"How would you know? Obviously you don't know me very well at all, Richard."
He shook his head. "With us, Sheridan, minutes are whole hours, hours whole days. I understand you better than I've understood any woman, and I'm intrigued far more than I've ever been. I want to know you better, but I feel I know you well. Now talk to me, Sheridan."
She shifted awkwardly in the chair. It was a remarkably comfortable piece of furniture, but she was uncomfortable, made so by the truth of Richard's statement and his eerie insight. Perhaps he was right. Perhaps their intense hours together had shown him more about her than she had meant to reveal.
"J.B. hired you, didn't he?"
She tugged at her sweater. "I'm getting hot."
"Didn't he, Sheridan?"
"Yes, all right! He did, and I don't blame him. He wants you out of his hair—that's all." She took a big gulp of ice tea. "I feel like a grilled swordfish. Anything else?"
"How much is he paying you?"
The man was relentless. "You think I'd take money—" She sighed, unable to complete the lie; obviously Richard had already guessed the truth. "Two hundred a day plus expenses."
"His two hundred plus my three hundred adds up to five hundred a day."
"You're brilliant, Richard."
"You're making a killing on us, aren't you?"
"If you both weren't so damned pigheaded and believed me when I say I don't want to do any more investigative work, I wouldn't be in this situation!"
"It's always easier to blame others for decisions we freely make."
"I didn't make any decision freely! How many times have I said I just want to find J.B., help him get out of whatever trouble he's in and go back to Boston? I can't help it if you don't believe me!"
"Sheridan, you're turning red. What are you doing in a sweater on a day like today?"
She set her glass down on the little white table beside her, stretched out in the chair and stared up at the sky. "Maalox," she said, "I need Maalox."
"I suggest you go below and put on one of my shirts before you collapse of heat prostration."
She eyed him. "I'll live."
He looked at her mildly, his-eyes gleaming. "Of course, I could drag you below myself and—"
"That I'd like to see!"
"There you go, cocky as hell. Sheridan, just because you caught me off guard once doesn't meant I can't haul your lovely behind down a few steps if I put my mind to it."
"Is that a threat, Mr. St. Charles?"
"I suggest you start moving."
Another of J.B. Weaver's axioms was don't push your luck. Sheridan got moving. She stepped over Richard's outstretched ankles, stopped and looked down at him. "You see? If I were reckless and impulsive, I'd call your bluff. However, I'm nothing if not prudent." She smiled, confident, maybe even cocky. "But don't follow me."
He smiled back, just as confident—and certainly cocky. "Is that a threat, Ms. Weaver?"
Without answering him, she turned on her heel and went below. His stateroom was easy enough to find— it was luxurious and dominated by a bed the size of Utah. She found a soft mauve-colored cotton shirt in a drawer and put it on the bed while she peeled off her sweater. The cool air of the stateroom relieved her overheated skin. She unhooked her front-clasp bra, exposing her breasts.
Just as at her apartment, she felt Richard's presence, but this time he didn't feel like an intruder, and when she turned, she wasn't ready to attack. He was leaning against the doorframe, watching her silently. She didn't scramble to reclasp her bra. His gaze fell from her eyes to her breasts, which were full and round, tingling from the coolness of the stateroom and the heat of his eyes. The nipples were pink and hard. She caught the two ends of the clasp.
"Don't," he said, but it wasn't a command. It was a request, a quiet, sensual plea.
She didn't, but refused to consider why. He moved toward her, gliding across the room, and his arms opened as he reached her. And she went to him.
First there was the feel of his body against hers, the warmth and hardness of his chest, the smooth, cool expanse of her stomach and back, the fullness of her soft breasts. Her muscles were well shaped, firm from years of exercise, and his hands reveled in touching her.
And then there was the feel of his mouth against hers and the sound of her own soft moan as her breath mingled with his. Her lips were already parted, precluding any chance to be falsely prim. Faced with her own fierce attraction, she couldn't exert what remained of her decimated willpower and rationality.
