“That may be, but you obviously haven’t let it turn you into one of those idiot women who immediately give up their own identity to become some guy’s doormat. The man was bringing you flowers and telling you he was a jerk, for God’s sake. This is a very good sign.”
Catherine waved her words aside. “Oh, that’s just because we had a fight over his ridiculous compulsion to shoulder the blame every time something goes wrong. Well,” she admitted, “that and the way he thought he could use sex to make me drop the subject when I called him on it. Not exactly romantic.”
“Honey-chile, flowers are always romantic. Besides, you didn’t see the look in his eyes when I told him Bobby and I were there to take you away. I did, and it scared the shit outta me.”
“About Bobby.” Catherine latched on to the excuse to divert the subject. “For a guy you never bother to talk to, he certainly seems to know you inside and out.”
Kaylee came as close to looking diffident as she ever got. “Actually, we’ve been doing quite a bit of talking this week. He thinks we should move to Vegas together.” If her shrug was intended to convey indifference, her eyes told an entirely different story. “’Course, that might prove a tad difficult if I get my butt tossed in jail.”
“I meant it when I said we’d get that sorted out, Kaylee. And I’m happy that your relationship with him is working out. He seems to care about you a great deal.”
The police arrived a few moments later, and the twins were caught up in a whirlwind of activity as their statements were taken and Chains was led to a far corner of the room, where he was kept under close guard. It was into the midst of this that Sam and Bobby burst onto the scene.
Sam searched through what appeared to be a huge crowd of people until he zeroed in on Catherine. With Bobby hot on his heels, he plunged into the room, making a beeline straight for her. Grabbing her by the upper arms, he hauled her onto her toes and held her at arm’s length while he surveyed her from head to foot, searching for injuries. He wanted to yank her into his arms and wrap her in a full-body hug the way Bobby was doing to Kaylee, but he felt constrained not only by his sense of responsibility for putting her in this predicament in the first place, but by the roomful of observant strangers. “You okay?”
It didn’t escape his notice that she didn’t launch herself into his arms, either. She merely stared back at him with unfathomable green eyes and nodded.
“So, what happened? LaBon and I have been worried.” He glanced over at Bobby and Kaylee, who unlike him seemed not at all averse to putting on a public display. Just when he thought he was going to have to search out a damn fire hose, however, they pulled apart and joined him and Red. He thrust his fingers through his hair and gave Catherine a helpless stare. “How the hell’d you get away?”
She and Kaylee took turns explaining, tripping over each other’s words.
She was so bright and inventive, and his last legitimate reason for keeping her at his side was fast slipping away. “Has anyone called in the feds?” he asked, and when Cat and Kaylee informed him they didn’t think so, he reluctantly turned away to seek out the man in charge.
Within an hour, the FBI had arrived and everyone’s statements had either been taken or gone over once again. Matters were finally sorted out to all of the various agencies’ satisfaction, and Chains was led away after assurances he would be extradited to Miami. Gradually, the room cleared of law-enforcement officers.
Sam rejoined Bobby and the twins. Stopping in front of Kaylee, he said, “I have to take you back to Florida.” That was bound to make him real popular with Red.
“Yeah, I know,” Kaylee agreed.
He glanced at Catherine, but she was looking at him as if expecting him to say something germane. His gut in an uproar and his mind sluggish and dull, germane was simply beyond him. “I’ll, uh, just make some reservations on the first flight I can find back to Miami, then.”
“Make one for me, too,” Catherine said quietly. She reached out to grip her sister’s hand, giving him a look he couldn’t even begin to decipher.
“And one for me,” Bobby agreed.
Feeling hunted and in the wrong and not quite sure why, he snapped, “You’re paying for your own, LaBon.”
“Whatever.” Bobby shrugged it aside as a minor detail and turned to Kaylee. “I’ll turn myself in the minute we get there, baby,” he promised her urgently. “You aren’t going to pay for my screwup a minute longer.”
She flung herself in his arms. “Oh, God, Bobby, what a mess. I love you, you know.”
