No Holds Barred Read online

  * * *

  THREE MINUTES, SHE’D SAID. As they continued to tick by, Duncan pictured the chain of tunnels and the caves beneath them. If their pursuer had turned back at the first boulder he’d shoved into place, he could be almost back to the ledge by now. But there was always the chance that he’d wasted time trying to shove it aside. Duncan could only hope for the latter. That kind of desperation, obsession, would be consistent with the profile he’d already tentatively posed in his mind.

  The pines were suddenly thicker, the brush denser. Piper slowed their pace, but she didn’t change direction. “Not far now,” she promised.

  Seconds later, they stepped into full sunlight again, only a hundred yards or so from the place where’d they’d eaten their sandwiches earlier. Keeping her hand gripped tight in his, he raced with her to the spot just in time to see a figure climbing down the rocks toward the thin ribbon of sand that bordered the lake. He gauged the distance, weighing the possibility of pursuit.

  “Go,” Piper said, her breath coming in huge gasps.

  “No.” He couldn’t leave her alone. Not until she was safe again. He’d already been too careless today. “There’ll be another time.” He was going to make sure of it.

  The figure below reached the sand. He was wearing a hooded sweatshirt that prevented them from getting a good look at his features. Without glancing up, he raced off along the lakeshore in the direction away from the castle. Seconds later he disappeared around a sharp curve in the beach.

  Suddenly, all the fear that he’d pushed aside when they’d been in the tunnels and while they’d raced through the woods hit him again. With one rough move, he pulled Piper around to face him.

  Her face was streaked with sweat and dirt, her hair tangled. And it struck him so hard that for a moment everything else faded. He could have lost her. He streaked his hands from her shoulders to frame her face. The instant he lowered his mouth to hers, he fell away from the fear and into her. And he wanted to fall further. With her mouth hot and avid on his, he wanted to keep on descending into a world where there was only the two of them.

  Some lingering awareness of their surroundings had him gripping her hips and carrying her into the cover of the woods. At the first tree that blocked his path, he stopped, pressed her against it and felt his mind shatter like fine crystal. For several seconds, he forgot everything but the strength of that tight, lithe body molded to his, the movement of her mouth. And he couldn’t seem to get enough of any of it.

  He drew back and felt his lungs burn as he dragged in air. Some of the oxygen made its way to his brain. There was an important reason he should get her back to the castle. But he couldn’t quite latch onto it. Not when she plunged her fingers into his hair and sank her teeth into his shoulder.

  “I want you,” he managed. “I need to touch you.”

  “Magic words,” she murmured and dragged his mouth back to hers. Their thoughts were completely in tune. And for one moment, his hands seemed to be everywhere, tough, impatient, relentless. The speed, the roughness, delighted even as it spurred her on.

  Something ripped. Her clothes or his—she couldn’t be sure, but her hands found flesh at last. His skin was burning, damp and so smooth. His body was so tight, his muscles bunching under her hands. Hunger spiked. Greed dominated. She simply couldn’t get enough. Using teeth and hands, she feasted.

  Her breath caught as he dragged her to the ground. Then they rolled, legs tangling, mouths and fingers searching, groping, bruising while they fought with their remaining clothes. As desperate as he was to taste and to possess, she rolled with him again. Their minds and desires were fused, locked on the same goal. Each second of delay, each obstacle they overcame—jeans, shoes, even those precious moments when he had to find the condom and sheath himself, brought its own separate, torturous thrill.

  Duncan felt his muscles quiver as they rolled again. There had never been anyone he’d craved this way. Every inch, every curve, every tremble, every throaty whisper of his name only fueled the fire that had been building since he’d touched her last. Need sliced him, its razor-sharp edges cutting into his throat, his loins, his heart. He raised his head, meeting her eyes as he drove into her.

