by Nancy Warren
“What a wonderful idea, darling. The public relations committee will be pleased. Of course we can meet there. Since I’m president of the society I have the key.”
“I’ll book a photographer for the tea, as well,” she said, knowing that would distract her mother from inquiring too closely as to why she needed to get into the museum today.
10
Big Alf’s superpowers have him speeding from danger faster than your red-blooded North American male races from the words “Honey, we have to talk.”
“WE HAVE TO TALK.” Tess’s words reverberated in his skull like a pounding fist.
Of course, they had to talk. When he’d seen that her bed looked exactly like a wedding cake, all white froth and cupids, he’d pretty much seen “we have to talk” coming, in spite of his one-night stipulation.
But he’d let Grace Kelly get under his skin. He grinned quietly to himself. He’d been right, too. She’d melted under and over and around him until she was so hot he thought he’d melt.
No sooner did he begin to worry when she didn’t show up for the movie preview than he’d known he was in trouble. He’d looked forward to that movie, knowing it gave him a chance to see her without having to crack the first day and call her. He wanted Tess as he’d never wanted another woman. She was so damn sweet. The cool exterior was a mask, not only for a woman of hot passions, but also for a woman who hid her vulnerability. He had no idea why that made him want her more, but it did.
His heart jumped when she opened the door, gorgeous, sexy and altogether kissable, which aggravated him enough that he kept his hands in his jeans’ pockets instead of reaching for her. “What’s up?”
Instead of throwing herself at him, as he’d half expected and more than half hoped, she grabbed his wrist, dragged him inside and shut the door. “Good. You got my message.”
“You sounded pretty fired up.” And here he was ready for the “relationship” talk. Ready to let her talk him into one, to be magnanimous about breaking his own rules. Hell, he’d even shaved for the second time today, and made certain his socks matched even though he’d planned to be out of them and the rest of his clothes about forty-five seconds after he arrived.
“Remember Eugene Butterworth?” she asked him, pulling a steno pad out of her desk drawer and flipping it open.
A frown pulled his brows together. Eugene Butterworth? That’s what she wanted to talk about? He felt a dull pain in his chest and figured it was his ego suffering a knockout punch. “Yeah. The guy ate trees for breakfast or some damn thing.”
She laughed, and patted his hand. Patted his hand? “You’re so in tune with nature. Eugene Butterworth was a naturalist here in Washington before the term was even coined. He lived with the Native Americans, learned their ways. I think they even gave him a special name. He spent his life studying and painting nature in the Pacific Northwest.”
“Right. I know all this. Some of his buddies founded Bald is Beautiful to further his work.”
She glanced up and smiled at him. Excitement glowed in the depths of her eyes and it reminded him of how she looked when sexually aroused. He forgot to breathe. “Yes. But I learned something interesting today. Mr. Butterworth bought up a lot of bald eagle habitat—land along the Pasqualie River—in order to preserve it for the future. He never had any children, so he left the land to his sister.”
“You don’t mean—”
“I think he must have been a little eccentric. He handwrote his will. I saw it for myself at the museum.”
He didn’t care if the guy wrote it with eagle droppings. “Butterworth owned land on the Pasqualie?”
“Yes. I did some more digging and discovered that in his sister’s time, the family created a numbered company for privacy and to make it easier to change the directors rather than to keep changing the names on title. The land is now in the hands of a great-nephew.”
“Don’t tell me.” He felt similar excitement as puzzle pieces clicked neatly together. “Nate Macarthur.”
“Give the boy a gold star.”
“But, if the land’s in trust, what’s Cadman doing sniffing around?” He felt as if he was still missing an important part of this puzzle. A whopping big piece in the center.
“This is the part that makes my blood boil. The trust was a moral one. Not legally binding.” She crossed her hands under her chest and he wished she hadn’t. The gesture reminded him of what was hidden beneath her soft sweater—and how much he wanted access. “I’m guessing Cadman’s trying to get hold of Butterworth’s land.”
