Jack slid into the chair nearest her as the plane began taxiing. “You okay?”
Worried what emotion thoughts of her parents might have brought to her eyes, she stared blankly out the window and nodded.
He leaned closer to gaze out the same window. From the corner of her eye, she caught his mouth quirking. “Man, this is really going to piss off David.”
Curiosity focused her gaze on the two dark SUVs stopping about the same place the cab had, and her mouth quirked, too. She wondered for one wild moment if the men would chase after the plane, guns blazing, and try to prevent them from taking off like they did on TV, but neither vehicle moved.
Jack clicked together his seat belt, then swiveled to face her, his normally cheery expression semi-serious. “David’s a patient man. He doesn’t care how long it takes to achieve his goal. He suspects where we’re going. As soon as we land, he’ll know. Then he’ll start plotting what to do when we return, because eventually we will return.”
Padma’s gaze turned darker. “My parents—”
“Someone’s watching them. Don’t worry. They won’t even know.”
“Mrs. Maier...” Lisette felt bad that she hadn’t thought to warn the old lady. She’d just been too caught up in what was going on. Lord, she’d had way too much confidence in herself before this whole job went to hell. A little failure was a good thing, Dr. Mom insisted, especially when it meant you were getting too big for your britches—or, in Padma’s case, sari.
Their deconstruction of this case when it was over was going to cover a whole lot of new lessons learned.
“Someone’s watching her, too.”
Jack looked entirely too pleased with himself, but that was okay. Lisette was pleased with him, too. “When did you take care of that?”
“I texted Dominic while Sa’id, the cabbie, was listing all the ways the Broncos had disappointed him.” He gave a shake of his head. “You Americans take your football seriously, don’t you?”
“Just like the rest of the world and their soccer.”
“Real football,” he and Padma chimed.
As soon as the plane was airborne, Jack stood up. “I’m going up front to make a couple calls. I’d suggest you two call everyone you need to talk to, then turn your phones off for the rest of the trip. Once we land, you can use island phones for check-ins.”
He went to the front, Padma to the back, and Lisette remained where she was. There was no one for her to call. Padma was here, and Mr. Chen would surely hear on Monday that she’d been fired. The only other people who might miss her would be their regular waiters at their favorite restaurants.
On another day, that realization might bother her—or maybe not. Her mother had taught her, more by actions than words, that a few good friends were double the worth of a hundred so-so friends. In the Khatri family, Lisette had people who loved and trusted her. She didn’t need or want more casual acquaintances to round out her world, not when she had secrets to keep.
Padma knew all her secrets. And Jack knew some. Except for the one concerning him. Wouldn’t it be lovely if she could find a way to reclaim her family’s statue without him finding out? If he never had to know, if they could still be friends after, if there would still be a chance...
With a faint smile, she shut off her phone, tilted her head back and closed her eyes. Jack might be Prince Charming, but she was no fairy-tale princess.
There would be no happily-ever-after ending for them.
* * *
When Jack finished his calls—Simon was gloating quite capably—he shut off the phone, slid it into his pocket, gathered the makings of dinner and returned to Lisette. He dumped everything onto an empty seat, then positioned a table between their chairs. “I’ve been trying to sit down to a spectacular meal with you since Friday morning, but something keeps getting in the way.”
Her smile was wan. “Fire was pretty spectacular.”
“Though the ambiance was lacking.” He opened packs of cheese, crackers and tiny tomatoes; crostini and finely diced olives, peppers and feta; thin slices of prosciutto paired with Parm. There were fresh grapes, too, and the miniature oranges he liked best and, still on the galley counter, trays of desserts. The pilot took care of the plane, and the copilot handled the shopping. He was good at it.
Jack glanced at the couch in the rear. “Is Padma still on the phone?” She sat sideways on the sofa, her back to them. She was quiet, possibly listening to her mother, but she was also still.
