But when Ruby turned into him, wrapping her arms around his neck and opening her mouth to him, responding with a fervency he had hardly dared dream of, Antonio felt himself consumed by a searing heat that had nothing to do with the closeness of the air in the attic. That was when he lost all semblance of control.
With a groan he threaded both hands through her hair and pressed her closer. He traced the tip of his tongue over the outline of her lips, then ran it across her teeth. Seemingly impatient with his exploration, she uttered a low, dissatisfied growl before tangling her tongue with his, and he felt himself drawn even further under her spell.
Restlessly his hands left her hair to wander down her bare arms and over her back. With a growing sense of wonder, he felt the press of her small breasts against his chest, along with the fragility of her bones beneath his fingers. She felt as delicate as the Spode china she had marveled over in the dining room, yet Antonio sensed in her an inner core that was as strong and lasting as the dry sink he’d just valued. One thing was certain: she tasted like heaven and the sweetest elixir ever offered up to a man. And he never wanted to let her go.
When his arousal began throbbing painfully, he started sifting through the back of his mind for alternatives on how to get closer to her. In the end, the awkwardness of their position atop the sloped lid of the trunk, as well as the impossibility of seduction in a room with nothing resembling a bed, not to mention hardwood floors that hadn’t been swept in years, brought him to his senses.
What was he doing? He was kissing the woman who was sleeping with his boss, and she was kissing him back. Passionately. Worse, she was also, if he was reading her right, giving him every indication that she would take the kiss as far as he wanted it to go. And damn his very soul to hell, he wanted it to go all the way.
Joseph finding out, and then firing him for his offense, was the least of Antonio’s worries. His actions were jeopardizing the job he had been assigned to do. It had taken untold hours and effort on the behalf of his colleagues to arrange for him to be hired by Joseph, not to mention all the work that had gone into detecting the truth beneath the extensive cover—that Joseph was a big player in the drug trade—and here he was, allowing his hormones to rule his actions.
The sad truth was, Antonio couldn’t think of a single thing he had done right since he’d started this job, but he sure could think of dozens of things he’d done wrong. The first, and biggest, mistake he had made was letting Ruby get under his skin.
Hadn’t he worried, earlier, that reading those letters with her would lead him to do something stupid? If this wasn’t stupid, the pope wasn’t Catholic.
Somehow he found the strength to push her away. Breathing heavily, he rubbed his hand over his mouth, not that anything could ever wipe the taste of her from him. Even though he knew he was doing what he had to do, regret squeezed thick fingers around his heart.
“This isn’t going to happen,” he said, far more roughly than he had intended. “We’re not Vincent and Serena, and we never will be.”
She stared at him blankly for an endless stretch of time. He knew exactly when his words penetrated, because she paled. With a proud tilt of her head that spoke more loudly than words of the hurt he had caused, a hurt he was powerless to make better, she climbed carefully off the trunk. After taking a few unsteady steps, she whirled to face him.
“Do you believe in a love like that, Michael?” she demanded, an unusual urgency in her voice.
Expecting condemnation, Antonio felt a momentary surprise. When the meaning of her question registered, his thoughts automatically turned to his parents. Even as a child he had been able to understand that the love they shared was special, a love as deep and abiding as the one Serena and Vincent had expressed in their letters.
He thought of the relationships he had had over the years. Not once had he come close to feeling that way about a woman. Since his mother’s death had nearly destroyed his father, Antonio couldn’t help being thankful. He could still recall, all too vividly, the awful years when Lorenzo Garibaldi had simply gone through the motions of living, his eyes haunted and dead. If it hadn’t been for Carlo, the family would have fallen apart. Then there was Vincent. Hadn’t he merely subsisted for five long years after Serena passed away?
That kind of love he could definitely do without. As could Michael.
“No, Ruby,” he replied. “I don’t.”
“That’s what I thought,” she said flatly.
