The walls seemed to close in on her the moment he stepped through the doorway. She’d forgotten how tall he was until she found herself at eye level with his collarbone as he moved past her. His camera brushed her breast, and her gaze flashed up to lock with his. Jerking it away, she waved at the visitor’s chair facing her desk. “Have a seat.”
She scooted around the desk and flopped into her own chair, angry that she was still so aware of him after all these years. Crossing her arms beneath her breasts, she gave him an impassive look across the desk. Without Reggie as an audience, she didn’t feel compelled to mind her manners. “What the hell are you doing here, Coltrane?”
Excellent question. It was one Nick had been asking himself since the moment he’d walked through the door and seen Daisy leaning over her secretary’s desk. He could have gone to any number of security firms, and if he were smart, he wouldn’t be within miles of big-eyed Daisy Parker and her wise-ass attitude. There was just something about her that never failed to access feelings he was better off not feeling.
But when he’d started calling around, her name kept popping up as one of the best in the business. At the same time, he’d heard from more than one source that her fledgling company was barely staying afloat. So why not kill two birds with one stone and throw his business her way? It would help her, and he’d get the protection he needed at a price he could afford.
What the hell, that night at the Mark Hopkins was years ago. They were both adult enough to put it behind them.
“I find myself in need of your services,” he said coolly.
“What’s the matter, Coltrane—fast living finally catch up with you?”
He’d debated all the way here how much to tell her. Up until this moment, he’d actually considered the whole truth, but it didn’t take a genius to see that wouldn’t fly. It’d hit too many of Daisy’s hot buttons.
The mess had all started because he hadn’t given his usual one hundred and fifty percent on Saturday. He had a reputation for one-of-a-kind, can’t-find-them-anywhere-else photos. People said they spoke intimately to the moment, and the truth was, he wasn’t particularly modest when it came to his ability with a camera: he did have a sixth sense or an inner eye or something that simply knew when the shot was there. So he was exceptionally good at capturing the essence of his subjects. And since he was pretty much wedded to his Nikon, people tended to forget it was even there.
The result was that he sometimes caught moments on film that had the potential to damage or outright destroy a reputation. The tabloids routinely offered him a small fortune for any embarrassing photos he might care to pass along, but he always destroyed the negatives. Having grown up a part of the society that kept him employed, he knew very well that a significant part of his success was due to his discretion.
But Saturday afternoon he’d been worried about the phone call from his sister just before he’d left to drive up to the Pembroke estate in the wine country, and he hadn’t given the big society wedding his trademark single-minded concentration.
Who would’ve thought, though, that practical, levelheaded Maureen would do something so criminally un-Mo-like as to juggle funds between the escrow accounts in her real estate business? He didn’t doubt for a moment that she’d done it for a good cause, given her propensity for smoothing over everyone’s problems, but it was still idiotic. It was also guaranteed to land her in serious trouble, since the commission she’d counted on to pay back the account had vanished when her sale of a Nob Hill apartment building fell through.
Wracking his brain for a way to help her, he’d photographed Bitsy Pembroke’s wedding on autopilot. Which no doubt accounted for why he’d missed what was going on in the background.
When he’d left the Pembroke estate, he’d driven straight down to Monterey for a Sunday shoot. His concentration had been better on that job, but he’d still been chewing over Mo’s dilemma when he’d climbed out of his car last night and found two muscle-bound bruisers tearing up his garage darkroom. They’d pounced on him, demanding his film.
They hadn’t specified from which shoot, and he hadn’t volunteered that all his film from the past two days was in his duffel bag, which was behind the driver’s seat. Instead, upon seeing all the contact sheets from other shoots that they’d ruined, he’d told them to eat him—a suggestion to which they’d taken exception.
His Nikon had been around his neck as usual, and they’d offered him one last chance to do things the easy way by handing it over. He’d declined, and before the wail of cop sirens had broken up the party, they’d dislocated his shoulder trying to get it.
He’d told the cop who’d shown up everything he knew, but that was damn little. It wasn’t until he’d gotten back from the ER that he’d been able to develop the film the goons had been so hot to get their mitts on. And at first he hadn’t seen a thing worth being roughed up over. He’d blown up frame after frame before he’d spotted what the goons had tried to prevent him from discovering.
And he was stunned.
Bitsy had insisted at the last minute that he shoot her and her groom in the gazebo. In the background was a beautifully restored gatekeeper’s cottage. And inside the cottage were a man and a woman having sex. They could be seen through a window, if one knew enough to search it out.
The surprise wasn’t that a couple was screwing their brains out. People sometimes knocked back more champagne at these functions than was wise, and ended up celebrating in ways they’d never intended and had years and years to regret. God knew he was a walking testament to that.
The shocker was the man’s identity.
J. Fitzgerald Douglass was an icon, the grand old man of San Francisco society. At the age of sixty, he was the stuff of legends. He’d inherited a declining family business and turned it into a multimillion-dollar enterprise. He had then turned to philanthropy, using much of his profits to endow libraries and churches.
