A MAN LIKE SMITH

by Marilyn Pappano

  "Or maybe someone who's merely watched him closely."

  He considered that for a moment, then shook his head. The action made a strand of hair—brown, preppy short and perfectly casual … or should that be casually perfect?—feather across his forehead. "The only people who get that close to him are those who work for him."

  "A lot of people work for him."

  "But not that many are close to him."

  She didn't respond. She wasn't going to be drawn along on a fishing expedition. Smith was too good, too clever. At her best, she could hold her own with him … but tonight she was at less than her best. The setting was too intimate—this was her home, after all—and some stubborn part of her was as interested in making personal observations about him as the reporter part of her was in business.

  From upstairs, the music grew louder as the guest room door opened. Cassie had traded the soft, relaxing CD—the language was Gaelic, Jolie thought but wasn't sure—for something with a salsa beat and lyrics clearly recognizable as Spanish.

  "Am I keeping your sister from her dinner?"

  "Cassie's getting dressed for a date. She'll wander down whenever she's ready, which could be any time in the next two hours."

  "You were no better when you were dating." Cassie came quietly into the room and settled on the arm of Jolie's chair. "You do remember dating? Back before you started college? Before you decided that everything else in life had to go on hold until you'd won your Pulitzer?" Without waiting for a response, she leaned forward and extended her hand to Smith. "I'm Cassie Wade, the youngest of Jolie's many siblings."

  Smith introduced himself as he shook her hand. There was a note of distinct male appreciation in his eyes—not interest, the protective Jolie was relieved to note, but simple appreciation. Cassie inspired that in most men. She wasn't beautiful, not breathtaking or heart stopping, but she was undeniably, sweetly, purely lovely. With dark hair that reached straight and smooth past her waist, dark eyes and pale golden skin, she was striking—and her taste in clothing made her more so. Her dress this evening was black, as usual, but instead of brushing around her ankles, this one ended inches above her knees. With it she wore a crocheted vest, textured hose and funky, chunky suede heels, all in black. Only the vest was even remotely stylish, but Cassie didn't mind. Some women got their style from their clothes, she insisted, while her clothes got their style from her.

  It certainly worked for her, Jolie thought with more than a hint of pride. The girl never went anywhere without drawing admiring looks.

  "Sorry about dinner, Jolie, but Trevor's here. I saw him pull up."

  "He's not coming to the door?"

  Cassie gave her a long, level look that was gently chastening. "Don't wait up for me."

  "What time is curfew at home?" Jolie asked as her sister rose from the chair.

  "I'm practically eighteen now, Jolie."

  "Uh-huh. And what time is curfew?"

  Cassie sighed softly, but with enough force to make her annoyance—and acceptance—known. "One o'clock. I'll be home then. Mr. Kendricks, it was nice meeting you. Later, Jolie."

  She left as quietly as she had come—left Jolie alone with Smith, a Spanish ballad she didn't understand and a conversation she didn't want to have. He wasn't eager to have it, either, she suspected when he remained silent for a time. Or perhaps he was simply gathering his bearings after being exposed to Cassie. Men often needed to do that.

  "She's a lovely girl," he remarked after a moment.

  She smiled that he had used exactly her own description. His next words made the smile disappear.

  "Now that the vegetarian is gone, why don't you quit picking at that salad and let's go find a steak?"

  * * *

  Chapter 2

  « ^ »

  Smith would have recalled the words if he could. The last thing he needed tonight was anything even remotely resembling a date with Jolie Wade—and taking her out to dinner hit too close to the mark. Since taking back the words was impossible, his next best bet would be to cancel the invitation as soon as he'd offered it, but that would be rude, and Clarice Kendricks hadn't raised her only son to be rude.

  Maybe Jolie would turn him down.

  Or maybe, he thought, considering the prospect of having dinner and spending the rest of the evening with her … maybe, if he was lucky, she wouldn't.

  "Dinner," she said tentatively, as if not quite sure she'd understood him. "You want to have dinner."

