Quinn closed the bureau drawers. He supposed that for all intents and purposes it wasn’t. Only one woman had come close to taming him, although even now he questioned whether it had been the sex with Yolanda, rather than the beginnings of love, that had made him think they had a future. He rubbed his chin with his forefinger, realizing that he was staring at Dulcy. And that his attention was making her hot and bothered.
She turned from the bed and switched on the light in the master bath. “How about me? What did Brad say about me?”
“Nothing.”
She swiveled to face him. “Nothing?”
He shrugged and crossed his arms over his chest. He’d already gone through the master bathroom. He’d found it strange that there weren’t any women’s toiletries in there, not even an extra toothbrush. Strange for a man about to get married. Yolanda had basically taken over his house the instant he let her into it. Why hadn’t Dulcy done the same with Brad?
“He told me he was getting married.”
“That’s it?”
“Yeah, that’s about the extent of it.” He shrugged again. “We haven’t really had a chance to get together lately. You know, talk things out man to man. That’s why I came into town a week before the wedding. So we could do that.”
Dulcy gripped the side of the doorjamb. “Didn’t you think it unusual that he didn’t say anything about me?”
He hadn’t been completely honest. Brad had said one additional thing to him. That Dulcy’s family was loaded. But considering the situation, he wasn’t about to impart that bit of info to Dulcy.
“Why the name Dee?” he found himself asking out of nowhere.
She froze in the doorway, looking everywhere but into his face. She hadn’t buttoned her suit jacket. It hung open to reveal the way the white silky material of her blouse clung to her breasts. Even from here he could tell the tips were engorged, pressing against the confining material, begging for release. His gaze trailed down to her bare legs and the way she held them tightly together. If he’d had any doubts before about whether she’d replaced her missing panties, he didn’t now. Only a woman turned on and bare under her skirt would squeeze her thighs together so tightly she could have cracked a walnut.
“Um, Jena and Marie used to call me Dee when we were kids.” A small laugh. “I used to hate my name. Dee…well, Dee could have been the short form of any name. Deborah. Denise. Deedee.”
Just like the woman in front of him could be any woman.
“Dulcy’s a pretty name.”
She crossed her arms over her chest. He didn’t miss her small shiver. But whether it was from the cold of the air-conditioning, or from his presence, he couldn’t be sure. And it was better that he didn’t find out.
“Would you have known who I was if I told you my real name?” Her eyes blinked and looked directly into his.
He didn’t know what she was looking for. Absolution, maybe? Or perhaps simple understanding. Whatever the motivation for the question, the answer appeared important to her.
“It’s an unusual name, Dulcy.” He grinned. “But I don’t think it would have made a difference. That night…well, you could have told me you were Julia Roberts and I wouldn’t have put the name together with the actress.”
She stared at him for a moment, color rising high on her cheeks before she looked away. Her gaze fell on the bed. Quinn’s gaze followed. How easy it would be just to back her up against the mattress, slide up that skirt of hers and re-create certain scenes from Friday night.
The strains of Beethoven wound through the house. Quinn grimaced and looked toward the hallway.
“Expecting someone?” Dulcy asked.
He shook his head. “Just Brad. But I don’t think he’d use the doorbell.” He looked back at her. “Do you?”
“No.”
He crossed to the closed curtains. The suite overlooked the well-manicured street. He immediately spotted a white van with some sort of lettering on the side parked right behind a silver SUV in the driveway. Dulcy’s more than likely. Quinn had parked outside the compound and gained access via a more private route, in case someone was watching the place.
He glanced over his shoulder at her. “Looks like a delivery.”
“A delivery?” She came to stand next to him, and tried to make out the lettering. “A florist?”
Quinn grimaced. “Maybe he has fresh flowers delivered once a week?” Lord knows, that’s the way Beatrix operated. The Wheeler estate on the outskirts of Albuquerque smelled like a funeral home, which was fitting, since the majority of the inhabitants were emotionally dead, anyway.
