Harvest Moon (Borrowed Brides 2)

“It was a late meeting.” He shifted in his chair so she could pull the coat out from behind him. She didn’t miss a trick, David thought. His mother was going to love her.

“Obviously,” Tessa replied. “With your friend Liam Kincaid?”

“I can’t answer that,” David hedged. “Not yet.”

“You don’t have to.” Tessa tossed his coat aside and began unbuttoning his shirt. “You don’t have to tell me anything.” Her words said one thing, her tone of voice another.

“Tessa, I’ll be happy to tell you anything you want to know after tomorrow, but right now I can’t. I’m sworn to secrecy until this is all over.”

David sucked in his breath as her cool hands unbuttoned the top of his union suit and slipped inside it to touch his chest. He tried to think of something to say, anything to change the subject. “What are you doing up at this hour?”

“I couldn’t sleep,” Tessa admitted. “I guess I’m a little nervous about the hearing on Monday. I thought I heard something moving around outside.” She pushed his shirt and the top of his union suit off his shoulder and down his arm.

“It was probably Horace Greeley.”

“Out in this cold? Not likely,” Tessa contradicted him. “Your cat is curled up in my bed, asleep.”

Just where he wanted to be, David thought.

She walked to the cupboard and took out a box of matches, then went back to the office and lowered the oil lamp suspended overhead. She touched a match to the wicks and turned them up higher, bathing the office in the yellow glow of the lamp. “Move over beneath the light so I can see better.”

“If you could’ve seen better, you wouldn’t have hit me with the frying pan,” David grumbled. He scooted his chair directly under the lamp. “Ouch, dammit, that hurts!”

Tessa probed the flesh of his shoulder. “I don’t think it’s broken.” She felt for the shoulder joint. The area was swollen and tender. “You need some liniment for the bruise. It’s going to be sore for a few days,” she predicted.

“Thank you, Dr. Roarke,” David said wryly. “I could have told you that. It’s sore already.”

“You’re lucky it’s only a bruise,” Tessa reminded him. “I could have really hurt you.” She gently caressed the injured area.

“You did really hurt me.”

To his amazement, Tessa burst into tears. “You scared me half to death,” she shouted. “All I could think of was Arnie Mason creeping into my room.”

“Come here,” David ordered, feeling like a complete ogre. He extended his uninjured arm.

Tessa knelt beside him, allowing him to soothe her frayed nerves.

David patted her hair, smoothing the wayward strands off her forehead. “It’s all right. It’s all right, my love. Arnie Mason is dead. Very, very dead. He can’t hurt you anymore.”

Tessa turned her face against his knee so she could see him. “But whoever killed Arnie is still alive.” She swallowed hard. “And he could come after me. Sometimes at night I close my eyes and see Arnie Mason’s face. I see the way he looked lying there. I can’t get it out of my mind. Tonight I dreamed about him.”

“You should have come to me,” David told her, still rubbing her thick curls. “I won’t let anyone hurt you, Tessa.”

“I did come to you,” she told him. “And a fine lot of good it did me.” Her eyes sparkled wetly as she ruthlessly blinked back the tears. “I went to your room, but you weren’t there. Then I heard a noise. Lucky I had a heavy skillet.”

“Yeah, lucky,” David commented. He knew she didn’t really need him for protection so much as for reassurance. She’d done all right with the frying pan. But still, Tessa had gone to him for protection for the first time since he’d known her, and he’d been out with Lee hunting criminals. “You’re the bravest woman I know. I’m sorry I wasn’t here when you thought you needed me.” He awkwardly fumbled in his back pants pocket for his handkerchief and offered it to her. Feeling her warm breath against him, David shifted in the chair and concentrated on the throbbing in his shoulder rather than the pounding in his groin. “Would you like me to make the tea for you?” He felt helpless in the face of her unexpected show of weakness.

Tessa blew her nose on his handkerchief. She pushed herself to her feet. “I’ll make it.” She managed a half-smile for David’s benefit. “Would you like some?”

“Only if you’ll pour a little scotch into it,” David answered. One day he’d have to work up the courage to tell her how much he hated tea. “My shoulder hurts like the very devil.”

“It’s your own fault,” she told him. “But I’m sorry I hit you so hard.”

“I’m not. You did the right thing. What if I had been a prowler?”

“I’d have brained you.” A couple of tears slipped down her face.

The sight of them deeply disturbed David. “But you didn’t.” He got to his feet and walked to the stove. “Come on. I’ll help you make the tea,” he said, lifting the kettle of hot water off the stove.