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  first time.

  I love him, she thought as she tightened her arms around him. Wouldn’t that knock him off his feet? With a wry smile, she toyed with the hair that curled over his neck. Matthew Bates, I’m going to play a very careful hand with you—and I’m going to win.

  She gave a long, luxurious sigh. Did loving make the body feel so wonderfully lazy? “Were you trying to tell me it’s time to get up?” she murmured.

  Lifting his head, he grinned at her. “I don’t think so.”

  “This wasn’t supposed to happen.”

  “Yes, it was.” He kissed her brow lightly, lingeringly. “We’re just a little ahead of schedule.”

  Her brow arched, but the haughty gesture had to compete with the soft, just-loved flush of her skin. “Whose schedule?”

  “Ours,” he said easily. “Ours, Laurel.”

  It was difficult to argue with something that seemed so reasonable. Laurel linked her hands at the base of his neck and tilted her head. “You look good, Bates.”

  Amusement flickered in his eyes. “Yeah?”

  “Yeah.” She ran her tongue over her teeth. “I guess I’m getting used to those beachboy looks and that Yankee speech pattern. Or maybe—” she caught her bottom lip between her teeth, but the laughter shone in her eyes “—maybe I just like your body. You work out?”

  He braced himself comfortably on his elbows. “Now and again.”

  Experimentally, Laurel pinched his bicep. “Weights?”

  “No.”

  “Well, I’ve never cared for obvious muscles.” She ran a hand down to his wrist, then back again. “You seem to be in good enough shape to handle our plans for the evening.”

  He nipped at her bottom lip. “Which are?”

  “A little hike through the swamp.”

  He rubbed his lips over hers easily, while his mind did some quick calculations. He could distract her, wait until she slept again, then go without her. “I was thinking we could . . . postpone that.”

  “Were you?” Though her body began to soften, her mind was much too sharp. “Until you could sneak out there on your own?”

  He should’ve known better. “Laurel . . .” He slid a hand up to her breast.

  “Oh, no.” She shifted quickly until she lay on top of him. “You can forget the idea of going out there without me, Bates. We’re a team.”

  “Listen.” He took her firmly by the shoulders while her hair dipped down to brush his. “There isn’t any need for you to go. It’s just a matter of poking around anyway. It’ll be faster and easier with only one of us.”

  “Then you stay here.” She kissed him briskly and sat up.

  “Damn it, Laurel. Think.”

  “About what?” she tossed back as she rose, naked, to rummage through her drawers.

  “No one left a nasty little box at my door.”

  She bit down hard on her lip, then turned with a T-shirt and a pair of panties in her hand. “No, they didn’t,” she said calmly enough. “They left it at mine, obviously for a reason. We’re making someone nervous, Matthew. And that someone is damn well going to have to deal with me.”

  He looked at her, small and straight with her naked skin glowing in the moonlight. At the moment, she looked perfectly capable of avenging herself. “Okay, tough guy,” he drawled as he swung his legs out of bed. “When we find out who it was, you can go a few rounds. In the meantime, you might remember there’re snakes in that swamp—and they’re not dead in a box.”

  He knew he’d been deliberately cruel, he’d meant to be. But when he saw her fingers tighten on the shirt she held, he cursed himself.

  “I won’t look.” Jaw set, she wriggled into the panties. “You’d better get dressed.”

  “Stubborn, hardheaded, obstinate,” he began furiously.

  “Yeah.” Jerking the shirt over her head, Laurel glared at him. “But not stupid. Whoever dropped that thing at my door wanted me to back off. That points to Brewster or—or the Trulanes,” she managed after a moment. “If they wanted us to back off, there’s a reason, and the reason might just be in that swamp.”

  “You won’t get any argument on that from me,” he said evenly. “But it doesn’t follow that you have to go.”

  “If I let that kind of threat steer me away, I’ll have to turn in my press badge. Nobody’s going to put me in that position.” She gave him a long, level look. “Nobody.”

  Matt’s temper struggled toward the surface, then subsided. She was right—that was one point he couldn’t get around. In silence, he pulled on his jeans. “I’ve got to get a shirt, and a flashlight,” he said briefly. “Be ready in ten minutes.”

  “All right.” She made a business of searching through her drawers until she was sure he’d gone.

  Laurel pressed her fingers to her eyes and let the fear out. It was a sticky, cloying sensation that rolled over her and left her light-headed. As it ebbed, she rested her hands against the dresser and just concentrated on breathing. She had to go—now more than before she’d looked in that box. If a threat wasn’t answered, then it was buckled in to. If there was a threat, it meant someone was afraid.