“I love you, too, baby.”
Her laugh was short on humor. “Fat lot of good it does either of us.”
“Speak for yourself, baby. It does me a lot of good.”
“Yeah, but Bobby, I sure liked the idea of Vegas. Instead,” she said glumly, “one of us is going to rot in jail.”
“Nah.” He gave her a squeeze. “That’s not gonna happen.” Leaning back, he rubbed his hands up and down her hips and flashed her his charmer’s grin. “Trust me, baby. We’ll see Vegas yet. I’m going to work it all out.”
Bully for you, Sam thought sourly as he tried to catch Catherine’s eye, only to be summarily ignored. The criminal’s gonna get it all worked out.
The good guys’s gonna get bugger all.
“Hector Sanchez?”
Hector gave the man in the cheap suit an impatient look, but broke off giving instructions to his bartender to attend to him. Seeing there was not one but two suit-and-tie-clad men awaiting his attention gave his nerves a twinge, but he said coolly, “I’m Sanchez. How can I help you gentlemen?”
“You’re under arrest for soliciting the murder of Alice Mayberry. You have the right to remain silent—”
“That fuckin’ Chains,” Hector snarled under his breath. Starting to sweat, he looked at his bartender, who gaped at him as one of the cops pulled Hector’s arms behind his back and cuffed him while the other droned the Miranda warning. “Call my lawyer,” he instructed as he was led away. “His number’s in my Rolodex on the desk. You hear me, Rex?” he snapped as the man continued to stare in openmouthed shock at the scene that was unfolding. “Call my friggin’ lawyer.”
“You’re an idiot, Sam, you know that?”
Sam glared down at Gary, then executed a precise about-face on his heel and strode away.
Gary wheeled along in his wake. “So, you gonna just let her go back to Seattle without a fight? You even bothered to declare yourself, man, or state your damn intentions?”
Sam swung around to face him, belligerence written in every clenched muscle. “Maybe my intentions were just to get me a red-hot piece of ass and then get the hell outta Dodge.”
“Yeah, right. That’s why you’ve been prowling around here for the past day and a half, snappin’ and snarlin’ and generally making it worth a guy’s life just to try to get near you.”
“So get the fuck away then, why don’t you,” Sam roared. He jammed his fingers through his hair and stared down at Gary with an abject misery he desperately tried to pretend he wasn’t feeling. “Jesus, Gare, a cop I know downtown tells me LaBon sweet-talked the woman whose car he stole clean out of pressing charges. Don’t that just beat all? He’s gonna skate without a single repercussion.”
“What the hell’s that got to do with your teacher?”
“Don’tcha see? Her sister’s life is gonna be all settled. I doubt Red’ll stick around long after that.”
“Chrissake, man, why should she? Have you even bothered to try to talk to the woman?”
“Yes, dammit, I have! I went over there this afternoon to do exactly that, even though the facts pretty much speak for themselves—”
“And how d’you figure that?”
“Hell, you haven’t seen her seeking me out, have you? She’s probably ten kinds of relieved to see the last of me, but I went to talk to her anyhow, because I admit I have a history of making some assumptions that are all wrong.”
The sound that emanated from Ga
ry’s throat was one of heartfelt agreement, but he resisted adding his two cents’ worth. They’d been over what he wanted out of his life, as well as his refusal to take Sam’s bounty money, too many times already. “And…?”
“And nothing, Gare. She wasn’t home. So I put the return ticket I bought her in Kaylee’s mailbox.”
“I hope you took particular care wording the note so she knows you don’t really want her to use the damn thing.”
“Huh?”
“Ah, Christ, Sam, tell me you didn’t just leave her the ticket. You left a message to go with it, right?”
Sam stared down at him in frustration. “What the hell am I supposed to say in a note?”
“Shit.” Gary reared back on his wheels and spun the chair around. Wheeling furiously across the floor in the opposite direction from his friend, he snarled over his shoulder, “Like I said before, Sam. Sometimes you can be a total fuckin’ idiot.”
