To Catch a Thief

by Sherryl Woods

  His heartbeat kicked up at the invitation in her eyes. “Oh? What did you have in mind?”

  “If you don’t know, then you’re not half as brilliant as people think you are.”

  Rafe didn’t hesitate. He took a few steps in her direction, but she met him halfway. When it came to being brilliant and clever, it turned out that Gina was no slouch herself. Her plans for the rest of the evening were far more innovative and satisfying than discussing the pros and cons of a return to New York. It also gave him a whole lot more to consider the next time the prospect of leaving Wyoming came up.

  Gina was still half-asleep in Rafe’s arms when the phone in her room rang. She leaped and ran to answer it. The sound of Bobby’s voice snapped her awake.

  “Bobby, where the hell are you?”

  “If you think I’m going to tell you that, now that I know you’ve aligned yourself with the enemy, you’re crazy.”

  “Why do you say that?”

  “You’re at the same hotel. Your parents told me where to find you. Are you sleeping with him?” he asked.

  She ignored the question. “Why are you calling?”

  “To tell you that chasing me down won’t do you a bit of good. I’m safe.”

  “In the Caymans?” she asked.

  From the other room she heard Rafe groan. She realized she had just given away their tactical advantage in finding Bobby.

  “Why would you think I’m in the Caymans?” Bobby asked suspiciously. “You’ve got someone following me, haven’t you?”

  “Well, what did you expect?” she retorted, losing patience with him, with all of it. “You took off with the company money, ripped off our suppliers and investors. Of course you’re being followed. If you have a grain of sense left in that pea brain of yours, you’ll come home on your own and face the music before this gets any worse.”

  “It can’t get any worse,” he said. “Not back there, anyway. Down here I can live like a king.”

  She figured that was the final admission that they’d guessed right about where he was.

  “Only if you can ignore your conscience,” she said.

  He laughed at that. “Not a problem.”

  “Just tell me one thing,” she said. “Why did you do it? I thought we were friends.”

  “We were, doll. But friendship has its limits. In the end you have to look out for number one.”

  “That’s a terrible way to live.”

  “No, that’s the only way to live. Survival,” he said succinctly. “That’s what it’s all about. Now, do me a favor.”

  “What? After everything you’ve done, you expect me to do you a favor?”

  “Let’s just say it’s in your own best interests.”

  “Why is that?”

  “If you call off whoever’s tailing me, then I’ll send you a little something to help pay off the debts. If business is still booming, you ought to be able to survive this little bump in the road. One day you might even thank me for turning a thriving business over to you.”

  “And if I don’t?”

  “You won’t get a dime, and whoever shows up looking for me will run into some serious trouble down here. Gotta go, girl. You take care of yourself,” he said, then laughed. “And I mean that sincerely. Nobody else will do it for you.”

  He hung up before she could respond. She was trembling when Rafe appeared and took the receiver from her hand. He replaced it, then took her in his arms.

  “Are you okay? Come back to bed.”

  She went with him. “He threatened to do something to your investigator.” She stared at Rafe, still struggling with shock at Bobby’s cool demeanor and menacing threat. “He meant it, too. I could hear it in his voice. You need to call your man back.”

  “Flynn can take care of himself. He’s dealt with bigger threats than Rinaldi. Did he confirm that he’s in the Caymans?”

  She nodded. “I had no idea he could be so cold, that he could be so totally self-involved.”

  “What else did he say?”

  “That if I called off whoever was tailing him, he’d send me money to pay off some of the debts. He sounded as if that were such a magnanimous gesture on his part. He owes those people. He owes me.”

  Rafe chuckled.

  “What’s so damned funny?”

  “It’s good to see you getting angry,” he said.

  “I’ve been angry,” she retorted.

  “But not at Bobby,” he suggested mildly.

  “Of course I’ve been mad at Bobby,” she said, confused by the suggestion.

  Rafe shook his head. “Most of the time you’ve been mad at me.”

