Dangerous Attraction Read online

  “A need as old as time,” he said. “Easy to understand.”

  He was right. Because of his prodding, she’d put it into words, for herself as much as for him.

  And what she wanted now was to yield to her desire for this hard-shelled man with the soft center. Her own strength was ebbing, and she needed his. That he wanted her showed in his sensual touch and in the darkening of his eyes.

  But since she wasn’t one for casual sex, and anything else could be fatal, she forced herself to resist.

  “He’s next.”

  She couldn’t let herself care for this man only to have him killed, too.

  A wry grin lifted a corner of Quinn’s mouth. “You should be Irish with all that guilt weighing you down. Let it go. What happened wasn’t because you didn’t love them. You lost the young husband you loved, so you settled for less.”

  She frowned at him for seeing too much. “No wonder you—”

  At the telephone’s shrilling, her heart tripped into over-drive, and she flung herself against Quinn’s chest. Alley leapt up, barking at phantoms.

  “It’s him!” she whispered, as if the caller could hear.

  A half hour later, Michael punched the rewind button on a small tape recorder. He sat in the swivel chair at Claire’s desk, and she stood at rigid attention beside him.

  “One more time, Claire,” he said. “Listen for anything you recognize. Phrasing, pronunciation, accent, background. Anything.” Michael’s caller identification attachment had been blocked, but they had the tape. At least he knew the threats were real, not part of some elaborate Widow Spider’s web. He cast her a sideways glance, asking for a response.

  She nodded mutely, hands fisted at her sides.

  The tape began. Claire’s wobbly greeting. Silence. Then the soft cadence of breathing. At last a raspy whisper.

  “He…can’t…have…you.”

  Claire’s gasp. More silence. Finally a click.

  “Well?” Michael asked, swiveling toward her.

  Eyes closed, she stood as if in a trance. Her sash had come undone, and the gaping robe exposed white silk. The nightshirt’s V dipped below the shadowed valley between her breasts. Again his eyeballs strayed, and his body suffered.

  She shook her head. “Only the lack of the thumping noise I heard before. But, Quinn, he…he thinks that we…you and I…”

  “Have a thing going,” he finished for her. Something he wouldn’t turn away under other circumstances.

  “Why would he think that?” She opened her eyes and walked to the window beside the desk. Outside, fat, white snowflakes fell in starry clusters against the windowpane.

  All at once, she reached up and pulled the curtains together. “That means he’s watching the house, doesn’t it?” Her voice was ragged. She pulled her hair into a knot, then let it fall, as if she wanted to collapse the same way.

  “Or he’s seen us together around town. We haven’t exactly traveled incognito.” While he considered what someone might have seen, Michael rolled a little plastic tape around his fingers like a coin.

  Mostly they’d remained at arm’s length from each other. Except for the day they’d gone to the Rêve. When she’d slipped, he’d held her in his arms longer than necessary. Maybe Raoul and his men had witnessed that little interlude. The taped voice had no Latin accent, but they were tied in with the widow. He just didn’t understand yet how.

  “Okay. Okay.” He rose from the chair to pace around the small office. “It’s late. We’re tired. Let it go for tonight. I want you to tell me more about Jonathan before we see Martine tomorrow afternoon.”

  When she made no reply, he realized she wasn’t listening. Forehead pinched in concentration, she stared through him, then dropped her gaze to the recorder. “Quinn, we started with people who might have a grudge against Paul.”

  Ah. He’d wondered how long it would take her to deduce that his investigation was aimed in the wrong direction for her purposes.

  “Much as I didn’t want to believe it, I am the connection. If the threats are real, he killed them because of me.” Her breath gave a little hitch before she went on. “We should be looking for someone with a grudge against me.”

  She rushed to him and clutched his arms. “He’ll kill you, too, Quinn. You have to understand the danger.”

  He slid his fingers beneath her collar, with the innocent intent of closing that tempting gap. But she gazed at him with such torment in her deep chocolate eyes that instead, with a light tug, he drew her closer. She felt right in his arms.

