She’ll be broken-hearted.”
He chuckled. “Probably.”
“You want something?”
“I had enough at the party,” he said.
“I just want milk,” she said. “Believe it or not.”
“I don’t know why you think the worst of me,” he said.
“You don’t date a lot of men,” she said. It usually came out sooner or later.
“‘Fraid not.” He held the refrigerator door for her. “And I don’t spend a lot of time with guys who would say that stuff. That’s another advantage of the work I do. Ian picks his people pretty carefully. You’re a jerk, you don’t stay on the crew.”
Well, that sure sounded nice, but Lucy had heard what ‘the crew’ could say when the boss was left behind. “I figured you’d be outside by now.”
“We had a blind spot,” he said. “Had to put up a new camera. I wanted to mark it for you guys, and we’re trying to figure out if we’ve got enough coverage. We want to keep the equipment minimal, but we’re not doing our job if there’s a blind spot in there. If it’s an animal, it doesn’t need a lot of room to sneak through without us knowing. And you don’t want us doing all this work to not have any answers.”
She poured herself a glass of milk.
“You’re an artist, right? You know angles. Take a look.”
She walked over to the table. He had sketched out the range of each camera with pencil.
“This is where our blind spot was,” he said, tapping. “The corner of the house—you see?”
She could. She could see why they wouldn’t have seen it at first, too. “So what now?”
“Well, we’re gonna leave a note telling you guys where it is, and then it’s back to work. I feel like I’m missing something, though.”
“Aren’t we paying you not to miss things?”
He looked back at him, and his eyes seemed amused, not insulted. “You’re paying me to do the best job possible. If you don’t ask for second opinions, you’re not doing the best job possible.”
“I don’t see anything you could possibly be missing,” she said. “You’ve got the cameras, you’ve got the motion detectors—are you recording anything?”
“We record everything,” he said. “Are you asking if we’re picking up sound? ‘Cause we do that too.”
She nodded. “All five senses, right? Though I guess you don’t smell people out.”
“We’re going to bring Remus in to do that tomorrow.”
“The dog?”
He nodded. “Every sense is covered.” He waggled a finger. “The Okami guarantee.”
“Okay, then,” she said. “You think anything will happen tonight?”
“Hard to say,” he said. “If it’s an animal, then I’d figure the odds are fifty-fifty. Sometimes they just move in no matter what, sometimes they smell us, get confused. They’ll come back pretty soon, though, ‘cause they won’t see anything new. Humans? Harder to say. We’ll move Ian’s car out tomorrow night, like we’ve left, and there’s a spot at the back of the property where we can park, get out of the way. Then it’s just a question of waiting. It takes too long, we move out altogether and one of us comes back and stays downstairs. But we hope it won’t come to that, it’s pretty disruptive.” He circled the front door with his finger. “You guys have a right to privacy once you come in here, you know? We’re here because we want you to live your lives without any worry.”
His hands were big, broad. He didn’t look like he worked with his hands. Though she guessed he probably didn’t, not like someone who worked in construction or something would.
Was she staring? She wasn’t staring, was she? She certainly wasn’t thinking about what those pale white hands would feel like on her skin—
Maybe she should stop staring. “This whole thing,” she said. “We’ve had so many changes. I didn’t even know Oliver. And now he’s changed our whole lives. I don’t even have to go back to work. Ever.” She shook her head. “We don’t know who we can trust any more.”
“We deal with that a lot,” he said. “Usually it’s not an inheritance. Usually it’s broken trust, or someone who’s spent their whole lives looking over their shoulders. But the now knowing where to turn, who you can trust—that’s what happens to them, too. I know it’s hard.”
“Thanks,” she said. Most people just told them how lucky they were.
“I don’t have to be out there again for a minute,” he said, pulling out a chair. “If you’re gonna be up for a while.”
“Don’t,” she said. She felt her heart pounding, the heat pooling between her legs. What was it about him? What was it about him that kept her off balance? “I know you’re trying to be nice, but—”
“I’m not trying anything,” he said. “I just thought you might want to talk. It gets pretty boring out there, watching and waiting, and it’s still too early for anyone to start sneaking around. So…you know. I’d like to get to know you better.”
“Why?”
“Because,” he said, smiling at her. “You’re beautiful. You’re interesting. And I’m working here anyway, so we might as well get along, right?”
“We—” She didn’t know what to say. She didn’t even know where to start. “We don’t have anything in common.” Why did he have to be so good-looking? Why did he have to smell so good? He smelled even better now, which didn’t make any damn sense at all.
“So?” He put a hand on her arm. “What’s wrong with that?”
She should push him off. Guys didn’t get to just touch her without her permission. She’d socked at guy in the chin once for doing that. So why was her breath coming fast? Why wasn’t she moving?
It was like she was locked in place. Like all she could see was Jason’s handsome face, those blue eyes. Like her whole world was narrowed down to this one moment, this one man. “There’s nothing wrong with it,” she said, when she could manage to make herself speak. “But—” But what? She couldn’t think of a damn thing.
“Exactly,” he said. “Nothing.” He stepped back so they were facing each other. “You know, that party was nice, but there was one thing I wished they’d had.”
“What’s that?” She felt like she was in a trance. His eyes were looking straight into hers. Her whole body felt charged. Every inch of her skin was hyper-sensitive. Like something electric was pulsing through her.
“Dancing,” he said, and put his free hand on Lucy’s waist.
The tingling turned into a fire. I’ve just met him, she thought to herself. How can I feel so—
“Do you sing? I bet you have a beautiful voice.”
“I don’t,” she said. They always called her brassy. “What kind of music do you like?”
“Anything,” he said, “if you’re singing it.”
She tried to think of the right song. Any song. “You make me feel—”
He pulled her into his arms, and that felt—
It felt perfect. She wasn’t wearing a bra, and she probably needed a shower. And he was treating her like the most beautiful woman he’d ever seen. What the hell was she thinking?
You’re not thinking, she thought. You’re feeling. And it’s all below your waist.
Maybe it didn’t matter. She wasn’t agreeing to marry this guy. It was a dance, that was all. So what if they were dancing in the kitchen? How long had it been since she just had fun?
He was singing along with her. His chest was broad, and she could feel how muscular it was as he held her close.
Maybe she could just hold this moment, at least for a little while.
***