Dangerous Attraction

  The heat of Quinn’s kiss still on her lips, Marie Claire picked up the telephone. What she heard stopped her heart—then caused it to race with fear.

  When she dropped the receiver, Quinn snatched it up and barked, “Who’s there?” He quickly replaced the receiver in its cradle. “It’s dead. Claire, what the hell was that?”

  A spasm of panic gripped her chest. “I’ve been receiving anonymous calls.”

  “What does the caller say?”

  Her nerves were screaming, but Quinn’s proximity calmed her racing pulse, lent her strength. “Usually nothing, but I feel a threat in the silence.”

  “Usually? But not this time?”

  “I won’t blame you if you want to quit now, Quinn.”

  He stood before her, hands fisted at his sides, as if he were resisting reaching for her. “I won’t quit. What did he say?”

  “He said…he said…” Her throat felt paralyzed, but she choked out the words. “He said, ‘You’re next…’”

  Dear Reader,

  The excitement continues in Intimate Moments. First of all, this month brings the emotional and exciting conclusion of A YEAR OF LOVING DANGEROUSLY. In Familiar Stranger, Sharon Sala presents the final confrontation with the archvillain known as Simon—and you’ll finally find out who he really is. You’ll also be there as Jonah revisits the woman he’s never forgotten and decides it’s finally time to make some important changes in his life.

  Also this month, welcome back Candace Camp to the Intimate Moments lineup. Formerly known as Kristin James, this multitalented author offers a Hard-Headed Texan who lives in A LITTLE TOWN IN TEXAS, which will enthrall readers everywhere. Paula Detmer Riggs returns with Daddy with a Badge, another installment in her popular MATERNITY ROW miniseries—and next month she’s back with Born a Hero, the lead book in our new Intimate Moments continuity, FIRSTBORN SONS. Complete the month with Moonglow, Texas, by Mary McBride, Linda Castillo’s Cops and…Lovers? and new author Susan Vaughan’s debut book, Dangerous Attraction.

  By the way, don’t forget to check out our Silhouette Makes You a Star contest on the back of every book.

  We hope to see you next month, too, when not only will FIRSTBORN SONS be making its bow, but we’ll also be bringing you a brand-new TALL, DARK AND DANGEROUS title from award-winning Suzanne Brockmann. For now…enjoy!

  Leslie J. Wainger

  Executive Senior Editor

  Dangerous Attraction

  SUSAN VAUGHAN

  For my wonderful critique partners: Diane Drew, Daphne Wedig, Geri Hawthorne, Julia Mozingo. Thanks for your patient teaching, support and perception. And for my other partner and hero, Warner, who believed.

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  Heartfelt appreciation to all those patient people who answered my many technical questions about the DEA, hypothermia, bombs, winter trekking, seafood sales and French-Canadian culture: DEA Special Agent Pamela Hay, Sherry Hosford, Jim Moore, Neal Guyer, Stan and Pam Elliot, Intrigue author Sylvie Kurtz and the generous writers of RWAlink.

  SUSAN VAUGHAN

  can’t remember a time when she didn’t make up stories. Occasionally plagued with insomnia, she entertained herself with those stories and eventually began writing them down. She started writing seriously for publication in 1988, beginning with young-adult mysteries and children’s books. Her first two romances were learning experiences, but her third, Dangerous Attraction, was a finalist in five contests and caught the interest of an editor, who bought it. Susan and her husband, who are both teachers, live on a peninsula in Maine. Besides curling up with a good book, she enjoys sailing, collecting4:19 PM 2/24/20114:19 PM 2/24/2011 Wade figurines, hiking, gardening and walking her dog.

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 1

  Marie Claire Saint-Ange didn’t look like a woman who could murder three men.

  None of the articles Michael Quinn had read prepared him for his first glimpse of the woman the local Maine newspapers called the Widow Spider.

