you pick these things up.”
“Don’t feed the rumors,” Ariel said, the teasing seemingly bothering her.
Heeding the words, her grandmother continued, “Usually, you’re to change in the deck house, but Ariel will explain all house rules.” She glanced at Ariel. “He’s in the Overlook room.”
Looking startled, Ariel parted her lips in protest.
“It’s the only room available.”
Lifting his bag, he shouldered it, then picked up the rest of his belongings. He was still wondering what exactly was wrong with his accommodations as he preceded Ariel upstairs. He couldn’t help but wonder if the view of his tush affected her, too, since it clearly did the women with whom he worked. As they entered a long upstairs hallway, Ariel pointed left, and when he reached the end of the hallway, he understood her objection. The Overlook room was right next door to one with a sign affixed to the door that read Welcome Home Ariel.
“We’re neighbors,” he said as she showed him into his quarters. He could swear he saw her throat working as he took in the door between their rooms. There was a lock on his side and probably one on hers as well….
He pulled his mind to business. The room was great. He would have chosen it for a personal vacation. To be honest, he hated small towns, unless they were riddled with some contagious disease. Otherwise, he got bored in under ten minutes flat. Living someplace like Bliss was akin to slow death by torture, as far as he was concerned, but when Jessica had said this was the fanciest place in town, she hadn’t been lying.
“Nice,” he said.
She seemed to soften. “Glad you like it.”
She did, too. He could hear her love for the place in that maddeningly throaty voice. He took in the bed—a king-size, masculine affair covered with a nautically inspired duvet—facing a picture window overlooking the steep, lush-green incline to the spring. Everything reflected the sailing motif—from a shadow box illustrating boating knots, to ships-in-bottles that the women had placed on tables.
He strode to the bathroom and glanced in, feeling his heart skip a beat. The room was spacious, and mirrored, with a sunken tub of navy porcelain; the dark cabinetry, with its brass knocker-style pulls, made the place look like a captain’s quarters. With the tub full of white suds, a man would feel he was bathing in the waves of the ocean.
Her folks might be rumored to be witches, or just crazy old widows who’d killed their husbands, but they knew how to make a man feel like a man. “Spacious,” he commented, deciding not to mention the mirrors as he moved into the room again, and toward the picture window, to stare down at the spring. “Wow.”
“It’s my favorite view,” she said, coming to stand next to him. “Mine’s the same.”
Definitely, he liked the fact that she was next door.
He realized her eyes were full of questions, and he raised his eyebrow. “Hmm?”
“What exactly is the CDC doing here? I mean, I know there are stories about how Bliss is said to have had…well, strange spots of time where business seems to shut down. Such tall tales add…”
“Spice to the town?”
“Exactly. The summer people love it.”
“The source might be a bug called Romeo. Also called generis misealius,” he said. And then he plunged into an account of the history of the virus. He was more pleased than he should have been when she didn’t glaze as he spoke about the difficulties of tracing viruses.
“You’re serious?”
“Absolutely.” He continued, his voice quickening with excitement as he spoke about the possibility of solving the town’s long-standing mystery. At least until he mentioned the World Health Organization.
“They can’t come here!” she said, dismayed. “This is ridiculous. Really Dr. Houston—”
“Rex,” he corrected.
“This is all local myth. It really is.”
“A possibility,” he agreed, moving nearer to where she stood by the window. “You’re related to Matilda Teasdale, right?”
She lifted her gaze from the spring, her crystal eyes looking wary and startled once more. “You know about that?”
He glanced toward the file on the bed. “Your dossier.”
Now she looked mortified. “My…”
He frowned. Suddenly, she became even more interesting, if that was possible. “What could a woman like you have to hide?”
She shot him a long look. “A woman like me?”
He fought the urge to touch her—and lost. He knew better because just one touch would be enough to electrify his whole body and there would be no point to it, except to leave him craving more. Lifting a finger anyway, he glanced it off her cheek. “Proper.”
That seemed to please her. “You think so?”
“Yeah.” He knew his eyes were disrobing her.
Her expression shuttered. “You don’t even know me.”
He wanted to, at least for tonight, and he felt the urge, like a call to something wild and undeniable. “You could let me get to know you.”
Her eyes darted away. “I don’t think we’ll have time for that.”
“Really?” he returned mildly.
She wanted to back away—he was sure of it; he could feel it in his bones—yet she didn’t. “The dossier doesn’t say much about you, specifically,” he found himself admitting. Surprised at the huskiness of his own voice, he went on, “But it does talk about the history of the house. Everyone seems to think Matilda and the women who’ve inhabited the place since are witches.” His eyes locked into hers. “Are you?”
“You’re a doctor. A scientist. You should know better.”
“So, you think my framework of knowledge is limited to microbes and cells?”
Her lips suddenly twitched, as if the banter was threatening to make her smile against her will. “That was my hope.”
It was a risk, but he inched closer, near enough to catch a whiff of her perfume. “The way you seem to affect me, you’re testing my deepest convictions.”
“A man should always keep his convictions.”
He kept his voice steady and bemused, even though she was doing wild things to his blood. “Why?”
“It shows character.”
Chuckling, he shrugged. “An overrated virtue.”
The scent of her perfume was soft, faint and floral, but he could smell something else beneath it that stirred him. He could sense so much in this woman. Old wounds that ran deep. A river of pain, maybe. But he wanted to ask her a
