Bustin'

by Minda Webber

  Words—big, fat ugly words kept spinning in her brain so fast that she was worried she might snap. Those words beat against her brain, trying to escape. "Bamboozling betrayer… licentious liar… imposing imposter… depraved deceiver… fraudulent fake."

  Sam closed her eyes, trying to keep the not so pleasant thoughts at bay, along with her tears. She never cried at sissy stuff like having her heart trampled on, or her pride ripped to tatters like an unpopular flag.

  Again, her music filled the smoky haze over the general din of talking customers and the noise as they joked, quarreled and played pool, balls knocking together with a loud thump.

  "As Time Goes By" sprang from the old piano as Sam forgot herself. The haunting music reached out into the smoky gloom of the bar, and many of the customers leaned back with drinks in hand and listened. At the mellow, sad sounds of the piano, pool players took a break and stood with hands on cues, listening and remembering a time long gone.

  Eyes closed, intent on forgetting her troubles and woes, which all began and ended with the capitals "N. S."—that was how Nic first saw her in the bar.

  The Uninvited

  Nic watched Sam play the piano like she was born to it, the music melancholy yet intense. Staring hard at her, he realized that she had great talent, and an amazing ability to transport the listener into her emotion.

  His brother stood shifting anxiously beside him. "Come on Nic," Alex prodded. "Lets get this over with."

  Nic almost smiled; his brother had never liked to apologize, even as a kid. He nodded, and the two forged ahead.

  Before she opened her eyes, Sam could feel Nicolas standing near her. She didn't know if it was his musky scent—the smell of old-growth forests in autumn—or his heated, forceful presence. Either way, the ignoble impersonator was here, somehow having managed to blindside her once again.

  Snapping her eyes open, she proudly kept the surprise out of them, giving Nic a look that should have caused him to drop dead on the spot. Too bad it didn't, she thought snidely.

  "Are you alright?" he asked politely—too politely for a man who had ground her pride and heart into the hard-packed dirt beneath his feet.

  "A lot worse than a second ago," Sam snapped, wearing her heavy but dented armor of pride. "Did you come here to gloat?" Giving him a cold-blooded glare, she switched her attention to the man by his side, his younger brother. The man was not as compelling as Nic and his hair was a lighter shade of black but—a fact she hated to admit—Nic was devastatingly handsome. "I see you've brought your cohort in crime with you."

  Alex's eyes narrowed. He realized this frost-ridden, acid-spitting female was not going to forgive his brother easily. Fate was a fool, Alex decided then and there. All the years of his life, he had watched Nic being chased by females, discarding them as casually as he changed clothes. Now fickle fate had fixed Nic up with this one. What a frigging farce!

  Seeing Sam's resolutely disdainful expression, Nic knew he had quite a mountain to climb to get back in her good graces. But then, really, what could he expect? With her unflagging pride, he was going to have to use all his powers of persuasion—which were quite considerable, if he did say so himself. Hopefully he would have her eating out of his hand before the night was through.

  "You left the party before I could introduce you," Nic said, gesturing to his brother. "My youngest brother, Alex Strakhov."

  Sam grimaced, her lips drawing into a taut line. If Nic thought she was going to spout niceties, he had another think coming—not after the sucker punch he'd given her.

  At Sam's glaring silence, he continued: "My brother Alex has something he needs to tell you." He didn't like her being mad at him, although he understood her anger. The hurt in her eyes bothered him immensely.

  Nudging Alex, who was trying to look innocent and was being as silent as Sam, Nic began to lose patience with his brother. "Alex?"

  The tone of Nic's voice was all the warning Alex needed. "I came to apologize."

  "What for? Did you pretend to be some vampire you weren't? Did you lie to some woman without a regret in the world? Did you heartlessly ignore her, after seducing her ruthlessly for your own pleasure? Are you a sneaking saboteur?" After her short little speech was finished, she felt proud. She still wore a smile on her face, when all she really wanted was to deck the callous cad and his knucklehead brother.

  Alex looked to Nic for help but Nic merely scowled. Playing matchmaker for this hardheaded pair was not going to be a stroll through the countryside, even if the air was fairly charged with the rampant lust the odd couple generated. Of course, this tough-minded couple seemed oblivious to what was obvious to him, and to anyone within smelling distance. "Miss Hammett, I don't know how to tell you…" Alex hesitated.

