by Beverly Bird
“You were making me mad. I let it…provoke me.” And even to Raphael, it sounded lame. “I’m sorry.”
His words shattered her.
Kate closed her eyes, feeling the pain like the air she breathed. It filled her lungs then every fiber of her being. “Don’t worry about it. The words get easier with practice.”
“Wait. Damn it, I said that wrong.” But she wasn’t going to hear him, he realized. She was on her knees on the floor, grabbing for the phone. Then she twisted around and sank down to sit, her back against the kitchen counter as she cradled the phone in her lap for a second.
He’d hurt her.
Which was precisely why he’d had no business touching her, Raphael thought viciously. She wasn’t the kind of woman who could take what she needed from him, then walk away. She wasn’t like Anna, with that careful, charming wall always in place between them. She wasn’t like the women he’d spent the last month with since Anna had died, women who had laughed unperturbedly when he’d waved goodbye.
She’d want—she’d take—all of him, and never be satisfied with anything less.
He was sorry he had kissed her again, abysmally sorry, because now he knew how she would lose control—suddenly, like an errant firecracker spinning out into the night, throwing off sparks and wonder. Now that he knew, it would haunt him every second of every minute they remained together until this was over.
Probably, he thought, it would haunt him long afterward, as well.
He was sorry because he had no business tasting her, no business making her spin out of control like that, when he had absolutely no intention of following through and risking what it might eventually cost her. Blood. Death. Glazed shock in her unseeing eyes. He was sorry because once would never be enough, not for either of them. And because for a moment—just a heartbeat—he was angry with Anna for dying and changing everything.
Raphael walked out of the kitchen. Then he paused because she was talking into the telephone again.
“I’ll do it, Mrs. Spellman,” she said breathlessly. “Of course, I’ll do it. You’ve supported me since I started Dinner For Two.” There was a pause. “Yes, of course, I’m fine. It was nothing.”
Nothing. The word drove deep into his gut regardless of anything he’d just told himself.
“I can’t stay and serve, but I’ll drop everything off by seven o’clock and you can take it from there.”
Raphael didn’t look back, but he heard the slight thump of the phone hitting the kitchen floor again as she disconnected and put it down.
Her whole world was coming unglued, Kate thought. A drop-off job, of all things! Convenience food, a delivery!
And that was the least of it.
Misery remained a weight in her stomach. He’d kissed her like it meant something. But, of course, it hadn’t. He hadn’t wanted to do it. She’d driven him to it. Somehow, though she wasn’t sure how.
She was going to have to stand up off this floor and face him for another day or two anyway. Kate groaned aloud.
Say something, she thought frantically. Raphael was still standing in the door, his back to her, the muscles of his shoulders seeming hard, bunched, dangerous.
So Kate scraped up words to fill the quiet. Because sometimes, she thought, quiet could be the most painful thing of all.
“I hope Allegra’s life is this much of a disaster.”
Chapter 12
I hope Allegra’s life is this much of a disaster.
The words kept knocking around in Raphael’s head, bothering him while Kate made pizza. The aroma began emanating from his kitchen fifteen minutes after he left it. He was blissfully amazed. He knew damned well that he didn’t have the makings of pizza in his kitchen. Of course, she went to the van periodically, towing that little red wagon.
By her third trip, Raphael began to hate the thing no matter how good his kitchen smelled. It symbolized everything about her that kept him from enjoying the memory of that single, incredible, hot kiss. The wagon represented everything that made Kate who she was—a woman who wouldn’t have any idea how to say goodbye when the fun and games were over, who would demand a whole lot more than he was willing to give ever again.
The truth of that kept him sitting in front of the television while she cooked, no matter how often he thought of wandering into the kitchen for a little conversation. He held the remote in his right hand, a can of beer in his left. He swallowed from the can as he clicked through the channels. And he thought, I hope Allegra’s life is this much of a disaster.
The kicker was, he didn’t think so.
