Widow - Anne Stuart [39]
“To be certain. Those are three good-size paintings. They couldn’t have just disappeared without anyone noticing. If a delivery truck had carted them away someone would have seen it. They had to have been moved one at a time, which means they couldn’t have gone far. This was a logical spot.”
“So where do we look next? I’m putting my money on Madame Antonella. She’s so dotty she wouldn’t even notice if someone stashed the paintings in her bedroom. Hell, she may have carted them off herself.”
“She’s an old woman, Maguire. In her seventies at least.”
“She looks like she’s as strong as an ox. Pompasse liked his models big and strapping, didn’t he?”
This time she didn’t rise to the bait. “Sometimes,” she said evenly. “I’m heading back. I was planning on stopping in to visit Madame Antonella, anyway. I’ll take a look around.”
“I’ll come with you.”
“I don’t think so. You look like you took a bath in flour. Madame Antonella has strict standards. She wouldn’t want a gentleman calling on her in your condition.”
“Hell, she should be lucky any man calls at all. And sweetie, I’m no gentleman. I thought you’d figured that much out.”
“I have,” she said dryly.
By the time they reached the main floor of the church the place was flooded with sunlight. Maguire looked ridiculous—dust everywhere, in his dark hair and his rough clothes. She glanced down at herself and realized she must look equally absurd.
Maguire had already crossed the makeshift bridge, and he turned back to look at her. “You coming?”
She took a deep breath, trying not to look down into the gaping hole beneath. “Give me a minute.”
“The longer you hesitate the worse it’s going to be,” he said, stepping back onto the plank and holding out his hand. “Just do it.”
She wasn’t sure which was more threatening—the hole beneath her or the strong hand reaching out for her. “There’s got to be another way out of here…” she began.
“Quit whining and start moving,” Maguire said. “Or I’ll come back there and carry you.”
That was enough to make her move. She practically sprinted across the narrow plank, but the damned man didn’t move, didn’t get out of her way. She had no choice but to barrel into him as he pulled her to safety on the other side.
This time he held her, looking at her.
And this time he kissed her. As somehow she knew he would.
10
Charlie wouldn’t have thought a kiss would be earth-shattering. But then, she would never have let anyone like Maguire kiss her if she had had half a chance to avoid it.
But she didn’t. He wrapped one arm around her waist, pulling her up against his dusty, sweaty body, put a hand behind her head to hold her still and simply kissed her, openmouthed, using his tongue.
She stood frozen in his arms, trapped, unable to move. It felt as if she were still dangling over the precipice, ready to drop into some dark hole of oblivion. He took his time with the kiss, and there was nothing rushed, nothing brutal, nothing emotional. Just a kiss, thorough, territorial, and when he released her he didn’t even look shaken.
“Not much experience with men, right?” he drawled.
She went at him like a football player, plowing her shoulder into his stomach. He had a hard stomach, but he wasn’t expecting her sudden move, and he fell backward with a grunt of pain as she sprinted over him, down the narrow aisle of the church and out into the overgrown countryside.
She was rubbing at her mouth while she ran, but she couldn’t wipe away the taste, the feel of him. Why the hell had he kissed her—he didn’t like her, and she despised him. So why had he pulled her up against his body and…
She slid once, going down hard, and she let out a stifled sob that horrified her. She kept going, heading toward Madame Antonella’s tiny stone cottage, looking for some kind of safety.
She scrambled up the steps to the terrace. It was deserted—no one to ask unwanted questions. She threw herself into one of the old iron chairs, taking deep, shuddering breaths as she tried to control herself.
She was being ridiculous. Absurd, to react like