Stone Kissed (6 page)

“Excuse me.” Delia backed away, but she bumped something. Someone. Delia flinched, fearing her father had caught her talking to statues again. As she turned, however, she saw it wasn’t her father at all. This man was too tall, too lean—but he had wide shoulders. The fading light crowned him but left his face in shadow.
A dark angel.
Delia saw his long, tapered fingers flare and flex at his side.
His sword. He wants his sword.

“You’re excused.” The angel grinned. “Or were you talking to someone else?”

The sculpted woman giggled behind her. Delia sifted quickly through her stockpile of lies for one for this situation. But he hunkered down in front of her, releasing the rays of sun he’d blocked. She looked into the face of the most beautiful creature she’d ever seen.

“
Mon Dieu!
Is him,” the carved woman said.

Delia said nothing at all. She stared into ice-blue eyes set into a honey-tan face that had been cut with perfect symmetry. His hair was chocolate-dark, and curls caressed his forehead and square jaw. His voice, however, was soft as he asked, “You lost?”

Sure, he was a stranger, but he didn’t
seem
like a creep. She wanted to reach out and touch the cleft in his chin, see if the skin was cool like marble, or if her fingertip would burn.

“Me, I think he’s a good one,
chérie
,” said the statue from behind Delia. She was surprisingly earnest. “He is one of the best.”

“Not sure you should be looking at this one.” He grimaced and Delia blushed. He had no idea. “But I think it’s the best piece I’ve ever found. Unfortunately, I don’t have a good provenance.”

“We are Claudel,” the woman boasted.

Delia should resist. She’d been well trained by both her parents in keeping her eyes down and her mouth shut. But she wanted to impress him—or at least keep him talking to her. “Could it be a Claudel, maybe?”

He looked at Delia appraisingly and turned back to the statue. “Not a Claudel. It’s not a bronze, and the remaining Claudels are accounted for. But certainly a talented imitator.”

The statue was indignant. “Bah. We are authentic. She did not destroy us.”

“Besides,” he said. “Claudel usually draped her nudes.”

“She’s authentic.” Delia stole glances at the handsome young man while the statue told Delia her story. And Delia told him. Her voice grew stronger as his full lips spread into an admiring smile. “Rodin lied to her. He told her he would leave his…woman.” Delia choked. The statue had said “whore,” but she couldn’t bring herself to use that word. “The other woman intercepted the shipment and hid the statue with friends, refusing to let Rodin see it. This is a lost Claudel.”

“Who are you? How do you know this?”

A harsh hand grasped Delia’s wrist and jerked backwards. “There you are.”

“Forrest, stop.” The angel stepped in, placing himself between Delia and her father, who released his grip. Her rescuer reached back and took Delia’s hand. Her palm burned gold at the contact. He turned her hand over, checking it carefully.

Delia’s father stepped back. “Wolverton, this isn’t any of your business.”

“My business is exactly what this is. What are you doing with this kid?”

Delia deflated—she was hardly a kid anymore. But she knew better than to voice a protest, especially in front of her father. Spreading her fingers, she forced herself to pull away from the angel’s glorious warmth.

“That’s my daughter, and I’ll thank you to get out of my way.” Her father’s words were forceful, but his voice was weak.

Wolverton turned back to look at her, his blue eyes full of concern. Wolverton? Wolverton! This was Grant Wolverton, the dealer her father was always complaining about. He always managed to find the best pieces and pull them out of circulation before Vernon Forrest had a chance to bid on them. In only a few short years, Wolverton had taken his grandfather’s dying antiques concern and built it into everything her father had wanted for himself.

She was in so much trouble.

“It all right.” She could hear the quake in her own voice. “It’s all good.” But he didn’t look soothed. She stepped to his right, back toward her father. She needed to get him away from Wolverton now, or it would be so much worse later.

Wolverton turned back to her father. “She’s a smart girl. She knows her art history. Are you the one teaching her?”