  He felt her clamp around him and shuddered when she came. But he fought a vicious battle against his own release, dragging her up with him so that he was kneeling, her legs still wrapped around him. Then he gripped her hips, his fingers digging into her.

  “Stay with me, Piper.”

  He wasn’t sure he’d even said the words out loud. But those amber eyes opened, and he could see himself in their depths. She thought only of him. He thought only of her as he coaxed her into a rhythm, biting back the need to race until he knew she was with him. Only when he felt her clamp around him again, only when he heard her cry his name on her own release did he let himself fall with her.

  * * *

  DUNCAN COULDN’T BE SURE how long they lay sprawled there on the ground. She was in his arms, stretched along his length, and the feel of her, the fit of her body pressed to his was…right. Just as he’d always known it would be. What was new, what was spreading not like a fire but like a warm river through his blood, was the thought that he could have been happy to hold her just like this for a very long time.

  And he couldn’t afford to do that right now. Two sensations drove home that realization. One was the leather pouch pressing into his backside. The other, more annoying, was the insistent vibration of his cell phone against his left thigh.

  In one smooth move, he shifted, lifting her onto his lap as he leaned back against a tree. She fit her head into the crook of his shoulder in a gesture he found so endearing that for another moment, he simply held on to her, ignoring his phone.

  “This isn’t working,” she said.

  Alarmed, he pressed a finger under her chin, tilting her head so that he could look into her eyes. “I know I was rough. Did I hurt you?”

  “No. Even if you had, I’d let you do it again in a second.” She drew in a breath, let it out. “Just as soon as I catch my breath.”

  “What exactly isn’t working?”

  His cell phone vibrated again. He ignored it.

  “That’s what’s not working,” Piper said. “You’re ignoring your cell phone. And I can’t even think straight yet.”

  “Have to say, we’re in the same boat there.”

  “The whole idea of the on-demand-sex fantasy is that it compartmentalizes sex so that it’s less distracting. That’s why I fantasized about it all those years ago. I wanted simple. We should be able to keep our eyes on the goal and do the work we came here to do. But you’re currently ignoring your cell phone. And I haven’t even checked mine yet. Plus, we just narrowly escaped from someone who may have wished us bodily harm.”

  She sighed and leaned her head against his shoulder again. “It should have been the perfect solution for us, but I can’t seem to be near you without wanting to rip your clothes off.”

  Duncan laughed. He couldn’t stop himself. She’d hit the nail on the head. And when she gave up and joined him, he squeezed her in a friendly hug. “Look on the bright side. Since we’re both pretty much naked, that problem seems to be solved temporarily.”

  She gave his shoulder a punch. “Not funny.” But the shared laughter was still clear in her voice. “We have to get serious and figure out who followed us into the cave and why.”

  “Those are the questions of the day,” Duncan said. And they were enough to sober both of them.

  “I think we can cross your favorite suspects, Abe and Richard, off the list,” Piper said.

  “Agreed.” He couldn’t picture either one of them scaling down those rocks so effortlessly. And how would either of them have found the time to come to the castle? “They could have hired someone, mind you.”

  “Why? If your theory is right, they’ve achieved their goal. I’m out of town. Richard’s sitting second chair. Why follow us? But…”

  “But what?”

&n
bsp; “What if we’re looking at this from the wrong angle?” She raised her head enough to meet his eyes. “They’re not the only ones who might have wanted me out of D.C. Maybe the whole point of that staged scene and the flower deliveries was to get me back up here to the castle?”

  “I’m listening,” Duncan murmured.

  She rose from his lap and began to pace. “What if this is all about Eleanor’s dowry?”

  Duncan narrowed his eyes, following her train of thought. “The sapphires could very well be playing some role in this. Cam’s theory is that whoever was visiting the library had some kind of inside information, something that makes him or her believe that the library holds the key to the location of Eleanor’s dowry. But then lightning struck the stone arch and Adair found the first earring before he could unlock the secret.”

  “Had to be a bummer for him,” Piper said.

