Widow - Anne Stuart [34]
“Fuck you.” The words came out totally unexpected, shocking her.
It only seemed to amuse him. “You ever said that to anyone before?”
“No,” she admitted.
“You ought to. Starting with me, and going right on down the line to anyone who annoys you. You’re someone who hasn’t told the world to piss off, and you need to.”
“Thank you for that sensitive analysis of my character,” she said in an icy voice. “Anything else you want to add?”
“You make a great cup of coffee.”
“Yes, I do,” she shot back. “I’m also an excellent cook.”
“You’ll have to convince me on that one.”
“I’m not cooking for you, Maguire. I want to get you out of here as soon as possible.”
“Why? Do I bother you?” he asked in his soft, rough voice.
They both knew the answer. He bothered the hell out of her, but she wasn’t about to admit it. “I need the space. I’m expecting a full house for the funeral.”
“Then help me find the journals. They’ll tell me what paintings are missing, and they may even reveal what he did with them. The sooner I find them the sooner I’m done.”
“I’ve got things to do….”
“You want me out of here? I’m not leaving till I catalog everything Pompasse owned. Including his women.”
“He didn’t own me, Maguire.”
“Body and soul, babe.”
She stared at him stonily. “All right,” she said. “We’ll start in the old church.”
He started to protest, then nodded. “When?”
She set her empty mug down on the delicate French table that had come from an old château. The table was spindly, just a bit unsteady, and the earthenware mug looked out of place on the intricately painted top. “There’s no time like the present,” she said. “If we find them right away you can have them cataloged and be gone by nightfall.”
“Honey, I’m good but I’m not that good,” he said. “I like to take my time when it comes to beauty. Give it all the attention it deserves.”
“Is that a sexual innuendo?” She was getting tired of his double meanings.
“Only if you see it as one, babe. Sex is in the eye of the beholder.”
“Is it?”
He came around the table, moving toward her. He hadn’t shaved in several days—obviously he was one of those men who didn’t think daily shaving was necessary. Henry didn’t even have much of a beard and yet she knew for a fact that he shaved twice a day. He was a very fastidious man.
Maguire probably knew that his stubble only made him more attractive. He leaned over her, and she could see the green in his eyes. Annoying, she thought. She’d always liked green eyes.
“Then you’re a blind woman, honey,” he said in a soft, seductive voice.
She didn’t move, trapped by his voice, his eyes, his body. He was too close, looming over her, and she felt the familiar tendrils of panic start to build inside her. Combined with something else, something odd and clenching that had nothing to do with fear.
“Back off, Maguire,” she said in a cool voice.
To her amazement he did. But the wry smile on his face was even more disturbing. “I’m ready if you are, Charlie,” he said.
“For what?” she snapped.
“For searching the old chapel. Isn’t that what we decided to do?” he asked innocently.
She stood up, but he didn’t back away, and she was much too close to him. He was taller than she was, but not by much, and their eyes were almost level. She had to get him the hell out of there, as fast as she could. She had enough stress in her life right now—she didn’t need a testosterone-poisoned Australian making her even more unsettled.
“Yes,” she said. “And we won’t stop until we’ve found them.”
But Maguire only smiled.
9
In centuries past La Colombala had been the center of a thriving little hamlet, complete with its own marketplace and church. But time had eroded the stone buildings. The people had left, for war, for factory work, for more prosperous times. When Pompasse had bought the place in the 1970s he’d had most of the ruined old houses torn down. He’d kept the sturdiest ones, turning one into a cottage for Madame Antonella, another a place for Lauretta and Tomaso. He’d left the church to tumble into disrepair and decay. It amused his artistic,