Love on the Edge: Nine Shades of Romantic Suspense, page 69
Chapter Nineteen
Alice looked rested when Matt opened the solid wood door for her. She’d gone casual with jeans and soft boots. Matt was glad she’d left the heels at home. Made his feet hurt just looking at her. Right now his feet were the only thing that didn’t hurt. He noticed she held a couple of bags and a white pastry box. His brows arched.
“Breakfast?”
“It is the most important meal of the day.” She looked past him, then asked softly, “When did she get here?”
“Last night.” He nodded for her to proceed down the hall.
“Really?” Her brows arched as she stepped past him.
He resisted the compulsion to explain for two whole heartbeats. “She was hammered. Didn’t think she could handle a full court press. Fell asleep before the coffee was done.”
He didn’t finish with, “Satisfied,” but it was implied. Alice wasn’t the only one who could look what she was thinking.
She grinned. “Sorry. I was just a little surprised. I thought this was a female-free zone for the brothers Kirby.”
“It is, but even we have to occasionally allow free passage,” he waited a beat, “since our mom is a woman.”
Her grin turned cheeky. “Thank her for plowing the field for those of us who aren’t related.”
“I will.” Matt stepped back so she could pass him, then followed her into the living room.
Dani was leaning against the window frame in an unconsciously provocative pose, looking down on the street with a pensive expression. It was as pleasing as all the other expressions he had seen on her face. The light behind her emphasized all the things his robe didn’t hide. “Probably not a good idea to show yourself in a window.”
She turned, pensive giving way for fear before she could bury it again. If his mom had been here, she would have given him a look. Since she wasn’t, Alice did it for him. She didn’t need to. He had finally found an expression he didn’t like on Dani’s face.
“If my neighbors see you in my window,” he said, “wearing my robe, at this time of day, it’ll raise my stock hereabouts and Alice wouldn’t like it.”
Payback was immediate and almost more than he, or his detachment, could handle when she smiled, holding nothing back. It opened her face, her eyes, and just for a minute, her heart. That gratitude was the main component didn’t lessen the impact.
“I wouldn’t want to make Alice unhappy.” Her gaze shifted to Matt’s companion and turned curious. She had heard their low voiced conversation, the apartment was small after all, and she couldn’t help but wonder about the woman Matt had such comfortable relationship with. She held out her hand. “You must be Alice.”
“And you’re, Dani.” They shook hands, studying each other with veiled curiosity. Dani liked what she saw. It appeared that Alice did, too, when her smile expanded. “Nice to finally catch up with you.”
Dani laughed. “I guess I should apologize for being such a pain in the butt.”
“But you won’t.”
“No. I learned in divorce court to never apologize.”
Alice grinned. “A nicer way of saying that men are always wrong. I’ll have to remember that.”
Matt remembered why he hated being in a room with two women. It was like finding yourself alone with aliens, trying to figure out what they were saying and knowing all the time that you never would.
“Alice is a fan,” he said. To his annoyance, they both looked at him like he had said something lame, then exchanged looks. He hated it when women did that, the main reason why he would only have one of them at a time on his team.
“Alice brought you some clothes,” he said, handing Dani the sack he had taken from Alice.
“And I thought you might be in need of sustenance. Bachelor pads are known to be devoid of the creature comforts.” Alice held up the white box she had brought with her.
“I fed her,” Matt protested. They ignored him.
“I hope that’s what I think it is,” Dani said, getting that look of anticipation that was so hard on his parts.
“If you think its pastries, your hope is not in vain.”
“I guess you’ve been reading my file, too.”
She didn’t seem to mind that Alice had been poking in her life, Matt noticed.
“They probably aren’t as good as you can get in New Orleans, but I think you’ll find them quite palatable.”
Dani peeked in the box Alice held out. “Oh yes. This is very good. I think we’re going to be friends, Alice.”
Matt looked at Dani. “You can’t be hungry.”