  Anne Trulane had been afraid of the swamp. Laurel pulled on worn jeans with hands that were almost steady again. She understood that kind of fear, the kind that has no true explanation but simply is. Laurel didn’t believe Anne had voluntarily walked into that dark, secret place any more than she herself would voluntarily walk into a snake exhibit. The full certainty of it hadn’t struck until tonight, with the burgeoning of her own fear. And, by God, she was going to prove it.

  Matt . . . Laurel switched on the bedroom light and began to search through the disorder of her closet for boots. He was only being unreasonable because he was concerned for her. While she could appreciate it, she couldn’t allow it. Love might urge her to give in to him on this one thing—but then how many other things might she give in to once she started?

  However he felt about her, she mused as she located one boot, he felt about her because of the way she was. The best thing she could do for both of them was to stay that way.

  Swearing at her own disorganization, Laurel shouldered her way into the closet for the other boot.

  When he returned, Matt found her sitting on the floor of her room, fighting with knotted laces. He was wearing an outfit very similar to hers, and his more customary amiable expression. He’d calmed down considerably by rationalizing that she’d be safer with him in any case—and by promising himself he’d watch Laurel like a hawk every moment they were in the swamps of Heritage Oak.

  “Having a problem?”

  “I don’t know how this happened,” she muttered, tugging on the laces. “It’s like somebody crawled in there, tied these in knots, then buried the boot under a pile of junk.”

  He glanced at her littered floor. “I’m disillusioned. I always thought you were very precise and organized.”

  “I am—at work. Damn!” She scowled at a broken nail, then fought with the laces again. “There—now I just need a flashlight.” Springing lightly to her feet, she dashed past him and into the kitchen.

  “You know, Laurellie,” Matt commented as he followed her. “A few more molecules missing and you wouldn’t have a seat in those pants.”

  “It’ll be dark.”

  He patted her bottom. “Not that dark.”

  Grinning, she pulled a flashlight from the kitchen drawer and tested it. “Then you’ll have to walk in front and keep your mind off my anatomy.”

  “I’d rather watch your back pockets jiggle.” Swinging an arm around her, he walked to the door.

  “They don’t jiggle.” She stopped, frowning at the splintered wood. “How did that—”

  “You were too busy screaming to open the door,” Matt said easily, nudging her outside. “I called the super about it.”

  “You broke it down?” Laurel turned to stare at him.

  He grinned at her expression before he tugged her down the stairs. “Don’t make doors like
they used to.”

  He broke it down. The thought of it stunned her, sweetly. At the foot of the stairs she stopped and wrapped her arms around his waist. “You know, Matthew, I’ve always had a soft spot for knights on white chargers.”

  He framed her face with his hands before he kissed her. “Even tarnished ones?”

  “Especially.”

  Chapter 8

  Matt parked his car in the shadow of the wall that encircled the Trulane estate. The moment he cut the engine, silence fell. He could sense, though she climbed from the car as he did, Laurel’s regret over the one thing they’d carefully not talked about. Trespassing, in secret, on what belonged to Louis. He also knew it was something that would continue to remain unsaid. He slipped his flashlight, base first, into his back pocket.

  “I’ll give you a leg up first.”

  Nodding, Laurel placed a foot in his cupped hands and reached for the top of the wall. She shinnied up nimbly, then, bracing herself on her stomach, reached a hand down for his. The grip was firm and dry, holding briefly until they lowered themselves on the other side.

  “Somehow, I think you’ve done this sort of thing before,” she murmured, dusting her hands on the back of her jeans.

  He grinned. “Let’s just say I’ve had to scale a few walls in my career.”

  “And not all metaphorical,” she concluded.

  “You’ll force me to mention that you went up and over like a veteran yourself.”

  Laurel took one brief look around, letting her gaze linger on the shadow of the house in the distance. “I don’t suppose you’ve considered the legal repercussions if we’re caught.”

  It was as close as she’d come, he knew, to speaking of Louis. Matt took her hand, drawing her away from the wall. “Let’s not get caught,” he said simply.

  They moved, as quietly as shadows themselves, over the north lawn. Flashlights weren’t needed here. The light of the half-moon was thin, but clear enough to guide the way. The air was still, but far from silent. Night birds rustled in the trees, their whisperings punctuated now and again by the hoot of an owl. Overlaying all was the incessant music of crickets.

  Fireflies glimmered with their sporadic gold-toned light. It smelled thickly of summer blossoms and green grass.

  Already Laurel could see the gloomy silhouette of the edge of the swamp. The aversion was so ingrained she had to force herself not to hesitate. But her fingers curled tightly around Matt’s. His palm was cool and dry against hers.

  Doesn’t he feel it? she wondered as the chill raced over her skin. Doesn’t he feel the darkness of the place? It held secrets best left alone—secrets that bred in the soggy grasses. She shuddered as the lawn gave way to it.

  “It’s a place,” Matt said quietly. “It’s just a place, Laurel.”