Dulcy shook her head, the movement pushing the sweet scent of oranges his way. What was it with her and smelling like fruit? And never the same fruit. This morning she’d smelled like bananas. Quinn resisted the urge to breath the new scent in as his gaze scanned her. All he had to do was reach out a hand…
“Well, do you think we should get it?” she asked.
“I assumed you would answer the door. You are Brad’s fiancée. The one with the key to let herself in.”
She winced. He frowned. He took no true enjoyment out of taunting her that way. Although he had no idea why the idea of being engaged to Brad would make Dulcy wince, he could count off at least half a dozen reasons why he wished she wasn’t.
She left behind the scent of oranges as she left the room for downstairs.
QUINN WAS GOING TO BE the death of her. She knew it already. Dulcy tightly gripped the stair handrail to keep herself from toppling to the floor below. Not just because of the height of her heels. But because Quinn had virtually turned her knees to Jell-O. Jell-O he would use that decadent mouth of his to eat off.
She stood before the front door and took a deep breath, then pulled open the door.
The deliveryman swiveled from where he’d had his back to her, a vase full of water lilies in his arms. In his mid to late thirties, he looked too big, too beefy, too swarthy to be a flower delivery guy.
“Yeah, I got a delivery for Wheeler.”
“I’m Dulcy Ferris, Mr. Wheeler’s fiancée.” She stretched out her hands. “I’ll be happy to accept.”
The guy made no secret of trying to look around her into the house. “I got express instructions to give these to no one but Mr. Wheeler.”
“I’m sorry,” Dulcy said slowly, automatically moving to prevent further inspection of the house. “Mr. Wheeler is…unavailable at the moment. You’re going to have to leave them with me.”
The guy took a step back. “Sorry, ma’am, but that ain’t gonna happen.”
Ma’am? Had he just called her ‘ma’am’?
“I’ve got to deliver these directly to Wheeler myself. Is he around? Where is he?”
Dulcy swallowed. Well, that was the question of the hour, wasn’t it. Where was Brad?
“Is he here?”
Dulcy squinted at him, for the second time thinking that he didn’t look like any kind of flower deliveryman she’d ever seen. Furniture mover, maybe. Or someone in construction. He looked like an ex-con who had spent the past five years lifting nothing but iron. Which might very well be why he was delivering flowers. Jena dealt with these kinds of guys all the time. They were sprung from jail and had to do a brief stint in a regular paying job as part of their parole agreement. And the fact was that many ex-cons had never held a regular job in their lives, leaving them with myriad minimum-wage positions to choose from. She supposed delivering flowers was more attractive than flipping burgers at a fast-food joint.
She glanced over her shoulder to where Quinn stood at the top of the stairs, looking on. She felt safe enough saying, “No, unfortunately Mr. Wheeler’s not home at the moment.” She reached for the flowers again. “But I’d be more than happy—”
“When will he be home?”
Dulcy sputtered, “I—I don’t know.”
The guy practically ripped the vase from her hands. “I’ll come back, then.”
Dulcy stood staring after him in unve
iled shock as he made his way back to the van.
“What was that about?” Quinn asked, coming to stand next to her.
“I’m not sure.” The van marked Manny’s Flowers backed out of the driveway, then drove toward the security gates. “He had a flower delivery for Brad but refused to leave them with me.”
“Strange.”
“That’s what I thought.”
He narrowed his eyes. “Could he have been one of those singing telegram performers?”
Dulcy grimaced at him. “I don’t think so.”
“Yeah, I don’t think so, either.”
As Dulcy watched the van disappear from sight down the winding street, she remembered she was supposed to meet with the upscale florist she’d chosen to outfit her wedding. She glanced at her watch. An hour overdue. But the question wasn’t whether she should call and reschedule. It was whether there was going to be a wedding at all.
She stepped to the hall table and picked up her purse. Moments later she was on her cell phone with Mona, asking the secretary to reschedule the florist appointment. She watched in the gilt-edged wall mirror as Quinn stepped into the dining room behind her, giving her a clean view of his backside in his soft black jeans. Saliva gathered at the back of her throat. What she wouldn’t give to be that denim, hugging his tush to perfection.