"You're just as beautiful as I had envisioned," he whispered into her mouth.
She molded herself to him, feeling the toughness of his long body, the desire he had for her. They could play mind games. They could argue and pretend. But their bodies cut right to the truth: she was a woman, he was a man, and they wanted each other more desperately than they had ever wanted anything or anyone.
His hands, warm and exciting, slid up her sides, angled between their bodies and cupped her breasts, teasing the buds of her nipples until she opened her mouth wider, responding to the primitive, erotic pulse of their kiss.
"We should have done this from the beginning," he said. "You wanted to. We both did."
"I didn't think you could tell. I thought you didn't care, not really."
"I do care."
He smiled, his hands brushing her breasts, then her sides, down to her hips. She could no longer feel the coolness of the stateroom. Her skin burned and her body ached. She was throbbing, swelling, with desire.
Richard's hands dropped to his sides. He said nothing; he didn't need to. He looked away, and she could see the way his jaw was clamped shut, steeling himself against himself. She knew how he felt. She turned quickly, clasping her bra and snatching up his shirt. She threw it on.
"It's okay," she said. "You can turn around."
He reached over and gently pulled her hair from inside the shirt, letting it tumble down her back. The shirt's shoulder seams drooped halfway to her elbows, and the hem came almost to her knees.
He stepped back, watching her. "Aren't you going to comment on my incredible self-restraint?"
"What self-restraint?" she said with a laugh. "If you had any self-restraint, Mr. Voyeur, you'd have stayed on deck!"
He grinned roguishly. "I wanted to see if you'd follow through on your threat."
"That's all?"
"No."
She grabbed her sweater and started past him, but he touched her elbow, stopping her. His eyes were black shadows, alive with bridled passion. Could he guess that his touch had set off new sparks inside her? The confident turn of his mouth, the angle of his jaw, the dark hair of his forearms, the sleekness of his body— everything about him seemed to demand a physical response. The kiss had titillated; it had not satisfied.
"Sheridan," he said, an urgency to that tough-tender voice, "I'll warn you now. I've exhausted whatever self- restraint I have. What I want to do, what I've wanted to do since I first saw you, is to grab you and make love to you until we're both too tired to do anything but sleep. Then we'll wake up and make love again. Do you understand, Sheridan? I don't give a damn about J.B. Weaver, and I don't give a damn about the necklace. I only give a damn about you, about us."
"I understand," she said, her lips suddenly parched.
By looking out across the bay and refusing even to glance at Richard, Sheridan slowly regained enough
professionalism to broach the subject of her father. Picking at her crab meat, she said, "J.B. searched your yacht to find the fake necklace and steal it back." She paused, though Richard apparently had nothing to say. So she resumed, recapping her conversation with her father without editorializing. Richard could draw his own conclusions.
Which he did. "Then you're still working for him."
"Well…"
"Yes, well."
His cold arrogant tone finally prompted Sheridan to turn and look at him. He was on his feet, slouched against the railing, his eyes lost in shadow. It was
all she could do to keep herself seated. A simpler alternative would have been to leap off the yacht and swim to Alaska. Her smile was more like a grimace. "I must irritate the hell out of you," she said.
"Sometimes." His face was expressionless. "But you always interest me more."
It was as if he were kissing her again. She could feel the heat of his mouth on hers and the hardness and excitement of his body molded to her. She had to look away quickly. "Of course I'll return your retainer and take myself off your case. I've seen J.B., talked to him and reported back to you. I've done all I'm going to do."
"Then you're going back to Boston?"
"No. I don't like any of this, Richard. I don't like it that my father was playing poker with Vincent D'Amours, I don't like it that he put up a fake necklace, I don't like it that he took your money. I don't like having unidentified thugs chasing him, and I don't like knowing he snuck onto your yacht in an effort to steal back a necklace that for all practical purposes is worthless."
"What do you propose to do?"
"Right now I'm not sure. J.B.'s no dummy, but I want answers. The key seems to be the necklace, doesn't it?"
"Yes. Did he ask you to steal it from me?"