His moral rectitude was the stuff of legends, and the media had been all abuzz recently about his probable appointment as an American ambassador to a small but strategic Middle Eastern country. Everyone considered him a shoe-in—it only needed the stamp of approval from a very conservative Congress at this point. And since no one was more conservative than Douglass, that appeared to be a mere formality.
So what the hell was this living monument to morality doing with his very married hands all over a woman young enough to be his granddaughter?
Considering Douglass’ goons had left Nick with a messed-up arm, a trashed darkroom, and an unhappy insurance agent, his attitude toward the older man was seriously unsympathetic. But he now knew how he was going to raise the money for Mo. He was breaking his own ironclad rule and selling the damn pictures to the tabloids.
He didn’t think he’d share his solution with Daisy, however. Although the screaming pain of his dislocated shoulder had dissipated as soon as the ER crew had put it back in place, he’d been left with deep-tissue bruising from shoulder to elbow. The arm was usable but weak, and would be of no use at all if Douglass’ men came back. Which he knew they’d continue to do until they finally got their hands on the film they sought.
He needed a bodyguard. Blondie needed the work. So what was the sense in telling her that his plans included the one thing she’d never tolerate?
Fingers snapped in his face. “Are you zoning on me?”
He snagged her hand and moved it away from his nose. “No. I’m thinking.” Shaking off the sudden awareness that touching her brought on, he released her.
“Then perhaps you can tell me why you want to hire my services.” Rubbing her hand against her kilt, she scrutinized him speculatively. “Why wouldn’t a ritzy guy like Nicholas Sloan Coltrane call one of the uptown outfits?”
“Who says I didn’t? But uptown firms demand uptown retainers, Blondie.” Which was true, even if he hadn’t really considered one of them.
“What does that make me, then, the K mart of security specialists?” She surged to her feet
and pointed a slender finger at the door. “Get out of here, Nick. I knew this was a mistake the minute I saw your lying face.”
He looked at her standing there, all long legs, big flashing eyes, and hot-cheeked indignation, and said, “I’m telling the truth, Daisy. You’re what I can afford, all right?”
She blew out a disgruntled breath, but resumed her seat. Looking pointedly at the Rolex on his wrist and his cashmere sweater, she said, “You honestly expect me to believe you’re on a budget?”
“Hell, yes, I’m on a budget! The family fortune is long gone and I live on what I earn. Dad had six wives, and they didn’t come cheap, doll face—especially when it came time to say goodbye.” His father had been a spendthrift in far worse ways as well, but that was none of her damn business.
“Oh, please. Your father didn’t fork over a dime when he kicked Mom and me out of that great white hotel you Coltranes called home. I bet he made a bundle when he manufactured that horseshit about my mother and sold it to the tabloids.” She gave him a look of disgust. “She and I, on the other hand, had the clothes on our backs when we returned to the ’burbs. And we were damn lucky to have that much.”
“You want me to admit my dad screwed over your mom? I freely admit it. But he did that, Daisy—not me.”
“Guess it’s an inherited trait then, isn’t it?”
Too fast and overpowering to defend against, visions of the night of Mo’s wedding exploded across Nick’s mind. Daisy, hot and responsive, moving beneath him, tendrils of her blond hair stuck to her damp face, chocolate brown eyes heavy-lidded and out of focus, sassy mouth for once in her life following his lead without a single argument.
Ruthlessly stomping the memories down, he forced himself to meet her gaze calmly. “Yes, I suppose I behaved badly, too.”
“But, hey, boys will be boys, right? You were just a chip off the old block.”
It was a direct hit, since he’d spent his entire life trying to be the exact opposite of his father. “It was a long time ago,” he said stiffly.
“Yes, it was,” she agreed. “How many years did you say it was again? Seven?”
“Nine.” And he’d never forgotten it, no matter how hard he’d tried. The fact that she didn’t seem equally burdened by unwelcome memories bugged the hell out of him. Rash words sang a siren song in the back of his throat, but he swallowed them unsaid.
With deliberate aloofness, he said, “The fact remains that my budget is extremely limited, and that’s why I’m here.”
“And just what makes you think you can afford me?” One of her eyebrows rose superciliously, disappearing into the shaggy tendrils over her forehead, and he got sidetracked by her haircut. Short petals of white-blond hair exploded from her head like the flower for which she’d been named…or a dandelion gone to seed. Uneven wisps clung to her cheeks and her nape. Had she actually paid someone to do that to her?
Shaking off the thought, he stated flatly, “Your secretary said a four-thousand-dollar retainer would get you started.” He saw her swallow hard and pressed his advantage. “So are you interested or not?”
He had to hand it to her, she recovered quickly. Meeting his gaze squarely, she picked up a pen and held it poised above the legal pad on her desk. “That depends,” she said briskly. “Why do you need my help?”
Because he’d set a bidding war in motion between the journalistic bottom feeders otherwise known as the tabloids. For the first time in his life, he planned to sell a compromising picture for publication.
His decision would undoubtedly come back to haunt him by destroying his credibility with the very society that kept him employed. Had J. Fitzgerald simply trusted in his reputation and left him the hell alone, it never would have occurred to Nick to cash in on the man’s indiscretion.