  Although she had an oversize black cardigan wrapped around her tall, slender form, Michael’s avid gaze browsed sweetly rounded curves, exactly where a man’s hands would stray. Her tailored black slacks and turtleneck looked expensively soft. Winglike waves of dark brown hair framed a subtly sensuous face with huge doe eyes and full red lips.

  His breath lodged somewhere south of his throat; his blood, south of his belt. Even on this winter day, his blood burned.

  A man would have to be dead not to react to her sultry beauty. Was hers a face from heaven, as her name suggested? Or the face of a siren?

  Of course, he supposed, neither Lizzie Borden nor Ted Bundy had looked like butchers. If their facial features could label killers, who would need cops like him?

  He mentally kicked himself in the butt. He meant to keep as distant from that female as possible. He’d come on business. Anything else could be a hell of a lot more dangerous. For him.

  Talking to a bearded old man in a tattered parka, the Saint-Ange woman stood in a cleared space on her snow-covered side porch. Michael closed the door of his Jeep Cherokee, parked behind a new black Subaru Forester. Sweet wheels. The widow had done all right.

  She sketched a restrained salute of greeting. He gave a nod of acknowledgment, and she continued her conversation.

  Michael’s trained gaze scanned the two-story white Victorian. Simple green wreaths with crimson bows on the door. Classy but not ostentatious. Not unlike the decorations on all the other large frame houses on the quiet street.

  How did they feel at the Weymouth town office about their sleepy little Portland suburb harboring a sexy serial killer?

  Hoping to eavesdrop, he sauntered up the curving sidewalk to the porch. A gusty wind brushed the last stray clumps of new-fallen snow from tree branches and shrubs. The cold didn’t bother him, but how could the woman stand it out here in just a sweater?

  “Don’t you fret none, Miz Claire,” the old man said in his Down-East Maine accent. “Elisha Fogg’s not too old for a few more years’ shovelin’.”

  Unsmiling, she stared at him a long moment. Then she tilted her head in a uniquely French posture. “Certainly,” she replied. “But I won’t pay you to shovel the porch. The wind will clear it soon enough. Go home, Elisha.”

  In contrast with her cold manner, her voice was throaty, with the musical lilt and pronunciation of her northern Maine Acadian background.

  Elisha muttered what might have been “Yes, ma’am,” then shuffled past Michael toward a decrepit old truck parked at the curb.

  Odd that she’d cut corners on the snow shoveling when she’d spent lavishly on a new car.

  After watching the old truck chug away, Michael frowned and turned, only to be struck dumb by wide eyes the color of the richest dark chocolate. The intensity of her stare unnerved yet aroused him. Did she have any idea of the impact of that liquid gaze? Sure as hell, a woman like that was born knowing her power over men.

  In the set of her shoulders he saw self-assurance and determination, and in her eyes intelligence and…an elusive vulnerability that woke the protective instinct he damn well thought he’d buried. The Widow Spider’s confidence hung by a single strand.

  “I assume you’re the private investigator?”

  He shook off his unwanted thoughts. “Yeah. Michael Quinn. Mr. Fitzhugh said you were expecting me.”

  “Come in, th
en. It’s too cold to stand out here any longer.” She opened the carved oak door. “Unless you’re afraid. Did Fitz tell you about me?”

  Still irritated that she’d kept the old man out in the cold arguing and then stinted him on his pay, Michael scowled. “I know who you are. Fitzhugh gave me the newspaper clippings,” he snapped. “After you.”

  Spine stiff as an icicle, she preceded him into the wide foyer. After setting two locks on the heavy door, she hung his coat and her sweater on a brass tree. To his left spread a gracious parlor bigger than his entire apartment, but she led him to a smaller, cozy living room on the right.

  Close behind her, Michael inhaled a light herbal scent. Shampoo or lotion, not perfume, but just as arousing. More, because it wasn’t deliberate. He noted, too, that her haughty rigidity didn’t extend to her hips, which swayed seductively with each step. Probably couldn’t help it.