Lisette glanced over her shoulder and turned back wearing a grin. “She’s probably snoozing. Between her job, our work, her family and the rest of her life, she’s spinning like a top all the time. She’s learned to grab a break any time she can.”
“Hey, sometimes a whole night of sleep just isn’t on the schedule.”
“I’ll bet you’ve seen a lot of those nights.”
“I bet you have, too.”
“But for very different reasons. I’m neither a jet-setter nor a partier nor a risk-taker nor a ladies’ man. When I’m operating on limited sleep, it’s because I’m working.”
Jack considered whether to take exception to any of the things she’d called him and decided no. It was tough to be insulted when everything she’d said was true. Except the part about being a ladies’ man. Sort of. He liked women. Some of them liked him back. All of them liked his bank account. And it was easier to be nice to people even when he intended to never see them again than it was to keep everyone at a distance.
Instead, he focused on her casual mention of her job. “How do you get clients? It’s not like you can hand out business cards. How do people contact you?”
She paid great attention to picking up a crostini, spreading olive salad over it, scooping out a chunk of feta to perch on top, then sliding it into her mouth. He let her delay, enjoying the simple act of watching her chew, catching her eyes rolling upward with unspoken appreciation, delicately patting her mouth with a napkin after swallowing.
Forget conversation. He could just sit and watch her for the rest of the trip.
“On occasion, we approach them. We hear about a particular robbery, and if it seems right, we offer our assistance. Some of our clients are word of mouth. Mrs. Maier has sent several people our way. The bulk, though... My mother had a friend who manages insurance coverage for some of the top collections in the world. His client suffers a loss, he contacts her—now me—and we get it back.”
“Do you get finders’ fees from the insurance company?”
She tilted her head to one side. “Oddly enough, the law doesn’t make allowances for the reason a thief has taken something. My stealing a million-dollar painting to return to its real owner isn’t looked on any more kindly than Candalaria’s thief stealing it in the first place. It’s still a felony. It still involves prison time.”
“But surely insurance companies can find ways to pay out a ten or fifteen percent fee without anyone in law enforcement knowing.”
“I’m sure they could, but as a whole, the insurance industry is incredibly tightfisted. When they do pay a finder’s fee, it’s more likely to be to an investigations firm that locates the stolen piece. Then the company works with the authorities to retrieve it legally, which can take years. I prefer a quicker schedule. Candalaria had Shepherdess less than three months before we recovered it. Besides...” She reached for another piece of crostini. “If the insurance company paid me, even off the books, my name would eventually come to the attention of the wrong people. The cops would want to arrest me. The criminals would want to stop me.” She shook her head, her curls shimmering. “No, thanks. I’d rather take a trinket to cover our expenses. We’re not trying to get rich here.”
“A fancy red trinket.” He finished off a piece of prosciutto and Parm before asking, “Are you ever tempted to keep one?”
“I’m
not a fancy red person. I’m not even much of a jewelry person.” Just like the night they met, her delicate fingers were bare. No bracelets dangled from her wrists, not even a watch, and no necklace draped around the slender warm-cocoa column of her neck. All that warm-cocoa skin would be gorgeous decked out in gold and gems. He’d once stolen a necklace, ninety-two carats of cascading yellow diamonds that gave the illusion of floating against the skin. She would look incredible wearing that.
Especially if it was all she wore.
Which rooms do you want prepared? Simon had asked. Your house is ready, of course, but what about Bella and her friend?
It was too easy to imagine Lisette in his house. The pastel colors, the airy spaces, the furniture that faded into the background...she would fit as perfectly as if it had been designed with her in mind. The house would provide the setting, and she would provide the color. The life. The subtle scent she wore would seep into the surfaces. Everything she touched would retain her imprint. She would make it more of a home than it already was.
And then she would leave.
For a while. Maybe.