  She started to argue, then realized he was right. She’d been furious at Rafe for following her to Wyoming, for being suspicious of her, when it was Bobby who’d put her in that position.

  She hadn’t wanted to be mad at Bobby. She’d wanted to understand why her friend had done something so irresponsible, so criminal. She’d been upset by Rafe’s distrust, because a part of her recognized that she should have been more suspicious of Bobby from the beginning. She’d seen how glib he could be, how little he took seriously. Maybe she should even have seen all of this coming.

  “I was wrong,” she said eventually. “You had no choice but to come after me, to keep an eye on me. I used terrible judgment, about Bobby, about running away, about everything.”

  He tucked a finger under her chin. “Hey, don’t be so hard on yourself. The man’s a con artist. He took you in, the same as he did everyone else.”

  Rafe’s reassurances didn’t soothe her at all. The only thing that helped when her mind was whirling was work. She left the warmth of Rafe’s bed.

  “I have to go.”

  “Where?”

  “To Tony’s. If you need me, you’ll find me there.”

  “In the middle of the night?”

  She shrugged as if the hour were unimportant. “I’ll get some baking done for tomorrow.”

  To her relief, beyond that initial token protest, he didn’t try to stop her.

  Funny, she thought, as she raced through her shower, dressed and went to work. She was beginning to think that maybe Rafe understood her better after a few weeks than she understood herself after twenty-eight years.

  Chapter Thirteen

  “So, boss, are you ever coming back here?” Lydia inquired, her voice threaded with that superior amusement that Rafe found so annoying. “Not that I’m complaining, mind you. It’s been really, really peaceful with you away, but the partners are beginning to ask whether you still work here. Your billable hours lately are the pits.”

  “Not so,” Rafe protested, his gaze drifting to the bed with its tangle of sheets. Gina had left it far too soon last night, though after her conversation with Rinaldi, Rafe had understood her need to be alone, to bury herself in the kind of work that gave her solace.

  “Then where are your billing records?” Lydia asked, snapping his attention back to the harsh reality of dollars and cents that for years now had controlled way too much of how he spent his time.

  “I’ll pull them together and fax them later today.”

  “They were due yesterday,” she pointed out. “You’re never late. Or at least you never were before you found a distraction like Gina Petrillo.”

  “I thought this was exactly what you wanted when you let her cancel that appointment. You did have an ulterior motive, didn’t you? You wanted me to chase after her. You were hoping that I’d be attracted to her.”

  For a moment his comment was greeted with stunned silence. It wasn’t often that Rafe could render Lydia speechless. He savored the moment.

  “Are you saying what I think you’re saying?” she asked eventually. “You’re finally paying serious attention to someone?”

  “I don’t know how serious it is, but I am definitely paying attention,” he admitted reluctantly.

  “Well, hallelujah! Forget the billing report. I can do it myself.”

  “You cannot fake a billing rep
ort,” he scolded.

  “Of course not,” she said indignantly. “But I ought to know how you’ve been spending your time—at least some of it. I am the one who sends your work out there and answers your phone and relays your messages. I’ll bet I could come pretty darn close to getting it right.”

  Rafe decided to challenge her, though he was pretty sure she was right. Lydia was an extremely efficient woman who paid great attention to detail. “How many contracts do I have on my desk right now?”

  “Thirty,” she said at once. “I overnighted them to you yesterday. And you were on the phone at least three hours yesterday working on the Jackson-Waller electronics merger.”

  “Five,” he retorted firmly. “Not three, five.”

  “Did you do any other work yesterday that I don’t know about?”

  “Not officially,” he conceded. “I’m not billing my mother, remember?”

  “Ah, so the rest of the time you were concentrating on Gina?” she said, managing to lace the suggestion with innuendo. “I guess we can’t bill for that, can we?”

  “You don’t have to make it sound as if we were wrestling around naked in the mud.”

