“Uncle Greg!” Dropping his arm to his side, Nick straightened. “I’m sorry to disturb you in D.C., sir, but I’ve gotten mixed up in a bit of trouble here at home, and I need your help straightening it out.
Daisy listened as he succinctly laid out the events of the past week. The only thing he left out was Mo’s financial trouble and his jettisoned plan to sell J. Fitzgerald’s photos to the tabloids in order to bail her out.
“Exactly!” he exclaimed. “Everybody does know that, sir, but he came after me hammer and tongs anyway, and frankly, destroying the negatives is no longer an option. After running afoul of his hedge clippers, I gotta tell you I find the side of himself he doesn’t show the public down right scary, and I want that ambassadorship stopped in its tracks. It’s a safe bet he’s not going to back off while there’s still a chance I can mess up his shot at it, and I’m damned if I’ll spend the rest of my life looking over my shoulder. So if you’ll see to quashing the appointment, this is what I plan do…”
He hung up a few minutes later and climbed to his feet. Stretching his long body, he twisted his upper torso in first one direction, then the other. His rotation to the right brought her within his sights and, elbows up, he froze mid twist. Then a slow, warm smile curved his mouth, and he turned to face her fully. “Good mornin’. Did I wake you?”
She shook her head. “I heard you on the phone, but I was waking up anyhow.” She had a sudden mad desire to explore his lower lip, which was slightly puffy from last night’s adventure. Her fingers itched like crazy. When they began to spontaneously rise to touch his abused mouth, however, she sternly willed them back to her lap, entwining her fingers to ensure they be haved themselves. “How are you feeling?”
“Stiff.”
“Yeah, I am a little, too.”
His eyelids drooped. “Ah, but I doubt we’re talking the same kind stiff here, sweetpea.”
She felt a clenching zing deep between her legs, and her gaze involuntarily flew to the fly of his silk shorts, which had some tremendous tenting action going on.
Then she could have kicked herself for falling for such a blatant setup. she met the much-too-pleased-with-himself glint in his eye with disdain. “You’re just too funny for words, Coltrane.”
“Hey, I take my hard-ons quite seriously.”
She curled her lip at him. “It’s a wonder you get any work done, then—considering they’re pretty much your natural state. Now, if you’ll excuse me,” she said, throwing back the covers and climbing off the bed, “I’m going to go soak some of my boring old run-of-the-mill stiffness out in a hot bath.”
Nick snagged her by the waist as she breezed past him. Sweeping her off her feet, he curved his chest against her back and buried his lips in that sensitive spot where her neck joined her shoulder. “Okay, my shoulder’s a little stiff, too,” he murmured. “But lighten up, Blondie. I have a feeling everything’s going to work out just fine.”
She jabbed back with her elbow, but although he grunted when it connected with his hard gut, she doubted it did any damage. It felt as if she’d connected with the wall.
But he did set her back on her feet.
She turned to face him. “You’re deluding yourself if you think you can flash a little Coltrane charm and everything will be hunky-dory between us,” she said. “I came after you last night for one reason only: because I’d signed a contract.”
“Liar.”
“I’m sure you’d like to think so.” She went to her suitcase to collect fresh undies, but when she turned for the bathroom Nick stood in her way.
“Mo borrowed funds from one of her escrow accounts,” he said, staring down at her with fierce-eyed intensity. “It was stupid and it was criminal, but she didn’t do it for profit. I don’t know all the reasons why she did it, but I can guarantee you she thought she was helping someone in trouble. I know how you feel about the tabloids, Blondie, but I’d do it again, because I couldn’t stand by and watch my sister go to jail.”
She really didn’t want it to, but the explanation made a difference. Feeling misused, she longed to be able to hang on to her grudge. But she nodded and stepped around him, clutching her clothing to her chest.
“You’re gonna forgive me, you know,” he said confidently.
Stopping at the bathroom door, she looked at him over her shoulder, thinking of all the ways in which he could break her heart. “Maybe.”
