by Wendy Haley
Thoroughly disgusted with her morning so far, she sat back and pouted. Not that she pouted where anyone could see her, but there were times when it felt good.
She saw the welcoming committee the moment the taxi turned onto her street. Her mouth dropped open as she saw the receiving line. Other than little Sarah, who clung to her mother’s hand, the receiving line went from largest to smallest. Including the dog. Rae shook her head in mingled amusement and chagrin. She’d only called Barbara to warn her that she was on the way home, and hadn’t expected anything like this.
“That yours?” the taxi driver asked.
“Yeah, I guess so,” she said.
“Cute.”
Ordinarily, Rae would have had a rejoinder for that. But she was moved by the sight, more than she would have expected. She didn’t have much family, only a few cousins with whom she had only a Christmas-card acquaintance. Her parents had died long enough ago that she’d almost gotten used to them being gone.
Typical Rae-is-an-island mind-set. It had worked well for her, making loneliness seem to be her choice and her preference.
Until now. Now she had four people—and a dog—who were actually happy to see her. It felt good. She had the door open the moment the taxi reached the curb.
“I bet you wish you had that twenty now,” she said as she paid him.
“I wish I was Richard Gere, too,” he said. “But I ain’t.”
“Everybody’s a comedian,” she muttered.
The kids rushed her the moment she stepped out onto the sidewalk. So did the dog. She gave the kids a hug, swinging them around, then bent to pet the whining, impatient puppy.
“Hello, mutt,” she said, only half trying to avoid the wet, slapping tongue. “I wasn’t sure if you’d remember me.”
“Sure, he would,” Joey, the younger boy, said. “We showed him your picture all the time.”
Rae ruffled the boy’s hair the same way she was ruffling the dog’s. Both responded about the same, although the puppy, having a tail, had better body language. She filed that away for future reference. And wondered if men responded similarly to the hair-ruffling thing.
She glanced down the street where a dark Taurus idled at the curb. Then she scooped the child up in one arm, the puppy in the other, and turned to Barbara.
“I’m starved,” she said. “Any Froot Loops left?”
“How about bacon and eggs?”
Of its own volition, Rae’s gaze drifted back to the Taurus. “I’d kill for bacon and eggs.”
“Do you want to invite your friend?” Barbara asked.
“Huh?” Startled, Rae looked at the other woman. There was a knowing look in Barbara’s eyes that made Rae very uncomfortable. She was going to have to spend a lot of time getting Gabriel MacLaren out of her system, and she didn’t want to have to do it under scrutiny.
“Your friend,” Barbara said. “Do you want to invite him?”
“He’s not my friend,” Rae replied, perhaps more forcefully than was necessary.
“What is he, then?”
“A cop,” Rae said, turning away. “Only a cop.”
Rae got to her office about noon that day. She’d intended to go right after breakfast, but the kids had wanted to tell her about all their adventures, and Tom the Dog had latched on to her. Literally. He’d gotten a grip on her sock with those needle-sharp puppy teeth, and hadn’t let go until he fell asleep.
And Rae, feeling like a heel because she’d left him for two days, had resisted everyone’s attempts to disengage the puppy. If he wanted her that badly, well, who was she to deny him?
“Cute,” she muttered, echoing the taxi driver’s comment.
It had been cute. Cute and heartwarming, and more welcome than she’d have believed.
“You’re getting soft, Boudreau,” she muttered.
She turned her computer on and waited for it to run through its warm-up. I Am Lobo, I Hunt Alone flashed up on the screen, mocking her. Once, it had seemed to be the perfect statement of her attitude, the bold marquee of her life. Now it seemed as empty as her life had been. As her life would be.
This Smithfield case had ruined her. Gabriel had made her want things she couldn’t have; Barbara and those three kids had given her a feeling of belonging she hadn’t known since she was a kid herself, and made her wish she could keep it forever. But they had lives of their own. They’d move on, find their own place, maybe a nice stepdad who’d love them as much as they deserved.