On impulse, he grabbed the telephone—not the cell, because that was still in the kitchen and he wasn’t going back there for love or money—and he called Fox.
“How are things in domestic heaven?” his partner asked.
“Just peachy.” Raphael felt his teeth set hard against each other. He changed the subject fast. “Tell me something—how’s Allegra doing?”
Fox chuckled. “More appropriately, one might ask how Vince Mandeleone is faring.”
Raphael thought of the Homicide rookie who’d been assigned to baby-sit the other woman. “Heard from him lately?”
“Yeah. And he was gasping for breath.”
“She’ll kill him.”
“Word has it, she’s trying.”
“But nothing’s been attempted on her? There’s been no trouble over there?”
“Not even an unexpected knock on her door.”
Raphael had encountered that problem the very first morning with Kate. “So Allegra’s world has been quiet as a tomb,” he said.
“I was starting to wonder when you’d rouse from your libidinous bliss and question that.”
“Libidinous?” Damn it, Raphael thought, if Fox were baby-sitting Kate, nobody would understand a word either of them said.
“It means—”
“I know what it means,” he growled. “And there’s nothing libidinous going on around here. Nothing.”
“Actually, I was there last night. In the Morleys’ kitchen.”
Yeah, he’d kissed her then, too, Raphael thought. So, all in all, he’d managed about twenty-four hours without touching her. His mood darkened.
“The lady was…uh, tousled. I believe her color could best be described as the hue of a rose.”
Raphael had been too busy dealing with his own reaction to notice hers. “Get a life and leave mine alone.” He paused. “She was blushing?”
Fox hooted with laughter. Raphael waited grimly until the sound died down. Then he got back to business. “Eagan wants Kate. Not Allegra. Why?”
“Allegra’s been passed from the arm of one of those guys to another for years now. Could be either Eagan or one of his goons has a soft spot for her still.”
It was possible. “Or Kate was somehow more exposed to this particular goon than Allegra was.” Which still gave them exactly nothing, Raphael thought. She hadn’t recognized any mug shots, so whatever Eagan’s guys thought she had seen…well, she hadn’t.
The mouthwatering aroma of fresh, homemade pizza grew stronger, then it seemed to waft right under his nose. Raphael glanced over his shoulder. Kate was bringing their plates in from the kitchen. One thing about that practicality of hers, he thought. She didn’t waste time holding a grudge, and he appreciated it.
His plate hit the coffee table hard and rocketed in a skid clear across it. Raphael reached out quickly and caught it just before it slid off the other side. “Uh, gotta go,” he said into the phone.
“Take some more food for thought with you,” Fox said. “How come McGaffney’s boys aren’t systematically removing from this earth any possible hit man Eagan might have used? It’s been two days now since McGaffney was hit.”
“They don’t—” Raphael began and broke off. He frowned at his pizza. There went his appetite.
That was wrong, too, he realized. Philadelphia should have been awash in a bloodbath by now. Fox was right, but Raphael had been too preoccupied with
his baby-sitting duties to see it. He’d been too distracted by the lady who was stonily avoiding eye contact with him as she sat at the other end of the table and bit into her pizza.
He’d taken Bonnie Joe’s explanation and he’d swallowed it neatly. Stupid. Joe’s guys had said they didn’t know who’d done McGaffney. They’d implied that they were waiting to find out. It was hogwash. Historically, these guys had never needed to know for sure.
“Sit tight on your lady,” Fox said, “because I’ve got a feeling that sooner or later this is going to blow wide open, and she’s going to be right in the middle when it happens.”
Raphael watched Kate chew in precise, small bites. If God truly had mercy, he thought, it would happen sooner—before he got into more trouble here than he knew how to get out of. He disconnected. He pulled his plate close. Kate still said nothing.
He glanced at the television. “Football okay with you?”
Kate shrugged.
“Granted, it’s just preseason. Doesn’t count. I’ll change the channel. You can pick. Just…you know, no operas or ballets or any of that stuff.”
