Hidden Talents Page 18

  Relief cascaded over him when he saw that she was waiting for him with the infants cradled in her arms. He walked into the room.

  Somewhere in the distance a waltz was playing.

  She smiled at him.

  He reached for her.

  The vision in the pool vanished.

  Caleb awoke abruptly. He drew a ragged breath and wiped sweat from his forehead. His pulse thudded heavily, as if he had been running hard for a long distance.

  For an instant he couldn't get his bearings. Then he saw the mist rising above the rocky pool. It curled and twisted and dissipated in an endless pattern.

  In spite of the warmth created by the springs, a cold shudder went through him. He glanced around the dimly lit cavern and then looked at his watch. With a shock he realized that it was nearly midnight. The others had left over an hour ago.

  Caleb got to his feet, aware that his heartbeat was slowing to its normal rate. He walked to the entrance of the cavern and stood looking out into the night. A handful of scattered lights from various cabins sparkled through the trees down below. He knew that the welcoming glow from the nearest windows came from Serenity's cottage at the foot of the path.

  He started to reach into the pocket of his jacket for the flashlight Blade had given him. Then he realized he didn't need it. There was enough moonlight to light his way.

  It took ten minutes to make his way to Serenity's cottage. The porch light was still on over the front door.

  He walked up the steps and knocked. Serenity, bundled up in a robe and slippers, opened the door immediately. Her hair was a frothy tangle of red curls. He knew from the anxious expression in her beautiful eyes that she had been waiting for him.

  “Caleb.” She smiled tremulously. “I was beginning to get a little worried. Quinton and the others came by over an hour ago to tell me you were alone in the cave. They said you'd probably stop here on your way down.”

  “The last door,” Caleb whispered.

  “What?”

  “Forget it.” He reached for her.

  She didn't vanish.

  Caleb pulled her into his arms and buried his face in her scented hair. “I want you.”

  “I know. It's all right, Caleb. I want you, too. You must know that.”

  He lifted his head and looked down into her brilliant eyes. He was lost in the vision he saw there. “I need you.”

  She turned her head and kissed his throat. “Yes. I need you, too. It's time.”

  He swept her up into his arms, kicked the door shut and carried her down the hall to the bedroom. The beaded curtain around her bed glittered in the shadows.

  Caleb pushed through the sparkling curtain. It shivered like the water on the surface of a crystal spring. A thousand tiny glass beads clashed and chimed in the darkness.

  He fell onto the bed with Serenity in his arms. The force of his need made his hands shake.

  Serenity moaned softly. She burrowed against him with a hot, sweet abandon. Caleb's entire body tightened in fierce arousal. The smell of her, spicy and unbearably female, stoked the fires within him. With a groan he thrust his leg between hers and tugged at the sash of her robe.

  Beneath the robe Caleb discovered a warm, flannel nightgown. He struggled with it impatiently, shoving the hem up to Serenity's waist. His hand skimmed eagerly over her smooth, soft skin until he found the inviting nest of hair.

  She arched against him. “Yes. Please.”

  “Tell me,” Caleb muttered. “Tell me how much you want me.”

  “I can't. There are no words.”

  “Then show me.” Caleb took her mouth with swift urgency and slipped his fingers into her moist heat. “God, yes. Like that.”

  He moved his lips to her throat while he fought to lower the zipper of his jeans. Then he fumbled blindly in his pocket for the small foil packet.

  It seemed to take forever before he was ready, but in reality it was only a few damp, breathless moments. When he shifted position to settle between Serenity's legs, his foot thrust through the beaded curtain. The glass beads danced.

  “Caleb?”

  “Right here.” He felt the warmth of her soft, inner thighs cradle him. She was wet and ready and reaching for him.

  He had never wanted anything this badly in his whole life. He reached down to guide himself to the sultry entrance of her body. He groaned as he thrust slowly and deliberately into her.

  She was warm and slick and so snug that he could hardly breathe. Too tight.