“You will,” he said with a cocky grin. “Because you love me, and I’m a funny guy, and you won’t be able to help yourself.”
“Pfft.” But her traitorous heart wasn’t so sure that he wasn’t right. And, given everything that had ever gone between them, it scared the hell out of her.
“You do love me, cupcake,” she heard him say as she closed the bathroom door and bent to turn on the bathtub faucet. “I’ll make you admit it if it’s the last thing I do.”
As he drove them back to his place a short while later, Nick mulled over various ways to achieve that. He knew it could be done, because honesty was a big deal to Blondie and he was ninety-nine percent positive that she did love him. But he also knew better than to expect it to be easy—she was without a doubt the stubbornest wench God ever set on this good green earth. He smiled wryly, imagining her response to that description.
Luckily for him she wasn’t a mind reader.
“Turn here,” Daisy suddenly said when they were a block from the estate.
Nick didn’t ask why; he simply made the turn. Neither did he argue when she instructed him to find a place to pull over and park the car. When it came to this cloak-and-dagger stuff, she was the boss.
He had second thoughts about that when he followed her over the back wall of the estate a few moments later. Between her and Douglass’ thugs, his tux was never going to be the same—let alone his person. Ahead of him, Daisy dropped into the yard. She let go of the branch she’d been holding out of her way, and it whipped back to lash him. He rubbed at the welt it raised on his bare chest. Damn, that stung. If he’d known they’d be playing Tarzan and Jane, he probably would have done up all those damned shirt studs after all, instead of tossing them in his pocket.
But he forgot all that when he followed Daisy’s stealthy lead up the staircase to his apartment and saw that the door was cracked open. She put a cautionary finger to her lips and pulled her gun out of the back of her jeans, then pointed into the apartment. He nodded and, accepting the Beretta she pulled from her boot, tried to accustom himself to its unfamiliar weight as he crept behind her down the hallway. They entered the living room to find Blunt Face and No-Neck tossing the joint.
Daisy leveled the Glock at the two thugs. “Freeze!” she barked. “Don’t even breathe deep.”
“Ah, shit,” No-Neck said in perfect synchronicity with Blunt Face’s heartfelt, “Fuck!”
“Tell me about it,” Daisy agreed. “Drop your guns to the floor and kick them over here. I’m getting real tired of this. And Mr. Coltrane here is probably even more fed up with the two of you making a mess of his place. Hand over the arsenal in your boots, too.” When Blunt Face and No-Neck tried to look innocent, she gave them an impatient c’mon-c’mon curl of her fingers. “Don’t try to kid a kidder—I know by now how many weapons you two carry.” She spared a quick glance for Nick before turning her attention back to Douglass’ hired muscle. “Call the police.”
Nick did so and hanging up a couple of minutes later, he looked at the two goons sitting side by side on his couch where Daisy had ordered them. “I sure hope Douglass is paying you well,” he said when they looked up at him with sullen eyes. “Because you’re about to take a big fall for him. If I were you I’d save my own ass by shifting the blame squarely back where it belongs—on the man who hired you.”
Blunt Face narrowed his eyes at him. “I don’t know what the hell you’re talkin’ about.”
He shrugged. “Hey, it’s no skin off my knuckles if you wanna do the shower dance with the boys at the penitentiary.” Then he wrapped
his fingers around the back of Daisy’s neck and give it a friendly squeeze. “Good work, Blondie. You’re the queen of the security specialists.”
The grin she flashed him gripped him by the heart and squeezed until he could barely breathe. He wanted to snatch her off her feet and kiss her silly, pull her into his arms for a bone-cracking hug, perform any number of acts that were inappropriate to the moment. “So”—he cleared his throat—” do you, uh, require any assistance here?”
“I’m the queen, remember? I’ve got it under control.”
“In that case, I’ll go change my clothes. I’ll be out in a flash.”
It didn’t take him much longer than that, but by the time he came out of the bedroom still buttoning his shirt, the cops had arrived and were busy taking Daisy’s statement. He watched as she showed them her gun permit and state license; then one of the cops broke away and came over to greet him.
