Predicting Rain?

He held it like a club and it felt heavy and solid. Cautiously, he approached the door that led into the main living area of the loft. He paused, trying to remember the layout of the loft. Basically one cavernous space, divided into areas by six-foot high walls that came short of touching the lofty ceilings by at least another six feet. Polished hardwood floors, rough white plastered walls, plain furnishings, just two sprawling navy couches, a television in a unit on the far wall, a few tables, some stacked boxes, no carpets that he remembered. The communications-work area took up most of the back wall, on a twelve-foot table set up under high louvered windows, and framed by towering floor-to-ceiling windows on either side.

Simple and clear. He just had to get to the door without being noticed. He cautiously looked out into the main space, and knew luck was with him. Whoever had broken in had left the front door open enough for a thin sliver of light from the corridor to cut into the room. He glanced to his left, to the glow of a light beyond the partial wall that defined the kitchen area. Carefully, he eased into the space, staying as close to the wall as he could while he slowly made his way to the right and the escape of the open door.

He’d gone only a few feet when he heard something that stopped him in his tracks. The voice. The one from his dreams. This time it was softly singing a song he vaguely remembered from somewhere in the past, maybe an old Bob Dylan song…or some folk song? A simple melody sung in a breathy whisper. Then the song stopped when the voice said softly, “So, you don’t like music, huh? Bummer.”

There was no response. Just the voice again, “Okay, okay, I get the idea.” Followed by a low chuckle. “I’ll stop.”

The idea of going out the entry door was forgotten and Jack found himself moving silently toward the kitchen, the lamp base firmly gripped. The voice. He’d been right. A feminine voice. A woman, and she seemed to be talking to herself or maybe on the telephone. He didn’t have a clue if there was a phone line in the kitchen. He lifted the lamp base slightly as he approached the wall, then looked into the kitchen area.

He saw the owner of the voice that had invaded his dreams, the person who invaded the loft. It didn’t make sense. She was tiny, definitely alone, not more than an inch over five feet tall, maybe one hundred pounds soaking wet and she had her back to him as she leaned forward over something on the counter. She looked tiny in an oversize T-shirt fashioned in brilliant, tie-dyed colors of reds, blues and yellows. It was barely long enough to brush the tops of her bare thighs. Her hair so blond it was almost silver, fell long and straight down her back, almost to her waist, and her feet were bare. There was something at her slender ankle, jewelry of some sort.

Whatever fear he’d had at the intrusion was gone, replaced by curiosity and something else. That stirring he’d experienced in the dream was back full-force, fed by the way her long hair shifted in a silky veil when she moved, and by the seductive lines of her bare legs. He just watched. Her hands shifted to her hips, the action hiking the T-shirt higher on her thighs while her feet shifted on the cold hardwood floor.

“Okay, bud, you’re on your own,” she said a little louder now, but the voice didn’t lose any of its sexiness.

This was ridiculous, standing here, watching, listening. He made himself move farther into the room, still gripping the lamp base, and he made himself speak up. “What’s going on?” he demanded.

She jerked around, her long hair flowing like a veil, then she was facing him. If the voice had been disturbing, looking into huge brown eyes set in a delicately boned face, seeing seductively full lips softly parted in surprise and watching her rapid breathing press her high, small breasts against the soft cotton of her shirt, stunned him. His jumbled thoughts and spontaneous responses were so unlike anything he’d experienced before with any woman, that he was literally frozen to the spot. He simply stared at her.

WHEN RAIN ARMSTRONG heard that voice, she spun around. Her heart pounded against her ribs, and she couldn’t take a decent lungful of air to save her life. Fear choked her and she had to blink twice before she could make out a man not more than six feet from her in the shadowed kitchen. A man who had appeared out of nowhere in a loft that was supposed to have been deserted.

All she could do was stare at him, tall and lean, standing by the entrance, half lost in the fringe shadows of the space. She could tell he was wearing nothing but dark slacks and that he totally blocked any means of escape. He had something in his right hand, something that look ominously heavy and lethal, raised as if ready to strike her.

