The conversation had been heading in a dangerously flirtatious and sexually charged direction. John had started it, but then he’d just as definitely ended it. He’d stopped them cold instead of continuing on into an area peppered with lingering looks and hot sparks that could jolt to life a powerful lightning bolt between them.
Mariah didn’t know whether to feel disappointed or relieved.
Jonathan Mills had proven himself to be the perfect dinner guest. He’d started the gas grill while she was in the shower and had even put together a salad from the fresh vegetables she’d had in the refrigerator.
He was clearly good at fending for himself in a kitchen. He had to be—he’d told her over dinner that he’d never been married. He’d told her quite a bit more about the successful business he’d inherited.
What she couldn’t figure out was why no woman had managed yet to get her hooks into such an attractive and well-to-do man.
Not that Mariah was looking to get involved on any kind of permanent basis. She wasn’t like Serena, eyeing every man who came her way for eligibility and holding a checklist of whatever characteristics she required in a husband. Money, Mariah thought. Serena wouldn’t want a man if he didn’t have plenty of money. John had that, but he also had cancer. Serena probably wouldn’t be very interested in acquiring a man who was fighting a potentially terminal illness.
Nobody would.
Who would want to risk becoming involved with a man who had Death, complete with black robe and sickle, hovering over him?
Mariah cleared her throat. “Well,” she said, “if you’re interested in giving it a try, the relaxation exercise I’m thinking about is one I found extremely effective and…”
He looked a little embarrassed. “I don’t know. I’ve never been very good at that kind of thing. I mean, it’s never worked for me in the past and—”
“What can it hurt to try?”
John met her eyes then. He laughed halfheartedly, sheepishly. “I really don’t have much patience for doing things like lying on your back and closing your eyes and having someone tell you to imagine you’re in some special place with a waterfall trickling and birds singing. I’ve never been to a place like that and I can’t relate at all and—”
Mariah held out her hand. “Just try it.”
He looked from her face to her hand and back, but didn’t move. “I should just go.”
She stepped closer and took his hand. “I promise it won’t hurt,” she said as she led him into the living room.
Miller knew he shouldn’t be doing this. This kind of touchy-feely stuff could lead to actual touching and feeling. And as much as he wanted that, it wasn’t on his agenda.
He was here to catch a killer, he reminded himself. Mariah was going to provide his introduction to that killer. Her role was to be that of a mutual friend. A friend, not a lover. A means to an end.
As Mariah passed a halogen lamp, she turned the switch, fading the light to an almost nonexistent glow. It was a typical rental beach house living room. Sturdy furniture with stain-resistant slipcovers. Low-pile, wall-to-wall carpeting. Generic pictures of lighthouses and seabirds on the walls. A rental TV and VCR all but chained to the floor. White walls and plain, easy-to-clean curtains.
But Mariah had been here for two months, and she’d added touches of her own personality to the room.
A wind chime near the sliding glass doors, moving slightly in the evening breeze. Books stacked on an end table—everything from romances to military nonfiction. A boom box and a pile of CDs on another end table. A crystal bird on a string in front of a window, sparkling even in the dim light. A batik-print throw across the couch. The bouquet of bright yellow flowers he’d brought her just a few mornings ago.
She released his hand. “Lie down.”
“On the floor?” God, he hated this already. But he did it, lying on his back. “And close my eyes, right?”
“Mmm-hmm.”
As he closed his eyes, he heard her sit on the couch, heard her sandals drop to the floor as she pulled her long legs up underneath her.
“Okay, are your eyes closed?”
Miller sighed. “Yeah.”
“Okay, now I want you to picture yourself lying in a special place. In a field with flowers growing and birds flying all around and a waterfall in the distance…”
Miller opened his eyes. She was laughing at him.
“You should see the look on your face.”
He sat up, rubbing his neck and shoulders with one hand. “I’m glad I entertained you. Of course, now my stress levels are so high I may never recover.”
Mariah laughed. It was a husky, musical sound that warmed him.
“Lie down here on the couch,” she said, moving out of his way and patting the cushions. “On your stomach this time. I’ll rub your back while we do this, get those stress levels back down to a more normal level—which for you is probably off the scale, right?” She stopped, suddenly uncertain. “What I meant to say was, I’ll rub your back if you want…”
Miller hesitated. Did he want…? God, yes. A back rub. Mariah’s fingers on his neck and shoulders… He moved up onto the couch. Surely he was strong enough to keep it from going any further.
“Thanks,” he said, resting his head on top of his folded arms.
“It’ll be easier if you take your shirt off,” she told him, “but you don’t have to if you don’t want to,” she added quickly.
Miller turned to look up at her. “This is just a back rub, right?”
She nodded.
“You’re doing me a favor. Why wouldn’t I want to make it easier for you?”
Mariah was blunt. “Because people sometimes misinterpret removing clothes as a sign that something of a sexual nature is going to follow.”
He had to smile. “Yeah, well, that’s mostly true, isn’t it?”
She sat down next to him, on the very edge of the couch. “If I was going to come on to you, I would be honest about it. I would tell you, ‘Hey. John, I’m going to come on to you now, okay?’ But that’s not what I’m doing here. Really. We just met. And if that weren’t enough, you have issues. I have issues.”
“You have issues?” he asked. Did they have something to do with the reason why she’d traveled more than halfway across the country to live under an assumed name?
“Not like yours. But yeah. I do. Doesn’t everyone?”
“I guess.”
She was remarkably pretty, sitting there above him like that, her clean, shiny hair falling in curls and waves down to her shoulders.
She’d put on a pair of cutoff jeans and a tank top when she came out of the shower. She smelled like after-sun lotion, sweet and fresh.
Miller pulled his T-shirt over his head, rolling it into a ball and using it, along with his arms, as a pillow. As he shifted into position, he could feel Mariah’s leg pressed against him. It felt much too good, but she didn’t move away, and he was penned in by the back of the couch. He had nowhere to go.
But then she touched him, her fingers cool against the back of his neck, and he forgot about trying to move away from her. All he wanted was to move closer. He closed his eyes, gritting his teeth against the sweet sensation.
“This is supposed to make you relax, not tighten up,” Mariah murmured.
“Sorry.”