Loyalty in Death (In Death #9)(51)

“No, it’s not. It’s what matters to me, anyway.” He picked up a glass he’d filled, offered it. He didn’t feel tongue-tied and miserably shy around her as he often did with women. She needed a friend, and that made all the difference. “My father taught me that whatever you put of yourself in your work, you get back twice over.”

“That’s nice.” Her smile softened. “It’s so important to have family. I miss mine. I lost my parents a dozen years ago and still miss them.”

“I’m sorry.”

“So am I.” She sipped the juice, stopped, sipped again. “Why, this is wonderful. What is it?”

“It’s just one of my mother’s recipes. Mixed fruit, heavy on the mango.”

“Well, it’s marvelous. I drink entirely too much coffee. I’d be better off with this.”

“I’ll bring you a jug if you like.”

“That’s kind of you, Zeke. You’re a kind man.” She laid a hand over his. As their eyes met, he felt his heart stumble in his chest, fall flat. Then she slid her hand, and her gaze, aside. “It, ah, smells wonderful in here. The wood.”

All he could smell was her perfume, as soft and delicate as her skin. The back of his hand throbbed where her fingers had skimmed it. “You’ve hurt yourself, Mrs. Branson.”

She swung around quickly. “What?”

“There’s a bruise on your cheek.”

“Oh.” Panic shadowed her eyes as she lifted her hand to the mark. “Oh, it’s nothing. I… tripped earlier. I tend to move too fast and not watch where I’m going.” She set her glass down, lifted it again. “I thought you were going to call me Clarissa. Mrs. Branson makes me feel so distant.”

“I can make you a salve for the bruise, Clarissa.”

Her eyes filled, threatened to overflow. “It’s nothing. But thank you. It’s nothing at all. I should go, let you get back to work. B. D. hates it when I interrupt his projects.”

“I like the company.” He stepped forward. He could imagine himself reaching out, taking her into his arms. Just holding her there. Nothing more than that. But even that, he understood, was too much. “Would you like to stay?”

“I…” A single tear spilled over, slipped beautifully down her cheek. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. I’m not myself today. My brother-in-law — I suppose, the shock. Everything. I haven’t been able to… B. D. hates public displays.”

“You’re not in public now.”

And he was reaching out, taking her into his arms where she fit as if she’d been designed for him. He held her there, nothing more than that. And it wasn’t too much at all.

She wept quietly, almost silently, her face buried against his chest, her fists clenched against his back. He was tall, strong, innately gentle. She’d known he would be.

When the tears began to slow, she sighed once, twice. “You are kind,” she murmured. “And patient, letting a woman you barely know cry on your shoulder. I really am sorry. I suppose I didn’t realize I had all that pent up.”

She eased back, offered him a watery smile. Her eyes glimmered with tears as she lifted to her toes to press a light kiss to his cheek. “Thank you.” She kissed his cheek again, just as lightly, but her eyes had darkened, and her heart tripped against his chest.

The hands balled against his back opened, spread, stroked, her breath trembled out through lips just parted.

Then somehow, without thought or reason, his met them. Naturally as breathing, soft as a whispered promise. He drew her in, she drew him down into a kiss that spun delicately out until there was no time, no place for him but here and now.

She seemed to melt against him, muscle by muscle and bone by bone as if to prove she was as lost in that moment as he. Then she trembled, then shuddered until her body quaked almost violently against his.

She yanked back, her color high, her eyes huge and shocked. “That was — that was entirely my fault. I’m sorry. I wasn’t thinking. I’m sorry.”

“It was my doing.” He was as pale as she was flushed, and every bit as shaken. “I beg your pardon.”

“You were just being kind.” She pressed a hand against her heart as if to stop it from bounding out of her chest. “I’d forgotten how that is. Please, Zeke, let’s forget it.”

He kept his eyes locked on hers, nodded slowly while his pulse beat like a thousand drums. “If that’s what you want.”

“It’s what has to be. I stopped having choices a long time ago. I have to go. I wish — ” She bit back whatever she’d intended to say, shook her head fiercely. “I have to go,” she said again and dashed from the room.

Alone, Zeke laid his hands against the workbench, leaned in, and closed his eyes. What in God’s name was he doing? What in God’s name had he done?

He’d fallen flat-faced in love with a married woman.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

“Sir.” The minute Eve walked into the conference room, Peabody was on her feet. Strain showed in the tightness around her mouth. “You received another communication.”

Eve pulled off her jacket. “Cassandra?”

“I didn’t open the pouch, but I had it scanned. It’s clean.”