"What is it about you?" he murmured, obviously more to himself than to her. "So guarded and wary, so aloof and afraid to be touched. Yet I can't help wanting to touch you. Needing to. Maybe you can't read my mind, but I can't get you out of it, Cassie."

His fingers traced the line of her brow and jaw, his thumb brushing across her cheekbone, and when her body shivered in reaction, Cassie understood that one of them was playing with fire.

"You… really should go," she managed to say unsteadily.

"I know." Ben's hand now cupped her cheek, his thumb rubbing slowly back and forth across her lips and his eyes intently following the movements. "Believe me, I know. I know the timing's lousy, that it'll take all your emotional energy to do what we're asking you to do. I know you're tired right now. I even know I'll probably make you a lousy lover, given my track record. I know all the logical, practical reasons I should go away and leave you alone."

"But?" She was surprised the word emerged coherently. His husky voice was as much a caress as the touch of his fingers and her body, which had felt so cold only moments before, now seemed feverish.

"But I'm having a hard time convincing myself to be sensible about it." His mouth brushed hers very lightly and then retreated. "I want you, Cassie. I didn't plan on this, and God knows how it'll end, but I want you. And… I have this feeling that if I let go of you now, I'll lose you for good."

"I'm… not going anywhere."

"You've been trying to hold me off, shut me out. Do you think I can't feel it?"

Cassie resisted the urge to press her face against his caressing hand. "For your sake as much as mine. Trust me, Ben, I'm the one who'd make a lousy lover. I wouldn't be good for you. I wouldn't be good for any man." "Maybe I'm willing to risk it." "Maybe I'm not."

His eyes were heavy-lidded and darkened, and so intense they seemed to pull at her. "Somehow, I don't think either of us has a choice."

There was something almost reluctant in his voice, and it made her say, "You don't know me." "I know all I need to know."

"No, you don't. You don't know, Ben. I have too much baggage. Too many monsters dragging at my heels." She swallowed hard. "I can't – "

His mouth covered hers, warm and hard and so unexpectedly familiar that she was helpless to prevent her own instant response.

Hardly aware of moving, Cassie got her arms out from under the blanket and reached up to him. One of her hands pressed against his chest as though holding him off, but the other slid from his shoulder to the nape of his neck. Her touch was tentative but not shy, and when he lifted his head she made a sound of disappointment.

"Can't you?" he murmured.

"You aren't playing fair," she told him, bemused by the husky sound of her own voice.

"I'm not playing. Cassie, listen to me. For just a minute, forget about the rotten timing. Forget about that maniac out there. Forget about everything except the two people in this room."

That was not very hard to do, she thought. In fact, it wasfrighteningly easy. "All right."

"Tell me you don't want me."

She drew a breath and let it out slowly. "You know damned well I can't do that."

He smiled. "Good. Then we go on from there."

Go on where? But she didn't ask what she suspected was an unanswerable question. Instead, she said, "Do you have any idea how crazy this is?"

"You'd be surprised." He kissed her, briefly but not lightly, then eased away from her. "I'd better go and let you get some rest, especially if Matt and I are coming back in a few hours."

She'd forgotten about that. She'd also forgotten that the sheriff waited outside, presumably in his cruiser with the engine running. Remembering made her protest die in her throat. "Right. Right."

Ben seemed a little amused, but his eyes were still darkened and his face still bore that oddly naked look she couldn't quite define. "I'll call before we come out here, but I'm guessing it'll be around four or five."

"Okay. I'll be here."

He took a step away but then hesitated. "Remember your promise. Don't try to reach this guy without a lifeline."

"No, I won't."

He didn't say good-bye. She watched him until he was out of sight and listened to the front door open and close. Then she just lay there on the couch, no longer cold or even tired, but uneasily aware that she had just turned an unexpected corner.

And had no idea what was waiting for her.

Matt folded up his newspaper when Ben got into the cruiser and lost no time turning the vehicle around and pointing it back toward town. Neither spoke until Cassie's snowy driveway lay behind them, and then the conversation was brief.

"If you want my advice – " Matt began.

"I don't."

The sheriff glanced at his friend, then murmured, "Okay. Then I'll just drive."

TWELVE

The Plantation Inn was not bad as motels went, though Bishop could have done without the plastic palms that seemed to sprout from every corner. Still, his room was clean and comfortable, limited room service was available – when the restaurant next door closed, you were on your own – and the desk clerk had been reassuringly knowledgeable when he had asked her about fax lines and data ports.

Accustomed to living out of a suitcase, he didn't bother to unpack his clothing, but he did get his laptop out and set it up on the fair-sized desk by the window, where the promised data port was available. By the time room service delivered his lunch, he had logged on and downloaded his mail and faxes from the office, as well as tapped into a North Carolina database that gave him access to past and current issues of virtually all publications from the area.

He ate a club sandwich while reading relevant articles and editorials from the previous week's editions of the local paper, then checked several larger newspapers throughout the state. He found that recent news from Ryan's Bluff was not mentioned anywhere else.

So. The sheriff had his town buttoned up tightly. At least for now.

Instead of speculating on that interesting fact, Bishop reread the information he had gathered earlier concerning Alexandra Melton. There was little enough of it, just deed and title information on her property, and the major points of her will. It did not appear that she had involved herself in any meaningful sense in town affairs, since her name made the local newspaper only when she died.

But Bishop's information went back further than Alexandra Melton's life in Ryan's Bluff. In fact, it went back more than thirty years. In his file were a number of detailed reports, including several from various West Coast hospitals and at least half a dozen from law enforcement organizations. He just glanced over those, since the information was familiar to him, but spent some minutes looking at a detailed family tree going back nearly two hundred years.

Except for husbands, the tree was almost entirely female. There had been few sons born to this line of women for generations, and seldom more than one daughter.

Cassie NeilPs name occupied one of only two boxes representing the current and only surviving generation.

After studying the tree for a time, Bishop closed the file and shut down his computer. He called room service to come get his tray, changed into the very casual clothing that was suitable for exploration, and left the motel.

He drove to the downtown area, since the Plantation Inn was some miles away. Snowplows had been at work to scrape aside the scant few inches of snow, even though the temperature had risen enough to begin melting it anyway; he avoided the slush in the gutters when he parked his car near the drugstore and got out.

For a few moments Bishop stood near his car and just looked around. There was a fair amount of activity on this Friday afternoon. Shoppers moved in and out of the stores, the car lot on one end of town seemed to be having some sort of loud and colorful promotion involving the giveaway of a television set, and the two restaurants he could see appeared to be doing brisk business.