“Mr. Coltrane?” At his nod the patrolwoman said, “Let’s go down here where it’s a little quieter. I just need to ask you a few questions.”
They sat at the breakfast bar while he went over the break-in and established Blunt Face and No-Neck as the same two men who had broken into his garage earlier in the week and held Daisy at gunpoint. Eventually, all the cops’ questions were answered and they took the two thugs away in handcuffs.
Daisy turned to him the minute his apartment emptied. “Why didn’t you tell them about Douglass?”
“Once burned, twice shy, doll face. I tried telling the cop who came here Wednesday that Douglass was behind the attack, but the idiot didn’t believe a word I said. And it’s not as if I can prove anything.”
“You could have at least tried.”
“Dammit, Daisy, I’m tired of knocking my head against that wall. But I can do what I told Uncle Greg I would.” He rummaged through his desk and pulled out writing material. Sitting down, he drafted a letter. Three attempts later, he stood up, waved the finished product to dry the ink, and slid it into a manila envelope. He grabbed the tabloid bids and added them to the envelope, then looked over at Blondie. He caught her in a yawn.
Daisy belatedly covered her mouth. Nick was looking at her with a slight smile tilting up one corner of his mouth, and she braced herself for a smart-ass remark.
He was obviously feeling generous, however, for he merely said, “Grab your weapons, cupcake—you can catch up on your beauty sleep later.” He gave her a big, feral grin that set her heart to pounding. “We might not be in a position to put Douglass in jail, but we can sure as hell do some damage control to get him off our backs.”
Our backs. Not his back, theirs. She mulled that over as she followed him down to the garage, where he crossed over to the chest freezer in the corner. He lifted its top and leaned in, rearranging a few tubs of ice cream and several packages of wrapped meat to pull out a Rubber-maid container. Peeling off the lid, he tipped out a frozen chunk of indeterminate foodstuffs and reached into the bottom for a flat, plastic-wrapped rectangle. He wiped moisture from the heavy black plastic, then carefully peeled it open. Removing a small stack of photographs, he selected several, then rewrapped the rest, along with their negatives, and returned them to the container.
“Here,” he said, thrusting the pictures into her hand and reaching for the frozen block to fit it back into the container. “You want to see what all the fuss was about?”
“I’m not sure I can stomach the sight of a naked J. Fitzgerald,” she answered honestly. But the temptation to see what had caused so much strife proved too much and she slowly flipped through the photos.
There were only actually two separate shots—the rest were duplicates. She studied them, then handed them back. “You are so good.” She made a face, wiggling uncomfortably. “A little too good in this instance. Yuk.”
He grinned at her and added the pictures to his manila envelope. Then he reached for her hand. “Let’s go, cupcake. I’ll fill you in on the way how I want this handled.”
Nick stopped the car in front of the gates to J. Fitzgerald’s seaside estate a short while later. He looked over to see Daisy watching him, her eyebrows raised.
“What now?” she demanded. “Do we ring for admittance or storm the gates?”
“We ring the bell and—now, don’t go all postal on me—lie our heads off if that’s what we have to do.”
She looked at him down the length of her nose. “Postal. You are so amusing, Coltrane.”
He grinned. He couldn’t help it—she was just so damn appealing when she acted imperious. He wished he had the time to goad her a little further, but it would have to wait. He lowered the car window and reached out to push the button set in the gatepost.
A speaker crackled. “Yes?”
“Nicholas Coltrane to see Mr. Douglass.”
“I’m sorry, but Mr. Douglass is not receiv—What?” The disembodied voice got fainter, as if its owner had turned away to speak to someone in the room. “It’s a Mr. Nicholas Coltrane, sir. I say, Mr. Douglass, are you all right?” A low murmur too indistinct to comprehend replied, and the woman then said, “Yes, of course, sir.” Her voice regained the volume it had lost. “You may come up to the house, Mr. Coltrane.” The line went dead and the gates slowly swept open.