  “Is that how it sounded?” Lydia chuckled gleefully. “You sound a little defensive, boss. Why is that? Nobody expects you to put in twelve-hour days. There’s nothing wrong with taking a little time out for dinner. Maybe a little socializing. Have you been doing more than that? Is your conscience bothering you?”

  “Don’t smart-mouth me,” he grumbled.

  “So, tell me,” she began in a confiding tone that sounded a bit like a reporter for some sleazy tabloid, “have you slept with Gina yet?”

  He wasn’t nearly as shocked by the question as he probably should have been, but he absolutely, positively refused to be drawn into that particular discussion. He ignored the question and remained stubbornly silent.

  “Not talking, huh?” Lydia said smugly. “I guess I can draw my own conclusions.”

  “Just keep your theories to yourself. And get me the file on the Whitney case. I’ll need it in the morning. Joel Whitney—”

  Lydia interrupted. “Mr. Whitney called yesterday with one of his usual inane questions that he could have answered himself if he knew how to read the contracts he signed. I’ve already put it in the mail.”

  Rafe laughed. “Okay, okay, you’re the best secretary in the entire universe.”

  “Yes, I am,” she agreed with no hint of false modesty. “You know, though, these expenses for moving every piece of paper in your office from New York to Wyoming are adding up. Ever thought of just staying there and transferring all the files? A moving van might be cheaper in the long run. And I hear Wyoming is great for skiing in the winter.”

  “I don’t ski. Why would I want to stay in Wyoming?”

  “Because of a certain chef.”

  “Who owns a restaurant in New York,” he reminded her, vaguely disgruntled by the suggestion that he might be stuck in Wyoming forever if he wanted to be with Gina. “She’ll be back, Lydia. So will I.”

  “Whatever you say, boss.”

  Rafe seriously doubted that, but he hung up, grateful to have gotten the woman’s docile cooperation just this once, even if it had been feigned.

  He leaned back in his chair and stared out the window. Summer was winding down. The observation startled him. He’d been here way too long, if he could tell just from glancing outside that the seasons were changing. The slant of the sun was different, the intensity of the heat had lessened. He opened his appointment book, looked at a calendar and realized he’d been here for over two months, from the end of June to the beginning of September. Moreover, he hadn’t gone completely stir crazy. Far from it.

  He looked at that pile of contracts sitting on his desk, weighed those against the chance to catch a glimpse of Gina and stood up. To soothe his guilty conscience, he stuffed several contracts in his briefcase and headed for Tony’s. If there wasn’t a law against working away from New York, then there certainly wasn’t one preventing him from working at a restaurant table. Half the lawyers he knew conducted their business over lunch. Of course, most of them were with their clients or an opposing counsel.

  The only companion he was hoping for was Gina.

  Gina was so exhausted from her overnight work-a-thon she could barely see straight and the lunch hours were just getting started. Fortunately, most weekdays Tony’s was fairly slow at midday. A few people came in for pizza, a few for his stromboli or meatball sandwiches, but the real rush didn’t start till evening. The prospect of sneaking back to the hotel for a nap was the only thing keeping her going.

  She was sitting at the island which doubled as a chopping block, her chin resting in her hands, her eyes half-closed when Peggy came in to announce that Rafe was in the dining room.

  “He wants to see you, if you’re not too busy,” she told Gina. “Since there’s not another paying customer in the place yet, I told him you’d be right out.”

  For a moment Gina’s heart leaped at the prospect of seeing Rafe, but during the long night when she’d been baking cannoli shells and preparing tiramisu for today’s dessert specials, she’d spent a lot of time thinking about their relationship. She’d managed to convince herself it was doomed.

  When she got back to New York—if she went back to New York—she was going to be faced with long hours and an uphill struggle to get Café Tuscany back into the black. She already knew that Rafe had been a workaholic. Neither of them would have ten seconds to spare once they resumed their old routines.