Forrest looked at him in astonishment, then narrowed his eyes at Delia. “She makes up things. She has a big imagination and a bigger mouth.”

She backed away from both of them now. It was going to get ugly and she couldn’t figure out how to make it stop. “Please,” she whispered, and Wolverton heard her.

He searched her face and rolled his shoulders back. “Are you finished here, Forrest?” It was an order, not a question.

Her father reached his hand toward Delia. She pulled her arms around her body, and his gazed flicked between her and Grant. Turning on his heel, he gave his own order. “Let’s go.”

She sighed. It would be a long drive back. Father would rant his way down Route 52, making the drive up into the hills that much more harrowing. But if she were lucky, when they got home she’d slip out of the car and go to Grandmère. He would pass out on the couch. It wasn’t an ideal system, but since her mother had died, it worked most of the time.

She looked back over her shoulder as they reached the end of the aisle. He stood in the dark, a shadow among shadows, and then the electric flash of the overhead lights flared and Grant Wolverton, tall and strong and beautiful, glowed for her once again.

***

She’d delayed long enough. She’d visited the house. She’d visited the hospital. She’d laundered her vacation wear at home and ordered stacks of T-shirts and jeans online to replace the ones she’d have to burn. But like it or not, Cecily had a mess to clean up. Orgasm aside, she still found tying up loose ends distasteful.

Russ was right where she expected, sprawled in front of the TV in the rental unit she’d housed him in, his jeans unbuttoned and his T-shirt covered with pizza grease. He hadn’t washed in days, and the small house was a pit. Cecily was so glad that, after her parents moved away, she’d kept their house for herself and put her “workers” in separate quarters.

“God, you’re worthless.” She dropped her red leather purse on the counter and let the duffel bag she kept in the trunk of the car fall to the floor

“Honey.” Russ’s voice was slurred with sleep and beer. He sat up and ran his fingers through his thinning blonde hair. He’d already gone about half gray.

“Did you cancel the mail?” She smiled at him and began unbuttoning her jacket.

He nodded uncertainly.

“Good boy.” She added a thread of caramel to her tone as she unzipped the red pencil skirt. “You need a shower, Russ.”

He perked up visibly, pulling off his T-shirt, and she winced. His pecs had depleted so that he had man-boobs now, and the skin under his arms was floppy. She closed her eyes. Why did it always have to be this way?

It didn’t, damn it. The energy was in the land. She felt it every time she lay in her secret spot in the rich soil behind Steward House. Energy zipped and coiled beneath her body like a school of electric eels. She just needed the right man to serve as a conduit—someone vital, virile, with a healthy income and maybe even residual power of his own. They could live there for years, until she had no excuse for remaining so young and was forced to pass the land onto a “daughter” of her own. But she’d wait until after her parents died.

Mom and Dad would come back to where they belonged once they saw their daughter could make marriage work. Sure, her first attempt had been a disaster, but she’d been greedy and she hadn’t paced herself. Cecily closed her eyes and rubbed her temples.

“Go get in the shower.” She laid out a trash bag along the kitchen counter and draped her suit over it to minimize fiber transfer. She stopped to examine herself in the full-length mirror on the outside of the bathroom door. Her tan had faded, but her skin was still perfectly smooth and firm. She turned her back, squeezing her ass to hide the strap of the red lace thong. No cellulite there. She pointed her right toe back on the floor behind her. What a beautiful line—not a dimple to be seen on the thigh. Inhaling sharply, she lifted her breasts, sliding her shoulders back and down and looking over her shoulder to examine her back. The muscles were well-defined, with nary a bubble of back fat from her bra.

But her neck… She leaned in, tucked her chin under. Lifted it. She slapped at the underside with the back of her hand. Was the skin looser?

At least Russ would be good for something. And if she kept her eyes closed, the brief moment when his final soulburst speared into the base of her spine would be ecstasy.