  Jolie Wade unsure in a situation. That was a first.

  "I do it most nights around this time." His smile felt as hesitant as her voice sounded. "It'll be my treat."

  "Because this is business." She said it as a foregone conclusion, but there was a slight lilt at the end that turned it into a question. It was a tough one to answer, because he didn't know what answer she wanted. Hell, he didn't know what answer he wanted. The wisest thing would be to agree that, yes, the time they spent together this evening would be strictly business.

  But wise wasn't necessarily true.

  He wound up giving no answer at all. "Go on, get some shoes."

  She hesitated, then got to her feet, setting the salad dish on the table. "I'll just be a minute."

  While he waited, he gave the room another long look. If he had ever given any thought to the place Jolie called home, he wouldn't have chosen this. He would have placed her in some place relatively new, some place contemporary, streamlined, stripped-down. He could have easily imagined her in one of those places, like his own, that were routinely featured in decorating magazines: walls of glass, an expanse of marble floor, all white or black or gray, the only furnishings a crimson futon and her trusty laptop computer.

  With her blond hair and creamy golden skin, she would look damned tantalizing on a crimson futon.

  Swallowing hard, he forced his gaze to focus on the opposite wall, forced his attention to return to a more appropriate line of thought.

  The last place he would have expected to find her living was in a little yellow house in a middle-class neighborhood, with flowers blooming in the yard and a swing on the porch. He hadn't thought of her as a cozy-tidy-house sort of woman, a woman who collected books and little cobalt blue bottles, a woman who framed crayon drawings and bits of old lace for her walls.

  He hadn't thought of her as a sister, particularly to a pretty girl half her age. Frankly, he hadn't thought of her as having family at all. She was so independent, so ambitious. Relationships took a back seat to ambition like hers; Smith knew that from his own experience. For years, he had shared the same sort of drive to prove that he was a damned good prosecutor, that he'd earned his position based on hard work and a high conviction rate, that his family name, money and privilege had nothing to do with his career success.

  He had achieved those goals, but at the cost of his personal relationships. He'd rarely made it back home to Rhode Island to visit his family. His sisters' husbands were merely names attached to vaguely familiar faces, and his nieces and nephews were virtual strangers. He hadn't managed to maintain a steady, ongoing relationship with any woman in longer than he cared to recall. What little bit of himself he'd had left over from his job he had invested in his friendships with Michael and Remy.

  But Jolie hadn't reached her goals yet. It was common knowledge that she had her sights set on a hell of a lot more than New Orleans could offer. There were bigger and better markets out there—Chicago. New York, Washington—and she intended to work her way into one of them. She wanted to be famous. She wanted to be one of those rare journalists whose names were household words in households where her particular paper was never read.

  And she wanted that Pulitzer. What was it her sister had said? That everything else in her life had to go on hold until then.

  But, despite that ambition, that drive, she still had roots. She managed to be a sister to young Cassie. She framed drawings done most likely by her nieces and nephews and hung them on the walls. Just as he'd always made time for his
best friends, apparently she made time for her family.

  She came down the stairs then, interrupting his thoughts. She had changed from shorts into wheat-colored jeans, from a T-shirt promoting a recent 10-K run to a dressier, round-necked T-shirt that looked like rusty-hued silk. She had drawn her hair off her neck with a tortoiseshell clasp, fastened a watch around her narrow wrist and slipped into a pair of rubber-soled huaraches. Such simple changes for such maximum effect. Ten minutes ago he would have said she looked comfortable, lazy, even cute. Now conflicting words came to mind, words like pretty. Wholesome. Alluring. Innocent. Sexy as hell.

  As he rose from the sofa, she picked up her purse, brightly colored straw woven in a wave pattern, and slung it over her shoulder. "I'm ready."

  He went outside, holding the screen while she locked the door behind her. "I have overnight bags smaller than that purse," he remarked as they started across the porch to the steps.