Mike’s hands itched so badly to touch her flesh that he grabbed her notebook just to keep them occupied. “When we’re done with Cadman he’ll be lucky to build a hot-dog stand in this town.”
“Hold on. Assuming that’s where he plans to put his casino, where are the plans, the permits, the zoning change, the…I don’t know. The buzz?”
She was right, of course. The man couldn’t just build a casino and hotel in secret. “I don’t know, either, but I’m going to find out.”
“What are you going to do? Hide in the sand trap at the golf course until Ty Cadman plays another game?”
“Don’t be fooled by Cadman’s brand-new white teeth. His smile isn’t all he’s whitewashed. He and the mayor stick together like peanut butter and jelly. He’s earned some phony goodwill with his opera center and he’ll use it as a smoke screen.” He pulled off his shoes and socks and started pacing. “I wondered what big stunt he was planning to pull on the citizens of our fair city. Looks like we found it.”
“Mike, let me play devil’s advocate for a second here. B.I.B. is going to notice. They aren’t the sort of people who are open to bribes from developers.”
He stared at the photo of Cadman, the mayor and Nate Macarthur on the golf course, thinking. “Did your mom know about Margaret Peabody and Cadman?”
“Looks like I was wrong on that one. Mrs. Peabody hasn’t been having an affair with Cadman, she’s been going through a midlife self-improvement phase. Plastic surgery and new clothes. But, according to Mother, it’s all for her husband.”
“If Margaret Peabody’s not having an affair with Cadman, why is she buying land around the river? Why did she join B.I.B.?” He strode faster, pacing her small living area like a prisoner in a cell. That’s how his thoughts felt; trapped, confined. He needed to think outside the box. Tess was right. The eagles had advocates. Probably they’d be vocal advocates if the eagle habitat was threatened.
He stopped, turned and snapped his fingers, which made a loud pop in the quiet apartment. “That’s why he’s getting all his buddies to join B.I.B. If they outnumber the eagle lovers they could vote to disband the organization.”
“Are you sure? Wouldn’t the group have bylaws or something?”
He thought about it. Nodded. “I might just do some snooping.”
Alarm flashed for a moment in her eyes. Was she worried about him? The novelty of having a woman worry about him had him quirking up one side of his mouth. It dropped, however, at her words.
“Don’t do something stupid that gets you arrested. My butt’s on the line here, too.”
“We need that membership list, Tess.”
“I know. I’m going to volunteer to help in the B.I.B. office.”
“Excellent idea. You can print an extra copy.”
“Steal it, you mean.” He watched her swallow.
Seeing her discomfort he walked over and put his hands on her shoulders. “Hey. I know you’re the ultimate good girl, but remember we’re helping the right side. Cadman’s trying to steal the land right out from under B.I.B.” He squeezed her shoulders. “You’re doing this for the eagles.”
“Am I?” Her forehead creased. “Or am I doing this for a story?”
“It’s the same thing in the end. No guts no glory.”
She didn’t look altogether convinced, so he decided his best bet was to get her mind thinking in other channels. Besides, now his hands were on her he figured it would t
ake a crowbar to get them off.
Indulging his own need, he let one finger trace the soft skin where her shirt collar met her neck, follow the fabric to where it dipped in front.
Her eyes turned sultry, gray as mist, and dreamlike as he dipped his head to kiss her. Her lips parted on a sigh and they kissed as though there was no tomorrow. Nothing but this moment, in her cheap apartment with clues and leads swirling around them. Desire roared to life and Mike didn’t do a damn thing to stop it.
Without asking, without apology, he lifted her into his arms and headed for the fairy-tale bedroom.
“What about the one-night rule?” she asked when her lips took a break from kissing his neck.
“The rules have changed,” he told her, snarling slightly since he was none too happy about his own weakness. “Got it?”