  Relationships required nurturing. In the distant past that had been something at which she had excelled. In recent years she hadn’t had time for it, not until she’d come back to Wyoming and inadvertently found her priorities shifting back to the way they had once been. Despite the turmoil of recent weeks, her life felt more balanced now. She could actually envision a time when she might be perfectly contented to work right here, alongside Tony, surrounded by the people who meant the most to her—her family and friends. When she tried to add Rafe to that image, she couldn’t.

  She glanced up and realized Peggy was regarding her with puzzlement. “What?”

  “If I had a guy who looked like him waiting for me, I wouldn’t be sitting in here with such a glum expression,” Peggy said.

  “You’re absolutely right,” Gina said, forcing a smile and heading for the dining room. Hiding in the kitchen was no way to deal with this. She needed to tell Rafe about the conclusion she’d reached. Surely he wouldn’t be all that unhappy if she suggested that he go back to New York.

  Unfortunately, Rafe looked as if he was here to stay, she noted as she spotted him sitting at a table beside a window, papers spread out around him. He seemed perfectly content with his office away from home. She walked over to join him.

  “If you’re going to set up an office in here, I’ll have to charge you rent,” she said.

  Rafe’s gaze shot up, instantly filling with so much heat it almost took her breath away. Why had she ever left the man’s room the night before? If this thing between them was destined to end, why wasn’t she taking advantage of every single second it lasted?

  “You look beat,” he said, worry crowding out the desire in his expression.

  “Just what every woman wants to hear. You need to work on your technique for flattery,” she retorted.

  “Your beauty is a given. You still look tired.”

  She grinned at that. “Better. But I’d suggest you keep practicing or you’ll never get the girl.”

  A smile tugged at his lips. “I thought I already had the girl.”

  Her pulse did a little bump at that. “Oh, really?”

  “Do I?”

  She pulled out a chair and sat down. “Maybe,” she said thoughtfully. “For the time being. In fact, we ought to talk about that.”

  “Uh-oh,” he said. “You’ve had too much time to think overnight, haven’t you?”

  “I didn’t spend it all on you,” she s
aid testily. “But when you did happen to cross my mind, it occurred to me that this is crazy.”

  “What’s crazy?” he asked.

  “This,” she said, gesturing from him to herself and back. “You and me.”

  “Why is it crazy? You’re the one who insisted on taking it to a whole new level. I’m just starting to get used to the idea. In fact, I’m just about convinced you’re a genius.”

  “I don’t think you’re supposed to have to get used to the idea of caring about somebody. It’s supposed to just happen.”

  “Not to me.”

  A tight note in his voice suggested he was admitting something to her that he rarely admitted, perhaps even to himself.

  “You said something like that last night, but I can’t believe it. You’ve never cared about someone?” she asked, unable to hide her incredulity. “Never?”

  “Not really.”

  “What about your mother?”

  “I told you, we maintain a polite distance.”

  Gina found the response appalling, but because of his forbidding expression, she let it go. “But you have been involved with a lot of women, right?”

  “I’ve dated. I wouldn’t say I’ve been ‘involved’ with any of them.” He regarded her defensively. “Do we have to talk about this?”

  “I think we do. Rafe, where do you see this going?”

  “I don’t know.” His gaze locked with hers. “Do you?”

  Gina sighed. “No,” she said, then waved off the response as if to erase it. The truth was she had thought of little else all night long and she had vowed not ten minutes ago to be honest with him about her conclusions. “I take that back. If I’m being totally honest, I don’t see it going anywhere. Not in the long term, at any rate.”

  His jaw tightened. “I see. May I ask why?”

  She leaned forward. “Look, you and I didn’t get off on the best foot at the beginning. You thought I was a criminal, for heaven’s sake. Because of my past—no, just on general principle—I resented that like crazy. But there was this undeniable physical attraction between us even then. It was probably heightened because there was nothing we could do about it under the circumstances.”