Tempting Fate. Carla Neggers
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amiably, “and I’ll duck. You’ll break a window. Won’t accomplish much. Besides, I’m harmless.”
She kept the frying pan raised high. “You don’t look harmless.”
He smiled. “I consider that a gift.”
What kind of man was he? She lowered the frying pan a fraction of an inch. She thought he noticed. But it was heavy, and her wrist hurt. “Who are you, and what were you doing in my garden?”
“I didn’t mean to startle you.” He hadn’t moved off her car and didn’t seem particularly worried that she might decide to bonk him on the head after all. It didn’t appear her bottle had struck home. “My name’s Zeke Cutler. I would have taken more care if I’d realized the cottage was occupied and you’d just been robbed.”
She almost dropped the frying pan. “How do you know I was just robbed?”
“A woman throwing bottles and arming herself with an iron skillet is usually a dead giveaway.” But his smile and the touch of humor in his dark, dark eyes gave way to a frown and a squint, a serious expression of determination and self-assurance. He seemed to know of what he spoke. “So are bruised wrists, skinned elbows, scraped shins.”
“You’re very observant.”
“However,” he said, the humor flickering back to his eyes, “if you’re Dani Pembroke, and I take it you are, you could have gotten banged up fetching a kite down from a tree or climbing rocks.”
She straightened, suddenly acutely aware of the position in which this man had found her. Bruised, scared, robbed. “Are you a reporter? Can’t you guys leave me alone? Look, I haven’t admitted anything—”
“I’m not a reporter.” Zeke Cutler pulled himself from her car. His eyes never left her. He was, she thought, one intensely controlled man. “Do you want to tell me what happened?”
“Why would I do that?”
“Did you get a good look at the man who attacked you?”
She refused to answer. What if this was an act and he was the one who’d attacked her? What if he really was a reporter?
“You didn’t call the police,” he said.
“What makes you so sure?”
His expression was unreadable now, any humor gone. “It’s an educated guess.”
“Well, Mr. Cutler, I appreciate your concern, but if you don’t mind, I’d like you off my property. Under the circumstances, you’re making me nervous. I’m sure you understand.”
“Suit yourself.”
Without further argument, he started down the driveway. His running shoes scrunched on the gravel. Dani made herself notice his clothes: jeans and dark blue pullover. Black sport watch. No socks. He looked clean enough. And he moved with a speed, grace and economy that struck her as inordinately sexy and not entirely unexpected. It suddenly occurred to her that he could be a lost guest from the Pembroke. But he didn’t seem the type to stay at a spa-inn, nor, certainly, the type to get lost.
He seemed more the type who could have pitched her across her room and lied about it.
She waited until he was out of sight. Then she returned to her cottage, pried the frying pan from her grip and picked up the phone again.
This time she didn’t stop dialing until she’d finished. But it wasn’t Ira she called, or the police, or Pembroke security, or any of her friends, or, God knew, her father or grandfathers or her sweet aunt Sara. She called the one person she could always call when she found her house ransacked and a strange man in her garden, and that was her grandmother, Mattie Witt.
Dani Pembroke wasn’t what Zeke had expected.
He entered the rose garden, figuring that if he’d just robbed Dani Pembroke, it was where he’d head. But as he stepped through the iron gate, memories—dreams that were dead and done with—assaulted him. He pictured how the garden had looked twenty-five years ago, with Mattie Witt sitting in its overgrown midst, wearing her orange flight suit as she’d worked on the basket of her hot-air balloon.
He’d been a fool to let the past determine his actions. He couldn’t afford to make that kind of mistake again.
But there was a lot of Mattie in her granddaughter, in her dark good looks, her independence. And with her zest for a fight—an iron skillet, for pete’s sake—a flash of Nicholas Pembroke.
Instinctively Zeke knew all those qualities were what Dani wanted people to see in her. She wouldn’t want them to see the mystery and vulnerability he’d detected behind her direct manner, the parts of her she held back, the parts that would remind people of her gentle, sensitive, lost mother. Her eyes, as black as Lilli’s had been blue, said she had secrets and knew you knew she had them but wasn’t going to tell you what they were anyway.
There was a lack of self-pity about the owner of Pembroke Springs that Zeke could admire.
And, given the circumstances, a hotheadedness that worried him.
The rose garden covered two acres and was, in his view, the best part of the estate. There were fountains, gazebos, marble statuary, stone benches, low iron fences and dozens of beautiful, perfectly pruned rosebushes. Their fragrance filled the afternoon air.
He noticed a discreet plaque dedicating the rosebushes to the memory of Lilli Chandler Pembroke. His throat tightened. He needed distance. Control. Squinting against the bright sun, he scanned the crowd meandering along the brick walks. He’d come to do a job. Time to get on with it.
He went utterly motionless.
Quint Skinner.
There was no mistaking the bull-like physique, the cropped red-blond hair, the scarred face. Skinner had served with Joe Cutler. After he got out of the army, he’d become a journalist and hooked up with his old unit, discovering that morale was low and Joe’s sense of pride and honor had deteriorated. He’d seen Joe’s men die. And he’d seen Joe die.
Joe Cutler: One Soldier’s Rise and Fall was Quint’s book. He hadn’t done much since.
What the hell was he doing in Saratoga?
Tucked between two teenage girls, Skinner edged out of the rose garden. A small pack was slung over one massive shoulder. Zeke would bet he’d find Dani Pembroke’s belongings in that pack. But there was nothing he could do. Not right now—not that made sense. Pulitzer Prize winner or not, Quint Skinner was perfectly capable of ransacking a woman’s bedroom and smacking her around. He was also capable of using a couple of innocent girls to get his ass out of a sling with Zeke.
And it occurred to Zeke that Dani Pembroke just might not appreciate his efforts. The media would pounce on a confrontation between Quint Skinner and Joe Cutler’s brother in the Pembroke rose gardens. Zeke had already noted that Dani hadn’t reacted to his name. Seemed she had no idea who he was. What all hadn’t Mattie told her?
He let Quint go. For now.
It was teatime at the Pembroke. Wild-blueberry muffins, fresh fruit and Earl Grey tea were being served on the veranda. Zeke headed on up. Afterward maybe he’d try to scare up a fifth of George Dickel in this Yankee town.
If he was lucky, in due time he’d bump into Quint Skinner on neutral turf. If not, he’d just have to hunt him down and have a little chat.
Ira Bernstein was not pleased to learn a burglar had been prowling the Pembroke grounds. He was even less pleased to find out over an hour after the fact. “Why didn’t you call me?” he screamed at Dani.
She leaned back against the couch in her office. Now that the crisis was over, she was aching and tired; even thinking was an effort. And talking to Mattie hadn’t helped. Instead of offering her usual love, wisdom and concern, she had been shocked and withdrawn, which led Dani to worry something was wrong with her grandmother. But Mattie had denied that Dani had caught