He’d taken a long moment before finally replying. Put them both in the main house. The distance between the two was minimal. If she chose to visit him some evening, or if he chose to lure her away, it would be simple enough. But it would be a choice. She would make the effort, or he would, but there would be no temptation prompted by proximity, no spur-of-the-moment splurge that she might later regret.
And there would be lots of privacy.
A snore interrupted his musings, drawing both their gazes to the rear of the plane. Lisette left her seat, took hold of Padma’s ankles and tugged her until she slid down onto her back on the sofa. Padma neither twitched nor mumbled, but the positional change did stop the snoring.
“You two are close,” he remarked when Lisette sat down again.
“Twins separated at birth, with different parents, from different backgrounds and of different ethnicities.” She picked up her drink and sat back, legs crossed, looking so very relaxed. He hadn’t been through all that she had, but to achieve that level of relaxation, he would have to break into the liquor cabinet in the galley. “What about you? Who are you close to?”
“Simon. Also twins separated at birth, with different parents. Same backgrounds and ethnicities, though.”
“Which are?”
“Both descended from pirates. Still living off their bounty. As far as the ethnic stuff...we’re French, British, Spanish, African, Dominican, Portuguese. You name it, someone in our family tree represents it. Deux Saints is truly a melting pot.” In the history of the world, there had never been any shortage of people willing to strike out and explore, seeking adventure, riches, a better life or even just a different one. He was grateful his ancestors had been in that group. “And you?”
Shadows darkened her eyes before she took a long drink of soda, a delaying tactic he could recognize with his eyes closed. When a smile curved the corners of her lips and her gaze returned to him, though, it was as if the moment—the shadows—had never existed. “I’m not totally sure. White, black, brown. No specifics, just some mix thereof.” After another moment, the smile formed fully. “My mother came from the Caribbean. She didn’t like to talk about it. That was her old life. Denver was her new life.”
Jack could have asked a dozen questions, but he had the distinct impression that Lisette didn’t like to talk about it, either. Instead, he shifted to a different angle of the same subject. “What about your father?”
“Ethnically, he was more of the same. He died before I was born. Boating accident.” Again came the shadows and, again, quickly gone. “I suppose that was why she didn’t like to talk about home.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Sometimes I think I can’t miss what I never had, but that’s not true. I used to watch Padma with Dr. Dad. He was so fierce about her. Even though I’d never known my father’s fierceness, its absence left a place in my life.” The look on her face was melancholy. She appeared to savor it for a minute, maybe two, before pushing it away. “Does the shop on your island sell clothing?”
“A few essentials. Anything else has to come from Santo Domingo in the Dominican Republic. That’s where we trade the plane for the helicopter.”
“Padma and I will need a shopping trip. We weren’t expecting to leave Denver, so we brought jeans, sweaters, boots and coats. I did toss in a swimsuit, since the hotel would have an indoor pool, but nothing else suitable for a tropical escape.”
She said swimsuit, not bikini, but he was imagining her long, lean body covered with the merest of triangles and strings. More specifically, he was mentally drooling over all the skin not covered by the tiny triangles and strings. It took a measure of pure will to concentrate on the jeans and long-sleeved shirt she was actually wearing, and on the conversation. “We’ll make a couple stops in Santo Domingo.”
“Won’t it be late?”
“It’s six now. Five hours or so, plus the time change.”
“But the shops—”
“Open when there’s money to be spent. I know a few people. I’ll call when we get closer.”
“And you’ll make it worth their while.”
He wasn’t sure if the words were a simple comment or if there was censure hiding inside them. “I don’t make a habit of regularly inconveniencing someone with special requests. In this case, the goal is to get us out of David’s reach and to keep us safe. But you need clothes, and the stores will be closed. Rather than take you out again tomorrow, when David could conceivably have people down there, I’d prefer to pay my friends to open their shops tonight. They do it for other people, for various reasons. They know they can tell me no, and someone else will say yes, so they’d rather say yes and get the extra cash themselves. It’s business.”