  “It gets worse. Cam set up extra security so he couldn’t visit the library anymore. It’s not a stretch to think that the library guy starts thinking there might be some link between you and your sisters and the rest of Eleanor’s sapphires.”

  “Or he could see us as competition. Adair found the first earring. Could be he’s afraid Nell or I will beat him to the rest.”

  He had to admire the way her mind worked. Shifting the lens and looking at it from that angle made a great deal of sense. “Very possible. But then my guess is that the library guy wouldn’t want you up here. So I’m still not convinced he was behind the scene in your apartment. But it’s certainly in his interest to keep tabs on you now that you’re here. And if he followed us from the castle earlier, he heard everything I told you about my theory of where that earring might have been hidden. But I don’t think he could know for sure that we found it.”

  “So the guy in the hooded sweatshirt could be the library guy.”

  “I like it as a theory. Whoever he is, he’s obsessed with finding Eleanor’s sapphires. But we can’t discount other possibilities. The guy who’s sending you death threats could have easily caused that little avalanche. My suspicion is that he’s someone who’s really angry that you let Lightman out of jail. And he wants you to suffer at least part of what the victims suffered before they died. The fact that you left your apartment may have made him even angrier. Why not kick a few stones down on you? Or someone else could have followed us out to the cliffs, someone we haven’t thought of yet. The key to being a good profiler is that you can’t jump to premature conclusions.”

  “Great. You’ve already pointed out there’s a target on my back. Now I can worry about the number of people taking aim at it.”

  Standing there naked in the slants of sunlight, she looked like Diana the Huntress. Was that why it hit him so hard again? All he knew was that she was beautiful in a way that made his heart take a long tumble. That was dangerous. Almost as dangerous as the image he’d planted in both their minds. And he had to keep focused on the fact that she was in danger.

  Rising, he went to her and took her hands. “I want you to picture it. I want both of us to imagine the worst and hope for the best. We can’t be certain yet that there isn’t more than one thing going on here. In fact, I have a definite feeling that there is.”

  When his cell began to vibrate again, he released her so that he could retrieve his jeans and dig it out of his pocket. He checked the ID. “Adrienne.”

  “You’re not answering your phone,” she said.

  “I am now. Good or bad news?”

  Adrienne’s sigh spoke volumes.

  Duncan tipped the phone so that Piper could hear the bad news. “I’m letting Piper listen to what you have to say.”

  “The men I’ve assigned to keep tabs on Lightman have lost him. He hadn’t made an appearance outside his place all morning. When my men checked his apartment about an hour ago, there was no sign of him. Last visual they had on him was yesterday around dinnertime.”

  Duncan’s mind was racing. Maybe he’d been too quick to dismiss Lightman as the person who’d staged the scene in Piper’s apartment.

  But it was Piper who spoke the suspicion out loud. “Lightman is smart. He could have bought the wrong kind of sheet and used fresh rose petals just to throw us off.”

  Or to simply play with her mind, Duncan thought. He squeezed her hand as Adrienne continued, “If Lightman is targeting you, Ms. MacPherson, he’ll have done his research. He’ll know that your home is at Castle MacPherson.”

  “Keep me posted,” Duncan said, and disconnected. Then he raised the hand he was holding to his lips. “I know. You’re not going to run.”

  She met his eyes. “You’re not going to try to change my mind?”

  “Waste of time. I’m a Scot. We’re thrifty. And I’m not sure it’s the best option.”

  “I just wish our prime suspects were still Abe and Richard.”

  He grinned at her. “Me, too.”

  She released his hand and began to gather up their clothes, tossing his to him as she sorted through them. He was watching her pull her jeans on when she met his eyes and the Diana the Huntress look was there again.

  He felt his heart tumble again.

  “If Lightman comes after me, he’s in for a surprise.”

  She was right about that. She was a very surprising woman. But he didn’t intend to let Patrick Lightman anywhere near her.