Even though she couldn’t move, her mind raced. Get out! she screamed in her head. Just get out any way you can! But she didn’t know how to do that. The only weapon she had was the can opener she had been using to open the cat food, and it was hardly a weapon.

He took a single step toward her. “I asked what’s going on? What are you doing in here?”

She swallowed hard. “Wh-what are you doing in here?”

“You first,” he muttered as he took another step forward.

She tried to back up, but her waist hit the counter behind her. She darted a look past him, the space between him and the door rapidly expanding. Maybe she could get around him before he could react. But then again, maybe he’d just hit her with the thing in his hands. He was tall, a good foot taller then she, somewhere in his mid to late thirties, and from his near naked state, she could see he was fit. Lightly tanned skin stretched taut over hard stomach muscles, a chest with just an arrow of dark hair and disturbingly broad shoulders. His angular face was partially shadowed in the dim light, but she could see the slash of dark brows over hooded eyes, a slightly crooked nose, all framed by dark hair, short and somewhat spiked.

She saw the way his hand held the weapon, and she cursed the fact she didn’t have a clue where the knives were located. She shifted slightly, ready to just make a run for it, but she never got the chance. Joey, the orange tabby cat she’d come to feed, had made his way to the top of the wall between the kitchen and living area, and right then, the huge beast launched himself at the intruder. The man must have sensed something coming, because he started to turn in the direction of the attacking cat, but he couldn’t do a thing to protect himself before there was impact.

The cat hit him in the shoulder and chest, sending him off balance, and for a moment man and cat were suspended in midair flying to Rain’s right. Then there was a crashing sound as the man hit the floor, mixed with a profound curse. The cat immediately launched himself off of the man, up and onto the counter in one smooth move.

It was Rain’s chance to escape, and she took it, but she’d only taken one step before her foot struck something hard and cold. She pitched forward, flailing to get her balance, but fell straight into the prone stranger.

There was heat and the scent of soap and maleness, and strength. That scared her. She quickly pushed as hard as she could, sending herself back and away from the contact, hitting the wooden floor and ending up on her knees. She sat back on her heels, pushed her tangled hair out of her face. Whatever chance she had of escape was gone.

The man was standing and towering over. Then she saw the weapon he’d been holding, the thing that had caused her to trip. She made a grab for it, but she wasn’t fast enough. He had it and he was standing over her once again.

She took several deep breaths, then pushed herself to her feet. She couldn’t do a thing about his size advantage, but she could talk a good game—her father had always told her that, insinuating that was why she was so good at what she did. She took another breath, thankful that the man was keeping his distance, at least for now. She didn’t want to touch him again or have him touch her.

She braced herself, ready to try anything, then looked right at him, but he wasn’t looking at her. He was frowning at Joey on the counter. “What in the hell is that?”

“My attack cat,” she muttered, her mind working a mile a minute. The best defense is a good offense, and she’d go on the offensive to see what happened. “You’re lucky all he did was knock you down, you sneaking in here like this and scaring me to death.”

He looked at her then and she had the oddest feeling she’d met him before. But she hadn’t. She’d never heard that voice or faced the man himself before in her life. She would have remembered. “What was he going to do, tear me to shreds?”

She shrugged. “Who knows?”

He shook his head. “Just tell me why you’re here and what in the hell you’re doing here at two in the morning?”

At least he was talking and not bashing her over the head with the lamp base. An attacker who wanted to talk, but why was he here half-dressed? It didn’t make sense. “You explain first,” she said.

He exhaled roughly. “Oh, come on. I’m not the one who broke in.”

“I didn’t break in. There’s a key in the lock.” She knew at least one thing. “That’s how you got in here, isn’t it? I left the damn door open.”

“No, I have my own key,” he said.

Her stomach sank. “You were in here all along?”

“Since midnight.”

Oh, boy, had she been wrong. “In here?”

“Actually, in the bedroom. I was sleeping….” He shrugged. “Let’s start over. It’s obvious that you aren’t here ripping me off, and I belong here, so just tell me why you’re here in the middle of the night with that animal?”

He was staying here. She knew people went in and out of this place, but no one had told her that anyone would be here tonight, or she wouldn’t have come over. She motioned to Joey who was calmly cleaning himself on the counter. “Feeding that beast.”