“What about you?” he asked. “Do you believe in it?”
As in that moment when their gazes had first met, Antonio saw myriad emotions swirling in her eyes. Remembrance, loss, emptiness, a haunting yearning and a deep, long-buried pain. And, like that first moment, after allowing a glimpse of her feelings, her face went blank. Ruby laughed that brittle laugh of hers and gave a negligent shrug of her shoulders.
“I’m a realist, Michael. That kind of love only happens once in a lifetime, if then. I’d rather stick to the kind of relationship that provides more material rewards. The pay is a whole lot better.”
The outrage he felt at her assertion lacked any real heat. Because there was a question he needed to ask. A question only a heel would voice. Michael wouldn’t have hesitated to ask it, and Antonio couldn’t, either. They both needed her answer, though for very different reasons.
“Are you going to tell Joseph?”
Ruby sucked in a harsh breath and went still. A taut silence made the already heavy air seem even heavier. Defiantly she thrust out her chin, her throat working convulsively. At her sides her hands clenched and unclenched.
Antonio stayed where he was atop the old trunk, while she fought her inner battle, and awaited the dressing down that was inevitable. The dressing down he deserved. Never had he felt like such a complete bastard.
“What don’t you want me to tell him, Michael?” she finally said, the emotion blazing from her eyes belying the calmness of her voice. “That you asked me to help you steal from him? Or that you asked me to have an affair with you behind his back? Maybe it’s just the kiss you don’t want me to tell him about.”
Good points, each one of them, he conceded. To tell Joseph about any of them would put his job in jeopardy. Antonio—no, Michael—had to make things right here.
“You do know, don’t you,” he said, “that I wasn’t serious about us stealing from Joseph or having an affair? I was just trying to get a rise out of you. I thought you understood that at the time.”
If the look on Ruby’s face was any indication, she knew, as well as he, that his words were only a half-truth.
“And the kiss?” she asked. “Was that a joke, too?”
No matter how much he wanted to, Antonio couldn’t lie about the kiss. “No. It wasn’t a joke. I’m sorry, Ruby. I stepped out of line. My only excuse is that I got caught up in the moment. I think we both did. I promise you, it won’t happen again.”
There was another long silence before she said, “If I told Joseph about the kiss, I’d also have to admit I got as caught up in the moment as you. Don’t worry, Michael. I’m not going to say a word. About anything. Your precious job is safe.” Turning her back to him, she went to work.
The relief he’d anticipated didn’t come. Instead Antonio found himself puzzling over Ruby’s response. It would have been so easy for her to lie, so easy for her to tell Joseph that Michael had taken advantage of her, and that she hadn’t responded to his kiss. She wouldn’t have had to lie at all to tell him about his other offers.
But she wasn’t going to do any of that. Why? Could she actually—improbable though the thought seemed—be protecting him? Ruby never looked out for anyone but herself. Despite her response to his kiss, and despite her response to Vincent’s and Serena’s letters, the most likely explanation for her closemouthedness was that he didn’t mean enough to her to bother herself, or Joseph, over.
A glance at her stiff back confirmed that for him. With a sigh, and with a heart that felt unusually heavy, Antonio
resumed his work.
Laura held the dress up to the light, twisting it so she could view both the front and the back. There was no denying it was a total loss. Along with the streaks of dirt, there were also a couple of spots that looked suspiciously like fingerprints. Michael had left his prints on her, both literally and figuratively.
With a disgusted grunt, she tossed the dress onto the bed, strode into the bathroom and began removing her makeup. When her face was clean, she dashed it with cold water and toweled it dry. Leaning into the mirror, she studied her reflection. It was time to stop fabricating excuses. Time to stop hiding from reality. Time to face the truth, head-on, and to take action.
