by Gina Wilkins
“And where ought they to be?”
Perry shrugged. “Wherever someone might fence stolen paintings. They got a pawn shop for stuff like that?”
Blake glanced swiftly around them, then leaned closer to the other man. “Are you saying the paintings were never stolen?”
“Man, I’m only passin’ along some street talk. What you make of it is up to you.”
Perry drained his coffee cup and then pushed away from the table. “If y’all will excuse me, I’ve got an appointment this evening. Blake, it’s been good to see you again.”
The two men solemnly shook hands. And then Perry took Tara’s hand and lifted it once again to his lips. This time he lingered a bit longer over the gesture.
“Ma’am,” he said when he released her hand. “It’s been a real pleasure.”
“It was very nice to meet you, Perry.”
He left the restaurant without a backward glance.
Tara let out a deep breath and looked quizzically at Blake. “What did you give him?”
“Let’s just say I staked his poker game tonight.”
She blinked. “Your friend charged you for his information?”
Blake lifted a shoulder. “A man’s gotta make a living.”
Remembering the bill Blake had left in that warehouse for Spider, Tara reflected that Blake’s friends certainly seemed expensive. She only hoped the information they were passing along was worth whatever it was costing him.
BACK IN Stephanie’s condo, Tara kicked off her shoes and began to pace as she tried to put all the pieces of their puzzle together. “Liz Pryce and Jackson Willfort are having an affair,” she began.
Leaning back against a built-in bookcase, Blake crossed his arms over his chest and watched her. “We don’t know that for certain,” he cautioned her.
“Right. But if they are, think how much damage it could do to both of them if the word got out. Willfort’s supposedly a conservative, morally superior family man. Liz Pryce is married to an extremely powerful man who could crush her and cause Willfort a lot of trouble. Both of them would probably go to any lengths to keep their affair quiet.”
“Their alleged affair, counselor.”
Ignoring his teasing gibe, Tara paced on, deep in thought. “You have paperwork to indicate the stolen paintings were fakes. Perry’s heard a rumor that the paintings never left Willfort’s collection. Someone from the insurance company carrying the policy on the stolen paintings contacted you and directed you to the gallery, but now you can’t reach that person. Who called you, and was it his intention all along to frame you?”
“Good questions.”
“Yes, with no answers. So how are we going to...” She came to an abrupt halt, staring at Blake. “What are you doing?”
A glass paperweight, a brass dog, and a marble apple—all items from the shelves Blake leaned against—seemed to be dancing in the air above his busy hands. While Tara watched, the items arced, fell, rose and tumbled in ever-changing patterns.
“I’m juggling,” he answered matter-of-factly, eyes on the objects.
“Why?”
“I think better this way.”
“Oh.” She found his movements strangely fascinating. She watched for a few more moments, then asked, “Do you have any other hidden talents?”
His grin was downright sinful. “A few.”
For some reason, her cheeks went scarlet. She turned away to hide her face. “What are we going to do now?” she asked, making a pretense of looking out the window to admire the moonlight glittering on the inkyblack river.
She heard Blake set the items back on the shelves. “We’re going to bed,” he replied.
She turned quickly. Surely he didn’t mean...
His expression was blandly innocent. “Neither of us got much sleep last night,” he added. “We’ll both think more clearly when we’ve had some rest. I’ll take the spare bedroom. You can have Stephanie’s room.”
He seemed to enjoy flustering her. It annoyed her that he did it so easily. She’d always considered herself immune to innuendos and double entendres. She’d certainly heard enough of them in her time, and she never allowed herself to blush like a schoolgirl.
She didn’t like the thought of using the other woman’s bed. And she hated the haunting mental images of Blake sharing it with a leggy redhead.
You really are going to have to stop doing this, Tara, she warned herself.
“Maybe you should take the master bedroom,” she said. “After all, she is your friend.”
Blake shook his head. “I always use the spare when I visit,” he replied. “I sort of consider it my room.”
His words only confused Tara further about his relationship with the absent Stephanie.
“You’ll need something to sleep in,” he said. “Steph has nightgowns somewhere in that monster closet.”
“Would you mind very much if I use your sweat suit again?” Tara asked instead. “It was, um, comfortable.”
His smile held a tender edge that made her hands quiver. “No, sweetheart. I don’t mind at all,” he assured her. “I’ll get it for you.”
It took her the entire four minutes he was gone to recover from that smile, and the casually spoken endearment.
This was no way to keep her emotional distance from Blake.
Blake returned carrying the sweat suit and a clean pair of white socks. He handed them to Tara, then asked, “Is there anything else you need?”
“No, I’m fine, thanks.”
He seemed suddenly reluctant to send her off. “You’ll be okay in there by yourself?”
Tara made a face at him. “I’ve been sleeping by myself for a long time, Blake.”
That lifted one of his eyebrows a bit, but he merely nodded. “I just thought—well, with everything that’s been happening, it would certainly be understandable if you were a bit nervous.”
“I’m fine,” she repeated.
“You’ll let me know if you need anything?”
“You’ll be the first to know,” she assured him dryly. As if there was anyone else to tell.