“Is that it?” Mona asked.
Dulcy cleared her throat and tore her gaze from the mirror. “Yes, that will do, Mona. Thank you.”
She pressed the disconnect button and returned the phone to her purse. Her gaze caught on the mail she’d laid on the table. She picked it up again and leafed through it. Four pieces of junk mail and two bills. Nothing ground-shaking there. She had moved to put the envelopes back down, when a business card caught her eye. The glossy black rectangle blended nicely against the swirled black marble tabletop. But it was the neon pink lettering that stood out. Pink Lady Lounge.
“Well, there’s nothing here. I’m going to head out.”
Dulcy started, then turned to face Quinn where he stood in the open doorway. She calmly slipped the card into the front pocket of her purse. “Yes. I, um, better get going, too.”
He held open the door and motioned for her to precede him. Dulcy did, trying not to notice the fresh tang of his cologne, the heat of his body. God, but were guys like him born with that incredible magnetic quality? She shivered despite the bright midday sun as she hurried for her car.
“Dulcy?”
She swiveled to stare at him.
“Don’t worry. We’ll find Brad.”
Her throat completely closed up. Simply because just now that had been the last thing on her mind.
She nodded and climbed into her car.
7
QUINN HADN’T THOUGHT that Brad had it in him. He claimed one of the stools at the black linoleum-topped bar that stretched the length of the Pink Lady Lounge. Sweat, cigarette smoke and beer choked the air, while the square tile mirrors on the wall behind the bar reflected the liquor bottles set in front of them and the colored flashing lights focused on the stage behind him. As he ordered up a brew, he tried to imagine one proper-heeled, well-groomed Bradley Wheeler III in a seedy joint like this. A black stripper had her bare bottom turned to a customer and was doing a grind only strippers knew how to do, her white G-string leaving very little to the imagination. Not that the customer had a problem with it. Probably a salesman, Quinn decided, eyeing the guy’s cheap green polyester suit, balding pate and personal beer keg around his middle. A beefy hand tucked a crumpled, sweaty bill into the stripper’s string and tried to cop a feel. The stripper easily swayed away from his grope and focused her attention on a customer on the other side of the stage. The base-heavy, pulsating music made conversation all but impossible. Which was the point. The owner only wanted the customers buying the overpriced drinks and food and keeping their attention on the girls working the floor in their fringed shorts and pasties. Of course, if the girls also did a little something on the side…
Quinn took a slug of beer and motioned for the bartender—a woman he guessed had probably been up on that stage herself until a few years ago. Her longish red hair was too brassy to be real as she tilted her head nearer so she could hear him.
“I’m looking for somebody,” he said.
She pulled back and smiled, drying a beer glass with a white towel. “Aren’t we all, honey.”
“Yes, but I’m interested in one person in particular. Maybe you know him.” He fished in his pocket for the picture Beatrix’s henchman Bruno had given him at the Wheeler offices earlier that morning. The photo was of the specially commissioned oil portrait of Brad that was displayed in the Wheeler Industries lobby. He flashed the five-by-seven at the tender. She frowned.
“Figures. The first interesting guy in weeks that comes into the joint is interested in playing for the other guys.”
Quinn chuckled. “Trust me. It’s not like that.”
“Sure it isn’t.” She sighed and set the clean glass down on the counter behind the bar. She’d barely given the photo a glance. “You seen how dark this place is? I couldn’t tell you if Clinton himself had been in here.”
“Uh-huh.” Quinn glanced at the photo, folded it and put it back in his pocket.
The outer door opened to his left, letting in a shaft of dim, early evening light. He was aware of someone walking up to stand next to him, and the bartender looked in that direction. He reached for his wallet, wondering how much he had there and how much it would take to get her to talk.
“Well, la-de-da. A little fancy for these parts, aren’t you, sweetie?” The bartender said to the new arrival, a smirk on her face. “Open auditions are at eight every Thursday.”
“I’m…I’m not here to audition,” a familiar female voice said with obvious hesitation.
The bartender rolled her eyes. “Another switch-hitter,” she said and put her hands on her hips. “What’ll it be?”