She turned and looked at him. "For that I should toss you into the ocean."
Richard wasn't intimidated. "Did he, Sheridan?"
"He might have, but I told him I wouldn't do it."
"And I suppose I should applaud you?"
She put her plate on the table beside her. Why did she care what Richard St. Charles thought? Their kiss had been sexually exciting. Thrilling, in fact. A physical attraction, however, was not enough. He wanted her because she was different from what he was used to. That was all. "No," she replied coolly, "I'm not looking for accolades. You asked a question, and I answered it. I'm trying to be fair."
"Ah, I see. We have the MBA Sheridan Weaver at work here. Tell me, Ms. Weaver, would you like to see the necklace? Would you like to know where it is?"
Her fingers itched and her stomach burned, not with desire, but with ulcers. "I wouldn't bait me if I were you, Richard."
"If you were me." He was quietly sarcastic.
Certainly looking at him now was perfectly safe, given her annoyance. She glanced up, but she was wrong. Looking at him was just as dangerous as it had been from the beginning. This she found more disturbing than his sarcasm. She twisted her fingers together. "I'll give J.B. twenty-four hours. If he doesn't get in touch with me, I'm going after him."
He gave her an appraising look. "And what will you do in the meantime?"
She rose and gave him an appraising look. Two could play at his game. "Nothing."
Straightening from the railing, Richard surprised her with a rich, sensual laugh. She could have screamed in frustration. He should be predictable. He should be a toad. Of all people, Richard St. Charles shouldn't be caught up in one of her father's schemes.
"Then I'm on my own?" he asked, recovering his easygoing demeanor.
"Yes."
"If I get into trouble, you won't be there to swoop to my rescue?"
She looked at him levelly, trying to ignore the gentle flutter in her stomach. He was too attractive. "That's right. Therefore, I suggest you don't get into trouble. J.B. is worried that you could place yourself in danger if you continue to pursue this."
"Of course." He smiled thoughtfully, his mouth twisting to one side. "And naturally this has nothing whatsoever to do with what happened below?"
She looked at him levelly, but her hands were folded tightly across her stomach, trying to quell the churning there. More than her ulcer was acting up now. "Naturally," she managed.
"You're going to forget we ever kissed."
"I think that's best, yes."
"Good luck, darlin', because I don't think you can."
After taking her back to the club, he gave her a big grin and said, "Farewell, fair lady," and watched her stomp off.
On her way back to the city, she stopped at a drugstore and bought herself a bottle of Maalox.
After she had talked herself out of going up to D'Amours's place and asking him if he knew what J.B. was up to, Sheridan sat in her car outside J.B.'s Hyde Street office and squeezed the steering wheel in frustration. She would give J.B. the twenty-four hours, but she wasn't the type just to sit around and do nothing. What could she do?
"Follow Richard around," she said aloud.
Any sensible private investigator who wasn't emotionally involved would retain a healthy skepticism toward anything Richard St. Charles did or said. He had been in the D'Amours poker game. He had lent a stranger a hundred thousand dollars for an unappraised necklace. He had flown all the way to Boston to find the stranger's daughter and, he had hoped, the stranger. He still had the fake necklace that, for whatever reasons, the stranger now wanted back.
Of course, the stranger was her father, and Richard St. Charles wasn't just another rich gambler. Like it or not, she was emotionally involved. And she couldn't separate her emotions from what she chose to do. She didn't want to.
Somewhere, sometime, she had to take the risk of trusting.
"Difficult, difficult," she muttered. "But I'll do it. J.B. gets twenty-four hours, and I leave Richard to his own devices."
Sheridan climbed out of the car and slammed the door because she hated herself for being so damned honorable. She hated waiting. She hated putting herself in the background. Twenty-four hours! She'd go nuts.
Yet she had analyzed the situation, and this was the appropriate thing to do.
