Part 27 (1/2)
He didn't reply, then said lightly, ”Because I'm devastatingly good- looking?”
”I've been dating a man who is kind and sweet and absolutely, positively devastatingly good-looking,” she told him.
”But you don't dream about him,” Lucian noted quietly.
She felt her cheeks warm again. She started walking past him. ”I didn't say what I'd been dreaming,” she reminded him.
”No, you didn't.”
He followed.
She felt his closeness.
They reached her house and entered it through the upstairs hallway.
He seemed to pause a minute in her doorway-not hesitant, just observing. He strode in then, toward the mantel. He looked at the pictures there. ”Your sister,” he said.
”How do you know?”
He shrugged, amused. ”She looks just like you.”
The tension in her shoulders eased a bit. ”Can I get you a drink?”
”Are you having one?”
”Oh, you bet. Maybe a bunch.” ”Whatever you're having.”
She opted for wine, a rich cabernet that Matt had brought back for her after a publicity tour in California. Lucian accepted a gla.s.s from her gravely, seeming to study the deep, rich, bloodred color of the wine, then pointing to another of the pictures. ”Your parents?”
”Father and stepmother.”
”Is she a terrible, fairy-tale stepmother?”
”Not at all. My mother died when Shanna and I were in our teens.
My dad was devoted to her until the very end. Liz came later. We have baby brothers-there they are.
Petey and Jamie. Names right off the old MacGregor immigration papers.”
”Handsome little towheads,” he remarked.
”They are. Just as cute as can be. Totally into their terrible twos.
Why did you disappear when we were in Edinburgh?”
”It was necessary.”
”You could have helped the police.”
He shook his head. ”No, I couldn't have.”
”You could have told them who-”
”It wouldn't have done any good.”
She stared at him, frustrated. ”They've killed again.”
”Yes, they have.”
”In New York?”
”I believe.”
”Why are you here, in New Orleans?”
He hesitated a moment, then shrugged. ”Because of you.”
Her heart seemed to slam against her chest. She didn't know him.
She really didn't know him at all. Scotland.
A few really decadent dreams.
And now.
She approached him at the mantel. She set down her wine and stared into his eyes. They were so curious. Like the wild contacts opticians, sold for Halloween: normal, deep, and very dark one minute, touched with bloodred fire the next.
”You're here because of me.”
”Yes.” ”And ... you were in Edinburgh because of me?”
”No,” he replied with a rueful smile. ”I was in Edinburgh because I'd heard about a guide and an underground tour... and I suspected those who were involved.”
”And you were right.”
”Yes.”
”And you're out to stop them?”
”Yes.”
”But you're not a policeman.”
”No.”
”FBI?”.
”No.”
”Secret Service?”