“Face it,” she told the woman in the mirror. “You want the man. You want him bad. No matter how wrong it is. No matter how guilty it makes you feel. No matter that he’s no good for you. No matter that you’re not now, and may never be, ready for another relationship. That’s why you lost yourself in his kiss the way you did, why you asked him about his belief in love. You want him. And if he hadn’t pushed you away, you would have made love with him.”
With a groan, Laura dropped her head into her hands.
Wanting him physically was bad enough. That was simply hormonal. Worse was the knowledge that, try though she might, she simply couldn’t dislike the man. Even though he often made her madder than a wet cat, she enjoyed being with him. She definitely enjoyed their verbal sparring. She even admired a lot of things about him, like the fact that he was a hard worker, that he worried himself sick over a pair of abandoned puppies, that he read the classics and worked crossword puzzles. She liked that he appreciated art and had taken the trouble to try to encourage her efforts.
But the best thing about him was that, when she least expected it, Michael made her laugh. She hadn’t laughed much these past four years, and it had felt good to rediscover the part of her that responded to humor.
And when it came to her, the only thing he was concerned about was his job.
It was like a hostage situation, she told herself. She’d read about it countless times. The hapless kidnap victim, dependent on the charity of her captor, begins to identify, even to sympathize with and support his goals. It was the only explanation that could explain why she found herself enamored of a man who had no moral center.
Laura wished she had someone to talk to, a sympathetic ear to bounce her troubles off. But there was no one. She realized it now, for the first time. That first awful year after Jacob and Jason had died, she had been so immersed in the pain that she’d pushed away everyone who tried to help. The past three years she had immersed herself in her police work, even furthering the distance. Invitations to join this friend or that had stopped coming long ago.
Was that why she was identifying so closely with Michael? Because, other than her brother, she was all alone?
“Understanding a problem is halfway to solving it,” she told her reflection. When this was all over, when she was back in New York, she vowed to revisit those friends she had sadly neglected and try to rebuild the bridges she had destroyed. As far as her larger problem—Michael—was concerned, she might not be able to stop herself from wanting him, but she could stop herself from giving in to that want.
Now that she had faced the truth about her feelings for him, she could take whatever precautions were necessary to keep her distance. The first of those was to finish up the job so that they could return to Pittsburgh and normalcy, or as normal as her life got these days.
All she had to do was get through one more day. Once she was back at the auction gallery, when the two of them weren’t alone together for nearly sixteen hours every day, not only would Laura be able to devote her time to the job she’d been sent to do, she would be able to look at Michael more objectively. She’d be able to see him for what he truly was.
Not for her. Never for her.
The atmosphere at breakfast was highly strained. After exchanging the most basic of pleasantries, Ruby lapsed into silence, and for the first time Antonio saw her only pick at her food. She spent the bulk of the mealtime looking down at her plate, at the walls of the lounge, at the ceiling, at the other diners—anywhere but at him. To the casual observer, he supposed they resembled a long-married couple who, sadly, had nothing left to say to each other.
After checking out of the motel—Ruby had broken her silence long enough to insist they both leave a large tip for the maid—they made their final trip to the mansion. When Antonio crested the last hill on the long, winding, bumpy road, he saw that the moving vans had already arrived. Once they finished cataloguing the few remaining items, and once Howard Bracken arrived to supervise the loading process, he and Ruby could head back to Pittsburgh.
He wished he felt happier about the prospect.
There were five vans in all. Each bore the name and logo of the Merrill Auction Gallery. Joseph was certainly doing well if he could maintain his own fleet of moving vans. Antonio wondered if they were involved in the drug operation. There was only one way to find out. He had to get inside them.
He made his move at lunchtime, when, along with Howard Bracken, the drivers all trouped into the kitchen at Ruby’s invitation to share the lunch she’d had delivered. Saying that he needed to recheck a few pieces of furniture one last time and that he’d rejoin them in a minute, Antonio excused himself.
Since the loading process had already begun, the rear doors of all five vans stood open. Peering over his shoulder to make sure he wasn’t being observed, he climbed into the first van and threaded his way through the already loaded furniture.
