Without A Clue

3

MATT HAD LANDED in the Twilight Zone. He’d come to his house with all intentions of enjoying the serenity it had to offer, only to be greeted with Bizarro World. Worse, he was now apparently employed by a woman who by all rights should be locked in a padded cell.

Or maybe he should be for even considering the idea. But for some reason letting this woman down held no appeal. And heck, he was on vacation, and his favorite reading had always been mysteries. It might not be so bad. Maybe even fun, though even playing dead was a little disconcerting.

The hand she stuck out to him was soft as a flower petal against his much more callous one. And was completely swallowed by it. Although she was fairly tall for a woman, she was slender and apparently small-boned. It gave him a sense of her vulnerability.

And she was on his property. It seemed to him it was his duty to make certain he’d be there to watch out for her. Because by the looks of everything so far, she wasn’t exactly organized.

Reluctantly he dropped her hand. “How soon after the guests arrive do I die?” he asked.

“The first night.”

“And then what?”

“And then we cart you off on a gurney, and you don’t return until the mystery’s been solved.”

Matt shook his head. “Unacceptable. I want to be free to keep an eye on the house and grounds during the entire time.”

Out of the corner of his eye he saw the Tina woman roll her eyes and throw up her hands. “I’m telling you, Meg, we’re in deep trouble.”

“Nonsense,” Meg said. “Just give me a minute to think.”

She strolled back to the desk and sat down, and he could practically see her wheels chugging along.

“Meg’s thinking?” Tina asked. “I’m out of here.” She practically sprinted from the room.

Suddenly Meg glanced up at him and said, “Okay, I have two possibilities. Tell me what you think of these.”

Oh, he couldn’t wait.

“One, we already have a chief inspector, so that’s out. But we could add you as his assistant. Of course, you’d have to be heavily disguised.”

Matt didn’t like that option for two reasons. He’d been in charge of his own company for so long that the thought of playing second fiddle and actually having to take orders really rankled. And second, although he wouldn’t object to wearing certain clothing to play a part, disguises conjured images of fake mustaches and Coke-bottle glasses. “What’s the other option?”

“You can come back as yourself.”

His brows drew together. “Wouldn’t that kind of ruin the mystery of who killed me?”

“Not if you come back as your spirit.”

“Spirit? You mean…a ghost?”

She beamed at him as if he were five and had just conquered the concept of the alphabet. “Exactly.”

“You’re kidding, right?”

“Not at all.”

“I don’t believe in all that ghost or spirit nonsense.”

Her brows lifted and he once again noticed what a beautiful shade of gray her eyes were. And how huge, especially when she was looking at him as though he was an idiot. “You do realize the history of this mansion, don’t you?”

Matt bristled. “I bought the property, didn’t I?”

“Then you know it’s purported to be haunted.”

No, somehow he hadn’t heard that. “Bull.”

She nodded. “It’s the lore, and there have been documented cases from previous owners.”

“It’s an old house, they were just hearing the creaks and groans.”

She shrugged. “I’m sure that’s part of it. But a lot stranger stuff has happened around here.”

“Probably made up,” he interjected.

She went on as if he hadn’t spoken. “The story is that in the late 1800s, the house was bought by an ex-Confederate soldier named Jamie Foster, and it had been badly damaged in the war. He refurbished it, then brought his wife from Savannah to live here. Apparently Jamie was suffering from what today we’d call post-traumatic stress disorder, and became more and more irrational and abusive toward his wife. When he subjected her to a fairly bad beating while she was pregnant, she decided she wasn’t going to allow him to have any part in the raising of her child.”

She paused until Matt finally said, “And?”

“She poisoned his black-eyed peas.”

“Ouch.”

“So legend has it that he refused to leave the home he’d built, and still haunts it to this day.”

“Not that I believe any of this bull, but even if there’s a hint of truth, why would anyone pay to come here?”

“Are you kidding? We played up the haunted mansion part when advertising the weekend. It’s why we filled up so fast.”

Matt made an involuntary grunting sound. “Some people are so gullible.”

“I prefer to call them adventurous. With open minds.”