“Got it.” She smiled a cat-in-cream smile and traced her tongue along his jaw.
How had he ever thought he could have her just once? he wondered as he stripped her slowly, and himself much faster. He hadn’t been able to get the feel of her, or the taste of her, off his mind and yet, the minute they kissed, the minute their naked bodies came together he knew he hadn’t begun to remember the power of the sensations that buffeted him.
She touched his face softly, and her eyes were half shy, half seductive as he lowered himself over her, entering her body slowly.
“I thought I was going to have to seduce you,” she whispered, her body already arching against his.
He ran kisses up her jaw to her ear and whispered, “All you have to do is show up to seduce me.”
TESS SEEMED TO GO DOWN a lot of stairs to get to the B.I.B. office. It hadn’t seemed so dungeon-like when she’d been here before, learning the ropes and helping the secretary. Probably just a guilty conscience. When she’d visited last time, she hadn’t come to steal.
She glanced over her shoulder as she pulled up the membership list on the ancient computer. A half-eaten tofu burger sat beside the machine, which probably explained the grease she felt on the keyboard. She hoped the owner wouldn’t come back for the other half while she was stealing the list.
Stealing. The verb echoed in her head and froze her fingers. She’d never stolen anything in her life. Not in grade school when some of her friends took to filching penny candy from the corner store. Not…Not ever.
Tess wasn’t a thief.
Mike might scoff at her scruples, but she wouldn’t do it. She wouldn’t stoop to dishonorable behavior just to get a story.
Then she glanced up and saw a B.I.B. poster on the wall—the image of the fledgling eagle flapping its ungainly wings had her feeling just as awkwardly balanced between right and wrong. She gnawed on her lower lip. Maybe sometimes you had to do wrong in a good cause.
The list appeared on the screen.
She gritted her teeth and pressed Print.
Glancing nervously around the dingy office, she slipped the pages into her bag. There’s no excuse for stealing, Tess, announced a very annoying and smug little voice in her head. It sounded a lot like the headmistress at her former private school. Trust the woman to show up now, of all times. She never whispered into her brain when Tess was torn between a comma and a semicolon, or when she couldn’t work out a percentage in her head. Fervently she hoped Headmistress was wrong. Surely what Tess was doing was right.
All this skullduggery was to help the B.I.B. cause. Still, she felt so guilty she rolled up her sleeves and decided to do her best to be a good secretarial helper while she took her first solo shift manning the office. Located in the basement of the university, B.I.B. wasn’t exactly humming with action, but she could still be a model volunteer—albeit a larcenous one.
She went through a crowded cardboard box with Admin scrawled on it in black felt. This was her in-box. She mailed out a few membership renewals and filed articles from scientific journals, environmental newsletters, local papers.
Of course, as she filed, she scanned the articles, searching for clues. She learned a lot about bald eagles and the plight of their disappearing habitat, of breeding programs and bird-watching ecotours, but nothing about Ty Cadman and his schemes.
Her shift was agonizingly long. Every minute she felt someone would burst through the door to search her bag, finding the contraband list.
The second Jeremy Dennis turned up to take over, she had her coat on and headed for the door, pleading an appointment. But the appointment was with the pilfered membership list secreted in her bag, and the telephone.
“Before you go,” Jeremy said. “I wondered if you could help me out at the annual general meeting?”
She almost dropped her bag, incriminating evidence and all. “When’s your A.G.M.?”
“Next month. We’ve got a lot of new members so we could be busy, and we’ll need all the help we can get.”
“Sure, of course,” she mumbled.
When she got home and checked the list, she found she knew several of the new members. One well enough to find an excuse to call. Her old school pal Ginny was happy to tell Tess that yes, she’d joined B.I.B. and, yes, she’d signed something “just like the thing I signed giving my father the voting control of my shares in his company.”
Tess dragged out the conversation a few more minutes by chatting about what some of their other school friends were up to, and how much Ginny loved married life.