Dani and Alice exchanged another one of those looks, then Dani said, “If I only ate when I was hungry, I’d never eat.” She scooped out a treat. “I’ll just take this with me while I go change.”
He couldn’t argue with her. He needed her to get out of his robe before he imploded. He had a strict, non-implosion policy around Alice. She would enjoy seeing him in coyote position a little too much. Besides, it was time to get down to business. He didn’t like it any better this time around. “Why don’t you help her, Alice. I’m gonna call Anderson.”
She nodded, her gaze meeting his for a brief, pointed moment. She was a smart girl. She understood he wanted her take on Dani’s state of mind.
He shouldn’t have, but he watched Dani leave. Then he went and found a cold beer to down before he made his call.
*
Dani changed, then ate her pastry. While her palate enjoyed flaky pastry and rich filling, her thoughts circled like a vulture waiting for that last gasping breath from a dying corpse. It was an interesting sensation. “You married, Alice?”
“I was.” Alice sat down in the chair. “Divorce is a bitch, isn’t it?”
“Yeah.” Dani stretched her legs out, missing the soft silk of Matt’s robe sliding across her skin, the heat of his eyes even more. She didn’t know how cold she had been until now. “How long for you?”
“Two years.”
“Eight for me.” She and Steven had tried to keep it going after Meggie died, but it was hard to keep anything going with liquor playing third wheel. And Steven had needed the time to make sure they had no community property to divide. “You started dating yet?”
“A little. My job gets in the way.” Alice was quiet. “You were young when you divorced?”
Dani shook her head. “I was young when I married, but old when we divorced.”
It was good to remember this now, good to remember the flip side of love and desire. Good to remember how bad love felt when it was dying. Was it just a sign of the times or a product of their short attention span society, she wondered. People used to stay in love longer. Course they used to live shorter.
“Your books are about love,” Alice said. “I’ve only read one, but I really liked the way the characters found hope when they found each other.” She looked rueful. “Almost made me want to give love another crack.”
“Almost. Let’s face it, the older we get, the slimmer the pickings.” Her smile was as rueful as Alice’s. “In the eight years I’ve been single, I’ve had close contact with, maybe ten guys.”
“Ten is good. That’s almost a dozen,” Alice pointed out.
“Really?” Dani started counting down. “Six of them I made up. Two turned out to be killers. One’s a married biker—”
Dani stopped counting and looked at the lone finger still up.
Alice chuckled. “And number ten? Any hope there?”
Dani sighed. “Him?”
A lonesome, mountain climbing lawman and a romance writer who was afraid of heights might work in fiction—if the fiction was paranormal so that a liberal dose of magic could be stirred in—but this was real life. She wrote fiction, she didn’t live it. She looked at Alice.
“He’s a man. The odds aren’t good.”
*
Where was Willow?
The game was different this time, and yet almost the same, Hayes thought, trying to hold back frustration that would only confuse his thinking. He was hunting, but not for blood. Not this time. Now he searched for the other half of his heart.
He could feel her out there, but he couldn’t pinpoint her yet. Soon, very soon he would have a fix. It was harder this time. He couldn’t use his usual contacts. Whatever fear they had of him would evaporate in the scent of all the money on his head right now.
Maybe he shouldn’t have put the contract out on Orsini. He was pretty far up the food chain. Rattled the cages of some pretty serious sharks. The big ones didn’t like it when their biters bit them. Hubris wasn’t just a problem the Greeks had.
He grinned. “It’s a fine thing to rise above pride, but you must have pride in order to do so.”
If he couldn’t find Willow the usual way, he would find her the unusual way. He would feel his way to her on his hands and knees if he had to.
The real test of a man is not how well he plays the role he has invented for himself, he recalled, but how well he plays the role that destiny assigned to him.
Their destiny was to live—or die—together. For them both, he would play the role assigned to him.