  "I need a big purse."

  "For what? The tools of your trade?"

  "Precisely. A notebook, pens, a tape recorder, extra tapes, extra batteries and a power cord."

  "Just in case you happen to run into a story on the way to dinner."

  "Hey, would a cop leave home without his gun and badge? Would you go out without your pager and cellular phone?"

  "That's hardly the same," he teased even as he automatically checked to make sure the pager was securely in place on his belt.

  "It's exactly the same. We all like to be prepared." She came to an abrupt stop where the sidewalk that crossed her yard met the driveway. "Is that your car?"

  He took an exaggerated look around. "There's only you and me here. Is it yours?"

  "Of course not."

  "Then it must be mine." Pulling his keys from his pocket, he circled to the opposite side of the Blazer and unlocked the door. "Let me guess. You expected a Mercedes or a BMW or—no, I know—a Lexus."

  "Well … yeah." The step up that was perfectly easy for Smith was more of a climb for seven-inches-shorter Jolie. From his vantage point a few feet back, he discovered that her snug jeans and the silk top that conformed to her curves made it an appealing process to watch.

  After closing the door, he returned to the other side and climbed in himself. "Then you were wrong," he replied. He didn't tell her that he had, at one time or another, owned each of those three cars, that it was a Lexus he had traded in when he'd bought this. "I bet my guess is more accurate than yours. I'd say you probably drive something a lot like yourself—a Corvette, maybe. A red one." Starting the engine, he flipped on the headlights, and the twin beams lit up the low-slung red 'Vette parked beside the house.

  "Guess, hell," she muttered. "You cheated. You've seen my car before."

  "I've ridden in your car before," he reminded her with a chuckle. "Back in January, when we went to a meeting with Michael, Remy and Valery, remember?" He backed out of the driveway, then headed toward downtown and one of his favorite restaurants, waiting all the while for her inevitable question. It didn't come until they had gone more than a half dozen blocks, and even then she asked it only grudgingly.

  "How?"

  He knew exactly what she meant, but pretended not to. "How what?"

  "How is a red 'Vette a lot like me?"

  "You're both little and flashy." She scowled, as he knew she would. Of course, she was entitled. After all, what woman appreciated being compared to a car? Still, he continued. "You're both sleek and classy. And I daresay you've both inspired more than a few male fantasies." He certainly had a few of his own.

  There was a moment's hushed silence, as if his response had taken her totally by surprise, and then she laughed. "Oh, yes, I know the kind of fantasies I inspire in the men I come in contact with. Most of them deal in some variation with my disappearing off the face of the earth."

  He opened his mouth to tell her she was wrong, then closed it again. This was business, he reminded himself. Small talk was perfectly acceptable; it was even advisable.

  Personal observations—personal feelings—weren't.

  Tightening his hands around the wheel, he forced his wayward thoughts back to a more acceptable subject. "Your sister said she was the youngest of your many siblings. How many kids are we talking about here?"

  "There are thirteen of us—nine girls and four boys. I'm the oldest, and Cassie's the baby." He saw her smile in the dim light. "My parents are good Catholics. When the Lord said multiply, they took him seriously."

  "I have an older sister and a younger one. Growing up, I thought the younger one was one too many. What was it like for you with so many kids?"

  "Loud." She smiled again, not the brash, confident smile he usually associated with her, but a gentler one. "There were lots of advantages. Being the oldest, I had to help out with the others, so I learned responsibility at an early age. I learned to do what I was told when I was told—with thirteen kids, Mama didn't have time to repeat herself. I learned to concentrate in the midst of chaos, since that's all there ever was in our house." Her voice grew softer as she gazed out the window. "There were times when I wanted to be an only child, to have a room all to myself, to have my parents' attention all to myself. There were times I wanted less responsibility and more childhood."

  Then she sighed and her voice returned to its normal, straightforward tone. "It wasn't a bad childhood. My parents loved every one of us, and we all got along well. With so many of us in such close quarters, we had to."

