“Inside?”

“A pallet of reclaimed bricks.”

“Your labor?”

Rooke hesitated. “Maybe we could give them a discount?”

Her grandfather looked up. “Why? You’re gonna be freezing your butt off out there. And standing on a scaffold in this kind of weather isn’t all that safe.”

• 99 •

RADcLY fFe

Rooke felt herself blushing. She could hardly tell him that she’d do the work for free if it meant she could talk to Adrian once in a while.

She didn’t want Adrian making coffee for someone else. “I…uh…the shop is slow right now. I could use something to do.”

“I just sent you four new orders for markers.”

“They’ll be ready. No problem.”

He scratched something down on the paper. “All right.”

“So what’s the total?”

He told her.

“I’ll take it over to Adrian tomorrow,” Rooke said. “I want to check to make sure the tarp is holding.”

“Uh-huh.”

He watched her as if expecting her to say something else. When the silence grew uncomfortable, Rooke said, “Thanks for dinner. I’ll get breakfast.”

“Sausage and eggs would be good.”

“You got it. ’Night, Pops.”

He waited until she was almost at the back door before calling,

“Get some rest.”

Rooke pulled on her shirt and walked back to the shop. She hadn’t slept the night before and she was tired. She wasn’t sure she’d be able to sleep, though. She let herself into her apartment and got a beer from the fridge. Then she sat drinking it on the sofa in the dark. In the past when she’d been too agitated to sleep, she’d never known why—she’d only been aware of searching for something always just beyond her reach. Tonight, she knew her restlessness was because of Adrian, but nothing had really changed. Adrian was also beyond her reach.

v

Adrian didn’t want to go to sleep, so she cleaned. She’d replayed the events of the afternoon all the way home and still couldn’t stop thinking about the article she’d read about the young woman who died in the accident. Had Grace Tyler been Rooke’s mother? Was Rooke the child who’d nearly died? Why had there been so little mention of other family members in the article or so little follow-up in the press? Usually in close, tight communities such as this any tragedy, but especially the death of someone so young in such a violent manner, warranted more

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SecretS in the Stone

than a brief obituary. Why had her grandmother been so dismissive of the Tylers, and so obviously wrong in her assessment of Rooke? All her life, Adrian had felt compelled to look beneath the surface for the truth, perhaps because she’d grown up in a world that seemed built on superficiality and subterfuge. Rooke was a mystery she wanted very much to solve.

Rooke wasn’t the only person who occupied her mind as she straightened the kitchen, put away dishes, swept, and vacuumed. The sudden and intense appearance of Melinda Singer in her life had her in a quandary. She couldn’t bring herself to dislike her, even though Melinda’s attentions made her alternately aggravated and aroused.

As annoying and frustrating as that was, Melinda still fascinated her.

She’d always been drawn to danger—the unknown captivated her.

That’s why she spent weeks of her life in places no sane person would travel, chasing a rumor, digging for a story. Melinda and her quest for the unidentified artist intrigued her, and the closer Melinda’s hunt took her to Stillwater, and Rooke, the more Adrian was driven to discover what Melinda was really after. She had moments when she wondered if their chance meeting on the train was really chance at all. Rationally, she knew it had to be coincidence, but nothing about Melinda felt ordinary. Her life seemed to have veered off course the moment she’d met Melinda Singer.

Moving into the parlor, she swept up the stone debris that had blown in when the chimney had collapsed. As she emptied the dustpan full of gray black powder into a heavy garbage bag, she recalled the smudge of soot on Rooke’s cheek and smiled to herself. Rooke had looked awfully sexy stretched out on the floor, one knee up, her long torso arching upward as she’d reached for something inside the chimney.

Her pose might have been one of a woman lifting to meet her lover.

“Don’t go there,” Adrian muttered. The last thing she needed was another episode of unrequited arousal. Her body was already a seething mass of contradiction. She’d meant it when she’d told Melinda she wasn’t going to sleep with her, but the woman was almost mind-blazingly beautiful and so seductive the mere sound of her voice made Adrian wet. The response was purely physical, and she knew it. She just couldn’t stop it. The simmering arousal Melinda had incited plus the anxiety of driving on the slick road along the river in the dark, all the while remembering the article about Grace Tyler plunging into the

• 101 •

RADcLY fFe

Hudson in a similar storm, had her about ready to crawl out of her skin.

She’d needed to do something to burn off the adrenaline, and she hadn’t wanted an orgasm that Melinda had prompted. So she cleaned.