Cecily grabbed another trash bag from under the kitchen sink and entered the steamy bathroom where Russ waited in the tiny shower.

Although her interlude with beach boy had been lovely, it’d ended before she peaked. Cecily’s most recent orgasm had been three months ago, when she sucked dry an immigrant farm worker in some field in North Carolina. He’d been hard, hot, vital, and sun-soaked. She’d dozed afterward and awakened with a great tan. Cleanup had been easy too—the skin fragments had flaked away in the afternoon breeze, and she’d simply tossed the bones about at random, shoving the skull and femurs into the soft earth under the tobacco plants. Even if the brittle bones broke a blade or two on the harvesting equipment, no one would ever identify him. She’d spent the rest of her vacation in Beaufort, the cutest little beach town with some wonderful undervalued Victorians.

“Oh, Ruh-uss.” She poured every last drop of sensuality she had into her voice. Not for his sake, but for her own motivation. She kept her eyes closed so she could pretend ever-so-briefly Russ’s last moments were sublime, transcendent. Some men went out with a bang. This one, she feared, would whimper.

She closed her lips over his mouth and hiked her leg over his thigh. Russ struggled, but it changed nothing. His energy poured into her from below and above, crackling with his resistance. His arms flailed and slapped the white tile wall, then he went limp all over and she was forced to clamp hard in order to keep his draining flaccidity within her. She keened the one note she held in reserve for just this occasion, forcing it down his throat. The bathroom mirror shattered as the last drops of Russ Ailey’s life essence flowed in on the undertow of the tone, dribbling down her throat and snaking up into her expanding womb.

Cecily opened her mouth and let go. The fragile skeleton with its spaghetti-like tangle of sinew collapsed slowly, like a broken marionette. She left the water running to rinse away the remaining blood and bits of soft tissue and then turned her attention to the shattered glass. Scooping it off the floor in handfuls, she dropped it into the plastic trash bag. Her thighs clenched as the pain from myriad cuts burst through her palms. Holding her hands over the trash bag, she laughed as glass fragments popped back out through the skin and the cuts sealed immediately. The scars faded in a matter of seconds until her hands were pristine. She turned off the shower and, with a practiced scoop, bagged up the remnants of Russ Ailey and placed them on the back porch.

Cecily stretched her arms up toward the hills, basking in the sunshine, and let it bathe her naked body. She could feel every warm ray. It never failed to amaze her how healthy she felt after a full feed. For a few hours, she would all but glow until the power settled back and faded a bit.

What could she do in the meantime with this incredible buzz? Stewardsville needed a karaoke bar. With her voice, she’d make the room mad with lust, or mad with fury.

Yes, fury. She’d fed well but she was still livid. She’d tried to gain access to the Steward estate by the usual routes. She’d approached Vernon Forrest directly, because it was common knowledge he handled everything since Evelyn had died. It should have been a simple matter to persuade him to convince Delia to sell to Cecily at a price she could have afforded from the last of her dead husband’s funds.

But the sour old fart had blown her off. As a result, she’d had to resort to stupid Russ and that stupid fire. If Delia’s father had been the least bit cooperative, the whole situation could have been avoided in the first place.

The old bastard was another loose fucking end. There was a lesson in this.

Shaking her head, Cecily backed out of the sun into the shabby little rental unit, hefting the trash bag of glass and bone. She marveled again at how light, how brittle the remnants of a man were. Where to ditch them? The creek? The graveyard? Not the quarry. She never made the same mistake twice. She’d take a drive in the country, sing her way through the woods and scatter the bones in the ditches along the back roads.

Romana had requested Tony Orlando and Dawn. It turned out to be a shop favorite—apparently her father had kept the AM radio tuned to the oldies station.

The shepherdesses sang the chorus in beautiful Lennon-sister-like harmonies as Delia swooshed the broom three times to the beat. Romana and Sophie sang the verses in their low smoky tones while Delia wiped off the glass cases. And Bert, bless him, did a creditable job of adding a little funk to his choir-boy soprano.