He had the feeling there was an implied insult in there, even though not a hint of it showed in her serene expression. “I don’t know. Playing a ghost? Would I have to wear a white sheet or anything?”

Meg laughed, a tinkling sound that was as soothing as soft music. If one liked soft music.

“Then what?”

She held up her hands as if framing him out behind a camera. “I see you in the same smoking jacket and silk pajama bottoms you’re found dead in. But the clothes would be much more tattered and still blood-spattered.”

“What about makeup?” he asked suspiciously.

“If anything, we’ll just make your face and hands a lot more pale. And the way we’d set it up is you’ll always show up in a dimly lit room, so you’ll look not from this world.”

“I don’t know,” he said, forcing skepticism into his voice he wasn’t exactly feeling. Oddly enough, it sounded like a challenge, and Matt thrived on challenge.

“Do you have anything better?” she asked, eyebrows raised.

“Yes. You all relocate.”

“Not an option. Try again.”

Matt felt the same exhilaration he usually received haggling over a real estate deal, and it was befuddling—and different. After all, this was puff-ball stuff. And instead of wanting to break down his adversary, he sort of wanted to see her rise to the occasion. Not to win, of course. Losing wasn’t an option for him. But to give him some fun in the process.

Then again, he’d already lost one battle to her. But that wasn’t technically his mistake. His mistake was trusting the man he’d hired to oversee this property. That would be rectified shortly.

“How about if you cast me in another part that puts me in the middle of things the entire weekend, instead of the dead guy?”

He could swear her shoulders drooped just a little, and his heart kind of pinched.

“I could do that,” she said. “But all of the other roles have been cast.”

“So, recast.”

“I can’t ask them to learn a new role on this short notice. It’s just not fair. And I’m not sure of the rules, but they might charge me extra for it. Besides, that means you relinquish your bedroom.”

This woman might be a little crafty, but he still figured she didn’t have a clue what she was doing. “You don’t have a clue what you’re doing, do you?”

The shoulders straightened and stiffened, which kind of made him want to cheer.

“Listen, things were going just fine until you came along.”

“Right, your dead guy was basically DOA.”

“I could have found a way around that without you. You just seemed…convenient, in a really inconvenient kind of way. I’m trying to accommodate your desires while still pulling off this gig. And you’re really beginning to tick me off.” She paused for a breath, but before he could retort she chimed in some more. “I have the lease. As far as I can tell, you are the one trespassing. You could be a drifter or a squatter or something for all I know. So you can choose one of the options I’ve given you, or you can come up with one of your own which I’ll approve, or you can stick it and just leave. Work with me or you’re dead weight.”

Whoa! Smiling and grinning and beaming and cajoling, she was beautiful. Pissed off she was absolutely stunning. Her eyes turned a dark, firecracker silver, her cheeks turned into flaming spots. Even her hair seemed to get mad at him, tossing and shimmering like molten lava.

Deadly if messed with.

But still funny. “A hobo who drove up in a Mustang?”

“Could have been stolen.”

“In these clothes?”

“Stolen.”

He was suddenly in the position of having to prove himself, which felt a little ludicrous. How had she turned the tables on him? “Want to see my driver’s license?”

“Could have been forged.”

“Talk to my lawyer?”

“Could be your bookie.”

“Audit my taxes?”

“You mean you’ve actually filed?”

Okay, now cheeky had morphed into insulting. He was trying to prove himself to a squatter who in the last half hour had claimed she had the right to invade his home and evict him at the same time. This was reaching critical mass on his acceptable meter. She might be pretty, but she was taking the upper hand without him ever having figured out how, and that was unacceptable. But he wasn’t quite sure what the next step would be. He’d encountered crooks and shady dealers and wretched lawyers, but he’d never had to deal with an adversary who demanded with such conviction that she was within her rights while he was a possible fraud.

He squelched all of the possible courses of action he could take to ruin her uppity attitude and her weekend, swallowed his pride and said, “I’ll play the ghost.”

Her anger seemed to melt from her eyes. She smiled. “Thank you,” she said softly. “And I’m sorry. I really almost never have a temper.”

Somehow he doubted that.