  "Just spit it out," she remarked sourly.

  "I was the one who sabotaged your company. Not Nic. Not Gregor, just me. And without my brothers' knowledge."

  Sam stared at Alex, judging the truth of his words. "So, you're the one who's been playing dirty pool?"

  Alex looked confused. "I play pool, but I wash. Oh! Cheat? I don't have to," he corrected indignantly.

  Sam shook her head. "You men and your notions of honor. You won't cheat at pool, but you will sabotage a business rival?" she retorted coldly, giving him a hard stare into the depths of his soul. She didn't know if she liked what she saw. Pete's baby brother was crafty, but spoiled and conceited. "So you're the wiseguy that came up with the idea to run the competition out of town. Is that right?"

  Alex nodded. "I'm sorry. I shouldn't have done it. It was beneath the Strakhov name."

  "You got that right, buster. You shouldn't have done it. Fair play is fair play!" Sam declared adamantly. Then she turned her attention back to Nic. If he thought this apology was going to cause her to dance with joy, he was suffering from delusions of grandeur.

  "How long have you known about this?"

  "Right after you left, my brother told me what he'd done. I too wish to apologize for any hurt my family has caused yours," Nic apologized sincerely. "To use an American saying, I have come to mend fences. I'm terribly sorry."

  "If you think this squares us, buddy—well, you're dead wrong," she warned frostily. "I wish I'd never laid eyes on you." She wasn't going to let him touch her fences or any other part of her ever again.

  Nic frowned. Sam had every right to be angry, but apologies came hard for a Strakhov. The least she could do was accept them graciously. "Perhaps this will help," he said formally, and he pulled a check from his jacket pocket and handed it over. "This is for ridding my cousin's castle of ghosts. For a job well done."

  Reluctantly Sam took the check, making sure her fingers didn't touch Nic's. So, the check wasn't in the mail, it was in Nic's pocket. As she took a peek at the amount, she had to fight her urge to gasp. She glanced back down at the amount, stunned. Trying hard for nonchalance, she tried not to gape at all the zeroes.

  "Better?" Nic asked. His voice held a hint of mockery.

  "Hardly. If you think money buys forgiveness or good manners, you've got a screw or two loose. But then, I forgot. You're a man."

  "What the hell does that mean?" Nic asked.

  "An all-out idiot."

  "Look, Sammy," he snapped, more than just irritated at her peevish temperament. "We came here, hat in hand, to say we're sorry, and you act like you were given another insult."

  Pocketing the check, Sam stood up from the piano bench. She shook her head in anger. "No, the insult was when I went to bed with you, my arch business rival and enemy, while believing you to be someone else entirely. I don't like you, and I don't trust you and your sneaky brothers. With good reason it seems," she added harshly, including Alex in her withering stare. The Strakhov brothers, Mean and Meaner, had kicked her insides out.

  "Distrust is no longer necessary. You have your check for a job well done, and our apologies. What more can you want?" Nic asked, his jaw muscle ticking. He glared at Sam. "I know I'm in the wrong, and I'm sorry." He ha
d already apologized, something he just didn't do, since he was rarely wrong. He wanted Sam and she wanted him. They made love like magic, and the desire flaring between them was a wildfire. Why couldn't she get over her feminine sensibilities and be practical? They could still have a very long affair, could share their lives and lovemaking, and even their work. He wouldn't mind throwing a few jobs her way, as long as he went along to protect her.

  "For somebody smart enough to fool me, you sure can be stupid," she said.

  Nic growled. "Are you going to keep dropping these little insults, or tell me what's wrong?" She was starting to make him angry. Another Russian would accept such a heartfelt apology, he felt sure, but this stubborn American wanted more—it was always more with these Americans.

  Slapping her forehead, she glared at him, amazed that anybody so handsome could be so utterly without a clue. "You mendacity-ridden jerk, do you go around lying so much that you can't remember what you've done?"

  "Generalizations, Sam, are the refuge of a lazy mind. Be specific." Nic wanted to shake her, hard, then shake her with some lovemaking. He wanted her to scream for mercy from his ardor, though he would be certain to show her none. He'd make love to her until they both expired from ecstasy.