She wiped her fingers on her napkin and stood with her empty plate. “Watch whatever you like. I’m finished.”
Raphael closed his eyes briefly. When he opened them again, she was gone. “You’re not speaking to me, are you?” he called after her.
He heard her plate hit the kitchen sink with a clatter. A moment later, when he heard her footsteps on the stairs, Raphael winced. Come on, Bonnie Joe. Kill somebody already, will you?
Kate knew she was being childish. A hundred times a day through the next three intolerable days, she told herself that. She was having a jilted-female hissy fit, pure and simple. It was beneath her.
And she liked it.
In fact, she was enjoying every minute of it. On Wednesday afternoon, as she finished the last of the Spellman appetizers, she realized that she was incredibly tired of always being strong and sensible. Damn it, she was also a woman who had been pushed away while in the throes of a resounding, passionate, desperate kiss. She was entitled to a little moodiness.
Under ideal conditions she would simply have shut Raphael out of her life after what he had done to her. Under normal circumstances, she wouldn’t have taken his phone calls—presuming he even made them. If she’d seen him on the street, she would have turned around and walked the other way. She would have avoided him. But that was impossible when he was in her face virtually twenty-four hours a day, when his presence melted every nerve ending in her body hour after hour. He was so…there.
Since she couldn’t avoid him, Kate ignored him. She was not going to embarrass herself again with moony, lascivious thoughts about his body or his eyes. She wouldn’t consider the way he’d beaten the streets these last few days trying to avenge McGaffney and poor, concussed Betty Morley, never tiring.
“Here’s how we’re going to do this,” he said, coming into the kitchen with a piece of paper. Kate looked at him quickly before remembering that she wasn’t going to acknowledge him. She turned her attention to her onions.
“The Spellmans live in a row house on Twelfth,” Raphael continued.
“I know. I’ve served them before.”
“Yeah? So how many homes are there between the premises and each corner?”
She could figure it out if she had to, Kate told herself. But now she was too busy sliding canapés into the oven.
“Okay, I’ll tell you,” Raphael said when she didn’t reply. “There are four to the north corner, two to the south.”
Kate glanced at him. He wasn’t going to take the hint and leave her alone. “And this means what?”
“It means we enter by the alley on the north side, facing south.”
“Why?”
“A quicker getaway.”
Kate threw her hands up, finally exasperated. “We’re not robbing a bank here.”
“After what happened at the Morleys, I want every last kink ironed out of this project. How long will the job take you?”
“How long will it take us to unload the van?” she countered.
“I’m asking you, damn it. And don’t forget to add in time for small talk and polite exchanges of money.”
Apparently, his mood wasn’t any better than hers was, Kate realized. They grated on each other as a matter of course. They were total opposites. So why in the world had he ever kissed her in the first place? And why had it been so good?
“Twenty minutes.” Kate snapped out the words. “Then we’ll be gone and Faith can ruin my appetizers and I’ll never even have to know about it.”
“Okay. Then you’ve got twenty minutes to pull this off.”
“What happens then? I turn into a pumpkin?”
“Then I pick you up, toss you over my shoulder and carry you out of there.”
Kate started to argue and thought better of it. He’d do it. “Fine.” Just please, please don’t touch me again, she thought.
He raised a brow at her answer. The oven timer buzzed. Kate turned her back on him quickly and extracted the canapés.
Half an hour later, they were loading the van. It had long since lost its berth in Raphael’s driveway. Now they had to detour around his Explorer, and privately, Kate did not consider that vehicle much more pristine than her own. She didn’t know why he was so touchy about it being on the street.
They drove into the center of the city in silence. Belle was tucked on the passenger seat beside her. Once Raphael reached out and turned her radio from soft classical music to hard rock. Kate reached right out and snapped it back again.
They parked in the Spellmans’ alley. Raphael went around to the rear doors and opened them. Kate left Belle with the seat to herself and hurried after him.