“At two in the morning?”

“That wasn’t my idea,” she muttered and looked at the lamp base in his hand. “Were you going to hit me with that?”

He looked taken aback, but said, “Only if you were a killer and you outweighed me by fifty pounds.”

“Well, I’m not and I don’t,” she muttered.

“So I can see,” he said softly in a tone that brought color to her cheeks. Then he said, “So, you came to feed the cat…?”

She exhaled and motioned to the lamp base. “Can you put that down?”

He eyed her up and down, and there was a definite softening in his expression. She realized that his eyes weren’t just shadowed, they were dark as night. “If you promise not to unleash that beast on me again.”

“Sorry, I can’t promise that. He’s pretty much got a mind of his own.”

“Okay, but I’ll keep an eye on him,” he said and laid the lamp base on the counter. Facing her again, he asked, “Now, why were you coming in here to feed him at this time of night?”

“Because he ran away.”

“From you?”

“No, the guy who used to live here. He moved, the cat went with him, but he disappeared—the cat, not the man—and his wife’s worried about it and thought that the cat might try to get back here, and sure enough…” She pointed to Joey. “He turned up tonight. I was sitting on the fire escape meditating when I spotted him going over the roof, then he jumped down to the window and disappeared. I guess the guy left the window open just in case he came back. Anyway, he got in, and I knew…” She cleared her throat. “I thought this place was empty.”

“Wrong,” he said. “So, you were outside on the fire escape, then came in here? What do you do, hang out on fire escapes at night for fun?”

She shook her head. “I’m staying in the next unit. The guy, the one who lived here and moved out with the cat—”

“I’ve got that part of it.”

“Okay, well he asked if the cat showed up, could we feed him or something and keep him here until he could get over here to take him back. So, I did. Not that he liked the food I found.” She took a breath. “I thought he was waiting here in an empty loft, and I came over.” She shrugged. “And there you were.”

He raked his fingers through his hair, spiking it even more. “Who was it who asked you to watch for the cat?”

“Zane something-or-other, one of the suits at LynTech, I think. They lease this place, for whatever reasons. Since I’ve been here, no one’s lived in here at all for more than a few days.”

“One of the what at LynTech?”

“Excuse me?”

“You said one of the suits at LynTech? A suit?”

“A suit. You know, some bigwig executive who makes millions and wants to rule the world from his corporate tower. Although this isn’t any corporate tower, and I’d think, with all the money they’re raking in, that they could put their people up in a plush penthouse or something.”

His expression tightened. “Zane Holden wants to the rule the world?”

“Whatever. The man’s the head of everything at LynTech, along with some other guy, and, from what I’ve heard, eats up competitors. Heck, he’s probably eyeing IBM even as we speak.”

“You’ve met him?”

“Oh, of course not. And I can’t say I’d want to.”

“Not your type, huh?”

She heard the edge to his voice, then suddenly it all added up. She was so slow on the uptake, it had to be the late hour and inability to sleep that was fogging her brain. He was here, in a place leased by LynTech. He more than likely worked for Holden. He was a suit. A half-naked suit at the moment, but a suit, unless he was just loft sitting or something. Maybe a relative in from out of town? “I wouldn’t know,” she murmured.

He eyed her night shirt and bare feet. “Take my word for it, he’s not your type.”

She felt that touch of heat in her cheeks again at the tone in his voice. Condescension, or maybe sarcasm? She wasn’t sure, but she knew that she didn’t like it. “Tell your boss his cat is back,” she said.

“My boss?” he asked.

The moment he said the words, she knew she’d been wrong. This man wasn’t a flunky. He was a boss, a filthy rich boss staying in a very plain loft. She remembered exactly where she’d seen him before. A glossy magazine. She’d been in one of the offices at the hospital waiting for yet another interview with Dr. Shay, and she’d picked it up to pass the time. It had been one of those “people on the go” columns, the type that either started rumors or confirmed them.

This man had earned a full half-page column including a color picture. He’d been in a tux, his arm around the shoulders of a tall, beautiful woman with perfect bone structure and a cap of ebony hair. The paragraph was about Jackson Ford, and Eve something-or-other. Definitely a suit, a very rich, powerful suit. It had been announcing the engagement of Jackson Ford, head of European operations for LynTech. Something about them making their home in London.