Rae Boudreau would be alone again. Of course, she’d still have Tom the Dog. But deep in her heart, her guts, her soul, she wanted Gabriel. As long as she lived, there would be a MacLaren-shaped emptiness in her.
“Damn you, MacLaren,” she said. “Smithfield is mine.”
She punched in her access code to the Realtors’ MLS program, and started looking for properties that had been bought by the city during the past few years. After a few hours of digging, she came up with eleven prospects that were currently owned by the city, and nine that had passed into other hands within the past six months. Those would have to be checked out, too.
With a sigh of satisfaction, she leaned back in her chair. MacLaren had miscalculated. It wasn’t over yet, by God.
Something fell through the mail slot on her door. One swift glance showed her a fat white, #10 envelope. No address, no stamp. Rae shot out of her chair as though it had burst into flames. Snatching the door open, she looked out into the hall.
Empty. Then she saw the door to the stairway shudder, as though it had just swung closed. She ran toward it, but found only an empty stairwell.
“Interesting,” she murmured.
Returning to her office, she picked the envelope up and hefted it thoughtfully. Thoughts of mad bombers aside, it felt heavy. Paper heavy. She closed the door behind her and locked it, then slit the envelope open with her fingernail.
“Holy smoke!” she breathed.
Money. A whole stack of hundred-dollar bills. She took it to her desk and spread the money out. Then she began to count Finally, she let her breath out in a huge sigh and sat back.
Twenty thousand dollars.
“Too weird,” she said. “No note, no thank-you-for-being-so-wonderful-that-we-couldn’ t-resist letter? Uh-uh.”
She spotted a small folded piece of paper in the envelope. Swiftly, she opened it. In neat, block, laser-sharp print, it said, “A prudent woman knows when to back off.”
“Prudent?” she asked. “An educated bribe, huh?”
She fanned the bills out and held them up to the light. They were used, not worn-out, exactly, but obviously not new, and the metallic coding strip had been pulled out of every one of them.
“Hmm. Somebody’s got deep pockets,” she mused.
There were two possibilities here. First, it could be exactly what it seemed. On the other hand, it could be a setup by the cops. Then she shook her head. The cops wouldn’t bother tying up twenty grand bribing a process server when they already had Peter Smithfield in custody.
So it had to be a real bribe. And a real threat. With a grimace of disdain, she tossed the money on her desk. Rae Ann Boudreau didn’t take bribes. And she didn’t back off.
But this meant that maybe, just maybe, Gabriel MacLaren’s case was as important as he seemed to think it was. And maybe, just maybe, she ought to discuss this with him. But that would only work on a quid pro quo basis: something for something, an even trade, tit for tat. She wondered if he’d understand the concept.
Someone knocked at the door, nearly startling her out of her chair. Hastily, she stuffed the money back into the envelope and shoved it into the center drawer of her desk.
“Open the door, Rae.”
Her pulse jumped at the sound of that deep voice. “Speak of the devil,” she muttered. Then, raising her voice, she called, “What do you want?”
“To talk to you.”
Rae’s initial impulse was to ask him if he had a warrant. But that would only nip the negotiating process in the
bud. With a sigh, she leaned forward and cleared her computer screen.
“Come in,” she said.
“It’s locked.”
That meant he’d already tried the door. Her mouth curled in a cynical smile. Cops. She got up and let him in.
He’d changed into a pair of khakis and a polo shirt a shade darker than his eyes. Despite the fact that he’d shaved, he looked tired, brooding and very, very sexy. Her stomach dropped down to somewhere around her knees.
That razor-sharp cop’s gaze darted around the room, taking everything in. She knew the layout was now printed in his memory, and that he could catalog her office down to the paper clips.
Unwilling to accept the psychological disadvantage of sitting down, she eased up onto the edge of the desk. “What can I do for you, Detective?”
“I came to give you some bad news.”
“Which is?”
