Distinguished Service & Every Move You Make (Uniformly Hot!) Read online

  Within moments he’d completely stripped and sheathed himself, then none too soon found himself nudging her thighs farther apart with his knees.

  “Please,” Mariah whimpered, rubbing her wet curls against his erection.

  “Please what, Mariah?” he whispered, tilting his hips to rub against her without entering.

  Her eyes blinked open. “Please love me.”

  And he did. In every way it was possible for a man to love a woman.

  Zach fit himself against her tight opening then surged into her to the hilt, causing her to cry out, her back arching off the ground, her hands desperately gripping the blanket. Her slick muscles contracted and convulsed and shivered, pushing him precariously toward the edge. But he held on to the cliff through shear will, nothing more beautiful to him than watching Mariah soar to climax, with no more incentive needed than having his body inside hers. He’d done this. He’d coaxed and charmed and eased his way past her defenses until finally he was rewarded with watching her achieve a violently intense orgasm with one, long stroke.

  Her spasms slowly diminished and she fought to catch her breath. Zach stayed painfully still, waiting for the moment when she opened her eyes and stared up at him in wonder.

  God, how he loved this woman. Loved her ability to trust. To jump into any situation with both feet, consequences be damned.

  He loved her, period.

  And leaving her was going to be the single most difficult thing he’d ever have to do in his life.

  But there were ten hours between now and the time his plane departed. And he intended to make every moment count.

  16

  IF THREE STRIKES MEANT you were out, what did four strikes mean?

  Mariah covered her ears, as much to block out the sound of the workers replacing the roof on the agency as to quell the sound of her answer. No matter, the part of herself that refused to stay silent answered, “It means you’re a Texas-sized fool.” How else could you explain the loss of man number four?

  Even up to the very last minute, Mariah had held out some hope that Zach would stay. That he would realize that what he felt for her was much more than lust and that they could forge a life together in her hometown. Live in the house she’d grown up in and which had played so much of a role in their blossoming relationship. Have the white picket fence and 2.5 kids.

  Then seven days ago a lightbulb went off…or rather the sun had risen, and there she’d stood outside the ranch house, Hughie waiting with his truck engine running in the driveway, and her staring at Zach with what she was sure had to be her heart beating in her eyes.

  He’d gripped her shoulders as if he might never let her go, hauled her to him and kissed her until she felt her legs go weak.

  Then he’d walked away from her without saying another word.

  “Fool, fool, fool.”

  “Did you say something?”

  Mariah blinked George into focus where he sat across from her.

  She shook her head. How could she possibly explain to her cousin what had happened? She’d merely told him Zach had gone back home, then clammed up.

  She tuned in to the lack of sounds from the roof.

  “What happened to the workers?”

  “It’s lunchtime, Mar.” George put the magazine he was reading down and took his feet off his desk. “Speaking of which, I could go for something. Can I get you anything?”

  She shook her head and took a lunch bag from her desk drawer. “I’m good. Thanks.”

  George put on his hat and walked through the door. She stared after him, then at the bag she held. What was wrong with her? She never packed her lunch. But somehow, after Zach left, she’d been able to walk into the kitchen without feeling uneasy, the mystery gone and plain common sense taking its place. She was learning how to wield a pan with the best of them. Well, okay, maybe not the best, but she was growing braver, venturing beyond the ordinary staples and sampling other recipes. Some solely by trial and error, others from her mother’s old cookbook that she’d unearthed from the attic along with a lot of other things that had been stowed away up there, presumably for safekeeping, though Mariah was coming to believe it was because neither father nor daughter had been able to deal with the reminders.

  It was nice that that was no longer the case.

  Instead she had to deal with the fact that with every breath she took she felt Zach’s loss like a sharp knife to the chest.

  The telephone at her elbow rang and she automatically snatched up the receiver, relieved for the interruption. “Clayborn Investigations.”

  “Mariah?”

  Mariah resisted the urge to anxiously hang up the receiver and crawl under her desk, cursing herself for not checking the caller display before picking up. On the line was none other than strike three, Justin Johnson.

  “God, woman, what’s going on over there? I’ve been trying to contact you forever.”

  Mariah blew out a long breath. “Had it ever crossed your mind that maybe I didn’t want to talk to you?”

  “No.”

  Of course it hadn’t. J.J. called a woman, the woman picked up. “Look, J.J., I’m busy,” she said. “What do you want?”

  “To apologize.”

  Mariah’s brows drew together. “For what?”

  “For getting engaged to Heather so soon after, well, you know…”

  “After we broke up?”

  “Yes.”

  “Don’t worry about it. Water under the bridge and all that.” She tucked her hair behind her ear. “Anyway, what does it matter if you got engaged a week after or six months?”

  “The last name of the baby Heather’s going to have.”

  Mariah’s mind went blank. “Oh.” That would mean that he and Heather were together while she was dating J.J.