“How about you, Tess?” asked Ginny, who’d happily married her high school boyfriend, now a dentist, the year before. “When are you getting married?”
Tess thought about Mike, and about how love didn’t always work out as conveniently as it had for Ginny.
“Probably never. I’ll be a hundred years old and hobbling up to the dance floor at wedding receptions trying to catch the bouquet.”
“Well, honey, I could introduce you to some of Jimbo’s friends,” Ginny said with real concern.
Since the thought of being a hundred and single was wildly more fun than dating any of Jimbo’s friends, Tess hastily declined.
Besides, she had more important things to think of than unrequited love. She had a reputation to build, and a big story brewing. The “thing” Ginny had signed had to be her proxy, which meant, if Ty Cadman had collected enough voting proxies, he could derail B.I.B.’s annual meeting next month. He could make motions that would have the members at each other’s throats. Heck, with a majority of members voting with him he could probably try to disband the entire organization, throwing B.I.B. into chaos while he quietly got on with building his casino and hotel.
With the mayor in his pocket and B.I.B. sidetracked, there was no one but her and Mike to stop him.
11
My review of Spinning Velocity is short. I closed my eyes right after the opening credits and didn’t open them until the closing credits. Men and boys loved the big gadgets, moronic dialogue and mutilations of human bodies. Those of us with brains mostly kept our eyes shut.
“I THINK I’m going to be sick,” Tess whispered as the marauding robots went after another victim. These were intelligent robots. They’d replaced their mechanical hands with what looked like the blades from kitchen blenders. She turned her head as the spinning knives ripped the guts out of another poor marine and blood sprayed the screen like water from a power washer.
“Shh,” Mike said. As if she could be heard over the Dolby-amplified slashing followed by the screams.
Instead of the revolting carnage on the screen, she watched his profile. He sat forward, as eager as a little boy at the circus. But it wasn’t the boyishness that had her insides warming, in spite of the nausea caused by the film. It was desire, so hot and potent she could barely stop herself from suggesting they leave now and head for her place, whispering exactly what she wanted to do to him.
“Yes,” he mouthed, and his fist pumped against the armrest. A sound resembling that of an in-sink garbage disposal mangling a spoon came from the direction of the screen, and she assumed one of the evil robots had bought it.
Mik
e was a mass of contradictions. He loved movies like this one, and yet had the sensitivity to recognize the themes in a good film, too. Witness his remarkable knock-off of “her” movie review of China Doll. He could be sweet and funny, tender—and then gruff when she caught him at it.
The light shifted and glowed for a second on the scar that bisected his bottom lip. He got it from boxing he said, but when pressed it turned out to have been a school fight. She’d traced it with her tongue as they’d made love last night and if she concentrated, she could feel the indentation and the hint of scar tissue. She let herself dwell on the memory. His lower lip firm, yet soft, the tiny line of scar and then the scratchy rough terrain of his stubbly chin.
She found herself smiling goofily at his profile, wanting to touch that scar again with her tongue. Wanting to touch all of him with her tongue. She gulped and her stomach dropped faster than an extra in this bloodbath of a movie. Being in love sucked. Now that she’d moved him past the one-night nonsense, she looked ahead at the future and didn’t like her options. What future could they possibly have?
She was so badly smitten with him that, in spite of the revolting carnage on screen, she didn’t want to leave.
That was ridiculous. She couldn’t sit through this guts-fest for two hours. She’d simply leave and Mike could fill her in on the details later.
She half rose from her seat.
“Going somewhere?” Mike tossed her a glance and her mouth went dry as their gazes met.
The force field of attraction was too strong. “No,” she said, sinking back into her seat. “I just needed to stretch.”
“Okay.” He offered her popcorn and she helped herself.
Another gurgling scream filled the theater and she almost giggled. Here, in the movie house of carnage, on a Friday night, in front of a film so disgusting she couldn’t even watch it, she’d fallen deeper in love.