Once again she thrust out her hand. “I promise, you’ll receive industry wages.”

He almost choked. But he kept a straight face and said, “I should hope so. I don’t work for free. And since I’m pulling double duty…”

“You’ll get the same wage as everyone else. Scale. And be glad for it, seeing as I didn’t ask to hire you. Don’t push it.”

He wanted to grin so badly. “Well, technically you did hire me.”

“That was a choice of getting rid of you or putting your carcass to use.”

“Yes, ma’am,” he said. “My carcass is at your disposal.”

“Don’t I wish,” she muttered, but then grinned. “Just teasing of course.”

He wasn’t so sure. Didn’t Ted Bundy have an engaging smile?

“All right,” she said, her voice going all practical again, “I’m going to have to do some rewrites tonight, before I can get you your script. How about if I have it delivered to your room by nine? That should give you time to memorize by—”

“Nine-fifteen.”

“Sure. Yes, well, let’s hope so.”

“I have a better idea,” Matt said, from out of nowhere that he could figure out. “How about if we meet for supper and go over the script together? I’d love to help shape my ghost character.”

Meg also looked gorgeous flustered. He wondered if she’d ever be able to play a corpse because she’d probably look too good then, too. No one would ever believe it.

“I don’t think—”

“I want a say in my ghost,” he said.

She stared at him for a moment, then nodded. “Okay, a dinner meeting. In here?”

“Let’s do it from the suite adjoined to my bedroom. I’d like to work out logistics.”

She stared at him, narrow-eyed.

Holding up his hands, Matt assured her. “Ms. Renshaw, I have no designs on you. But whatever I do, I want it to be done right. And if I’m dying up there and clues will be planted up there, I want to talk them through.” When she still continued to look skeptical, he said, “You’re welcome to bring a bodyguard. How about Tina?”

Meg stared at him and laughed. “It’s a deal, Mr….”

“De Wynter. Just call me Lionel De Wynter.”

VIOLIN STRINGS had nothing on Meg’s nerves. Her career depended on the success of this weekend, and so far everything was shaping up about as well as her wedding day to Mike.

A disaster in the making is what it was. Her dead guy was gone, and in his place she had an overbearing, angry homeowner who was trying to call his own shots on her project.

So she’d spent all day feverishly rewriting much of the script to incorporate the fact that the man didn’t look all that sinister. Sinfully sexy, maybe, but turning him into the twenty-first century Genghis Khan wasn’t going to be easy, given he wanted to play the part sans makeup.

And it was hard to conceive of anyone wanting to rid the world of this particular male specimen. Climb into bed with him, maybe. But shoot him in bed? No.

He wanted to talk over the script. He’d had to cancel the supper meeting—which gave her a vague sense of disappointment—because an important business call had come through. So she’d had to write one herself, fast. And she wasn’t a writer, she was a party planner for a travel agency.

Was it only six hours ago she’d loved her job? Right now she’d happily flip flapjacks at the local diner. At least those people would appreciate her efforts.

She blew a strand of hair off of her forehead, just as there was a knock on her door. “It’s open,” she said, with not much conviction.

Tina walked in. Just who she wanted to see. The voice of doom and gloom.

“We have a problem.”

“This is news? What now?”

“Lionel De Wynter’s personal assistant has just run off with the pool boy.”

“They’re supposed to run off together. It’s in the script. Maybe they’re rehearsing?”

“If they are, they’re really into their roles. They just called from Las Vegas.”

“Oh, boy.”

“Let’s do the same thing. Blow this pop stand and head to Vegas.”

Meg tsked. “You have no imagination. We can get through this.”

“Tell me how.”

Meg looked at Tina speculatively. “Feel like playing the part of a personal assistant?”

Tina’s hands raised defensively, and she began backing up slowly toward the door. “Not a chance, boss. I’m the behind-the-scenes person, remember?”

Sighing, Meg closed her eyes and rubbed her temples. There had to be a solution. One just wasn’t popping into her head at this very moment.

Tina squeaked, and Meg glanced up sharply. Apparently an obstacle at the threshold to the office had blocked Tina’s escape.