  “It’s evil,” she said, so simply he felt a tremor of unease. Then she stepped under the first overhang of trees.

  Determination made her force back the fear. Though her fingers remained in his, their grip lightened. “Hard to believe,” she began in an easier voice, “even driven by love—or lust—that one of the Trulane women would have picked this place to cheat on her husband. I think her name was Druscilla.”

  Matt gave a choked laugh as he pulled out his light. “Maybe Druscilla had a thing for humidity and mosquitoes. Now . . .” He didn’t switch the light on, but looked behind him where the outline of the house could just be glimpsed through the trees. “I’d say this is about the most direct spot where someone would enter the swamp if they were coming from the house.”

  Laurel followed his gaze. “Agreed.”

  “Then it follows that Anne would most likely have come in somewhere around this point.”

  “It follows.”

  “Okay, let’s go see what we can find. Stick close.”

  “An unnecessary warning, Matthew,” Laurel said loftily as she unpocketed her flashlight. “If you feel something crawling up your back, it’s just me.”

  They hadn’t gone more than three yards when the thick, fat leaves dimmed the moonlight. The shadow of the house was lost behind the tangled hedge of other shadows. Already the wild cane sprang up to block what was within, and what was outside, the swamp. The twin beams of their flashlights cut a path through the dark.

  It was a world of clinging dampness, of shadows and whispering sounds that made the flesh creep. Even the smell was damp, with the ripe odor of rotting vegetation. Matt began to understand why Anne Trulane might have been terrorized in there. He wouldn’t care to lose his way, alone, in the dark. But he wondered why she’d only gone deeper rather than turning back. Blind panic? He scowled at the crude, overgrown path. Maybe.

  She should’ve gotten the hell out.

  “Doesn’t make sense,” he muttered.

  Laurel shone her light off the path where something rustled. Her fingers closed over Matt’s wrist and let the light, steady pulsebeat soothe her. “What doesn’t?”

  “Why didn’t she get out?”

  Carefully, Laurel turned her light back to the path. It was probably only a possum, not every sound meant snakes. She remembered, uncomfortably, that black bears had often been seen in the northern, forested part of the swamp. “Whatever theory we go by, Matthew, Anne was frightened in here. She panicked, lost her sense of perspective.”

  “Are you frightened?” He glanced down to where her fingers dug into his wrist.

  “No.” Sending him a rueful smile, Laurel loosened her hold. “No, I’m way past fear, closing in on terror.”

  “Could you get out of here?”

  “Well, I—” She broke off, seizing his hand again. There was a time and place for dignity—and this wasn’t it. “You’re not leaving me in here, Bates.”

  “What would you do if I did?”

  “I’d murder you the minute I got out.”

  Grinning, he took her arm as they began to walk again. “How?”

  “Poison, I imagine, it’s the slowest, most painful way.”

  “No, how would you get out?”

  “I’d—” She swallowed on the notion of having to find her way out alone, then turned around. Shadows, rustling, and the cloying smell of wet earth and rotted grass were all around. There was quicksand, she knew, to the east and to the southwest. “I’d head that way in a dead run,” she said, pointing, “hang a right at that stump and keep on going.”

  “And you’d be out in five minutes,” he murmured. He turned his face back to hers. The moonlight caught in his eyes, glinting. “Why did she keep going deeper?”

  If she tried to think like Anne, Laurel realized, she’d end up losing what courage she had and bolting. Dragging a hand through her hair, she tried to think coolly instead. “She’d been bitten—maybe she was sick, delirious.”

  “How fast does the poison work, I wonder.” He shrugged, making a note to check on it if it became necessary. “It seems she’d’ve had time to get out, or at least get closer to the edge.”

  “They found her by the river, didn’t they?”

  “Yeah.” He looked down at her again. “Dead center. When we were searching the place, we’d come across her tracks now and again where the ground was wet enough to hold them. There didn’t seem to be any pattern.”

  Blind panic, he thought again. Yet she hadn’t been as frozen as Laurel had been that afternoon. She’d been running, in what had appeared to be a random flight, deeper into what she feared most . . . or running away from something she found more terrifying.

  Laurel jolted as the bushes beside them rustled. Matt aimed his light and sent a raccoon scurrying back into the shadows.

  “I hate making an ass of myself,” she mumbled as her heart slipped back out of her throat. “Let’s go on.” Annoyed at the blow to her pride, she started ahead of him.

  They moved in silence, going deeper. Laurel kept her flashlight trained on the uneven ground to guide their way while Matt shone his from side to side, searching for something neither of them could have named. But they’d b
oth followed hunches before.

  “Don’t laugh,” Laurel ordered, coming to an abrupt halt.

  “Okay,” he said amiably.

  She hesitated, gnawing at her lip. “I mean it, Bates, don’t laugh.”