“Be? Oh. To drink. Just give me an iced tea.”
The bartender raised a penciled-in brow.
Quinn tossed a couple of bills onto the bar. “Get her a double shot of tequila.”
The bartender moved to fill the order. Quinn looked at the woman next to him. “You saw the card, too, huh?” he asked one very antsy-looking Dulcy.
She pulled at her suit jacket so tightly she probably cut off circulation. Her eyes bulged as she stared at the gyrating stripper on the oval stage. Quinn glanced in the mirror to find the black woman doing interesting things with the metal pole that stretched from stage to ceiling. Dulcy stood transfixed for several minutes, until the announcer, a thickset guy off stage right, said, “Let’s have a big hand for Ebony, everybody.”
Half of the ten or so men around the stage applauded, and the girl sashayed toward the pink fringe curtains at the back.
Dulcy was so pale that Quinn was afraid she might pass out. He pulled out the stool next to him. She immediately took it, her eyes practically ready to pop out onto the bar in front of her. The bartender put her drink in front of her, and Dulcy downed it. Her coughing fit told him she had forgotten what he’d ordered. She dragged the back of her hand across her mouth, then stared at the limb in horror.
“First time at a strip joint?” Quinn asked.
She nodded emphatically and asked the bartender to bring her a glass of water. Quinn upgraded it to a cola, knowing the water would never appear, then asked for a refill of Dulcy’s shot glass.
“Oh, no, thank you,” she said.
Quinn nodded for the bartender to bring the drink. Whether Dulcy drank it or not was her decision, but you couldn’t stay in a place like this unless you had a drink in front of you.
The instant her shot glass was refilled, Dulcy touched the bartender’s arm and launched into what he’d done right before she entered, although the picture of Brad she had was a shot of her and him on what looked like a golf course. He grimaced and drank more beer than he had intended.
Dulcy sighed when she didn�
�t get any further than he had with the brassy redhead. And he was coming to think no amount of money would improve her memory. Dulcy slowly slid the photo back into her purse, then looked around the seedy interior of the bar, taking in the men seated around small dented tables, the empty stage. “Do you really think Brad came here?” she practically croaked.
Quinn eyed her pale face. “Shocking, huh?”
Her gaze finally rested on him, but only briefly. She licked her lips, then re-routed her hand from where it automatically reached for the shot and picked up the cola instead. “I didn’t think he was, um, that type of guy.”
Quinn paid for the additional drink. “He and I have been friends for more than twenty years and I didn’t have a clue, either.”
Dulcy paid extra-close attention to her cola glass, probably to guarantee she didn’t accidentally down the other tequila. “Funny. I was just thinking you looked at home here.”
“Oh?” he asked with a raised brow.
She nodded, glancing down at his jeans and T-shirt, then up again. Her gaze was almost like a caress, causing heat to rise in Quinn’s groin. “You know, bad-boy goes to bad-boy places.”
He grinned. “Who said I was a bad-boy?”
Her eyes bulged again.
He took a swig from his beer bottle. “Anyway, I said I was surprised Brad came to such a place.”
“You mean you didn’t come together?”
“To places like this?” He shook his head. “No.”
Sure, Quinn had spent his share of time in joints like this. At sixteen he’d looked twenty-five. It had been more than his physical characteristics that made him look older, although putting in twelve-hour workdays on his uncle’s ranch hadn’t hurt in that department. By sixteen he’d seen much more than other kids his age, not that he knew that at the time. His grandmother used to tell him he had the soul of a shaman. Now he rationalized his hanging out in bars by saying, What sixteen-year-old wouldn’t want to see a few strippers expose their wares? What he had really been doing was making up for not having his buddy Brad to hang with. As his friend attended upscale parties, balls and events that required a wardrobe Quinn’s tiny closet could never hold, Quinn himself had taken other roads to adulthood. While Brad’s first sexual experience had come as the result of some adolescent groping in an upstairs bedroom while at a party, Quinn had been shown the ropes by a stripper nearly twice his age in the back room of a place just like this.
A Stranger's Touch Page 10