“You’re not going to be able to get rid of me for a while,” he said. “Seems you made the powers-that-be nervous when you slipped away from surveillance a couple of days ago. They want you watched until this case breaks, and they want me to do it.”
“You came all the way up here just to tell me that?” she inquired.
Gabriel crossed his arms over his chest and regarded her from beneath his brows. He didn’t know why he’d come up here. He’d cursed himself with every step, telling himself that only a fool would expose himself to temptation—and betrayal—again. But he’d come. He’d made each of those steps despite the lash of common sense and even self-preservation.
Simply, he had to see her again. Parting the way they did had left a hole somewhere in the region of his heart, a yawning, empty place that would nag him until he patched it somehow. And the only way he could think to do that was to resolve things with Rae. He’d live without that, sure, but he didn’t want to spend the rest of his life bleeding inside like this if there were another option.
“We need to talk,” he said.
Rae raked her hand through her hair. “You’re right.”
“I am?” he asked, surprised that she’d agreed with anything.
“Sure,” she said. “There’s no need to let our personal conflict keep us from doing business.”
His cop’s mind gave a hoot of derision. Resolve things, eh, MacLaren? Might as well deal with a Waring blender. She’s a player, and if you aren’t careful, you’re gonna get burned just like her ex-husband did.
“Exactly what kind of business did you have in mind, Rae?”
“The Smithfield case.” She held up her hands, forestalling any protest “Just hear me out, will you?”
“Okay,” he said. “Shoot.”
He was more distracted than he’d like to admit. She wore jeans and a burnt orange sleeveless top, which would have been unremarkable on another woman. But Rae had curves another woman would have sold her soul for, and filled that top out so well it made his mouth water. The sunlight struck ruddy sparks in her hair and gilded the tips of her long eyelashes. She looked like the woman who had burned him with passion the night before, the woman who had cried out his name as she’d carried him to heaven with her.
He wondered what would happen if he touched her. Would reality stand between them, or would the world go away again in a searing wash of passion?
“Are you still with me?” she asked.
He smiled. “More than you know, honey-child.”
Rae studied him suspiciously. He didn’t have a businesslike expression in his eyes. In fact, he had the look of a man who’d just imagined something delicious and very naughty, and was in the process of elaborating on the fantasy.
The rat. Now he had her doing it. She didn’t want to remember how he had made love to her with a tender male intensity that even now sent heat pouring through her veins.
“MacLaren,” she snapped. “Business.”
He ripped off a sardonic salute. “Aye-aye. Business.”
“I’d like to propose a situation and get your reaction to it,” she said. “On a strictly theoretical basis, of course.”
“Of course,” he replied, his tone dry.
“Let’s say that someone knew something about Peter Smithfield that might be, ah, significant.”
His brows went up. “I’d advise that someone to tell the police immediately.”
“Mmm. What if that someone had his or her own interest in Peter Smithfield, and wasn’t inclined to give that information to the police without knowing the nature of its importance?”
“Let’s stop pussyfooting around, Rae,” Gabriel said, suddenly out of patience with the game. “If you know something about Peter Smithfield, spill it now.”
“Why should I?”
“Because this is an important case—”
“Why?”
“You know I can’t tell you.”
She nodded. As she’d expected, they’d run up against the same roadblock there had always been between them. “Unquestioning adherence to rules can be dangerous, Detective. It can blind you to things that can bite you.”
“You bit me,” he said softly.
Rae drew her breath with a gasp. “I did not!”
“Yes,” he said, “you did.”
Unbuttoning his shirt, he pulled it aside, showing her a small red mark on his shoulder. Rae stared at it in consternation. She didn’t remember doing that. But there had been times when passion had pulled her outside herself, when instinct had swept restraint away. Who was she kidding? she thought. There hadn’t been any restraint from the moment he’d touched her.
And if she didn’t watch it, the same thing would happen again.
“Business,” she reminded him.