  “Sit down, Mr. Quinn. This room will warm up in a bit.” She lifted a log from the wood box beside the hearth and placed it carefully in the small, high-tech wood stove set in the fireplace.

  “Big house to heat that way,” Michael commented as he regarded the camel-backed couch. Antique or a very expensive reproduction? An assessing glance at the other aspects of the room—gleaming dark wood, hand-carved paneling, marble-topped tables, Oriental rugs—convinced his inexpert eye the couch was an original.

  The house wasn’t merely renovated, as his sketchy file said; it ranked as a damn showplace ready for a magazine spread.

  A partially decorated balsam fir that brushed the ceiling and neatly stacked boxes of ornaments filled the large front window. Unusual that a rich widow like her didn’t have the Christmas decorations done professionally.

  He eased into a green wing chair near the hearth.

  “The furnace does its job, but I prefer the ambience of wood heat.” She sat opposite him in a twin of his chair.

  Her slender body curved in all the right places. She wore little or no makeup, no adornments of any kind. He wouldn’t mind tasting the natural red of her lips. In the warmth of the lamplight, her dewy skin, like that of a young girl, belied the thirty odd years he knew to be her age. Hands itching to touch her creamy skin, Michael clasped his fingers on his knees.

  He didn’t want to be here, didn’t like the feel of this case, didn’t like coming into it less prepared than usual. From the onset, something about it had sent cold tingles to the base of his skull. He sure as hell didn’t want a case about a woman whose mere presence stirred everything male in him. But he had no choice.

  The woman consulted a manila folder she slid from an adjacent small table. Her direct gaze heated his blood as if she’d stoked a fire in him instead of in the wood stove.

  “Fitz tells me that until eight months ago, you were an agent for the Drug Enforcement Administration, based in Boston. One of their best investigators. Why did you quit?”

  He shrugged. “I’d had enough.” Enough damned drug dealers, enough wallowing in greed and slime, enough misplaced emotional involvement. Enough failure.

  This time he didn’t have to care or feel responsible or protective. Didn’t have to feel, didn’t want to feel, period. His only stake in this case would be completing it and moving on.

  She probably expected him to say more. Tough. “Why did you hire me?”

  She clapped shut the folder. “I want you to clear me.”

  “Clear you.” The tingling again. He rubbed his nape. He hoped to God she didn’t need protection. Given his track record, no one should trust him to protect a snow cone. “But I understood you’ve never been charged with anything.”

  In a graceful feminine gesture, she tossed her hair back.

  Damn, but she was beautiful. If she ever let herself smile, if she ever smiled at him, he’d erupt into a fireball. He was already having a hell of a time keeping cool.

  “Officially, no. But by every other means—in the press and in everyone’s eyes—I’ve been charged, convicted and sentenced.”

  “You’re innocent, of course.” He couldn’t prevent an accusatory tone.

  Shoulders straight, she glared at him fiercely. “You can think whatever you want, Mr. Quinn. Few believe in my innocence. Though Fitz has been my financial adviser for years, sometimes I think even he doubts me. The police are chasing a cat with five paws trying to prove I killed those men. I’ve hired you to find the truth of how each died, so I can live in peace.”

  Her gaze held pride and strength, under which lay a sadness that didn’t jibe with what little he’d read about her. Innocent? Or acting?

  The last death had occurred eleven months ago. A long time to wait before seeking help. Did she aim to make herself look good by hiring a P.I.?

  He ran a hand across the back of his neck. “Seems to me you’ve held up okay under media and police pressure. What makes now any different?”

  Abruptly, she shot to her feet and strode to the side window. Her dark hair fell in thick waves to the middle of her back. He waited while she searched for words.

  Claire struggled against the burning in her eyes. This man challenged her control. The flinty cynicism and the brooding eyes, gray and implacable as the granite he resembled, sliced through her protective shield. His own obvious resentment agitated and annoyed her. That he might dislike or even fear her shouldn’t bother her. Usually she cultivated that reaction. It shouldn’t matter how shabby her treatment of poor old Elisha appeared, but for some reason, it did.

