A carpeted step creaked, and her heart promptly went into high gear, pumping a surplus of adrenaline. Pushing back the comforter, she suddenly remembered with brilliant clarity that she hadn’t locked the back door. And that Barbara’s room was even more vulnerable than hers to an intruder.
As she skimmed barefoot over the icy floor and into the hall, Susan heard another creak at the top of the stairs. It was pitch-black, impossible to see a thing. One hand groped, trying to find the wall…and collided with a different kind of wall entirely. Buttons and flannel. English leather. A low, throaty chuckle sent the anxious ghosts whispering back to the attic, as firm, warm hands steadied her bare shoulders.
“What on earth are you still doing up?” Griff whispered. “Susan, you’re freezing…”
Not for long. Before she could begin to scold him for terrifying her, he scooped up her slim body and snuggled her close to himself. She luxuriated in the feel of Griff, his solid strength and warmth, the sheer, sprawling male of him. Surely he’d been away a year?
“Did I frighten you?” he whispered. “Coming in so late, I was trying to be as quiet as a mouse.” With an arm still around her shoulder, he led her toward the bedroom. “God, I missed you,” he murmured. “I knew it was a mistake not to take you with me, Susan. I couldn’t sleep all last night.”
His kiss, so swift and hard, slowed up all the blood in Susan’s veins, and encouraged her to feel limp and weak. “I missed you, too,” she admitted.
He patted her rear end, nudging her toward the bed, and started taking off his shirt, not bothering to turn on the light. He could see by moonlight all that he wanted to look at: the wisp of satin and lace that clung alluringly to Susan’s magnolia skin, the silky cap of curls all tousled around her cheeks, the grace of her long legs in motion and the velvet-gray of her eyes as she gazed at him…
“The manager of the motel must have thought I was crazy,” he whispered as he turned to the closet to hang up his pants. “I checked in at eight-thirty and then out again an hour later. I should have called you then, Susan. I knew there was no point in my trying to sleep there.”
In the luminous glow of moonlight that spilled into the room, Susan caught a glimpse of the weary shadows beneath his eyes, a white-gray tiredness on his face that she didn’t like at all. “Griff, did everything go all right?”
“It went fine. Except that I kept thinking you should be there, breathing in the scent of the pines. You’ve been working so damn hard in this house, Susan. We both have, and it’s not as though there’s a rush. At least for one long weekend, we’ve got to take a trip up north this fall.”
Griff yawned sleepily as he scooted Susan over on the mattress and immediately dropped down next to her. “I want to make love with you,” he murmured huskily. “I’ve been wanting to make love to you since five minutes after I left the house on Friday. Do you have any idea how good you feel?”
Susan obligingly slid closer to him, until their limbs were irretrievably tangled together, her cheek nestled against his bare chest. She suddenly felt warm again, reassured, well loved…and sleepy. A sensual call whispered in her head, but she knew with affectionate amusement that it would have to wait until tomorrow, whatever Griff’s intentions. His eyes were already closing.
“Did it go okay with Barbara?” he questioned groggily.
She barely hesitated. This wasn’t the time for a discussion of her problems with his daughter. At any rate, no matter how much she regretted making the promise to Barbara…she had promised. “Fine.”
He leaned over her one last time, his kiss sleepy and warm. “You didn’t tell me if you realized how good you feel,” he whispered teasingly. “Come closer.”
She did.
“You smell like violets,” he murmured, and fell asleep.
With a frown, Griff rose from his desk, snatched up the September bank statement he’d been working on and went in search of Susan. After dinner, she’d retreated to the living room, surrounding herself with a cupful of tailor’s tacks, yards of embossed material, scissors and a newly refinished Queen Anne chair. The mess was still there, but Susan wasn’t.
Nor was she upstairs, or in the kitchen. He stood there exasperated for a moment, noticing again the blazing flutter of gold leaves on the elms outside the window. That had happened almost overnight after an early October frost. On his trip north three weeks ago, the color change had not yet started… He heard a faint sound coming from the basement, strode to the cellar door and took a few steps down; if he leaned over, he could see into the huge storage room.
She was there. On top of the dryer sat a small cage, and Susan was bending over it. In the pink ruffled blouse and cranberry skirt she’d worn to work, his wife looked alluringly feminine and distinctly unsuited to the task of cleaning an animal’s cage. With a small sigh, he folded the sheet of paper in his hand and stuck it in his back pocket. He had been irritated with Susan a moment ago, but the determination to express his annoyance seemed to have vanished.
She winced suddenly and jumped back, away from the cage. Rapidly shaking her hand, she suddenly turned and spotted Griff halfway down the stairs. A guilty smile hovered on her lips. “Hi. I thought you were busy doing paperwork.”
“What on earth is that?”
“You mean the cage?” She motioned vaguely in the direction of the animal who’d just taken such a nasty little nip out of her finger. “That’s a hamster for Tiger, a special type of hamster from Peru…or is it Venezuela? I was going to tell you about it when you were in a good mood.” She peered up at him with dancing eyes. “Are you in a good mood?”
He was, she decided. Maybe a wee bit on the impatient side, but he’d had that kind of work week. She scampered up the stairs to offer him a kiss to make up for going against his wishes on the subject of hamsters. Her palms lingered unnecessarily long on his jeaned hips. She did like the look of Griff in jeans.
“You were right,” she said cheerfully. “They smell terrible. The cage has to be cleaned all the time, and the little stinker bites. So if you really insist, I’ll take him back where he came from. I just thought that Tiger would enjoy him. Especially since he’s so much bigger and more colorful than plain old American hamsters, and so fierce.”
She waited. Griff removed her hands from dangerous territory and placed them on his shoulders, bending his forehead to hers. “That meek, submissive line sounds pretty good,” he growled.
“You like that?”
“I like that. I just can’t imagine why I have the feeling that you’re going to keep the hamster no matter what I say.”
Susan grinned. “But I’ll be much smarter next time,” she assured him.
He shook his head. “I doubt that.” He trailed her lithe hips as they darted up the stairs ahead of him, a burst of love shooting through him as he watched her. Susan refused to acknowledge that she was doing too much and worrying too much about his kids. Take last night, when she’d dragged him outside to practice catching baseballs. His wife was not totally unathletic, but she had the worst depth perception of anyone he’d ever met. If they hadn’t had so much fun laughing, he would have called her on her maternal worries then. Now just didn’t seem to be the time.
“What are you up to for the moment?” he asked.
Susan made a vague motion in the direction of the living room and then huddled over the refrigerator. She poured them both fruit juice, added ice cubes, and handed Griff his glass. He understood her to mean that she wanted to finish reupholstering the Queen Anne chair. “You’re doing too much,” he complained. “Thirty more minutes, lady, while I finish my paperwork. Then we’ll make a fire and warm some cider. Sound good?”