  “And no, I did not sleep with Heather while we were going out, if that’s what you’re thinking.”

  “Funny, that’s exactly what I was thinking.”

  “Mariah, Heather is six months along.”

  “What?” She did the mental calculations. That meant that he would have been with Heather before Mariah had ever said yes to his request for a first date. Which meant that, in essence, Justin had dumped Heather for her.

  She frowned. Somehow, in the scheme of things, that didn’t make her feel any better. Well, not much anyway.

  “I see,” she finally said.

  Justin’s sigh filled the earpiece. “Anyway, mum’s the word on the pregnancy thing. She’s managed to keep it a secret until now—don’t ask me how—but we’re going to announce it the day we get back from our honeymoon.”

  Mariah didn’t know what else to say, so she didn’t say anything.

  Justin cleared his throat. “Anyway, I was thinking…if you ever need anything…you know, if you ever get any urges you need taken care of…”

  “You’d be the last person I called, J.J.” Mariah stared at the extension with repulsion.

  “Oh. Okay. I just thought, you know, that it wouldn’t hurt to ask.”

  Mariah caught herself smiling slightly. “Anyway, congratulations, J.J. And thanks, you know, for telling me what you did.”

  A few moments later she hung up the phone and sat staring at the same stretch of space that had occupied so much of her time that morning.

  Heather was pregnant…had gotten that way before Mariah and J.J. started dating.

  She shook her head, unsure what, exactly, the information meant except that J.J. pretty much had to break up with her, and had to marry Heat
her.

  Okay, so the information made her feel better. It was nice to know she hadn’t been to blame for the breakup.

  The bell over the front door rang. She looked up as she blindly put her lunch bag back in her drawer.

  A young woman maybe a year or two her junior stood looking around.

  “Can I help you?” Mariah asked.

  “Is…is George here?”

  Mariah instantly recognized the voice, and the hesitancy in it. This was George’s female caller.

  “He just went out to lunch.” She gestured toward his desk. “You can wait if you’d like. He shouldn’t be more than a few minutes.”

  The woman looked at her as if something just dawned on her. “Are you Mariah? Mariah Clayborn, George’s cousin?”

  Mariah knew a moment of pause. Only because the young woman looked almost awestruck. “Um, yes, I am.”

  “Oh, my God, it is you!” She rushed across the space separating them and thrust her ultrafeminine hand toward Mariah. “I can’t believe I’m talking to you live and in the flesh.”

  Okay, so maybe there had been a bit of press on the Jock and Ellie story and her and Zach’s involvement in helping find Jock’s Treasure. Plans had been announced to build a small museumlike memorial near Bisbane’s Bluff. In it would be the wedding dress, the pictures reproduced, enlarged and framed, the wedding bands, and the story of the star-crossed lovers and the conclusion to the story written in script on the walls. The savings bonds the bogus rock had held would be used to finance it. And the existence of the museum would serve as a reminder to anyone who thought there might still be something buried out there.

  As for Denton Gawlick, his wife was backing him with her considerable financial resources. Meaning that he would probably get off without so much as a slap across the wrist. She seemed to be completely oblivious to what he’d really intended to do with the booty, apparently buying into what he was telling the press, that he’d planned to propose to his wife all over again and had bought the dress for her and then the rest just happened by accident. Gawlick’s lackey had disappeared the instant he was let out on bail.

  At any rate, the first couple of days after the story broke, Mariah had had to beat reporters away from the door.

  And now she was facing a starry-eyed young woman who thought she walked on water.

  “Yes, I am,” she said, managing a smile, telling herself it wasn’t the woman’s fault.

  “I’m Janette Pratt. Oh, I’m so happy to finally meet you,” she said, animatedly pumping Mariah’s hand. “George has told me so very much about you.”

  “I’ll bet.”

  Mariah managed to salvage her hand.

  “I’m so glad you and I could have a moment alone together. I know George asked me not to, but I need to thank you for all you and George have done to help find my little sister.”

  Mariah blinked once, twice.

  Apparently she’d been way off base. With more things than one.

  George chose that moment to saunter back into the office, whistling as he did. He froze in his tracks the instant he spotted Janette standing in front of Mariah’s desk.

  Mariah smiled at the young woman. “You’ll excuse us a moment, won’t you?”

  She rounded her desk and asked George to join her in the back room. Moments later, after he spoke briefly with Janette, he came into the room. Mariah closed the door.

  “Her little sister?”

  George’s grimace was as handsome as any of his grins. “Yeah. While you were, you know, otherwise occupied, Janette came in and asked for help looking for her younger sibling. They were, um, split apart ten years ago after their parents died and she hadn’t seen her since.” He shrugged. “So I helped her out.”

  “You…helped…her…out.”

  Mariah stared at the man before her as if she didn’t know him at all. Not only had he accepted a case in her absence, he’d seen it through to the end.