  He heard her catch her breath, felt her stiffen as he sank deeply into her softness. He stopped, shaken.

  “My God, Serenity.”

  “No, don't leave me,” she whispered. “It's time. You're the right man.”

  “Are you all right?” he managed hoarsely.

  “Yes. Yes, I'm all right.” She wrapped her arms around him and lifted her hips. “It's just that I never dreamed it would be like this.”

  “Like what?”

  “Like finding the other half of myself.”

  He waged a monumental battle with his self-control, but it slipped from his grasp even as Serenity drew him into her. He held her more tightly than he had ever held anyone or anything else in his life.

  Triumph, satisfaction, a feeling of wholeness and a pounding sense of joy raced through him, a fabulous maelstrom of emotions that he could not begin to sort out. He didn't care. He only knew one thing for certain in that gloriously shattering moment, and that was enough for now.

  He was alive.

  The light moved like a shower of jewels across his face. Caleb sensed the various colors—amber, ruby, emerald, sapphire. It was a strange sensation, not unpleasant, just odd. He waited a moment to see if the feeling would pass. When it didn't, he reluctantly opened his eyes. He found himself lying in a pool of sunlight filtered through the veil of glass beads that formed the curtain around Serenity's bed.

  He turned his head and realized that he was alone. The sound of running water told him that Serenity was in the shower. For a moment he lay still, half afraid the memories of the night might dissipate like steam off a hot spring pool.

  But a reassuring sense of reality poured in along with the morning sun. He was definitely in Serenity's bed. The warm, rumpled sheets and the satisfaction that permeated his whole body constituted all the proof he needed that he had not been dreaming. He pictured Serenity in the shower and smiled. He sat up and started to thrust aside the covers.

  The sight of the three black-and-white glossies scattered across the quilt caused him to go completely still.

  For a long moment Caleb gazed at each picture in turn. Ambrose Asterley had done the impossible. He had captured a creature of light and magic on photographic film.

  In one of the shots Serenity reclined on a large boulder, looking back over her shoulder at the camera. Her eyes held the innocently sensual curiosity of a woodland nymph. The curve of her hip and thigh echoed the shape of the sun-dappled rock beneath her.

  The second pose showed her sitting on the rock, knees drawn up to her chin. There was nothing explicit about the pose, although she was clearly nude. Asterley had obviously been more intrigued by the play of light and shadow on feminine skin than he was with titillating the viewer.

  The third shot showed Serenity lying on her stomach, trailing her fingers in a stream. Once again there was an enthralling, earthy innocence about the picture as she gazed into the water. She was not just a woman lying on a rock beside a stream, she was Woman, a gentle goddess secure in the power of her femininity.

  Caleb looked at the three pictures and knew that he had just been given a very rare and precious gift.

  With a sense of reverence, he gathered the photos together. The beaded curtain clashed and shimmered as he pushed it aside. He laid Serenity's pictures on the bedside table and walked toward the bathroom.

  The phone in the living room rang just as he started to open the bathroom door. Caleb hesitated, shrugged, and closed the door again. He scooped up his trouse
rs from the floor where he'd tossed them sometime during the night and went into the front room of the cottage to answer the summons.

  “Hello?”

  “Caleb, for God's sake, is that you?” Franklin's voice was harsh, almost frantic on the other end of the line. “Your secretary gave me this number this morning. I've been trying to reach you since yesterday.”

  Caleb went cold. “What's wrong? Has something happened to my grandfather?”

  “No, it's not that.”

  “Then what's the problem?” Something inside Caleb untwisted. Roland was all right. Someday, Caleb realized with a strange jolt, he would have to deal with the news of his grandfather's death. But not today, thank God. Not today.

  He was startled by the force of his reaction. He never allowed himself to think too much about his feelings for the old man, beyond his anger.

  “Caleb, I think you should know that yesterday afternoon I paid five thousand dollars for a set of pornographic pictures.”

  “That's a little steep for porn, Uncle Franklin. Sounds like you got ripped off.”

