Free Secrets in the Stone by Radclyffe Page B

looking up into Adrian’s face. “I should go.”
    “But you’ll be back, right?” Adrian had no idea why, but the answer to that question was more important than anything else she could think of.
    “I will.”
    “Be careful, then.”
    Adrian watched her walk away, enjoying the fit of her jeans over her tight backside and the way her mahogany hair curled along the edges of her cap. Her fingertips tingled as if the soft strands played over her skin even now, and her loins tightened in pleasant anticipation. Even as she welcomed the desire teasing in her depths, she recognized her reaction as completely foreign to anything in her experience and completely beyond her control. Fearing the intensity of her response, she went inside and firmly closed the door, leaving her wildly unpredictable emotions outside with the woman responsible for them.

    *

    “Did you know her from before?” Dominic grabbed one end of the extension ladder and hefted it onto his shoulder as Rooke did the same.
    “No.” Rooke forged a path through the knee-deep, unblemished snow toward the right side of the house where the fallen tree had wrought havoc. She was still trying to figure out why being around Adrian had her wanting to do things she’d never done before. On rare occasions she shared her sculptures with her grandfather, but he had probably only seen a fraction of the work she’d done over the years. Emma, the one human being she was intimate with, had never seen a single one. The grave markers that Adrian had asked to see were important to her, but they were designed for the public. She knew as she created them they would eventually be on display. Even though she brought all of her skill and imagination to those carvings, they weren’t personal the way her sculptures were. If her sculptures were ever revealed, she would be too. Exposed and defenseless, something she had vowed since childhood never to be.
    “She seemed to know you,” Dominic persisted.
    “I told you, I looked at the roof last night.” Rooke braced the bottom of the aluminum ladder in the snow and jockeyed it from side to side, making sure it was well seated on the frozen ground.
    “Is she married?”
    “I don’t know,” Rooke said, her chest tightening. For no reason she could imagine, she didn’t want Dominic anywhere near Adrian Oakes. Dominic was a good guy. He worked hard. He treated his men respectfully. He had befriended Rooke when no one else had. He’d first started working on the Stillwater grounds with his father’s landscaping crew. They’d both been eleven. Over the years, they’d developed an undemanding, comfortable friendship. He was easygoing and nonjudgmental and never seemed to want anything from her except simple company. They didn’t talk about their personal lives, although Rooke wouldn’t have had much to discuss if they had. She certainly wouldn’t have told him about Emma, who had worked as a bookkeeper at the cemetery for twenty years, and was known to everyone, including Dominic. When she’d first realized she wasn’t attracted to Dominic or any of the guys she saw around Stillwater, she kept the knowledge to herself, uncertain what to do. Then she’d noticed Emma, really noticed her. After months of flirtation, Emma had noticed her interest and tried to talk to her. Rooke hadn’t wanted to talk, she’d wanted to touch her, and Emma had let her. The rest had come naturally, and she’d been satisfied with the occasional pleasure of pleasing Emma.
    Just the same, when she thought about Dominic asking Adrian for a date, her whole body grew hot and she wanted to demand he stay away from her. The reaction was totally unfamiliar and completely confusing. The only other thing she’d ever felt so proprietary about was her work.
    “You want to go up or hold the ladder?” Rooke asked, needing to do what she had come to do and forget about the disquieting feelings she couldn’t explain.
    “Why don’t you go. You’re the