  “I can take care of myself,” he said, a bit too gruffly. “Maybe it’s not a grudge. Maybe he wants you for himself. No one else can have you. An obsession.” She could easily become an obsession. His. But he couldn’t let himself care.

  The hard points of her nipples met little barrier in her silky nightshirt and his thin T-shirt. Their light brush against his chest shot his entire blood supply to his groin. Light-headed, he ached to touch her.

  She was the most desirable woman he’d ever known. Beautiful, sensual, intelligent, brave and strong.

  Was she murderer or victim? Was the caller a stalker or one of El Halcón’s American connections?

  Dishonorable and dangerous to touch her. Hell of a mess. And damn the DEA for putting him in it! Hell, who was he kidding? He wanted her with an intensity he’d never felt before. And he didn’t like. But it didn’t have to mean the hearts-and-flowers kind of involvement. That wasn’t for him.

  His fingers trailed down her collar line to caress the inner swells of her breasts. When she didn’t turn away but merely gazed at him with her tragedies reflected in the depths of her eyes, he wanted to make her forget it all. To hell with honor and dereliction of duty. One night of unbridled, uninhibited sex wouldn’t compromise his mission.

  He closed his hand over her left breast and touched his lips to hers. Pleasure flowed through him like molten gold.

  With light kisses, he cruised his way around her lips, soft as butter. When she opened to him, the first lazy sweep of his tongue against hers made his senses reel wildly. Through the silk, he rolled her peaked nipple between his fingers. Her delicate scent and her honeyed taste caused renewed need to explode in his loins. He went from hard to stone with devastating force.

  He felt her small hands on his biceps, grasping.

  Not grasping. Pushing.

  “No, Quinn. Stop,” Claire said, her voice feather-light, her breath coming in short gasps. “I don’t want this.”

  He released her, shaking his head to clear the narcotic fog of their embrace. “But…you…” Not only hadn’t she resisted, she’d leaned into him.

  She tugged the robe around her and retied the sash. Her mahogany hair curled in a wild mass around her pale features. “I wasn’t myself. The phone call…his threat… merde.” She ran her hands over her hair in a futile attempt to smooth it. Her eyes were dark and opaque and unreadable.

  “Don’t touch me again, Quinn. You’re my employee. That’s all.”

  The snow turned to freezing rain and back to snow again. In the morning, an overly cheerful radio forecaster announced that the entire state of Maine was closed. Wind tossed great white billows, making bad road conditions impossible and trapping Claire in the house with Quinn.

  Last night had almost ended in disaster. How stupid to prance around in her nightclothes, taunting him as he’d accused her of doing with Jonathan. Finally, common sense had overruled desire.

  To her regret, their dealings with each other returned to forced politeness and latent hostility. Unfortunate but necessary. Besides her forbidden attraction to Quinn, Claire liked him. He growled and snapped like a beast, but underneath his hard exterior hid an honorable man, a caring man who tried not to care.

  Instead of wondering why he feared involvement so, she would return to aloofness. It was the only safe way. Any closeness to him would endanger him further. She’d kept her strength and independence for this long, she could continue. But the temptati
on to lean on Quinn and yield to her desire for him sapped her willpower like the sun melting an icicle.

  They spent the morning brainstorming names of possible stalkers. She described everyone she knew, including Elisha Fogg, her hairdresser and the bag boy at the supermarket. Then she let Quinn use her office computer and the telephone for cross-checking names and whatever else detectives looked for. Escaping to her kitchen, Claire comforted herself with unnecessary Christmas baking—a tarte aux pommes and the preliminary steps for a bûche de Noël, a cake and meringue Yule log, and a tourtière, a pork pie.

  By one o’clock, the snow backed off to light flurries, so Claire and Quinn set out on foot for the Farnsworth house.

  For a time, neither spoke. Side by side, they crunched through the new snow, heading deeper into the winter-muffled neighborhood.

  “It’s only two blocks this way, on a cul-de-sac,” Claire said. At the corner, she turned right and quickened her pace.