  “Yeah. Felt pretty good, too,” he said, the grimace turning into a grin.

  Mariah found herself smiling. “That wouldn’t happen to have anything to do with the pretty young woman standing in the other room, would it?”

  “Yes, I suppose it has something to do with it. But more…well, I’ve been meaning to talk to you. You see, I’ve wanted to take on a bigger load around here for a long time now.”

  “Bigger load?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  Mariah didn’t know quite how to react. She threw her arms around her cousin and kissed him loudly on the cheek, laughing when he turned a brilliant shade of red.

  “Well, what did you go and do that for?”

  “By way of congratulations,” she smiled at him, “on becoming a man.”

  * * *

  LATER THAT NIGHT dinner hadn’t come out exactly the way Mariah had planned. She’d taken chicken breasts out of the freezer earlier in the day, but by the time she’d gotten home, she’d been too preoccupied to remember everything Zach had done with them while he was here.

  She stood staring at the mess she’d removed from the oven, poking one of the stuffed breasts with a fork. The prongs stuck and it took some doing to get them back out again. The chicken was drier than dust and harder than the summer ground before a rainstorm.

  She sighed and leaned her hips against the counter. Spaghetti it was, then. A few minutes found water on to boil and a store-bought can of sauce on to simmer.

  She distractedly rubbed her forehead. Hughie should be coming in a few minutes and she hadn’t even thought about what she was going to make for dessert.

  Oh, the heck with it. Canned fruit had done all right before that handsome Yankee’s shadow had ever darkened their doorstep.

  Hughie came in from the living room instead of the back door, startling her.

  “What’s the matter with you, girl?” he asked with a chuckle.

  Mariah swallowed hard, wondering how long it would take before she didn’t jump at the occasional odd sound. Out there somewhere Claude Ray roamed, waiting to strike again. And until he surfaced, and she caught him, she wouldn’t feel entirely comfortable.

  “I didn’t know you were in already.”

  “Yep. Just finished a shower.” He crossed to stand in front of the stove. “I came home earlier hoping to catch you. You know, to tell you not to go to any trouble with dinner on account of me.”

  She caught a whiff of cologne and made a face. “Oh?”

  “Yes. Now that the cat’s out of the bag, Miss Winona has invited me over for dinner, you know, during the day when God and everyone can see us.” He eyed what she was making. “It looks like you’re not going to any trouble anyway.”

  Mariah switched off both burners and dumped the pot of water into the sink with a bang.

  “Now why did you go and do that for?”

  “Because now that you’ve criticized my cooking, I’m not going to sit around here alone and eat it!” she bellowed.

  Hughie’s bushy brows rose to his hairline.

  Mariah paced slightly away, then lightly tapped the heel of her hand against her forehead. “I’m sorry. That was uncalled-for.”

  “No harm done,” Hughie said quietly.

  Great, now her father was looking at her as if she had a screw or two loose. That’s all she needed right now. She had been doing so well skimming past any mention of Zach and acting as if everything was okay. Now in one burst of rarely displayed anger, she’d revealed all.

&nbs
p; Hughie cleared his throat. “I think I have time for a cup of coffee before I go.”

  When Mariah moved to pour him a mug, he caught her hands. “No, I’ll get it. You go sit down.”

  She collected a bag of cookies and plate on her way then poured the cookies onto the plate, the action about as domestic as she felt right then.

  Hughie joined her, putting a cup in front of her, as well. Mint tea. Her favorite.

  She blinked at him, wondering at this new attentiveness.

  “You know, I knew there had to be more in there that you weren’t sharing,” he said. “I guess Zach was right in that there’s much more to you than meets the eye.”

  She made a face. “I don’t want to talk about Zach.”

  “I didn’t realize we were.”

  Mariah searched her father’s eyes.

  “Anyway, I’ve been doing some thinking,” he said, in much the same way George had at the office earlier. Mariah braced herself, thinking there was far too much thinking going on for her liking.

  “I want you to come back and work the ranch with me.”

  Mariah could have sworn she was hearing things. “What?” she whispered.

  Hughie shifted, apparently uncomfortable. “Okay, you want me to do the whole bit, don’t you? Apologize for saying the things I did, telling you that you were nothing more than a distraction, making you feel that…well, that I didn’t appreciate you as you are. My daughter. The precious child I created with the first woman I ever loved, your mother.”

  “Oh, God.” Mariah pushed from the table, finding tears closer to the surface than she felt comfortable with.

  For long, silent moments she stood at the preparation island, battling back the pesky dampness, attempting to regulate her breathing, and trying like hell to figure out what was going on with everyone lately.

  She nearly jumped when she felt Hughie’s beefy hand rest against her shoulder. “Are you all right?”

  Mariah closed her eyes tightly and nodded.

  “Good. But I don’t think it would hurt to tell you something I haven’t said in a good long time.” He squeezed her shoulder. “I love you, baby. More than any other person walking this earth.”