Though he searched the interior of each van carefully, he found nothing out of the ordinary. If Joseph was using them in his drug operations, there wasn’t so much as the faintest residue of powder to prove it.
Disappointed, he returned to the kitchen, where he sat across from a woman who wouldn’t look at him, and ate a lunch he didn’t taste.
Crouching low and bouncing from foot to foot, Antonio pounded his fists into the ceiling-mounted, fifty-pound punching bag as hard and as rapidly as he could. It wasn’t long before sweat poured down his face and his breathing grew labored. He kept punching.
It was just a kiss, he told himself. Just a kiss. It didn’t mean anything.
So why couldn’t he stop being tormented by the memory of his mouth on Ruby’s, by the feel of her warm, soft body in his arms, the scent of her in his nostrils, and the heady euphoria of her response?
His jabs grew harder and faster.
“That bag got a face on it?”
Surprise had Antonio turning his head. When the bag rebounded and threatened to knock him on his backside, he braced his legs and thrust his arms out to still it, then stepped out of the way for another man to have a turn.
“What are you doing here?” he asked his older brother as he removed his gloves and headgear.
“Looking for you.”
“Why?”
“You called me,” Carlo said. “I decided to return the call in person.”
“I just wanted to let you know I was home. Didn’t Samantha tell you that?”
“She did.”
Antonio bent over to pick up the towel he’d dropped on the mat. After wiping the perspiration off his face, he slung it around his neck. He and Carlo made their way past other exercisers to an empty bench on the far wall, where they both took a seat. Despite the lateness of the hour, the gym was full. It catered to men and women like himself who needed the versatility a twenty-four-hour gym offered.
“How did you find me?”
“When you weren’t at your apartment, I drove your normal jogging route and then took the chance you might be here.”
Antonio eyed his brother’s uniform. As chief of police of the town he resided in, Carlo’s hours could often be as erratic as his own.
“You’re working late tonight.”
Carlo nodded. “I’ve got a particularly stubborn case that I’d really like to crack.”
“Any luck?”
<
br /> “Not tonight.”
“Sorry to hear that.”
“You’re not the only one.”
“It’s almost midnight, Carlo,” Antonio said. “I should think you’d want to be at home with your wife and son, instead of sitting here with me.”
“Samantha told me to find you before I came home.”
That got his attention. “She did? Why?”
“She said she heard something in your voice. She thought you might need someone to talk to.”
“I’ll be damned.” Antonio smiled ruefully.
“What?”
“Here you two are, still practically newlyweds, and already you’ve turned her into one of us.”
Amusement lit Carlo’s eyes. “You’re referring to our tendency to butt our big noses into each other’s business?”
“Is there any other?”
“Not in this family.” Carlo gave him an appraising look. “Obviously, you’re not nearly as happy to see me as I am to see you.”
Sighing, Antonio leaned forward and braced his elbows on his thighs. “I’m sorry, Carlo. The last four days have been…trying, to say the least.”
“You don’t like the job?”
No offense to Carlo, but if Antonio told his older brother what was really bothering him—that he couldn’t sleep because he kept picturing Ruby in Joseph’s arms and, even worse, in his bed—the rest of the family would know about it by morning, and then he would have no peace.
“It’s proving to be a bit of a challenge.” That was certainly the truth, as well as the understatement of the century.
“That’s good, isn’t it?” Carlo said. “Seems to me, a couple of months ago you were complaining how things weren’t challenging enough, and how you really needed a change of pace.”
Antonio watched a man bench-press 250 pounds. “I wasn’t anticipating this much of a challenge.”
“You’ll do fine.” Carlo reached over and clapped him on the back. “You’re a great cop.”
He wished he had Carlo’s conviction. Of course, if his brother had seen just how badly Antonio had screwed things up this week, he’d be singing an entirely different tune.
Laura and the Lawman Page 16