She smiled with satisfaction as she gazed around the almost-empty shop. Thanks to an energy drink and the docking station she’d purchased for her cell phone, she’d worked at top speed, sorting everything and clearing the dust off most of the shelves.

The cartons for the St. Vincent de Paul shop filled the front window. She’d listed and tagged all the resalable stock in a fresh inventory, which she’d already emailed to Grant. Five cartons were listed in “environmental storage.” They would weigh down the back end of her car, and she wondered if the shocks could handle the weight of the stone.

“Okay, ladies and gentleman, it’s time to crate up.”

“How long do we have to be in here?” asked Chloris, the shepherdess with the crook. Delia looked down at the figures nested in crumpled papers she’d grabbed from the news office’s dumpster.

“Just a little while.”

“I don’t like this angle. The ceiling is ugly.” whined Chloris’s sister, Dorrie, who leaned forward over her raised and bent knee, winking coyly at Delia. When she wasn’t harmonizing with the radio, she whined a lot.

“You’ll be on a shelf together by tomorrow, I promise.”

In the effort of lifting and shifting, boxing and labeling, sweeping and scrubbing, Delia’s plan crystallized until it was as clear as the newly washed glass of the display case: These statues had a home. Not some random spots on shelves scattered throughout the county, but Steward House. Bert would resume his post as butler by the front door. The shepherdesses would bicker on the piano where Mozart and Beethoven used to squabble. She just had to find a way to get them past Grant for now and to convince him later that their value in the home was greater than their potential price tags.

“Okay, friends, lights out.” Delia flipped the switch.

“I still say you’re nuts,” Sophie muttered.

“Really, Delia. She’s right,” Romana agreed. “That man will take care of you. We heard him say so.”

“He offered you a bed, girl. Play your cards right and he’d join you in it,” Dorrie said.

“He’s too big. There’d be no room for Delia.”

“You said it, Bert.” She stalked back into the office, rolled her sweatshirt up for a pillow and stretched out on the musty moving blanket from her trunk.

***

A small bell tinkled from the knob of the Stewardsville Gazette’s front door when Grant pulled it open. He let his eyes adapt to the darkness after stepping in from the bright morning sunlight and rubbed his lower back.

Delia refused to return to Blossom’s Folly with him, insisting on cleaning late into the night even though he’d explained that Ralph and Travis were coming for just that reason. The foolish woman had slept in the shop and, fool that he was, he’d sat watch in his car through the night. Stewardsville might look like Mayberry with its tinkly doorbells and potted flowers in every other window, but someone had set fire to his house.

The editor looked up at from her typewriter. She pushed wire-rimmed glasses up on her nose as she slapped the return bar with a resounding ping that made Grant wince. Good God, were they going to put this up with print blocks?

“I’m here to post an ad.”

“Buying or selling?”

“I’m offering a reward for information leading to the arrest of an arsonist.”

***

Delia rubbed her back and yawned, still stiff from her night on the shop floor. She had to find a place to stay immediately, before her rear shocks gave way completely.

Bert had stood inside the entry on the left side of the central staircase, until one day he was simply gone. In the nook to the right, three marble Fates had woven and cut atop a mahogany table. Her father had sold both the carving and the table. Mother had cleared Beethoven and Mozart off the piano and replaced them with the rows of framed Instamatic snapshots. In clearing away the sculptures, Father and Mother had been of one accord. He’d wanted the money from the movable property. They both had wanted Delia to be normal.

Delia lifted her head and patted her nose with the tissue clutched in her hand. The statues, who were part of the energy and life of Steward House, had been scattered far and wide when she was just a little girl, and then she’d been scattered away with them.

She loved her business in the city. She loved working with the stones. In her cleaning and restoration work, she was close to them. Her weird little defect held some purpose, some value.