That obstacle had gorgeous brown eyes and dark hair and a mouth that screamed “kiss me.” Especially when he had that lazy smile tugging at his lips.

“Excuse me,” Tina managed, then ducked under Mr. Rossi’s arm and skedaddled. That was kind of a strange, skittish reaction from fairly bold and stoic Tina. And it kind of irritated Meg that this man could intimidate her assistant like no one—not even Meg—could.

Rossi glanced to his left, watching Tina make good her escape, then turned back to Meg. With a barely concealed smirk, he strolled toward the desk. Raising his eyebrows at all of the pages littering the desktop, he drawled, “Problems?”

“Nothing we can’t handle,” she said, trying to keep a defensive, hysterical tone from her voice.

“I hear my personal assistant jumped ship.”

“Are you always into eavesdropping, Mr. Rossi?”

“Only when I happen to be standing at an open door, trying to get your attention.”

Meg sighed. “Yes, we lost a couple more to the whims of passion.” She snorted. “Never have seen the merit in that, but what can you do?”

“I know what you can do.”

Meg’s heart tripped a little, because the instantaneous list of things she’d like to do were a little scandalous. And shocking to even herself.

She swallowed and tried for bland. “Really? What would that be?” She picked up her water glass and sipped.

“Why don’t you play my personal assistant?”

Water splooshed all over her desk, and she choked.

The man moved quickly around the desk and began thumping her back. “You all right?”

Meg grabbed tissues from a box and wiped her watering eyes, then mouth, then the surface of the desk. “Sure. Fine. Really.”

He stopped thumping her, but began stroking her back in what should have been a soothing manner, but was failing miserably at soothing her.

His huge hands were warm and gentle and whispered seduction, even in such an innocent act.

Meg didn’t even like this guy. Even though he’d agreed to step in and help out when he didn’t even want them here, he was just an additional monkey wrench in what was turning out to be a disastrous venture. He wasn’t the enemy—Meg didn’t believe in having enemies—but he wasn’t a friend, either.

So why was his touch so electrifying?

Meg wasn’t into being electrocuted, either.

Finally she stood to get away from the current. “You’re joking, right?”

“Why not? You have to be around all the time to oversee things anyway. If you’re not part of the action, you’re merely a distraction. Do it.”

“Mr. Rossi—”

“My name is Matt. Call me Mr. Rossi one more time, and I’m tossing all of your butts out of here.”

She’d be mad, but she couldn’t quite get there when he was smiling. “Fine. Call me Ms. Renshaw one more time and I’ll personally rewrite this so that it’s your personal secretary who gets to kill you off.”

“Does that mean you’ll do it…Meg?”

She chewed on her lower lip. “Fine. Actually, it does make some sort of sense.”

His smile grew wider, and his eyes sparkled. “Great. This should be fun.”

Meg clamped her jaw shut to keep it from dropping. He actually sounded like he meant it. “I sure hope so,” she finally managed.

He leaned toward her, and she had to drop her head back. That’s when she noticed just how tall he really was. She was not a short woman.

“So tell me, Meg, am I sleeping with my personal assistant?”

4

“SINCE WHEN is the personal assistant sleeping with De Wynter?” Tina asked Meg, reading through the player profiles.

Meg never blushed. She prided herself on that. So she was certain the heat in her cheeks was simply from the heat in the room.

“You’re blushing, Meg.”

“I, umm, just thought I’d add a twist to the, umm, dynamics.”

“Right.”

Until this moment, Meg had been happily deluding herself into believing that she’d added that element just to throw off Mr. Matthew Rossi. He’d been irritating her all last evening with lists, acting like he was organizing this event instead of she.

But if she were to be brutally honest, a niggling of a fantasy had crept in to her obviously—yet heretofore unrealized—warped mind. The thought of having an affair with the man was…

Ridiculous. This wasn’t like her at all. One time she’d read a study that most men sized up women within seconds of meeting them and classified them as “yes” or “no” in the sexual sense. She’d snorted at the time. Men. It figured. She knew it had taken one look at Christie to make Mike decide a walk down the aisle with Meg wasn’t in the plan. Well, no matter. Good riddance to Mike.