“No snitching,” she warned. “Most of this stuff isn’t finished yet anyway. Faith is going to have to heat it up the rest of the way.”
“What are these?” he asked as she pulled out a tray and handed it to him.
“Crabbed-stuffed cherry tomatoes.”
“They don’t have to be cooked. Do they?”
“Don’t even think about it.”
He tried not to. But they looked good. He liked crab. With his back to her, he slid one free from under its plastic wrap and popped it in his mouth.
Heaven.
He helped her carry everything into the home through the rear kitchen door. He noticed Kate’s hitching sigh of relief when she saw that the Spellmans’ housekeeper was still on duty for the party. Kate had already written down instructions for finishing off the hors d’oeuvres. Now the woman made notes of her own as Kate ran down the list.
In sixteen minutes, it was over.
“That’s it?” Raphael asked.
“Just about.” Kate’s gaze skimmed the kitchen fretfully.
As if on cue, Faith Spellman sailed into the room. Sleek as a thoroughbred, she came toward Kate with her hands outstretched. Raphael almost laughed at Kate’s wide-eyed, appalled expression when she realized that the woman was going to hug her. Then he had a treacherous thought. She didn’t do that when I held her.
Kate extricated herself from the woman’s embrace. She slid the check from her fingers. She looked at it, then her eyes popped all over again. “This is too much.”
The woman waved a negligent hand. “It’s a tip.”
“You get tips, too?” Raphael interjected.
“No, I—” Kate looked at Faith Spellman. “I can’t take this. I didn’t do anything for it.”
“How much is it?” Raphael took a step closer to look over her shoulder.
“It’s an even extra hundred,” said Faith.
Raphael raised a brow. Kate Mulhern was probably on the Fortune 500 list if this happened as a matter of course. “I should get half of that for talking you into this.”
“You talked her into it?” Faith turned to him happily. “Everyone is just dying that Kate did this for me when her life is so obviously in danger.”
Raphael gav
e Kate an I-told-you-so look. Then he glanced at his watch. “It’s going to be in a lot more danger in about one and a half minutes.”
“Stop it,” Kate snarled in an undertone. She looked at Faith again. “Your housekeeper has everything in order. Everything should be fine. But about this tip—”
“She’s very grateful.” Raphael hooked a hand inside her elbow and began tugging her toward the back door.
She was going to kill him, Kate decided. “I have sixty seconds!”
She started to shake off his grip when they both heard it—a limp, bleating sound from the alley, followed by a more tenacious, strident wail. Raphael reacted without knowing—or caring—what the sound was. He let go of her and tore out the back door.
Kate knew. It was the van’s horn. But it took her a moment to move. Alarm shot into her blood, then disbelief. She stood, dumbfounded, watching Raphael’s back as he disappeared. “No, please,” she whispered. “Not again.”
Raphael reached in through the door and grabbed her hand. He hauled her unceremoniously after him.
Her momentum made Kate miss the bottom step outside. Raphael caught her without turning around, tucking her safely against his back. No, no, I don’t want to be close to him. She didn’t want to need the solid strength of him, not one more time, not now, not when she was overwhelmed again and terrified. But then the reality of the situation came crashing in on her, and she wrapped her arms around his waist hard.
Someone—something—was in her van.
The horn kept sounding, and the vehicle was rocking on its shock absorbers. Belle’s barking came to them, sounding muffled and distant until the horn’s resounding cry finally and abruptly ended. From inside the van there came a gunshot, then a horrible, bloodcurdling yelp.
“Belle!” Kate cried. Whatever was going on in there, she’d left the dog in the middle of it.
Raphael roared wordlessly as she jerked around him and ran. Kate was three steps from the rear of the van when something black emerged like a shot. She screamed and dodged. Metal clanged against metal as the doors hit the panels of the van.
A person, a man. Kate’s mind wrapped around that and she absorbed the same black mask she’d seen on the gunman Saturday night. And Belle was still yelping in pain.