  "Do you see them often?"

  "Reasonably so. Everyone's grown up now. They have jobs, families, lives of their own. But they all still live in the area, except Meg. She married a soldier and moved to Germany. I see Cassie the most, and Mama and Daddy." She paused before continuing. "Where does your family live?"

  "Rhode Island. Newport."

  Jolie gazed through her reflection on the window as houses gave way to businesses. She had asked the question only to be polite; she already knew the answer, just as she already knew a number of things about him. For instance, he was from Rhode Island, he'd gone to college up in Baton Rouge, then had returned back East for law school. She knew he had never married but would; everybody would eventually, it seemed—everyone except her.

  He lived in one of those riverside condos that was three times the size of her little house and about twenty times as expensive. He dated frequently—much more so than she managed to get out—and the women he dated were beautiful. In her own paper she had seen photographs of him at one social function or another, all dressed up in a tux, and he was always with another lovely New Orleans belle.

  Yet, for all his advantages and family wealth, he wasn't a snob. He had never been less than polite to her in a professional situation, never less than friendly in a social setting. Besides Remy Sinclair, whose background was close to his own, his best friends since college had been Michael Bennett—son of a small-town preacher and a housewife—and Evan Montez, also small-town, small-time. He was loyal to his friends—had stood by each of them as they married and had been there last year when Evan was buried.

  He was, when all was said and done, a very nice man.

  A very nice man who just happened to be heir, along with his sisters, to millions.

  "How did you manage to get a Friday night free?" she asked, turning to look at him. Now that they were in the business district, there was enough light to see his face clearly, to see his smile.

  "Actually, I had plans for the evening, but some hotshot reporter ran a story in this evening's paper that got under my boss's skin, so I had to cancel." Then he relented. "I was supposed to have dinner with Michael and Valery and Remy and Susannah. When I got tied up with Alexander and Shawna, I bowed out."

  "Let me guess. Warren wanted to have me arrested, and Marshall…" She thought about it a moment, considering what fate Alexander Marshall would most like to see befall her. "He probably wanted to have me exiled to a deserted island."

  "Actually, Remy wanted to have you arrested—he and Michael dropped
by to bring me a copy of the paper. Shawna wanted to slap you into jail for contempt and throw away the key. You're probably right about Alexander, though. I think the idea of you totally incommunicado on a deserted island would make him very happy."

  "Lucky for me you're so reasonable. I'd hate to be spending the night in jail."

  His laughter surprised her. "I don't believe that for a minute. If you had no other choice, you would go, and you would go knowing that every major newspaper in the country was writing about it. You would enjoy it."

  "You're wrong," she quietly disagreed. "I don't want to make the news, and I don't want to be the news. I just want to write about it."

  He didn't respond to that until they were parked in a lot just down the block from the restaurant that bordered the central business district and the French Quarter. After getting out, he came around to meet her and, for a moment, simply studied her. When he finally spoke, his voice was soft, his tone regretful. "You know, we could charge you if we wanted."

  She knew that, but she challenged him anyway. "With what?"

  "For starters, you have knowledge—and proof—of a crime, and you haven't reported it."

  She looked past him to one of the high-rise hotels looming overhead. Of the entire folder of documentation Nick had given her, she had used maybe one-fourth of it for today's story. How reasonable would Smith be if he knew all the secrets she was saving for next time?

  Not very, she suspected. Had he known, he probably would have voted with Remy, Shawna Warren and Alexander Marshall. He wouldn't have given her the courtesy of tonight's visit. He sure as hell wouldn't be taking her out to dinner.

  And even if it was just business, in months to come it might be nice to look back and remember this one dinner with Smith.

  "In the end, Smith, we both have the same goal," she remarked as they began walking toward the restaurant.

  "Are you sure of that?"

  "We both want to see Jimmy Falcone punished."

  "I know one of us wants that. I wonder if the other doesn't see one hell of a career-advancing opportunity."