But Douglass hadn’t left him alone, and when Nick weighed the interests of a hypocrite with political aspirations against those of his sister, there was simply no contest.
Of course if he told Daisy the truth, she’d probably toss him out on his ass. She hated the tabloids. It was hard to fault her for it when they had publically branded her mother a slut, but he had a bad feeling he needed someone to watch his back until Friday night, when the highest bidder would be determined in this dangerous game he played.
He summoned his most charming smile and lied without compunction. “I took some…compromising…pictures of a lady. Her almost-ex-husband is a bit irate.”
It never occurred to Daisy to doubt his story. Nick had charisma to burn and probably went out with a different debutante every night of the week. That he had sunk so low as to mess with a married woman made her long to denounce him as a pig and toss him out on his ear, but the thought of a four-thousand-dollar retainer stopped her. “How irate?”
“A couple of his goons dislocated my arm and trashed my darkroom.”
He looked hale enough to her. “Which arm?”
“The left.”
“What’s its condition now?”
“It’s weak, but no permanent damage was done. I’m on anti-inflammatories for a week or so.”
She stood up and came around the desk. “Let me take a look at it.”
He stared at her for a moment, then struggled out of the left side of his sweater. She could tell by his awkwardness that the arm was still tender.
She saw why the moment it emerged from his sleeve. The arm was bruised dark purple from his elbow to where the short sleeve of a white T-shirt stretched over his hard biceps. She sank to her heels at his side and gently pushed the sleeve up as far as she could. She studied the discoloration, probed it gently with her fingertips, then glanced up at his face. “Looks painful.”
“It’s not so bad; I just don’t have a lot of strength in it. But the doc said it would get stronger every day.”
“Hmmph.” She eased the sleeve back into place, then pinned him in place with a stern look. “This is what you get for messing around with a married woman.”
A sharp crack of laughter escaped Nick’s throat. “Beautiful. Is that the kind of sensitivity training they’re teaching bodyguards these days?”
“Security specialist!”
He shrugged, then winced. “Whatever. Don’t they teach you folks that the customer is always right? Whatever happened to TLC?”
She glared at him as she returned to her desk. “If I take this job, Coltrane—and that’s a pretty big if—tender loving care will not be part of the package. Deal with it or go home.” She picked up a pencil and tapped it irritably against the desktop. “Did the goons use a weapon?”
“They used their great hurkin’ fists, sweetheart. I assume they also wore guns, but the cops arrived before they got around to using them.”
“Who called the police?”
“My neighbor. She saw them break in before I got home. I walked in to catch ’em in the act.”
“Why don’t you simply give the guy his wife’s photos, Nick? It was tacky to take them in the first place. It seems kinda low to hang on to them.”
Something crossed his expression, but she was unable to pin it down before he said, “I don’t have them to give—I gave the negatives to her. What she does with them is her business.”
“Then what’s the problem? Tell him that and get him off your back.”
“The problem, Blondie, is that I refuse to sic him on her. I don’t know what this guy will do. I mean, do you really find it rational to send a couple of hired guns after me just for taking a few nudie shots of his estranged wife?” He held up a big hand to forestall her answer. “Never mind, don’t answer that—you probably do. But I don’t. They’ve been separated for a long time, and until she tells him about the negatives herself, I’m gonna have a couple of muscle-bound, pistol-packing morons tracking my every move and doing their best to beat the information out of me in order to locate them.”
She pulled over a legal pad. “I’ll need Hubby’s name.”
Nick stilled. “I don’t want you getting him all riled up.”
He hesitated, then said, “John Johnson.”
“John Johnson.” Hard-to-verify aliases tended to make her suspicious. “Not Smith? That ought to narrow it down considerably.”
“Okay, that’s it—I tried.” He pushed his chair back and stood. “If you’re going to doubt every word that comes out of my mouth, this isn’t going to work.”
Something about his wording caught her. “What do you mean, you tried?”
He ignored the question, looking at her though narrowed eyes. “Coming here was a dumb idea that’s clearly destined to fail. Sorry I wasted your time.” He headed for the door.
Daisy wanted to let him walk away. Desperately, she wanted that. But four thousand dollars…
Her firm was only six months old and she was operating on a shoestring. She had rent to pay, both here and on her apartment, plus Reggie’s salary. And she had this sneaking fondness for eating on a semi-regular basis. So she stood and said to the tense set of his shoulders, “Nick, wait.”
He halted and turned to face her, his blue eyes free of expression.
“Please. Have a seat. I apologize.” She pulled a contract from her desk drawer and slapped it on the desktop. Punching down the intercom button, she said, “Reggie, would you come in here, please?” As Nick resumed his seat, she looked across the desk at him.
Then, hoping she wasn’t making the biggest mistake of her life, she separated the fee schedule from the contract, pushed it across the desk to him, and said, “Let me explain how your retainer will be allocated.”
2
LATE that afternoon, Daisy boarded a bus for Nick’s. Staring out the window, she gazed blindly at the passing scenery and allowed the gentle rocking, the monotonous stops and starts, to lull her into a drowsy, near-hypnotic state. Unbidden, her mind began to wander.
Baby, Don't Go Page 2