  “You said last night that Martine barely tolerated you. How did she and Jonathan’s old man feel about your marriage?” Quinn tucked her arm in his, keeping her at his side.

  She allowed it. He wasn’t overstepping the boundaries she’d set up, not really.

  “Newcomb, her husband, was thrilled, even threw us an engagement party. But Martine—it’s odd. At the time, I let it go. She said she was happy for us, but I never quite believed her. She acted…resentful, angry.”

  “Resentful of what?”

  “I don’t know. Is it important?”

  “Any little thing might be. The slightest reason for being an enemy makes someone a suspect at this point.”

  “But Martine?” She sighed. Most likely her green-eyed snit arose from some petty reason now long forgotten. “Before you meet Martine, I should tell you about the resemblance.”

  Her feet stopped of their own accord, her gaze on two children playing in the next yard. While Robert tried to push the huge snowball, his little sister, Adele, packed on snow. Claire’s heart throbbed painfully. How she’d missed them!

  Quinn pressed her arm. “Claire?” he said in a low voice. “Are they Martine’s kids?”

  She nodded, unable to drag her eyes from the children and their half-finished snow figure. Longing gnawed at her. “I haven’t seen them in months.”

  Robert looked up, then nudged his sister. “Hey, Claire!”

  “Claire, come see our snowman!” Adele hopped up and down on the sloping lawn.

  Daggers of pain pierced her, and a strangled sob tore from her throat. She took one faltering step toward the dancing children.

  “Adele, Robert! Come in the house!” The peremptory voice came from the house. When they hesitated, their mother called, “Have you forgotten what I told you? Come in this instant!”

  Claire didn’t wait to watch them run away from her. She buried her face in Quinn’s thick parka and tried to calm her screaming nerves. Somewhere in the back of her mind, she realized she was once again clinging to him, relying on him.

  Hating the reason but accepting the excuse to hold her, Michael put his arms around Claire. “Your cousin won’t let you see them?” he said. The boy looked about twelve, the girl, ten. Old enough to understand.

  She drew a deep, shuddering breath and straightened her shoulders. “Not since, since…”

  “Since the accusations began,” he finished for her.

  A few moments later, Martine Farnsworth opened the front door of her colonial-style home. “I know I agreed to this interview, Mr. Quinn, but I didn’t agree to having that woman in my house.” Her lips formed a line as thin as a razor blade.

  “I’m searching for proof of how and why your stepson and the others died, Ms. Farnsworth. I’m sure you’re interested in furthering that investigation.” He had no police authority, but she might not know that. “I’d hate to tell Detective Lieutenant Pratt that you refused cooperation.”

  “I won’t contaminate your house, dear cousin,” Claire said in a tight voice.

  “Oh, all right.” Martine led them into the house and seated them in a formal living room done in pale beiges and whites and yellows. Silver swags and snowy doves draped an enormous balsam fir in one corner. The dual wallop of the color scheme and the chilly atmosphere gave Michael the sense she’d invited the snow in with them.

  Obviously more uncomfortable, Claire perched, ready for escape, on the edge of the loveseat beside him. Seeing the children had sliced through the defenses she’d rebuilt since last night.

  What it must cost her to declare that she’d never marry and have that family she craved, he now grasped. Generous and giving, she should have the children she’d forgone. A sliver of that sacrifice pierced him sharply.

  The resemblance Claire had begun to explain was obvious. A general facial similarity, the same thick mahogany hair, the same slender curves. The eight years Martine had senior to Claire didn’t show. Regular spa pampering, he guessed.

  Even so, he would never mistake Martine for Claire. She stood a little shorter. Her wide mouth didn’t possess the same full lips. Her eyes were an ordinary brown, not the rich dark hue of chocolate. Most of all, she lacked the spark of warmth and sensuality that glowed in Claire’s eyes.

  Snobbery wasn’t a quality he associated with Claire. He didn’t count last night, when she deliberately called him her “employee.” That was a defensive move. He still wanted her, more than ever, but she was right to stop him. For now.

  Martine’s supercilious lady-of-the-manor carriage had “snob” written all over. He half expected her to ring a bell for the butler to serve tea.