  Aloofness and a prickly attitude served her well. It did double duty in protecting the old man’s pride and his back at the same time.

  Confronted by this scowling P.I., she drew from the self-reliance and strength of character instilled in her by the tantes.

  Gazing anywhere but at him, she spoke with forced calm. “In their desperation to pin something—anything—on me, the police are questioning my aunts in Fort Kent, in northern Maine. I grew up there, in the St. John Valley, where the culture is Acadian French and Catholic. From birth, I spoke French and English interchangeably. Almost as a litany, my aunts have always told me that the tragedies in my life have been sent by le bon Dieu, by the good Lord, as a curse or a sort of trial by fire. I don’t want them burned by the flames.”

  “Haven’t they been interrogated before?”

  “You don’t understand. Tante Odette and tante Rolande raised me. They’re very old now, in their eighties, and fragile.” She faced him again.

  Like a block of New England bedrock, he sat quietly, awaiting her explanation. Under six feet tall, he appeared larger because of his stocky, muscular frame. He emanated banked power, the coiled force of a warrior.

  She drew a deep breath. “That state detective, Pratt—” she spat the name with venom “—asked them about my parents. Bringing up their deaths will only distress them and serve no purpose.”

  “Your parents? How did they die?”

  Now would he suspect her there as well? The bad seed. The idea left a taste as harsh as the ashes in the stove.

  She sat opposite him again. With quivering fingers, she straightened the magazines on the small end table, fanning them like playing cards. “I was ten. We all contracted a bacterial infection, E. coli, from some contaminated meat. By the time tante Odette convinced them to see a doctor, it was too late. I had eaten only a bite or two, so I lived.”

  His gunmetal gaze ran over her with cool appraisal. “And you went to live with your aunts after that?”

  “Until I finished high school. They lived nearby, together. Neither ever married. I was a chick with two mother hens.” She left her chair and knelt to stir the fire, which had warmed the room.

  “Two French hens.” His lips twitched toward a smile.

  The poker fell from her hand. Quinn caught it easily before it marred the hardwood floor. When he extended the fire tool to her, their hands brushed.

  Claire started, seared as if by his body heat. But that was silly. Averting her gaze, she prodded the flaming logs.

  He h
esitated a moment, as if waiting for a reply to his jest, then continued, “Then you moved here to live with your cousin. Is that right?”

  “No, there was money for two years of college. I came to live with Martine and her family after that.”

  “To help with the small children. You met Jonathan Farnsworth, your first husband, then. He was Martine’s stepson.”

  She nodded. “You sound like a cop interrogating a suspect, Mr. Quinn. I thought I hired you to cross-examine others about my case, not me.”

  Annoyed at how impassively he sat there stripping her layers of protection with his questions, she went to stand at the mantel. She lined up the five brass candlesticks from shortest to tallest.

  For so long, she’d held in her feelings, kept herself strong and detached. It was the only way to survive the losses and the censure, the taunts and the threats. Revealing her main reason for hiring him would expose her fears, her weakness. She had to preserve her strong image.

  After the avalanche had buried Alan and the firestorm of accusations erupted, the threatening calls came. She’d changed to an unlisted number, and still they found her. She’d changed it again and again. Finally the calls stopped.

  Until last week.

  They began again last week, new anonymous calls with no threats or obscenities. Their silence was the most terrifying sound she’d ever heard.

  Silence. And a palpable emanation of menace.

  In the background, sometimes she heard a vaguely familiar thumping noise. Layered with it, breathing.

  Someone was there. Listening. Plotting.

  No longer could she drift along, waiting for her waking nightmare to end. No longer could she hope it would all just go away. The implicit threat had spurred her to telephone Fitz about hiring an investigator.

  “To find the truth, Ms. Saint-Ange, as you requested,” he said, “I’ll need to know everything, including your side of the story. The news clippings were lacking in anything but sensationalism and innuendo.”