“Right. Now tell me what you know about Peter Smithfield.”
She could see a wedge of dark chest hair in the V of his unbuttoned shirt. The sight of his throat fascinated her, the long, smooth muscles, the rapid thrum of the pulse beneath his skin. Her hands twitched because she wanted to touch him, and it wasn’t allowed. Oh, definitely not allowed.
“No can do,” she said. “You see, I have no way of knowing whether or not my information really is significant, or if I’m just bowing to the usual bureaucratic baloney. I really dislike bureaucratic baloney.”
She shifted position slightly. “Now you, Detective MacLaren, embrace bureaucratic baloney. Your boss tells you not to talk, and you’re determined to cling to that order no matter what the cost.”
“Rae—”
“Ethically,” she continued, “my first concern must be the interests of my client. Unless, of course, you can give me a good reason otherwise. Even then, I’d have to discuss the situation with my client before I could help you out.”
“Rae—”
“If you were to tell me why my client should forego pursuing her own legal matter, then maybe we can work together.”
Gabriel let his breath out in a long sigh. He agreed with her, damn it. But he’d been specifically ordered not to tell her anything about the case, and his opinion simply didn’t matter.
“I’ve got no flex on this,” he said.
Rae nodded; it was only what she’d expected. That didn’t mean she wasn’t disappointed. “Then neither do I.”
“You’re playing with something real hot here,” Gabriel said. “I just hope you don’t get burned.”
“I’ve already been burned,” she retorted.
The words dropped like ten-ton boulders into the suddenly silent room. Never, never, never had she intended to say something so revealing.
And Gabriel, damn his eyes, hadn’t missed a thing. His mouth curved in an infuriatingly self-satisfied smite. She felt as though she’d flung her heart, naked and quivering, out there to get stomped on. Then his smile faded. A new look came into his eyes, an almost unbearable flare of pure sensuality.
He started toward her. Frozen by desire and dismay, she watched him come. This wasn’t a cop. Nor was he her opponent. For this moment, he was simply a man. Her man.
Gabriel stopped so clo
se in front of her that their knees touched. His eyes raged with things he wanted, she wanted. He propped one hand on either side of her hips. She felt as though her nerves were going to jump right through her skin.
“I think both of us got singed in that fire,” he said.
His tone was intimate, his eyes even more so.
“Stop it,” she whispered.
“I can’t.” He bent and feathered a kiss along the curve of her cheek. “Don’t you think I would if I could?”
His mouth moved downward, seeking. Rae parted her lips, seeking, too. They met, merged. She dropped into a deep, dark well of sensation. Somehow, she’d become tuned to him, mind, heart, spirit and, of course, body. Every nerve, every cell, every inch of skin, recognized him, and responded.
“Why is it like this with you?” she gasped as he left her mouth to make a hot, wet trail along the line of her throat.
“I don’t know,” he murmured. “Maybe we were just made for each other.”
“You’ve got to be kidding. I tick you off every time I open my mouth.”
“Not true,” he said. “There are times when your open mouth is anything but annoying.”
He claimed her mouth again, parting her lips with gentle aggression to delve deep inside. Rae moaned softly. It surprised her, that soft note of arousal. She hadn’t intended it. She hadn’t intended any of this.
She raised one hand with the vague intention of pushing him away. Instead, it landed on his shoulder, and insinuated itself to the back of his neck. All on its own, she’d swear.
She arched her back, fitting herself to his hard torso. It felt...it felt as though she’d come home. He kissed her, a gentle affirmation of passion. Rae didn’t want gentleness. She didn’t want a chance to think. She’d already fallen way, way off her self-made pedestal. Her interest had been conflicted, her isolation breached, the barriers around her heart shattered.
She had nothing more to lose, except this moment. So she wound her arms around his neck and pulled him still closer. His reaction was instantaneous and purely male. With a muttered groan, he deepened the kiss. His hands slid to her hips, claiming them, spreading out over her curves as though to hold her forever.