  9

  THE ROAD TO HELL WAS PAVED with good intentions. Less than two hours later, Duncan pictured his most recent one being crushed by the wheels of his car as he parked it in front of Edie’s Diner. The restaurant sat on the main street of Glen Loch, and its wide front window offered customers a view of the lake and Castle MacPherson across the water. From what he could see, the place hadn’t changed. His mother had brought them to Edie’s frequently during the summer that she’d worked on her book at the castle.

  The setup inside was typically fifties and provided seating at tables, in red leather booths and on stools along a polished white counter. Beyond that, the kitchen was open to view. People, locals as well as tourists, could come to Edie’s for the food and the latest in news and gossip. As he recalled, both were the best in town.

  He and Piper had come for neither. They’d come to talk to Patrick Lightman.

  Sheriff Skinner’s call had come a half hour after they’d gotten back to the castle. By that time Piper had checked in with her aunt Vi and passed on the news about the earring, and Duncan had used the number Cam had given him to fill Daryl Garnett in on the discovery, as well as the person who’d followed them into the cave. Cam’s boss didn’t like it any more than he did. Daryl assured him that as soon as Vi finished her wedding presentation at the mall in Albany, they’d drive straight back to the castle.

  He and Piper had been about to resume their work on the Lightman files when the castle phone had rung. Skinner’s message had been brief. A man had just walked into his office and asked him to arrange a meeting with Piper.

  The man had identified himself as Patrick Lightman.

  Skinner had insisted that they meet at Edie’s Diner. After turning off his car’s engine, Duncan reached over the gearshift and linked his fingers with Piper’s. “You don’t have to go in.” Earlier, he’d argued vehemently and unproductively that he could take the meeting for her. He’d already contacted Adrienne and informed her of Lightman’s whereabouts.

  “I’m going in. This is my chance to see him in person. He could say something, do something that will put me on the right track to sending him back to jail. Plus, I want to know why he’s come all this way to see me. And why he’s doing it in this public way.”

  That was one of the questions he’d given some thought to on the drive into town. “Cam has a great deal of respect for Skinner. Meeting here at Edie’s will broadcast Lightman’s presence to the entire local community. Within an hour of the time Lightman leaves the diner, everyone in town will know who he is and why he’s here. If he’s planning on staying in Glen Loch, everyone will have his description and be on the lookou
t for him.”

  “But it was Lightman’s idea to approach Skinner rather than just knock on the castle door,” Piper pointed out. “He doesn’t have to report in to the sheriff. He’s a free man.”

  “He’s also a brilliant man. This way, if he hangs around no one can accuse him of stalking you. Even if that’s his intention. We could be playing right into his hands.”

  Piper shook her head. “No. It doesn’t fit his pattern to be so public. He’s not here to stalk me. And he’s not as smart as he thinks he is. He may be playing into our hands.” She smiled at him. “He’s a meticulous planner, but I’ll bet he didn’t expect me to bring an FBI profiler with me to this meeting.”

  His lips curved slightly. “You’re trying to make me feel better about this.”

  “I’m trying to make me feel better, too.” On impulse, she framed his face with her hands and pulled his mouth down for a quick kiss. But any temptation she felt to prolong the kiss and feel even better was halted by the sound of a voice hailing them from across the street.

  “Ms. MacPherson?”

  The man striding toward them was the handsome blond man who’d visited the castle that morning. Piper used the few seconds that it took her to climb out of Duncan’s car to gather her thoughts and search for a name. “Mr. Arbogast. From Architectural Digest.”

  “Russell, please.” His smile beamed. “I’m so happy to run into you like this. I was trying to get hold of you a couple of hours ago, but no one picked up the phone at the castle.”

  “Duncan and I were out for a while.”

  Russell nodded at Duncan. “Good to see you again, Mr. Sutherland. You’re Piper’s stepbrother, right?”