The Rose Legacy by Kristen Heitzmann

Author:Kristen Heitzmann
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Tags: ebook
Publisher: Baker Publishing Group
Published: 2000-03-25T16:00:00+00:00

After waiting most of the day in the silence of the office, Carina could stand it no longer. She had to get out. Snatching up the canvas miner’s jacket she had purchased as a protection in the rain, she reached for the door. Mr. Beck’s hand was on the other side, and he stepped back in surprise.

Startled, she, too, shrank back, and he came inside, wet and dripping. Not again. Carina frowned. She would not wait while he changed and put himself in the mood for other things. She pulled the jacket closed.

“You’re not leaving?”

She waved an arm. “What is there to do? You said yourself it’s unimportant. I sat here all day with nothing to do.”

He closed the door against the rain. “You were making yourself available. In case I should need you.”

So he was again the indebted businessman. Which one was she to believe? “Don’t you mean require, Mr. Beck?”

“Berkley.” He raised a single brow as he looked at her sideways. “And I mean need—in the business sense.”

She sighed, flinging her arms wide, and paced the room. “I don’t know what I’m doing here. Why am I here?” She threw the question to the air, but Berkley Beck answered.

“Because I employed you.”

“I don’t mean here, in this office. I mean at all. What place is Crystal for me? I should go. I should leave.”

“You can’t.”

She stopped pacing. Did she imagine the threatening current beneath his words? “What do you mean, I can’t?”

“You’re upset—”

“Upset?” She shrugged. “Why should I be upset? Men beaten outside my window, robbed and lying in their own blood. Throats cut—”

“Carina.” He caught her arm. “You don’t understand what’s happening. There’s something … uncivilized out there.”

“I don’t know that?” She tugged free and walked to the window. “I should never have come.” She turned. “I’m leaving now.”

“Believe me, Carina, it wouldn’t be safe.”

“Safe!” She threw up her hands and stalked across the room. “And I am safe here?”

“Yes. You’re under my protection.”

She started to scoff, but he held up a hand.

“Nothing will harm you. I give you my word.”

“How can you say that? How can you know?”

He went very still, his eyes the cold blue of a mountain lake. “I believe I know who’s behind all this.”

She stared. How could he know? Had he gone to Èmie’s uncle? Had he seen …”You know who killed Mr. Evans?”

“Not just that. This is bigger than one murder.”

Her breath came out hard as her stomach knotted like a clenched fist.

“You don’t need to fear. As you learned last night, I can protect you. And very soon I will extend that protection to others.”

“What others? What are you saying?”

Beck’s eyes warmed to the color of the Mediterranean sea. “Trust me, Carina.”

She swallowed her protest. It would get her nowhere. “Whom do you suspect?”

Very subtly his gaze changed, drawing her in like a riptide that drowned. “It would be premature to say.”

“Why? If you know …” She pictured Èmie’s uncle being dragged off to judgment.

He caught her hands, bringing them together to his chest.

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