“You’re Jackson Ford, aren’t you?” she blurted out.

She’d definitely shocked him.

“How in the hell—?”

“Saw your picture in a magazine a bit back. You were getting engaged and partying in England, I think.”

“You got me,” he said. “So, you are…?”

Out of here, she thought, but said, “I didn’t know you were here, that anyone was here. Sorry about all of this.”

“I didn’t expect to wake up at two in the morning and find a half dressed hippie in the kitchen.”

“Hippie?”

He flicked his gaze over her. “Hippie.”

“Whatever,” she said, and knew it was time to get out of the loft and away from this guy. She’d faced snobbery before, but it hadn’t rankled her as much as the snobbery he was showing at that moment.

“Now that we’ve labeled each other, I’m leaving,” she said, and moved to go past him.

But it wasn’t going to be that easy, not when he caught her by the upper arm and stopped her. His fingers hovered this side of real pain, but held her firmly, stopping her escape completely. “Hold on there,” he said. “You aren’t leaving yet.”

Chapter Two

Rain fought every instinct to try to free herself of his hold, and stood very still. “What, do you want me to thank you for not braining me with that lamp? Or do you want me to do a spirit dance around you while you try to correct your very-out-of-whack Karma?”

He almost smiled, and she had a flashing knowledge that he was a man who didn’t smile easily. “Neither,” he said and let her go. “I just wanted to know who you are.”

She stayed where she was, not moving at all and definitely not rubbing her arm where he’d gripped her. “I’m an idiot who thought I was rescuing a cat. I even gave him some dolphin free tuna to eat, and he turned his nose up at it. Then you came after me with that lamp.”

“I never threatened you with the lamp or anything else, and as far as my karma goes, it’s just fine.”

“Rainbow!”

She heard George calling from somewhere beyond the entry door and his voice cut through the loft with a boom even from that distance. “I’m in here, George!” she called back, not taking her eyes off the man in front of her. “I’ll be right there.”

“Okay,” he called back and she heard their loft door close with a soft clang.

“Rainbow?” Jack asked, the way so many people had said her given name over the years.

“Rain is fine,” she muttered. “George just likes to use the full version.”

“George?”

“Your neighbor. The guy Zane gave the key to in case Joey showed up?”

“Joey?”

“The cat.”

“You were talking to the cat earlier?” he asked.

“Sure. I was trying to coax him off the wall to start with, then tried to get him to eat very expensive tuna.”

Jack kept watching her, a tiny woman who talked fast, moved with real ease and whom he’d felt against him on the floor. He took a breath, but wished he hadn’t. She carried the scent of…something…sweet and soft…but elusive. And she lived next door. And all he knew about anyone else on this floor was what Zane had said.

“There’s a middle-aged hippie next door to the loft, George Armstrong. He’s a good man, but he’s beyond eccentric and if you let him, he’ll give you hours of lectures about corporate greed. He paints, I think, and comes and goes on whims, apparently. He never got past the ‘do your own thing’ or ‘if it feels good, do it,’ era,” she said.

“You said you live next door?”

“I moved in a few weeks ago. George is my—”

“I know all about George,” he said before she could go into their relationship. He understood all too well from what Zane had told him. But it bothered him that she was involved with the man.

She frowned, then cocked her head to one side and her hair moved in a soft veil. “Oh, sure, of course, you know.”

“What does that mean?”

“Just more labeling. Since George doesn’t conform to what you think he should, you’re sure that he’s some irresponsible hippie living like some flower child.” She bit her lip. “Gad, you’re a snob.”

A snob? “Now I’m a stuffed suit and a snob?”

She shook her head, then went past him into the main living area that was deep in shadows except for the light slicing in from the hallway. He followed her, watching her silhouetted against the light coming in the door. She was at the entrance before she stopped and turned back to him. In that fleeting moment, the light behind her softly exposed her slender figure. “Sorry for the intrusion. I’ll let that Zane person know the cat’s back.”

