Cold Case Affair. Лорет Энн Уайт
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to happen to the old man’s property now that he was gone. A thought flashed briefly through his mind that he might make an offer, join the Rutledge land with the O’Donnell acreage. But that idea led to thoughts of Muirinn O’Donnell and he instantly quashed the notion. She’d probably inherited the property. Putting in an offer would just bring him into contact with her. Jett figured he’d rather forgo the option of buying it if meant ever seeing, or talking, to her again.
His hands tensed on the wheel, anger flooding into his veins at the mere thought of Muirinn. She hadn’t even shown up for Gus’s funeral. That told him something.
It told him that she didn’t care.
She didn’t give a damn about the people she’d left behind in this town. She’d turned her back on it all—on him—and never once looked back.
Eleven years ago, Muirinn had been doing a summer stint at her grandfather’s newspaper where she’d discovered a passion for journalism. Around the same time a Hollywood production company had blown into town to do a movie on the Tolkin Mine murders, based on Gus’s book. The presence of the movie crew had turned Safe Harbor upside down, and it had fired a burning coal in Muirinn’s belly. She’d started going out to the set every day, reporting on the production, interviewing the actors and crew. In turn, the actor playing the part of Muirinn’s father had interviewed Muirinn as the surviving O’Donnell family member. In Jett’s opinion it had messed with her head, giving her a false sense of celebrity.
Then one of the crew members had suggested that Muirinn’s writing was really good, saying he’d put a word in for her at his sister’s Los Angeles magazine, and Muirinn had become completely obsessed by the idea.
Lured by absurd notions of fame, fortune and escape, she’d packed up her life and followed the crew to LA. Jett had literally begged her not to leave. He’d been so in love with that woman. He’d planned to marry her, never a doubt in his mind that they were meant for each other. But she’d been as stubborn as mule.
They’d argued hot and hard, and it had led to even hotter and angrier sex. Afterwards, she’d tried to convince Jett to go with her, but he couldn’t. He was born to live in the wilds of Alaska. It would’ve killed him to move to L.A. She’d taunted him, saying that if he really loved her enough he’d do it. And Jett, feeling her slipping from his grasp, had retaliated by saying if she did leave, he’d never forgive her, never speak to her again. He’d hate her for walking out on what they had.
Clearly, she’d taken him at his word, because the next day she’d boarded that plane and he’d never heard from her again.
Muirinn had always had a way of bringing out the irrational fire in Jett, something he regretted to this day. Because even through all his anger, Jett never had managed to let Muirinn go, and it had cost him his marriage. It had cost them … He slammed on the brakes suddenly, on the road just past Gus’s house.
A light was flickering faintly up in Gus’s attic window.
Someone was inside.
Vandals? A fire?
He put his truck into reverse, quickly backed up the road and wheeled into the rutted driveway with half a mind to alert the police before deciding it was likely just old Lydia Wilkie in there, probably using an oil lamp since the power had been disconnected after Gus’s death.
Still, it was past midnight; not a time the crazy old lady would likely be up and about inside Gus’s house.
He’d better check to make sure.
Muirinn’s sleep was shattered by a violent clap of thunder.
She jolted upright. Then she heard it again—not thunder—a thunderous banging on the door downstairs. Quicksilver shot off the bed and bolted down the hall.
Muirinn groped in the dark to light the lamp. Holding it high, she negotiated the stairs, careful not to trip over her nightdress. She halted in the hallway, glanced at the old clock. It was past midnight. Who on earth could be beating on Gus’s door at this hour?
The banging shuddered through the house again. Fear sliced into her.
She set the lamp down, reached for the bunch of keys she’d left on the hall table before going to bed. Fumbling for the right key, Muirinn headed for Gus’s gun cabinet. Another wave of banging resounded through the house.
Unlocking the cabinet, Muirinn removed Gus’s old shotgun. Hands shaking now, she loaded a cartridge, chambered the round and went to the door.
“Who is it?” she yelled.
Wind rattled hard at windows, swished through the conifers outside, branches clawing on the roof. Whoever was out there in the storm couldn’t hear her, and the pounding began again, so hard the door shook. She sucked in a deep breath and swung the door open.
And froze.
“Muirinn?”
Shock slammed into Jett’s chest.
The flame in the old lantern on the hall table quivered in the wind, making shadows dance over her copper hair. But she simply stared at him, green eyes glimmering, her face ghost-white, shotgun pointed at his heart.
Jett’s gaze flickered sharply at the sight of her pregnant belly under the white cotton nightdress. “What are you doing here?” His voice came out rough, raw.
Muirinn slowly lowered the 12-gauge, her left hand rising as if to reach out and touch him. Anticipation ripped through him hot and fast. But she pushed a fall of sleep-tangled curls back from her face instead, and he realized that she was shaking. “Jett?” she whispered.
He was speechless.
Nothing in this world could have prepared him for the sheer physical jolt of seeing Muirinn O’Donnell back in Safe Harbor. Especially barefoot and pregnant.
The pulse at her neck was racing, making the small compass on a chain at her throat catch the light. It lured his gaze down to her breasts, which were full and rounded. Lust tore through him, his blood already pounding with adrenaline. Every molecule in his body screamed to touch her, pull her against him, hold her so damn tight, erase the lost years. But at the same time the sight of her softly rounded belly triggered something cold and brittle in him, a protective shell forming around his raw emotions.
He needed to step away, fast, before he did or said something stupid. “I didn’t know you were back,” he said crisply. “I saw a light up in the attic, thought it might be vandals.”
She was still unable to answer, and his words hung like an inane echo in the chasm of lost years between them. Rain began to plop on the deck.
“Gus’s place has been empty,” he explained further, clearing his throat. “But I can see you have things under control.” Jett turned to go, but he hesitated on the stairs, snared by a fierce urge to turn around, drink in the sight of her once again. “Welcome home, Muirinn,” he said brusquely, then he ran lightly down the steps toward his truck, forcing himself not to look back.
“Jett—wait!”
He stilled, rain dampening his hair.
“I … I wasn’t in the attic,” she said.
He turned very slowly. “You weren’t up there when I knocked?”
She shook her head. “I was sleeping.”
“Someone was up there, Muirinn.”
“It wasn’t me.”
He wavered, then stalked back up the stairs, flicking on the light switch as he entered the house. Nothing happened.
“I haven’t figured out how to reconnect the solar power yet.”
“Here, give