Not Even for Love(2)

Her gracious smile froze for an instant before it totally collapsed. The eyes widened perceptibly. The mysterious rings around the irises grew darker. A darting pink tongue flicked over lips suddenly gone dry. Then the lips formed a small, round, surprised O.

Reeves had seen that same expression of wonder and caution just last night. It had been raining. The thunder had echoed through the narrow alleys and bounced off the stone walls of the ancient buildings of Lucerne, Switzerland. Rain had pelted his bare head.

But suddenly the storm had ceased to matter. When he saw her face through the glass door of the bookshop his other senses had rested while his vision reigned supreme, devouring her image.


“Oh!” Jordan Hadlock had exclaimed. In startled reaction, she crushed the heavy book to her chest as another clap of thunder shook the windows of the storefront. Then she realized that the rattling glass wasn’t the result of the thunder alone. Someone was pounding on the panes of the door.

Perched as she was on the ladder leaning against the book racks, she could see the front door of the shop without obstruction. But when she had closed the bookstore for the night several hours ago, she had pulled down the opaque window shade. Whoever was now braving the thunderstorm and knocking peremptorily on the door was identifiable only by a silhouette outlined by flashing lightning.

The shadow’s size and form deemed it male. He was pressing his cupped hands against the glass, trying to peer around the edge of the shade. Jordan heard him mutter an obscenity that had no right to ever be spoken aloud, no matter how softly, and then the pounding started again, more emphatically this time.

Slowly, her heart thudding almost as solidly as the fist on the glass pane, Jordan descended the ladder and edged around the bins of books and newspapers until she stood a few feet from the door.

A lightning flash revealed the large masculine shape standing with feet planted slightly apart, hands on hips. Her visitor was growing more impatient with each passing second. Tottering on the brink of indecision, she weighed her options. It would be dangerous to open her door this late at night to a man obviously already angry. Still, were he bent on some crime he would hardly have announced his presence so forcefully. Maybe he needed help. A medical emergency? He certainly seemed distressed.

Without waiting to talk herself out of it, she went to the door and pulled back the shade far enough for her to see out. The light from inside the bookshop fell on a broad chest with a cotton shirt now rain-plastered to it. The shirt was un-buttoned at the throat and her curious eyes traveled up the strong cords of his throat to his face.

Her eyes widened in feminine interest. While the chiseled features were set in a grim, perturbed expression, the face wasn’t menacing. She was slowly taking in the firm chin, the long, slender nose, and the green eyes when a scowling eyebrow lifted over one of them in a silent query. It said: Well, are you going to stand there gawking at me, or are you going to open this door?

Yes, she was going to open it.

She dropped the shade, slid back the bolt, turned the brass knob, and drew open the door. Two bags, which had escaped her attention before, were tossed through the opening, barely missing her feet. She scrambled aside as her bare feet were splattered with cold raindrops when the bags thumped to the floor. One was brown leather, the other navy canvas.

The man barged into the room seconds after his luggage, turned, and slammed the door shut behind him. He spun around, ready with a scathing remark on her hesitation at opening the door, but the words died on his lips as he looked down at Jordan.

For long moments the two stared at each other, expressionless, without speaking, their only movement that of their eyes as each surveyed the face of the other. A few, very few, seconds ticked by before their breathing became audible. His was light and rapid because of his recent exertion; hers matched it for reasons as yet undefined. The only other sound in the room was that of the drops of rain that dripped off Reeves and fell onto the tile floor.

Jordan tore her eyes away first and directed them to the floor, where a puddle was forming around the man’s booted feet.

“Do you have a towel?” he asked without notice.

“What?” she croaked, unaccountably disconcerted and disoriented.

“Do you have a towel?” he repeated.

“Oh… oh, yes. I’ll be… Just a moment…”

She fairly flew across the room, switched on the light in the stairwell, and scrambled up the stairs as if the devil were after her. She grabbed a towel off the nearest bar in the bathroom, realized it was the one she had used after her shower, tossed it onto the floor, muttering self-deprecations about her own stupidity, and reached into the linen closet for a clean towel. As a precaution, she picked up two.