“Don’t bother. I’ll take care of it,” he said.

“Oh, sure, the responsible one,” she muttered.

She was going back to that middle-aged hippie and he felt vaguely sick. “I’ll take care of it,” he repeated.

“Of course, and, oh, by the way, my name’s Rainbow Swan, for the record. Good night, Jackson Ford.”

With that, she left, quietly closing the door behind her. Before he could do more than absorb the fact that she’d obviously had the last word, the door opened again and this time he could see through the thin cotton of her T-shirt. “I’ve got the key,” she said. “Tell Zane that he can come get it any time he wants to. But until then we’ll guard it with our lives so that you’ll be safe from any and all undesirables who might be in the area.” And she closed the door after her.

Jack crossed to the door, opened it and heard another door shut firmly. Rain was gone. And she’d had a double last word. He hated that. He closed his door, threw the bolt lock on it, then saw the cat. The animal was walking silently along the shelf on the top of the partial wall. He got to the bedroom area, looked at Jack, then leaped in the opposite direction and disappeared. A cat. A hippie. He looked at the clock. The whole thing had lasted fifteen minutes, tops. It had seemed to last forever.

The middle-aged hippie and Rain. It sounded like the title of a bad novel, or some crazy song. But it knotted his stomach with distaste. Instead of going to the bedroom, he crossed to the work station, turned on two lights and sat down in front of the computer. As the monitor warmed up, he heard the cat somewhere close by mewing softly in the darkness. Then a heavy thump came from somewhere beyond the wall across the room that was shared with the next loft.

He looked at the computer screen, logged onto the Internet and went to the mail program. There were several notes from Mrs. Ferris, and a single note from Eve. He opened Eve’s note quickly. All thoughts of Rain pushed to the back of his mind…for now.

RAIN WENT INTO the loft and called out to George. “I’m back.” She crossed to the kitchen to make herself a cup of green tea.

“What was going on over there?” he asked coming up behind her.

“Labeling,” she muttered, a bit shocked that Jack Ford had gotten under her skin so completely. Labels didn’t matter. She’d known that all her life, but for some reason his attitude stung.

“What?” George asked as Rain put the teakettle on the stove, then turned to her father.

Yes, he was a hippie. From the long gray hair, thin on top, pulled back in a ponytail with a friendship rope that Bree, her mother, had made for him, to the rope sandals, the six earrings in his left ear and the cutoffs worn with a shirt that sported a skull and roses on it, he was a hippie. Although Rain liked the term a free, caring spirit better than hippie. He was middle-aged, sincere about helping to make the world a better place, and vastly talented as a painter.

She glanced at the loft, a cavernous space free of any real adornments, with pillows instead of chairs, bed pads on the floor in the side alcoves, and his paintings all around, in various stages of completion. “Want some green tea?” she asked, not about to get into this with her father, too.

He waved that aside with, “No, thanks,” and headed over to his latest canvas, a huge, four-by-six-foot work in progress that he’d labeled Experimental. Red he called it, and it was that. Very red. Lines, sweeping swirls, dots, splashes, all in various shades of red. Even though she loved her father and thought he was beyond talented, it still amused her at George’s chagrin that “normies,” as her dad called the rest of the world, actually liked his work and bought it. “The cat showed up, huh?”

“Sure did,” she said and turned as the kettle started to whistle. As she made a mug of tea, George put on one of his tapes of lute music. She turned with the steaming mug in her hands and inhaled the combination of paint and incense in the air. “You said LynTech used that loft sometimes when their people came to town?”

“Yeah,” George said, studying his painting, hands on his hips and his head cocked to one side. “They’ve got it set up so they can work without ever seeing the light of day,” he said. “I hear they’ll need it with all that stuff going on at LynTech.”

“What stuff?” she asked.

“Something big, and I don’t mean that charity ball next month.” He looked away from his canvas and back at her. “Business intrigue that no one’s talking about.”

She crossed to the rope hammock by the fire escape window on the back wall and settled into it, cradling her tea. This was the way it had been whenever she was here with George, her sipping tea in the hammock, him with his painting. It felt good, even if she was twenty-eight years old. “What’s the big secret?”