Finally finished with the room, she relaxed on the sofa and immediately remembered being there earlier and opening her eyes to see Rooke bending over her. She’d looked so fierce, so possessive.

Adrian’s breath came a little quicker and a familiar heaviness surged into her center. Rooke excited her in an altogether different way than the almost disconnected sexual response Melinda evoked. A smile from Rooke, a simple touch, stirred her, ignited her, in ways nothing else ever had. Melinda made her want to throw her shields up. Rooke made her want to take them down. She wasn’t certain if she should be exhilarated or terrified by that.

At last, physical exhaustion won out. She took a hot shower and fell into bed, vowing to put Melinda and Rooke and mysterious images of guardians and gargoyles from her mind.

v

At 3:15 a.m. Melinda was awakened by soft tapping at her door.

She didn’t bother with a robe, but answered the door in the black silk peignoir she’d worn to bed. Becky stood in the hall, her fingers laced together in front of her, looking uncertain and a little afraid.

Smiling, Melinda caressed her cheek. “Hello, darling.”

“I…I…” Becky’s green eyes were glazed, her peaches-and-cream complexion flushed a dusky rose. Her breasts lifted and fell erratically beneath her pale yellow blouse. She stared at Melinda’s mouth. “Please.

I need…”

“Shh. I know.” Melinda clasped the back of Becky’s neck, weaving her fingers through her red-gold hair, and pulled her into the room. She gently closed the door, leaving them in the dark. “I know.”

Becky’s arms came around Melinda’s neck and she fell against Melinda’s body. Melinda kissed her and Becky trembled, her heartbeat as skittish as that of a frightened bird. Cradling her face, Melinda traced the contours with her thumbs as she kissed her way down the fluttering pulse in Becky’s neck. She nibbled the sweet, tender skin at the base of Becky’s throat and Becky whimpered. Opening Becky’s blouse with

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one hand, she made her way lower, running her tongue over the rise of her sweet young flesh as she cupped the firm breast in her palm. Becky gasped as her legs gave way and Melinda barely caught her in time to keep her from falling to the floor.

“Come.” Melinda guided her to the bed and removed her blouse and bra, continually caressing her until Becky gave a small cry and collapsed. Melinda quickly removed the rest of Becky’s clothes and leaned over her, taking a tight warm nipple in her mouth.

“Please,” Becky murmured, gripping Melinda’s shoulders.

“Please, I need you.”

“Yes.” Melinda covered Becky’s body with hers, breast to breast, thighs entwined. Becky writhed, panting, fingers digging frantically into Melinda’s hips. The hunger, awakened earlier by her desire for Adrian and left unsatisfied, reared up in Melinda’s depths like a voracious beast, demanding its due at last. She’d tried earlier to soothe the hunger by her own hand, but nothing she could do had been enough.

Now Becky was here, offering herself, and Melinda nearly screamed with the agonizing ache to be filled. She couldn’t deny the beast again, not and keep her sanity. Shuddering, she ground her hot, swollen center against Becky’s tight thigh.

“Becky,” Melinda crooned, holding herself back with the last remnant of her restraint, “let me pleasure you. Let me make you come.

Say yes, darling. Say yes.”

“Oh God, yes, yes.”

Melinda slid a hand between them and entered her, first her fingers, then as Becky opened, more. Hot, smooth muscles instantly enclosed her and the power of Becky’s innocent passion flooded her. Melinda threw her head back, crying out. Her flesh became flame as the hunger lashed through her.

“Please, oh please make me come,” Becky keened, thrusting herself up and down on Melinda’s hand.

Melinda angled her wrist to massage Becky’s clitoris, desperate for Becky to orgasm. She needed Becky’s pleasure to free her from the need tearing at the fiber of her being. “Come for me, my beautiful one.

Come.”

“I’m coming. More. Please. More.” Becky’s head thrashed and her eyes rolled back.

• 103 •

RADcLY fFe

Yes. Bringing her face close to Becky’s, Melinda inhaled her moans of ecstasy. She took Becky’s mouth, delving deep inside, devouring her arousal until her orgasm sliced through her like silver shards of glass.

Even as she reveled in Becky’s energy filling her, empowering her, the body that undulated beneath hers became Adrian’s. Adrian surrendering to her, Adrian immolating her with pure and powerful desire. The woman in her arms convulsed with another orgasm and Melinda came again, wildly, violently. Adrian’s face blazed in her mind. Exquisite.