Black Rose - NRoberts - G2 Black Rose

“She does anything to hurt you, I’m finding a way to get her out.”

“Like mother, like son.” She smiled at him. “I told her the same, and since she stopped when I did, she must know I mean what I say. Go down now. Hayley can’t leave the children, and she must be frantic. Mitch, come on into the bathroom. I’ll clean those cuts.”

“I don’t want her alone up here tonight,” Harper said when his mother left the room.

“She won’t be,” Mitch assured him.

When he went into the bath, Roz was already damping a cloth with peroxide. “They’re just scratches.”

“Doesn’t mean they shouldn’t be seen to, and since I’ve never doctored cuts caused by some ghost’s tantrum, I’m doing it my usual way. Sit down.”

“Yes’m.” He sat, studying her face. “Not a scratch on you.”

“Hmm?” Distracted, she glanced at her own hands, then looked at her face in the mirror over the sink. “I guess you’re right.”

“I don’t think she wanted to hurt you. Not that she won’t, directly or inadvertently, being as she’s more than a little crazy. But this was a warning. It’s interesting.”

“I admire a man who can get cut up by an angry bitch of a ghost and find it interesting.”

“I admire a woman who goes toe-to-toe with an angry bitch of a ghost and wins.”

“My house.” Her voice gentled as she tipped up his chin. “Here now, this won’t hurt.”

“That’s what they all say.”

But she cleaned the cuts with a deft and easy hand while he continued to watch her face.

“Looking for something?” she asked him.

“I’m wondering if I found it.”

“This one here barely missed your eye.” Shaken more than she cared to admit, she bent down to brush her lips over the cut. “There.” She stepped back. “You’ll live.”

“Thanks.” He took both her hands, those sharp green eyes on hers. “I have some theories.”

“And I’m anxious to hear them. But I want to clean up that mess in there first, then I want a glass of wine. A very big glass of wine.”

“I’ll give you a hand.”

“No, I’d rather do it myself. In fact, I think I need to.”

“You make it hard, always asking me to take a step back.”

“I guess I do.” She brushed a hand through his hair. “Maybe it’ll help if I tell you it comforts me to know you’re confident enough in yourself to take that step back when I need you to.”

“Maybe that’s something else that makes this a good fit.”

“I think so. I’d appreciate it if you’d go down with the others, give me a half hour to put things back to rights. It’ll settle me down a little.”

“Okay.” He got to his feet. “I’m staying the night. I’ll take a page from Stella’s book and tell you that part’s not negotiable. But you can use the half hour to decide if I’m staying in there with you or in a guest room.”

He left her frowning after him.

HE FOUND EVERYONEin the kitchen. Like family, he thought, gathered together in the hub of the house with something simmering on the stove, a baby crawling on the floor, and two young boys pulling on jackets while their little dog jumped with excitement.

Every eye shifted to him, and after a beat of silence, Stella began speaking brightly to her sons. “Go ahead and let him run, but stay out of the flower beds. We’re going to eat soon.”

There was a lot of scrambling, barking, a scream of laughter from Lily, then dog and boys were gone with a slam of the back door.

Stella’s hand slipped into Logan’s. “How is she?”

“Steady, as usual. She wanted half an hour.” Mitch looked at Harper. “I’m staying tonight.”

“Good. I think that’s good,” Hayley said. “The more the better. It gets so you’re used to having a ghost in the house, but it’s different when she starts throwing things at you.”

“You, specifically, from the look of it,” Logan put in.

“Noticed that?” Mitch rubbed absently at his cut cheek. “Interesting, isn’t it? There was a lot of rage up in that room, but nothing—nothing tangible—was directed at Rosalind. I’d say there was deliberate care not to do her physical harm.”

“If there hadn’t been, she’d be out.” Harper scooped up Lily when she tried to climb up his leg. “And I’m not talking about my mother.”

“No.” Mitch nodded. “And Roz expressed just about the same sentiment.”

“And she’s alone up there,” David chimed in, then glanced up from his work at the stove. “Because she means it. Everyone in this house, dead or alive, knows she means it.”

“And we’re all down here, leaving her be because she runs this show.” Logan leaned back against the counter.

“That may be, but after this, she’ll have to get used to giving up the wheel from time to time. Is that coffee fresh?” Mitch asked with a nod toward the pot.

UPSTAIRS, ROZ PICKEDup the pieces of the personal treasures she’d kept in her bedroom. Little mementos, little memories, shattered now.

Willful destruction, she thought, that was the worst of it. The waste of the precious through selfish temper.

“Like some spoiled child,” she mumbled as she worked to put order back to her space. “I didn’t tolerate that behavior from my own children, and I won’t tolerate it from you. Whoever the hell you are.”

She straightened furniture, then moved to the bed to remake it. “You best just keep that in mind, Amelia. You best just remember who’s mistress of Harper House.”

She felt better, amazingly better, taking action, putting her room to rights, saying her piece, even if it was to an empty room.