She walked over to Union Street and went shopping, buying several less conservative skirts and dresses to add to the small wardrobe she had brought from Boston. J.B. might be back with an explanation tomorrow, but she didn't hold out much hope of that. And she didn't want her movements hindered by lack of clean clothes: her motto was always be prepared. The black silk dinner dress she tried on at an expensive boutique, however, had no functional use. She could just imagine herself wearing it to dinner at an elegant San Francisco restaurant with Richard.
She bought it, putting it on her credit card and ignored the financial analyst in her screaming that she had just blown her budget all to hell.
Wanting an immediate metamorphosis, she used the boutique's dressing room, changed into another dress she'd bought, tore off the tags, did her hair and dragged herself and her bags to a nearby restaurant. She dined in peace, but alone… and found herself remembering how much she loved this warm lively city. Why had it never seemed so romantic to her before? She smiled to herself, thinking of Richard.
It was dark when she headed back to J.B.'s office, and she was proud of herself for having resisted the urge to meddle further in her father's affairs.
But when she put down her bags in the hall to fish her keys out of her purse, her self-congratulation disappeared in a flood of guilt, panic and trepidation.
The door to J.B.'s office had been jimmied open.
She entered cautiously, making sure, as she suspected, that no one was inside. Light from the street angled in through the windows, casting an eerie glow over the quiet ransacked rooms. She flipped on a light. The drawers of Lucy's desk were open, files scattered on the floor, everything thoroughly, messily, searched. In J.B.'s office and his rooms the damage was worse. Chairs upended. Cushions askew. Papers everywhere. Even the personal contents of his closet and bureaus had been tossed around, searched. And his kitchen cabinets, his food, his refrigerator. A box of linguine had been spilled on the floor.
Holding the telephone with a dishcloth, Sheridan called Lucille Stein's home number. "Lucy… you're all right? You weren't here…"
"Sheridan?" Concern registered instantly in her voice. "I'm fine. What's wrong?"
"Someone's gone through the office."
"I'll be right over."
"No… no, that's all right. There's nothing that won't keep until morning." She looked at the destruction around her. No, there was nothing they could do tonight. "I just wanted to mak
e sure you weren't here when whoever did this showed up."
"I wasn't," Lucy said with assurance.
Sheridan nodded absently. "I'm glad. I think… I should call the police."
"And tell them what?"
"I don't know. I… don't know."
She hung up and dialed a friend of hers in the police department, a Lieutenant George Davis. "Well, hello there," he said in his cheerful bass. "I heard you were back in town. What's up?"
"Someone's broken into J.B.'s office. I thought you might want to have a look around before I clean the place up."
"Me and a couple of lab boys will be right over."
While she waited, Sheridan resisted the urge to phone Richard. If she reached him, he would insist on coming over, and she didn't want that. Friend that he was, George Davis had a sharp, suspicious mind. He would want to know what a wealthy San Franciscan like Richard St. Charles was doing in JB. Weaver's ransacked office. For the moment Sheridan didn't want to tell him, not until she heard from J.B.
A wiry, intelligent, red-faced, twenty-year veteran of the San Francisco Police Department, George Davis wasn't the least bit horrified by the mess in J.B. Weaver's office. He had seen it all before. "These guys were pretty thorough, weren't they," he said dryly. "Any ideas, Sheridan?"
"Me? No, uh-uh. I'm just home for a visit."
"Are you now?"
She pointed to her shopping bags. "I was out shopping when this must have happened."
"I see. And where's your dad?"
"Pop? Oh, he's out of town. On a case."
"Ah. Anything this might be related to?"
"I doubt it."
The lieutenant frowned. "Just want us to dust for prints and depart, huh?"
"1 don't have anything for you, George. If I did, I'd tell you."
"Yeah," he said doubtfully. "Right. Know what these guys were looking for?"
"Petty cash, I would think."
"In a box of linguine?"
Sheridan prudently said nothing.
The lab boys did a cursory dusting for prints, gathered up their things and left. It wasn't that big a case: private investigator's offices searched. It happened all the time. Yet Davis lingered, his arms folded across his chest as he looked his menacing best. "Hear you've been seen around town with Richard St. Charles."
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