  "You want specific? I'll give you specific," Sam repeated acrimoniously. She began to count on her fingers, so angry she was lost to her surroundings, unseeing of the crowd of interested barflies that was beginning to form around them. "One: You told me you were your cousin, the Prince, so I slept with a man I thought was someone else. Two: You masqueraded as a vampire playboy who seduces anything in long or short skirts, so I broke both my rules about bedding the undead and womanizing males. Only, you aren't a vampire, but a human pretending to be a vampire related to you. The only thing honest about your performance that night was that you are a womanizing playboy, and a one-night stand man. Three: You made love to me, then vamoosed without a thank-you, without a phone call, with nothing, making me a one-night stand—and I hate the hell out of that!" Sam practically shouted the last as she poked Nic hard in the chest.

  Undeterred by his surprise, she continued. "Four: You and your devious brothers have the nerve to apologize. But not for any of that. You ditched me, you dropped me like a hot potato, and now you want me to forget and forgive? Fat chance!"

  Nic's lust was stirred even more as he watched her. Breasts heaving, her eyes sparking with blue fire—he wanted badly just to grab the Paranormalbuster and hold her curvy, busty little body next to his own. She was so magnificent that she must have some Russian blood somewhere in her, Nic decided as his eyes devoured her.

  Cocking his head, he shook it, agreeing with part of her assessment. He had been devious, deceitful and devastatingly seductive. But he'd had good reason: he thought her his archenemy. Yet even when he thought her the foe, a crafty crook, a beguiling Buster who used her sex to gain favor, he still had wanted her again and again and again. She was a fool if she'd thought of herself as a one-night stand. Sam the Frito-Lay: You could never have her just once.

  Now she had been wronged by his family, so he owed her a debt. But that only meant he could have his cake and eat it too, as Americans said. And as the humor of the situation suddenly got to him, he broke into a grin.

  "I'm truly sorry, Sammy. Up at the castle I thought you were my enemy, so how could I reveal who I really was? I was angry, and rightfully so since it took me a good two days to get rid of that troll dung. I thought you sabotaged us first. But you were never a one-night stand. Never. I was going to call you, in spite of myself."

  Sam rather liked the sight of the arrogant Nic Strakhov eating crow. Almost as much as she'd liked watching him pelted with troll waste. "Yeah, right," she mocked. "I waited for that call. You never made it." But after the words left her mouth, she felt like smacking her forehead again. She sounded like she really cared if the rotten rat of a Russian called. Just because she'd waited by the phone for a week like some lovesick sap, hoping each time the phone rang she would hear Nic's voice—It meant nothing, nothing at all.

  No, she wasn't a woman to be used and abused by a prancing, pride-driven Don Juan of the Paranormalbusting world. If only she could keep reminding herself of that as she stared at the heat shimmering in Nic's smoke-colored eyes.

  "Be generous, Sam. I've had a rough, busy week," he began, raising a hand to stop her rant. "I was going to call you." He invaded her personal space, placing a hand on her arm and filling her senses. "Do you think I could forget what we shared?" he asked huskily. "Impossible. You're unforgettable, that's what you are."

  The crowd around them parted to reveal Uncle Myles, who brushed up beside Sam and looked Nic and Alex over carefully. "Is this who I think it is?"

  Sam nodded, and Myles reached for the gun hidden under his bartender's apron. He jerked it out. With a sigh, Sam quickly retrieved it from her uncle, explaining to the Brothers Grim, "It's not loaded."

  "Not loaded?" Alex asked, confusion evident in his voice. "Why carry it then? When trouble comes, it comes fast."

  Nic remained silent, staring at the curiously dressed Humphrey Bogart imitator. In his opinion, Sam's uncle looked much more genuine than even those sideburn-wearing Elvis imitators with their rhinestone bodysuits.

  "Why not?" Sam replied cryptically.

  "Want me to bust his chops for you, sweetheart?" Myles asked. "A doll like you shouldn't have to mix with scumbags like this."