  “This is no joke,” Franklin whispered in a hoarse, strangled voice. “I paid five thousand dollars to a blackmailer, do you hear me? Five thousand dollars. I got a call after you left Ventress Valley yesterday. I was told I had to come up with the money or photos of your new lady friend would be sent to the papers.”

  “Serenity?” For an instant Caleb didn't comprehend. Then it hit him. “Shit. Someone sent you the photos?”

  “You know about these pictures?”

  “Hell, yes.”

  “She's naked in them, Caleb. She posed nude for these pictures. They're obscene. This is Crystal Brooke all over again. What have you done?”

  “Calm down, Franklin.”

  “The man threatened to send these pictures to the Ventress Valley News. Just like last time. So I paid him. I had to do it for the sake of the family.”

  “Calm down, Franklin.”

  “The family will be humiliated if this gets out. It's all your fault, damn you. In spite of everything Roland did for you, you've shamed him the same way your father did. You've followed in Gordon's footsteps. You've been seduced by a cheap tramp, and now we're all going to pay the price.”

  11

  SERENITY SURVEYED HER FEATURES IN THE STEAM-clouded mirror as she twisted her hair up into a knot on top of her head. She didn't look any different, she thought, astonished and amused. She anchored the curling mass of her hair with a large clip. Several tendrils escaped, but she paid no attention. She leaned over the sink and took a closer look at herself.

  Nothing. Nada. Zip. Same old Serenity.

  But she knew that she was not the same old Serenity. A glorious satisfaction bubbled up inside her. She had not been wrong about Caleb, after all. No man could have made love the way Caleb had made love last night unless he cared deeply.

  She'd seen the truth in his eyes when she opened her door and found him on her front steps. At least she thought she had seen the truth. She had certainly seen something significant in his expression. He had the look of a man who'd had a revelation. The savage need in him had been coupled with another raw emotion so fierce and strong that it could only have been love.

  That was why she'd taken the risk of letting him see the photographs. This morning she woke up with the certainty that now Caleb would understand. Now he could look at the pictures with an unbiased eye.

  Serenity grinned as she turned away from the mirror. She felt as if she could fly or run a marathon or dance on top of one of the vision pools. No stunning feat seemed beyond her reach today.

  She tugged on her robe, slid her feet into slippers, and opened the bathroom door. The sound of Caleb's voice coming from the living room startled her.

  “I said I'll take care of it, Franklin.”

  It was the old Caleb speaking, the one Serenity had met in his Seattle office. Expressionless, detached, all emotion other than an icy, remote calm carefully hidden beneath a layer of steel.

  “Don't do anything. Is that clear? Just sit tight. I'll handle this.”

  A cold wind blew away the warm mists of Serenity's euphoria. She listened as Caleb hung up the phone with far too much care. Her heart sank at the realization that something was terribly wrong. She thought of the photos she had left on the quilt and wondered if she had made a mistake.

  Taking a deep breath, she tightened the sash of her robe and made herself go slowly down the hall. She walked into the living room and saw Caleb standing barefoot beside the phone. He had on only his trousers. His face was an emotionless mask.

  “Caleb?”

  “We've got a problem.”

  “What kind of problem?”

  “I think it's safe to say that Ambrose Asterley was not the one who tried to blackmail you.”

  Whatever she'd been expecting to hear, that wasn't it. Serenity didn't know whether to be relieved or alarmed. “What are you talking about?”

  “Yesterday afternoon, after we left Ventress Valley, Franklin got a call telling him there was a certain set of photos for sale. The caller wanted five thousand dollars for them.”

  Serenity's stomach plummeted down a very deep mine shaft. “I don't understand.”

  “No? It's pretty damn obvious to me. Someone you know has those negatives and has decided to use them. Not to get you to stop doing business with me this time, but to extort money out of my family.”

  “Oh, God.” Serenity lowered herself slowly into the overstuffed armchair. She wrapped her arms around her midsection and hugged herself tightly “I'm sorry. I'm so very sorry.”