“Did you make it worth Sa’id’s while to pick us up so quickly? Did you give him the thousand-dollar tip?”
“No. I gave him a two-thousand-dollar tip.”
“Oh.” She stood, got halfway through a stretch, then stopped and opted instead to take a few creaky steps to work out the aches. “Sorry. I’m just cranky.”
Jack made his eyes pop. “Really? This is cranky? The last time my mom got cranky, she threw the whole family out of the house, all the relatives visiting from a dozen different countries plus Dad and me, and wouldn’t let us come back for three days. The last time Simon was cranky, he took me out to the north side of the island where the jungle’s nearly impenetrable and left me there. I hadn’t been there in years, the sun was setting, it took hours to find my way home, and I was convinced the entire time that the spirits were watching me. As soon as I got to the cleared fields, I ran the rest of the way like a little girl.”
He stood up and had the good luck to find himself only a scant foot from her. His fingers itched to touch her, to feel the warmth radiating from her, to see if the skin on her throat was as soft as it looked, to see just how well their bodies fit together, but the aches she still suffered stopped him. “You aren’t cranky. Gorgeous, but not cranky.”
Then his restraint said what the hell, and he leaned forward to kiss her mouth. It was a chaste enough kiss, nothing to stir blood or passion or need, but it was sweet, and it did make her dark eyes lighten and her cheeks turn rosy. It wasn’t much, but it was enough.
For now.
* * *
Long after he’d moved to the back of the plane, Lisette stood motionless in the aisle. She’d experienced a wide range of kisses: okay, so-so, toe-curling, forgettable. She’d gotten a lot more than kisses with some of those guys, but never had they left her feeling...
She didn’t even know what. Touched. Stunned. Overwhelmed by the pure simplicity of one kiss. Who would have believed a kiss worthy of a mother’s or a grandmother’s cheek could so rattle the cool, controlled, elegan
t Bella Donna?
But Jack hadn’t been kissing Bella. He knew Bella was a persona, a disguise made not of clothing and cosmetics but of calm, confidence, brazenness and determination. If he’d been kissing Bella, she would have known, and it would have disappeared, forgotten, into the air, as quickly and permanently as all of Bella’s flirtations. No, that so-sweet kiss had been a kiss for her, and that was why it flustered her so.
The large-screen television flickered to life, the sound muted. Jack was stretched out on the second couch, a pillow under his head. She gathered the remains of their dinner, repackaged the leftovers, threw away the trash and found a coffeemaker with a dizzying array of flavor pods, most marked with the Saint Clair logo.
And many of them bore family names, as well. There was Graycie’s Choice, Glorious Gloria, Simon’s Curse, Lucky Jack and probably two dozen more. Feeling about fourteen, Lisette slipped a Lucky Jack into her pocket for a souvenir before starting the machine. Eyes closed, she waited peacefully until a sputter of water and rich aroma signaled her coffee was done. She sprinkled in sweetener and more cream than was good for her. “Do you want a cup?” she asked Jack.
“No, thanks. Come sit down.”
She’d really rather stand or pace or roll Padma to the floor and take her place in snooze land, but she wanted to ask Jack about something he’d said earlier. She sat in the chair nearest him, propped her feet on the table and blew lightly on her coffee to take the burn off.
“What blend did you choose?”
“Graycie’s.”
“Aw, you should have tried Lucky Jack. Graycie’s a girly coffee. Lucky Jack is bold, stimulating, surprisingly complex and, I’ve been told, somewhat addictive.”
She laughed. “Are you sure you’re talking about your coffee and not yourself?”
He gave her a sly wink. “You’ll see.”
Judging the coffee cool enough, she sipped it, then took a larger drink. She wouldn’t admit to him, but it was, well, a girly coffee. It was a pleasant drink, but she was pretty sure small children could down a pot or two of it before nap time without suffering any ill effects.
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