But Grant had offered her to pay her, and as she lay on the office floor last night thinking about it, her indignation faded to pragmatism. Money was just ones and zeros. She needed a stream of those ones and zeros if she was going to stay here and care for her father, but she couldn’t watch the home from a distance. She needed to be part of the Steward estate if she was going to remain here and keep her admittedly questionable grasp on sanity. She knew only one way to have both money and also access to her—no,
his
house.

The front door opened behind her.

“How’d I know you’d be here?” Grant asked.

“It’s what you would have done.”

“You come to say goodbye?” His voice held a faint hint of pity.

“She’s not your house, you know.” Her voice deepened of its own accord, rising from low in her belly. “You may have the deed, but you can’t really own Steward House.”

She was surrounded by her walls, her floors and her stone, which made it easier for her to speak her truth—even if he thought she was a fool. “This is just an investment for you, a quick flip. Steward House is a row of numbers with a dollar sign attached. But she is my home, Wolverton.” She stepped into him, poking her finger into his chest. “My home.”

***

She stood, a tiny fury, her nose level with his neck, her dark green eyes grown black with passion. The narrow point of her chin jutted forward. Grant stepped into her to warm himself. He didn’t mean to intimidate her—not this time. Instead he felt the urgent and completely foreign need to explain. What about this wisp of a woman drew him so? It should not matter what she thought or felt but, God help him, it was critical she understand.

“I’m not going to flip this house, Delia. I’m going to keep her. I know her history and I see her character. I am going to restore her. Live here. Raise children here.” Even as he spoke the words, he imagined a freckle-faced girl with long dark curls extending a finger to a frog in the gazing pond he planned for the front lawn.

“Let me. Let me restore Steward House.” She flattened her small palm to his chest, and his breath stopped. “I know this house, know the wallpapers to use, the paint colors. I know the artwork to place, the fabrics. I grew up here.”

“You were a kid. You spent half your life away school.”

“I remember. I can read the pictures that survived the fire. I can tease out the authentic period pieces from later renovations. And I can bring the statues back.”

“Perhaps I don’t want to restore it in that way. It could stand to be modernized.”

She pulled his hand away from his chest, her face stricken. As he watched, however, she composed herself, her wide eyes narrowing. She cocked his head, considering him. “You’re right. But you can upgrade and stay true to the architecture. I’m thorough, and you know I work fast. And I’ve got degrees in art history and design. Top honors, Wolverton.”

“I know.” She was struggling to keep control of her frustration, and he wanted, yet again, to pull her into his arms. It made no sense, this reaction he had to her, and it made him angry. “But I have architects and engineers lined up. I need a pro to oversee this job, Delia.”

Her eyes flashed and her hand closed into a small fist, which she lowered to her side. She nodded as she spoke. “I have my own contacts, but I will work with whomever you say. I can provide you with a half-dozen references, although I’m guessing you’ve already checked them.” He heard the bitterness in her voice. “I’m here on the ground and you won’t have to bring in anyone new, supply them with housing or bring them up to speed.” Her voice grew louder, her breathing faster. “I can start tomorrow. Hell.” She heaved a big breath. “I can start right now.”

Grant shook his head. He needed a professional. Someone who would be professional. Someone with whom he would be professional. “You’ve never dealt with a project like this before, Delia.”

“Not a whole house,” she admitted, biting her full pink lower lip.

About this, at least, she was honest. He had yet to catch her in a lie. Grant watched her face carefully as he said, “I’ve offered a reward for information leading to the arsonist.”

She lifted her chin and held his gaze. “Good.”

If he leaned down, he could kiss her. He could wrap himself around her, allow her incandescence to heat his core. Instead, he turned to examine the scorch marks on the entry molding, forcing his breath to slow.

She knew the basics of his inventory system—he’d seen it in her email this morning. When she’d been in his warehouses, she’d paid close attention. She’d saved his men at least a day and saved him a few hundred bucks. Except for his sister, who’d known poverty before she knew wealth, few of the women Grant dealt with were frugal. Fewer still knew how to work.