*
Matt’s face was grim when Dani and Alice joined him in the living room. What tiny bit of warm she had been able to hold onto turned to ice when he told her why. She wrapped her arms around her middle, but didn’t help. Inside, with a snap so loud, she was surprised Matt and Alice didn’t hear it, Willow failed to bend. She didn’t break. Not yet. She cracked. A prelude to breaking. With no shock to cushion her against the ugly realities of circumstances.
Meggie was dead.
Steven was a drunk who wanted her dead.
Richard, who’d wanted her dead, was dead.
Spook was Dark Lord.
He wanted her dead, too—
A ripple of disquiet wound in, the sense she was missing something important…
Soon, Willow. Soon you’ll understand.
It was just a dream, she told herself, but the feeling didn’t go away. She looked at Matt. He looked strong and hard and very far away.
“What’s happened?” It surprised her how steady, how calm her voice sounded. She must be a better actress than she had realized.
He looked at Alice before he spoke. There was something familiar about the look that they exchanged. She couldn’t figure out why.
“They found McBride.”
“I…” Dani swallowed dryly, “didn’t know he was missing.”
“He wasn’t,” Alice said reluctantly.
Now she placed the exchange of looks. They were the precursor to bad news; the silent asking of, “How do we tell her? Can she take it?”
Dani sank onto the desk chair, her back straight, her feet together, hands not clenched in her lap but only by supreme effort. “How?” She didn’t look at Matt.
He didn’t hesitate. “Throat cut.”
There was no softness in his voice. Dani was grateful. Right now she needed him to be as hard as the rock he climbed. A hint of softness and she’d shatter like glass.
“Why?”
This time Matt hesitated. “I don’t know.” He looked at Alice. “Someone hit Orsini, too. Word on the street is Hayes bankrolled it.”
Alice frowned. “Wasn’t Orsini bankrolling the hit on Bates and David?”
“That was the general consensus.”
“Well, this is getting too weird.” Alice turned away from them and slid onto a stool, propping an elbow on the counter. “Who’s left besides Copeland who may or may not care now that he won’t get paid?”
Matt opened his mouth, but it was Dani who spoke.
“Spook. And me.” She hadn’t known all the players in Richard’s little drama, but it didn’t seem to matter, since they had all been taken out. “Spook and me.”
Dani didn’t like where her thoughts were going.
“What?” Matt asked, his voice and gaze going sharp as they honed in on her.
For the first time since she had found out who Spook really was, Dani opened her memory and took out her three meetings with him and asked herself, with no awareness she spoke aloud, “Why didn’t he kill me when he had the chance? Twice, he didn’t do it. Why?”
She looked up at Matt, her hand on a throat that still showed the marks of one meeting. “He could have so easily. But he didn’t. He just wanted to know..about…”
“About what, Dani?” Matt crouched in front of her. If she really had a line into Hayes head, they needed to know. “What did he want to know?”
She licked her lips. A small kick of desire tried to get a foot hold in his concentration, but he wouldn’t let it.
“He wanted to know about Willow.”
“But,” Matt stood up. This wasn’t what he’d expected. “He had to know you were Willow.”
“No,” Dani shook her head, “he didn’t. When I asked him how he knew I was Willow, he went nuts. The first time he left. Then in the alley, he practically howled. That’s when I got him with the pepper spray. And hit him.”
Her pride was so apparent, Matt grinned, but it faded as her words sank in. “But if he didn’t know you were the Willow he was chatting with…”
“…why did he want to meet me at the mall?” Dani finished. “I don’t think I want to know.” She stood up and paced away. Then turned to face Matt, her face, her eyes asking him to give her an answer she could live with.
Matt didn’t have one. “This is nuts. This can’t be.”
“Dani,” Alice said, “when Hayes asked you out the first time after you met him, what did you think?”
She hesitated. “I thought he was girl.” She managed a brief, rueful smile. “He was a little too sensitive to be real, if you know what I mean?”
