Thief of Hearts by Tess Gerritsen

Author:Tess Gerritsen
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: MIRA Books
Published: 1995-10-15T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER NINE

A few taps of a rock and the window shattered.

Jordan broke away the jagged edges and climbed in. A moment later he reappeared at the cottage’s front door and motioned for Clea to enter.

She stepped inside and found herself standing in a quaint room furnished with rough-hewn antiques and pewter lamps. Massive ceiling beams, centuries old, ran the length of the room, and all around her, burnished wainscoting gleamed against the whitewashed walls. It would have been a cozy room were it not so cold and drafty. The English, thought Clea, must have thermally insulated hides.

Jordan, soaked as he was, looked scarcely discomfited as he moved about the room, closing shutters. “I’ll have to make it up to old Monty, that broken window. He’ll understand. Doesn’t much use this cottage except in the summer. In fact, I believe he’s in Moritz at the moment. Trying to land the next Mrs. Montgomery Dearborn.”

How many Mrs. Dearborns are there? Clea wanted to ask, but she couldn’t get out the question; her teeth were chattering too hard. What feeling she had left in her limbs was quickly fading to numbness. She knew she should strip off her wet clothes, should try to start a fire in the hearth, but she couldn’t seem to make her body move. She could only stand there, water dripping from her clothes onto the wood floor.

Jordan turned on a lamp. By the light’s glow he caught his first real look at her. “Good Lord,” he said, touching her face. “You’re like an ice cube.”

“Fire,” she whispered. “Please, start a fire.”

“That’ll take too long. You need to get warmed up now.” He pulled her down a hall and into the bathroom. Quickly he turned on the shower spigot. As water hissed out in a sputtering stream he began to peel off her sopping wool jacket.

“Electric coil heater,” said Jordan. “It’ll warm up in a minute.” He tossed her jacket aside and unzipped her skirt. She was too cold to care about anything so trivial as modesty; she let him pull her skirt off, let the fabric drop in a pile on the floor. The water was steaming now; he tested the temperature, then thrust her, underwear and all, into the shower.

Even with hot water streaming over her body, it seemed to take forever for her to stop shaking. She huddled, dazed, under the spigot. Slowly the heat penetrated her numbness and she could feel her blood start to circulate again, could feel the flush of warmth at last seeping toward her core.

“Clea?” she heard Jordan say.

She didn’t answer. She was too caught up in the pleasure of being warm again. Sighing, she shifted around to let the stream roll down her back. Vaguely, through the rattle of water, she heard Jordan call.

“Are you all right?”

Before she could answer, the shower curtain was abruptly pushed aside. She found herself gazing up at Jordan’s face.

As he was gazing at hers.

For a moment they said nothing. The only sound was the pounding of the shower.

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