“And if you have another bad dream—”
“Blake,” she interrupted him. “I’m fine. Really. There won’t be any more bad dreams.”
“You’re sure?”
“I’m sure. Now go to bed. Get some rest.”
He leaned over to brush a kiss across her lips. “Good night, Tara.”
“Good night, Blake.” Her reply was noticeably husky.
“TARA.”
The sound of her name penetrated her dream. She opened her eyes, then almost groaned at the sight of Blake sitting on the side of the big bed. The room was gray, but there was enough light for her to see him clearly. His hair was tousled and he wore nothing but a pair of dark-colored sweatpants.
She dragged her gaze away from his sleek, bare chest. The details of her dream came back all too clearly to her, making her face flame. “Please tell me I didn’t talk in my sleep again,” she croaked.
He stroked her hair away from her face, his fingers warm against her chilled skin. “No. You just seemed restless. I was afraid you were having another nightmare.”
It hadn’t been a nightmare. But Tara had no intention of telling Blake exactly what type of dream it had been, nor that he had played a prominent role in it.
“What time is it?” she asked.
“A little after six.”
She grimaced. “I’m sorry, Blake. I keep disturbing your sleep.”
“In more ways than you think,” he murmured, his fingers lingering on her cheek.
She swallowed and reached hastily for the glass of water she’d placed on the nightstand during the night Aware of Blake’s eyes on her, she drank half of it, the liquid loosening her tight throat
“Better?” Blake asked, taking the glass from her and setting it back on the nightstand.
She nodded. “I was thirsty.”
He brushed a drop of water from her lower lip with his thumb. Her
mouth tingled in response to his touch. The erotic dream echoed in her mind as she gazed up at Blake, aware that they were alone in an intimately shadowed bedroom, that he sat only inches from where she lay. That it would take only a sign from her to have him crawl in beside her.
Holding her gaze with his, he traced her jaw with his fingertips, then her chin. And then her lower lip again, which quivered beneath his touch. “How can you look so good this early in the morning?” he asked whimsically.
“I—er—” Now, how was she supposed to answer that?
“I keep telling myself,” Blake mused, “that it would be wrong of me to take advantage of you when you have no choice but to be with me, through no fault of your own. But you make it very difficult for me to keep my hands to myself, beautiful Tara McBride.”
Tara had never considered herself beautiful. Her cousin, Savannah, was the beauty of the McBride family. Their cousin Emily was pretty, in a sweet, wholesome, girl-next-door way. Tara was just...Tara. Intelligent. Competent. Attractive enough in her neat, professional manner. But beautiful? No.
But the way Blake was looking at her now, as he leaned over her, the way he touched her...he made her feel beautiful. And the sensation was a heady one.
He was the beautiful one, she couldn’t help thinking. His chest and arms were so firm, so muscled. She couldn’t resist reaching out to touch him. Her hand skimmed up his left arm to hesitate at his shoulder. He felt even better than he looked, she decided.
Blake leaned closer. “I would really like to kiss you, Tara,” he murmured.
She really wanted him to do so. But still she was afraid of getting too close. Of wanting too much. Of failing again.
She didn’t try to stop him when he brushed his lips lightly across hers. And she didn’t push him away when he kissed her again.
His lips settled firmly on hers, this kiss bolder, more peremptory than the ones that had preceded it. As if each time he kissed her, he felt that he had more right to do so. And maybe he did, she couldn’t help thinking as she responded to the kiss with less hesitation than she’d felt before.
Bracing himself on his forearms, Blake deepened the kiss, pressing her into the pillows, his body almost touching hers. Beneath the soft, thick fleece of her borrowed sweat suit, her breasts felt ultra-sensitized, aching for his touch. She could almost feel the warmth of him, and she wanted very badly to reach up and pull him down the rest of the way, until there was no distance at all remaining between them.
He murmured something into her mouth. His hand cupped her cheek, tilting her head to a new angle against the pillow. He kissed her as though he were starving for her taste.
Sliding without resistance into temptation, Tara returned the kiss with an equal fervor. Exactly the way she’d been wanting to kiss him for longer than she was ready to admit.
Her hand slid over his shoulder to stroke his back. His muscles rippled beneath her touch. He groaned, deep in his chest.
A thick ridge of scar tissue just below his left shoulder blade bunched beneath her fingertips. Blake froze suddenly, then lifted his head, breaking off the kiss.
A moment later, he was on his feet beside the bed, his hands clenched at his sides. Tara noted dazedly that his hands weren’t steady.
What had she done that had made him draw back so abruptly?
“Go back to sleep if you like,” he said gruffly, avoiding her questioning eyes. “I tend to be an early riser, anyway, and I have some things I want to do this morning.”
As if she’d be able to sleep now!
“I—” She had to clear her throat before she could complete the sentence. “I think I’d rather get up.”
Blake nodded, turned, and headed out of the room as though he was being urgently paged from somewhere else. “Help yourself to whatever you need,” he said over his shoulder. “Stephanie won’t mind.”
Stephanie.
How could Tara have forgotten about the other woman? The one in whose bed she was lying. The one in whose bed Blake had probably already lain.