She couldn’t exactly feel that way about Christie, though, considering Christie was Meg’s sister. And Meg was long used to Christie stealing Meg’s boyfriends. It just would have helped if Christie hadn’t decided to do the stealing a day before Meg’s wedding.

Then again, after the wedding would have been worse. So Mike and Christie had done her a favor. That was her story, and she was sticking to it.

Men were basically dogs, but women sometimes helped by wagging their tails just right.

Yet, here she found herself doing almost exactly that. Not that her sizing up Matt Rossi sexually happened in the first couple of seconds. Well, maybe. But she shouldn’t be thinking of him in that way at all. There was nothing redeeming about him save his looks—that short, dark, mussed hair with those intense brown eyes—and she hated that this alone was enough to make her think lascivious thoughts.

Meg went for the mind. She didn’t think about men that way until she found their brains sexy. That was her story, and she was sticking to it.

Until Rossi.

This was an aberration, she decided. One she could just brush aside. He might be intelligent, but in a really annoying way. His brain was not sexy. So being hot for that gorgeous body was a rare, stray, hormone-charged anomaly. That was her story and she was sticking to it.

“When you drop down from the clouds, let me know,” she vaguely heard.

Meg shook her head and looked up. Tina was grinning. That was ominous. Tina never grinned unless she’d just kicked a guy between his rocks and his hard place.

“I was just thinking about a new plot twist,” Meg said.

“Like doing it with the murder victim?”

“Tina—”

“Just an observation,” Tina said, examining her nails.

“Well, observe something else.”

“Like how gorgeous Mr. Murder is?”

“Is he? I hadn’t noticed.”

“Oh, good. Then you won’t mind if I flirt with him a little.”

“Do it and die, babe.”

“Ha! I knew it!”

Meg was mortified at her knee-jerk reaction. “I’m just saying don’t mess with the guests.”

“Right.”

“Do you want to mess with me right now? And I might mention I’m PMSing.”

“I’m out of here.”

“Good decision.”

The problem was, Meg wasn’t PMSing. Unless PMS stood for “Please, Matt, Sex.” Which was dumb as dumb could be. Sure, he was good-looking. But he was also infuriating. The man had walked in and honestly believed he could take over. Just because he owned the place, he thought he could just waltz in and take control.

Control. That was the word. He was into control. Which made him so unappealing in the sexiest kind of way. Her father had been a control freak, too. Until her mother had died when Meg was ten, Jeanie Renshaw had been a buffer between father and children. But once she was gone the household had become a boot camp. And Meg had been the designated sergeant, being the eldest.

Learning to improvise had been so necessary. Checklists and protocols had become evil before she’d even turned into a teenager.

A rap on her office door brought her head up and her brain down from the clouds of memories. She looked at Mr. Checklist himself, standing in the doorway, busy scribbling notes on a legal pad. Great. More lists.

Meg took a moment to realize she didn’t appear all that professional in jeans and a Black Death European tour T-shirt. But they were under the gun and she had to be prepared to do anything from paperwork to housework.

She sighed. “Don’t come in, Mr. Rossi.”

“Too late,” he said, strolling through the door.

She didn’t think she could stuff that legal pad down his throat, but she’d love to give it a shot. “Look, you’re the dead guy. You’ve got one major speech and then you’re gone until you return as the ghost. From then on, you wing it. We’ve been through this.”

“I think we should be caught making love before the murder.”

Meg was never speechless. Right now her vocal chords had gone south. “Huh?” was about as much noise as she could conjure.

He looked at her with something very akin to pity. “You. Me. In bed.”

She needed to swallow. In fact, breathing might be a good idea, too. Fantasizing was out of the question, even if her brain was malfunctioning and doing it anyway.

“I’m—” she kind of squeaked, then cleared her throat “—not sure why that’s necessary.”

“Because we’re having an affair,” he said, tapping his notes. “We need to be caught.”

“I’m not certain that’s necessary,” she repeated. Although it sounded fun in theory.

He sighed and dropped his pad on the desk. “Do you want this weekend to be successful?”

“Well, yes.”

“Then it needs to have a little ‘oomph.’”