Murder Takes the High Road(55)

Vance gave another of those loud, disbelieving laughs.

I lowered my voice. “And he doesn’t want me back.”

“I know he doesn’t, but you keep coming up with these ludicrous attempts to get his attention. He doesn’t want to talk to you.”

“Oh my God. Are you serious? That’s what this is about? He was talking to me today because, A, it’s not fucking high school, and B, like the rest of us, he loves a good mystery, and thinks there might be one developing right under our noses. That’s the total extent of what’s going on. So relax.”

“You’d like that!”

“I would, yeah. I bet everyone on the tour would.” I was mad enough to plow through him, but that time Vance didn’t try to stop me. He stepped aside and I continued to the staircase, heading up to the room I shared with John.

Honestly, it was laughable. But I didn’t feel like laughing. Slamming the door and taking a couple of turns around the long room helped a little. What helped more was the reflection that I honestly didn’t care what Vance or anyone else said, let alone thought. I didn’t want Trevor back. Heck, I hoped he and Vance would be happy together, although it was looking less and less likely to me.

John was in the bathroom shaving while he hummed “A Hundred Pipers,” one of the more annoying pipe tunes from the day’s travels. Or rather, the piped version was annoying. There was something kind of endearing about John’s baritone rendition.

He could up and gie me a blaw, a blaw any time he wanted...

My third loop around our basketball-sized court of a room, the bathroom door opened and John stuck his head out. “Good. You’re back.”

“Mostly.”

“What was that about?”

“Who knows? Vance is tired of my shameless chasing after Trevor.”

His dark brows shot up. He had very expressive eyebrows.

“He’s convinced I’m manufacturing mysteries out of coincidence in my desperate attempt to get Trevor’s attention.”

John stepped out of the steamy bathroom, tying a white towel around his lean waist. “You’re not really bothered by that, are you?”

“Yes and no. It’s ridiculous—and I think even Trevor knows it’s ridiculous. But purely from an ego standpoint...it does kind of bother me that they, Vance at least, have gone around telling everyone I’m stalking them.”

“I think by now most people have had enough time to make their own minds up about who’s preoccupied with who.” Despite that reassurance, John’s gaze was uncomfortably direct. “But you had to expect some pushback when you decided to come on the tour knowing they’d be here too.”

“Yes.”

He waited while I struggled with it.

Finally, I admitted, “I don’t think it was a conscious decision, but I realize now that maybe I did kind of hope that me being here would put pressure on them, maybe even spoil the trip for them. I don’t want Trevor back—and I haven’t for a long time—but I wanted him to regret leaving me. I wanted him to be sorry. I wanted him to want me.” I made a pained face. “I feel like a dick even admitting this in private.”

John shrugged. “He hurt you. They both did. It’s natural that you’d want...”

“Revenge?”

His grin was crooked. “Revenge seems kind of strong.”

“There’s a lot of it in Scottish music,” I said gloomily.

“Well, luckily we’re not in a musical. What puzzles me is what you were doing with Temple to start with.”

I sighed. “He was really a lot of fun at first.”

“I’ll take your word for it.”

“He was. He seemed to fit in with my family and friends. Although now he says he was just being polite.”

“Because nothing’s more polite than pretending to be someone you’re not.”

“And I felt like it was time to settle down. Most of my friends were married and having kids. Trevor really wanted it. To move in together. To be a couple. I don’t know. It seemed like the natural next step.”

John made a thoughtful sound.

I said carefully, “I thought at the time what I felt for Trevor was the most I was going to feel. I didn’t realize—it didn’t occur to me there might be...more.”

John’s eyes gleamed. His mouth curved in a sexy grin. “No?”

“Er, no.”

“But now?” He was walking toward me again, and the knot in the towel around his waist began to undo.

“Now I realize—” The words caught in my throat. His towel dropped over my feet as he reached me, and his mouth covered mine.

A gentle kiss. A nuzzle of soft lips, the exchange of uneven breaths. His tongue touched my lower lip in playful seduction. I liked the gentleness and the playfulness. I closed my eyes, stopped thinking about Trevor. Trevor Who? I couldn’t remember what we had been talking about—I was just glad we had stopped talking. Everything seemed to have narrowed to this: the taste of John, the pound of his heart against mine, the feel of his arms pulling me close, closer.

Our mouths brushed again, locked in warm, wet suction. The hunger was sudden and fierce. I pressed my tongue to John’s and he moaned, opening to me, half-swallowing me. I’d forgotten kissing could be like this. Sweet and hot and dizzying. I’d forgotten what it was like to be passionately aroused, to yearn for someone’s touch with an almost physical ache. I was flooded in feeling, dissolving in the need for more, the need for John and only John.