Alice smiled. “I know what you mean.” She sobered, looked at Matt. “This could get interesting.”
Matt opened his mouth to blast the whole idea, then closed it. How could he assert that Hayes couldn’t fall for Dani without seeing her? He might not like it, but he couldn’t deny that he had felt something looking at her picture the first time. After he had chatted with her, felt the charm in her written words bridge the space that divided them, it had gotten worse. Hayes hadn’t seen her in a silk bathrobe, but with his imagination, he didn’t need to.
“Have you noticed,” he asked slowly, “what Hayes hasn’t been doing since he found out you were Willow?”
Dani started to shake her head, then stopped, her body tensing as her thoughts spun through her wide green eyes.
“That’s right,” he said, grimly, “no email. No threats.” To Alice he added, “We’ve got to get her out of here.”
Alice started to agree. Dani started to disagree.
Matt held up his hand and opened his mouth, but they all froze when they heard someone at the door.
It was like watching a ballet, Dani thought, seeing them go into action together. No need for words. Each knew what their steps were. Did them with a minimum of fuss. Guns were pulled and checked. “At ready” positions taken on either side of the hall opening. In the silence, the soft creak of the door as it swung open was audible. As were the measured beat of masculine footsteps coming down the hall.
Chapter Twenty
A cheerful whistle made a counterpoint for the footsteps and took the tense from Matt’s shoulders. He lowered his gun. Alice, still on alert, looked a question.
“Luke,” Matt said briefly, shoving his weapon back in the holster.
“The big brother,” Dani said. “I forgot to tell you he called.”
Luke stopped in the doorway. He also filled the doorway, Dani noted. He seemed determined to take his “big brother” designation to its physical limits. Their relationship was obvious, he looked very much like Matt, though he topped him by about four inches and was less closed, more cheerful in aspect. Hands on his hips he looked at Alice, who still had her gun trained on him, gave her an appreciative once over and said, “I guess I need to quit threatening a federal agent.”
Dani exchanged a delighted glance with Alice, who stowed her gun.
“I forgot to give him the message,” Dani admitted, pulling his dark gaze, so like Matt’s and yet so not like him, her direction.
“You must be Louise.” His eyes registered curiosity first, then approval. “Nice to meet you in the flesh.”
Richard Sheridan, the attorney prosecuting Richard’s case had said something far less controversial during a deposition and she had wanted to go shower. Delivery, Dani decided as she grinned at him, was everything. “I can only concur.”
Matt might have choked. It was hard to tell. When Dani looked at him, his face was still locked up tight.
Alice extended a hand. “Alice Paysse. I work with Matt.”
Luke took her hand and gave it a pat. “Lucky Matt.”
“He doesn’t always think so,” Alice admitted, a smile lighting her face.
“I got a situation breaking here, okay?” the subject of their conversation snapped.
Luke sighed. It was a huge sigh. He couldn’t do small sighs with his big barrel of a chest, Dani decided. Somehow he managed to look mournful and abused. “Why do I have the nasty feeling I’m about to be stood up again?”
*
Hayes stared at the computer screen with a frown. His tap into the security system at the federal building was proving to be a less-than-rich mine of information. No sign of Willow anywhere. It didn’t make sense. She had to be with them. He had done a city sweep of his contacts just before they cut him off. She was out of the cold and in care. He was sure of it.
Had they already moved her to a safe house? It was possible. If they had, they had moved fast, even for them. The Marshals had protected Willow and for that he was reluctant to strike against them. In a strange way, they had become allies, though they didn’t know it yet. Of course, if they kept her from him, he would take them out one by one.
They couldn’t be allowed to interfere.
No one could interfere.
He was a patient man, but his patience was running out,no, it was turning into pain. So much pain, he could hardly think his way through it. He couldn’t sleep, couldn’t eat. Only thoughts of Willow, of being with her, kept him going. He had to find her before the pain won the game. She had to complete the pattern with him. It was the only way to save them both. If he failed…