  “Damn it, Serenity, what the hell is going on?” Caleb's voice was dangerously soft.

  “I don't know. I wish I did.” She looked up in desperate appeal. This was probably not the moment to ask him what he had really thought about those photos, but she couldn't stop herself. She had to know that she'd been right to risk showing them to him this morning. “You've seen those pictures. You don't think they're so very terrible, do you?”

  “That's got nothing to do with this. Don't you understand? It doesn't matter what I think.” He shoved his fingers through his hair and scowled. His mind was clearly on the latest disaster, not on reassuring her. “What matters is that someone contacted a member of my family knowing full well what would happen. Someone other than Asterley. It couldn't have been him this time because he's dead.”

  “I don't know what's going on,” Serenity whispered. “I can only assume that someone here in Witt's End is violently opposed to my mail order project. Whoever it is must believe that if he can get you to quit as my consultant, my plans will be squelched.”

  “I think there's more to it than that,” Caleb said slowly. “I think there has been all along. But I've been too involved with other things to take a good hard look at the situation.”

  “What are you saying?”

  “Think about it, Serenity. The plain fact is those photos of you have very limited potential as a reason for blackmail.”

  “I couldn't agree more,” she muttered. “I kept telling you they were artistic pictures, not dirty pictures.”

  “Yeah, well, I think it's safe to say that there are probably any number of families that would just as soon not have one of their own marry someone who had posed for nude photos of any kind.”

  “I suppose you're right. There are a lot of people out there who don't appreciate fine art.”

  He ignored that. “I've got a strong hunch, however, that there are relatively few families that would, to use your phrase, go completely bonkers over those photos the way the Ventress family is guaranteed to do.” He paused. “The way my uncle is doing now.”

  Serenity frowned. “I think I'm beginning to see where you're going with this.”

  “Whoever has those negatives knows a great deal about me and my family's past. And we now have to deal with the fact that the creep pulling this stunt is not Ambrose Asterley. So much for the theory that he got my name out of the newspa
pers.”

  “Perhaps someone found those negatives after Ambrose's death, just as we originally feared.” Serenity shivered. “Or maybe the real reason the folder in Ambrose's files was empty except for a few prints is that someone else got there before I did.”

  “It's also possible that someone else got to them a long time before you went looking for them. Perhaps even before Ambrose died. Someone who knew about my family's past history with blackmail.”

  “Any way you look at it, it almost had to be someone here in Witt's End,” Serenity whispered. “But I don't see how anyone here could know all of those things about your family, let alone actually do something like this. Ambrose was the only possibility.”

  “And he's dead.” Caleb started to prowl the room. “Let's take this from the top. Fact number one: Everyone here in Witt's End knew you had posed for Asterley, right?”

  “Yes, I suppose so. No one cared, but I suppose they all knew. It was no secret.”

  “Fact number two: Nothing happened until after you had met with me several times and had announced that you were going to sign a contract with me.”

  “Good point,” Serenity said. “And don't forget that the first blackmail attempt didn't include a demand for money. The first demand was that I cancel my business arrangements with you.”

  “And now we have a second demand. This time for cash. So maybe we've got two different blackmailers. The first one could have been Asterley, just as we concluded the first time we went through this exercise. In which case it looks as if his only goal was to put a halt to your plans.”

  “And a second blackmailer who knew what Ambrose was doing and who decided, after Ambrose died, that the photos could be used for more profitable purposes.” Serenity winced. “Such as extorting money from your family.”

  Caleb crossed the room to the wood stove, opened the door and began to stoke the embers inside. “Two blackmailers. Both of whom knew about your photos, about your business contract with me, and about my past. One blackmailer apparently wanted only to stop the business arrangements. But the second wanted something more. Money.”

  “I suppose Ambrose could have told someone else about what he was doing.” Serenity chewed thoughtfully on her lower lip. “But the only person he ever really confided in was Jessie. And I know Jessie would never try to blackmail anyone.”