Steadier, she stepped into the bathroom. Her hair, short as it was, stood up in spikes from the wind that had blown through her bedroom. Not, Roz decided, a good look for her. She brushed it into order, then idly freshened her makeup. And thought about Mitch.

Fascinating man. She couldn’t remember the last man who’d fascinated her. It was interesting, and telling, that he’d stated he was staying the night—no polite request, just a flat statement. Then left it to her where he would sleep.

Yes, it was a fascinating man who could be both dominating and obliging in the same sentence.

And she wanted him. It felt wonderful to want, to need, to have this good, healthy lust bubbling inside her. Certainly she was beyond the stage where she had to deny herself a lover, and smart enough now to recognize when that lover was a man she could respect. Maybe trust.

Trust was just a little tougher than respect, and a whole lot tougher than lust.

So they’d start with what they had, she decided, and see where it went.

When she came out, she heard music, Memphis blues played low, from her sitting room. Her frown was back as she stepped over to the doorway.

Dinner for two was set on her gateleg table—slices of David’s roast chicken, snowy mashed potatoes, spears of asparagus, golden biscuits.

How the boy managed to put together her favorite comfort foods was beyond her, but that was her David.

And there was Mitch standing in the candlelight, pouring her a glass of wine.

She felt a lurch—heart and belly—like a blow. Sucker punch, she thought dully, that was both rude and shocking. More than lust, when lust was all she wanted. But more was standing there, with cuts on his hands and face, whether she wanted it or not.

Then he looked over, and smiled at her.

Well, damn it! was all she could think.

“We thought you’d like a quiet meal,” he said. “A little calm in the storm. And since I wanted to talk to you, I didn’t give your front-line soldiers any argument.”

“Soldiers. That’s an interesting term.”

“Apt enough. Harper would pick up the sword in a heartbeat for you—and I imagine your other sons are the same.”

“I like to think I can fight my own battles.”

“Which is only more reason they’d stand for you. Then there’s David.” He stepped over, held out the wine. “Your fourth son, I’d say, in everything but blood. He adores you.”

“It’s mutual.”

“Then there’s Logan. Though I’m not sure he’d appreciate the imagery, I see him as a knight to your queen.”

She took a sip of wine. “I’m not sure I like the imagery, either.”

“But there it is.”

He picked up his water glass, toasted her. “You’re no more just his employer than you are to Stella or Hayley. And those kids? You’re an intimate and vital part of their lives now. When I went downstairs, walked into the kitchen, what I saw was a family. You’re the core of that family. You made that family.”

She stared at him, then let out a huff of breath. “Well. I don’t know just what to say to that.”

“You should be proud. Those are good people in your kitchen. By the way, does Harper know he’s in love with Hayley?”

This time when she stared, she lowered herself into a chair. “You’re more intuitive and more observant than I gave you credit for, and I gave you credit for quite a bit. No, I don’t think he knows—at least not completely. Which may explain why she’s completely oblivious to what he feels for her. She knows he loves Lily. I suppose that’s all she sees, at the moment.”

“How do you feel about it?”

“I want Harper to be happy, and to have what he wants most in life. We should eat before this gets cold.”

A polite way, Mitch surmised, of telling him she’d discussed the intimacies of her family enough with him. The woman had lines, he thought, very defined lines. It would be challenging, and interesting, to pick and choose which to cross, and the when and how of it.

“How are you feeling?”

“I’m fine. Really. Just needed to calm myself down a little.”

“You look more than fine. How is it, Rosalind, you can look so beautiful?”

“Candlelight flatters a woman. If we had our way, Edison would never have invented that damn lightbulb.”

“You don’t need candlelight.”

She lifted her brows. “If you’re thinking you need to seduce me over roast chicken so I won’t scoot you off to one of the guest rooms after dinner, you don’t need to worry. I want you in my bed.”

“Regardless, I’m going to seduce you. But at the moment, I was just stating the facts. Aside from that, this is some terrific roast chicken.”

“I like you. Thought I’d say that straight-out. I like the way you are. I don’t feel there are a lot of pretenses about you, not a lot of show. That’s a nice change for me, in this area.”

“I don’t lie. Gave it up along with the bottle. That’s the one thing I can promise you, Roz. I won’t lie to you.”

“As promises go, that’s the one I’d value most.”

“Then keeping with that theme, there’s something I’d like to ask you. What happened earlier, that . . . upheaval, we’ll call it. That was new.”

“Yes, and I’m hoping it was a first and last sort of thing.”

“She never objected in any way to your engagement or your marriage to John Harper.”

“No, as I told you before.”

“Or to any relationship you had after, to Clerk.”

She gave a little shrug. “Some irritation, we could say, off and on. Disapproval, annoyance, but no, not rage.”

“Then I have a theory—one you may not like to hear. But in addition to not lying to you, I’m going to speak my mind, as I expect you’ll speak yours.”

“Should be interesting.”

“She needs children in the house—that’s what brings her comfort, or gratification. You and John would bring children into the house, so she had no strong objection. He was a means to an end.”