Tara slid out of the bed and ran her trembling hands through her hair.
She was an idiot. No doubt about it. She was falling for a juggling P.L who didn’t seem to believe in last names, who had no permanent address, who kept clothes in the apartment of a redheaded model whose legs were “a mile longer” than Tara’s. Only a fool would let herself become too attached to a man like that.
It was only proximity, she tried to tell herself. She had no one else to turn to right now. Her dependence on him was certainly understandable, she assured herself.
And he was an exceptionally good-looking man. Intriguingly mysterious. Engagingly unpredictable. Charming. Any normal, healthy woman would find herself drawn to him under the circumstances.
What she had to do was to keep reminding herself that this was only temporary. That they were the wrong man and the wrong woman brought together at the wrong time. She could not allow herself to be tempted to forget the warnings of her common sense.
Not if she wanted to emerge from this experience with both her body and her heart intact
TARA TOOK a long shower, then brushed her teeth, dried her hair, and applied what little makeup she had. She dressed in the jeans she’d worn the day before and the clean red-and-white T-shirt. She took her time making the bed she’d slept in, trying to arrange the ruffled throw pillows the way they’d been before.
She accidentally bumped against the nightstand when she moved back from the bed, knocking over a tiny antique-brass picture frame. When she set it upright, Blake’s face smiled up at her. It was a snapshot taken several years earlier, apparently. His longish, gold-tipped hair was ruffled by the wind, and his smile was bright and carefree. He was looking at the person holding the camera with obvious affection.
Tara set the little frame down as if it had suddenly burned her fingers.
How much more evidence did Tara need to convince her that she couldn’t take Blake’s flirting seriously?
No matter how badly she might have wanted to.
GIVING LITTLE THOUGHT to his choices, Blake dragged a long-sleeved green shirt and a pair of khaki chinos out of the closet in Stephanie’s spare bedroom and threw them on. His hair was still wet from the long, cold shower he’d taken after leaving Tara. He styled it by running a hand through it.
Shoving his bare feet into a pair of leather deck shoes, he told himself that he had to get out for a while. He suspected that Tara would want to go with him, but he hoped he could convince her to stay here. She would be safe here. And he could use the time away from her to remember all the reasons it wouldn’t be right for him to get involved with her.
The scar her exploring fingers had discovered on his back—the one that had been caused by an insane man’s bullet—was only one reminder of the differences between them. She had the kind of past Blake had only fantasized about, a future ahead of her that he could never fit into. And he doubted that she was the type of woman who would be content with a few nights of no-strings pleasure, to be followed by a genial goodbye.
Blake didn’t know how to offer anything more.
BLAKE WAS SITTING at the kitchen table with a cup of coffee and the newspaper when Tara entered. He looked up to smile at her when she entered the room. She noticed immediately that his smile wasn’t reflected in his eyes. She could almost see the wall he’d put up between them.
What had changed during that kiss? What had made him suddenly draw away from her? She couldn’t help wondering if Stephanie had anything to do with Blake’s sudden reserve.
“What we have to do,” Blake said without preface, “is to get into Jackson Willfort’s mansion and get a look at his private art collection.”
Tara sank heavily into a chair. “You want to break into Willfort’s mansion?” she asked faintly, thinking of magazine photographs she’d seen of the heavily guarded modern fortress and trying to imagine herself dressed in black and scaling barbed-wire-topped walls. “Don’t you think that’s dangerous—e
specially if Willfort is backing the people who are looking for us?”
“I didn’t say we have to break in,” he corrected her, looking back down at the newspaper with a thoughtful expression. “I said we have to get in.”
“I suppose you expect us to ring the bell and say, Tardon us, Mr. Willfort, do you mind if we look through your private collection to see if you have a couple of pieces that might have accidentally been reported stolen?’”
Blake gave her a look in response to her sarcasm. “That wasn’t exactly what I had in mind.”
“Why do I have the feeling that you have a plan? And that I’m not going to like it?”
He grinned. “Seems like I’m not the only one who has fairly reliable instincts.”
And then his grin faded. He reached out and took a strand of her blond hair between his fingers.
“Have you ever wondered,” he asked whimsically, “how it would feel to be a redhead?”
“I—er—”
His smile turned devilish. “Trust me, Tara. You’re going to look great.”
8
BLAKE WOULDN’T tell Tara exactly what he had in mind. “I’m not keeping anything from you,” he assured her. “I just need to work out the details a bit more before I discuss it with you, okay?”
When he left the apartment later that morning, telling her he would be back soon, she tried to argue. She reminded him that she was a partner in this escapade, not a bystander. She wouldn’t be treated like excess baggage, she asserted.
He refused to listen. Telling her that what he had to do had to be done alone, he left her alone in Stephanie’s apartment. She paced angrily for a few minutes after the door closed behind him, furious with him for shutting her out now, yet still foolishly aching for the feel of his arms around her.
She was an idiot, she thought in annoyance.
She suddenly wanted very badly to talk to someone who loved her. Odd that when she’d been able to call her family anytime during the last couple of weeks, she’d deliberately avoided doing so. Now that calling them was riskier, she was almost overwhelmed by the urge.