  In spite of her anger, Sam almost laughed. The expressions on the Strakhov brothers' faces and her uncle's eccentricity were too much. "No. I appreciate it, Uncle Myles, but it seems like you'll have to rearrange their faces some other night. They're here to apologize."

  "Heard of me, I guess. A little too tough for you wiseguys?" Myles asked the Strakhovs.

  Nic nodded, his face a mask. "Yeah. I've heard all about you. You could run rings around me in detective work. Besides, I don't want my face rearranged. Sam likes it the way it is."

  Myles looked pleased that his reputation was so widespread, but Sam's expression turned sour.

  "In fact, since you're here as head of the family, I'd like to ask for your help in persuading Sam about a job I have," Nic went on, even though he knew Sam was really the undisputed leader of the family business. But he didn't think shmoozing the old man would hurt. In fact, noting Sam's petulant attitude, he might need to have the old fellow on his side.

  Continuing, he explained gravely, "There's a serious supernatural mess in New York. I need Sam's assistance. My cousin Prince Varinski will of course pay her well."

  Sam looked shocked, but Myles smiled cheerfully.

  "Haven't you heard that familiarity breeds contempt?" Sam asked caustically. "Oh, wait—in your case I already feel that way."

  All three men ignored her, and her uncle remarked, "Run it by me from the beginning, big guy, and don't spare the details."

  Five minutes later Nic had Myles's promise to deliver a reluctant and sassy Sam to the airport in forty-five minutes. A lesser man might have been discouraged by her coldly polite acceptance, but Nic knew better; behind her disinterested face beat the heart of a hunter.

  Yes, Sam would want in on the business of finding out who had stoned the vampire Jessie, or his name wasn't Nic Strakhov. (And it was!) She might have a chip on her shoulder right now, but he would have days and nights of her company to help her get rid of her anger. After all, he wasn't a paranormal problem-solver for nothing; he was used to getting rid of the unwanted, and he would exorcise Sam's unwanted anger. Although she might not be eating out of his hand right now, he wasn't discouraged by her bristling attitude. He had a way with women, always had. They adored him. So being the charming playboy he was, he would just turn on his continental charm and seduce Sam right back out of her paranormalbustin' pants and back into his bed.

  Nic laughed. Sam might not be easy, but she would be had by him and him alone. New York, New York. If he could make it with her there, he could make it with her anywhere.

  Ne
w York—the City of Monsters that Never Sleep

  "I can't believe I'm here with you," Sam remarked rudely. The plane had landed, and they were riding in a chauffeur-driven limousine to the site of the murder.

  Nic smiled grimly. Sam had sat with William Ripley on the plane, ignoring Nic. However, when they were getting inside the limo, Nic had practically pushed the werewolf away and snagged the seat next to her, crowding her against the door. "You've heard the old saying, keep your friends close and your enemies closer," Nic remarked calmly.

  "Is that what you are doing?" Sam asked, her Bustin' boots longing to stray—with her in them. Anything to get away from Nic and the other occupants of this car. A sleepy Alex was on the other side of Nic, while Ripley sat across with Prince Varinski facing her. The real Prince Varinski, she recalled again.

  Frowning slightly, she couldn't believe she had been so ditzy as to mistake their identity. Seeing Nic and the Prince together, she conceded the size of her failure. While Nic was arrogant and self-assured, the Prince fairly oozed with royal hauteur. Prince V. wasn't just lordly; he was imperial. He was the King of the Hill and top of the creep heap. The arrogance was probably due to centuries of vampire inbreeding, Sam decided snidely as she elbowed Nic.

  "Move over," she growled.

  Nic leaned close and whispered, "No way, sweetheart. You're not my enemy anymore, so I'm keeping you close because you smell good and look better. You're beautiful, you know."

  "Want my advice? Go back to Russia with your love," she advised coolly.

  Smiling down at her, Nic shook his head. "I don't think so. You're too alluring to resist."

  Sam opened her mouth to protest, then shut it quickly. Nic was being like any other man who wanted someone who didn't want him, only more so. Besides, sometimes the best defense was to remain silent and keep your foe guessing. Nic was a tricky fellow, trying to flatter her out of her anger. But it wouldn't work, since she was wise to the wiseguy oaf. No way was Nic going to get back in her good graces again—or her underwear.