  “I can’t imagine why you think I can help you. Newcomb and I told everything we knew to the police long ago,” she said. She made a show of consulting her Rolex. “And I can’t give you much time. We’re leaving for our condo at Caribou Peak as soon as my husband gets home.” Her frigid tone ought to have left icicles on her lips.

  Naturally the Farnsworths would have a place at Caribou Peak, too. Interesting. “I’d appreciate anything you can tell me about your stepson, Mrs. Farnsworth.”

  “Newcomb’s the one you should talk to, but I’ll do my best. Jonathan was a wonderful young man, very devoted to his father, very bright. Loads of ideas and plans for expanding Farnsworth Enterprises.”

  “The company sells local products, I understand.”

  “Gourmet products. Pasta in bear or pine-tree shapes, blueberry syrup, locally ground pancake mix, pottery mugs and herb teas. That sort of thing, all packaged in baskets to be sold in the country’s finest gift shops.”

  “Claire.”

  Michael glanced up at the interruption.

  Newcomb Farnsworth strode in. “Martine, what’s she doing here? What’s going on?”

  As if a general had barked for attention, Michael rose. Gray-haired and nearing sixty, Farnsworth would present a commanding presence in any gathering. His snotty patrician demeanor, assuming obedience and deference as his due, typified other damn corporate suits Michael had run up against. The old-school type who considered himself layers above any shanty Irishman who’d worked on the docks to earn his way through school.

  Martine beamed a welcoming smile. “Oh, darling, I’m so glad you’re home. This is Mr. Quinn.” In a few words, she explained their presence.

  “I hope you’ll consent to help me clear my name, Newcomb,” Claire said, breaking her usual silence during interviews. Her calm voice and expression belied the anxiety Michael knew ate at her.

  “You’re on a fool’s errand, Claire, but I suppose we can answer a few questions.” Hands in the trouser pockets of his five-hundred dollar, custom-tailored suit, Farnsworth took a power stance beside his wife and before the hearth, an elegant marble structure filled with cool white poinsettias instead of a warming fire.

  “I appreciate your cooperation,” Michael said. “Mrs. Farnsworth was just telling us about the family business. How heavily was Jonathan involved in the company?”

  “I had placed him in charge of d
evelopment. He showed great promise,” Jonathan’s father said.

  “Oh, yes,” Martine put in, “he just brimmed over with ideas for European markets and adding to the product line.”

  “You were close, then?”

  “We were friends,” she said after a pause. “We used to talk a lot when he was home from college. Before she came.”

  “I can see why, since you were closer in age to him than to your husband. Isn’t that true, Mrs. Farnsworth?”

  “I suppose, but why not?” Her eyes narrowed, daring him.

  Michael was trolling, but Jonathan’s stepmother had risen to the bait. Instead of challenging her defensive posture, he offered her his best disarming grin.

  “He was a friendly boy, very outgoing,” Newcomb added. “With his own mother long dead, I was pleased that he saw fit to confide in his stepmother.”

  “Tell me about his death,” Michael said. Claire and the CID had filled him in, but he wanted their version.

  Claire remained poised for flight. Face composed, she stared at the hearth, as if into flames rather than flowers. Her fingers buttoned and unbuttoned the placket of her long black skirt, over and over. If he had any, he’d give her silverware or jars to line up.

  “Jonathan had bought a fancy sports car at an antique car auction,” Martine began.

  “A ’76 Corvette.”

  “Yes, that’s right. A Corvette,” she said to Michael. “Will you tell this, please, Newcomb?” She placed a loving hand on his arm.

  After a beat, he acquiesced. The recital was obviously difficult for both. With lowered lashes, Martine listened. “That night,” Newcomb said, “Jonathan drove his sports car out the Cliff Road—sharp curves, dangerously slick from a previous rain. Lord knows what he was doing out there.” He shot an accusatory glare at his son’s widow. “He…the car smashed through the guardrail on the sharpest curve and fell into the water. The police said he must have been going too fast.”

  “He’d been in this house before the accident. Had he been drinking?”