Daisy shifted to face him, drawing her knee up on the seat. “So,” she said. “Just a shot in the dark here, but did you get the impression that he was a bit startled to have you land on his doorstep?”
“Sounds like.”
A laugh, low and sweeter than honey to his ears, rumbled in her throat. “Good.”
They were ushered into a study a few minutes later by a woman in a formal black uniform and white apron. J. Fitzgerald sat ensconced in solitary splendor behind a massive desk, his face pale. He remained seated at their entrance, and the moment the maid stepped out of the room and closed the door behind her, he demanded, “Where’re Autry and Jacobsen, Coltrane?”
“Down at the jailhouse singing like canaries, I imagine.”
Douglass whispered a curse and reached for the phone. “I’ll get them the best lawyer money can buy,” he said. He snatched up the receiver, but Nick leaned over the desk and broke the connection.
“Get your hand off my phone,” Douglass said in an authoritative tone that was clearly accustomed to instant compliance.
Nick’s temper reared up like a baited bear, but he sternly knocked it back on all fours. Reaching inside the manila envelope, he pulled out a photo and dropped it on the desk in front of J. Fitzgerald.
The older man snatched it up and stared at it. He grew even paler. But his chin raised defiantly and he ripped the photograph in two.
Nick shrugged and pulled two new ones from his jacket pocket and tossed them down on the desk to replace the one that had been destroyed. J. Fitzgerald snatched them up, gave them a frantic perusal, and then ripped them, too.
Daisy opened her purse and pulled out three new photographs. Without a word, she leaned forward and placed them side by side, face up, on the desk in front of Douglass. He gathered them together and, without even sparing them a glance, started to rip them also.
But he’d only torn them half an inch when he stopped and set them back on the desk.
Nick nodded. “I see you’re starting to get the message.” He threw the stack of bids from the tabloids onto the desk.
As J. Fitzgerald read them, his color grew dangerously flushed. He glared up at Nick. “What do you want, Coltrane?”
“What I’ve wanted from the beginning: to be left the hell alone.” He pulled the letter he’d written earlier out of the manila envelope and set it on top of the discarded photographs and tabloid bids. He waited until Douglass put on his reading glasses and read the missive detailing the events of the last week.
Then Nick planted his knuckles on the polished desktop, leaned his weight on them, and, towering over Douglass, said, “Several copies of that, along with copies of the photos I showed you, have been delivered in sealed envelopes to an influential friend. If
he doesn’t hear from me on the exact schedule we set up, he’s instructed to turn one envelope over to the police and the rest to the rags—which, as you can see for yourself, are perfectly willing to bid sight-unseen for any damn thing I might care to give them.”
He bent down farther, thrusting his face close to J. Fitzgerald’s. “I want me and mine left alone. If anyone I love gets so much as a scratch on their car—never mind their person—I’m going to assume you’re behind it. And I’ll turn my copies over to the cops and the tabloids so fast you won’t know what hit you, old man. I’m sick to death of this shit, and I give you fair warning: it would behoove you to see to it that nothing hap pens to anyone I care about.” He straightened. “C’mon, Daise.” Reaching for her hand, he headed for the door.
The telephone on the desk behind them rang and he heard J. Fitzgerald snatch it up. “I told you no interruptions, Ingrid,” he snapped, but then there was a rustle and a sudden sense of expectation in the air, and Nick glanced over his shoulder to see Douglass snap erect. The magnate’s hand adjusted his already immaculately knotted tie. “What? Senator Slater? Yes, yes, put him through!”
Nick and Daisy exchanged a brief glance, but neither said a word until they had walked out of the office and closed the door behind them.
“You think the senator is breaking the news?” she asked, and he’d bet big bucks the same smile that tilted up the corner of her soft mouth was reflected on his own.
“Yeah.” His shoulder hitched. “Something tells me this is just not going to be Douglass’ day.”
26
DAISY didn’t quite know what to do with herself once they got back to Nick’s carriage house. The euphoria of neutralizing the threat Douglass had posed was fading, her job here was done, and she was scared to death to trust in Nick’s declaration of love.
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