Envy(33)

Despite his arrogance, he had a disconcerting way of staring. His expression was inscrutable, giving no indication of what he was thinking. He could have been seriously weighing her arguments or planning to toss her out of the Gator and letting her swim back to the mainland. One was as viable a guess as the other. Or he might have been thinking neither.

Taking his silence as permission for her to continue, she did. “I know it’s rather late in the day to be talking shop, but I promise not to take up too much of your time. Mike said he would—”

“I know what Mike said. He called me at Terry’s after you left the house. He’s acting like a complete fool.”

“He didn’t strike me as a fool. Anything but.”

“Ordinarily, no. Ordinarily he’s levelheaded, calm, cool, and collected, the voice of reason, a goddamn pillar of sensibility. But you’ve got him in a dither. He’s tearing around straightening up the house, fixing supper, acting like an old maid about to receive her first gentleman caller.” His eyes were shadowed, but she could tell they were moving over her. “You must’ve laid on the charm double thick.”

“I did nothing of the sort. Mike is just a nice man.”

He barked a harsh laugh. “Unlike me.”

“I didn’t say that.”

“Well,” he drawled, “you just as well have, because it’s true. I’m not at all nice.”

“I’m sure you could be if you wanted to.”

“See, that’s the kicker. I don’t want to.”

Then, before she could prepare herself, he reached across the space separating them, hooked his hand around the back of her neck, and yanked her forward, bringing her mouth up to his. It was more an assault than a kiss. Hard, grinding, insistent. His tongue stabbed at the seam between her lips until it forced them apart.

Making angry sounds of protest, she pushed against his chest, but he didn’t stop. Instead he continued to plumb her mouth forcefully as his lips twisted upon hers. Imperceptibly the thrusts became slower and gentler, more exploratory than invasive. His thumb stroked the underside of her chin, her cheek, and very near the corner of her lips. Her anger shifted into distress.

When he ended the deep kiss, he rubbed his lips against hers lightly before breaking contact with them, and even then they remained close, merely a breath apart. Only after he let his hands fall away did he pull back.

Maris turned her head away. She stared out across the water of the sound. It was relatively calm compared to the choppy currents circulating through her bloodstream. The lights on the shore of the mainland seemed very distant. Much farther than before. Now a world away. She felt strangely disconnected, as though that narrow body of water had widened into a gulf that couldn’t be spanned.

Somewhere out on the sound a boat’s horn bleated a warning. Inside Terry’s, the boom box had been restarted and was playing a wailing song about a love gone wrong. Closer, she could hear the gentle slap of the water against the rocky beach at the bottom of the steep ramp that Parker Evans was unable to navigate in his wheelchair.

“It won’t work, Mr. Evans,” she said quietly. “I’m not going to flee in terror of you.”

She turned then to look at him and was surprised by the absence of smugness in his expression. He didn’t look contrite or apologetic, either, but he wasn’t wearing the triumphant sneer she had expected. He was staring at her in the same disconcerting, inscrutable way as before.

“I ignored the vulgarities inside Terry’s, just like I’m going to ignore that kiss. Because I know why you subjected me to that,” she said, hitching her head in the direction of the bar, “and I know why you kissed me.”

“You do.”

“I’m calling your bluff.”

“Bluff.”

“You kissed me to scare me off.”

“All right.”

“ ‘All right’?”

“You can think that if you want to.” He held her gaze for several seconds, then put the Gator into forward motion. “Did Mike happen to mention what’s for supper?”


* * *


It turned out to be smoked ham sandwiches served in a casual room on the back of the house. Mike referred to it as the solarium.

“Fancy name for a glassed-in porch,” Parker commented wryly.

“It was a porch,” Mike explained to Maris as he spooned potato salad onto her plate. “You can’t tell, now that it’s dark, but this room overlooks the beach. Parker decided to enclose it with sliding glass panels that give us the option of closing it completely or opening it up. Now he can write in here during any kind of weather.”

Maris had pretended not to notice the computer setup in one corner of the room, which was otherwise furnished with rattan pieces. Nods toward decoration were limited. A few throw pillows. One struggling potted plant that looked doomed to lose the struggle. That was all. It was a bachelor’s room. A writer’s retreat.

Stacked around the computer terminal, on the stone tile floor, in shelves, on every conceivable surface, were books. Reference books, literary novels and classics, mysteries, romances, science fiction, horror, westerns, autobiographies, biographies, poetry, childrens’ books, histories, self-help, and inspirational. Every kind of book imaginable, some in hardcover, some in paperback, some of which, she was pleased to see, bore the Matherly Press imprint on the spine. Gauging by the worn appearance of the books, his library wasn’t just for show. Parker Evans was well read.