“I need this job, Grant. Your payment won’t last forever.”

He reached for her fists out of professional curiosity, lifting it, peeling the fingers open to see her palm. She had short nails, calluses, hands that knew labor. She curled her fingers in again and blushed, but he pressed his thumb into her palm so his hand enfolded hers. The sensation of heat warming through his lungs, heart and down into his groin was more than mere desire.

He wanted to pull her into him, and he knew she would let him. He had something she wanted—access to this house. How far would she go to…persuade him? He saw the pulse beat in the curve of her neck, her eyes down on the floor. Desire slammed through him with almost irresistible force.

“Grant, I need something to do each day besides watch my father struggle.”

Her father. The man was a jackass who’d never had much use for his daughter.

“What if a better offer comes along, Delia?”

She laughed. “Are you kidding? I barely made a profit in the city. There’s no market for restoration down here.”

“You’re staying for your father.”

“I want to stay, Grant. Give me the job.”

Delia was tied to the house, tied to Forrest. She worked hard, and she worked fast. She knew the house, and the house knew her.

By force of will, Grant let her go and stepped into the parlor. The old dame didn’t deserve to be a smoked-out shell. She deserved strong wooden beams, fresh paint, windows open to the summer breeze, and dark-haired girls who held out their fingers to frogs.

He made the decision based on pure, clean logic. It had nothing to do with the hard-on that had risen at her touch. He’d never been one to let erections get in the way of common sense.

“Have you worked with architects and builders before?”

She shrugged weakly. “I’m no prima donna. If they say my plans won’t work, I can adapt. But really, the structural work is straightforward—unless you’re planning an addition or something?” She looked horrified at the thought and he almost laughed.

“No. She’s perfect the way she is.”

She smiled, her face radiant with pleasure as if he’d extended the compliment to her.

The words flew out of his mouth of their own volition. “It’s a deal.”

Delia stepped into him, and her arms wrapped around his back, clutching him. He smelled sun-warmed grass and lavender, and her hair was soft against his chin and cheek. The blood rushed from his brain to his groin and he lifted his arms to encircle her, but as quickly as she’d enfolded him, she pulled back again and he was left grasping empty air.

Immediately Grant dropped his arms to his sides.

“I’m sorry,” she stammered. “I’m just…thank you.” She pushed past him, her face to the front door.

“Delia,” he began, but he didn’t know what to say.
Come back,
he thought. But that was both absurd and unnecessary. He watched the cloud of gravel dust as she sped down the driveway, feeling the familiar elation of being on the cusp of getting his hands on treasure. He had what she wanted. She’d be back.

***

“Of course you hugged him. The mistake you made was in letting go.” Sophie danced atop the refrigerator next to the two shepherdesses.

The tiny galley kitchen in the apartment Delia had just rented, sight unseen, had all of six square feet of counter space. This place was as small as her place in D.C. but only one-third of the rent, which was fortunate since she was now paying for both. The complex was older than she was, and looked it. But like the rest of Stewardsville, the neighborhood was fairly safe and she was only two miles from the hospital. She could walk, if she wished, and save gas money.

“You hug me all the time. I don’t mind at all.” Bert added helpfully from his position in the middle of the empty living room. She’d need to hit the yard sales this weekend because she couldn’t go up to the city yet to get her furniture—or her statues.

Delia paused as she adjusted Romana on her plinth. She could buy a new sofa, leather even, and have it professionally delivered. But she still didn’t trust the zeroes on the bank receipt in her handbag.

“Hugging you is hardly the same, you silly child,” Sophie said.

“I know,” Bert replied. “He’s squishier.”

Delia leaned her forehead into the wall beside Romana, remembering the column of Grant’s body rising up between her eager arms.

Poor Bert was so very, very wrong.

***

A couple days later, once the rush off her feed had faded to a controllable glow, Cecily tried again.