26
“YOU ASK ME,” Kaylee said as she and Catherine approached her salmon-colored stucco apartment house, “the man’s a total freakin’ idiot. And it surprises me, frankly, because he strikes me as someone who goes after what he wants, and I know damn well he’s hot to own you.”
“Oh, there’s pleasant imagery,” Catherine said.
“Well excuse the hell outta me, but I saw the guy’s eyes and trust me, he definitely had ownership on his mind.” Kaylee let them into the miniscule lobby and then unlocked her mailbox. Scooping out the contents, she stuffed everything into her purse. She turned to her sister. “You sure you won’t change your mind and come out celebrating with us?”
“Positive.”
“It’d do you good.”
“No, you guys go ahead. You and Bobby could use some time alone, and I’m really not in the mood to party anyway.”
“Okay, then.” Kaylee opened her apartment door and preceded Catherine into the living room. “Just let me find that spare key. I don’t know why I didn’t think to do this earlier.”
“Probably because we’ve been together practically every waking minute.” Catherine was anxious for her sister to leave, in desperate need of a little privacy. “Listen, if you can’t find it, it really doesn’t matter,” she said. “Where am I going to go?”
“You never know—ah, here it is.” Kaylee tossed it into a dish atop the end table. “It’ll be there if you need it. Well, I guess we’ll see you later then, huh?”
“Yeah, have fun.” Go, go, go. “Don’t worry about me, Kaylee,” she urged as her sister hesitated at the door. She pasted on a smile. “I’ll be fine, honest. Go have a wonderful time—you’ve earned it. I’m really proud of you, you know. You did all the right things for all the right reasons.”
Kaylee smoothed the stretchy Lycra fabric that hugged her hips. She met her twin’s eyes. “I’m kinda proud of me, too. I’ve learned a helluva lot in the last week, not the least of which is that I’m not as dumb as I always thought I was. Well!” She fluffed up her bouffant hairdo and thrust out her breasts. “Let’s not get all sickeningly mushy here or the next thing you know, my mascara’s gonna be all over the place and I’ll look like a damn raccoon. I’m outta here.” She turned to the door but then turned back, reaching into her voluminous bag. “Oh, here. Separate out the mail for me, wouldja?” She handed it over, wiggled her flame-manicured fingertips at her sister in a jaunty wave, and tripped on out the door.
Catherine’s smile disappeared. Tossing the mail onto the end table next to the key, she flopped down on the couch, leaned her head back, and stared up at the ceiling, expelling all the air from her lungs in one harsh, unhappy exhalation.
God, she’d forgotten how miserably humid Florida got in the summertime. The nearly palpable air was hot and heavy, and it made her feel downright ill.
A bitter laugh escaped her as she raised her arm, using the back of her wrist to blot beading sweat from her forehead and cheeks. Yeah, right. Like the weather was what ailed her.
What the hell had happened here? Kaylee wasn’t the only one who’d expected Sam’s intentions to run deeper than a temporary shack-up. Yet it seemed that one minute they’d been making love in the shower, and in the next, events had taken off like a runaway freight train. By the time matters were under control again, he’d reverted into the one-track-minded, sullen-mouthed man she’d first encountered a week ago. How could she have so misjudged the situation?
And how on earth was it possible for her life to have gotten so thoroughly scrambled in such a brief span of time?
She wanted to go home. To the comforting familiarity of her own house, where she’d be free to lick her wounds in private. To a wardrobe that didn’t thrust every blessed inch of her body into prominence, and a life that was safe and carefully planned out.
Okay, maybe it sounded just the tiniest bit…boring. But things were bound to seem different once she got back to her real life.
Blotting her face with the crook of her elbow, she went to the thermostat and punched up the air. Then she returned to the couch and reached for Kaylee’s mail. She’d sort it as requested, then search out the phone book and call a few airlines to see about flights.
She had flipped through a phone bill, a credit-card offer, and a postcard from New Hampshire wishing Kaylee was there, before her hands stopped at the airline folder with her name printed on the front. Going very still, she simply sat for a moment, staring at it. Then she flipped it open and extracted a one-way ticket to Seattle. It was scheduled to leave Miami the day after tomorrow.
It was a no-brainer to figure out who’d left it for her, and she was suddenly engulfed in fury. Pure, mindless, white-hot fury.
She had no idea how she reached Sam’s apartment. She didn’t remember calling a taxi, and she couldn’t recall the ride from Kaylee’s. One minute she’d been sitting on her sister’s couch staring with mind-screaming rage at the ticket in her hand…and the next she was pounding on a screen door, her breath coming too quickly as her free hand curved over her eyes to block out the sun, straining to see down a darkened hallway.
She gave the panel a furious kick when her summons was not immediately answered. “Open the damn door, you lousy coward!”
Gary propelled his chair out of the kitchen and into the hallway. The relentless clamor at the front door was starting to scrape on his nerves. “I’m coming, I’m coming already,” he snapped. “Hold your damn horses.”
Wheeling up to the door, he leaned forward to slap the screen’s handle, unlatching the door and bumping it open an inch. It was immediately grabbed from the other side and yanked wide, and the sight before him made his jaw go slack.
“Ho-ly sh…” Swallowing the imprecation, he stared with undiluted admiration at the redhead on his doorstep. Sam was right, she had real white skin. He hadn’t bothered to mention, however, that she was tall and built to stop a strong man’s heart. Color high, her hair blazing under the harsh afternoon sun, she glared down at him with eyes turned a brilliant green by temper.
“No wonder he’s been draggin’ around here like a ’gator with a bad tooth,” he murmured. Rolling back from the doorway, he waved her in. “I take it y’got the ticket.”
“Where is he?” Blotting her brow with the back of her forearm, Catherine looked around as if expecting Sam to materialize out of the woodwork. She strode over to the nearest open door and yanked it open, calling out his name imperiously.
Gary rolled along in her wake. “He’s not here, miss. He ran down to the store to get a pack of smokes. You want a beer?”
For the first time she looked at him as if she actually saw him. Her eyebrows gathered over her nose. “Sam doesn’t smoke.”
“Yeah, actually he does, or did, anyhow—up until a couple weeks ago. He’s been kickin’ the habit, but then about fifteen minutes ago he decided why bother.”
“Yes, he apparently thinks ‘why bother’ about a lot of things,” Catherine agreed bitterly.
“Now, I can’t say I agree with you there.” Before h
e could formulate a defense to save his friend’s butt, however, he heard the screen door creak open and then bump closed again. Ah, hell, too bad—he could have used a little time to get the redhead cooled down. He spun his chair around to intercept his buddy, but it was too late. Sam appeared in the doorway, eyes moody, an unlit cigarette drooping from the corner of his mouth. “You got company,” was the best Gary could do to warn him.
Sam had already spotted Catherine, and he stopped dead, his heart beginning to surge heavily against his rib cage, every sense suddenly, painfully alive. God, it felt like months since he’d seen her last, instead of just two days ago. But she was here.
That was the good news.
The bad news was, she was clearly furious. Damn, he should have listened to Gary—he could see that now. He sent his friend a quick glance to see if he had any bright ideas to bail him out of the mess he’d made. Apparently not; Gary was wheeling himself out of the room.
Straightening, he watched warily as Red stalked across the room toward him. Okay, so it was a mistake not to have left a message with the plane ticket. But she was here now and he could fix it. “Now, Catherine,” he began in a placating tone.
She slapped the offending ticket against his chest and thrust that imperious school-marm nose up at him. The cigarette he’d forgotten poked against the belligerent angle of her chin and she batted it out of her way with her free hand. Cheeks flushed and eyes flashing green fire between narrowed lashes, she glared up at him, and against all reason, he felt better than he had in the past forty-eight hours.
“You wanna know what you can do with this, McKade?” She demanded, grinding the ticket into his pectorals.
“Burn it?”
“Oh, you can set it on fire, for sure. And while it’s in full flame, why don’t you just shove it where the sun don’t—”
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